Mega Man 2/Wily Fortress 4

This stage is considered one of the most difficult stages in the game, let alone Wily's fortress. It earns this reputation primarily because of the stage boss, but also due to trap floors and difficult jumps. Fortunately, it's not too long. You begin by climbing up one side of the fortress where bits of the floor are merely illusions, and Mega Man plunges right through them. Once you reach the top, you must descend via a series of moving platforms similar to the ones found in Crash Man's stage. Then finally, you must rush down a hall full of Sniper Joes, both in and out of armor, before facing a boss where one mistake can leave you defenseless.

Stage

A: After starting off with the opportunity to refuel two of your weapons, you begin climbing up a series of ladders. You may notice the extra life waiting at the bottom of a chute. That extra is not just there to reward you, but also to teach you about the illusory floors that the stage contains. Not all of the platforms are as solid as they appear to be. When you completely set foot on one of these floors, you fall through as if nothing was there. Make note of the location of these floors. Better yet, test the integrity of the floors before marching across them by using the Bubble Lead. The Bubble Lead will roll along the ground and drop through the false floors whenever they reach them. Then be sure to leap over the illusions. B: After being trained for a few stages, you face the ultimate fake floor test. Somewhere along this platform above the spikes is a fake floor, and if you don't figure out where, you will fall into the spikes and die. Send a Bubble Lead out to find the gap and jump over it. There are a few more false floors in the screen above. If you already have four E-Tanks, ignore the one found here and continue on your way to the top. C: Starting here, you must navigate your way to the ladder that leads to the screen below by riding over the spikes on the moving platform. All the while, Tellies will appear from either side of the screen. Your best defense against them is to activate the Leaf Shield while you ride. Hop off and climb down the ladder once you reach the left side of the screen. D: There are no enemies here, but you must be quick on your feet to avoid falling into the spikes. Drop down from the ladder when the platform below approaches the lower left corner. Ride the platform until it starts moving to the right just above the spikes. Leap up to the small ledge above you, and wait there for the platform to double back around, before jumping back on it to reach the platform on the right that leads to the ladder. E: Much like at point C, you'll need to ride this platform around Tellies, and you can activate another Leaf Shield to be safe. When the platform reaches the middle of the screen, you'll need to hop off on the small column near the top, and hop back on when the platform clears the column and proceeds to the left. F: For the last test of your ability, you must drop down to the platform when it begins rising up the right side of the rail. Then hop off and wait on the small ledge for the platform to make a full rotation along the rail. As soon as the platform stops moving down and starts sliding back to the right, hop off the ledge and on to the platform, and then immediately leap over to the ladder on the left side of the screen before the platform moves too far away from it.

• G: The final leg of this stage features four Sniper Joes, two in Sniper Armor, and two standing alone. It's not difficult to make it through this corridor, but it is difficult to do with most of your health in tact. And you'll want to bring as much health with you into the boss battle as possible. Remember: it's always better to get shot by Sniper Armor than stomped on.

Boobeam Trap

The boss of this stage is actually five wall-mounted domes known as the Boobeam Trap. This is a particularly difficult battle for the following reason: There are five domes and five walls in this room, and none of them can be destroyed by anything other than the Crash Bomb. However, you only have the ability to shoot seven Crash Bombs. You need to destroy all five domes which means you only have enough ammo to destroy two of the walls. As it happens, two of the bombs (the left dome above the door and the lower right dome) are blocked off by walls, so those are the two walls you must destroy.

Be aware that the domes store up energy until they are ready to release that energy in the form of a shot that rips across the room from every surviving dome simultaneously. It is very difficult, but not impossible, to avoid these shots. If it comes down to it, use an E-Tank to restore your energy, as dying in this room and being forced to start over after you've fired some of your Crash Bombs is a difficult alternative.

There are some clever ways to deploy your bombs, and experts can even make it through the room in as few as six bombs. The following strategy is a more straightforward approach, and is by no means the only method possible:

Avoid damage cheat

There's an unintentional method that you can use to escape damage. Every time you pause the game to select a new weapon and return, Mega Man appears to reconfigure himself. He is actually invulnerable to attack when he does this. If you time this switch correctly (or tap rapidly), you can escape taking damage from the domes' beams.

1. Fire off two Transport Item 1 floating platforms, one above the other, so that you rise through the gap near the entrance, all the way up to the highest dome on the left side. As soon as the last platform disappears, switch to the Crash Bomb and remove this dome.
2. Drop down to the ledge below. At this time, the most strategic choice is to remove the highest dome on the right, which is accessible from this ledge, to reduce the number of domes shooting at you from four to three.
3. Then turn around to face left. Fire a Crash Bomb at the wall blocking in the dome above the door. When the wall is destroyed, fire a second Crash Bomb to destroy the dome itself.
4. From this ledge, turn around and jump up to the short ledge on the right, and up and over the platform above the higher of the two remaining domes on the right. Standing in front of this dome, fire a Crash Bomb to remove it.
5. Use Transport Item 3 to climb out of this pit, and then drop down to the floor in front of the wall enclosing the last dome. Use a Crash Bomb to destroy this wall, and use your final Crash Bomb to destroy the final dome.

If you die

If you happen to lose a life in the middle of this fight, it will be difficult but not impossible to win when you return to the boss room. For one thing, any wall that you destroyed prior to getting killed will not return, so you will need one less bomb for every wall you destroyed. When you return to the game, you will be just before point C on the map above. The room for point C is the safest opportunity you will get to refuel your Crash Bomb weapon. Wait by the ladder to the next room and shoot Tellies when they get close in an effort to harvest weapon energy. Don't proceed until your Crash Bomb energy is full.