MM3 fake death music despawn glitch

[Forum post from 2015]

In Mega Man 3, if you hit spikes on the same frame a screen transition happens, the death fanfare plays but you don't actually die. This is beneficial because after the fanfare, music doesn't restart and not having it playing reduces lag a lot. There are two places in the game with spikes in suitable positions for this: in the beginning of Doc Shadow stage and right after Doc Metal in Doc Spark stage.

The setups for the glitch are based on somehow getting to a specific pixel, from which you can then execute a sequence of perfectly controlled movements, leading to the trick itself. The perfectly controlled movements could be single pixel movements, neutral slides, or holding a direction for a controlled interval like from the end of a slide to a screen transition. The problem here is that you can't control your subpixel positions, so the results of the setups aren't guaranteed, but instead can lead to different outcomes depending on your subpixel position as you started.

The Doc Shadow setup is old news. Neutral slide immediately, hold right after the slide. On the second screen, move two pixels left, then slide and hold left. This gives you the music despawn with 57/64 of the possible subpixel values (~89% of the time) while the rest of the time nothing happens. When you press d-pad while standing, you move for one frame, then get stuck for five, then start walking normally. Thus presses of any length between 1 to 6 frames work and the setup is practically free. You can speed up the setup a bit by doing the two frames of movement while falling (requires 1-frame presses or you'll move further than intended) or by combining the second frame of movement with the slide (slide during the 6 frames while you're pressing left the second time, instant down+left+a works too). Latter is recommended, former saves roughly 0.1-0.2 seconds with a very real risk of death. Moving for 3 frames instead of 2 kills you 57/64 and music despawns 7/64. Moving 1 instead of 2, nothing happens 100%.

edit - Another setup has been found that always gets the glitch regardless of your subpixel value as long as you execute correctly. Walk into the wall on the right, tap left, neutral slide, neutral slide. Again the first two inputs can be combined as described above.

For Doc Spark, the "obvious" setup would be to figure out a position to slide from, then hold right. Unfortunately, you'll hit the screen transition one frame earlier or later depending on your y subpixel position, which changes every frame. I didn't extensively map out the possibilities, but given how common dying is from various positions and having to account for the uncertainty on both x and y subpixel values, I'm pretty sure there's no position that would give you acceptable odds.

Alternatively, you can go for the glitch on the following screens by aligning yourself on a specific pixel before a screen transition, then holding d-pad. Here's the horizontal position you want to aim for on the first screen (x position A1):

http://i.imgur.com/gHuFfGU.png

Holding left on the second screen from this position gives you 50/50 odds of either getting music despawn or nothing happening. If you're feeling lucky, you can also go for this one (one pixel left from the previous one, x position A0):

http://i.imgur.com/kAvPvEn.png

This one gives you the music despawn 53/64 (~83%) of the time and otherwise kills you.

The same setup works on the second screen work too (x positions 91 and 90):

http://i.imgur.com/eD8UiS8.png
http://i.imgur.com/Gs2Xa8P.png

Same odds again - 50/50 glitch/nothing for the first one, 17/83 for death/glitch for the second. Recommended method is to determine the number of black pixels between Mega Man and the spikes during screen transition, which should be 4 for the safe pixel and 5 for the other. And as you probably figured out, going for it from any further left kills you, from any further right nothing happens.

Not great setups, but probably the best you can do here. Still definitely worth going for though (the safe ones that is), as it costs you nothing. Watch your position carefully during the first screen transitions, then go for it if you're sure you hit the pixel. If not, try again on the next screen. If still not, proceed as usual.