StenMan's Shotgun J

Hello everybody. How are you all today? Hopefully all well, enjoying summer and hopefully getting ready for (yet) another weekend. For today, i’ll make it a third entry in a row for the Rockman ZX series. Today’s RRF is: ‘Ouroboros’. So we go from sidequests, to a stage enemy, to a location. Sure no lack of variety here. I just beat MegaMan ZX Advent (less then 1 hour before the writing of this column), so its as fresh in my mind as anything really. Ouroboros is the final area in ZX Advent, another flying island/fortress, but in this case here, it’s a giant form of Model W, or all the bits of Model W that Master Albert has acquired and created. This area is only available after beating Promethus and Pandora in the Undersea Volcano area and talking to either Vent or Aile, depending on who you’re playing as, in the Hunter Camp, and getting there via the old Guardian Base. Make sure you save and stock-up before doing this, as it’s a one-way path and you can go back until you lose all of your lives or beat the game (hopefully the latter). This area isn’t overly difficult, but if you’re unprepared, get ready to lose a lot of health and/or lives. The enemies are very easy with almost any of your A-trans’s, but they lay-out of the first area can be tough. While the main enemies and galleons are easy to dispose of, you have to be careful with your shots. There are two kinds of disappearing blocks in this area… and no i’m not refering to Shutsugen Blocks here (RRF #82). These red and thorny blocks wil hinder your progress. The red ones don’t hurt you, but the thorny ones will, and take a little bit more to make disappear. Once they do disappear, then you can progress deeper into Ouroboros… or fall down into spikes or another area. I like to use either Model ZX or Model L to get rid of these. Easy pickings and have a somewhat idea of whats in the area. Once you get further in, you’ll have your re-match fights with the 8 maverick Pseudoroids. Not difficult at all at this point, unlike the first ZX game, you should get rid of them easily. After this, you’ll be confronted by Atlas, Aeolus, Thetis and Siarnaq, only to be saved by Vent/Aile. After this nice cutscene, you’ll get to the final room where you’ll have your showdown with Master Albert and Model W. The first two forms with the Dragon heads is quite easy, just get their patterns down to an artform, then hack away at the base of them. Once both forms are gone, you’ll get your final showdown with Master Albert. This form is considerably harder then the dragons, and it gave me a tough fight. It took me 2 lives before i finally figured out how i could damage it. Once you defeat Master Albert, Ouroboros will begin to break apart, along with the Model W’s and will eventually be lost and sunk in the ocean in which it came from, and you’ll get the ending cutscenes. Overall, it’s a pretty cool place, nice plot points and story behind it, though its very short-lived and isnt heard of until you get to that point in the game. Seems like a bit of a waste, unlike Slither Inc from the first ZX game.

That concludes todays RRF. Hope you all enjoyed and see you again soon.

Hello everyone. How are you all today? Hopefully all well and enjoying the beginning of your summer and july. For today’s RRF, we’ll stick with the ZX series, and this time have a look at a stage enemy, rather then a bunch of sidequests. Today’s RRF is: ‘Fantacle’. So here, we go from the original ZX game to ZX Advent. These enemies are the plant-like mechaniloids that are found all throughout the Tower of Verdue. Their base, and weak point is a large red sphere that will be stuck in the wall and can be protected by the large razor tentacles that spin out from it. The tentacles have a pattern… or at least they do when i encounter them. They spin out in a clock-wise direction and will try and attack you and strike you. In all of the modes, they don’t do all that much damage, nor are they that much of a problem or hinderance. They can temporarily slow you down, but even early on in the game you’ll be able to dispose of them easily. Model A’s locked shot or Buckfire can get rid of them easily, and later on, you can use Siarnaq in Model P, or Aeolus in Model H or Vent/Aile in Model ZX. Well, in retrospect… you can use pretty much any of the A-Trans’s, with the exception of Chronoforce, as he’s only good in water, and there’s no water here. It also might be tough to hit them with Biforst… i really could go on and on here, but its not worth it. It’s secret disk number is #34 in the Enemy B section and you can view it anytime when you acquire it. Overall, they are a simple and basic enemy in the Tower of Verdue in ZX Advent, nothing overly special or hard, but they were cool to see and they suited the area.

That concludes today’s edition of RRF. Hope everybody enjoyed it and see you all again tomorrow.

Hello everyone. How are you all today? Hopefully all well, enjoying the start of your summer, and ot all my fellow Canadians, enjoying your Canada Day. Time for another RRF. This time, despite Star Force 3 coming out yesterday, we’re going to go look at the ZX series instead. Today’s RRF is: ‘Delivering Letters’. While this isn’t an official name of what i’m going to talk about, if you’ve played the first ZX game and done some of it’s sidequests, then you should know what i’m referencing here. Im talking about the sidequests involving Truite and Melody, delivering the letters amongst them… mainly love letters from Truite to Melody. You start off this sidequest by talking to Truite in the Guardian HQ, or area X, and he’ll ask you to deliver a letter to a girl he likes. He gives you little clues at first, but its pretty easy to stop Melody, as she’s standing in front of the water fountain in the City, or Area C. This first sidequest is simply called “Deliver the Letter". No real surprise there, but hey, after all, you do work for a transport company… tasks like this should come as very little surprise. After you deliver the letter to, and promptly get rejected, you go back to Truite for rewards… and to break his heart. This isn’t the first time you’ll have to do this either. There is a large myriad of jobs that you have to run for Truite… don’t get very high of rewards, but it may provide some comedic for you in between missions and watching him get rejected time and time again. The missions are also labeled as the following: “Deliver the Letter, Sending Another Letter, Yet Another Letter, Not Another Letter (i’d give up at this point personally), Guess What? Another Letter, One More Letter.” Once you finally get to the one labeled “One More Letter", Truite will say he’s leaving (really?? you don’t say.) and has a final letter for Melody. Once you give it to her, you’ll need to wander around a bit and when you return to Melody, she’ll actually have a reply for Truite… a nice one too. Once you get to the Transerver and report your success, you can get the last sidequest: “Deliver a Reply” and she will ask you to send it to him. Not the best response, but its one that satisfies Truite. The sidequests themselves are basically just running around in circles, but you do gain a fair amount of Energy Crystals. Overall, this big set of sidequests in ZX.. at first seems like a small little job, but it takes about 15-20 minutes of running back and forth between Truite in area X and Melody in area C and its very repetitive. Personally, if i was Aile or Vent, i’d tell Truite he’s an idiot and get back to work… but that’s me.

That concludes today’s RRF. Hope you all enjoyed and see you again tomorrow.

Hello everybody. How are you all? Hopefully all well and enjoying your weekend… and the end of yet another school year. Its time again for another Smash, Trash or Whiplash, curtiousy of Pandora. Haven’t done one for awhile, so it’s time to. This time around we’ll have a look at: ‘Wily Capsule’. Anybody who’s played the Classic series will definitely understand this battle. The Wily Capsule, first of all, is the flying saucer that Wily is always flying in (no wonder the final form of Wily in Rockman 2 was an alien), but this is also his final form that you battle him with, starting with Rockman 4 and onwards. I definitely remember the one from Rockman 4, being the first Rockman/MegaMan game i ever played. This one is also one of the more difficult ones to fight. First off, it appears on the screen for barely a second, more like a blip, and if you blink, you’ll miss here he is. Fortunately, he’ll still be in that spot for a couple more seconds. Also, the only weapons that can hurt him is the Ring Boomerang and the Pharaoh Shot. This can be rather irritating since you can’t use your new RockBuster against it and you can easily run out of weapon energy if things go wrong. Luckily, you can charge the Pharaoh Shot and can hit twice. A new one appears in Rockman 5 and is one of the more easier of them all. Striking it with the RockBuster is a good way to attack it and Power Stone and Gyro Attack can hit it from anywhere, but the popular stragety is using Beat. If timed properly, Beat can attack him and then track where he is going to appear next. Beat only does one unit of damage but you can pull him back and attack with a charged shot, but only if Wily is within range. Rockman 6’s form is by far the easiest of them all. Its weakness is Silver Tomahawk and can be hit from literally everywhere… enough said. Rockman 7’s version of the Wily Capsule is a little more different… and the most difficult, also my opinion. This version here, when it reappears on the field, it doesnt just “appear", but it appears via pulling away a cloak or a curtain, then attacking. Its attacks are difficult to avoid and the attacks hurt and have some extra effects as well, including freezing and burning. Only fully charged attacks hurt it, but its better to try and use Freeze Cracker or charging the Wild Coil. In Rockman 8, this take on the Wily Capsule will actually move around, making it a bigger challenge to try and strike, especially with the Flame Sword, its main weakness, but you can easily hit it with your Buster and Flash Bomb. There’s also 2 more versions of the Wily Capsule in MegaMan & Bass and Rockman 9, but i havent played one of them and havent gotten that far in the other… so i can’t comment. The Wily Capsule also makes a cameo in both of the arcade games, Power Battle and Power Fighters. You’re given 10 seconds roughly to defeat them, but its very easy to destroy it, unless you slack off.
Now for the time of judgement. Wily Capsules are quite an interesting challenge and fight through all of those games, some easy, some difficult, but after a couple games it gets very redundant after awhile and does lose its charm after the first few times. Its similar to fighting a giant form of Sigma every X game.
While its generally a good final boss and puts up a good fight, its repetitiveness after Rockman 4 ruins it for me, earning it an easy ‘WHIPLASH’. This one breaks the Smash trend as of late, but these boss battles just don’t deserve a Smash.

This concludes another edition of Pandora’s Smash, Trash or Whiplash. Hope you all enjoyed, see you again soon.

Hello everybody. How are you all today? Hopefully all well. Get your consoles and all ready as Epsilon has 3 good challenges for you all to take, so head on over the Stadium and prepare yourself.

Challenge #1:
Categories: Sprinter

Speed Run MegaMan 6. Beat the game, from start to finish, in 75 minutes. Extra points if you can go through without dying.

Challenge #2:
Categories: Gladiator

Play through the first 8 stages in MegaMan X6, as normal X, and only use the Z-Saber for the entire level, excluding bosses… unless you encounter a spot where the Z-Saber is ineffective.

Challenge #3:
Categories: Nintendo Hard

Beat MegaMan 1 without dying once. Should you die, re-start the game and start over. Extra points if you can go through without getting hit.

That concludes your challenges from Epsilon. Good luck and have fun… and no cheating. This stadium tolerates no cheating.

Hello everybody. How are you all today? Hopefully all good. I know i said i’d supply content yesterday… but a day after my birthday… yeah, whatever, we’ll just leave it at that. Anyways, new content. For today RRF, we’ll have a look at another boss, this time from the DASH/Legends series. Today’s RRF is: ‘Marlwolf’. I just recently defeated this boss here (on my birthday i might add), and had a near nightmare defeating this guy. It actually took me 5 tries to beat this big drill bot, and only on the 5th try did i actually inflict any damage onto it. Yeah, i’m a total DASH noob i know. You can laught at me if you want (you know who you are). Anyways, enough of that… back on topic. This is the large driller robo boss, piloted by Teisel Bonne, and attempts to get through the Clozer Woods Sub-gate in order to get into the ruins without the key and obtain the island’s big treasure (i havent got that far… so no one tell me what that treasure is, if anything). Once Rockman Volnutt confronts Teisel and the Marlwolf, you’ll have to battle it in an area that looks a lot like an open mine pit. It’s a fairly large robot and can only be harmed by the hatch on the back of it near the top, and can only be hurt when its open. The instructions on the mission tell you this… but they also tell that by shooting the wheels will stop it. Not exactly the best strategy idea. I tried that, and it doesn’t work very well, at least not for me. One good way to attack and destroy this driller is to climb up the mine pit near the top and hide in one of the corners and wait until it attacks with its giant green energy ball, then snipe at it when it turns around and opens the hatch to attack. It seems easy, but only if the Kobun’s are atacking and not the little missile bomb things… makes it quite difficult to aim at the Marlwolf. If those attacks aren’t coming at you, then it’s quite easy to aim at it. I also personally love how the Kobuns dont listen very well, as Teisel constantly tells them to close the hatch… very effective. Once i figured out its attack patterns and how to attack it, then the battle was quite easy, but at first it was very tricky. Overall, it was a pretty cool boss battle in DASH, nice design, a good fight, though quite frustrating the first couple times i encountered it, but once you know what you’re doing, then its easy.

That concludes today’s edition of RRF. Hope you all enjoyed it and see you all again soon.

Hello everybody. Yes, its true, another year means another Birthday for me and another year that i’m closer to 30. It scares the crap out of me honestly, but it also means a day i don’t have to work.

See you all tomorrow, expect some new good content tomorrow.

Hello everybody. How are you all today? Hopefully all good, and officially enjoying summer, as it’s summer now… and after reading of the longest RRF’s ever yesterday. For today, we’ll have another look at XCM. I know i’ve been covering more of it lately, but it’s still fresh in my head. Today’s RRF is: ‘Mystery Metal’. Now, there are a ton of different kinds of Metal.. or i really should say, Force Metal in Rockman X Command Mission, but in this case here, we are not talking about a Force Metal or an Item or anything along those line here, but this time, it’s a theme music. This music is heard in three cutscenes in particular. The first time, is in the very beginning of Chapter 2 after your little encounter with The Cadre and Epsilon, and losing Zero and being double-crossed by Shadow, and X wakes up in a bed in a secret room in New Hope. That part is called “Secret Resistance Base” on it’s video clip that you can view in the Sky Room after your deployable mechaniloids find it for you. The second time this music is heard is later on, in the 4th chapter, 4-5 to be precise, in which Cinnamon is shown to be the Force Metal Generator and to be “stolen” by Marino. This chapter here is titled “Cinnamon’s Secret". Quite an interesting scene as well. The third and final time it’s heard is in Chapter 6-2, in which X sees a strange light… which also happens to be the name of this scene: “A Strange Light", then sees Spider walking away from it. If you know the ending, then you know the significance of it. This scene is one of my personal favorites of all of the scenes… especially since i kinda liked Spider. If you want to hear this music any time you want, you can also listen to it in the Sky Room after you obtain it’s disc. It’s #46 and is also labelled as Mystery Metal. The music itself is quite nice, though it definitely has a more mellow and has an eerie presence to it. It’s a pretty nice track though, but it can creep you out, especially if playing it in a dark room, or watching the cutscene with Spider. Overall, it’s a pretty cool theme, a little underused in a sense, since it’s in 3 cutscenes, but thats a good thing as it definitely suits the scenes it’s used for. It’s a good one to listen to, thats for sure.

That concludes today’s RRF. Hope everybody enjoyed it and see you all again soon.

Hello everybody. How are you all today? Hopefully all good, enjoying your weekend, and the last day of spring since summer officially begins tomorrow. For today, i’m going to cover a large topic that has been suggested to me by a certain someone as of late. Today’s RRF is: ‘Energy Tanks’. I vaguely covered Sub-Tanks all the back in RRF #25, but for this RRF here, i’m going to go into much more detail of the numerous kinds of tanks and the like althroughout the Rockman franchise. The actual Energy Tanks or Energy Cans themselves that we all know and love, originated in Rockman 2 and appear in all games including the 5 Rockman World games for the original Game Boy. The only 2 game in which you can’t get these are in the original Rockman 1, Rockman 8 and Rockman & Forte. You can carry up to 9 of them in all games, excluding Rockman 7, in which ou can only carry 4. Using one of these tanks will instantly re-store your life to maximum health. It’s rather stupid to use one of these when you’re at near full health, so it’s highly recommended to use it when you’re basically near death. If you want to re-charge life in Rockman 8, you’ll have to wait until you obtain Rush Charger. In the original Rockman 1, there are no Energy Tanks at all. The only thing that fully recharges everything in Rockman 1 is the Yashichi item, it re-stores both life and weapon energy… as well as giving you 100,000 points. Apart from the standard “E” tanks, there’s also the suprise boxes in Rockman 3, the one with the “?” on it. These tanks are pretty much just a random item box, they have things from small items to 1-ups to enemies inside of them. In Rockman 5, it introduces the “M” tank, or the Mega-Tank, the first big incarnation of Super-tanks. You can only carry 1 M-tank at a time. The main one if found in CrystalMan’s level, and there’s a couple in DarkMan and Dr.Wily’s castle. The M-tank will re-store all life and weapon energy. A neat little trick with the M-tank is that if you use it when ALL off your energy is full, life and energy, the M-tank will give you an extra life. There’s also a version of this tank in Rockman 9 as well. In Rockman 7 and Rockman World 4 & 5 has 2 new tanks, in this case, the “S” and “W” tanks. The S, SuperTank, is essentially just the M-tank, just re-named. The W, WeaponTank, re-stores all of your master weapon energy. Going back to Rockman 5, there’s also a cutscene exclusive tank, the “L” tank. I’m under the assumption that its LifeTank, but its never officially said. When you first confront the fake Blues, he’ll shoot you, leaving you with only 1 unit of life. When the real Blues appeares and exposes DarkMan, he’ll give you the L-tank and re-store your health and the battle will begin. A little pointless tank, but it’s a pretty cool cutscene. The X series takes the idea of the Energy Tanks and turns it into the SubTanks. I originally covered Sub-Tanks back in RRF 25, so i won’t go too much here… i don’t want to repeat an RRF. The main difference with the EnergyTanks and the SubTanks is, there are only 2 or 4 in the entire game and re-store you to full health, but they also take the energy pellets and adds them into the Tanks so that you can use them in a time of need. In some games, you can only add when your health is full. This also works the same way for the incarnation of the W-tanks. One tank that they introduced here is the EX tanks. It’s introduced in Rockman X4 and when you lose all your lives and start over or start from your save point, you’ll be given 4 lives, rather then only 2. These style of tanks are carried over in both the Rockman Zero and Rockman ZX series. In some cases in the Zero series, you can only obtain Sub-Tanks by using a specific CyberElf. In Rockman X Command Mission, there are at least 10 SubTanks (i’m sure thats the max as well, i have 9 with 3 parts for the 10th) and they work the same as others, but with some add-ons. You can use a Sub-Tank to partly re-store health for one or all of your characters, in and out of battle. These Sub-tanks can be re-filled with special items obtained, or by resting at the Hunter Base. In the Rockman DASH series, there’s a another incarnation of the Energy Tank, in this case here, the Energy Canteen. You can use up energy from it as you need it and will not use it all up if you don’t need it all, which is quite nice, and you can buy pieces for it at the Junk Store… as well as getting it re-filled. Another interesting incarnation of the EnergyTank is… well, the physical, real-life Energy Tanks that were released as a promotion of Rockman’s 20th Anniversary last year. It’s basically a large pop can or energy drink can (no pun intended) in the shape and style of an E-tank. One of the ingredients in it apparently is Bee Pollen. Doesn’t sound nice as a drink, but still used as part of honey. I still really want to have one of those. I definitely don’t want the actual beverage inside it… but the can… definitely do want!!! Overall, there are many different kinds of tanks althroughout the Rockman franchise, from one-time use ones, to ones that judge how many lives you have, to real life ones with Bee Pollen it, all of which are cool.

That concludes today’s edition of RRF… and one of the longest, if not the longest, to date. Hope you all enjoyed it and see you again tomorrow.

Hello everybody. How are you today? Earlier, I mentioned that there will be some new goodies coming to Shotgun J, and here’s one of two that I have planned. First up, is Epsilon’s Challenge Stadium. Yes, you can tell that i’ve been playing a ton of Rockman X Command Mission to use that name, but hey, Epsilon was a pretty good bad character in that game, and a man in charge/position, so now I revive him and let him be in charge of my battle arena… or in this Challenge Stadium, rather then an army of mavericks. Now, for the most part, i will be issuing challenges althroughout the entire Rockman/Megaman franchise, but you can suggest challenges as well.

They will be set in 1 or more of 5 categories: Casual, Finale, Gladiator, Sprinter, Nintendo Hard.

‘Casual’ will just be a basic and simple challenge with some rules, just to have some overall fun.

‘Finale’ will generally involve a final boss and restrictions in battling.

‘Gladiator’ will be a battle challenge, generally involving buster-runs, battling with or without a certain weapon, things along that line.

‘Sprinter’ is your typical Speed-Run and have some add-ons and will have a time limit.

‘Nintendo Hard’ will be the challenges with some heavy rules and restrictions and will definitely be the hardest ones i issue.

“EDIT June18″: I should also mention that cheating is not allowed in any of these challenges. That includes bending or changing the rules given in any way and absolutely no cheating devices like GameGenie/Shark, E-readers or ActionReplay.

The first challenges will be made out very soon, so be prepared!