Yes, there are some ways to cheat this boss fight and avoid taking damage, and you had better take full advantage of them. Otherwise, you’ll be left in a “fair fight” with a bullet hell-style boss whose ability to fill the screen with deadly projectiles is made that much worse by the realization that he really only needs a couple of shots to end your run.
11. Needle Man – Mega Man 3
There’s certainly no shortage of difficult bosses in the early Mega Man games (more on that in a bit), but it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that Mega Man 3’s Needle Man is still considered to be one of the absolute toughest enemies in the history of this difficult franchise.
Needle Man is one of those classic Mega Man bosses that utilizes an attack pattern that may not technically be random but is close enough to random to make you wonder just what it is this game expects you to do about it. It also only takes a few hits from one of his varied attacks to drain your health pool and inspire you to throw your controller in the air.
10. Toad Air Marshall – Bucky O’Hare
Towards the end of the already difficult Bucky O’Hare, you’ll suddenly find yourself piloting a small escape pod and navigating some especially frustrating “shoot ’em up” stages. The change in pace is tough enough, but what really puts this sequence over the top is the fact that you soon find yourself battling the dreaded Toad Air Marshall and his ability to fill the screen with projectiles all while outrunning a wall of fire that is constantly creping from the left of the screen.
I can’t overemphasize how jarring that change in gameplay is or the sheer amount of stuff that this sequence throws at you and expects you to overcome. Even games from this era are rarely this cruel.
9. The Final Boss – Jackal
The notoriously hard Jackal (a top-down shooter in the style of Ikari Warriors) saves its most devious challenge for the very end when you’re tasked with assaulting the enemy fortress and soon find yourself surrounded by suicidal soldiers, cannon fire, tanks, helicopters, and pretty much every other kind of nemesis and nuisance you can possibly imagine.