Brickman, the buster may absolutely suck in the EXE series, but that's the entire point of doing a buster-only run in those games. Doing a buster-only run in the EXE series is obviously much harder than in the platforming series, if not much more time-consuming. I don't think anyone here was trying to argue that the EXE series busters were any more useful than they actually are.
(Although now that I think about it, a buster run of 5 would be nigh-impossible due to how Liberation Missions work. There are also exceptions to be made to using Rockman's buster only in 5 and 6, as using other Navis is mandatory at certain parts of the games.)
Anyways, a buster-only run in the EXE games is generally hardest at the beginning and during the post-game, at least in 6. After you gain access to the Navi Cust, it becomes much easier as you find buster upgrade programs. Fighting Diveman in particular was absolutely crazy. Damned submarine spending 90% of the battle hiding underwater and taking potshots at you.
The rest of the run is pretty much a breeze (at least until the post-game, as then you'll have to worry about getting killed quickly) as soon as you get Attack and Charge to 5. This can be easily done as early as Circusman's scenario if you know the Number Trader code to get the Buster Pack or Attack MAX + Charge MAX Navicust programs. (I chose not to use those, and it took me until around the endgame to max those stats. I must have been running on 2 or 3 in each stat throughout Diveman, Circusman, and Judgeman's scenarios.)
edited 28th Feb '10 12:04:19 PM by Alilatias
I know someone was considering making a tool-assisted speedrun of EXE 5 DS where he'd manipulate a helpful bug to occur, causing the buster to fire fully-powered shots every time. (At first he was just going to see if Forte Cross or Sol Cross could be used.)
Gentleman Adventurer!
Bleh. Against regular enemies rather than viruses, I could dodge most any of their attacks all day but I do not have the patience to take them down with the buster. Against bosses, even the ones I could dodge for that long I would get bored of long before the buster would take them down.
Your funny quote here! (Maybe)
Yes, I was quite bored in my "minimalist" fights against Freeze Man and Gospel!
Oh yeah, and the Balloon chip series also has an attack value of only 10 if you fail to power it up. I'm only familiar with the first two EXE games, and I've already found this many battle chips with such low base damage!
Well, just beat Mega Man 6 with only the arm cannon, now working on Mega Man 7.
Dang, Freeze Man took me quite a few tries to beat. He was blitzing me all over the place with his freezing attacks! Took me a little while to learn that he'd react to your cannon shots.
Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.
As far as I'm concerned, only the original series is "real" Mega Man. Z at least tries to contain the elements that made the original (IMO) cool. The rest? Just random games with the name "Mega Man" attached, as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, and as bad as the MM 7 cutscene dubbing was, the voices of the bosses themselves were pretty good. Self-doubting Astro Man, noble Sword Man, Bobcat Goldthwait-like Grenade Man... I liked the extra personality it gave them.
edited 1st Mar '10 3:29:51 AM by Leaper
Meh, I may have never played any of the Battle Network and related games, and have no real interest, but I see no need to decry them as not "true" Mega Man games. They're made by Capcom, they have a blue character named Mega Man that blows stuff up, I'm cool with it. Plus I like the idea that the whole setting is a sort of Alternate Reality where Light went into computer network research instead of robotics, and Wily was left out in the cold again.
Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.
Yeah, but I understand the concern that the actual gameplay has almost nothing to do with the platformer series. That's why I said once that maybe the best way to attract Mega Man fans to the Battle Network series is to put in platformer sections as the mini-games or side-quests, rather than making trivial mini-games or overly experimental sections like the "liberation missions", and not just making whole platformer games like Network Transmission or the Wonder Swan one that try to integrate EXE concepts where they don't always fit.
Alright then. Just beat Mega Man 10 a while ago. So I'm going to put some spoilers just in case. This game is actually quite fun, I kind of like the challenges that some of these stages can dish out, I've gotten quite a few number of Game Overs mostly in the Wily Stages. Found it to be a bit more difficult than Mega Man 9, but I think that's because I was doing a blind run.
As for the bosses, Blade Man, Pump Man and Sheep Man are quite easy to beat with the Buster so I'd recommended heading to those stages first. I'd say some of the weapons are useless, but it's way too really for me to say that just yet.
Speaking of such, the battles against the Wily Archives in the first Wily Stage were quite a bonus treat considering you have to fight data blocks that emulate Elec Man, Wood Man, Gemini Man, Ring Man, Napalm Man, Flame Man, Slash Man, Frost Man & Tornado Man in sets of 3. The second Fortress was more of meh for me personally, the boss didn't stick out to me. Stage 3 was a pain in the ass for me, especially the Block Devil boss. I got the first wave down, but the second one keeps hitting me.
After that, it's the obligatory Teleporter Room. And after that stage, it's the final battle with Dr. Wily.... IN SPACE! Again.
Overall, one of my more favorite entry in the series. Music was a bit of a downgrade from Mega Man 9 as far as the main Robot Master stage themes go, but I think that the boss theme can make up for it. Plus I personally think the design of the Wily Castle in this game puts most other castle to shame.
So, is it worth the 1000 download cost? Personally, I would think so. Now I just need to wait for the OST to be released.
edited 1st Mar '10 5:23:59 PM by Mr.Pastry
Mega Man 10... Ah, I have no way to play it. Sucks to be me.
—-
Bag of Magic Food, you've only played the first two EXE games? Yeah, you're right, there are plenty of battlechips with very low attack value.
I think the most famous ones are:
- The Vulcan series of battlechips that are found in EXE 4-6 (think 20-damage non-elemental Heat Shot/Bubbler that rapid-fires shots, the most powerful version is the Super Vulcan which fires 12 times)
- The Risky Honey series of battlechips found in 6 (Base damage is 10-20 depending on the version used. They generate a hive shield that, when you are hit with a non-fire attack while the shield is active, sends out multiple homing clusters of bees that attacks 5 times per cluster. Hornet Man would KILL for a weapon like this).
However, if there's anything that the series has taught me, it's that you should not underestimate these battlechips. At all. Such battlechips tend to have THE highest damage potential in the entire series, usually two or three times greater than that of the average Program Advance.
(Bag, I'm sure you've already seen what I have said about the Risky Honey battlechips over at The Megaman Network, but I'll explain it again here anyways, for the people who don't visit the forums there.)
In short:
- (Double Point + Risky Honey 3 + Attack +30 + Attack +10 + Attack +10) x Full Synchro/Tomhawk Cross Grass Charge
- (60 + 20 + 30 + 10 + 10) x 2 = 260 damage.
- Each cluster attacks 5 times. 1300 damage.
- The hive shield sends out up to 3 clusters when hit. 3900 damage.
(For those who aren't familiar with EXE, this is completely overkill, by the way. The post-game bosses of 6 tend to have anywhere between 2000-3000 HP. Also, replace one of those Attack +10 with a Number Point, and you can easily break 4000 damage. This is a total [censored] to set up though.)
—-
Anyways, Bag of Magic Food, on the topic of the [Element] Ball battlechips of EXE 2... There's a combo that I have been wanting to test out for a while, but no longer have the chance to due to my brother selling my DS behind my back. So I hope you (and any onlookers here) can have fun with it.
(For those not familiar with the EXE series and/or do not know what the Element Ball and Prism battlechips do...
The Element Balls generate a balloon that slowly floats forward. It stores a damage value that increases equal to what you attack it with, up to a maximum 999 [element used] damage. When the balloon hits an object or an enemy, it explodes, and all damage stored is unleashed on the entire enemy field. If the balloon reaches the other side of the enemy field without striking anything, it just explodes harmlessly.
Prism is a fan-favorite battlechip, mostly because it's so damn fun to experiment with (and watch bosses, especially Forte and Blues in EXE 3, kill themselves with it). Basically, you throw it into the enemy field, and if it is attacked, it reflects the damage to all surrounding panels.)
I'm thinking of using the Elec or Fire Ball battlechips, powering them up, and then throw a Prism into the middle of the enemy field right before the balloon reaches that panel.
- In theory, at full power, it'd cause 1998 damage. At the very minimum.
- If the enemy is weak to Fire or Elec (or the field consists of Ice or Grass panels), it'd be 3996 damage.
- If the enemy happens to be weak to Fire or Elec AND the field consists of Grass or Ice panels, it'd be 7992 damage. (Hello, Toadman and Freezeman. Too bad the Prism part won't work on Planetman due to the lack of panels on his field.)
However, I am completely unsure if the Prism reflect damage is the same element as the attack that was used on it, or if it's non-elemental. If it's non-elemental... 3996 if weakness or field, 5994 if weakness and field.
(Of course, anything over 2000 damage is overkill in EXE 2, but I'm just calculating all of this for fun, and for the off-chance that I somehow run into a hacker at college with 9999 HP and get WTF reactions from him. That, and I feel like doing something other than Gater/Life Sword 3 spamming.)
edited 1st Mar '10 8:50:47 PM by Alilatias
You could defeat Life Virus in MMBN 1 with only the buster?
I thought the fully charged buster only went up to 90 damage, and you need 100 damage to break his shield.
Life Virus' Aura goes down whenever he is about to attack.
So, Mega Man 10 is good? Awesome. I'm literally playing through every Mega Man game I can get my hands on at the moment, but I'm going to wait on buying the newest one until I beat the ones I have. My current stats:
Mega Man 1-5 and 7, currently working on 9 (just got to Wily's castle) and II (GB version, beat the first set of RM). Mega Man X1-X4, currently working on X5 (on Sigma stages). Mega Man Battle Network (never finished due to short attention span, trying again, just beat Stone Man).
And I'm about to start Mega Man Legends. I hear X6, the Zero series, and the later BN games are Nintendo Hard, so I'm really looking forward to those.
I read somewhere that Planet Man V 3 has 3300 HP in Hard mode. If I ever get that far again, I may just see whether a Prism and a Balloon can co-exist!
Michael JJ: To be honest, the later EXE games aren't really Nintendo Hard until you get to the post-game. Even then, they're still not that hard, you just have to experiment with your folder and tactics.
I'd say that EXE 3 would be the hardest one of them all, due to very good boss attack/defense pattern design. (Almost all of 3's bosses are designed to take advantage of the field in some way. You can't simply brute force most of them like you can in 1.)
Bag Of Magic Food: Actually, I just remembered that the Prism part won't work on Planetman, since his entire field lacks panels (minus the one he's standing on). It should still be hilariously funny to use it on Freezeman, assuming you can time it so that the balloon explodes before he puts up his Ice Barrier again.
Alilatias: Oh, right. I forgot about that.
Is there no way to fill in panels that start out empty?
I don't think there is any way to fill in panels that start out empty in any EXE game. Bummer too.
However, now that I think about it even more... Even if there were a way to get a Prism onto Planetman's side of the field, his damned pair of rotating planets and/or the obnoxiously tiny airplane would likely slam into the Prism first and ruin everything anyways.
Fun. I guess we'll have to settle with setting up Grass Stage and using Heat Ball for 3996 damage.
...Not that we actually need to inflict any more.
I have one thing to say about Wily's Fortress in Mega Man 10: BEST. FORTRESS. EVER.
It actually looks more evil than most of Wily's other fortresses!
What, the outdoor portrait of it? That is an unusual camera angle...
Yeah, the outdoor portrait.
It looks menacing, although the tower that reaches into frickin outer space is a little overkill.
I don't suppose there'd be any way to get a screenshot of Wily's Fortress this time around? For us poor bastards without next-gen systems?
That does make me think, though. Playing through the Mega Man series, I was wondering: Which Wily's Fortress looked the best from the outside view?
For the longest time, I was going for the castle from MM 3. But let's have a look see on this page.
Alilatias: Darn. I read somewhere on this wiki that the games get harder as the series progresses, but I guess the entry played it up to be worse that it sounded. Still, that tends to happen to me.
Everyone says the Dragon in Mega Man 2 is That One Boss. Maybe he was toned down for Anniversary Collection, because he never gave me any problems...I beat him on my first try (or maybe my second, it's been awhile). The Yellow Devil, while definitly hard, was a bit overrated in that department as well. Now Wily in 1 and 7...yeah, they were tough.
Still, the Mega Man games are some of the hardest I've played. I'm looking forward to getting to some of the harder ones.
Not a Single life bar, just as many bars as you have extra lives.
edited 28th Feb '10 7:14:27 AM by TriggerLoaded
Don't take life too seriously. It's only a temporary situation.