Mega Man 8

This rains down a torrent of comets, pummeling anything in the area. The user is not only immune from its effects, but he is also completely protected from outside attacks until just before the hail of comets ends.

Weapon energy emulates a flaming sword, which the user slashes in an arc. Although it has short range, this is capable of igniting things.

The Flash Bomb creates an explosion big enough for Mega Man to stand within. Since the weapon does not harm its user, you can utilize this to shield yourself from foes by hiding in the explosion, which lasts for a few seconds. It is also possible to switch weapons and fire something different even while the Flash Bomb is exploding.

A homing missile. A nifty feature of this weapon is it gives you a targeting cursor that shows you what the missile is seeking out. It is rare for a Homing Sniper to miss its target once it is locked on.

Shards of ice travel along the ground. This seems to last until it goes completely off the screen or runs into a wall or pit, so if you are fast, you can potentially follow behind it for quite a while.

This fires a short beam of electricity straight forward. The Thunder Claw is capable of latching onto certain objects, and is tensile enough to allow the user to use it to grapple.

Creates a vertical tornado which can both damage enemies as well as lift the user upward. This is an extremely handy weapon to have while exploring, thanks to its ability to get you to places much higher than you could reach normally.

Tosses water balloons (of all things) in a forward arc. If the Salt Water weapon didn’t make enemies fall over laughing, this one certainly will. Needless to say this weapon is limited both in its damage capability and its strategic uses.

Energy pellets refill your life meter. The small ones refill 2 units—not a lot, but it can really add up.

These globes are the same as energy pellets except that more energy is refilled.

The colored pellets are weapon energy. They refill your current weapon or adapter rather than your life energy. Weapon energy changes color according to which weapon you are currently equipped with. Before picking up a pellet be sure to equip a weapon that needs the energy.

These are the same as weapon energy pellets except that more energy is refilled.

Extra lives. If you have one of these when you bite the dust, you’ll be given another chance at the stage, restarting at the furthest continue point that you’d reached.

Bolts are components used to build items at the lab. There are a specific number of these hidden in specific spots of the stages. You can thus only find each Bolt once per game.

A ball that Mega Man drops to the ground and kicks around. Press the fire button with this equipped to drop a ball; you can then walk into it to dribble it, or press fire again to kick it. When kicked it rebounds off objects and bounces around for a short time or until it goes off the screen or damages something. Alternately, try jumping on it—you can use it like a springboard. Just note that when jumping, you must land the point of Mega Man’s lower foot on the ball in order to make contact.

You as a player can no longer call on Rush Jet yourself. Instead there are “flying” stages where you are automatically riding the Rush Jet, and he never runs out of energy. Pick up icons from Surprise Shells to allow Rush to fire, and/or to get help from Eddie, Beat, and/or Auto.

This is like the hoverbikes in Mega Man X2. Rush has a counter which decreases as time goes by and when he gets hit; once the counter ends, Rush leaves. Note that if you get off the bike early, you still can’t use it again for that stage. The primary use of this item is to make Mega Man invincible—when you get hit while on the cycle, Rush takes the damage rather than Mega Man.

Rush teleports in and drops a random power-up, much like Eddie. The nice thing about this one is that you often get the Yashichi item previously only seen in Mega Man (1). This item acts like a Super Tank—it refills all of your weapons as well as Mega Man’s energy meter.

Rush flies back and forth across the top of the screen dropping bombs. Again, he does this until the timer expires. There is no way to make him go away early.

This is the same as the Rush Bomber except instead of dropping bombs, Rush drops energy capsules and pellets. The timer on this mode is very short, but you should be able to refill your life energy at least.

Charged-up Mega Buster shots are fired as a yellow arrow of energy which splits into six when it strikes something. This doesn’t make your shots more powerful, but can increase their reach. You must select this on the subscreen before it takes effect.

This one disables the Mega Buster completely; instead, when your arm cannon reaches full charge it begins rapid-firing automatically. Not very useful as you can get the same effect with a quick thumb or a turbo controller. You must select this on the subscreen before it takes effect.

Mega Man’s shots turn blue and travel faster, similar to the Turbo Accelerators obtained in Mega Man IV and V. This is useful because it allows you to fire more shots more quickly.

This allows you to pick up weapon energy and refill weapons even if you aren’t equipped with them. The EB machine will fill the weapon which needs the energy most first, but you can override its choices by equipping the weapon desired. In this game, if your current weapon is full on energy, the weapon energy will go to another weapon instead.

This increases the number of times you can fire each weapon on a single stock of energy. Basically this reduces the energy required to fire.

If you pick up life energy when Mega Man’s energy bar is full, the energy is converted into weapon energy, and is basically treated as if you had picked up weapon energy instead. Not especially useful since your weapons are refilled anyway whenever you lose a life. (Too bad the conversion doesn’t go the other way around...)

Enables the green panel on the subscreen, which, when selected, allows you to exit a stage at any time once you’ve defeated that stage’s Robot Master. You can thus only use the Exit in stages you can revisit; for example it can’t be used in fortress stages. This item is primarily a shortcut to allow you to search for items without having to go all the way to the end of the stage every time. However you can also use it to avert death in many cases—if you’re about to die, open the subscreen and exit. You’ll lose any progress you’d made through the stage so it might be better to just sacrifice a 1-Up instead, but it is a possibility.

Charged-up Mega Buster shots are fired as a giant laser. This laser isn’t any more powerful than the normal Mega Buster, but it will pass through anything. This means you can hit multiple enemies by firing at a group, and can also often take multiple hits on a single object as the laser passes through it. You can also even hit enemies who are guarded from the front, such as Sniper Joes. The laser will pass through the Joe’s shield and hit him anyway. You must select this on the subscreen before it takes effect.

Reduces the Horizontal Recoil (as seen in the Stats section) to zero (0). Zippo. None. Note, however, that you can still be pushed around by things like wind and trains.

Three shots are fired every time you press the fire button. Not recommended unless coupled with the Shooting Part, since otherwise you cannot fire again until your previous shots go off the screen or hit something.

You can have up to five arm cannon shots on the screen at a time. (Otherwise it’s only three.) This can allow you to fire more rapidly because you don’t have to wait as much for your previous shots to disappear before firing more.

Recovers your extra lives to the normal starting number whenever you exit a stage, unless you already have that many or more lives. As with some others (particularly the Exit unit), this one’s usefulness is delimited by the fact that you have infinite continues.

You start and continue with four extra lives (five total counting the one you’re using) instead of two.

Mega Man climbs ladders faster. This part is rather pointless except to laugh at how ridiculous his ladder-climbing animation looks sped up.

Increases the amount of energy you or your weapon recover when you pick up an energy pellet or capsule. This can really get you out of a jam when you’re deep in a fortress.

Mega Man was once a household robot named Rock, but when Dr. Wily turned evil, Rock was converted by his creator Dr. Light into the fighting robot known as Mega Man. This small blue robot is equipped with twin arm cannons and the Weapon Copy system which lets him take weapons from defeated foes.

Mega Man’s canine companion, this is a robot dog built by Dr. Light to aid in Mega Man’s travels. Rush is always ready to respond to Mega Man’s call; when Mega Man needs use of a Rush form, his dog teleports in, does his thing, and leaves. Any weapon energy you pick up while you have a Rush form equipped (even if Rush isn’t on the screen at the time) goes to that Rush form.

This large robot with a fist half the size of Mega Man was one of the two that crashed into Mega Man’s planet. He was the one recovered and repaired by Dr. Light. He searches the universe on a quest to find and eliminate all dark energy.

Dr. Wily’s finest creation, Bass was modeled after Mega Man down to the Weapon Copy and his own variation of Rush. An independent robot who enjoys fighting, his only goal in life is to prove he is the strongest robot in existence. As a consequence, he is obsessed with defeating Mega Man.

This is Bass’s companion much how Mega Man has Rush. Treble is capable of forming the Treble Boost, an armor much like Mega Man’s Super Adapter which gives Bass better power and the ability to fly.

This is the scientist that started it all, for he was the one who first created revolutionary human-like robots. He was responsible for creating Mega Man and Roll, and he worked with Dr. Wily for a time.

Dr. Wily was once Dr. Light’s partner, but then he turned against his former colleague and tried to take over the world. Even after being defeated repeatedly by Mega Man, he has yet to give up.

This mysterious robot was constructed by Dr. Light before Mega Man was even built. He likes to be on his own, doing things his way. He often pops in during the games, usually with his characteristic whistle, to give his brother Mega Man items or advice, or to just plain pull him out of a jam.

She was also built by Dr. Light as a housekeeping robot, and is Mega Man’s sister. Roll now runs the Item Replicator in place of Auto, who decided to take to the field and help Mega Man.

Dr. Light’s bumbling robot assistant. Auto grabs a jet pack and a cannon in this game and helps Mega Man during the “shooter” stages.

In this game Beat only appears during the Rush Jet flying stages, where he helps you attack enemies by jetting forward whenever you release a charged shot.

Like Auto and Beat, Eddie helps you during Rush Jet stages. He dons a jet pack and flies around dropping bombs on enemies.

Aqua Man is another blast; I suppose it is due to the fact that he’s fighting you with a water cannon. He can do all sorts of bizarre things with the water that lines the bottom of his room, making the liquid seem almost like gel. His attacks are pretty easy to dodge, however, if you stay across the room from him. Use the Astro Crush to make your life even easier.

This robot fights on a holographic background of space. His Astro Crush is quite hard to dodge unless Mega Man is in the process of using that exact same weapon himself. However, Homing Snipers can prevent Astro Man from ever evoking his hail of meteors, for they knock him right out of the sky...er, airless void.

After all of the Robot Master design contests, I was wondering when Capcom would use one of the numerous Clown Mans. This robot is a trip mostly for his comments, and is one of the more entertaining Robot Masters to battle. For maximum amusement, hit him with a few Tornado Holds; you can even swipe him right off his swing. When Clown Man gets tangled up in his own stretchable arms, don’t bother with tornados; blast him with the Mega Buster.

This giant robot is the typical all brawn, no brain variety. He likes mass producing ice sculptures of Mega Man himself just to smash to pieces. But despite his hulking size, Frost Man can be taken down quite easily with the Flash Bomb. Nail him in the chest and he will fall back, covering his head with his arms. The brute isn’t as tough as he appears.

Grenade Man is rather small but fights with a fervor. He was built to enjoy battle, and it shows. He tosses Flash Bombs left and right, and will even destroy the floor when he is sufficiently damaged, much as Sunstar does. Although Grenade Man is not immune to his own bombs, he will chuckle when you hit him with them. Besides obtaining the weapon yourself, you can also use the Thunder Claw to knock the bombs he fires right back into him.

This guy proves that two heads aren’t better than one. Search Man seems to operate just fine with them, but they don’t appear to give him much added advantage. Although he is basically immune to his own homing missiles (he even hits himself with them!), he is quite vulnerable to fire. When the three bushes appear, slash each one with the Flame Sword. If you find where Search Man is hiding, you will ignite him nicely.

Sword Man’s body is separated into two halves, apparently to support the giant sword built into one of his arms. Sword Man can use this to his advantage to ignite his sword and hurl his upper body toward Mega Man in a spinning vortex of fire. His Flame Sword is quite a hot item (it’s stolen goods, after all), so it’s no surprise that Sword Man and his weapon can be cooled off with a few Water Balloons. (I didn’t just say that, did I?)

Tengu Man fights with the boldness of a teenager. One arm hoists his tri-blade dagger, which is the source of his tornados. Tengu Man will also do a swooping dive attack which leaves him quite vulnerable to ground attacks. His Tornado Hold can be broken with an Ice Wave, and he can also be frozen in place during a dive.