Skull Man

• Room 1 - Skull Man Zip
• Room 2 - Skeleton Joe
• Room 3 - Shield Attackers
• Skull Man - Second Half
• Skull Man Boss Fight

Room 1 - Skull Man Zip

At the start of the first screen, you can zip using one Balloon and Invicibility frames to get through the first wall, this saves around 6 seconds over doing the intended way.

How it's done

The idea is to go back to make the Togehero (the Spike enemy) spawn at the top, you then have to place a balloon when this enemy is about 2/3 in the wall and jump slide into it as fast as you can.

While practicing some cues can indicate what you are doing wrong :

• If you die, it means you were too early on the placement
• If you get pushed out without zipping, it means you were too late on the placement

Alternative

In RTA runs, one recommended alternative is simply using bright and clear the first screen at ease. The cannons are taking 4 hits each, so to optimize movement, you wanna try to bullet slide (shooting then immediately sliding) as much as possible, depending on how your movement is you may need to Flash the room more than once.

Fastest Recorded Room Time

The current fastest recorded room time is 13'59 by Chelney

The fastest non-recorded room time is 13'56 by LookinToad 

 

Room 2 - Skeleton Joe

A short room with just one Skeleton Joe at the center, despite the glaring simplicity of the room you can clear it with various strategies.

Beginner Strategy

We can just damage boost through the Skeleton and jump at the ladder

Intermediate Strategies

To speed up the room by a couple of frames we can add some balloons usage in the room, the first we can add is a Balloon Jump on the wall.

 

Another small improvement that we can add is to use a balloon at the start of the room, the objective by placing the extra balloon as we jump off the ladder is that we can trigger the slide lower and a bit earlier, therefore saving a few frames.

Advanced Strategies

As a final add, it's possible to dodge the damage boost from the Skeleton, we are going to use one extra balloon in order to make this work.

There are 2 ways this can be done

Safe way 

The safe way is not very punishing as in case of a final, this can be easily reverted to one of the previous stated strategies.

World record way

The way is quite risky has it's very easy to place the third balloon too high and die by getting crushed. This also doesnt save a significant amount of frames so use at your own risk.

Fastest Recorded Room Time

Fastest time is tied at 2'18 with LookinToad and Chelney

Room 3 - Shield Attackers

Skull Man - Second Half

Most of the second half of the stage is handled by Bright Man's Flash Stopper. This mostly results in the route depending on your slide movement, to extend each Flash as much as possible.

First Screen Notes

• With Flash active, the turret enemies that usually cannot be injured from behind are vulnerable. They take 3 lemons each.
  • If a lemon hits them on the same frame they spawn, it will deflect anyway! Worse, it makes them completely invulnerable for the duration of the flash. So time your shots appropriately
• The last jump of the screen is especially tight. Use caution.

Second Screen / Last Long Screen Notes

• Teles won't spawn during Flash, so use it sooner than later.
• Skeleton Joes take 3 lemons to defeat during a flash. They will not crumble.
• You might want to fire one extra lemon at the end - a Tele can spawn if Flash runs out and the lemon will make short work of it.

Skull Man Boss Fight

Damage Tables

To Skull

Buster	1:1:3
Dust	4
Ring	1

From Skull

Contact Damage	8
Shots	4

Skull Man's Attack Pattern

Skull Man will only act if Mega Man acts. If you do nothing, Skull Man does nothing. Try it. Walk into Skull Man's room and just stand there. Mega Man is programmed to blink and Skull Man isn't, so you will lose the staring contest.

Seriously go get a drink they'll both stand there.

That said, there are 3 rules (Maybe 3 and a half) to what Skull Man does.

1. If you walk, Skull Man will fire 3 shots in Mega Man's direction. They are all aimed at him.
2. If you fire at Skull Man, he will jump at you, then activate the Skull Barrier.
   • Depending on your distance...
     1. If you are far away, it will be a high floaty jump
     2. If you are close, it will be a low jump
   • The Skull Barrier lasts an RNG amount of time. After that, Skull Man will run to Mega Man's position.
3. Skull Man will not do the same thing 3 times in a row. If you walk at him 3 times, the third attack WILL be a jump at Mega Man and Skull Barrier.

Use this information to inform your strategies.

The Strat

Walk towards Skull Man to trigger his shooting pattern, then immediately use Dust. (You only need to move a frame or two before firing to trigger this Skull Pattern.) Walk into the middle of the room during this.

After that, fire a shot at Skull to trigger Skull jumping to the middle of the room. Continue attacking him during this. Jump over his head when he runs at you but stay close to him.

If you stayed close, Shooting again (triggering another skull barrier pattern) will make Skull jump straight up. You should be able to kill Skull near the actual center (X-and-Y) of the screen if you did this right (reducing time until the fanfare).

Refight Notes

The fight is the same, though you want to end the fight close to the teleporter rather than being centered.

Other Trivia

Ring can damage Skull through the Skull Barrier. This is largely useless without fast weapon switch - any time gained from doing 4 points of damage during long barrier patterns is lost to the pause to weapon switch.