Sword Man

• Sword - Part 1
• Gearna Eye
• Sword - Part 2
• Sword Man - Boss Fight
• Bolt Locations - Sword Man

Sword - Part 1

There are 2* bolts in the first half of Sword Man's stage, only needed for 40 bolts.

ONE OF THESE BOLTS CAN BE DUPLICATED IF PLAYING 40 BOLTS WITH THE DUPLICATION GLITCH

Sword Man's stage is unique in that it features four puzzle rooms based around the first four robot's weapons.

Main Room - All Notes

The Grenade shot to start the stage instead of a Mega Ball is because of the Hyper Slider making the ball+slide strat unreliable.

You need two Mega Ball jumps for the first ladder, but only one for the top level ladders.

Jump out of your slide before the teleporter. This saves roughly a half second per teleporter for Mega Man's standing up and walking animation.

After the fourth puzzle room, you can (full distance) slide back and forth to make the last door open larger.

Per Cleartonic, there is no way to skip the puzzle rooms. the midboss Gearna Eye simply will not spawn if one of the locks is still in place.

This remains the biggest dream-skip of this game.

Thunder Claw Room

Ice Wave to clear out the first set of enemies, and a quick switch to thunder claw to hit the switch.

Ball jump up the ladders as needed.

There is a bolt in screen 3

The jump under the spikes on the last screen is tight to stay on the top route. Be careful about the green bat.

Use Thunder Claw instead of another ice wave on the last group of enemies. The Ice Wave will freeze the fire totem forcing you to jump over it, rather than just destroying it.

Flash Bomb Room

There is a bolt in this section. This is the bolt to duplicate.

The gimmick of these rooms is to use a flash grenade to light up the background. The order of back panels in the first three rooms is the order to hit the switches in the final room. This is mostly done by color.

Tornado Hold Room

The first room only needs one thunder claw to make it over. This may be an easier weapon swap after ball jumping up.

Be careful when pushing things in the second room. It is very easy to overshoot the first switch, or to make the second one bounce off the first low wall without making it over.

Ice Wave Room

The lava is instant kill. Use caution.

Gearna Eye

From The Compendium

HP: 40

Damage Chart:

Damage Values:

Click here for a tutorial on a (mostly) consistent 2-cycle.

Notes

As the video explains, Gearna Eye has no invincibility frames when opening and closing. This allows Grenades to deal massive amounts of damage.

Sword - Part 2

There is 1 bolt in this section, near the end after riding the lava-boat down the waterfall

Sword Man's boss fight calls for a lot of damage boosting, to help manipulate his patterns. Try to avoid damage in this section.

First Screen

The intended strat is to push the right button of the boat while the lava geyser is down, then ride it to the top.

Ball jumping is clearly faster, however it is trickier than it looks. There is a rhythm to reach the top without bonking on the ceiling, and not going too far right into the geyser.

Second Screen

You have a short period of time to slide across the two sinking pillars without your slide stopping halfway across.

Third Screen

Intended

Ride the lava boat to the right. Once the geysers raise you up, ride it to the left quickly until you can jump and grab the ladder.

Keep in mind the boat explodes if it contacts the spikes, which will likely kill the player if your are riding the boat at the time (either by falling into the spikes or the lava)

Faster

Ride the lava boat to the far right, then ball jump over the spikes and get to the ladder.

Fastest

This ball jump is tricky for multiple reasons - controlling the height of your jump, making sure the boat goes right, and money jumping before contacting the lava. This saves minimal time so only attempt this if you are confident.

Slide off the ledge to the boat.

If the boat goes right, slide off the boat and ball jump to the right. Make sure you don't go high enough to contact the spikes, and ball jump around the spike ceiling. You have to ball jump all the way up.

If the boat slides left, abort. You can hesitate to make sure the boat goes right (which also gives you less distance to cover too).

Screen 4 & 5

Get past the enemies and tornado hold + ball jump up the ladder. Ride the lava boat to the right.

Shoot the green bats so they don't knock you into the lava.

For 40 bolts, use a Grenade on the rock formation near the end to reveal a ladder that goes to the bolt.

You should not need the additional weapon energy for Sword Man

Sword Man - Boss Fight

From The Compendium

HP: 40

Damage Chart:

Damage Values:

Click here for a tutorial on Sword “manipulation” and limiting spins.

Notes

Sword Man is the second boss, along with Astro Man, who has a soft weakness to one of the first four robot master weapons. Unfortunately, Ice Wave is difficult to hit Sword Man with, so the current route settles on Astro First

Sword Man is weak to Aqua Balloon. Simply avoiding his attacks and pummeling his top half with water will end the fight easily, but not necessarily quickly.

 Sword Man's "Fire Slash" sword spin takes a significant amount of time. It must cross the whole room, then come back, during which he cannot be damaged. The best fix for this is to get Mega Man on the "short side" of the room to give Sword Man less distance to travel.

If Sword Man is within a few pixels of the wall, and Mega Man is inside his hit box against the wall, Sword Man will not Fire Slash. This is the optimal scenario, however you will take a lot of damage in the process. Mind your HP if you attempt this. Try to take damage boosts off only Sword Man's feet when possible, as his lower half deals only 1 damage to Mega Man.

For this reason, we suggest tackling Sword Man first in refights later on - you will be guaranteed full HP to start by choosing him first.

Bolt Locations - Sword Man

There are 3 bolts in Sword Man's stage, 2 in the first half and 1 in the second. None are needed for any%.

40 Bolts has a duplication route. This is the stage where duplication happens. See https://goodboyrush.net/books/mega-man-8/page/bolt-duplication for details