MEGA MAN 6

The mysterious Mr. X hosts the first ever Robot Master design contest. People from all over the world are invited to come and pit their creations against each other in a battle tournament. When the robot finalists are down to eight, Mr. X makes a startling announcement. (Well, startling for the game’s characters at any rate.)

Mr. X declares that the entire contest was a hoax, and that he used it to gather robots to use to take over the world. He claims to have been “manipulating” Dr. Wily this entire time (which sounds plausible), but in the end Mr. X reveals himself to be none other than the infamous evil scientist himself. (“I thought those pants and shoes looked familiar!”)

Mr. X, huh? What’s with the “X”s lately, anyway?

This game was licensed exclusively to Nintendo, and I think Nintendo did the manual and the box because one, Capcom isn’t really mentioned anywhere, and two, they’re a lot different than the other games’. Mega Man 6 doesn’t seem to be quite as good as the others; I think they rushed to get it out before the 8-bit Nintendo died, which I can understand seeing how abruptly it did so...

• What’s a Yamato?
  I asked some friends of mine who know Japanese—who double-checked with a Japanese college professor—and the answer was that Yamato basically represents Japan itself.
  
  To some Japanese, I was told, Yamato is “home.” It was originally a province in early Japan (4th to 8th century) where it was the center of Japanese cultural and political activities. From what I understand “Yamato” is beloved by many Japanese because of what it symbolizes and thus the word has been used in many other places in Japan, as names of people, battleships, Robot Masters, and so forth. So you’re going to hear the word all over the place for all sorts of things.
• Isn’t there a secret passage in Wily’s fortress?
  Yep. There are a couple. Generally however they are merely alternate routes which happen to include goodies such as Energy Tanks along the way. You don’t find anything earth-shattering there.

Odd, this seems to be oil I’m standing in...uh oh.

Play Control:

This game was a bit of a step down from some of the others, though the control was still decent.

Graphics:

The graphics are very detailed, even to the point of hiding enemies behind the scenery. In particular, I love the trees in Plant Man’s stage. Great stuff here.

Animation:

The enemies were okay, and most of Mega Man’s sprites were the same, but his new ones oddly enough looked flat.

Music:

The music was very...strange. Kinda tingey and staticy all at the same time. You’d have to hear it to know what I mean. To top it off, none of the tunes were all that catchy, either.

Sound Effects:

Most of the sound effects were okay, and there was the added touch that many more enemies than usual had sound effects (though since only one sound could play at a time, many times you would mask the enemy sounds with the sounds of Mega Man’s jumps and shots). However, some of the sounds suffered from the same tingey-ness as the music.

Your weapon is a bit antique there, huh?

Plot:

Okay, so maybe no one bought into the “Mr. X” stuff. At least the plot was somewhat creative and also provided a perfect opportunity for a USA robot design contest.

Difficulty: (normal)

Using the Rush Jet makes the game a lot easier to play, plus Beat is here too.

Replay Value:

The Rush Adapters were about the only saving grace for this game—that and trying out the multiple paths that existed in many of the stages. I don’t find myself going back to it much at all. The music is too grating anyway.

Polish:

This game had a lot of attempts, such as the fake Robot Masters and the Rush Adapters, but it just seemed rushed for some reason, which I suppose I can understand since it was one of the last games for the NES...

Overall: 75%

I didn’t care for the game as much, and unfortunately for it, it was overshadowed by the previous Mega Man games.

+ Plus:

The Rush Adapters are pretty fun and are used fairly extensively, naturally, being this game’s gimmick.

This order will allow you to get all of the items without backtracking while still giving you decent weapons to use against the Robot Masters. However it does jump around the circle a bit so you won’t always have the right weapon for each Robot Master; if you have troubles, go in the order of the weapons rather than the items.

• Plant Man (Use Mega Buster and stay in a corner)
• Wind Man (Use Centaur Flash if you have it)
• Flame Man (Use Wind Storm)
• Tomahawk Man (Use Plant Barrier and stay close to him)
• Yamato Man (Use Silver Tomahawk)
• Knight Man (Use Yamato Spear. If you don’t have it, shoot only when he’s jumping or tossing his mace at you)
• Centaur Man (Use Knight Crush. Stand close to the center and his shots will miss you)
• Blizzard Man (Use Flame Blast and don’t stay in a corner!)

Original screen shot from Drageuth

Track Duo:

These are two pods that move along some tracks in the wall and drop little bombs underneath them. Try not to stand under them. You can hit them with the Flame Blast when they are on the bottom rail—just shoot it at the floor and let the track machine run into it. The Plant Barrier does good damage but often is wasted by the shots from the pods and is difficult to hit with besides. You can also simply resort to charged shots from your Mega Buster or Rush Power suit.

Wall Walker:

This moves up and down the far wall shooting plasma shots and dropping boulders on your head. Use Silver Tomahawk or Knight C. As with many of these bosses, the Rush Power suit does good damage if you can hit with it.

Met Tank:

Yep, Wily has graduated a Met into a boss by placing him into a tank. You have to keep moving away from the tank because the floor is scrolling (representing the tank moving toward you). Some of the tank’s shots you can just stand underneath. Jump and shoot the Blizzard Attack toward the Met itself and you should hit with at least one snowflake. You can also hit by shooting from the floor at certain positions.

Mr. X:

He swings back and forth in a spiked ball. The only real trick to this battle is being able to jump the sphere shots he rolls along the floor without slamming straight into the ball. The Flame Blast does the most damage, though you have to shoot it while you are jumping and while the spiked ball is heading toward you in order for it to hit, so it can be a little tricky to aim. Of course, just charge up the Mega Buster for a last resort.

Dino:

He stands still and shoots platforms (yes, platforms) and fireballs at you. Just jump on a platform, wait until it raises you high enough, and shoot at the dino’s eyes. Touching the platforms doesn’t seem to hurt you even if they hit you from the side or even when they blow up at the top of the screen, so all you really have to worry about are the fireballs. Use the Yamato Spear or Mega Buster shots. Alternately, I believe that with the Rush Power suit you can use charged punches to hit the platforms back at him. Thanks to the readers who reminded me of this and I kept neglecting to add it.

Cycle Cannon:

This cycle just keeps heading toward you. You can knock it back with your shots, but to damage it you have to hit the main body of the cannon. It’s constantly tossing shots at you to make things difficult. However, once it gets close, you can jump and toss a Wind Storm right into its main compartment. If you run out of that or can’t hit with it, try the Yamato Spear.

Wily 1st time:

He starts off as a giant...thing with a spiked bottom. (Doesn’t kill you instantly—it just hurts.) He jumps and tries to land on you while shooting. And all of this is done on an auto-scrolling floor. Get close to him (but don’t touch him!) and wait until he jumps, then slide out of the way. Incongruously, you can shoot any part of him. The Silver Tomahawk does good damage but I would save it for later. Just shoot him with the Knight Crush or Rush Power shots or whatever works for you.

Wily 2nd time:

When you defeat the tank the first time, the cockpit is revealed and Wily’s energy meter refills. Now he tends to leap toward you, then hop back to his starting place. Don’t stand close to him, but give yourself room to dodge as well. The same weapons as before are useful here.

Wily 3rd time:

The Silver Tomahawk is good here because of the way it moves upward. With proper positioning, you can hit Wily with it in just about any location he appears. Other weapons can do decent damage when Wily is low enough to hit with them.

Thanks to Danny for aid in fleshing out this section.

I really shouldn’t, but here’s the entire password crack for Mega Man 6. And a generator for you lazy-type folks.

And we have lift-off!
• Rush Jet Adapter: Get it by defeating Plant Man.
• Rush Power Adapter: Obtained from Flame Man.
• Energy Balancer: It’s in Tomahawk Man’s stage. You need Rush Power. Where I told you to go under the ledge for the “B” letter (below), go over the ledge instead. In the next room is a ladder leading up, and right next to it (on its left) is a wall. The bottom bricks of the wall are breakable. You’ll have to hang onto the bottom rung of the ladder and bash the block with the Rush Power from there. Don’t fall onto the spikes!

Beat

Four stages have two rooms in which you can fight the Robot Masters. If you go to the correct one, you get a letter. If you go to the wrong one, you still get the Master Weapon, but not the letter, and if you return to the stage the Robot Master will be back as well (so that you can try for the letter). Of course you do not need to get Beat to “beat” the game (sorry, I had to), but for those that want the little bird, here are the paths to the correct Robot Masters.

(Note: On the stage select screen, when you clear a stage you will see one of three things in that stage’s box: an icon of a letter (showing that you got that letter), a 1-Up icon (meaning there is no letter to find in that stage), and nothing (blank). Any box with any icon means that stage is cleared. If you get an empty box, go back to that stage and see what you missed.)

• B: Tomahawk Man’s stage. After the giant sun and the Met Dispenser, you’ll find a room with a ledge running down the center. Use Rush Jet to fly underneath the ledge (where the Shield Attackers are).
• E: Yamato Man’s stage. You’ll come to a spot with two ladders, one leading up and the other down. Go up. (You need Rush Jet of course.)
• A: Knight Man’s stage. Use Rush Power to break through the block right by the gate, and head down that tunnel instead.
• T: Centaur Man’s stage. Go through the first gate you come to. You need Rush Jet to get over there.

Not really a secret, and not a useful trick either, but some of the stages change color schemes evidently depending on whether you have found their Beat parts or not. This would be a handy cue except that you can tell just looking at the stage select screen, which is faster anyway.

This is one of the three or so endings where Wily’s fortress actually doesn’t blow up or collapse or anything. Mega Man actually manages to catch the scientist, and he promptly turns him over to justice. In this game you see a close-up of Mega Man firmly holding onto a bound and secured scientist. Then you see Wily ranting and raving right before prison bars appear in front of him. Before the credits the game demos the Robot Masters (instead of just listing them) to a medley of their stage tunes. Then after the credits, on a black screen with stars, comes the text “To be continued...”