Maaaan...can I vent for a while? Because the MM4 boss rush challenge (the one in the Legacy Collection, not the in-game boss rush at the end of the game) is some major bullshit, mostly because so many of the robot masters in MM4 was just shoddily designed shit. I've been playing MM4 since the NES days and I never quite understood why so many people MM4 was the worst original-series game until now. Holy shit.
First of all, a universal problem with MM4 in general: that incredibly annoying moment at the beginning of each battle where the boss's meter fills up EXTREMELY slowly. I always thought it a weird design decision, presumably a very misguided attempt at a DRAMATIQUE Pause at the beginning of each battle, but when translated to the terms that the Collection wants this becomes a major problem. Not only does this mean you're looking at probably 1-2 minutes of just straight watching a meter fill up while you do nothing (what is this, a Ubisoft game?
) cumulatively across all 8 bosses, you also lose a metric shitton of time if you die in the middle of the boss rush. Because not only are you seeing one agonizingly slow meter fill up in that boss, you've gotta sit through two of them now! That alone makes this the worst boss rush challenge of the series, but that's just the beginning.
I've known and loved all the robot masters from all the games, but now I genuinely hate several of the ones from MM4. Let's take a look why:
1. Pharaoh Man.
This
fucker. His weakness is being completely immobilized while you whittle away at his health one unit at a time. What a crock of shit. I never use the rapid fire button in this collection because I think it's "cheating" (really not how the games were designed), but I HAVE to use it for Pharaoh Man because otherwise my finger would fall off with all the tries I've put in to complete this Challenge. The fight takes 30 seconds, life-meter-fill-up included, and all you do is run up to Pharaoh Man, hold Triangle (or Y on XB1) and look at your phone for the next 30 seconds. You do this every. Single. Time. that you try this challenge. This is functionally no different from giving you a 30 second load screen with one less boss, because that's how much gameplay you get here.
Actually, I lied. By combining this, the "on to the next section of the challenge" space animation, and the slow-as-fuck meter fill of the next boss, you're looking at easily 40+ seconds of doing nothing every single time you do try this challenge. Yaaay fun.
2. Drill Man.
This
fucker. I hate him with a passion. Moreso than Pharaoh Man. At least with Pharaoh you don't do anything. With Drill Man you waste another 5+ seconds at the beginning of each and every time you battle while while he burrows and derps around underground. (that's like 45+ seconds of doing nothing each time you start the challenge, BTW). If his AI decides to burrow he becomes invincible, immune even to Dive Man's missile. It's a complete waste of time, because it's easy as fuck to dodge him and you literally cannot do anything to damage him. The entire fight comes to a screeching halt.
Then he comes up and he has a random chance of doing it again.
He can keep doing this for an indefinite amount of times. To my knowledge there is no AI exploit that prevents him from doing this. I've found that I've had better luck if I DON'T hit him as soon as he comes up, because he has a pause after he comes up where I guess the AI "decides" what to do, and I've found he burrows like a fucker if you hurt him at any point during this pause. However, I've also found that he can burrow even without having hit him.
He also bum rushes you (a ton of damage if he touches you) while spamming the drills (quite a bit of damage if those touch you, and a prolonged explosion that hurts you). However, those are more in line with the rest of the robot masters from the other games in the series so I can let that slide. The biggest fuck up with Drill Man is his incredibly annoying burrowing since you literally cannot do a single thing to damage him or prevent him from doing so.
So imagine a boss fight that lasts either 30 seconds or 3 minutes, all depending on whether the game
feels like having Drill Man burrow underground for the 20th time in one fight.
3. Bright Man.
This
fucker. I can't decide if I hate Bright or Drill more. Bright requires 1) absolutely no skill to beat) and 2) complete luck if you want to beat him quickly. His weakness is the Toad rain, which always does the same amount of damage and always requires a loooong interval before you can hurt him again. This means even at best-case-scenario you're still looking at a very low skill ceiling or "speed" ceiling to beat him. You cannot do anything to speed up the process of killing him. But Bright Man's biggest problem is easily his annoying piece of shit stun move. It's not only completely random, but you also can't do anything to prevent it, can't do anything to avoid it, and whenever he does it you have three amazing outcomes: 1) get hit by one of his projectiles. This means he gets a free hit on you and you annoyingly lose health through no fault of your own, but at the very least you stop being stunned. 2) you have to wait out his incredibly long stun period, which much like Drill Man, grinds the battle to a complete halt while you wait literally doing nothing. 3) Get hit by him jumping into you. That last one is assholery personified into 8-bit. Whether he decides to jump toward you or not is completely random, and if he does he does some bullshit-ass damage, completely killing your chance to survive through the Boss Rush in one life. Did I mention all of this is completely random? Yes I did, and I'll repeat it because it being completely random is completely bullshit.
You can come into this fight with full health and leave with 1/4th left, through no fault of your own, depending on whether the game feels like having Bright Man do his stun move 10 times in one fight. You can also die in the middle of the battle for this reason along, again through no fault of your own.
4. Dust Man.
This
fucker. Much like Drill Man, and much like Bright Man, this guy
also has a bullshit move that grinds the fight to a halt while you wait for his shitty move to complete its cycle, this time a Magnet-Man-style suck-you-into-his-face-while-you-run-away-for-a-few-seconds move. The problem is that, yet again, it's completely random. I originally thought that if you timed your hitting right that you would cause Dust Man to jump immediately after hitting him with the Ring weapon, which is his weakness, but I quickly realized after several tries that no, it's completely random whether he throws trash at you, jumps, or vacuums. Much like Drill Man's assholery, Dust can also perform this move multiple times in a row. Sometimes he doesn't do it at all. Sometimes he literally does it 3-4 times in a row.
5. Ring Man.
This...guy isn't so bad. The problem here is that he does a ton of damage and his movement + projectiles are tricky to dodge, but it's definitely doable. This guy's AI design is *GASP* halfway decent! He can die faster if you're better at dodging! He can die faster if you're better at throwing and timing your jumps! You can actually affect how fast this fight is over! Hooray!! This guy actually behaves like a Mega Man boss instead of Bullshit NES Boss From Licensed Game #34,291 like the previous four fuckers I just talked about!
6. Dive Man.
I like him. This guy's a glass cannon, because while he does heavy damage he can also take heavy damage. All you need to do is be able to skillfully position yourself close enough to him to get him hit by the Skull shield, but far away that he doesn't hit you. Much like Ring Man, Dive is an actual Mega Man boss instead of bullshit boss.
7. Toad Man.
A weak MM boss, but a MM boss nonetheless. If you time it right he keeps trying to bellydance to summon rain, so you can control how he behaves (SAY IT AIN'T SO!!) if you know what you're doing. He does a little more damage than I think is fair but w/e, if you know his pattern you shouldn't get hit at all.
8. Skull Man.
He's also all right. Does some damage but you can avoid his attacks and make the fight go faster if you're skilled enough.
So not every boss is shit. In fact, half range from OK to good. But Pharaoh? Dust?
Drill?
Bright? Fuck them. Fuck them hard. And fuck Cossack for making them. They're shit, have zero design sensibility put into them, and the worst part is the Legacy Collection Boss Rush challenge requires you do these in a row. It's infuriating shit through and through. What's worse is that the MM4 Mega Mix puts in Pharaoh Man and Dust Man in the mix as well, so even though the Boss Rush you only have to do each boss, with the Mega Mix you also have to do the platforming challenges AND be at the mercy of this bullshit every single time you try it. Oh my god I hate those robot masters.
Anyway....OK...I'm done...