Thursday, November 23, 2023

PrinceWatercress plays Mega Man V for Game Boy - Part 1 of 7


...and now for something completely different.


A few months after the events of the fourth Mega Man game for Game Boy, Mega Man and Roll go out for a walk when a robot named Terra shows up and plans to make Mega Man his slave en route to taking over the world with his evil Stardroid army. Mega Man fights, but his Mega Buster has no effect. After he is knocked out, warrior robots attack the world.

When Mega Man comes to, his arm cannon is upgraded to the Mega Arm, which allows him to do real damage to the enemy that his regular arm cannon wouldn't be able to do due to their alien armor. Now that Mega Man is back in action, who are the Stardroids? Where did they come from? What do they want?

When you start the game, Dr. Light will explain the P-Chip system to you. You'll learn about the Mega Arm, which replaces the charged shot from the Mega Buster. You'll also get Tango the Cat, who is exclusive to this game and can take down enemies by bouncing around the screen for as long as you have weapon energy for him. The P-Chips act as currency, and they can be exchanged for useful items such as Energy Tanks, extra lives, Weapon Tanks and more. Small P-Chips are worth one, big ones are worth 5. You'll be finding them pretty often. Whenever you beat a stage or make it to the exit of a level you've already completed, you can head here instead of straight to the stage select screen. You can also press Select on the stage select screen to go to Dr. Light's Lab.

When you head to the map screen, you'll have four Stardroids to choose from, from left to right: Mars, Mercury, Venus and Neptune.

Mercury


The small and large circles with the flashing cores recover your energy, while the small and large rectangles with the flashing cores recover weapon energy. The large ones obviously replenish more than the smaller ones.

There are conveyor belts here, and they'll switch direction every few seconds.

Watch out for the birds that fly at you when you get close enough. Kill them from afar with the Mega Arm.

You'll also have to deal with metal cans that move across said conveyor belts. Stay on the move and they shouldn't affect you. You can also shoot them down with the Mega Arm.

Take out the face turrets that spit shrapnel at you from a distance. It takes about two or three shots to take out the shrapnel, but they split into four smaller pieces of debris when you do.

After that first face turret, watch out for the spikes as you dropped down.

There will be robot on wheels with a buzzsaw in front of them. That buzzsaw will come off when the robot is destroyed, and you'll want to stay out of its way when it moves forward.

There are also short robots on treads that will float up and teleport, reappearing somewhere else on the screen. Use the Mega Arm to deal more damage in less time.

You'll soon be in a section where the floor moves up and down. Stay as high as possible, and if you have to hide in the little areas between walks, so be it. Being crushed, as always, leads to instant death.

The robots with the hammers on their heads will strike the floor in an attempt to hit you with the four pieces of debris that fly around. Shoot them down from a distance.

The robots with the claws pointing straight up will catch a block, crush it, and send out shrapnel in an 8-way attack. It's easier to avoid the further away you are.

The slides with the spikes are easy if you position yourself correctly prior to going into the slide. Just be careful not to run into the spikes, and the Energy Tank is yours.

To beat Mercury, equip the Salt Water (NE) if you have it and fight him from a distance. Otherwise, use the arm cannon. Avoid the projectiles he shoots out, as that is his Grab Buster and it will cause you to drop items such as P-Chips and Energy Tank Fragments (more on those later). When he splits into three, jump over the blobs that make up his essences and head to the other side of the room. If the blobs bounce to the other side, slide under them. If you run out of Salt Water, use your Mega Arm.

Beating Mercury gives you the Grab Buster. This allows you to grab items from enemies, such as health. You'll usually get health, but it's better than nothing.

Neptune


Neptune's stage takes place on a battleship, and it's awesome.

Get close to the turrets to get them to stand up and rush at you so you can damage them. The larger ones with the shield in the front will require the charged-up Mega Arm.

When taking on the helicopters, wait for them to come down a bit so you can do some real damage. Get rid of the homing missiles with the Mega Arm.

Watch out when you get inside the battleship. There is water that will slowly push you back, much like the water in Toad Man's stage in the fourth NES game. You can also shoot the big pipes in the wall and cause water to come out of the elbow joints or shoot the small rips in the pipes steam to come in and out of the broken parts of the pipes, much like in Wave Man's stage in the fifth NES game. For something that forces you to be more careful with your arm cannon, this is a rather nice touch and I wish Capcom did this more often.

The one-eyed flying robots will explode when you destroy them.

The swimming robots with the two wings that move up and down to help it move just move towards you. They're pushovers.

You'll see a huge ladder on the way up to the last section before the Stardroid room. On the way up, you'll see a large energy pick-up and an extra life. You'd think you can use the Mega Arm to grab them, since it works like a short-range boomerang, but you can't. You'll have to get a power-up from Dr. Light's workshop that allows you to do that. If you still want them, climb to the top and avoid the steam on the way up, then drop down from the top and hold Left on the D-Pad. 

Neptune is the easiest to beat with the Mega Arm. Slide under him when he jumps up and down. If he keeps jumping in place, avoid the water droplets that come out of the ceiling. He'll also throw a big ball of salt water that split into three smaller balls upon hitting the floor. Stay far away from that attack. When he jumps from one side of the room to the other, he will do two small hops, then one big one, followed by a small one. Slide under him on the big hop.

If you have Mars' Photon Missile (MA), you can use it on him as well.

Beating Neptune gives you the Salt Water, which works much like the big water ball that Neptune threw at you.

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