Mega Man 1 Pro Tips

[Princess Rescuer]

Mega Man 1 is my favorite Mega Man game. It isn't most people's though- the game is very rough around the edges and is brutally unforgiving. There's more of an emphasis on precision platforming than any other Classic Mega Man game, and there are no E-Tanks or items to help you. You also have the fewest Weapons of any installment by far- only seven, not counting your lemon-shooting Plasma Cannon (that's what it was called before it being the Mega Buster). And while bosses in later games would execute predictable and repetitive patterns with little to no changes in tactics, Mega Man 1's bosses want you dead. In order to clear all ten levels in this short, but difficult game, you'll need to fight as dirty as possible. This will help if you're inexperienced at platform games.

This assumes you're playing the original version with no savestates. The Select Glitch will not be included as it is overpowered cheating.

A well-known tactic is to farm energy power-ups by exiting and re-entering a screen, commonly used in Wily 1 level to have enough Magnet Beam energy to reach the boss. This is useful in other areas of the game too- you can scroll the small health off of the screen in Wily 2, walk back to the left, and throw a Hyper Bomb at the enemy guarding it until you're at full health and can challenge Elec Man. And if there are no power ups laying around, you can walk back and forth or climb up and down to make enemies re-appear for unlimited chances at health and energy drops as well as the rare extra lives if you make careless mistakes easily. If you're more patient, you can repeat the same level over and over again, being sure to collect the pre-placed extra life in it. In the original version, the maximum is "09" lives (instead of 99 in Legacy) so you won't have to do this much. In addition to that, whenever you're low on lives (you have 00 or 01), game overs are your friend. Weapon energy (restored in a Game Over) is as important as lives, so you can decide whether you would rather have more or less.

Little known fact: one of the bosses, Cut Man, has multiple weaknesses. One of them is blocks thrown by the Super Arm. Problem is, you don't have any in the Wily 2 rematch. You do have the next best thing though- the Fire Storm, which does 3 damage and makes Cut Man easier to hit and his incessant high jumps more manageable.

One of the most challenging bosses, for many players, is Copy Mega Man. There is an easy method to beating him though- switch to either the Super Arm or Magnet Beam so Copy will walk away from you. Then attack him at a safe distance. If he gets close, just switch again. Tedious but effective.

The tipping platforms in the beginning of Guts Man's level give new players plenty of problems. They can be traversed effortlessly with the Magnet Beam- which is in Elec Man's level and is hidden behind blocks that can only be lifted with the Super Arm you get from Guts Man. Not to worry- if you don't feel like mastering them right then, you can simply beat Elec Man and use the Thunder Beam against the blocks on the second go. Once you collect the Magnet Beam, it won't be necessary to beat Elec Man again- you can simply Game Over then go to Guts Man or any other level you haven't completed yet.

In general, find uses for the useless weapons so you can save the good ones for later. When confronted with blocks, use the Super Arm so you have the Thunder Beam for later. When there's the ground enemies, try seeing if you can hit them with the Hyper Bomb instead of anything more useful. It takes practice and ingenuity, but it's worth it.

One last thing- learn how to risk it for every health power-up you can find (such as the alcove in Elec Man's level). Do so while using the reloading trick mentioned above to fully refill and be as safe as possible. Mega Man 1 is much easier than it seems.

Mega Man 1 is a cheap and frustrating game with many tricks up its sleeve, so you need your own tricks to trounce it. Master these methods, and little will faze you.