Mega Man Legacy Collection

Beat

One useful weapon that's hidden in the game, and pretty hard to get, is Mega Man's pet robot bird Beat. To get him, you need to collect one letter of the word "MEGAMANV" in each of the initial eight Robot Master stages. You don't need it to complete the game, but it makes it much easier. Here's a list of each letter's location, if you don't want to use a Password that skips all the Robot Masters and gives you Beat.

M: Gravity Man
E: Wave Man
G: Stone Man. This one is hidden; near the beginning of the stage, after you get inside, look for a rock wall tile that looks a bit different than the others in a room with two Subeils and a Met Mommy, and shoot it with your Mega Buster. Here's an image, courtesy of the Mega Man Home Page.
A: Gyro Man
M: Star Man
A: Charge Man
N: Napalm Man
V: Crystal Man

Here follows a list of all the bosses and their weaknesses.

Robot Masters

There are eight Robot Masters in this game. Knowing their weaknesses is crucial even if you use a Password to skip their initial stages, because there is a Boss Rush later in the game. There you'll have all the weapons, so you can exploit all their weaknesses, but if you do want to go through the initial stages you'll have to beat one Robot Master with just the Mega Buster, so I suggest starting with either Star Man or Stone Man.

1. Star Man: Weak against Wave Man's Water Wave, which can penetrate his shield, but it only travels along the ground. The Mega Buster is probably just as easy; you can only shoot Star Man while his shield is down, but you can do it in the air (and remember that you jump really high here).
2. Gravity Man: Weak against Star Man's Star Crash
3. Gyro Man: Weak against Gravity Man's Gravity Hold
4. Crystal Man: Weak against Gyro Man's Gyro Attack
5. Napalm Man: Weak against Crystal Man's Crystal Eye
6. Stone Man: Weak against Napalm Man's Napalm Bomb, but hitting him while he's vulnerable can be hard; Mega Buster works OK here too.
7. Charge Man: Weak against Stone Man's Power Stone. Here's a trick: Pause the game to de-spawn all your Power Stones on the screen to be able to fire it more rapidly.
8. Wave Man: Weak against Wave Man's Charge Kick (which you activate by sliding, +)

Proto Man's Castle

1. Dark Man tank: Weak against Water Wave
2. Dark Man barrier: Weak against Beat. If you want to save Beat, Crystal Eye is pretty nice here, or a lot of other weapons.
3. Dark Man sniper: Weak against Beat. If you want to save Beat for later or have run out, Gyro Attack is good and can be aimed at Dark Man while he's in the air.
4. Dark Man: Weak against Beat. If you didn't use it on the other Dark Man incarnations, now's a good time. Otherwise, Power Stone is also good (and remember the trick: pause the game to de-spawn the Power Stones to be able to fire it again right away).

Wily's Castle

1. Big Pets: Weak against Crystal Eye
2. Circring Q9: Weak against Gyro Attack
3. Boss Rush with all the Robot Masters; see above for their weaknesses
4. Wily Press: Weak against Star Crash, but a charged Mega Buster is easier to hit with
5. Wily 1: Weak against Super Arrow
6. Wily 2: Weak against Beat. Hope you saved some Beat energy for this fight!

METHOD IS CONFIRMED TO WORK!

For Mega Man 2 through 6, there is a password system that lets you begin the games with some major milestones completed. The passwords for some of these games can bring you as far as the Dr. Wily Castle, and others can only bring you up to the point where you've beaten every Robot Master. Whatever the case, they'll end up saving you a lot of time if you're more interested in getting a game's associated achievement than playing through the game to experience it from start to finish.

Here are the passwords that will take you the furthest into each game. These passwords were created using the password generator at http://www.mmhp.net/Passwords/



In the case of Mega Man 5, this password will take you up to Protoman's Fortress with every weapon, adapter, and Beat letter unlocked. However, be warned that you will start the game with no E-Tanks. Previous Robot Masters levels can be revisited for E-Tanks if you wish, however.