Uh, the one guy didn't post the backstory for Thermo Man, sooo... "Thermo Man was a walking thermos tasked with gathering volcanic material for volcanologists. Unfortunately, his creators didn't provide him a sufficient cooling mechanic for the vital systems located in his head, which resulted in him feeling perpetually feverish. One day, after collecting a fresh lava sample, he was overwhelmed by the heat and, not thinking clearly, decided to remove his head to cool down. He was in the lab when he did this, consequently setting the research station ablaze and destroying much of the new research. He was scrapped only few days after this incident."
“Ok, so where do I even begin with this monster of a stage? This was the first one so far that felt truly insurmountable. From all my practice, I struggled to find reliable methods to traverse each of the difficult segments or manipulate the gimmicks and enemies to my favour, and to exacerbate the matter, one of the minibosses is one of the most unpredictable challenges in this series and the boss can screw you over just as easily. This took a little longer than usual because a lot of my strategies simply weren’t working or couldn’t be relied upon, which lead to me basically having to rethink entire segments of the stage. Oh, and the whole thing also a bitch to execute. The first segment of this stage pulls no punches. We’re introduced to one of the gimmicks right off the bat; these fireballs bounce along the ground and their horizontal directions can be reversed by shooting them head on. Their bounce height is determined by the height from which they fell, which makes you think they’re fairly predictable, but their speed makes them feel very erratic, as well as the fact that this stage loves to pack them in tight quarters often in conjunction with other hazards that by themselves would make difficult challenges. You can try to shoot them out of the way, however this often contributes in altering their target destination to the general area of your face. This first sniper joe is a pain. The jump I pull off is very precise but I deemed it the only really reliable way to get through, otherwise you’re perpetually blocked off by a combination of the fireballs and the joe himself. Right after that, we encounter a sunflower, ceiling droplets and more fireballs. All at once. It’s this stage in a nutshell; it throws a ridiculous amount of challenges at you simultaneously, leaves you no room for error and no way to reliably 100% control them. A few breather rooms later, we see one of the stranger gimmicks in this game. These tongues protrude from the walls in brief intervals and provide a temporary platform for Mega Man to stand on. Notably, they don’t move you with them. If you aren’t immediately able to land on the tongue and finish off the sunflower head here, you have to do this the hard way as you see in the video. Admittedly I handle this very sloppily, but this segment is one of the easier ones once you get the hang of landing on the edge of the platforms, since at least then, you’re safe from the sniper joes and you can safely jump over the sunflower stalks, however this was at the point where my sanity-deprived brain was formulating its own risky methods for dealing with both sunflowers on the fly, possibly due to a combination of fatigue with this stage and the bloody weather in the UK at the moment sapping my concentration. This first miniboss is the lesser of the two, but don’t underestimate it for a second. It has two attacks, one where it drops a row of small (read: deceptively large) projectiles on you with a few safe spaces. If you did anything that day to piss off the higher powers, they’ll be located above the pits. The other is where it sends a homing projectile that locks onto you 3 times before sending 4 projectiles in an X formation. Neither are huge bothers but the row of projectiles can easily catch you off guard, but overall it’s workable as long as you stay mindful of A) their large hitboxes and B) the frustrating possibility that they’ll spawn on you while you’re attacking. Joy. There isn’t a whole lot to say about this segment other than that first jump with the low ceiling cost me more attempts than I’d like. A minute hurdle, but one that’s worth considering when you take into account all the other convoluted hazards that could have just as easily ended a run. After a short drop, we get to the second miniboss. I’m convinced this game is satanic at this point, because it sure takes the symbolism of snakes being evil to heart. This is just as uncontrollable as the one from Terror Man and it’s one of the biggest reasons this stage was such a beast to get through. The fireballs it spits out come in random trajectories and its rate of fire is makes it to where you’ll often be forced to avoid two at once, if you’re not already trying to slide under the snake (I had several runs where it literally dropped one on me mid-slide). More often than not, you’ll be hit in midair while trying to shoot the damn thing. The only reliable way to beat him is to simply keep shooting and pray that the snake isn’t feeling particularly clairvoyant regarding your movements. After two sniper joes in a seemingly extraneous room, we face more fireball dispensers and in even more cramped conditions than last time. You don’t see it in the video, but if the fireball from the upper dispenser hits the platforms at the bottom, it’ll literally bounce through the floor you enter the screen on. Did I say these things were predictable before? After climbing up two tongues, we get to another room which amounted to many failures due to the sheer amount of variables. The fireballs bounce off the tongues, so you need to time your shots so the fireballs can clear the path, but even once you do that, you then have to time your escape out of the room very carefully by avoiding both the fireball and the droplet AND making sure the tongue doesn’t obstruct you. I still can’t believe how close I was in the video. The last proper challenge of the stage comes shortly after in the form of a sunflower blocking your path. Killing it fast is essential, as there is no room to avoid its petals especially while dealing with the fireballs and the droplets. We’re finally done with the main challenges of the stage, but the final hurdle and the ultimate kicker is the boss himself. 2 of 3 of Thermo Man’s attacks are reliably simple to deal with. His punch provides more than enough wind-up and time to jump, and the fireball volley is predictable and has clear gaps. What caused the majority of failures here is his aerial attack through the lava fall. After emerging, he’ll land in your general direction, but the distance he travels is seemingly random, as is the trajectories of the fireballs he spawns from both entering the lava and exiting it. You want to try and give yourself space for when he lands by baiting his jump to either of the walls, but this can backfire if the fireballs end up blocking your route as you attempt to slide under him as he falls. He’s definitely easier than his stage, but just one of his attacks being a crapshoot is enough to make him very threatening, especially after the arduous ordeal you have to endure to reach him. We’ll be capping this challenge off with Thrill Man next time and whether it’ll be as difficult as this or not I’m uncertain of, but I’m convinced it’ll be the most tedious.”
Congratulations, another great clear! I'd never done this stage on Hard; I was afraid I was going to be seeing those damned sun attackers coming in during the teeth segment.
Don't the sun attackers only come in during single screen rooms? I feel like they might not function properly in the teeth segment, unless we're thinking of a different teeth segment.
There's something oddly... fleshy looking about the way Thermo Man is depicted behind the lava. I know that's meant to be like his shadow, blocking light from shining in from the other side, but it honestly looks more like some sort of weird meat hole. Considering the theme of this level, I don't know whether to consider that a minus or a plus LMAO
Yeah, that's how I'm planning on doing it for now. From initial practice runs it seems like it'll be tedious as hell, since they love to put sniper joe in front of you and put spikes above. -.-
It's entirely dependent on how much time you spend practicing the stage before beginning any real attempts. That context is pretty important to know (hence why I include it in the description) when considering what my number of attempts actually mean. :p I'm sure it would have been 200+ without the practice though.
![[TAS] Genesis Mega Man: The Wily Wars "zipless" by Darkman425 in 1:47:01.42](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t66KJuV7894/mqdefault.jpg)
Uh, the one guy didn't post the backstory for Thermo Man, sooo...
"Thermo Man was a walking thermos tasked with gathering volcanic material for volcanologists. Unfortunately, his creators didn't provide him a sufficient cooling mechanic for the vital systems located in his head, which resulted in him feeling perpetually feverish. One day, after collecting a fresh lava sample, he was overwhelmed by the heat and, not thinking clearly, decided to remove his head to cool down. He was in the lab when he did this, consequently setting the research station ablaze and destroying much of the new research. He was scrapped only few days after this incident."
“Ok, so where do I even begin with this monster of a stage? This was the first one so far that felt truly insurmountable. From all my practice, I struggled to find reliable methods to traverse each of the difficult segments or manipulate the gimmicks and enemies to my favour, and to exacerbate the matter, one of the minibosses is one of the most unpredictable challenges in this series and the boss can screw you over just as easily. This took a little longer than usual because a lot of my strategies simply weren’t working or couldn’t be relied upon, which lead to me basically having to rethink entire segments of the stage. Oh, and the whole thing also a bitch to execute.
The first segment of this stage pulls no punches. We’re introduced to one of the gimmicks right off the bat; these fireballs bounce along the ground and their horizontal directions can be reversed by shooting them head on. Their bounce height is determined by the height from which they fell, which makes you think they’re fairly predictable, but their speed makes them feel very erratic, as well as the fact that this stage loves to pack them in tight quarters often in conjunction with other hazards that by themselves would make difficult challenges. You can try to shoot them out of the way, however this often contributes in altering their target destination to the general area of your face. This first sniper joe is a pain. The jump I pull off is very precise but I deemed it the only really reliable way to get through, otherwise you’re perpetually blocked off by a combination of the fireballs and the joe himself. Right after that, we encounter a sunflower, ceiling droplets and more fireballs. All at once. It’s this stage in a nutshell; it throws a ridiculous amount of challenges at you simultaneously, leaves you no room for error and no way to reliably 100% control them.
A few breather rooms later, we see one of the stranger gimmicks in this game. These tongues protrude from the walls in brief intervals and provide a temporary platform for Mega Man to stand on. Notably, they don’t move you with them. If you aren’t immediately able to land on the tongue and finish off the sunflower head here, you have to do this the hard way as you see in the video. Admittedly I handle this very sloppily, but this segment is one of the easier ones once you get the hang of landing on the edge of the platforms, since at least then, you’re safe from the sniper joes and you can safely jump over the sunflower stalks, however this was at the point where my sanity-deprived brain was formulating its own risky methods for dealing with both sunflowers on the fly, possibly due to a combination of fatigue with this stage and the bloody weather in the UK at the moment sapping my concentration.
This first miniboss is the lesser of the two, but don’t underestimate it for a second. It has two attacks, one where it drops a row of small (read: deceptively large) projectiles on you with a few safe spaces. If you did anything that day to piss off the higher powers, they’ll be located above the pits. The other is where it sends a homing projectile that locks onto you 3 times before sending 4 projectiles in an X formation. Neither are huge bothers but the row of projectiles can easily catch you off guard, but overall it’s workable as long as you stay mindful of A) their large hitboxes and B) the frustrating possibility that they’ll spawn on you while you’re attacking. Joy.
There isn’t a whole lot to say about this segment other than that first jump with the low ceiling cost me more attempts than I’d like. A minute hurdle, but one that’s worth considering when you take into account all the other convoluted hazards that could have just as easily ended a run.
After a short drop, we get to the second miniboss. I’m convinced this game is satanic at this point, because it sure takes the symbolism of snakes being evil to heart. This is just as uncontrollable as the one from Terror Man and it’s one of the biggest reasons this stage was such a beast to get through. The fireballs it spits out come in random trajectories and its rate of fire is makes it to where you’ll often be forced to avoid two at once, if you’re not already trying to slide under the snake (I had several runs where it literally dropped one on me mid-slide). More often than not, you’ll be hit in midair while trying to shoot the damn thing. The only reliable way to beat him is to simply keep shooting and pray that the snake isn’t feeling particularly clairvoyant regarding your movements.
After two sniper joes in a seemingly extraneous room, we face more fireball dispensers and in even more cramped conditions than last time. You don’t see it in the video, but if the fireball from the upper dispenser hits the platforms at the bottom, it’ll literally bounce through the floor you enter the screen on. Did I say these things were predictable before? After climbing up two tongues, we get to another room which amounted to many failures due to the sheer amount of variables. The fireballs bounce off the tongues, so you need to time your shots so the fireballs can clear the path, but even once you do that, you then have to time your escape out of the room very carefully by avoiding both the fireball and the droplet AND making sure the tongue doesn’t obstruct you. I still can’t believe how close I was in the video. The last proper challenge of the stage comes shortly after in the form of a sunflower blocking your path. Killing it fast is essential, as there is no room to avoid its petals especially while dealing with the fireballs and the droplets. We’re finally done with the main challenges of the stage, but the final hurdle and the ultimate kicker is the boss himself.
2 of 3 of Thermo Man’s attacks are reliably simple to deal with. His punch provides more than enough wind-up and time to jump, and the fireball volley is predictable and has clear gaps. What caused the majority of failures here is his aerial attack through the lava fall. After emerging, he’ll land in your general direction, but the distance he travels is seemingly random, as is the trajectories of the fireballs he spawns from both entering the lava and exiting it. You want to try and give yourself space for when he lands by baiting his jump to either of the walls, but this can backfire if the fireballs end up blocking your route as you attempt to slide under him as he falls. He’s definitely easier than his stage, but just one of his attacks being a crapshoot is enough to make him very threatening, especially after the arduous ordeal you have to endure to reach him. We’ll be capping this challenge off with Thrill Man next time and whether it’ll be as difficult as this or not I’m uncertain of, but I’m convinced it’ll be the most tedious.”
so true
4:02 Smooth 👌🏻
Slick maneuvering indeed
Yeeesh! Thermo Man looks like an intense fight! I bet it took a few attempts to take him down
Congratulations, another great clear! I'd never done this stage on Hard; I was afraid I was going to be seeing those damned sun attackers coming in during the teeth segment.
Hey, at least it's not like Terror Man where they spawn during the mini boss. :p Glad to say that we're done with them forever now. ^^
Don't the sun attackers only come in during single screen rooms? I feel like they might not function properly in the teeth segment, unless we're thinking of a different teeth segment.
Burn Knuckle!
Ha Ha! I totally dig this boss fight hand down!
There's something oddly... fleshy looking about the way Thermo Man is depicted behind the lava. I know that's meant to be like his shadow, blocking light from shining in from the other side, but it honestly looks more like some sort of weird meat hole. Considering the theme of this level, I don't know whether to consider that a minus or a plus LMAO
Good luck with your next Perfect Run. I suspect it’ll be a nightmare if your balloon can’t take damage either.
Yeah, that's how I'm planning on doing it for now. From initial practice runs it seems like it'll be tedious as hell, since they love to put sniper joe in front of you and put spikes above. -.-
Thermo man is heat man but with drugs :=)
Y'all good with Math,right? How many fireballs did you see in this video?
15+21+15+21+8+64=?
135
144.
I really wish you could get Weapons from the fusion masters
i still think 55 attempts is not much for a perfect run of any megaman stage
I'd get 5 to 15 attempts on a no death run.(or maybe 3 to 9)
It's entirely dependent on how much time you spend practicing the stage before beginning any real attempts. That context is pretty important to know (hence why I include it in the description) when considering what my number of attempts actually mean. :p
I'm sure it would have been 200+ without the practice though.