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.