Game:

Mega Man (1987)

Duration: 4:59

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2

My basis for choosing subsequent Robot Masters will be similarly arbitrarily guided by the interface itself... so my choices are either right or left, and for no particularly or overtly sinister reasons, I went with "right" instead.

Rather than some kind of internal dexterous bias, I think it's probably just the fact that the convention of moving from left to right at the very start (if not entirely throughout) that made me do it as a "natural" consequence.

Then again, speaking with the clarity of hindsight, it could indeed be of highly suspect and sinister motivation that Elec Man be placed where he is, not to mention a little something else that I'll be sure to bring up when the time comes.

Hey, wait... Cut Man was assigned a value of 70,000 points, whereas Guts Man is only worth 60,000 points?

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Guts Man Stage

The Guts Man stage is slightly infamous for its first major hurdle: track-guided platforms that drop out on you at regular intervals. The first platform has a completely intact track... and from here, you're allowed to see where the next platform crosses over segments where the supports are missing and the platform falls slack until it resumes passage over parts with track again.

This is a notable "teaching without teaching" style tool, but that doesn't mean it's entirely obvious how to deal with them in terms of the not-so-simple timing in execution. Quite far from simple does it get as you make your way down between tracks, so these devices have claimed quite a number of Mega Men right off the bat. The final dismount isn't trivial either, given that the distance is pretty far and you're trying to make it from less-than-solid footing that happens to be careening to and fro.

Weird off-the-cuff reactions and other abnormal behaviors are what claim MY Mega Men, though. So let that be a less not to try to make your serious life-and-death situations when crazy timing-sensitive set pieces are in effect.

Besides that, we've got the now-traditional "make Mega Man choose where to fall and react on the way down under temptation of pickups and threat of death" vertical shafts.

Something NOT traditional is having the pairs of boss shutters contain enemies in the space between them and before the boss... which, incidentally means you're not QUITE done with the stage, but it also means you'll have the chance to pick up some health before the battle begins. Since I had zero remaining lives, I went ahead and farmed some energy pellets but didn't see fit to force anyone to endure the full duration of such an activity.

As for Guts Man himself, the battle is pretty straightforward... although the actual mechanics of the battle are slightly less so than first glance might suggest.

The big fella's main means of attack and disruption lies in his tendency to jump around, which is pretty much the most basic tactic of all Robot Masters... nay, of all video game enemies looking to abuse the fact that collision mechanics historically do not favor the player. Unlike most Masters, his impact with the ground causes a violent shaking that knocks Mega Man off his feet, unable to move or act for awhile.

What may not be immediately obvious or logical about this is that the shaking and the period of immobility aren't entirely linked... that is, if you touch the ground while the room is shaking, you'll be immobilized for the same length of time thereafter regardless of how long thereafter the quake subsides. This means that you'll be most vulnerable if you land at the very end of the shaking and in fact LEAST inconvenienced if you hadn't jumped at all.

Of course, if you jump just before Guts Man lands and land only once the shaking is over, you won't be immobilized at all, but the difference in execution is incredibly subtle and the disparity in results quite noticeable... which translates into the potential to feel as if the game is treating you to somewhat irregular and arbitrary outcomes for what can seem to the player like equivalent inputs on their part.

This behavior is further compounded by the way it interacts when used in tandem with Guts Man's other attack: the Super Arm. Guts Man jumps in place from time to time, apparently summoning a rock from above and then throwing it, causing it to shatter into pieces and damage Mega Man on impact. As the fragments spread outward from the point of initial impact, the safest place to be is in the air nearest above where the large rock makes landfall.

However, the nature of the static recovery time actually means there are two ways to deal with this attack... if you avoid the shaking entirely, obviously you'll retain full control to jump over the rocks. On the other hand, if you were on the ground when Guts Man made his landfall, you'll recover quickly enough to jump as soon as you regain control and achieve much the same result.

Basically, you'll be rewarded for a perfect jump or a perfect failure to jump and quite likely punished for doing anything in between.

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