Elecman Stage Overview- Most of this stage has you
going up rather than horizontally, with lots of ladders
and annoying enemies bent on knocking you off them. By
now, you should have the Rolling Cutter to make things a
bit easier by destroying the Gabyoalls and other baddies,
but you have to watch out for the Thunder Beam traps. This
stage also contains your one and only support weapon,
which will be essential for Iceman’s level and is actually
needed to get past certain portions of the game later on,
so do not miss it for any reason.
Elecman Stage Enemies- Gabyoall, Outcha, Kamadohma,
Big Eye
Elecman Stage Walkthrough- This stage starts you
off on the bottom floor amongst some Gabyoalls patrolling
some platforms you need to use to reach the first of many
ladders in this level. Start things off by switching to
the Rolling Cutter and start laughing maniacally as you
now have the weapon that can finally kill these damn
things. The platforms they were on can actually be
somewhat annoying to get across, as you must be at the
very edges to successfully jump across. Nothing like a
little tooth gritting platforming to set the mood for this
level, eh?
Once you’ve ascended the ladder and made it to the second
screen, destroy the next two Gabyoalls and jump onto the
next, super tall ladder. A big health pick up can be found
to the right of the screen, but you’d need to jump down
from the top of the next screen to reach it, so it’s not
worth it this early in the level. If you had the Magnet
Beam, however…
The next screen is a copy of the last, but with a twist.
Instead of simple Gabyoalls on the small platforms,
Thunder Beams shoot out from the right sides of the
floating blocks. The bottom one fires a second before the
second beam, so wait until the second one’s beam has
stopped firing before jumping atop the first block, and
then quickly jumping towards the ladder. Got it? Good.
The next screen has a ladder in the middle, which goes all
the way up to the next screen. Be careful of the Outchas
that come down from the left side of the screen and up
from the right. These things shoot beams of electricity
from their eyes, which will knock you down a few rungs.
Make sure you’re not wasting Rolling Cutter ammo by using
the Mega Buster and destroy these things with a single
shot per robot. At least they’re easy to kill. The next
screen up is exactly the same as the one before it.
Here’s where things can get tricky. When you climb over
the ladder and onto the bottom platform, the ladders will
be far out of reach, with only a single block floating
above your ledge. After a second or two, a block will
appear out of the fires of Hell above the single fixed
block. Four of these disappearing blocks will appear now
in a set pattern, so sit back and observe. At the top of
the room there are two ladders. The left one leads you to
a set of three small weapon energy items, but you’ll have
to drop down and do this screen all over again. Obviously,
that means the right ladder is your ticket outta here. The
pattern for the blocks is really simple, so you shouldn’t
have too much of a hard time figuring it out.
When you climb atop the right ladder, more of the
disappear-o blocks will come in and form a small bridge
for you to cross and reach the next ladder. Just do it and
be quick about it. These things are impatient little
buggers and don’t hang around forever.
Once you’ve reached the top of the ladder, you’ll be on a
large platform with a large health item on a small ledge
underneath. You could drop down and pick it up by walking
off the side of the platform and pressing “left” with all
of your might, but you had better be prepared for a tricky
jump that leads to death if you mess it up. I usually
bypass this item for that very reason, as baddies will
usually drop some health later on. You’ve still got plenty
of stage to get through yet. Either way you choose, just
keep headed skyward.
After navigating some platforms that lead to the next
ladder, the screen will move you upwards to a new part of
the tower with two set of ladders, with a solid wall
separating them. Time to choose a path, but not before
dealing with some more Outchas. On the right ladder’s
side, you’ll have to get passed some Thunder Beam traps,
whereas on the left side you can have some fun with some
Gabyoalls and the Rolling Cutter. As you continue, the
next screen has you dealing with some more Outchas.
There’s also a giant block that you can move using the
Super Arm if you want to switch sides, but that’s kinda
pointless as the next screen has the two ladders reaching
the same platform.
At the top of the twin ladders’ path with be a screen with
three giant blocks blocking the path to a blue object. Use
the Super Arm to lose ‘em and claim your prize: the Magnet
Beam. As soon as you pick it up it is armed and ready, so
give it a try if you want. This device isn’t a weapon, but
rather a handy tool used to form a quick floating
platform. The longer you hold down the “fire” button, the
longer the platform will be. However, the longer the
platform is, the more weapon energy it’ll consume, so use
it sparingly. Also, the Magnet Beam’s platforms disappear
after a few seconds, so make sure you’re not standing
above a bottomless pit or a bed of spikes when it goes
kaputski.
Once the Magnet Beam is in your ever-growing arsenal, keep
heading upwards via the ladder to the left or right. The
right ladder has the Thunder Beams; the left has the
Gabyoalls. At this point, it’s time to start conserving
weapon energy for the Cutter, so maybe you should tough it
out with the Thunder Beams. The next screen has both paths
with Thunder Beam traps, with two on the left and one on
the right. The screen above that has the Thunder Beam
trap, and the left has a Kamadohma trapped in a room with
you, with another one above that blocked off by a giant
block. If you’re on the left, wait for the one Kamadohma
to leap towards you and clean off the platform o it’s doom
without your help, and you can continue onward. If you
were on the right, lure the one trapped with you down the
short ladder, shoot it, use the Super Arm to grab the
block, and take out the second one using the block. Here’s
a nice place to try out the Magnet Beam, too, providing
you didn’t waste all of the ammo playing around with it
when you got a hold of it. Use the ladder at the top.
The next screen should be familiar, so just keep going
across the platforms to the ladder, which leads to a
screen with a pair of floating blocks that shoot off
Thunder Beams. You know what to do by now, so make your
way past them and up the ladder. Waiting for you on the
next screen is Elecman’s shutter, which is of course
guarded by a Big Eye, silly. Did you think it would be
that easy? Don’t waste any time with this thing and slip
past it and into the shutter, which hosts a tall ladder.
The ladder is two screens long with a series of Thunder
Beam traps, so take your time and do your best to not get
hit. The boss fight above isn’t going to be a pretty…
Boss Fight: Elecman- A lot of people have taken to
calling this guy “Elecbastard”, and you’ll find out why
within a few seconds. For one, he’s fast as hell, probably
the fastest Robot Master of all time (Quickman was
actually really slow in WW for some stupid reason, and
Elecman was made even faster. Figure that one out.). He
likes to move around and jump a lot, and it’s easy to see
why- he’s good at it. To top it off, his weapon is
outrageously cheap and can kill you in a mere three hits
with a full energy bar.
With all of that going for him and a lack of a specific
pattern, the Rolling Cutter is pretty much the only way to
go against Elec. If you use the Mega Buster against him,
he’ll tear you apart in seconds, as he’s always right on
top of you and gives you no room to dodge. He can even
dodge the Rolling Cutter sometimes using his jumps, so
don’t be surprised if he kills you even if you come here
with the right weapon. The bottom line is that this fight
will rarely last over ten seconds- if he’s not dead by
then, chances are you will be. Just try to land more hits
with your Cutter than he can with his Thunder Beam and you
should come out on top, but not after nearly being fried
to death.
Weapon Profile: Thunder Beam- Here it is- the much
vaunted argument winner. This thing is mighty powerful and
can prove useful in a variety of ways. For starters, it
travels in not one, not two, but three directions with
each pull of the trigger, sending electric death in front
of you, above you, and below. Like the Rolling Cutter, it
is capable of scoring multiple hits with a single shot
(and even more with the legendary “select glitch”. In the
NES version of the game, the select button paused the game
without bringing up the menu, keeping the active Thunder
Beam on screen, but the game would immediately forget if
it had counted the damage or not, which it did. By
pressing select fast enough, you could destroy super
powerful foes with a single shot, but this also takes away
some of the challenge of the game.). The weapon can also
destroy the giant blocks that the Super Arm uses, so if
you don’t feel like taking the risk of the Super Arm when
doing some interior decorating, use the Thunder Beam.
