General Information

• General Information - WRs
• Route Information
• Weapon Swapping
• Weapon Information
• MM8 Version Differences

General Information - WRs

• The current Original Release any% world record is 50:27 by orsa, played on a Playstation 2 with Fast Disk Speed enabled.
• The current Legacy Collection any% world record is 49:43 by choc, playing on PC/Steam

• The most current TAS (read: not current at all) is fractalfusion’s 47:06. (as stated in the compendium)

Route Information

Any%

The current any% route does Grenade Man first and Astro Man 5th.  This is the most consistent route due to getting Rush Bike in the former and Astro Man being more reliable than Sword Man in the latter.

The current any% route shops once, and buys only Hyper Slider (5 bolts).  There are 6 bolts directly in your path (1 in Grenade, 2 in Frost, 2 in Tengu, 1 in Clown).  One of these can be skipped if you so choose, but none of them lose any time to collect.

Collecting or not collecting any of the 40 bolts has no impact on the run, outside of your ability to buy items at the shop. Nothing is ruined if you spend time to pick up extra bolts.

40 Bolts 

Has a lot of revisits

Weapon Swapping

The quick weapon switch order is Mega Ball -> Flash Bomb -> Thunder Claw -> Tornado Hold -> Water Balloon -> Flame Sword -> Homing Sniper -> Astro Crush.  

Remember you can always press L+R to return to Mega Buster.

Mega Man 8 is unique in that quick weapon switching while a weapon is on screen does not cancel the existing weapon.  You can take advantage of this to combine several weapons together and ease platforming.

Weapon Information

• You can see the damage tick intervals of the different weapons in the game here.  The main takeaway from this involves Flash Bomb - if you fire 2 Flash Bombs spaced apart at an interval of 3 frames, then since two weapons cannot both deal damage on the same frame, you only get the damage of a single Flash Bomb.
  
  

• Thunder Claw is a useful weapon for destroying enemies, as it will deal damage on every frame that it touches an enemy on the backswing.
  
  

• Water Balloon has no shot limit, and can be mashed at 30hz.  This is very useful in a TAS setting, and minimally useful in RTA.
  
  

• Homing Sniper can be charged to target multiple enemies at once.  This is useful for refighting Astro Man.
  
  

• For Mega Buster damage values listed on this site, the first value is the damage done by lemons, the second value is the damage done by half-charged shots, and the third value is damage done by fully-charged shots.
  
  

• For special weapons that can deal damage multiple times, the damage values listed on this site are for one tick of damage.  The only exception to this is Astro Crush, since the weapon strikes multiple times on the entire screen.
  
  

• Tornado Hold is unique in that it has two separate parts that deal damage - the fan and the actual tornado.  Below, the first number listed is the damage done by the fan, whereas the second is the damage done by the tornado.
  
  

• Mega Ball deals the same damage whether kicked or not. It is most often dropped directly into an enemy, or put in front of Mega Man to "dribble" like a real soccer ball into an enemy.
  • When moved into during a jump, the Mega Ball will get a decent bounce forward (slow motion gif below - press the special weapon button in mid air and move into the ball - no other inputs needed. You must NOT be holding Jump.)
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  • Note after getting the Hyper Slider, Mega Man will out-run the Mega Ball
    
• Mega Ball can be kicked up at a steeper angle by holding "Up" while kicking it. This is most noticeable in the Atetemino (Wily 1) fight.
  
  
• For information on ball jumping, see https://goodboyrush.net/books/mega-man-8/page/ball-jumping 

 

• Remember you have a dedicated Mega Buster button
  • Your charge level resets when switching weapons or using a special weapon
  • You can charge while another weapon is on screen, such as a Mega Ball being dribbled along 

MM8 Version Differences

Rockman 8: Metal Heroes

The original Japanese release 

Mega Man 8 Anniversary Collector’s Edition

Original North American release of the game, no changes were made. (Except for shop menu confirm/cancel)

Mega Man 8 Anniversary Edition

There are two separate versions of this release that are identical in packaging. The difference is noted by whether the disc has a spiral pattern on it like Anniversary Collector’s Edition did or if it’s solid black. 

• The “spiral disc” is exactly the same as Anniversary Collector’s Edition. 

• The “black disc” removes the ability to hold start to skip cutscenes and adds in an additional bust shot during the cutscene with Bass in Wily 3.

Rockman 8: Metal Heroes (Playstation the Best)

Essentially the “Greatest Hits” version of Rockman 8.  Adds in the changes present on the black disc version of Anniversary Edition.

Mega Man 8 (PAL)

The game runs at 50hz. Based on the first PS1 NA/JP release. Only change is an additional splash was added before the title screen for Infogrames who distributed this release. The SDA run of Mega Man 8 uses this version.

Mega Man 8 (Greatest Hits)

Repackaging of the black disc Anniversary Edition. No changes were made.

Playstation Network Releases

The Japanese release uses the Playstation the Best version and the English release uses the Greatest Hits version. No changes were made. Loading times are horrendous, even when playing on a PSTV or PSP with Fast Disc Speed enabled.

Sega Saturn

Lots of changes to the core gameplay, see here ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pjgshU2U6OQKHQA52zcnNNpZUXIHngfP_tq-9Cax1qE/ ) for some examples.

• Main things is more enemies, harder enemies, and extra bosses (Wood Man and Cut Man).

• North America only got one release of this game, Japan received the original and a Satakore budget re-release which are exactly the same. There is no PAL version.

Anniversary Collection

• The loading screens are significantly faster. Screen transitions were altered and are slightly slower for stage selection, pausing, and level transitions. Very easy to lag, where PS1 and Saturn experience basically no lag. There’s an odd half second freeze before every robot master selection and boss health fill. Allows for free early hits on them. Audio pitch/balance/speed for several sound effects and the voice acting for the final set of Robot Masters is too high-pitched.
  

• The Xbox version is the only one that allows you to choose between different button configurations. 
  
  

• The Gamecube release has shoot on A and jump on B/X. 
  
  

• The PS2 version has horrible input lag. 
  
  

• Timing hasn’t been done to compare loading times between PS2/GCN/Xbox, but you probably shouldn’t play on this version unless you have to. AC was only released in North America and only one version exists for each console.

Legacy Collection 2

• LC2 MM8 entirely removes the ability to skip text, so LC2 loses a large amount of time on that. Most loading times are very fast, but mid-stage loads are pretty slow (even with a solid-state drive) and vary based on PC performance. Has major issues with vsync on, where the game will drop to 50% speed even on very capable PCs. The insanely slow text speed negates almost all of the time the faster loads save.
  
  

• The red cross on rush medic is removed. The blue glass during the Frost autoscroller is the brighter color that’s used in Anniversary Collection.
  
  

• Wily Machine plays the incorrect sound effects before the fight starts (the wily tower stage map theme).
  
  

• LC2 changes RNG by preserving it in odd ways. This needs to be explored more, rng manip is theoretically possible but useful setups to preserve values in a proper RTA setting have not been routed.