Rockman & Forte
General Techniques
Ice Wall Jumping
With proper timing, you can jump, create an ice wall, land on the created ice wall, and jump again. This is used in a variety of places across the speedrun, so it is a vital piece of tech. Screens can still be completed without it, but you will lose significant amounts of time.
you have to use the ice wall a short time after jumping, but also high enough to reach your destination.
Multiple Ice Wall Jumps
Because pausing and switching weapons despawns attacks (including ice walls), it is possible to jump off an ice wall, pause, switch away from ice wall, and after unpausing immediately switch back to ice wall to wall-jump again.
This is slow, but can be useful for large vertical climbs or to ignore cycles.
The Counter Attacker
The little flame item in the shop is "The counter attacker." This item makes all attacks do 2 extra damage whenever Mega Man is under 8 HP.
Beyond the obvious but annoying method of counting tiny bars on the screen, you can tell if your character is under 8 HP by their idle animation. If they are "breathing heavy" and grabbing their shoulder, you are in low health.
Because of this, a runner using Counter Attacker must be aware of enemy damage values when routing, and routing backup damage in the event of unexpected health drops.
Select Enemy Damage Values
| Sniper Joe - Contact | 3 |
| Big Rhinos - Contact | 10 |
| Astro Man Orbs | 2 |
All About Zipping
Most zipping in this game requires getting pushed into a wall by Ice Wall, then directing Mega Man up or down with Lightning or jumping.
Getting Into The Wall
At a high level, to get pushed into a wall, you jump, use Ice Wall, then move Mega Man into the ice wall at the right time to get ejected back out into the wall. If successful, Mega Man will not be able to jump properly.
This involves jumping for a time, firing the ice wall, then holding the D-Pad TOWARDS the Ice Wall until Mega Man snaps AWAY from the ice wall (despite the player holding the opposite direction).
In practice, there are not great methods to determine what the best time is. There are not many magic "do it this way" methods available, nor are there large windows of timings for how high to jump, when to use ice, and when to start holding forward.
One thing to look for is Mega Man snapping back to the starting side despite holding the opposite direction, hopefully caught while pausing.
Once You're In The Wall
Going Up
The simplest zips, once in the wall, use Dynamo Lightning while standing still to go straight up. This requires no extra finesse - if you are stuck in the wall, just use lightning. Just keep in mind some places you can zip into a soft lock.
Going Down
If you need to zip down (notably, in the King Zip, and the Wily stage Sisi Roll Zip), you need to use lightning while jumping. Despite not being able to gain height, you can use lightning "in the jump."
Since it is very likely going down very fast will zip you below the game's kill plane (it will assume you fell in a pit), you need to stop the downward movement by pausing (and canceling the lightning attack). You may need fancy finger positioning on your controller to push jump, attack, and pause in rapid succession.
Also keep in mind Mega Man's depth in the floor for things like the King Skip. You cannot slide in the floor if Mega Man does not have room to stand, or you will soft lock.
Youtube Videos on Zipping
Don't forget to like and subscribe
- ClearTonic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QC_pYdNug0
- KLM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDEffhb0szk
- MrCab - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5TqW72EV9s
Other Zips
There are a few clips and zips that use ice wall, but not this exact method. These are covered in their stages.
- Pirate Man
- Astro and Dynamo Midboss skips
General Information
Joka's Tutorial
This tutorial predates many of the 2021 Year of Rockman & Forte improvements, but is a valuable resource
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2KajNgxRdOT_-A3BzUEJlercfWaUzwgu
GBA Version Differences
There is a Game Boy Advance release of the game, "Mega Man & Bass".
- The screen size is smaller, as it is for most GBA ports of SNES games. There is less vertical space visible, though it is still active.
- The music is...worse
More relevant to speedruns, Werkinig notes the following version differences:
- New loading screens in GBA (though you do get some loading lag anyways in SNES)
- Aside from loading screens, GBA gameplay is largely if not always lagless, which can speed up some sections and make some areas safer, like the room after groundman refights
- Astro zip will softlock you in the GBA version
Astro Man (RMF)
Astro - Vertical Screen Zip
Notes from Discord
https://youtu.be/K_fTprCnqZA?si=plhPHfilcY-GKPIA
According to Werking, there is a zip that sometimes mysteriously "just kills you". This can be prevented by tapping left after the menu if you don't hear the Spike Guard sound.
Comparison Video
The Zip saves about 10 seconds compared to not taking the zip, as shown in this video from Werking.
Astro Man RMF - Button Puzzle Skips
You can skip the button puzzles with ice wall and good timing. The second puzzle is easier to skip than the first.
The basic idea for both is to position Mega Man's hand properly. The background is conveniently many small squares, so position Mega Man about 3 squares away. Use ice wall, slide into it, and clip through the door.
Dynamo Man
Midboss Skip
Wily 3
I can't believe it was Wily all along
Wily Machine & Capsule
Attack Pattern
The Rockman & Forte Wily Machine has a fairly basic manipulable pattern. If you go under it, the machine stops what its doing and stomps the ground after a second, giving you time to slide or dash away. If you wait too long, it will shoot two missiles at you.
This lets you use Remote Mines and Buster shots as needed to shoot the machine in the eye. Just periodically make the machine stop moving by moving under it, and keep pummeling it in the eye.
If you want to attempt the quick kill, keep the machine alive with 1 HP. Manipulate it to smash the floor to prevent it from doing other attacks until it is in position.
Wily Quick Kill
The quick kill requires the Damage Converter, which restores ammo for your equipped weapon if you take damage. This is available in the shop.
The quick kill works because when you shoot with no ammo in Rockman & Forte, you shoot a lemon that does 1 damage. You must have Ground Mines with 0 ammo remaining.
The setup for this is to have the Machine down to 1 HP, with it's rear thruster flame just entering the back wall. Make the machine stomp down by sliding/dashing under it, then immediately retreat to the left edge of the screen. Make sure Ground Man's weapon is equipped and you have the Damage Converter equipped. Let the machine start moving again, and when you see a missile coming , full jump and shoot. Your goal is to land the lemon as the last hit on the Wily, but also take damage and fire a remote mine before that lemon connects. You will get the ammo for the remote mine by getting hit by the missile with Damage Converter equipped. Hold up to get the mine to go high on the wall, close to where Wily Capsule will spawn.
The screen will go white when Wily Machine explodes. The moment that extra brightness completely fades, detonate the mine. Wily Capsule will spawn into it, begin to fill its life meter with the explosion active, and take 1 damage. That 1 damage will "reduce it to 0" and the game will count it as destroyed.
Wily Capsule
If you fail the quick kill, or just don't want to do it, these general tricks work on the Capsule.
If you unequipped damage converter to attempt the quick kill, put it back on.
The weakness is Magic Card, but it is difficult to land hits. Charge buster can be more forgiving.
The spot on the ground about 3/4 to the right is generally safe if you stand still (to the left of the bottom right corner spawn spot).
If you think you cannot avoid an attack, use Lightning. You are invincible in the animation so the shots will miss (and the lightning might do 1 damage to Wily). Just remember to pause cancel once the shots disappear if you are charging buster shots.