Fake Man

Fake Man (フェイクマン) is a fake police robot that appears as the boss of the "Special Stage" from Mega Man 9 that became available on October 20, 2008. In the game's main content, Fake Man makes an appearance in Dr. Wily's fortress. Wily claims that he was the police robot that arrested Dr. Light, but Proto Man proves correct in assuming that the "Dr. Light" Wily has captive is the robot Wily used to make the fake video released to the press. Thus, Fake Man did not arrest Light, and, in fact, Light was arrested by the real police, who release him once Mega Man delivers the memory circuit to them.

In the "Special Stage", Mega Man must traverse a city landscape and face difficult enemies, one boss, and all of the mini-bosses found in the main content of Mega Man 9 as he makes his way to the lair of Dr. Light's "arresting officer."

Strategy
Fake Man is very agile and uses a revolver style weapon to rapidly fire projectiles at Mega Man. This weapon has the advantage of firing in multiple directions, but is offset by the need to manually reload every six shots, leaving Fake Man defenseless for a short period. Fake Man won't fire his weapon unless Mega Man provokes him, though he will attempt to run into Mega Man regardless of his intent. His pattern of shooting is: he jumps backwards and shoots a bullet in the air and then another on ground, then jump to the other side and fire two bullets at the player's current location: one when he just jumpes and another when he is about to land, and he will shoot the last two by jumping on his place. If Mega Man uses the Jewel Satellite weapon, he can reflect Fake Man's shots back at him for small damage, or deliver a heavy amount of damage to him with the Satellite itself. However, the Jewel Satellite has not enough weapon energy to defeat him, so it is recommended to reflect the most bullets at him when he is shooting, then fire the shield at him while he reloades, then jump over him to avoid being rammed by him, and activate the shield again to trigger his pattern again.

Appearance in other media
The police robots Fake Man is based on appear in the short Mega Man Megamix manga story "For Whose Sake?" included in the booklet of Rockman 9 Arrange Soundtrack to arrest Dr. Light.

In the Short Circuits from Mega Man #20, Dr. Wily creates Police Man, a Robot Master identical to Fake Man except for the lack of a weapon in his arm. Police Man was intended to infiltrate the local law enforcement and bend them to Wily's will, but instead he goes after Wily because of his large repertoire of crimes, including theft, disturbing the peace, assault, "forgetting to call your mother on her birthday", and reckless driving.

Trivia

 * Like Doc Robot, Dark Man, Time Man, and Oil Man, it is unknown what Fake Man's serial number is, or if he has one.
 * Another point to note is that there is in fact at least 2 Fake Men as evidenced by the ending scenes of Mega Man 9. Thus, it is likely that Fake Man is more similar to Dark Man or the Doc Robots and do not have a Wily Serial Number. Further evidence is the fact that Mega Man does not receive his power when he is defeated.


 * The mini-boss order in his stage is: Hanabiran, Stone Head, Paozo, and the Changkey Dragon.
 * Fake Man's original concepts somewhat resemble Flash Man.
 * Fake Man is one of the only Robot Masters in the series (alongside Quick Man) that has a weakness but cannot be destroyed by his weakness alone, as Mega Man will run out of ammunition before he runs out of health.  The player must either switch to other weapons or reflect several of his shots with the Jewel Satellite to defeat him.