In Mega Man 1-6, there's a feature I call the "window of opportunity".
Every time a cutscene occurs that makes Megaman lose control, there's a window of opportunity of 1 frame where Megaman may perform some action. The action could be sliding, jumping, or even shooting.
Cutscenes affected by this rule are:
- Beginnings of boss battles
- Enemies that have their own dedicated screen (such as King Hippo or Protoman)
Previously this feature has been shown in:
- Skipping the Protoman cutscene in Geminiman stage in MM3
- I jumped out from a teleport in Gutsman refight in MM1
- In my (incomplete) MM3 run, I demonstrated how to shoot at Topman before the battle begins (though the shot had no effect).
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In this first GIF, it is demonstrated how it can be used in Mega Man 4 for both fun and for speed.
In the upper side image, it's used for nothing but fun. It looks quite funny when Megaman jumps in walking animation.
In the lower side image, there's an exceptional phenomenon: The cutscene is programmed to begin with Megaman walking, but the player makes him slide. As a result, during the entire battle, Megaman runs and jumps at the sliding speed, which is much faster than normal walking! Also, the battle begins faster!
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In this second GIF, two different ways to start (or skip) a fight against king hippo in Mega Man 4 are displayed. The differences are obvious.
Notes on animation:
- The animation starts with screen scrolling. Don't be confused of the differences in sliding speed at start.
- At the end, Megaman appears twice at the same time. This is an artifact of the tile tracker, and does not exist in the game.
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In the third GIF, below, it's shown how to use the "window of opportunity" in Mega Man 1 to jump out from a teleporter.
The gain of the trick in this position is however rather small: it enables inflicting damage to Bombman only 1 frame earlier -- too small difference to even notice in this animation.
Note that the left edge of the interior of the teleporter is solid during the battle (even though there is no visual indicator of it). This enables Megaman to
zip out from the teleporter by facing left, saving a few frames compared to walking.
The window of opportunity can also be used to switch weapons, and you'll gain another window after the weapon switch is completed.
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I didn't include animations of MM2,3,5,6 (mainly because I lack savestates to useful situations), but I can guess there are many uses for it in some of those games.
