Posted by Bob Mackey
I
f you've even thought about getting all of Mega Man 9's in-game achievements, then you're either a robot, or just plain crazy; and I commend you, you magnificent bastard. Unfortunately, I lack the fortitude to push myself through these optional challenges--and the time it would take me to train for them could be better spent learning another language or painting tiny things on grains of rice.
Since the achievements of Mega Man 9 are practically built for being filmed and upoloaded to the Internet, I'm anticipating the hundreds of speed/challenge runs that will inevitably end up on YouTube (if they're not already there). And if you're interested in shaving hundredths of a second off of your final time, then boy have I got a website for you. TASvideos, a tool-assisted speedrun page, has a special section on the NES Mega Man games that provides more information than you'd ever want to know. Here's an example:
In many platform games, you don’t need to be exactly positioned to grab a ladder. You can stand about 10 pixels beside the ladder and when you press up (or down), you’ll immediately grab the ladder.
In Mega Man games, this means that by walking or jumping past a ladder you can grab the ladder for 1 frame and immediately release it in order to gain extra movement very quickly. Walking across the ladder would take about 12 frames, but by grabbing it from distance and releasing it you can shorten it to about 8 frames.
I'm not sure how much of this material is compatible with Mega Man 9, but some brave soul out there has to have the free time and social disorder necessary to find out. Let's wait and watch.
Related Links:
Ulillillia is the Rain Man of Bubsy 3D
Mega Man 9 Goes Back To Your Roots. Way Back.
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels, Part 1
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About Bob Mackey
For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's
Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.
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