When watching most "top level" runs, this is most visible in Snake Man on the screen after the first Snake Midboss.
Rush (Jet And Coil) will despawn if, while sliding, you press Start. Despawning Rush is primarily useful to reduce lag by getting Rush off the screen. It is hypothetically useful if you need to reposition Rush as well. # All About Rush Jet - Rush Jet ammo/energy only gets used while Mega Man is on Rush. This is (some of) why players often jump on Rush Jet a lot. - As with most things in this game, more sprites on the screen results in more lag. This is why in Snake and Doc-Needle, when Mega Man jumps to save ammo, we also jump off the top of the screen - one less sprite to draw. - When Mega Man jumps off the top of the screen, whether because of Rush Jet or Coil or something else, his hit-box screen wraps. This can result in - getting hit by enemies at the bottom of the screen (Doc-Needle Parashu) - collecting drops at the bottom of the screen (large energy drops, E-Tanks, enemy drops) # Screen Wrapping Items and Enemies Technically not unique to Rush, this is most often experienced while riding Rush Jet or using Rush Coil. When Mega Man goes off the top of the screen, his Y-coordinate "wraps". This makes it possible to grab items low on the screen while jumping off the top of the screen. The easiest place to see this is in Doc Needle over the chasm. Position Mega Man on the Rush Jet over one of the large drops at the bottom of the screen, and full jump. Mega Man will collect the bottom of the screen drop. This has a few effects. - Collecting drops is usually considered a slow down, so space your jumps appropriately to avoid them. - You may want to collect something on purpose, like the E-Tank in the water in Gemini Man's stage using Rush Coil off the top of the screen. - You can also collide with enemies near the bottom of the screen! Usually parashus and Dragon Flies in Doc Needle. - You can manipulate the dragon fly enemies in Doc Needle to fly to the bottom of the screen if they track Mega Man's vertical position while you are off the top of the screen. # General Techniques Or at least the non-Rush ones # Music Cancel ### Why Cancel the Music? Mega Man 3's soundtrack, while amazing, generates lag. By removing the background music, the game simply runs faster. ### Technique By taking a spike death on the exact same frame as a screen transition, the "Mega Man dying" sound also causes the background music to stop. This can be done in - Doc Shadow (reliable) - Dos Spark (50/50 or 75/25) Other locations nobody goes for it - End of Doc Gemini (no known setup, saves frames) #### Other Music Cancel Locations These use other one-off techniques of canceling music, at least partially for the same desired "no music = less lag" effect. 1. Gemini Man - The Proto Man skip # Stop Hating Top Spin Seriously. This weapon is much better than you think, it just has one major glitch that you can avoid once you know about it. It's actually quite powerful, just not as fast as other weapons in most situations for a speed run, mostly because at its core it's a melee weapon. ### Avoiding Losing Top Spin on Shadow Man Or, really, any boss with invincibility frames. The problem is Top Spin triggers just about every frame it thinks it can hit an enemy. For Shadow Man, if he has invincibility frames, this means you get to watch the weapon ammo meter drain across 27 frames doing no damage. The fix is very simple - just don't use Top Spin into invincibility frames. This goes for Shadow and Doc Heat. ### Be Ready To Get Bumped Left This is mostly noticed during the falling "Parishus" at the end of Shadow Man's stage. Mega Man tends to get bumped left when killing an enemy with Top. Keep this in mind when trying to make tight jumps. # Boss Weaknesses ### Weakness Order Mega Man 3 has 2 weakness loops - Magnet > Hard > Top > Shadow > Spark > Magnet - Snake > Gemini > Needle > Snake There are 2 soft weaknesses to "cross over" between the loops (at least 2 that are relevant to the speedrun routes), along with the two robots that take extra damage from buster. - Spark takes 2 damage from Needle - Gemini takes 2 damage from Shadow - Magnet and Top both take 2 damage from the Buster instead of only 1. ### Weak Against Theirselves Most bosses are weak against their own weapon. Not as dramatically as our dear friend Metal Man, but enough that almost any robot's own weapon is a viable backup in refights. (Notably, Gemini Man's refight is routed to use Gemini Laser against him) # Gemini Man # Proto Man Skip ### The Strat Speedruns of Gemini Man's stage often jump through the Cutscene screen. By sliding onto the screen, the game doe snot remove control of Mega Man...until the slide ends. Use this slide distance to jump (**before** the slide ends) through the building and down the pit.The building does not actually have a hit box, so just jump through it. No extra tech needed, just pretend it doesn't exist.
### Why Do This? 1. Skipping the cutscene all by itself is just faster 2. By skipping the cutscene, it also stops the Gemini Man music in favor of the Proto Man whistle. This consumes significantly less memory, causing the game to run faster as long as there is no music. # Gemini Man - Boss Fight(Stub page)
### General Info Weak against snakes, but also gemini (his own weapon). Soft weakness (takes 2 damage instead of 1) to Shadow Blade. ### General Info There are two phases In the first phase, Gemini and his clone will shop and shoot when you shoot. You can use this to your advantage in a buster fight (such as with Gemini First), but is more for awareness. Damage to either clone affects the full life meter of the boss. After about 14 damage, the last hit clone vanishes. **It is possible to softlock if you kill the second clone before phase two begins.** Phase two has Gemini Man walking across the room until you shoot. Pressing B will make Gemini Jump. Use this info to place your shots properly (and perhaps make Gemini jump into a stray shot), and to anticipate when to slide under him. ### The Four Fights 1. For Gemini First, you will have only buster. Remember pressing B will freeze Gemini in phase 1, and use this to land extra buster shots at the expense of some health. 2. For Magnet and Top first, you will have Shadow Blades. Remember you can shoot up. 3. For Needle First, or anything else that does Snake before Gemini, you can use Gemini's actual weakness. Remember it mostly hits on the floor, and you cannot pause with snakes on the screen if you need an E-Tank. ### Refight Considerations For refights, you typically use Gemini Laser as Gemini is weak to it, and Needle Man's teleporter is nearby. This allows the runner to save a weapon switch in general, as well as a trip to the second half of the menu where Snake and Shadow would be. There is otherwise no reason not to use Snake or Shadow (or any other weapon) in the fight, but the point is to go fast. ### Soft Lock Potential If you kill the second clone in phase 1 before the fight enters phase 2, you will kill both clones but the game will not consider the boss defeated. At this point you will be stuck and forced to reset. This usually only happens with skillful aggressive attacking of Gemini Man. While this page needs to be updated with the exact information, this can always be avoided by not attacking the second clone after the first is defeated, or by simply not attacking the jumping clone - if you only attack one of the two positions, you'll never kill both. # Doc Needle # Hard Fight ##### **Hard pattern** He jumps quickly to the left [](https://goodboyrush.net/uploads/images/gallery/2025-11/boqjdiv.gif)