Good morning, everybody, and welcome to VG Myths! The online internet Video Game TV Show that always bounces back! Rockman 8 is shockingly enough the eighth game in the Classic Rockman Series, Featuring the same run-n-gun platforming with an Arsenal of weapons in an ultra High-Stakes game of Rock, paper Scissors. But I don't Feel like playing Rock, paper Scissors today, Which is why I'm throwing basically my entire inventory in the trash... ...to play a wholesome game of Rockman Soccer! The Rockball is the very first special weapon available to the player, Acquired almost immediately in the tutorial. It's also the most ABSOLUTELY USELESS weapon in the entire game, Falling short of even the standard Buster. It's standard shots have absolutely ZERO range, plopping down in front of you. If your target uses any strategy more complex than twiddling their thumbs, ... You have the option to kick the ball, bouncing it around the screen in a highly specific angle. But this is difficult to aim, You can only have one ball onscreen at a time, And it deals pitiful damage, Ao it's rarely worth the effort. It also only has a maximum capacity of 20 shots, which runs out pretty quickly. To complete this challenge, we must beat the entire game attacking with only the ball except where other weaponry is absolutely necessary. Be aware that it's impossible to LITERALLY beat the game ball-only since there are occasionally locked doors with nuclear weapon-shaped keyholes But the vast majority of the game is strictly dodgeball. With the playground rules set, Let's get the game started! Shoot three palm trees with the buster to clear the way, Then say hello to your new way of life. You'll need to make every ball you fire count and avoid enemies whenever possible. As soon as you run out of balls, you lose the ability to attack, and essentially guarantee your own death. You'll mostly want to weave in between enemies, and ration out your health for damage boosts. Also, bolts hidden throughout the stages can be used to buy permanent upgrades. You can't grab every bolt without using certain weapons, but you can at least get a good majority, And doing so ASAP is highly recommended. Thankfully, the tutorial boss is one of the only enemies who actually takes decent damage from the ball, letting you pass on to the game proper. The only option for your first stage is Clown Man. The actual platforming sections and in most other levels are easy enough to get through, PLUS there are weapon refills along the way. The miniboss only takes a handful of hits to kill, Leaving us with Clown Man himself, Who presents us with a very simple problem. Our maximum Ball Capacity is 20. Clown Man & And all other main stage bosses have 40 HP. And the ball? Each ball deals exactly ONE Damage Period. That means if we go into the fight with the maximum amount of balls and land absolutely every hit Flawlessly, You'll only take out HALF the boss's health! You might be yelling at me right now to "Just use a W-Tank to refill my weapon energy!" which is a really weird request, when you consider that W-Tanks... ...don't actually exist. Without them, we have no reliable way to refill weapon energy. That said, we DO have a totally UNreliable, Completely RANDOM METHOD! We chose Clown Man's stage first because the Miniboss drops 'Rush Question'. Once per life, Rush Question will summon your faithful Robo-Dog Rush And have him do... ...something. Just, you know, something. Whatever he feels like. If rush feels like being a Bad Dog, he'll do literally nothing. If rush feels like being a Mediocre Dog, He'll fetch you a completely Useless item that does nothing, STILL dooming you, but, Hey, He thinks he helped! Give him a pat on the head! BUT, if Rush is, indeed, a Very Good Boy, He'll hand over the Yashichi, completely refilling your health AND weapon energy, THEREFOR, Bringing your maximum amount of balls per boss to 40 rather than 20. Ever thankfully, Rockman 8 broke series tradition and is nice enough to refill weapon energy (and rush items!) when you die, So you can Grind for Good RNG as many times as you have extra lives. To maximize your chances, and minimise time spent retracking through stages, I suggest buying the spare extra in the upgrade shop, increasing your starting life count from 2 to 4. Pray for Perfect RNG, get 40 perfectly aimed shots in a row, and you'll kill the boss with your very last available shot. After successfully Red-Carding Clown Man, You'll have to repeat the process on Frost Man, Grenade Man, AND Tengu Man. It's important to note Grenade Man's stage can't be done Ball-Only due to a handful of obstacles that are totally immune to the ball, But Otherwise The only obstacle mid-stage is Tengu Man's Shmup Minigame. Normally, you're supposed to grab your friends' faces and obliterate everything with outlandishly OP Power-ups, But in the Ball-Only run, you are COMPLETELY outgunned. ON TOP OF THAT, there's a Miniboss at the end, Necessitating you conserve your ammo while threading the needle on the onslaught. Even after you make it through and reach the boss "room", your reward is Tengu Man, the hardest boss to reliably hit with the ball. Remember, if you miss A SINGLE SHOT, you COMPLETELY forfeit the match, Regardless of wether or not RNG is in your favor. I recommend only attacking Tengu Man when he uses his charge attack. After which, he'll always resort to the Thumb-twiddling strategy. Persevere, and eventually, Tengu Man will fall, conceding access to the second level set where things get ASTRONOMICALLY less RNG. First off, Roll's got some new upgrades available for purchase, and unlike the first batch, there's a good chunk of these that are either invaluable or at least decently helpful. Energy Saver reduces Special weapon Cost, increasing your maximum capacity from 20 balls to 32. You no longer need 100% accuracy to kill bosses. I also recommend buying the exchanger, which converts unneeded health pickups into weapon energy, Super Cover, Dramatically increasing the value of health pickups, Hyper Slide, increasing the speed of your slide to aid in dodging bosses, And, most overpowered of all, Step booster! Allowing you to climb ladders at lightning speed! But! All of that pales in comparison to what we're getting next. Head into Aqua Man's stage and beat the miniboss for the completely non-distinct Geneva-convention uninfringing Blank White Box. (Otherwise known as Rush Charger.) When using Rush Charger, Rush will absolutely ALWAYS be a Good Boy, Raining down a smorgasbord of Health and Weapon Refills More than enough to top you off. Throw that old rusty Rush Question in the Trash, and never look back, You've got a shiny new dog now. However, these stages aren't done with us yet, and those shop upgrades who't come free, You'll need to grab almost every possible bolt in the game before you can actually afford them all. The Balljump comes in Super-handy here, by Holding the jump button while Rock's Feet overlap with the ball, you can essentially jump off it in midair. With proper timing, you can chain Balljumps to cheese through areas otherwise designed for like Thunder Claw, Including this room. It's a bit too cramped to pull off the Balljump like usual, since we'll collide with the ceiling before reaching the other side, But it's still barely possible by firing a ball right as we walk off the ledge. Soon after is this 10 times more cramped and 10 times longer hallway. This time, we make use of Rush Bike, a mostly useless summon obtained in the first half of the game. Get as much speed as you can, jump at the last possible moment, and Yoshi your way off Rush to get EXACTLY enough distance. While it's not particularly difficult, it's important to note Sword Man's stage necessitates special weapons in it's first chambers. Tornado Hold is the only thing that can lift keys vertically, and Thunder Claw is the only thing that can pull hook switches. But, you can get through the Ice Wave chamber by getting a SUPER WELL-AIMED damage boost through the otherwise impassable wall of instadeath flames, AND you can get through the Flash Grenade by Randomly pressing buttons like an idiot. Once the second Boss Set is dead, you can move on to the finale, The Wahwee stages. Stage 1 is thankfully simple. Balljumps can get you past every gap and the boss is actually weak to the ball. We WILL need to use the buster momentarily in Stage 2. These orange blocks are immune to the ball, but the blue ones can be destroyed with either the ball, or enemy attacks. There's another Shmup section here, but you can dodge almost everything with careful movement and memorization. Unfortunately, the boss is fought wile still riding Rush. It unleashes a barrage of mines that completely cover the screen, then immediately attacks AND it's only vulnerable while attacking. Normally, you'd blow the mines up, but with our limited Ammo, Weaving between the onslaught is the only option. AND, one minor note, Only the vertical bars deal damage to the boss, The horizontal bars are Just a distraction for idiots who don't pay close enough attention to the boss's health bar. Once you're ACTUALLY shooting the boss, and not the boss's decorations, You'll have enough ammo to make the kill. Stage 3's Midpoint has us fighting Forte fused with his own good boy treated with evil electricity, But thankfully OUR good boy makes this battle totally trivial. There's a free extra life immediately after which respawns after death, essentially giving you a full refill, Which, unfortunately, you are going to need. Welcome to Hell, Population: Green. Green Devil technically only has 40 HP, same as the stage bosses, BUT with an EXTREMELY COSTLY gimmick; Green Devil's weakpoint can only be exposed by attacking it's gooey outer layer four times in rapid succession during a specific point in it's attack cycle. During this timeframe, the most reliable output I was capable of was 7 balls, Essentially meaning I could only do 3 damage per 7 ammo. Keep in mind this necessitates precise aiming and time: Too soon, Too Late, or Too Low and you'll end up wasting precious Ammo. IF we were to launch a full Salvo every time perfectly, this strategy would use, AT A MINIMUM, 96 Balls. 13 7-ball sets for 3 damage each, and 1 5-ball set for 1 final point of damage. Since our maximum capacity is Only 32, We have to take out our rusty good boy Rush Question out of the trash and roll the dice for the Yashichi, IN ADDITION to the Guaranteed Rush Charger refill, Putting us at a maximum of EXACTLY 96 Balls. THEORETICALLY, enough to kill the boss... ...at first glance, because there's a huge problem we haven't taken into account yet: 32... IS NOT divisible by 7. We'll have 4 balls left over at the point we need to refill, effectively robbing us of 12 balls total. This means EVEN WITH 3 full inventories' worth of weapon energy, we STILL do not have enough Ammo to take Green Devil down. BUT! We're not quite done Min-Maxing yet. This looks impossible ON PAPER, But you can never rule out the possibility of Players to Bend the laws of Mathematics when the chips are down. On your last 4 balls of the first set, Call Rush in just Before Green Devil reforms and Immediately start kicking. If you're lucky enough to get the Yashichi, Yo'll refill JUST as you're about to run out of ammo, Letting you keep the chain going through your second ammo set, Thus preventing those last 4 balls from going to waste, AND you don't even have to do this perfectly, because you can pull of an EVEN BETTER trick with the Rush Charger refill! Call Rush in with enough time to grab the first drops, IMMEDIATELY get into position, and fire a full volley, THEN make a mad dash for the rest of the pickups before they despawn. This essentially allows you to deal 3 damage ABSOLUTELY FREE, Subtracting 7 balls from the total required. With an ASTRONOMICAL amount of patience, waiting for the Yashichi while performing near flawlessly in the time in between, You'll eventually PROVE MATHEMATICS ITSELF INCORRECT, Popping out Green Devil's Eye in awe as you deplete it's health bar AND your own ammo count to Zero. It is basically over now, Green Devil marks the ABSOLUTE hardest point in the entire run. Extra Life Grinding in other stages lets you pass the boss refights for free. As if to mock us, Doctor Wahwee himself is the only boss in the entire game who can't be damaged with the Rockball. BUT, at the end of the day..., That just makes my job easier! I am not complaining! With the world of football Safe and Rush ultimately proven to be a Very Good Boy, The Rockman 8 Ball Challenge is a MISSION COMPLETE! Special thanks to all patreon backers including...: *reads names on screen* Let me know how much this video sucks (and how I can improve) in the comments section below! Once again, thanks to everybody who showed up to keep me company in the STREM chat, And if you'd like to watch the original Live run, there's a link in the description. Apologies for not knowing enough about socker to fill this video with Socker Puns and GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!
You can't as Wily Capsule is immune to Mega/Rock Ball.
That was such a cool watch. I hella did not think they could do it.
madman, absolute madman
I'm not sure if I can trust this person for this if he thinks Mega Ball is useless.