Napalm Man Stage

Napalm Man Stage
Theme Music

Napalm Man's Stage is a stage that appeared in Mega Man 5, Mega Man IV, and Mega Man (Game Gear) that has Napalm Man as the boss.

Appearances

Mega Man 5

Napalm Man's Stage is one of the most graphically diverse stages across the franchise's NES library. Mega Man first spawns inside a dense jungle, with palm trees hanging above. It also holds some of the more annoying enemies in the game, such as the Sumatrans and Apache Joes. After some enemy combat, Mega Man enters some purple underground caves, which is home to a few unique gimmicks. One hallway has purple Rolling Drills, which simply move forward. They only take 3 HP to destroy and can be jumped on, but a single touch from them is lethal, so blast away! Shortly after, one long room features slow water that moves along the floor and flows down from ledges and the ceiling, and functions identically to how it was in Toad Man's Stage, only the vertical water doesn't push the player down and the water does not layer over entities. Escaping the caves takes Mega Man back on surface level, though there are no more palm trees. Mega Man goes underground once again, only this time he enters the bunker of a hidden military base, which is primed with tanks on the side, all on standby.

Enemies

Image	Enemy
	Napalm Man (boss)
	Sumatran
	Metall Cannon
	Taban
	Rolling Drill (unique)
	Subeil
	Apache Joe
	Yudon
	Jet Bomb
	Power Muscler
	Mizzile
	Bomb Thrown

Valuable pickups to look out for:

• E-Tank: Shortly after the Rolling Drill room, this pickup is seemingly barred behind walls and impossible to reach. To get to it, simply hug left while jumping to find an invisible wall. Then jump again over a real wall to nab it.
• Eddie: Appears in the transition from the caves back to the jungle. The main thing in this room is Eddie, who will randomly provide a big health energy, a big weapon energy, a 1-UP, or an E-Tank. If the player doesn't like what they get and doesn't take it, they can re-enter the room to have Eddie provide the player another valuable pickup.
• Plate: After the two Yudons is the entrance to the military base. Before you jump in, there is a large area on the left that you can drop into to get this letter, which is in plain sight.
• 1-UP: Right after the letter is a room with two Metall Cannons. Behind the lower is this pickup, simply defeating the enemy will allow access to this pickup (though you could Charge Kick past him).

Mega Man IV

Accessed through a teleporter in the Wily Station, Napalm Man's Stage in the GB demake exclusively takes place inside the military base, though without any tanks in sight. The stage has several unique gimmicks, and the first of which ins introduced right away. Blocks that eventually destroy themselves in configurable timers show up right away, but they appear later in the stage to create a "collapsing bridge" of sorts, tasking Mega Man to speed through the bridge. There is also fire unique to this stage, and are as dangerous as spikes, though they can temporarily be extinguished by Rain Flush, which can make the ground they are on safe to walk on. This stage brings back the Rolling Drills, unique to this stage. However, they are used throughout the entire stage more-so as platforms to ride and traverse the stage along, though they can still be destroyed if they get in Mega Man's way. They always move into position vertically, from the top or bottom of the stage, though they are quite slow. One particular room brings back the stone platforms from Pharaoh Man's Stage. These platforms stay in place, but when stood on, they will shake left and right for a second before dropping straight down. They drop 1 full tile of distance and Mega Man will have to learn this in order to obtain the stage's letter (see below). Overall, Napalm Man's Stage is the most profitable in the game when it comes to collecting P-Chips.

Enemies

Image	Enemy
	Napalm Man (boss)
	Sumatran
	Metall Cannon (unique)
	Rolling Drill (unique)
	Subeil
	Jet Bomb
	Mizzile
	Bomb Thrown

Valuable pickups to look out for:

• P-Chips: A total of 38 P-Chips (4 large and 3 small) can be found and collected within this stage.
• 1-UP: At the very start, after the blocks give way, drop all the way down until you can drop no more. This pickup rests on the right and Rush is required to reach it, though it is guarded by a Metall Cannon.
• Proto Man: In the first room with fire, there is a branching path upwards. Use Rain Flush to extinguish the flames and climb the ladder. It leads to a dead end room with Proto Man, who plays his whistle before giving out either a big health energy, a 1-UP, an E-Tank, or a rare S-energy ball that immediately restores Mega Man's health and all of his weapon energy. He cannot be cheesed: if Mega Man leaves the room without collecting the item Proto Man throws out, he won't return and his item will be gone.
• E-Tank: In the same room with Proto Man.
• Mini E-Tank : In the next horizontal room continuing down the main path from the Proto Man room, there is a slide gap leading to a bottomless pit. At the end of the little tunnel is this pickup, tasking Mega Man to turn around as he grabs so he doesn't fall off.
• Plate: There is one room with Bomb Throwns, and is mostly flat outside of platforms in the air that have fire. This letter is placed on the leftmost of 3 stone platforms. Mega Man has to use the stone platforms to make it to the letter and back in time before they sink into the fire. If Mega Man is worried that he won't make it, he can use Rain Flash to get rid of the fire temporarily. This letter is mandatory in order to progress through the game.
• 1-UP: Right after the letter room is a drop. If Mega Man didn't hold left, he will be caught by a rising Rolling Drill. Heading down the ladder reveals this pickup is resting on top of fire. Mega Man can simply use Ring Boomerang to grab it from the left side (trying to fall directly onto the pickup results in death from the fire).

Mega Man (Game Gear)

Napalm Man's Stage is one of the first four stages at the start of the game. The layout is 1-to-1 with the layout in Mega Man 5.

Enemies

Image	Enemy
	Napalm Man (boss)
	Sumatran
	Taban
	Metall Cannon
	Rolling Drill
	Subeil
	Apache Joe
	Yudon
	Jet Bomb
	Power Muscler
	Rock Thrown
	Mizzile

Videos

Mega Man 5 - Napalm Man Stage Weapons Factory

Napalm Man stage

Why Mega Man 5 Got BANNED! - Culture Shock-0

Napalm Man analysis

Trivia

• A common rumor states that the original release of Mega Man 5 on the NES was banned from Vietnam simply because of the visual design of Napalm Man's Stage as well as his name being Napalm Man.
  • Reasons for this include the jungles looking eerily similar to the ones in Vietnam, the Sumatrans resembling Indonesian tigers, the spikes in the stage resembling caltrop traps used in the Vietnam War, and the caves resembling underground complexes. It also didn't help that napalm was used to disastrous effect in the Vietnam War. Check the Culture Shock video above for more details.
  • However, there is no evidence of Mega Man 5 specifically being targeted by any censorship laws in the country, and any future compilation releases that featured Mega Man 5, as well as the Virtual Console versions, were not banned.