Top 10 Favorite 8-Bit Mega Man Boss Robots

Magnet Man

This guy’s stage isn’t too much to write home about—-lots of silver and machinery, along with some magnetic attraction along the way. It’s fine. But the music is top notch, and so is Magnet Man’s design.

The red and black costume, plus the magnet on his forehead, makes me feel like this is what Cut Man would’ve looked like with stronger graphics capability.

Magnet Man’s fast, and has a lot of range. He leaps almost to the top of the boss room and launches three magnets in quick succession. They shoot forward and then turn straight down, dropping like weights.

But my favorite part is when he hunkers down and shakes as he attracts Mega Man towards him. You can feel Magnet Man using his magnet powers through sheer force of will. Most robots just do their thing, but you can tell Magnet Man wants to be a next level guy. You’ve got to commend that kind of commitment.

Dust Man

Dust Man lives in some kind of trash processing plant. The stage opens up on a panning sour note, which sets the tone immediately for the detritus and trash all around this stage. The stage song is good, but one of its best sounds gets covered up by the Mega Buster sound, so it loses points.

For me, it came down to Dust Man or Bright Man for this list. The level stage is not as interesting as Bright Man’s stage—where the lights there turn completely out if you blow up glowing enemies, until a new one appears on screen—but I had to dock Bright Man on character design: he’s basically a glorified Flash Man with a light bulb on top of his head. His power set isn’t special enough to make the cut here.

Dust Man, however, is all personality. He has a giant square intake on the top of his head, and his body below it is built to handle that kind of center of gravity. The intake spits out blocks of dust while Dust Man jumps around the screen, and it also acts as a vacuum that sucks Mega Man towards it as if Mega Man was on a conveyor belt leading straight to Dust Man. He’s not the toughest robot boss you’ll encounter, but his character design will make you remember him long after you’re done playing Mega Man IV.