The Stage Nobody Asked For

2nd: The Stage Nobody Asked For Make a Good Mega Man Level 2

"Wait, what was the NAME of this boss?!"

Overview Creator(s): Entity1037 Composer(s): Ryo Kawakami, littlelamp100, Threxx, Jun Ishikawa (originals) 8bitdanooct1 (covers) Statistics Scores: 50 39 49 46 47 Total: 46.2 / 50 Rank: 2nd Elements: 2 Collectables: Enemies: Apache Joe Big Eye Bolton and Nutton Cannon Joe Flea Giree Hammer Joe Returning Sniper Joe Sniper Joe Telly Up'n'Down Gimmicks: Guided Foot Holder Quick Laser (instant-kill) Yoku Block Bosses: Spiked-Wall Man Pharaoh Man's Revenge Other Information: snoruntpyro's Favorite Enjl's Favorite

Theme Music Mega Man 10 - Against the Pressure Spiked-Wall Man: Mega Man Infamous Intent - Boss Pharaoh Man's Revenge: Kirby Super Star Ultra - The Greatest Warrior in the Galaxy Stage Order Location: Tier 10 Previous: Haunt Man Next: Identity Crisis

"You are the worst and I hate you. This is the worst stage ever made in the history of life and I absolutely love it."

―snoruntpyro, excerpt from judge comment.

The Stage Nobody Asked For is the second place entry in Make a Good Mega Man Level 2. It's a level entirely revolving around the most hated gimmicks and enemies throughout all of classic Mega Man (and some more general things like enemy spam and incorrect collision) in an attempt to use them well, and prove they are not inherently bad. It's a level that goes out of its way to try to be as ridiculous as possible. The level is on the longer side, and is fairly difficult. It has two Energy Elements and two Noble Nickels, with a custom programmed boss guarding both exits.

Strategy

Upon entering the level, head to the left. Mega Man will get a warm greeting and an E-tank. Going to the right instead leads to a short room with a few Tellies...and an Up'n'Down that catches Mega Man off guard and drops him into the room below. Avoiding the Up'n'Down will allow Mega Man to continue right and find the first Noble Nickel. The room below the Up'n'Down includes a pair of Hammer Joes, followed by a room with a single Bolton and Nutton. Sliding into the next room reveals enough Bolton and Nutton pairs and Tellies to qualify as enemy spam. Mega Man's best options are to either stay close to the ground and avoid most of the homing enemies in the swarm, or simply shred through them with a weapon such as Hornet Chaser or Jewel Satellite.

The room after this is a vertical stretch of Yoku Blocks, with some even forming complex structures that require Mega Man to position himself in a certain manner if he wants to progress without resorting to utilities such as Wheel Cutter or Super Arrow. Going to the right, past a room with a blue spiky corridor below safe ground, is a room with red blocks. Mega Man then drops down...and subsequently dies.

Respawning in the aforementioned blue spiky corridor, Mega Man learns the truth about the level's architecture: regardless of appearance, all blue tiles are solid and safe to touch, while all red tiles are instant-kill. Mega Man then drops down into a room that further enforces this fact, requiring him to avoid red tiles (including red ladders) while safely walking over blue tiles (many of which are spikes). The room also reveals a third piece of information: White blocks are not solid, and effectively amount to background. After going through one more room focused mainly on teaching him about these three tile colors, Mega Man finds a room with an upper and lower path on the right. Utilities must be used to reach the upper area, as the ladder that seems to be leading to is white, and thus not solid.

The lower path consists mainly of tight jumps, under both blue and red ceilings. Finding that the lower path cannot be continued due to red and white tiles, Mega Man must turn back and climb up a ladder to go to the next room. The upper path consists simply of a ladder, leading to the same room that the lower path's ladder leads to.

After jumping up through one-way platforms (including red ones that only kill him if he touches them from the top), Mega Man must jump across a few gaps, then stick to the right side of the room's exit so he can land safely on the blue platform, back on the path that was initially blocked off by red and white tiles. Going through another set of tile-based obstacles, Mega Man can also get the stage's second Noble Nickel by using a utility to pass through some red one-way platforms.

Going into the next room and dropping down to the room after that, Mega Man is greeted with two rooms featuring Quick Lasers that move at about half the speed of those normally encountered. The room afterwards is a Yoku Block puzzle that must be cleared before a very slow Quick Laser blocks the exit. A similarly slow Quick Laser encourages Mega Man to speed up in the next room, which uses Yoku Blocks to temporarily barricade Quick Lasers and allow Mega Man to pass safely if he goes at the right time. After dropping into a room where he can rush past a Returning Sniper Joe to get an M-Tank before it gets engulfed by Quick Lasers, Mega Man drops down four rooms laced with red spikes, and lands on a Foot Holder.

The Foot Holder will begin carrying Mega Man to the right, while it and other Foot Holders try to impede his progress by knocking, pushing, and carrying him into pits and red tiles. After making it to the end despite the uncooperative nature of the Foot Holders, Mega Man climbs up and walks right to find a room absolutely littered with Fleas and Big Eyes. On some computers, this results in large amounts of lag, making it harder for Mega Man to make it past the Girees and Apache Joes without getting knocked into the swarm of enemies below him. At the end of the room is a boss gate leading to the battle against Spiked-Wall Man.

The second path requires taking a different approach to a much earlier area. Back in the room where Mega Man first learned about red tiles being deadly the hard way, he can instead bounce his way past on the Sakugarne. This must be done in one go, lest he respawn on the spikes. At the end of the area is a teleporter leading to an area where Mega Man can drop down and battle Pharaoh Man's Revenge. Defeating him unlocks a gate with several bolts and the second Energy Element.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
snoruntpyro  : 50 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality Skip Teleporter? 15 / 15 10 / 10 15 / 15 5 / 5 5 / 5 No You are the worst and I hate you. This is the worst stage ever made in the history of life and I absolutely love it. The stage goes out of its way to pick the absolute worst of the worst gimmicks that everyone hates in Mega Man games and does absolutely ridiculous and insane things with them. Like...honestly, this level speaks for itself. The absolute insanity that goes on in this level, what with the enemy spam, yoku blocks, quick lasers, giant stretches of footholders, suicidial superbosses, etc just makes the level overflow with charm and be extremely fun to play due to the excellent design gone into each and every gimmick. And there's probably one of the best, most dynamic and clever bosses I've ever seen in a videogame period to top it all off. I'm trying to find a flaw in this stage and I just can't. This stage literally has an Up n' Down ambush and a forced death and it's amazing because they're actually used cleverly to introduce gimmicks and basically troll the player. It's a hilarious and smart stage and I just really, really love it. The only extremely small issue I have is that it's a bit too similar to Entity's Mega Man Endless stages, but I'm not going to judge it based on what other levels did.
JupiHornet  : 39 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality 12 / 15 5 / 10 15 / 15 4 / 5 3 / 5 This was easily the most creative level in the entire contest. It was crazy! However...I honestly didn't really enjoy a lot of parts. The Yoku block puzzles were annoying and tedious, and the second one forced me through the wall a lot until I figured out what to do. It even killed me once. The part with the red, white, and blue tilesets was clever, but aesthetically it was probably the most disorienting thing I've ever seen. The Foot Holder segment was pretty clever, but it took me a few deaths to get used to it. The boss was CRAZY, though. Normally I would complain about the boss having 3 health bars, but I can see why you put so many this time because of the sheer amount of attacks it has. Overall, I think it's pretty clear that you put a ton of effort into this level, but...I personally didn't enjoy a lot of it.
Enjl  : 49 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality Skip Teleporter? 15 / 15 10 / 10 15 / 15 4 / 5 5 / 5 No This level plays with the player's expectations in such a beautiful, calculated and unpredictable way that I can't help but love it. The only issue I've had with it is that it was sometimes hard to look at, but aside from that, this stage is excellent. Even when going back to it I caught myself laughing at its surprised and smiling throughout my playthrough, even when fucking up in a section or two. This is easily my favourite level from this contest just due to its sheer unpredictability and how little it takes itself seriously while still being really well-designed.
Garirry  : 46 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality 14 / 15 9 / 10 14 / 15 4 / 5 5 / 5 It's really, really good. All the segments are well-made, but I feel like there are some sections that can be pretty shitty or have some precise jumps. Very fun stage. I think the footholder part was a bit tedious and you die a lot from confusion, but it's not a huge deal. Well I can obviously see that some parts of this level were taken straight from the author's MME levels but other than that it's really interesting. Looks good, but I'd argue that some parts of the red-white-blue sections can be confusing to look at. Works just fine. I really liked this level! I admit that the very precise jumps in some areas, the tedious Foot Holder section, and the confusing visuals at some places add up to the annoyances I had with this level, but otherwise it's very creative, fun to play through, and well designed, and all of these especially apply for the boss. Ultimately, it was an enjoyable experience.
ACESpark  : 47 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality Skip Teleporter? 14 / 15 9 / 10 15 / 15 4 / 5 5 / 5 No Yoku Blocks, Quick Man Lasers, Foot Holders, Big Eyes, Tellies, Spikes or Instant Death everywhere, and a couple of bosses that are basically memes. This level is amazing. I'll say right now, the single reason why this stage is as good as it is: Checkpoints. You basically take a stage where Mega Man's health bar is almost entirely irrelevant and make the cost of dying barely a blip on the radar, a speed bump rather than a road block. Yes! The result is a seriously unique stage, every challenge, be they dev-kit asset, or something cooked up, is new, deadly, but.. fair. It is also the only stage where I can go 'An unavoidable death? In my Mega Man!?'... and frankly, that was the only way to introduce your stage's new gimmick. This moment is greeted by a 'Huh. Cool!' instead of a 'WHAT, WHY?!'. The biggest drag on the stage is somewhat drawn out, vertical Yoku Block segment. There were several 'gotcha' moments when you reached the top which grated by the third time you encountered one. And frankly, the rest of the stage makes up for it big time, and by the time you reach the Foot Holders, you will have forgotten this segment had even existed. Can we talk footholders? Outside of the signature Robot Master, thinking back, this is downright my favourite segment of the level. It's clever, it's dangerous, it makes sense. And you made them assholes. The final thing to note about this stage is the boss fights. Memelords they may be, they're pretty great, although I am not sold on memelord the second having death spikes in the battle.. but it also makes perfect sense given a few aspects of the fight, so I'll let you off. Your signature Robot Master is one of the most unique boss fights I have encountered in a Mega Man game. He justifies his multiple health bars with several phases, and is nearly always open to damage. Smart. Your other memelord... he's good too, if a bit too healthy. The ends in the best way ever though!

Easter Eggs

"GRAND DAD!" - Joel 9/4/2014

After taking the teleporter that leads to the entrance of the boss corridor of the Pharaoh Man's Revenge boss fight, go on top of the Cossack logo and jump to the wall, which leads to an invisible maze, after reaching the other side of the wall, the Grandest of Dads will await.

Notes

• The Stage Nobody Asked For is impossible to perfect run on either of its exits. The first exit requires you to die to progress, invalidating no-death and no-hit runs, and the second exit requires use of a Special Weapon.
• Along with Volcanic Furnace, this is the only level with Foot Holders featured in the contest.
• Along with Identity Crisis, this is the only level to get a Perfect Score from one of the judges.
• Since MaGMML2's release, snoruntpyro has since stated on the Make a Good Mega Man Level 3 Discord server that The Stage Nobody Asked For is no longer her favorite level, due to the random nature of Pharaoh Man's Revenge (in her playthroughs, he would instantly kill himself on the spikes, leading her to believe this was intentional behaviour and not a lucky mishap). Instead, her new favorite level is Neapolitan Man.