The 'Shroom:Issue 205/Strategy Wing
Director's Notes
Written by: Hooded Pitohui (talk)
Hello, all you readers of The 'Shroom! April arrives, and, well, so do busy times for me. I'll be occupied with plenty both online and offline, and among the things I'll be involved in online is Awards prep. Yes indeed, it's that time of year once again. Awards meetings are underway, and we're squabbling about Mario so you don't have to! Ah, jokes aside, it's nice to be planning the big shindig again, and I suggest you check the process out (at least read Anniversary Announcements in Pipe Plaza!).
As for Strategy Wing, well, it's been busy around our offices, too! Our spacefaring swordsman, Meta Knight (talk), joins us once again with another edition of Galactic Expedition. If you enjoy a good detailed breakdown of a boss battle and a combat guide, be sure to give it a read. I hear a pretty famous face from the Metroid series (not Ridley) is making an appearance this month, so you might want to see it to see a mainstay of the series, as well!
Joining our team for the very first time, Sparks (talk) kicks off a three-part guide to the Blue Bomber's first adventure! In An Overly Detailed and Funny Walkthrough of Mega Man, you'll get a guide to getting through Mega Man's inaugural battle against Dr. Wily and his commandeered Robot Masters from start to finish! This month covers three of the game's six Robot Masters, so grab an E-tank (or maybe not - they don't exist in this game) and jump right in!
That's not all in the way of big news, either! After a year and a half of scouring every square inch of File Island, riding whales, chasing bandits, running a shop, reclaiming history, repairing factories, curling, recruiting Digimon, and doing some questionably-heroic things, we finish our ascent of Mt. Infinity and face down the source of File Island's calamity in File City Files this month. You won't be getting spoilers from me! I'll let Shoey (talk) take it away when you get down there!
Beyond that, we have our usual slate of sections ready to go for you! Waluigi Time (talk) takes the fight to Bowser once again in a mysterious old fortress in Shine Get, we probe the powers of a strange Pikmin type that seems to defy thermodynamics in The Anatomy of a Pikmin, and we explore Searchlight Sneak from Super Mario 3D World. Poisonous moths and dancers holding daggers all await, too, so let me send you off with a reminder that you're always welcome to join our team and tell us something about your favorite games so you can get to reading it all!
Section of the Month
It seems that discussing the role of spectacle in Mario games - or at least in Bob-ombs Below - was something our readers enjoyed! Thank you all for voting Four Steps for a 3D World section of the month last month. That detailed examination of Winged Pikmin falling off between Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 4 from Shoey (talk) was evidently appreciated too! Their usefulness may have declined, but at least they'll always be cute...
There was an upswell in votes this month; thank you so much for showing your support for our writers with your votes! Be sure to vote in the poll at the bottom of the page to keep that up, and nominate a writer for Poochy's Picks if you've want to highlight something you particularly liked about their section!
| STRATEGY WING SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | Four Steps for a 3D World | 8 | 30.77% | Hooded Pitohui (talk) |
| 2nd | The Anatomy of a Pikmin | 5 | 19.23% | Shoey (talk) |
| 3rd | Pitohui's Pokémon Academy | 4 | 15.38% | Hooded Pitohui (talk) |
| 3rd | Shine Get | 4 | 15.38% | Waluigi Time (talk) |
An Octet Gazette
Written by: Museful Traveler (talk)
On a journey demanding of all the vigor one can muster, one must now and again find not only respite, but entertainment. A mirthless life can hardly at all be considered better than that which beasts live. For that reason, and that I cannot resist from time to time the indulgences of the flesh, I would occasionally on my travels be compelled to seek the dancers of this land. In my homeland, dancers clad themselves in shadow, kept to performing in buildings of disrepute and forced to conceal themselves for the benefit of the reputations of those who sought them out.
In Solistia, to my shock, I have discovered that dancers perform not in the darkness, but upon stages across the land. From the alehouses to the great stages of metropolises, brilliant shining stars dance so lightly it is as though the very winds carry them. Their methods are more varied than I have seen before, and yet, still I see similarities. Here, as back home, dancers serve to inspire and invigorate beyond anything else...
Welcome back to An Octet Gazette, readers of The 'Shroom! There's no need for a lengthy preamble this time, but there is something we need to cover today before we get around to comparing the Dancer job between the two Octopath games. You might remember from last month that, among other topics, I mentioned "shield points" while telling you we would get there eventually. Well, we're there, so let's talk about breaking enemies!
Break 'em Down!
If you've picked up anything about the Octopath games outside of this section, you may have heard the phrase "Break & Boost" used to describe the battle system of the games. It's a clever, memorable way of putting the system into words, and it does an apt job at describing how the system works. It's not very complicated! It really does revolve around boosting your attacks with BP and breaking foes by targeting their weaknesses. We're going to focus on just the "break" part today, though.
In the Octopath games, every enemy type has a certain number of "shield points" and a selection of weaknesses. These shield points can be seen beneath an enemy in-battle, alongside their weaknesses, which begin concealed but are revealed as you strike them (or through a few other miscellaneous other means like the move "Analyze" we talked about last month). Every time you strike a foe with an attack that it is weak to, its shield points decrease by one. And yes, to be clear, for moves that hit multiple times, assuming the move's type doesn't change, each hit will lower a shield point. It's a simple system.
When an enemy's shield points are reduced to zero, they enter a state of being "broken". A broken enemy will be unable to take any further actions on the turn they are broken and on the following turn. They will also take increased damage from your attacks so long as they remain broken. After spending one full turn of being broken, enemies will return to normal, restoring their shield points and regaining the ability to attack. In fact, on a turn that an enemy recovers from being broken, it will always move first on that turn, and, if it's an enemy that gets multiple actions, it will take all of those actions in rapid succession at the beginning of the turn. This, of course, prevents enemies from becoming punching bags that never get a chance to hit back, and it adds a bit of extra strategy, forcing you to consider when the moment is right to break a foe.
You might be wondering, at this point, what weaknesses a foe can have. Well, they're the same as the six types of weapons and six types of magic! Enemies can be weak to: fire, ice, lightning, dark, light, wind, axes, staves, bows, swords, daggers, and polearms. For most common enemies, once you work out their weaknesses, you can be sure that they'll always have the same weaknesses whenever you encounter them (and, in fact, if you've revealed their weaknesses in one battle, they'll be visible whenever you encounter that foe again). Bosses, though, tend to shuffle and lock out their weaknesses, either changing what they're weak to or making it so that hitting them with a particular type of attack no longer reduces their shield points, so don't get caught unaware!
That's the "break" half of "Break & Boost" covered in full! We'll save the "boost" half for next month, so let's get into the performance of the Dancer job!
The Charms of a Dancer
Just like last month, we'll look at weapons first, then break down the skills in each game, and wrap up with the Support Skills in each game.
In both games, the only weapon available to Dancers are daggers! This poor weapon selection results in Dancers having a difficult time hitting an enemy's weaknesses. If they fight an enemy that isn't weak to daggers, they have no (solo) options for reducing an enemy's shield points at a rate faster than one per turn (there is one somewhat unreliable way to maybe get more, but we'll talk about that in a later edition). Add this to Dancers generally specializing in speed and evasion over offense and defense, and you can see why starting your game with the Dancer traveler is considered rather rough (though the second game takes some steps to make it easier).
That said, Dancers don't shine solo, but instead burn brightest once they have a party to travel with, so let's look at the skills that come with the Dancer job and see what's on offer!
| Name | Description | Type | SP Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lion Dance | Grants a single ally a buff that raises their physical attack for two turns | 
|
4 |
| Moonlight Waltz | Hit a single foe with darkness damage | 
|
7 |
| Peacock Strut | Grants a single ally a buff that raises their elemental attack for two turns |
|
4 |
| Mole Dance | Grants a single ally a buff that raises their physical defense for two turns |
|
4 |
| Night Ode | Hit all enemies with darkness damage |
|
10 |
| Panther Dance | Grants a single ally a buff that raises their speed for two turns |
|
4 |
| Bewildering Grace | Causes a random effect to occur |
|
25 |
| Sealticge's Seduction | Usable only at maximum boost, for three turns, skills used by a selected ally that would normally only affect only one foe or ally will affect all foes or allies. |
|
30 |
Looking at the above list, it should be abundantly clear that Dancers specialize in status buffs. There are four moves there - half of that skillset - that exist solely to grant buffs to a party member. All those "[Animal] Dance/Strut" moves are straightforward. For a low SP cost, you can make a party member stronger in some way, with the effects lasting even longer if you spend BP to boost the move. If you're willing to spend three BP and a lot more SP beforehand, you can even use Sealticge's Seduction to extend the reach of those buffs to everyone in your party. This is what the Dancer is built around, and why the Dancer job works out better once the traveler who has it joins up with the party. They can buff themself, but they're not going to get as much use out of those buffs as the others!
Aside from those buffing moves, the Dancers in the first game have access to dark magic, and are the only of the starting jobs to have access to it, actually. Now, the Dancer job does provide a slight boost to elemental attack, but, really, Moonlight Waltz and Night Ode will get more mileage on a character who has taken the Dancer job on as a secondary job or on a Dancer who has taken a job like the Scholar. They're simple offensive spells and present the usual "lower cost, higher damage, but one target" versus "higher cost, lower damage, but hits all targets" choice.
The last move in the Dancer's skillset is one that's... both simple and tricky. Bewildering Grace is a classic "random effect" move. Use it, and you never know what you're going to get. Maybe you'll get a bonus of a 100x EXP or JP modifier! Or maybe your entire party's health will be reduced to 1 HP! All you can do is hope that it goes well! You can spend BP to get more random effects from a single use, and supposedly boosting it also makes the more extreme outcomes (positive or negative) more likely to occur? I'll be honest; I'm not going through and and sampling this move's effects hundreds of times to try and get a distribution, so, for more details on how it works and what possible outcomes it can produce, I'll link to the Fandom Octopath Wiki and hopefully they tell you how the move works accurately!
In the first game, the Dancer job is all about buffs. Let's take a look at the second game now, though, because, while it does retain an emphasis on buffs, it reworks things a bit to make life a little easier on solo Dancers.
| Name | Description | Type | SP Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lion Dance | Grants a single ally a buff that raises their physical attack for two turns |
|
4 |
| Ruinous Kick | Strike a single foe with a powerful physical attack that will reduce one shield point regardless of their weaknesses |
|
10 |
| Peacock Strut | Grants a single ally a buff that raises their elemental attack for two turns |
|
4 |
| Sweeping Gale | Hit one foe with wind damage | 
|
7 |
| Stimulate | Move a selected ally's place in the turn order ahead by one space |
|
5 |
| Dagger Dance | Strike all foes with a dagger | 
|
9 |
| Bewildering Grace | Causes a random effect to occur |
|
25 |
| Sealticge's Seduction | Usable only at maximum boost, for three turns, skills used by a selected ally that would normally target only one foe or ally will target all foes or allies. |
|
30 |
First off, the Dancer's various dances have been reduced to two! Mole Dance and Panther Dance are gone, opening up some space for the Dancer to be made more flexible and a little more effective when solo. Though Panther Dance isn't quite as gone as it may seem at first glance. While the Dancer job has no speed-raising skill this time around, Stimulate fulfills its purpose in a more targeted, more reliable fashion. The hope with a speed boost was that your party could move earlier in the turn order, though it could be hard to gauge exactly how effective it would be. Stimulate gives you more direct control, letting a specific target consistently jump one place forward in the turn order.
Mole Dance really is gone, though, replaced by a new offensive skill that serves two roles. Ruinous Kick, first off, is a fairly powerful move for a Dancer to unleash in general, and can do solid damage when boosted and used against a broken foe. Its unique property of always lowering an enemy's shield points when it hits, regardless of their weaknesses, helps to offset the Dancer having access only to daggers and one type of magic.
The other major difference you may have noticed is that the Dancer's magic has been changed! A few jobs received this treatment in Octopath II, with the associated element for Merchants, Dancers, and Thieves shuffled around. The Dancer job has lost its darkness magic, swapping the single-foe darkness move for a single-hit wind move, and, interestingly, swapping the full-field darkness move for a full-field dagger move. This actually leaves wind magic in the odd position of being the only element without a job-linked move that hits all enemies on the field at once without some kind of augmentation (there is a move that fills this role, but we'll talk about it down the road). It's a strange arrangement, especially because the Dancer would have the same coverage spread of one element and one weapon (Ruinous Kick aside) if they did have a full-field wind move, but, hey, take this as your introduction to some skills being associated with a weapon type, rather than an elemental magic type!
Those are all the changes to the Dancer job, actually! Sealticge's Seduction's in-game description has been clarified a bit, and I believe some of the outcomes and odds for Bewildering Grace were reworked, but, other than that, the rest is the same as in the first game. In the end, you have a job that still can focus on buffs and supporting the rest of the party, but that also has a few more options for standing on its own.
With that said, let's start wrapping up this performance by taking a glance at the Support Skills of the Dancer job!
| Name | Effect |
|---|---|
| The Show Goes On | When the character with this skill grants buffs, those buffs will last one turn longer than normal. |
| Eye for an Eye | Gain a 50% chance to hit an enemy with a counterattack after being hit with a physical attack |
| Second Wind | Some SP will be recovered at the end of each turn. |
| Encore | The first time in a battle the character with this skill is knocked out, they will automatically revive with 25% of their HP. |
We've got one Support Skill seemingly crafted for the Dancer here, with The Show Goes On taking the various buffs from Lion Dance, Panther Dance, etc. and extending them by a turn. Eye for an Eye may not scream "Dancer" in particular and may not seem particularly aligned to its role, but it does fit the character who starts with the Dancer job in this game. Second Wind and Encore, meanwhile, are generally useful skills. They're probably more helpful on travelers who took Dancer as a secondary job, but they're at least somewhat useful on a starting Dancer. After all, while they'll typically use it in small amounts at a time, Dancers do burn through a rather limited SP reserve, so gradual SP restoration can help spare you a turn of having to toss a Dancer an Inspiriting Plum. Encore, meanwhile, can help spare you a turn using an Olive of Life on your squishy Dancer when that emphasis on evasion inevitably results in them taking a hit and crumpling like a paper fan.
| Name | Effect |
|---|---|
| The Show Goes On | When the character with this skill grants buffs, those buffs will last one turn longer than normal. |
| Ever Evasive | Characters with this skill have a higher chance of avoiding enemy attacks. |
| Hard Worker | Gain more JP than usual from battles |
| Invigorate and Inspire | When buffing an ally, slightly fill their latent power gauge |
The second verse is not the same as the first, in this case! For their second showing, Dancers have a selection of Support Skills more specifically-crafted to their role. The Show Goes on returns unchanged, but it's complemented this time by Invigorate and Inspire, allowing Dancers to give their allies an extra benefit when granting their buffs. We'll talk about what "latent powers" are well down the road, but just know for now that this is a pleasant bonus.
The gradual SP restoration from the first game has been replaced with an extra dose of evasion, with this change being... middling. It does feel specifically suited to the Dancer, since they emphasize evasion, but that gradual SP restoration did serve them well as they burned through SP to offer buffs, and evasion just truly isn't that reliable of a stat.
Finally, the seemingly character-focused Eye for an Eye has been replaced with another seemingly character-focused skill, with Hard Worker being an apt description of the second game's starting Dancer. This is one of those Support Skills that's useful in the early portions of the game, and broadly-so, at that, but that gradually gets outclassed by other Support Skills as you unlock an abundance of them.
Of course, beyond that, there's one more difference between the Dancer job in the first game and in the second, and it's one we've vaguely touched upon! In the first game, Primrose Azelhart is the character with Dancer as her primary job, with Agnea Bristarni having it first in the second. As usual though, we'll talk more about them and traits specific to the two of them down the road. For now, we take a bow and end the show!
Come back next month, and we'll compare the two games' approaches to the Merchant job!
An Overly Detailed and Funny Walkthrough of Mega Man
Introduction
North America
Japan
Mega Man is a series of platforming run-'n'-gun games developed by Capcom. While there is the mainline series of games, there are spin-offs as well, like Mega Man X and Mega Man Battle Network'. This is going to be a very funny and over-the-top walkthrough of the first ever Mega Man game!
For those who've never heard of Mega Man, the games have you controlling a blue robot named Mega Man (duh!) who must defeat Robot Masters (usually eight) and then stop the nefarious plans of Dr. Wily. Mega Man can move left and right, jump, and fire projectiles from his Mega Buster to attack enemies. Every time a Robot Master is defeated, Mega Man acquires their weapon and can use it for the rest of the game. The weapons vary depending on the Robot Master, and they all consume weapon energy when used, so you can't constantly use them all the time! The later games add in new features for Mega Man, like E Tanks that can restore the life energy of Mega Man, and Rush, a faithful robot dog companion who helps Mega Man out on his adventures.
Now, let's start the game!
This game has no introduction, probably because it's the first game in the series, so I'll provide the plot for you: Dr. Light, a robotics scientist, has created eight robots to help him out, Rock, a housekeeping robot who would eventually become Mega Man; Roll, Mega Man's "sister" who also housekeeps; and the six Robot Masters: Cut Man, Guts Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, Fire Man and Bomb Man. Dr. Wily, another robotics scientist who is the villain of the series, takes the six Robot Masters and modifies them to serve Wily instead of Light. Rock volunteers to be made into a combat robot to stop Wily's plans, and thus Mega Man was born. Now it's time for him to save the day!
Did you get all that? Good. Now let's start the game for real!
Here is the stage select screen for the game, showing all six Robot Masters. You can choose any stage you want, in any order you want! Each Robot Master has a weakness to another's ability, so strategy is encouraged to find the easiest possible path to take them down. Here's a list of their weaknesses:
- Cut Man is weak to Guts Man's weapon.
- Guts Man is weak to Bomb Man's weapon.
- Elec Man is weak to Cut Man's weapon.
- Ice Man is weak to Elec Man's weapon.
- Fire Man is weak to Ice Man's weapon.
- Bomb Man is weak to Fire Man's weapon.
I will showcase the path I like to do, and it starts with Bomb Man! When you select a Robot Master, the game will show how many points you get when you defeat them. The points don't matter, and only this game had them.
Bomb Man
Bomb Man Beginnings
Bomb Man with 100000 points going to be awarded. That's actually pretty lucky!
You'd think Bomb Man would be in a place with bombs, like a weapons storage or something right?
Little pink jumping enemies are such pests to hit!
We are in the stage! After making a teensy-tiny amount of progress, we are suddenly attacked by little pink jumping enemies. These enemies can either jump a small or large distance, so be on your toes when dealing with these things. A well-timed Mega Buster shot will deal with them, or you can just spam. That works too.
I should mention this now. Enemies can drop power-ups for you sometimes when they're defeated. They usually drop these small orbs that add extra points when you clear the stage. They're pretty useless in my opinion. Thank goodness the sequels removed them. Health and weapon power-ups can also be dropped that restore energy, so a trick you can do is farm from weak enemies to regain your stats. Some luck is involved, but it'll be worth it in the end!
As we proceed onward, we find ourselves having to jump over gaps with these big blue bombs that explode into four smaller bombs. It might look tough to get past, but there's a trick I know about! Hide in the right corner to avoid the bombs, and then make a run for it! Even if you do get hit, the bombs do weak damage.
Now, there are these "screws" (I don't know the names of ALL the Mega Man enemies!) that poke out from the surface they're on and then fire bullets in five directions. These ones are on the ground, so we can just use the high platforms to avoid them. Oh yeah! A ladder at the far right of this segments leads us upward.
We then find ourselves in a room where four turrets are attached to a wall. These turret enemies fires four shots that always travel in the same directions. They are also invincible when inactive, and so we must strike when they're shooting. You can also make a mad dash for it if you can dodge them all. It's tricky, but possible! There's also a health power-up in case you've taken lots of damage already. Now to climb higher!
Attack of the Bullet Bills and Sniper Joes
We climb up, and not far after, this green guy with a shield (known as a Sniper Joe) jumps in our way. This is an annoying enemy to deal with, as you can only attack him if he jumps or when he shoots. You also just can't fire at him relentlessly because he won't do anything if you do. You'll have to wait. Patience, my friends!
After getting past the Sniper Joe, there are more gaps we must jump across. There are these Bullet Bill-like enemies that fly in from the right in a curve pattern that will explode when they're attacked, hurting us if we're close to them. Avoid close proximity when fighting these enemies, and if you can't attack them, simply dodge them. There are also more wall turrets in the way, so we have to jump over the gaps, avoid the Bullet Bills, and destroy the turrets. Multitasking! When I was making my way through this segment, I discovered a glitch I benefited from. The Bullet Bills stopped spawning, and so I only had to worry about the gaps and turrets! To be fair, there are a lot of bugs in this game, but it's the first one, so you can forgive Capcom, right?
We now find ourselves at an area where there are small enemies that roam the ground, and will speed up if you're on the same ground level as them. The worst part is that they can't be defeated normally; Mega Buster shots only temporarily pause them. Maybe later I'll get a weapon to take them down!
This next room is rather scary. We must avoid Bullet Bills and reach to the ladder, which is directly above spikes. In these games, spikes instantly KO Mega Man if he touches them. I don't know why, but maybe he hates spikes with a passion?
So after climbing this ladder, we find ourselves in an area much worse than the previous one! This one has a sea of spikes with small platforms we must use to jump across. There are also these "spaceship" enemies that, like the turrets, are invincible when not attacking. They move and stop and, when they do stop, they fire eight fast bullets around them before moving again. Oh man! Thankfully this segment is short, as solid ground is found not long afterwards.
Ooh a 1-Up! A Sniper Joe is guarding it though. Because we are on higher ground, we can only attack him when he jumps. Once again, patience, my friends! After defeating him, you can claim that 1-Up!
After some more progress, another Sniper Joe blocks our way. He's guarding the entrance to the boss room! After defeating him, we can enter.
Bomb Man's Territory
In the first Mega Man game, there are more obstacles before reaching to the boss. In this instance, we must climb down a ladder to avoid eye blocks that occasionally move from side to side. You can climb down the ladder or you can take the shortcut and just drop down. There's another room of them below though, so you might take damage.
At the bottom of this section is Bomb Man himself! He likes to jump around. A lot. Like he's Pinkie Pie. Oh, and he also throws bombs at you that cause explosions when they hit the ground. He's weak to Fire Man's weapon, but I don't have it, so I have to fight him regular style. He takes more damage than usual from the Mega Buster, so this'll be a quick fight! My advice for this battle is to watch when he jumps and avoid him. When he throws bombs, that's the time to strike! Just watch out for the bombs though.
After Bomb Man is defeated, there's this big orb thing (I don't know what it is!), and collecting it will end the level. That's one Robot Master down. Five to go! We also now have his ability. Bomb Man's weapon allows Mega Man to throw bombs that take a few seconds to explode. I honestly don't see it as very useful, but it's not the worst weapon in the game.
Guts Man is weak to Bomb Man's weapon, so he's the next one to battle!
Guts Man
Taking a Detour to Unstable Platforms and Angry Construction Workers
We land in a construction site, and immediately we have enemies in our way. These are classic enemies in the series – they are Mettaurs!
These ones are stationary and will fire three slow projectiles when they are approached. They can only be attacked while they shoot. They're not that bad, to be honest.
After getting past some Mettaurs, we find one of the most annoying sections in the game! We must use moving platforms to traverse a large gap. That sounds simple, but these platforms can drop us if we're not careful. By drop, I mean Mega Man falls faster than an anvil on a planet with high gravity. These platforms travel on tracks, so if we look carefully, we should be able to tell when they'll drop us.
After getting past that tough section, we find more solid ground where these flying green smiling enemies can dive bomb us when they are near. Thankfully they only take one shot to get rid of, so if you time your jumps and attacks, you should defeat them easily… just don't let them bully you. A big health power-up is found along the way, so you can heal yourself if you've taken lots of damage.
After falling from a cliff, we find more enemies to fight. These ones resemble Mettaurs, but they have arms and legs, and constantly throw picks at us! They jump in from offscreen with their shields up, and then go on the offensive. What I do to get rid of them is slowly move towards them while shooting, that way I can dodge their attacks and defeat them. The area with them has some gaps too, so watch out! The end of this area has a path leading downward.
Digging Straight Down
Up next is a series of rooms with paths leading even deeper. The first room has the flying green smiling enemies again, but did you know they can fly upwards to attack you? They don't just dive bomb!
The next room below has some power-ups, but also more of those green smiling flying enemies (I really have to think of a shorter name for them…). What's down below?
I fall down on the far right side and, OH MY GOODNESS, there are spikes here that I couldn't avoid. Thankfully there's a checkpoint at the "top" of this section. Knowing my mistake, I avoid the spikes when I reach there again. If only I can reach that 1-Up… we'll have to go down once again, I guess.
We reach the bottom and find a giant blue one-eyed jumping machine that leaps toward us. This is arguably the most dangerous enemy in the game, and it's very bad news if it touches you. It jumps between low and high at random, so there's no way to predict its movements. It it jumps high, you can run under it, but it's risky. I just fired away at it before it could reach me. It has lots of HP, too! Thankfully I destroyed it before it could reach me. The boss door is found right afterwards.
Construction Clash
On the way to Guts Man there are some Mettaurs. Easy peasie!
Now it's time to battle Guts Man! He just jumps (lowly) and occasionally throws rocks at us. All of his jumps will shake the screen, stunning Mega Man if he is on the ground. It's difficult to avoid this, so what I do is stand far away and just stand there, because if you mistime your jump, you will be stunned when you land, making you more vulnerable. Sometimes he can be unfair and become too close for comfort. He also takes more damage than usual from the Mega Buster, but because of the higher ground on the left some of the shots will miss, so I used the bombs from Bomb Man to defeat him. They do MASSIVE damage and 3 will defeat him! Two down, four to go!
Guts Man's ability is the Super Arm, which allows Mega Man to pick up large blocks in the way and throw them. It's useless without the blocks, but it's vital to progress, as you'll see later on. Now to challenge Cut Man!
Cut Man
Onward and Upward!
Right off the bat when entering, I notice big blocks that my Super Arm ability lets me grab and throw. I won't though – I want to save it for the boss!
Looks who's back! It those green smiling flying enemies from Guts Man's stage! But now they're blue! They act the same, however, and still aren't a problem unless you're swarmed with them.
After making progress, to the right there will be those turret enemies from Bomb Man's stage. The path leads upwards, so that's where we'll go!
The next room has three turrets with a slightly different layout. Just get through them and climb on up!
The next room has… more turrets. And we still have to go upwards, so we will.
The next is… oh, who am I kidding? It's more turrets! One of them is in a gap, so that's something I suppose.
After reaching to the top, there's this strange structure in the background with a hole on it. When we run past it, scissor-like enemies jump out at us! The best thing to do is to run past them; there's an endless amount and it's futile to try to fight them. Afterwards are blue versions of those jumping pink enemies from Bomb Man's stage.
More Climbing
At the end of this area are more of those eye blocks from the end of Bomb Man's stage. These ones can move up and down, in addition to left and right. Now we have to climb up and deal with more rooms of eye block repetition. I didn't add in screenshots because the whole thing is incredibly boring. Just know that there are lots of eye blocks as you climb up multiple rooms.
After reaching another peak, there's another structure with scissors. Just run past this one like the previous one!
Up next are more of those smiling blue enemies. After getting past them you have access to a health power-up, and then you have to go downwards!
Time to Descend!
The first room of the downward descent has spaceship enemies from Bomb Man's stage that endlessly spawn. Don't fall on the right side; a nasty surprise awaits you if you do!
The next room has spikes now! You wouldn't want to land on those would you? Oh and there are more spaceships. Use the ladder to the left to reach the bottom!
At the bottom is a pink version of the one-eyed machine from Guts Man's stage. There are also blocks you can pick up here, so if you've defeated Guts Man, you can use these blocks to fell the mech! I did. It was awesome. To the right is the boss door!
A Battle of Rock Paper Scissors
The area leading to the boss has orange "screw" enemies from Bomb Man's stage. These ones are on the ground and the ceiling, so you can walk under the ceiling ones if you're careful. Time to fight Cut Man!
I say Cut Man is the easiest boss in the game. He takes 3 damage from the Mega Buster and gets pushed back every time he is attacked! He attacks by jumping high and throwing his scissors like a boomerang. There are two rocks you can use to throw at him, with each one taking out half of Cut Man's HP! Halfway there!
Cut Man's weapon allows Mega Man to throw scissors like a boomerang, similar to how Cut Man does. One of the better weapons in the game in my opinion. Up next is Elec Man! I'll tell you about his stage and more next month, so come back in May!
File City Files
Hello again, and welcome back to File City Files, the city of five seasons' (look it up) number-one encyclopedia for Digimon World strategies. Last month, we began exploring Mt. Infinity, a twisted and confusing mountain made out of broken data and even more broken Digimon. This month, we continue our exploration of the mountain in hopes of finding the source of File Island's calamity and putting a stop to it once and for all!
A Mighty Warrior in a Digital Wasteland
Picking up where we left off, with Devimon out of the way, we can continue our mountain expedition. From here, things get a little odder. The enemies get a little more spread out. They don't pursue you as much. Some even stand stationary, completely ignoring you if you don't touch them, almost as if whatever is controlling them is running out of resources. The first room after Devimon has a Rockmon that you're almost guaranteed to fight because the little corridor he guards is too tight for slick reverse moves! There's also an unguarded PC in this room that contains an Autopilot. The exit to this room is guarded by another Rockmon, but this one is much easier to avoid. Or, if you want, you can just fight it; I mean, it's just a stupid Rockmon. The next room contains multiple Digimon, but, as if their programming is bugging, none of them move; instead, they sit stationary, watching you. In the back of the room there's a PC containing a Double Floppy, a pretty useful recovery item which recovers 1500 HP and 1500 MP. Because the enemies don't move in this room, you can simply ignore them all and make your way into the next warp.
This warp takes you to a maze-like room. The enemy placement is poor. A Rockmon sits in the front, guarding the way you came in (he's really easy to avoid). A Piddomon guards a dead end to the left, while a PC containing a Sup Recovery (which heals all HP) sits on the upper path, completely unguarded. The warp is guarded by a single Piddomon who is very easy to simply avoid! But on the other hand, it's actually somewhat worth it to fight these single Piddomon because they have a 10% chance to drop the Sage Fruit. The Sage Fruit is a rare item that provides a 20-point permanent boost to your Brains stat. This is actually the same with the Rockmon and Vermilmon, who can drop a Power Ice and Power Power Fruit, which boost Defense by 20 and Offense by 20, respectively. Of course, because this is Digimon World, they only have a 1% chance of dropping those items, so it's probably not worth it to fight them, but, hey, just thought I'd provide you all the information!
Eventually you'll come to a room with a large straight pathway with an upper alcove you can enter. If you keep going straight, you'll reach the warp to the next zone with no trouble, but if you take the upper path, you'll come face to face with an unknown Digimon of immense power.
This power is so immense that, upon approaching him, the power radiates through our body, unnerving us. Unlike everything we've faced up until now, we can feel that this Digimon contains a power we've never experienced before. At first, this Digimon says nothing, instead choosing to silently size us up. We ask him why he isn't attacking us, but again he says nothing. Again, we question why he doesn't fight us, and we're left with a choice. Should we leave him be or fight him? While it may be smarter to leave him be, we realize we can't let a Digimon of such immense strength fall into the hands of those who are causing this calamity, so with great reluctance we decide to fight him!
