Mega Man of Game Gear is a remix between Mega Man 4 and Mega Man 5 of NES, the game has a lot of stuff from the games mentioned. This game contains only 8 stages, 4 Robot Masters, 2 Cossack Castles and 2 Wily Castles. The goal of this TAS is to go as fast as possible using glitches and tricks all over the run.
Game objectives
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programing errors
- Complete the game as fast as possible
Route
Stoneman
Stoneman first because you can save time zipping with Rush Coil and no other weapon is needed over the Stage. You can do Double Hits to Stoneman to kill him faster.
Starman
No weapon needed over this stage too, but you can do Double Hits to Starman too. You need to take damage and then in the i-frames shoot the Power Stone where he is.
Brightman
Rush Coil needed for this stage, you can save time in the spikes section doing a moving platform trick + Rush Coil jumps. You can't do Double Hits to Brightman since you only shoot one Star Crash at the time.
Napalmman
Rush Coil tricks again to save time. In the Stomper room i did a slowdown to do a despawn of one of the missiles to reduce so much lag.
Tricks and techniques
Sliding Shoots
You can shoot between every slide since there is one frame that Mega Man is standing between the slides, so you can shoot without losing time or frames. If you are equipped with Rush Coil you can shoot while you are sliding, this is useful to kill enemies in your way like in Stoneman Stage or Napalmman Stage.
Double Hits
You can do a Double Hit to every Robot Master with the Buster and the Power Stone, the two shots needs to be in the same position or hitting in the same frame, i did Double Hits to Stoneman (since you have no other weapon than the Buster) and to Starman taking damage to position myself where he is and making possible the two hits. I also do a Double Hit to Wily Capsule since there is one cycle where you cannot hit him without help of Rush Coil.
Killing Robot Masters
The faster way to kill every Robot Master is kill him at the very top of the screen since every Robot Master's jump is faster than bubble's speed and if the bubble above leaves the screen, then Mega Man starts to get the power.
Zips
The zips are done by jumping off of Rush Coil 3 frames from the ceiling while holding left or right and you will land on Rush Coil and he will proceed to push you up into the ceiling, you can zip really fast to the left but in most that doesn't save any time (except in Napalm and Stoneman Stages) since you want to zip up.
There are some moving platforms all over the game (Stone, Bright and Wave Stages) that if you fall off and then return to the platform instantly they will move 1 frame faster every time you do it so i want to do that every time i stay in the platform to move way faster.
RNG Factor
The RNG factor is potentially the hardest thing to manipulate in the entire game, every Robot Master had different way to work. I didn't find any manip to have a perfect Wily Capsule fight, by my luck, i had only 1 bad cycle, but in that cycle i shoot Wily Capsule with Rush Coil to don't lose a cycle.
Remaining Stages
Waveman
I use the trick of moving platforms in the bubbles section, you cannot do a bubble skip like in Mega Man 5 since you cannot do the screen transition on the little bubbles. In the final part of the Motorwave before the transition i did a full jump to keep Motorwave's speed in the air and move along the room faster. I shoot Double Hits to kill Waveman faster.
Toadman
No special comments, the minibosses dies with one shoot so it's not a problem.
Quickman
Platforming only, there is no Robot Master or Boss in this stage since Wily has his own stage. The lasers don't kill you instantly.
Wily
Didn't find a perfect fight for Wily Capsule since the RNG in this game is so heavy to manipulate but i did the fastest fight i can with one bad cycle, i shoot him a Double Hit with Rush Coil and then a single shoot, that makes possible to shoot the last hit only with a Mega Buster.
Special thanks to Prodigy and DSmon who helped me testing some strats and for his RTA runs of this game, that helped me a lot making this TAS!
Memory: Optimization appears to be solid.
The platforming was solid enough to make the TAS enjoyable, with some zips here and there to spice things up. The audience enjoyed it as well.
There were concerns in regards to this TAS using Normal Mode instead of Hard. The author cited that they felt there wasn't enough of a difference between difficulties so they chose the fastest. In general we prefer the most interesting rather than the fastest, even if there is not that much of a difference. It seems that Hard Mode for this game increases the amount of enemies which we see as good, increases miniboss health which can be good or bad depending on if strategies differ, and increases damage taken which is likely to be good but can be bad if damage boosts are interesting to the run.
However, this run does seem solid enough to accept for a first publication, so I am accepting to Moons. However this run could very well be considered obsoleted by a Hard Mode submission provided it is more interesting.
