The last password Mega Man ever gives you leads to the beginning of the castle, so you're forced to go back and fight through Wave Man and Toad Man's stages again. Wave Man and his stage get easier each time, and I think the same can be said of Toad Man. Having finally mastered the timing of his jumps, I was able to hit him with the Water Wave as he landed from every other jump. Hitting him prevents him from using his Rain Flush power, but since he jumped too far away on the odd-numbered jumps, he did have an opening to use it. Still, most of the damage I took was from him jumping right at me and landing on me. By beating Toad Man, I was able to complete my set of powers with the Rain Flush, as usual renamed the "Rain Weapon" by the Game Gear version of the game.
The last password you'll ever need... or get.
This picture is artificially naughty.
See? Water is super effective.
I can make it rain... I hate that song.
Instead of moving on to fight Dr. Cossack, as would have been the case with this castle in Mega Man 4, we're instead brought immediately to Dr. Wily's castle for the final stage, an exact replica of Quick Man's stage from Mega Man 2. With the exception of fewer enemies (most stages in this game have had fewer enemies than their counterparts in the original NES games), the final stage was just as nerve-wracking as the original, which you may remember was infamous for its deadly, screen-filling lasers. The lasers are here in full force, but I noticed something odd about them: getting hit initially by one of these lasers only does one point of damage, but hanging around in the beam for too long can still cause instant death. At least this gives you a chance to get out of each room alive even if you do get hit.
The lightning knocked out the castle's power.
I've got a bad feeling about this place...
And now I remember why!
Ooh, I like the place in red!
Pshaw! Your giant lasers don't scare me!
So I guess it's time to fight Quick Man, then.
Final Boss: Dr. Wily
Just before reaching the boss room, Mega Man zips away to a new mini-stage, a quick walk to a teleporter guarded by a single cannon. On the other side, Dr. Wily was waiting for a fight in his little one-man pod. That's right, no giant screen-filling robot to fight, no fighting all the previous bosses over again, just Dr. Wily. His pattern had him warping around the room, dropping two energy pulses that move in opposite directions upon reaching the floor, and then warping away, leaving four pulses in his wake that spin outward and back in. The toughest part about the battle is that he tends to appear just above Mega Man, not giving much of an opportunity to get away before the pulses hit. I tried several weapons against him, with little luck, so I wound up relying on the charged Mega Buster to beat him. I've since read that the Rain Flush is his weakness, and that's one I didn't try. I was forced to use my one and only E-Tank to refill my energy, but I managed to defeat him on my first attempt.
After blowing up Wily's pod, the scene changed to a view of Dr. Cossack's castle, strangely enough, as it was engulfed in explosions that caused the screen to fade to white, at which point I was informed that the mission was, in some way, perfect. I would have to disagree, with all the bugs and deaths and all, but Mega Man did save the day in the end, and that's what's important.
AGH! What just happened?
Where could this possibly lead?
Wait, no giant skull machine form?
Ow! Watch it with those things!
How dare you make me use my E-Tank!
One more shot, and...
Whoa, I think I killed him!
Oh, we're blowing up the first castle?
Well, I'd hardly call it perfect, but...
SHOOT HIM, MEGA MAN! DO IT!
So, after much unnecessary frustration, Mega Man for the Game Gear comes to a close. The game was plenty fun; if it hadn't been for the Bright Man bug, things would have gone totally smoothly.
I'm still not sure what I'm going to play next; Dragon Warrior IV is fast approaching, but there are a couple of things I want to take care of first.
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