Video Game / Mega Man V

The Rock goes astral.

The fifth and final Mega Man entry for the Game Boy, Mega Man V takes the sub-series in a completely different direction.

Rock and Roll are talking a walk through a field one day when the two are suddenly confronted by a strange robot named Terra, who announces his intention to conquer the world and challenges Mega Man to combat. Rock obliges and transforms into Mega Man... and experiences a total, absolute ass-whooping, with Roll having to drag his unconscious form back to Dr. Light's workshop for repairs. In the meantime, four more "Stardroids" attack Earth and begin taking over important installations, with another four taking over research facilities in the outer reaches of the Sol System. Realising that even his purchasable upgrades won't give Mega Man the victory alone, Light replaces the Mega Buster with a new Mega Arm, which combines the existing low power shots with a Rocket Punch effect. For added measure, he also teams up Mega Man with his latest robotic animal, Tango the cat.

The development team went all out for the Game Boy subseries' grand finale, expanding the scope of the game even further and bringing in an all-new set of antagonists in the form of the Stardroids. The gameplay is much the same as in Mega Man IV, though with Tango replacing Beat (and being less overpowered, albeit available from the very start of the game) and the Mega Arm replacing the Mega Buster. The fully charged version of the Mega Arm will only travel halfway across the screen (normal shots still travel the full distance of the screen), though makes up for this by adding a boomerang effect, making it possible to hit an enemy twice, and up to five times with an add-on.

Stardroids:

• SRN-001: Terra, weak to Deep Digger, gives Spark Chaser
• SRN-002: Mercury, weak to Black Hole, gives Grab Buster
• SRN-003: Venus, weak to Photon Missile, gives Bubble Bomb
• SRN-004: Mars, weak to Salt Water, gives Photon Missile
• SRN-005: Jupiter, weak to Bubble Bomb, gives Electric Shock
• SRN-006: Saturn, weak to Electric Shock, gives Black Hole
• SRN-007: Uranus, weak to Break Dash, gives Deep Digger
• SRN-008: Pluto, weak to Grab Buster, gives Break Dash
• SRN-009: Neptune, weak to Spark Chaser, gives Salt Water

Like the previous four games, you face the Stardroids in two sets of four, with Terra filling the same role that the Mega Man Killers did. This means that the first set is Mercury, Venus, Mars and Neptune, then the second set is Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto, followed by a battle with Terra.

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Tropes:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: The Spark Chaser acts as the game's "Mega Man Killer" weapon, in that it is only obtained right before the final stage, is very useful on the final bosses, and isn't saved with passwords. Like the Ballade Cracker in Mega Man IV, getting a Game Over and returning to the stage select takes the weapon away while Terra reappears. Unusually for this kind of weapon, it is also part of the weakness loop, as it is Neptune's weakness (but can only be used on him during the Boss Rush).
• After Boss Recovery: Like Mega Man IV, the game averts this once you enter the outer space levels to confront the second set of Stardroids. Beating a stage no longer refills your weapon energy, and the only ways to restore everything without an S-Tank is by getting game over, paying Dr. Light to refill your energy, or getting a rare "S" pickup from Proto Man in the places he appears.
• All There in the Manual: Totally averted. Everything is fully explained in the game itself this time around. Well, everything except the Stardroids' origins (at least in the English translation): they were made a long time ago by an ancient alien civilization and were found by Dr. Wily in the present day.
• Anti-Air: Bubble Bomb moves upwards in a waving manner, and slides forward once it hits a ceiling. It deals good damage, but using it on grounded enemies is tricky. And in addition to being Jupiter's weakness, it can always reach him no matter how high in the air he is.
• Artificial Stupidity: Tango can quite often miss an enemy entirely and end up jumping into a Bottomless Pit. Fortunately there's no real consequence for that other than you having to summon him again, but it can get a little annoying if he does it in a difficult situation with lots of enemies and places to fall to your death.
• Back for the Finale: The Mega Man Killers (and Quint) return to be fought one more time each in this game. The Killers wouldn't return to the main series until Mega Man 10, while Quint is still absent aside from getting a successor in Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chousensha.
• Bittersweet Ending: The day is saved, and Dr. Wily is defeated, but there's a certain air of sadness about the ending, particularly the fact that (depending on your translation) Sunstar was either never able to discover whether or not robots can ever truly live in peace, or he sacrificed himself to help make that world a reality. It still ends on a lighthearted note when Dr. Wily shows up and tries to shoot Mega Man, but his barely-functioning UFO dies on him and breaks apart. After the usual mercy-begging, Wily runs off in a comical panic as Mega Man chases him.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • Unlike the previous Game Boy games, this one features a wholly original set of bosses rather than using sets of four from the main console series. It also changes Mega Man's charge shot into a Rocket Punch, has a brand new animal companion in the form of Tango, and is one of very few games where the final boss isn't Dr. Wily.
  • The Stardroids are all united by a Solar System theme, unlike normal Robot Masters which often lack such unity. They also eschew the (Noun) Man naming scheme, and have a weakness loop with nine members instead of eight.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy:
  • Terra would be a lot harder to defeat if he didn't choose to confront Mega Man on a moon/asteroid covered with rocks that Mega Man can pick up with the Deep Digger.
  • To some extent, Uranus is affected by this. It's possible (but tricky) to use the Deep Digger when refighting him to dig a hole underneath him, causing him to fall into a bottomless pit and die instantly.
• Boss Bonanza: The Wily Star doesn't let up on the boss fights. Before entering it, you fight the giant-laser-firing Skull Blazer, then you go through refights with the Mega Man Killers (and Quint) and the traditional Boss Rush against the Stardroids, and after that you fight — in succession — a giant robotic hand, then another, followed by two forms of the Brain Crusher (controlled by Dr. Wily) and then the Final Boss!
• Boss-Only Level: Both of Terra's stages consist of nothing but a cutscene and a boss fight: first against Dark Moon, then against Terra himself.
• Boss Rush: This game gives us two! Firstly you have to face off against the Mega Man Killers (and Quint), then after a couple more bosses you come upon the series' traditional teleporter room.
• Bouncy Bubbles: Venus's stage is filled with bubbles, and jumping on them will bounce you back up from the recoil.
• Bubble Gun: Venus's Bubble Bomb, which shoots floating bubbles that explode on contact with an enemy.
• Cat Girl: Pluto gender-inverts this trope.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: This is the reason why 100% Completion requires revisting a single stage; the path to the crystal collectible in Pluto's stage is underneath a block that can be moved with Uranus' Deep Digger, but the one in Uranus' stage is behind a wall that can only be broken with Break Dash, Pluto's weapon.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: The Brain Crusher's final form is just its cockpit and its only attack is an easily avoidable ground wave.
• Collection Sidequest: The second set of Stardroid levels contains four gemstones, one in each stage. Collect them all and Dr. Light can use them to construct the Power Generator, which cuts the energy usage of your weapons in half.
• Continuity Nod: Mega Man is affected by recoil upon firing a charged shot during the opening — exactly as he is in Mega Man IV.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Rather than following the usual varying weakness chart, the Grab Buster and Black Hole are ineffective against all Stardroids aside from the ones that are weak to them, since the Grab Buster otherwise lets you Life Drain freely and the Black Hole is a Smart Bomb. However, the Grab Buster also hurts the Knuckle bosses and the Brain Crusher's second phase (though the latter cannot be Life Drained), while the Black Hole can be used in an exploit to hurt the Brain Crusher's first form, which is otherwise immune to everything.
• Dash Attack: The Break Dash lets Mega Man charge forwards to damage enemies. It works like a better version of Charge Kick; while it requires a short charge time and still can't be used when off the ground, it deals more damage, bypasses projectiles, and doesn't override the Mega Buster or slide when equipped.
• Demoted to Extra: After being completely absent from the Game Boy games up to this point, Roll appears briefly in the intro, before disappearing just as quickly.
• Disc-One Final Boss: As the Stardroids' leader, Terra is built up as the Big Bad and the most dangerous obstacle of all. Not only does he turn out to be easier than the build-up let on, but a certain mad scientist reveals his hand in the game's events.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Returning from Mega Man IV are P Chips, which act as currency instead of the Screws/Bolts that Mega Man 7 onwards use.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Wily Star is annihilated in one of these, courtesy of Sunstar after Mega Man defeats him.
• Elemental Baggage: The Deep Digger can only be used if there are any grabbable rocks nearby. Uranus also relies on this, as his boss room consists almost entirely of said rocks.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Sunstar was created to wipe out all lesser lifeforms by an alien civilization constantly at war. Mega Man ends up wanting to spare his life, and he doesn't understand why a robot would show kindness to another.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: While Dr. Wily was able to control nine ancient war robots without much issue, he gets bitten on the backside after releasing the last and strongest of them all, Sunstar, who cares far more about destruction than following anyone's orders.
• Expy: Dark Moon is basically Yellow Devil MK-II (since it can bounce its pieces on the ground in addition to firing them forward), but on the Game Boy.
• Forever War: Though it's completely absent in the English version, Sunstar explains that the civilization that created him (and by extension, the Stardroids) was always engaged in warfare, to the point where peace was unimaginable.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The intro points out that the Mega Buster is totally ineffective against the Stardroids. In-game, Mega Man can still fire off normal Mega Buster shots that damage the Stardroids regardless, even Terra.
• Giant Hands of Doom: L. Knuckle and R. Knuckle, two robot hands whom you fight on the Wily Star before facing Wily himself. L. Knuckle can only punch downwards, while R. Knuckle is faster and adds in homing missiles and a grab attack.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Downplayed; the final boss isn't Terra, or even Dr. Wily, but rather an ultra-powerful robot named Sunstar, who was never built up to until right after Wily is backed into a corner. However, given the Solar System themes of the game, and how, by this point, the player has fought a Robot Master for each planet, and even a Yellow Devil expy for the moon, it's not entirely unexpected.
• Grand Finale: To the Game Boy subseries. The stakes are higher than any of the previous four games, almost everything is new this time around as opposed to being borrowed from the NES games, there's a boss rush near the end composed of the pervious Mega Man Killers (and Quint), and as a shock to any longtime Mega Man fan, the final boss isn't even Wily.
• Gravity Screw:
  • Jupiter's stage has outdoor areas with low gravity, allowing for higher jumps. This also affects the gravity of power ups and certain enemy projectiles.
  • Saturn's level has fields that will either halve the gravity of anything inside it, or double it, making them much heavier. Like with Jupiter's stage, powerups and enemy projectiles are also affected.
  • The Brain Crusher's first form spawns Pikashu, an enemy that nullifies gravity and lifts Mega Man up into a set of Spikes of Doom. It stops the effect when it is damaged, however.
  • The battle with Sunstar takes place in a low-gravity room, which needs to be used to dodge his attacks.
• Hailfire Peaks: Jupiter's level has ice floors, electric-themed enemies and outside sections where one can jump higher.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The stages are more problematic than the bosses. At least many of the Stardroids are vulnerable to the Mega Arm.
• Henshin Hero: Invoked in the intro, where Rock, in his civilian attire, jumps and transforms into Mega Man right before fighting with Terra.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Come on, is it really any surprise that Dr. Wily is the person behind the Stardroids? Then again, it probably will be a surprise that Sunstar hijacks the Final Boss role from Wily himself during his introduction.
• Homing Laser: Terra's Spark Chaser is a laser that constantly pursues its target, changing directions in mid-flight to track it down.
• Hopping Machine: Neptune's stage and the Wily Star features Shuhorn, who is the closest thing the game has to the traditional large jumping enemy archetype. Unlike other examples, it only jumps when Mega Man is close to it, otherwise it shoots using the cannon on its chest.
• Human Aliens: While the English script never mentions the Stardroids' origins, much less the species that created them, in the Japanese version Sunstar notes that in his era, humans were constantly waging war with one another using machines.
• Killed Off for Real: In a rare case for the Classic series, Sunstar is one of the only characters of the era to meet this fate thanks to his final explosion; unlike the other Robot Masters that Mega Man has ever defeated, who are only damaged enough to then be repaired and restored to normal, there's straight up nothing left of Sunstar to ever hope to restore.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: This is the final Mega Man game on the Game Boy, and has a few differences from its predecessors:
  • While the first four games used Robot Masters from the NES games as the main bosses, this game features a group of new characters in the form of the Stardroids.
  • This is the only game where Mega Man uses the Mega Arm, a replacement for his Mega Buster that turns his Charge Shot into a rocket punch.
  • Mega Man has a new ally in the form of Tango the cat, who wasn't in any previous games.
  • While the prior Game Boy games had two weakness loops for each set of Robot Masters, this one has a single loop more in line with the NES games despite still splitting the bosses into two sets. This results in the oddity of Mercury and Neptune's weaknesses being unusable until the Boss Rush, and Terra (who fills the role normally occupied by a Mega Man Killer) completing the loop by being weak to the Deep Digger and having Neptune's weakness.
  • This is the only Game Boy game where Dr. Wily is not the final boss, with Sunstar taking that position at the last second.
• Legacy Boss Battle: The four mini-bosses of the Wily Star are the four new characters introduced in the previous Game Boy Mega Man titles (Enker, Quint, Punk, and Ballade, in that order). They all fight like they did in their debut games, but are weakened to fit their mini-boss status.
• Life Drain: The Grab Buster's bullets produce small health pickups upon damaging an enemy, which then fly towards Mega Man to heal him. A notable exception is the Brain Crusher's second form, which will take damage but won't produce health pickups.
• Load-Bearing Boss: After Sunstar is defeated, he brings the entire Wily Star down with him. Why varies between scripts — in the original Japanese, he's moved by Mega Man's kindness and hope for a world where humans and robots live in peace and willingly detonates a powerful bomb inside him to destroy the Wily Star. In the English translation, he instead urges Mega Man to leave as his fusion reactor goes critical as a result of damage inflicted from their battle, and the reactor's explosion is strong enough to bring the fortress down with him.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Black holes can suck in objects, including the fluids in Mercury's body.
  • Explosives like Photon Missile can damage Venus' hard shell.
  • Rocks can block Terra's lasers.
  • Salt Water is a corrosive substance, which can destroy Mars' metal body.
  • Jupiter spends most of his battle in the air, where the Anti-Air Bubble Bomb can always reach him.
• Lost Superweapon: The Stardroids and Sunstar came from an ancient civilization constantly at war, and were found by Dr. Wily in the present day and reactivated.
• Lost Technology: The Stardroids are the ancient creations of a long-forgotten alien civilization, but are on the same level as modern day Robot Masters. The extraterrestrial materials forming their bodies also renders most of humanity's weapons useless, forcing Dr. Light to devise a countermeasure so Mega Man can fight back.
• Marathon Level: Like Mega Man IV, the Wily Star is only a single stage without the usual map screen, but it is far larger than the preceding eight stages, and has numerous boss fights and the standard Boss Rush to go through. And the farthest passwords can go is right before Terra, adding both him and the Unexpected Shmup Level to the endgame's length.
• No Cure for Evil: While Mercury's Grab Buster allows Mega Man to heal himself by hitting enemies with it, Mercury himself can't use it for that purpose (he can, however, steal your items and P Chips).
• No OSHA Compliance: Neptune's submarine isn't in the best condition, and there are cracked pipes which if shot, will release either a jet of steam that'll damage you if you touch it, or even worse, a flurry of water which can sweep you into a conveniently placed Bottomless Pit.
• No One Should Survive That!: After being blasted by Sunstar, Wily disappears from the game until the ending, where Mega Man is surprised he managed to survive both that and the Wily Star's destruction (albeit with a very damaged UFO).
• No-Sell: The Mega Buster bounces off Terra in the opening, demonstrating how useless it is against this new menace.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Sunstar says this to Mega Man, claiming that they were both created for fighting. Mega Man shuts him down when he tells him that he only fights to protect peace between humans and robots.
• Our Sphinxes Are Different: Uranus's stage has a robotic sphinx named T. Khamen as a miniboss, but it has a jackal's head as opposed to the traditional human head. It also lacks limbs and is mounted to the wall.
• Poisoned Weapons: The Nibul enemy (found in Venus and Jupiter's stages) bears a stinger that, upon hitting Mega Man, injects a toxin that causes his movement to temporarily become slow and sluggish. The effect ends early if he kills a Nibul (and not necessarily the one that stung him to begin with).
• Power Crystal: In the second set of Stardroid stages, Mega Man can find four crystals (which Dr. Light believes were used as ancient power sources). Collecting all of them allows Mega Man to get the Power Generator, which halves the amount of energy Mega Man's weapons use.
• Power Up Letdown:
  • The CL upgrade Mega Man can buy gives his charged Mega Arm a random chance to latch onto its target and deal rapid damage. It's very useful for enemies and lets many of them get killed with one charged attack, but it can be annoying if it procs during a boss fight, since most bosses have Mercy Invincibility and the arm will get stuck on them for a second, preventing Mega Man from firing until it returns.
  • Uranus's Deep Digger, like the Super Arm before it, can only be used to pick up specific rocks found in a level; without those, it can only fire regular buster shots. Said rocks are hard to come by in most levels, and it can't be used on the majority of bosses, as only two of them (one of whom is Uranus himself) even have rocks in their arena.
• Puzzle Boss: The Brain Crusher, the game's equivalent to the Wily Machine, is initially immune to all of Mega Man's weapons, and can only be hurt by pushing its Alabell bombs towards it so it takes damage from the explosion. A glitch lets it get killed easily with direct hits of Black Hole, but this requires clipping partially into it with Break Dash.
• Recurring Boss Template: Dark Moon follows the iconic Devil template present throughout the series, possibly hinting at who's really behind everything (though it's not explained if Dark Moon is as old as the Stardroids or not).
• Rock Beats Laser: Quite literally — the Homing Laser-using Terra is weak to the Deep Digger, which merely pulls rock chunks out of the ground and throws them at enemies.
• Rocket-Powered Weapon: The Photon Missile, which pierces enemies at high speeds rather than exploding like a typical missile would. Said rockets take a while to go off, though, and the missile will vanish if it hits an enemy before it flies off.
• Rocket Punch: Mega Man's usual Charged Attack is replaced with the Mega Arm, which sends his arm out as one of these before it flies back after travelling a set distance. It can later be upgraded to grab items and attack a single enemy multiple times.
• Rolling Attack: When summoned, Tango curls up into a buzzsaw and uncontrollably rolls after enemies, occasionally jumping into the air.
• Sequel Escalation: Exaggerated with a new main weapon, a new furry sidekick, a completely new set of antagonists, and even Super Game Boy enhancements.
• Shield-Bearing Mook: Hell Metall DX, which eschews the traditional helmet for a front-facing shield. After its treads are destroyed, the only way to bypass the shield is to hit it with a charged Mega Arm shot, though some weapons like the Salt Water can hit it from above or behind.
• Shout-Out: The Wily Star is no moon, it's a space station!
• Smart Bomb: The Black Hole, which absorbs all onscreen projectiles, insta-kills all weaker enemies on the screen, and deals big damage to the stronger ones. Of course, this comes with a massive energy cost.
• So Last Season: The Mega Buster's charged shot fails to even scratch Terra in the opening, and it gets upgraded into the Mega Arm afterwards.
• Spikes of Doom: A recurring staple of the series, though while fighting both forms of the Brain Crusher, the ceiling spikes merely damage Mega Man instead of outright killing him.
• Spread Shot:
  • The Salt Water is a variation on the splitting type, firing out a large ball of water that splashes apart into three small drops when it hits a wall.
  • Rocks thrown with the Deep Digger create a four-way spread shot in the opposite direction after hitting a wall.
• Stellar Name: The Stardroids are all named after the planets (plus one dwarf planet) in the Solar System. This also extends to Dark Moon (who is unleashed by Terra/Earth) and the Final Boss, Sunstar.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
  • Tango fills a very similar function to Beat, though he uses energy much faster and can only attack enemies that Mega Man himself can reach (or get reasonably close to), making him a lot less overpowered.
  • Dark Moon, the boss in-between the first and second set of Stardroids is pretty much identical to the Yellow Devils of Mega Man and Mega Man 3, though thankfully much easier than either incarnation.
  • Uranus has a very similar design and attack pattern to Guts Man from Mega Man. Even his weapon, the Deep Digger, is little more than a slightly modified Super Arm from the same game.
  • Two enemies — the cannon-helmeted Fukuhorn and the electric Biribaree — act very similarly to Mets and Sniper Joes in previous games. Appropriately enough, once Dr. Wily is revealed to be behind everything, we see variants of those enemies that look more like their predecessors.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: The Brain Crusher would be a completely invincible boss (bugs notwithstanding), if it didn't spit out Alabells that could damage it with their explosions.
• Time Bomb:
  • Mars's stage is littered with landmines that, when stepped on, explode after a random length of time.
  • One of the Brain Crusher's attacks is spawning Alabells, walking alarm clocks that count down and explode. To damage the otherwise invincible boss, the Alabells have to be shot towards it just before they detonate.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: The game gives us one between the battle with Terra and the Wily Star. This was included in part because developers Minakuchi Engineering had designed a number of Shoot 'Em Up games (in particular, Solar Striker) early in the Game Boy's lifecycle.
• Unique Enemy:
  • In Mercury's stage, there is an enemy called Tamp that tries to teleport over Mega Man and drop onto him. For some reason, it only appears in one single room and is absent for the rest of the game.
  • The Feeber enemy usually blows large bubbles that entrap Mega Man and carry him with them. On the Wily Star, only one Feeber blows a much smaller bubble, which can be jumped on and used as a platform to ride over spikes. Said Feeber is on an out-of-the-way alternate path, meaning most players will likely never see it.
• Weaksauce Weakness: An unusual variation occurs in this game, since you don't have the weapons that Mercury and Neptune are weak against (the Black Hole and the Spark Chaser respectively) during the initial set of four Stardroids, meaning that you have to use the Mega Arm to defeat them. Fortunately, you have your full complement of weapons during the rematch near the end of the game. Terra is also included in the weakness loop, making it a chain of nine instead of the usual eight, though Terra is not rematched unlike the other Stardroids.
• The Worf Effect: Properly demonstrated in the intro, as Terra shows off the threat of the Stardroids by blocking Mega Man's attacks and taking him out with one shot.

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