Dr Wily Part One!

 

Dr Wily Stage 1 Overview- The beginning of the end of the game, this is where the game starts to really step up it’s challenge. Incorporating various elements of the Robot Masters’ stages, a mix of enemies and traps await you. A tough boss always commands this level, so make sure you keep a healthy amount of Thunder Beam ammo present, as well as a full supply of Magnet Beam energy handy for a certain portion of the stage just before the boss fight. Health, weapons energy, and 1ups will all become even more rare from here on out, so if you feel the need to stock up on 1ups, go back to some of the RM stages, such as Bombman’s. You’ll have to fight whatever Robot Master from that level all over again, so be sure you’re feeling confident.

Dr Wily Stage 1 Enemies- Big Eye, Kamadohma, Foot Holder

Dr Wily Stage 1 Walkthrough- Right off the bat, you’ll start in a large grassy field with a series of Big Eye robots bounding towards you. Use the Ice Slasher on them as they make a high jump and slip past them. Be sure to not waste time and risk health by fighting them now, as plenty of difficult challenges will be found in the fortress. After slipping by three of the big lugs, and climbing a small set of bumps in the road, the fortress will be blocked off from entry by some giant blocks. Use the Super Arm here and not the Thunder Beam to get them out of you way.

Inside the fort, a series of three flame towers make climbing over a set of stairs really difficult. Some people use the Ice Slasher to try and freeze two at once, but you’ll be here all day and waste a whole lot of ammo trying to get it just right and you’ll probably lose some health in the process. Instead, get the Magnet Beam ready and stand at the very edge of the first flame tower pit and fire the beam as the fire returns to the floor. You’ll have to be very quick as the fire stays in the floor for a second and the Magnet Beam will disappear shortly, so be very fast. You’ll have to repeat the process all over again for the second fire pit, but the third can be simply jumped over when the flame is in the ground. This part of the level can be nerve wracking, but don’t let it intimidate you.

Climb the ladder to the next screen and you’ll find yourself in a room with deadly spikes lining the floor (where does Wily get his carpeting done, anyways?) and a seemingly impossible to get large health item. Drop off the ledge after getting to the top of the ladder and decide if you need to waste very valuable Magnet Beam energy to get that health. If you do, you should use no more than three platforms to reach that health using an alternating patter of right, left, right until you can grab it. After the health pick up (or if you decide you don’t need it), navigate over the spike pit and up the ladder.

As soon as the screen changes and before you can get off the ladder entirely, three Kamadohmas will be right there and ready to pounce. Here is where the Fire Storm comes in handy, as it’s protective aura will keep them from harming you and will likely take the three amigos out in a single shot. Keep going forward and you’ll see another large health pick up in a small hallway at the top of the screen, which is blocked off by two giant blocks and guarded by two Kamadohmas. Again, you really need to decide of this is worth it. If it is, use the Thunder Beam while jumping straight up in front of the blocks to destroy them and nail the two baddies inside, and form a platform with the Magnet Beam to reach the item. Down below, use the Super Arm to clear the path of the rest of the blocks, and be ready for any reformed Kamadohmas that have come back now that the screen has traveled backwards. After that, head down the ladder to the next screen.

In here, a zigzag set of platforms, laced with a heaping dose of spikes in between some platforms, make your path to the next ladder a bit more difficult. Adding to this, some Killer Bombs will be swarming towards you from the right side of the screen. At this point, you will have to make absolutely certain that your Magnet Beam is well stocked (full energy if possible), and that your Thunder Beam has plenty of ammo as well. Take a risk and start offing some Killer Bombs carefully to grab some ammo if you need it before heading down and into a huge chasm with spikes lining both the floor and ceiling. Your old buddies the Foot Holders will be here lend you some infuriating help. Just be sure not to let them pin you to the ceiling and watch your jumps. I highly recommend avoiding using the Magnet Beam at this point, as tempting as it is.

Once across the spiky pit, two small ammo items lay in front of the exit ladder, so be absolutely certain the Magnet Beam is full. I stress this because if you’re playing the Wily Wars version of the game, pick ups do not reappear once you exit and reenter a screen like they would in the old NES version, making the following screen much more difficult than ever before. If you planned appropriately, ammo shouldn’t be much of a concern at this point.

This screen maybe the single most frustrating screen in the entire game, and there aren’t even any enemies. When you climb off the ladder, a tall column will block the path ahead, with a tight passage way to it’s top. Precision aiming with the Magnet Beam is needed to get up there, and usually three well placed platforms will get you up there. But, be prepared to fall a few times just in case, as it’s really easy to slip off them. This is why full ammo for this item is essential going into this room. Once you’ve made it the top of the column, drop down, but be sure to avoid the small, Megaman-sized hole right at the foot of the column. There’s more space to use the Magnet Beam here to reach the ladder, so fret not anymore.

The next screen above looks a lot like the one screen earlier with the three Kamadohmas attacking you as you left the ladder, but luckily no baddies are in sight. Unfortunately, this leads to an even worse enemy as the screen scrolls forward.

Boss Fight: Yellow Devil- One of the most famous mini-bosses in all of the Megaman games, the Yellow Devil (sometimes called the Rock Monster in the West) comes out of nowhere to attack you. Walk to the right side of the screen and a series of blocks will appear from just off the left side of the screen in a set pattern. The entire key to fighting the Devil successfully lies in memorizing the pattern of the blocks as the boss moves from one side of the screen to the other. You cannot harm the Yellow Devil at this point, so save your weapons energy for when his body finally forms and his eye opens to shoot you with a few shots of plasma. The Thunder Beam is the weapon to go to town on his eye, so I hope you didn’t waste all of that ammo in the stage.

In the NES version, you can always use the “select trick” to cheat against the Devil, and it is possible to destroy him using a single shot if you work fast enough. If you’re playing the WW version, you’re out of luck and you’ll have to kill him the old fashioned way by actually playing the way the programmers intended. Sucks for you.

The pattern of floating blocks is always the same. The blocks themselves move about as quickly as Fireman’s Fire Storm, and are always about two blocks’ width apart from each other. There are five different heights to the blocks’ movement, and I’ll say that the highest block will be “1”, the second highest will be “2”, the middle will be “3”, the forth- which is eye-level with Megaman and has to be jumped over- is “4”, and the lowest, which is at Megaman’s feet, is “5”. The following pattern will be what is shown at the start of the battle as the Yellow Devil comes in from the left side of the screen. The pattern will be the same when he moves from the right side to the left, only the blocks will of course travel in the opposite direction.

2, 3, 2, 4, 3, 2, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 2, 4, 3, 5, 1, 3

Memorize that and avoid getting hit while using the Thunder Beam on his eye when you get the chance, and this endurance match will be yours.
 


Next Stage: Dr Wily’s Castle 2