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5. Doctor Wily
![]() Dr. Wily was the most nefarious villain in the Mega Man series always seeming invidious and diabolical. Just watch Wily fly into his castle in Mega Man 2. Watch his shifty eye brows move up and down. You know that you are in for the more difficult part of the game when seeing this lab rat mock you on your screen. Besides creating a mass of reploids that Mega Man always has to encounter, he is always endowed with the most aggrandized of machinery to fight Mega Man in the later levels. These machines taking up whole screens sometimes are a further indication of Wily's technical prowess, and how when put in the wrong hands, disaster happens contemporaneously. The world has to be saved many times over because of Wily, but only for our benefit as we perennially get to witness all his new ingenious reploid creations in later installments (except 5-8 where old age obviously gets the best of creativity). While once a fawning student of the brilliant of Dr. Light, he took a "Vader Detour" so to speak, and started his work in world domination by creating his first prototypes which we see in our first adventure. While his first reploids represented the most banal of names, they were not without their own valor and power. Mega Man is amazed by the strength of Guts Man and Bomb Man. He would be even more amazed at all the transmutations that Wily could take on in his own skin. Dr. Wily is the mad scientist of video games. He has earned this claim not just by his massive thick eyebrows, and threadbare lab coat, but by his creations that would become memorialized.
4. Crash Man
![]() What fun Crash Mans stage was. What seemed like an endless foray into the upper echelon of this building construction stage was sequestered just at the right time for the final battle. What starts off as day time at the bottom of the building becomes night time as Mega Man traverses to the top. The difficulty level increases as climbing up ladders proves to be insuperable at times, especially when robot birds are dropping eggs on you, which become more little insects who are chaotically flying in your way. The fun and minor difficulty of the level would come to an end though as you came to Crash Man himself, who was endowed with one of the strongest weapons in the Mega Man series. Besides showing stamina, agility, and great jumping power, Crash Man had his bomb detonator weapon that incurred massive amounts of damage on Mega Man. His timing of the bomb throws was always not certain making it more difficult to evade these bolstering bombs. Certainly, Crash Man was much easier with the appropriate boss weapon, but if you were fighting armed only with your proton gun, you were in for a long ride, and probably a path back to the stage select with Crash Man still needing to be overcome. Crash Mans weapon would prove to be essential in fighting many enemies in Mega Man 2 including robot bosses and regular bosses, but his weapon becomes most necessary in the later stages of Mega Man where Mega Man needs to blow up walls with Ray Guns behind them as the final boss of the stage. Combine the importance of the weapon, the stage and the difficulty of the boss, and you get one of the more notorious characters in the Mega Man series.
3. Gemini Man
![]() Gemini Man clearly had one of the best stages in all of the Mega Man series. His stage music was something that would be remembered whether the player liked it or not. The stage music moved surreptitiously with a certain calm drama that made the player feel like he was on the adventure of his life. The level hosted in the nighttime in what looked like some bubble base was iridescent with big and small enemies at every corner, from the puerile ghost like figures who would come out of bubbles you destroyed and the larger penguins with tail spins on their head. Lets not forget what this is really about though, Gemini Man. Gemini Man was a creative high mark in the boss creations in the Mega Man series. A reploid endowed with tons of agility and jumping power, Gemini Man was one tough bot to get a good shot on. But what Gemini Man was really known for was his ability to split into 2 and make Mega Man have to defend against both. Beyond his simple proton gun, he had one of the cooler weapons you could attain, a laser that would bounce off all the angles of the screen killing anything in its way. If Mega Man was hit with this though, his health would fall asunder at rapid rates. Besides pure agility and a great weapon, Gemini Man was one of the more aerodynamic new-age boss's in the Mega Man series. He was the boss you wanted to be friends with because of how slick he looked. You were not a nerd playing Mega Man 2 when you had the opportunity to encounter this boss who was cooler than all the kids at school. Great level, Great Music, Great all around character, Gemini Man would always stand the test of time.
2. Wood Man
![]() While wood traditionally isn't the best material to make a robot out of, Woodman is the strongest character of Mega Man 2 and perhaps the whole series for that matter. Massive on defense and equipped with one of the more useful items Mega Man can use throughout the series, Woodman would be remembered as one of the greatest boss's in video game history. Before battle he would pound his chest to signify his truculent ferocity and make the player fear his body of pure wood that was more difficult to penetrate than a 200 ft redwood. With a little help from a smaller jump, he could actually jump pretty high for a character tough on defense and strength, rather than mostly on agility. His weapon was a circle of leaves that would circle around him as a force field and then drop from the ceilings leaving Mega Man very little room to maneuver in this ferocious battle. Expurgating Woodman's strength after the battle was a great procurement as Mega Man could also use the wood shield to elude all enemies coming his way. This was especially helpful in a Wily castle stage as Mega Man had to ride a conveyor with a multitude of spikes below him. Coming at him from all angles were birds dropping eggs on him that could knock him off into certain peril on the spikes. With the wood (leaf) shield though, no one was able to touch him. Many types of force field weapons would be attained throughout the Mega Man series (Skullman's weapon E.G.), but it all started first at Woodman. Having one of the best weapons in the series and the most pugnacious of pre-battle attitudes puts him at our #2.
1. Snake Man
![]() Snakeman combines all the best moments of the Mega Man series. His level was arguably one of the most memorable stages in video game history employing a pleasantly aesthetic color throughout combined with the most creative of enemies. When one thinks of Mega Man, they think of Snakeman's stage with those 2 massive large snakes that needed to be passed before one was to move on. Beyond the greatness of the stage, there was the music, which was again, arguably the best Mega Man song in the series. Snakesman's stage has been covered by many video game bands, but they always fail to embody the crispness and perfect timing of this original soundtrack. A quick rhythm combined with an aggressive bass line gives Snakeman's stage its rightful place in the best of Mega Man music that has always excelled over other games soundtracks. Snakeman himself is the most conspicuous robot in the Mega Man 3 stage select standing out with his snake head in all his green iridescence. His snake crawler weapon shoots out snakes that traverse the length of the walls making it difficult to move around the boss area with any sense of comfort. His defense is strong and while not having the best of jumping abilities, he proves to be evasive nonetheless while paying mind to dodging his individual weapon. With the coolest costume of all the Mega Man bots, the most memorable stage and stage music, and one of the more formidable weapons in the series, Snakeman became our #1 boss character. When one thinks of Mega Man, Snakeman is always within the first 3 boss's you think of, for good reason.
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