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HideofBeast

Toad Man

Nov 6th, 2011
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  1. I want to preface this by saying this is another of this game's stronger levels, with a nice smattering of gimmicks, one in particular that I adore, and one of the funnest fights. That said, was this ever an absolute bastard to pull off.
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  3. Things start out tough enough in the first extended sewer section, with that movement-impeding water we've all grown to recognize. I'm not whining about its inclusion, it's applied trickily, not obnoxiously. I also like the unique physics and sprite for Mega Man on the slopes that make up most of this section's terrain. But it sure makes those frogs unfriendly. Trying to maneuver around their young on slopped terrain with a constant current is a nightmare if you don't pay attention to how you go about it. This is all about measured destruction if you want to get through with the buster alone, because you will be flatly overwhelmed if you let scores of three bounce all around the unwieldy terrain. An opportune charged shot to clear two while you let the other live to stop another assault is the best bet. This is hounded by another variety of frog hailing from Mega Man 7, and these guys are more trouble than they're worth to keep alive. Best to pick them off in advance, outside of a couple select gives where you actually have pass to sleuth by your enemies. The hoppers are bit of an afterthought and are really only a part of this enemy assortment because, well, y'know, hopping. The real hair-raiser in this section is watching the ticking time bombs that are the frog young slowly close in on you while you work to kill the mother. Overall, a smart and tense combination of enemies. It's concluded by an odd semi-maze (in true sewer fashion, I suppose) in an endless scrolling of two screens with a hidden passage out. It's too fun not to slide down these passages a little before eyeballing the differently-colored wall and going about our business.
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  5. After a unique frog, we meet this game's defacto Proto Man, and it's... Shadow Man? Well, okay. He's riding a gigantic frog so you'll hear no complaints from me. This is the first of several Shadow Man encounters and he's an aggressive piece of work here. He chooses between his attacks randomly and he chooses fast. This is a pretty high-octane encounter for a miniboss fight, and it's also relatively tough to manage just by virtue of the many different actions you're required to take with respect to each attack. His jump is by far the most threatening if you aren't paying close enough attention, especially if he decides to use it multiple times in a row. But it's also an easy opportunity to hit him. The fire breath is really just an excuse to make you waste a charged shot, and the small frogs he releases are an excuse to distract you before he sends a shadow blade or his frog directly into your chest. Solid fight, moderate challenge, but I wish he'd duel me somewhere else, because this stage is enough of a nightmare to accomplish without him. You get a quick segue between main segments in a very nifty bit of platforming that's especially appreciable once you realize it's designed to let you avoid everything if you never stop moving. This is followed by a kind of amusingly useless crusher. Trust me, I wish all of these things had easy outs to deal with them.
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  7. Following this is one of this game's coolest gimmicks and the second in a row to make me question why land chaser segments are the worst things ever in Mega Man if it's apparently so easy to make an entertaining one. In this instance of Rush Jet Adventures, he again follows below Mega Man at all times, but you can now jump with him. As always, sliding will give you both a boost in speed, and you can gain back ground by sliding left if you advance too far. You can shoot freely and, because the wind and current are still in effect on Mega Man, get really good air time if you hold right while in the wind. The coolest thing is the fact that you can jump off of Rush when you've already jumped with him, creating a double jump and very neat obstacle course. The best part of this energetic section? Your obstacles aren't instant kill. Hit a wall, or hit a spike, and all you'll feel is indignity. You're allowed to screw up.
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  9. And now, welcome to the most intensive fight in this game.
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  11. Toad Man is by a wide margin the hardest Robot Master to do damageless and borrows a lot of inspiration from Quick Man, in that his movement can become highly unleaded at the worst of times, and is an exercise in nerves the rest of the time. Toad Man works on a trigger system: whenever you close in a specific distance or fire upon him, Toad Man will unleash himself upon the room in one of three ways: either he'll jump to the ceiling, jump to a wall, or jump at Mega Man. The jumps to the ceiling and wall are both beyond fast, and dodging the jump to the wall isn't even a slim possibility. You need to be out of its trajectory before he does it, which means distance is your friend. Should he jump at you, it will be a slow (comparatively) maneuver, which you should slide away from and use as an opportunity to get some space before he begins his next assault. The jump to the ceiling takes care of itself and is basically a shortcut to his next routine.
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  13. Frog Man can rebound to and from the walls and ceiling with wanton disregard for a pattern, and reminds me of a bastard cross between Slash Man and Sigma. You don't want to wig out while he's dancing up there. By far the best approach is to stand still and wait for him to launch into an attack. If he's on the ceiling, this is primarily going to be a very quick leap to your position, which necessitates a quick slide. If he's on the wall, he'll primarily bounce between each wall waiting to pounce after an unknowable number of fakeouts. Like Slash Man, he can also decide to simply fall from either wall and the ceiling, so you need to account for this in your placement. Basically, stay the fuck away from the corners. The real nightmare of this fight is the fact that being within a certain proximity of Frog Man on the ground will immediately spur him to begin his cycle again, and without the necessary distance to account for his wide variety of options, luck is an inevitable component to this.
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  15. Your only reliable (and indeed, safe) opportunity to fire upon him is immediately before he becomes invulnerable from his Frog spell (or shortly after it concludes), which grants him temporary invincibility, or, if you're sharp enough, immediately after he homes in on you from the ceiling, which though very hard to dodge, is an attack you hope to see often because the longer this fight lasts, the more opportunity there is to be unavoidably screwed by Toad Man's unhinged bullshit. This boils down to you needing 14 sweet spots in the midst of a nightmarish battle of reflexes and odds. Outside of your assured bets, keeping your eye out for any uncommon opportunity to fire upon him is essential to boost the probability of a quick fight. Again, there really is no denying the need for luck to be on your side here. It's at least as unpredictable as Quick Man at his worst and you have about an equal amount of actions that reflex or planning is sufficient for, which is to say not enough.
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  17. By far the most likely way to get screwed is by his jump to the wall from the ground, because of the inevitable distance required before it's undertaken to avoid, and how often that distance isn't possible by virtue of everything else. Anytime you find yourself facing Toad Man prone on the ground (IE, he landed sufficiently far from you to stop his movement), take the opportunity to walk to a corner. It's the only time in the fight you should be near one, but it means that should he jump toward your wall, you will not be hit. Anything little thing to boost your chances helps. Of course, one complication and indeed one more always-available trick of his is to latch onto the lowest point of a wall, which he has no problem doing, from the ground, which instigates a completely unavoidable attack unless you were preemptively near the middle and sliding, which is never going to be the case.
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  19. With that cleared, even the consistent components to the battle come with their own complications. The way the rain works in this fight is it will enclose either side of wherever Mega Man was at the moment Toad Man begins casting, as in, the moment he starts falling to the floor. This is especially obscured by the fact that he can start casting from any height, so you really need to keep your eyes on his motions. This is still a relatively simple thing to account for so you can take your breather and your opportunity to hurt him. When he is enraged, things get much worse. There's no change to his speed or aggression. That's enough of a pain anyway. All his new tricks concern the rain. Now, he will randomly choose between one of two configurations: either directly above Mega Man's head, or in a rapid, wide weave on either side of him. These are obviously incongruous patterns that demand incongruous approaches. Namely, standing still or getting the fuck out of the way. The only tell given on which configuration is going to be used is in the timing. The direct attack comes out very quickly, while the weave is somewhat delayed. This means you should always be assuming the direct attack is coming, and if it does not, quickly reposition yourself so that you're in the safe spot before the weave begins. This is a one-trick pony, but it's not the kind of diversion you need added to an already lunatic battle.
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  21. I feel the need to stress that is an incredibly high-octane, fun and well-designed fight. Unlike Quick Man whose shoddy AI is the cause for necessitated luck in his fight, as evidenced by him routinely shoving himself against a wall should you roll big, Frog Man's patterns and behavior are entirely deliberate. I don't necessarily agree with a degree of uncertainty inherently driving your boss's design, something a fully-reflex heavy fight like the original Shadow Man never fell to, but it isn't imposed to an unreasonable degree. In fact, this fight took summarily less attempts than a damageless fight with Quick Man would take me, despite fairly equal odds of getting trapped. That, and the frog spell leaves the fight at a reasonable and appreciated pace, giving breathers in an otherwise frenetic, rising, overwhelming assault on your nerves. Toad Man is worthy of his title as hardest Robot Master (at least under these basal conditions) in Minus Infinity, and the most exhilarating.
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