Inaccessible Stages

This is a sub-page of Mega Man: The Sequel Wars/Episode Red.

Test Stages#

By changing the stage address 2e55 and entering a stage, one can access some interesting stuff!

Toad Man Stage with EX Toad Man#

Using value 10 sends the player to Toad Man's normal stage complete with normal checkpoints and a normal Escaroo sub-boss. However, upon arriving at Toad Man, himself, the game attempts to call the "EX Mode" routines, causing the screen to shift by a couple blocks, forcing the "new boss intro" to play...

... and ending with the player flying out of the screen at mach speed, making the game soft-lock.

Changing the Checkpoint works as expected.

Vs. EX Toad Man#

11 puts the player in EX Toad Man's test stage from the SAGE 2022 demo -- which was also inaccessible there! However, things are a little different, this time...

Directly to the right is EX Toad Man, properly situated in a functional room. Upon entering, the leftmost and rightmost platforms sink, stranding the player on a platform with EX Toad Man. At a guess, he's had his programming stripped away, so he just sits there with his double health, doing nothing while the Enhanced boss theme plays.

Below the starting room is what appears to be an early level concept. It uses the "fake transparency" water from the Episode Red and SAGE 2022 demos, but isn't very noteworthy otherwise. However, this room does have a different layout than its SAGE 2022 counterpart!

Finally, down and to the right is a small arena which is where the player used to fight Mega Water S from the previous game. Sadly, there's nothing here, now.

Modifying the Checkpoint value leads to completely empty rooms where the player just falls to their death.

EX Skull Man Stage#

12 is just an empty room with Skull Man's sky background and stage theme. The graphics glitch a little when the player moves and after respawning, the game soft-locks with an endless vertical scroll. Nothing much to say, here.

A similar room exists in the SAGE 2022 demo and functions equally as well.

Vs. EX Bright Man#

Going to value 13 lands the player in a variant of Bright Man's stage.

To the right is a normal boss room with an unfinished EX Bright Man. Unlike EX Toad Man, he doesn't have the unique EX Mode boss theme, but he does have double health and no programming. He doesn't use his enhanced intro if that option is disabled, either.

Down below is a room with uneven terrain...

... but to the right of that is the unused Quint battle area from the Episode Red and SAGE 2022 demos, albeit slightly altered. Quint, himself, is nowhere to be seen, sadly.

Vs. EX Drill Man#

Stage 14 is a pretty boring place to be.

To the right is... nothing. Down below is a typical boss hallway (with the exception of the ladder). To the right of that is a boss chamber and Drill Man does appear... but he's a glitchy, invisible mess with double health but no programming. EX Drill Man must have gotten Roboenza since since his SAGE 2022 appearance (via Metall Party).

Unlike previous stages, Checkpoints 1 and 2 do work as expected, leading to spawning at the boss chamber. Curiously, Checkpoint 2 causes the leftmost boss shutter to load, too.

General Test Area#

Stage 15 is an odd mish-mash of things set to Ring Man's theme. It seems to be repurposed from a similar inaccessible area from the SAGE 2022 demo.

The stage, itself, is designed with placeholder tiles. The 1 and 2 tiles teleport the player elsewhere.

Ignoring the teleporters and going right leads the player into a room with a single Garyoby (buzzsaw) enemy. Further right is a room with two Mummira units. And that's it.

Jumping into Teleporter 1 leads the player to an EX Moby battle! However, after EX Moby powers up, the game soft-locks. This battle was programmed in the SAGE 2022 demo, but EX Moby seems to have lost his will to fight, here.

Hopping into Teleporter 2 leads to the next room to the right, but there's no Garyoby and no room before or after that. Enker from Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge was fought here in the SAGE 2022 demo. No Enker this time, sadly.

Lastly, checkpoints 1 and 2 lead to empty death pits. Weirdly, Checkpoint 2's background is shifted almost entire up to the top of the screen.

Vs. Ultimate Doc Robot Leftovers#

16 is another boring place with Dive Man's music playing in the background. It's so boring that even the graphics don't load properly! After pausing and coming back, however...

... we can see that it's a glowing boss hallway.

SAGE 2022 Demo (Inaccessible)	Episode Red (Inaccessible)

Closer analysis of the tiles reveals that this isn't Dive Man's stage at all. Rather, it appears to be what's left of Ultimate Doc Robot's demo stage from the SAGE 2022 Demo!

Heading to the right leads to an empty room where Ultimate Doc Robot should be. Alas, like all good things from the SAGE demo, he has disappeared. Curiously, the boss shutter seems moved over by one block, allowing for the player to stand on it. This is likely unintentional.

Checkpoints 1 and 2 are death pits. Yay.

Pharaoh Man Stage with EX Pharaoh Man#

Going to Stage 17 will lead to a horrible place with broken placeholder graphics. By default, this is actually just normal, everyday Pharaoh Man's stage, but with one twist: The boss spawns with double health and no programming. This is becoming a recurring theme...

Curiously, loading into this stage from another stage will load that stage instead.

EX Dust Man Stage Test#

18 is yet another completely empty stage. The background is a little broken, too. The Checkpoints lead to the same room.

EX Dust Man's Stage was already done and added to the SAGE 2022 demo, so it was probably erased from the data along with EX Skull Man's stage and Quint.

EX Skull Man Stage#

Going to stage 19 from the Free Play mode will lead to a pitch black area where Skull Man's stage theme plays and the graphics only sort of load after a screen transition. Going here from the Stage Select, however, will crash the game. However...

Loading in from another stage will load that stage's layout with this stage's "graphics".

For some reason, this version of the stage locks the player into the Mega Man 5 weapon set, minus all the weapons except Rush Jet and Beat -- the latter of which can't be selected. (Rush Jet is also impossible to Quick Select with Y or Z.)

EX Dive Man Stage#

Do you like Dive Man's theme? Well, 1A lets you listen to it against a weird, blue box background... for about three seconds. Otherwise, just like several other test stages, it's a death pit. There is one very interesting thing to this stage, however.

Loading it up from the Stage Select screen displays this otherwise unused intro for Dr. Wily! Granted, there's no sprites to go with it, but still, that's kind of interesting.

EX Ring Man Enemy Tests#

Going to 1B showcase what is easily the most interesting test stage of them all!

Going straight to the right leads to a battle with EX Ring Man. If you thought he had functioning AI, you'd be wrong. He, like EX Toad and EX Bright, just sits there as his normal boss theme plays.

Down and to the right is a room with an EX Ring Ring and EX Roader, both sporting new colors. The EX Ring Ring is twice as fast as normal, but the coding for the EX Roader has not been added, leading to that unit to sit there frozen and defenseless.

Below that room is a room with two EX Ring Ring units and two Garyoby (sawblade) units. The Garyoby units are completely unchanged.

To the right of the EX Ring Ring / EX Roader room is with EX Kabatoncue, the Original Hipporessor™. Kabatoncue uses the EX Mode boss theme and aside from more health and a different palette, he's supposed to fires three homing missiles instead of two. The "shot limit" for this hasn't been updated yet, however, so if two missiles are on screen already, the third won't launch.

The real trick, however, is that every time one of its platform segments is destroyed, a standard enemy bullet is fired at the player, making the battle much more strategic!

Finally, heading straight straight down from the starting room leads to a battle with EX Whopper, the King of Rings™. Unlike the original, this model throws its rings at the player as projectiles, then teleports to the other Whopper platform to do it again.

Selecting Checkpoint 1 or 2 leads to the normal checkpoints in Ring Man's normal stage. However, all enemies and bosses have been replaced with their EX variant -- which leads to an awkward, still skippable encounter with EX Whopper later on. The retracting platforms are also a bit weird, retracting only in the center. It's unclear if this is intentional. If so, it's quite devious!