Saturday, December 19, 2020

PrinceWatercress plays Mega Man 8 - Part 1 of 8


C'mon. You knew it was coming.

Next | End

We're now going from cartridges to CDs as the battle against Dr. Wily continues! Yes, there are eight new Robot Masters (again), but this time around we also have anime cutscenes, CD-quality music and of course, voice acting!

The game begins with a battle deep in space. An evil purple being is fighting a blue being. As they battle, they eventually rocket to Earth and enter the planet's atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Mega Man is battling Bass when Roll shows up, saying that something urgent has come up. As they head to Dr. Light's laboratory, they find out a meteor with a powerful energy has landed on Earth, and Dr. Light asks Mega Man to bring the meteor back so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

And so the game begins...

Intro Stage

The trees that pop up can be easily destroyed with the Mega Buster. Some of them have ground turrets underneath that must also be destroyed.

The nautilus robots can be pushed down the hills by simply shooting at them with the Mega Buster.

Shortly after the beginning, Rush shows up to bring you a transmission from Dr. Light. He gives you a new weapon, the Mega Ball. This weapon allows Mega Man to shoot out an explosive ball, which he can then kick into enemies and other things. Sadly, the kick itself does not do any damage, so you have to hit enemies with the ball.

What Dr. Light doesn't mention is that you can do a double jump with the Mega Ball. To do that, shoot a Mega Ball in the air and then land on the top of it by holding X (not Up like I say in the video). Mega Man will hop off the top of the ball as it explodes, getting some extra height. Try it out!

It should be mentioned that the Capcom-initiated will recognize this weapon from the first two Marvel vs. Capcom games.

Shortly after you get the Mega Ball, there's a button on the ground with a skull on it. Jumping on it or knocking the nautilus robot into it by shooting it in the face will cause a teleporter to come out of the ground. Go in and you'll enter an underwater area.

Shoot down the nautilus robots to bring them down and eventually send them rolling into a nearby wall. The switch on the floor will open up the skull doors.

Unlike other games in the series, Mega Man can swim. Just keep pressing the jump button in conjuction with holding Left or Right on the Control Pad and you'll be able to swim.

On the second screen with the elevator platforms, swim down into the opening in the floor where the right-hand set of elevator platforms are coming from. You'll find a Bolt. These Bolts will come into play later by letting you purchase abilities at Dr. Light's lab. There are only 40 in the game, and unlike previous and future games, you can only pick up these Bolts once.

When you get out of the water, you'll see a small purple ball with gold stars on it. Shoot it down to get the contents. There will be bigger ones in other areas within the game that have better contents in them, such as larger health (light blue circle) and weapon (blue canister with red core) pickups inside. They may even have 1-ups (Mega Man helmets)!

Just before the exit is another Bolt. Unless you searched inside the floor underneath the right set of elevator platforms, this is more than likely going to be the first Bolt you'll find.

The Mettaurs are back! They just walk towards you and then fire a bullet after a few steps, before hiding for a while and repeating their attack pattern.

The red robots with the tank treads at the bottom will deploy their heads if you target the body instead of the heads (or fail to hit them with a powerful enough weapon).

You'll be near the end of the the stage when you leave the underground area. You'll soon  meet the boss of the intro stage: a pink shell that has an eight-legged robot hermit crab inside. Equip the Mega Ball, then kick one at it to stun it, making the weak point above its eyes completely vulnerable. From there, shoot at that weak point with the Mega Buster. When it's no longer stunned, move out of the way and kick another Mega Ball at it after it lands.

Unlike other games, you have two buttons to jump - X and Circle. Square lets you fire your currently equipped weapon, but Triangle lets you fire the Mega Buster regardless of what you have equipped. (You can change these button controls in the Options menu.)

You can also kick multiple Mega Balls at the weak point, making its projectiles even less of an issue than they already were.

After beating this boss, you'll meet Dr. Wily, who has somehow made it to the meteor before you did. Turns out, he's got what looks like a power core, and after Wily flies of with it, Mega Man finds out that the meteor is in fact a robot. Rush shows up with a transmission from Dr. Light, and Mega Man tells him what he's found. Dr. Light asks Mega Man to go after Wily as he picks it up.

At the completion of every level, you get to save your game instead of receiving a password. Welcome to the 32-bit era!

You'll then enter the stage select screen, where you have four new Robot Masters to choose from: Tengu Man (upper-left), Frost Man (upper-right), Clown Man (lower-left) and Grenade Man (lower-right). To the left is the intro stage if you want to play it again, and to the right is Dr. Light's lab, where you can trade in the Bolts you've found for extra abilities.

Frost Man

Frost Man is the easiest of the first four to damage with the Mega Buster. I usually start with him.

Aside from the large flying cylinder robots, you'll also see the penguin robots. They'll slide towards you when they stop spinning, and if you shoot at them, you'll push them back. They'll eventually go down after a few regular Mega Buster shots, though.

When you get into the first building, you'll get on an elevator. Fight off the bats, then go right once you reach the top. You'll get on a jet-powered snowboard. Shoot down the enemies when you see them, and when the signs on the upper-right corner tell you to jump or slide, you'd better be ready to do what the game says or else you're a dead man.

After the first robot bunny that ice skates around, jump up and slide to get a Bolt. Drop down after the second of two pairs of fall-away platforms to get another one. After going through the snow, you'll enter the next section.

It's night-time now. There are penguins, but there are also flying whale ships that drop large cylinders of ice down. When they hit the pushing plates of the ice pushing machines, they'll be launched forwards. You'll have to ride on these ice cylinders as it crashes into another to get a Bolt.

Thankfully, you can destroy the flying whale ships, and they don't even put up a fight at all. That's a good thing, since some of the cylinders they drop have penguins encased in them. When those cylinders break, the penguins will be freed and ready to cause their usual havok.

After climbing up in the next section - where you can use a Flash Bomb to get the bolt encased in ice; don't worry about the ice floor until later - you'll deal with robots that fly around and create puffs of smoke that are all sorts of pastel colors. The smoke will impair your vision a bit, but the robots are easily destroyed and don't attack you.

After another elevator, it's another jet-powered snowboard section. It's much shorter, but it's also much faster, so be ready to avoid spike-tipped walls that close on each other and jump over bottomless pits like your life depends on it. Once you reach the end of this section, you'll find some health and weapon pick-ups in the snow before taking on Frost Man, who destroys uncanny-looking ice sculptures of Mega Man before the fight begins to set an example.

Slide underneath Frost Man when he jumps towards you, and hit him with the Flash Bomb. Be sure to stay back so he doesn't hit you with his ice punch. When you hit him with it as he has both arms raised, you'll be able to cancel out his Frost Wave attack (which can freeze you if it connects) and send him backwards, stunning him as he cowers in fear. Use this as an opportunity to do more damage to him.

Sometimes, he'll cause the ice cylinders at the top of the room to come crashing down, and he'll even send one at you. If you keep using Flash Bomb, though, this rarely happens.

Beating Frost Man gives you the Frost Wave. This attack travels the ground and attacks any enemies in its path with sharp ice crystals.

Dr. Light's Lab

Some abilities will be available at the start of the game, while others will be available after you beat the interim stage. By buying parts, you can power-up some of your abilities and make the game easier.

Power Shield: This prevents knockback after being hit by an enemy.
Cost: 6 Bolts

Spare Extra: Start with four lives instead of three when you continue where you left off.
Cost: 6 Bolts

Shooting Part: You can have up to five Mega Buster rounds on the screen at one time instead of three.
Cost: 6 Bolts

Energy Balancer: Picking up a weapon energy capsule will automatically refill the special weapon with the least amount of energy.
Cost: 5 Bolts

Exit: You can pause the game and exit any of the stages, assuming you've completed them first.
Cost: 4 Bolts

Laser Shot: This turns the fully-charged Mega Buster shot into a laser that pierces through enemies, causing immense amounts of damage.
Cost: 5 Bolts

Arrow Shot: This turns the fully-charged Mega Buster shot into an arrow. If it hits an enemy, it splits into multiple projectiles that are just as powerful as the first one.
Cost: 5 Bolts

Auto Shoot: You'll fire the Mega Buster as you charge up.
Cost: 5 Bolts

Step Booster: Climb ladders faster.
Cost: 5 Bolts

No comments:

Post a Comment