bad game is actually good? no

I hope nobody minds if I post another one then. It's not like this thread is a hotbed of activity right now.

Clash Man's level is a lot more fun than its NES counterpart, and a good one to tackle first. It is also completely fucked. You've got mismatched tiles all over the place, spikes that are both pure evil and utter incompetence, Tellys that you can completely ignore, Tellys without any pipes, pipes without any Tellys and one absolutely baffling moment halfway through the level, which even if you read nothing else give that a look because it's just so bizarre. Also, the music reminds me of NES Bubble Man. I kind of wonder if they started remixing MM2's tunes here before finding out they couldn't use Bubble Man, going "fuck it" and giving up on putting any actual effort into the rest of it.

Air Shooter actually has a couple of moments to shine in this level. It actually works on Tellys, which can be useful in the latter half of the level when you have to make some tricky jumps as they spawn from pipes above you. It can also take out Shotman's 5 health in two vollies... although you're either approaching him from above (and getting shot in the face), behind (in which case he can't hit you at all) or too far away to hit him with Air Shooter's arc. But it can be a nice time-saver!

It also clears out Pipis before they can drop their eggs, which would be a little nicer if any of this level's Pipis were a threat. And of course, it's Clash Man's weakness. The Pokey made of industrial barrels is completely immune to it, but you have to be so precise to get it into the weak spot that it wouldn't be worth trying even if it worked.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Ksp05G5.png[/img]
Nice spikes. Good thing too cause you'll never see them coming. Also, side note: I'm pretty sure none of the spikes in this entire game are solid, they all just have kill planes at their bases. Which... is actually more rad than the usual, cause Mega Man gets good and [i]impaled[/i] before he blows up.

Metal Blade is actually not as useful as you might think, which I put down entirely to the changes from the NES. Unlike the NES, it uses the buster firing sprite, and firing it at an angle doesn't stop you in place. That means that if you try and use it to clear out Tellys from the lifts, you're probably going to walk off the edge. Using it on the Tellys that guard the difficult pit jumps is also harder than it would have been on the NES, since it now fires from the center of Mega's sprite and not from, you know, the [i]end of his gun[/i].

Actually I'd like to go off on a tangent about that. On the NES, Air Shooter had the buster animation and Metal Blade had the throwing animation, which made sense. They're swapped on the Game Boy, and not only does it not make sense, it actually makes both weapons worse to use. Methinks cockups abound.

Of course it can also mow down Pipi swarms, but weirdly enough killing the mama Pipi consumes the blade. That leads to the odd situation where you kill a Pipi from above, the egg drops anyway and the swarm of baby birds is unleashed on you. As for Shotman? He actually resists the blades, taking only 1 damage and therefore 5 blades to go down. And the level design means that the blades are never any more useful than the buster.

The blades do work on the industrial Pokeys, but they do only one point of damage and have a bigger hitbox to bounce off the edges of the weak point. You're literally better off using the buster.

:siren:Stupid shit ahoy!:siren:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/BeL8bZc.png[/img]
This is the checkpoint and there's something very strange about it. See, I can stand here forever and absolutely nothing happens. But scroll ahead just a little bit, then double back (which there's absolutely no reason to do unless you have a crippling fear of industrial containers), and...

[img]http://i.imgur.com/I3oEkxg.png[/img]
There's a Telly spawner just off to the left that only activates if you scroll forwards then go back. If you can figure out what purpose this is intended to serve, you're a better man than I.

Leaf Shield is the weapon that should spring to mind when thinking of Clash Man's level, and it's still just as useful as keeping Tellys off lifts as it was on the NES. But not only that, it also one-shots Shotman and clears out Pipis' swarms with no effort at all. By far the most useful weapon to have in this stage. The industrial Pokeys are immune, but Leaf Shield is totally unsuitable to hit their tiny-ass weak spot anyway.

Also, there's an interesting graphical glitch I've noticed with it where sometimes, one of the leaves will be backwards. I think it happens to the first shield you use in a level, but I'm not willing to put [i]that[/i] much effort into figuring it out.

Clash Man himself is as simple yet fun as he was on the NES. He runs back and forth. If you shoot, he jumps, throws a Clash Bomb at you and continues on his merry way. Except, I've noticed that if he's right next to you, he'll hold off on jumping until he's smacked you in the face. If that's intentional behaviour, it's goddamn devious. Try not to dodge before he's actually left the ground though, because otherwise he'll fling himself right onto your head.

E: Actually scratch that, if you don't shoot at him he can also jump of his own volition. Sneaky!

He's simplicity itself to take down with the buster if you just jump before you shoot so that he jumps into the bullet, the only difference Air Shooter makes is that it's quicker and you don't have to jump.

So Clash Man is a good starting point, Clash Bombs are useful in Metal Man's level, and Metal Blades are nigh-useless in Clash Man's level. Does anyone else feel like an intended order is starting to emerge?

Nah, they probably did it by accident.