Mega Man I: Ice Man's Stage Analysis

Stage Divisions

Difficulty Chart

    In keeping with the established 'theme' of Ice Man's stage, it seemed appropriate to split, for the first time, my difficulty analysis. The two lines represent, respectively, the stage's difficulty without and with the Magnet Beam (and attendant powerups). This is, so far, the first stage I have played that is made dramatically easier with the use of powerups - not counting the bosses, of course, which I will cover later - and as such, it serves as an important first in the series. Namely, the first 'expert gate' stage, of which practically every single game will have at least one.

    Other than that, the only remarkable thing here is just how hard Section 5 really is. Because of the way Foot Holders work, even if an expert player goes through it without making a mistake, he still might not make it through without the Magnet Beam if their movements don't allow him to progress. It's the defining flaw of the stage, and in a way of the game: a good idea held back by flawed execution stemming, it would seem, more from technological limitations and a lack of experience (since these ideas were unexplored until this point) rather than incompetence.

Hazard Population

    Notable here is Section 6, which has quite literally no hazards, following on the brutal and unprecedented gauntlet of Section 5. Other than that, the only remarkable feature here seems to be how, despite its considerable length in screen-by-screen terms, the stage looks rather small and short when broken down by analysis. There are fewer ideas at work in this stage than in many of the shorter ones in the game, and that is likely why it seems to breeze by in play - over half of the stage's length is taken by Sections 1 to 3, which have virtually no challenge and take very little time to complete.

    Next time, we move on to the last of the six Robot Master stages, Fire Man's Stage. From there, I'll move to some more in-depth discussions of different aspects of the game, starting with the six Robot Masters themselves, then synthesize some of all that information back together into a coherent picture of the game from a design perspective before moving on to the Wily Stages.

Thanks for reading,

The Undesigner

Another Quick Apology

Once more, I have spent so much time getting up to speed on my coding skills and also working on sprites that I have sadly neglected my blog. I apologize, and will work to have an update ready sometime next week, probably early. In the meantime, here is a sprite that I have accomplished. Or, a single animation for a sprite.

So, um, yeah. There's that.  ._."

Mega Man I: Ice Man's Stage Video Comparison

CORRECTION: I know there are three runs in the video, not two, as it states in the beginning text. This is because I was originally planning to show the death as part of the first run instead of dividing them, and forgot to change the text once I changed my mind. It isn't worth going back and rerendering and reposting the video now.

    Framed in light of the extreme difference in challenge depending on whether the player has the Magnet Beam or not, this stage forms the clearest example we've seen so far of the way the Mega Man games provide guidance to the player without forcing linearity. An expert player can, if he chooses, bull through this stage with nothing but the Mega Buster, and succeed. But a beginner player who finds this too challenging is free to explore other stages and collect powerups first to bring the game down to his level. It's an inelegant example, due to the frustrating nature of this stage's biggest challenge, but at its core the idea is sound, and the developers would promptly begin refining and perfecting it by the next game.