Tremane & willwc "Mega Man IV" in 35:53 also known as Rockman World 4 (ロックマンワールド4 in Japan) is the fourth installment in the handheld version of the Mega Man series.
The game continues the quest of the protagonist, Mega Man, in a never-ending struggle with his long-time nemesis, Dr. Wily.
Mega Man IV features the ability to purchase items with drops found throughout each stage. The Mega-Buster received an upgrade after Mega Man III, and Mega Man now gets knocked back by recoil when firing a fully charged shot.
As with previous Game Boy releases, the game incorporates gameplay elements and bosses from two sequential Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games: Mega Man 4 and Mega Man 5.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 1.9.1
- Aims for fastest time
- Manipulates luck (tremendous)
- Takes damage to save time
- Uses no passwords
- Restart the Game to skip a Cutscene in the Beginning
willwc and I were working on this game since the end of 2014 with a small break in March, since both of us had no time there.
About the Game
Mega Man IV is the fourth game on the Gameboy. The Plot is the same as the 3 previous games. Dr. Wily is trying rule the World and Mega Man has to stop him.
In this Game, we fight 4 Robot Masters from Mega Man 4 NES Pharaoh, Ring, Toad, Bright and 4 from Mega Man 5 NES Charge, Crystal, Napalm, Stone.
The Mega Buster receives an upgrade. Compared to Mega Man III, the half-charged shot is not wider than the uncharged, just faster.
The fully-charged shot causes recoil after shooting, which we abuse in Crystal Man's Stage to use a shortcut.
The game features solid gameplay, good music, AND probably the best Cutscenes in any Mega Man Gameboy game.
It is worth mentioning that after each Boss fight, the player has to stand in the middle! Boss bubbles don't have to leave the screen to activate the Get Weapon animation earlier.
Stage by stage comments
Pharaoh Man:
We start with Pharaoh Man. He gives us arguably the most valuable weapon of the game, the Pharaoh Shot, which can shoot in any direction except straight down/up. It deals 2/4/6 damage to several enemies, including the last Dr. Wily phase!
The Stage itself is straight forward. Only the last jump off the moving stone platforms is difficult, as it has to be done at the right moment to allow making the jump to the higher platform (Hence the delay before slide jumping).
Pharaoh goes down with no problems (Note: doing the 3-1-3-1... pattern is faster then simple charging).
Ring Man:
Pharaoh Shot allows for finishing this stage as fast as possible; as mentioned above, Pharaoh Shot is very versatile and does a lot of damage to the enemies in this Stage (e.g. a cannon in Ring Man's Stage takes 5 buster hits, but only a half-charged Pharaoh Shot to be killed).
The fastest route requires 1 big refill and 2 small refills, which are collected at the most appropriate times.
Ring Man takes 2/4/6 damage from Pharaoh shot, so a 6-2-6-2-4 cycle is used to kill him (Note: A small shot can be fired while charging a big shot by sliding, releasing the B button, then standing up OR pressing the other direction, and pressing B again. A video can be added showing this step, if requested).
Toad Man:
This Stage was done by "willwc" Thank you for that!!
Toad Man's Stage is pretty straight forward, same as Pharaoh Man's Stage. Collecting the small refill right at the beginning is faster than refilling 2 bars later!
The planning of the Stage is pretty solid. The first Snail Midboss can be skipped by precisely jumping over it. Killing birds and parachute guys in the rain decreases lag.
The Toad Man fight begins with a fully-charged Pharaoh Shot, and he is finished with nicely placed Ring Boomerangs in the face and back.
Bright Man:
Along with Crystal Man's Stage, this is the laggiest Stage. After receiving Rush Coil from Toad Man, Rush is used to get over the spikes and to climb some ladders faster.
Ring Boomerang is used to kill enemies and to spare Pharaoh Shots for the Bright Man fight. Otherwise, steps are taken to decrease lag as much as possible.
Bright Man´s weakness is Rain Flush. This is slow in that it takes a long time to start the rain and hit Bright Man (Note: he takes 6 dmg per Rain Flush because he is hit twice per use).
Instead, Pharaoh Shot + duplication trick is used to finish him off quickly (Buster charges are: 30/half/ - 90/full/ | Pharaoh charges are: 41/half/ - 71/full/ ), that´s why we use Pharaoh Shot instead of Mega Buster.
Quick note: The "B E A T" letters are not collected, since it costs 30 seconds to receive Beat and he doesn´t even speed up the gameplay significantly.
Satellite/Ballade #1:
After a long cutscene, in which Mega Man somehow shoots down the giant robot castle, a fight begins against the Satellite. It is weak to Pharaoh Shot. It should be mentioned that from this point onwards,
weapon energy won´t be refilled between stages anymore. Still, it is faster to use Pharaoh Shot here and get a refill later!
Ballade has no weakness (except Power Stone, which deals 2 dmg per hit and can double hit, which is covered in the #2 fight), so the 3-1-3-1... Buster strat is used to finish him off. As mentioned in the Forum, it´s not that relevant where Mega Man or Ballade are since the teleport out is a fixed action.
Charge Man:
For the next 4 Robot Masters, Charge Man is visited first, despite only having Crystal Man's weakness. Collecting Rush Jet now saves more time in Napalm Man's Stage than using Power Stone saves on Charge Man.
The Stage is pretty straight forward, using the Buster all the way. From this point on, the "W I L Y" letters MUST be collected.
Charge Man goes down as mentioned above using 3-1-3-1... cycles
Crystal Man:
After Charge Man, it´s time for Crystal Man. Rush Coil was tested in the beginning, but was found to not save time due to stupid platform placements and less than optimal use. :(
Rush Coil is still used later on in the stage, enabling one of the appearing pillars to be skipped.
The fully-charged Buster shot is used to evade one of the Diamond Joes and save time by not going around him.
Ring Boomerang is used to collect the "W" from the other side of the wall.
After that, the route splits into 2 directions. The top route is faster than the bottom route, even though damage is taken 3 times!
The rest of the Stage is straight forward.
The Crystal Man fight is laggy with his Crystal Eyes. It is faster to just do the fight as it is, as there is no method to be hit by 3 Crystal Eyes (removing the Eyes and the lag) and still hit him as fast as possible.
It requires collecting another big refill or 2 small refills to make it a worthwhile strategy.
Napalm Man:
The Stage starts with a little bit of waiting time on the Blocks, so the jump down is done as early as possible.
After that, Rush Jet is used to cross the big pit, and the bottom route is taken as the top is inaccessible with Rush Jet, which saves a menu.
It´s very tricky to access the bottom route, since it requires being close to the screen transition but also standing on Rush's nose so as to not be caught in the ceiling after the transition.
Rush Jet is used to collect the letter from the left, and changed to Crystal Eye for the Boss fight. Changing to Flash Stopper or something different would just lose time.
The Napalm Man fight is easy. Stay away from him, hit him as early as possible, and finish in the center.
Stone Man:
The Mega Buster is used until the first Hippo fight (which cannot be skipped :< ). Pharaoh Shot is used to finish it off, then Ring Boomerang until the #2 Hippo fight.
After that, Pharaoh Shot is refilled before switching back to Ring Boomerang, which is also refilled.
Ring Boomerang is used to get the "L" letter a little bit more to the left, which saves some frames!
The Stone Man battle begins with a Ring Boomerang for 1 dmg, and Napalm Bomb finishes him off with 3 damage per hit.
Ballade #2 + escape:
After showcasing all 4 letters, there is a small stage where the player could get some extras (refills, lives etc...).
After all that, Ballade appears for a final showdown. This time, he places explosives on the ground and can shoot some projectiles. With some manipulation, he just jumps around like a frog. (✌ﾟ∀ﾟ)
Power Stone is his weakness, which is exploited this time for 4 damage per cycle despite the lag.
There may be a way to save more time in the escape route, but it presents a problem with weapon switching and what to use in which spot. The method in the run seems to work fine.
Wily Spaceship:
As a reward for finishing the ground station, Mega Man wins a trip to space! There's also an opportunity to buy something from Dr. Light, which is, of course, refused. (ﾟヮﾟ)/
This is probably the longest stage in the Game Boy series, except for the Wily Star Station in Mega Man V Gameboy. It has 3 Midbosses (Crane + 2x Hunter) and several tricky parts.
First off, Mega Man is greeted with some Rockets and 2 Met-Cannons. Those go down with 8 Ring Boomerangs. After that is the "Crane." Its weakness is either Beat or Pharaoh Shot.
Right after the fight, Mega Man uses the Flash Stopper to not get hit by those rockets that come out from the ground.
Next, a falling stone section can be ignored by using Rush Jet. ;> Rush Jet is also used to climb some ladders faster or to avoid fighting some enemies. The first spikes are passed with a damage boost. After that, it´s simply using Rush Jet and Flash Stopper to avoid enemies.
The first "Hunter" or "Wily Eye" is up next. Its weakness is Napalm Bomb or Pharaoh Shot. Since this first form is flying around like a maniac, it´s best to use Pharaoh Shot here. Doing some "over the Head" hits
saves some weapon energy, and killing 2 of the copies speeds up the fight significantly.
In the next section, Flash Stopper disables the Rockets and allows for an easy kill on the chicken. There is another damage boost over spikes, and Rush Jet usage, then Charge Kick is used to avoid unnecessary fights.
In the second "Hunter" fight, Napalm Bomb is the weakness. In order to save some Pharaoh Shot for the refights, both parts are destroyed in the top left corner so the health refill can be collected immediately, preventing some lag.
Refights:
There may be a better route to fight them, but this method is one of the fastest with the least amount of menus. Counter-clockwise from the top left is the way to go.
There is not much to say about the fights..
Wily fights:
- First phase:
The weakness is Crystal Eye. There are 2 patterns, either the one that shows in the run or another where he slams the ground and creates a lot of lag. Of course, the pattern without lag is used and the fight finishes with Mega Man perfectly centered.
- Second phase:
The weakness is Ballade Cracker. It is best to shoot as early as possible. The last hit is delayed in order to go to the right as far as possible, since the last phase starts when Mega Man leaves the screen to the right.
- Third phase:
The weakness, and this is a huge change compared to the first 3 Mega Man Gameboy games, is not the Ballade Cracker! Even if it deals a good amount of damage to Wily, the Pharaoh Shot deals 6 damage, finishing the fight before he even starts.
After that, Dr. Wily makes his escape once again and Mega Man escapes from the Space station with some help...No spoilers here! (✌ﾟ∀ﾟ)..
The Credits start to roll...
Other comments
- Last Input is on frame "128609" which is the last textbox input!
- Final hit on Wily is at frame "123665"!
- Final Input before the last hit is "123638"!
The whole run is great to watch, at least for everybody that likes the Blue Bomber. The Crystal Man, Napalm Man, Stone Man, and the Wily Space Station Stages are ESPECIALLY great to watch!!
There are definitely spots that can be improved. Still, the Run was planned by us (willwc & tremane) who, I think, have the most experience with the game and have tried a lot of things that would speedup the process!
I´d like to say THANKS:
- willwc for helping me with this run!
- Mothrayas for getting me started with TAS'ing!
- Bag of Magic Food (bomf) for the other great Mega Man Game Boy TAS'es
- TASVideos for providing these runs!
- Barnowl & Protomagicalgirl for some Strats and ideas!
- All I forgot ♥ ♥ ♥
Screenshots frame: 44905, 57022, 61950, 61966, 62043, 62222, 68498, 118000, 118660, 120092, 123645, 124701
GoddessMaria: Judging.
GoddessMaria: This a is a very good movie with very solid optimization and also very positive audience response! Nicely done, gentlemen!
Accepting for Moons~
fsvgm777: Processing.