Part 10: Doc Gemini

Stage Comments:
There's not much to talk about here; Doc Gemini is terribly uninteresting all around. The first part up until the boss shutter is basically completely unchanged in terms of content; the challenge is upped a little by the addition of more pits and spikes, of course. I guess there really wasn't much you could do with "swooping enemies over pits" and "tadpole eggs". Meaning I can comment on the first boss already.

Flash Man:
Whereas he was ridiculously easy in MM2 and not even that hard to avoid, he becomes a great nuisance here just because of his bulk. We'll see this complaint echoed later even more, but that's really a great issue: His AI is practically unchanged, but with a bigger size, suddenly he's big trouble. Spamming weaknesses helps, of course, but I'd much rather be able to...well, avoid him consistently. I admit I didn't practice much though, as you can derive from my success, it's not really needed anyway. In a "serious" run, never use the laser; it zipping around all over the place should tell you that if you don't get lucky and it hits him by chance, you won't be able to fire again for a long time. Rapid-fire needling is the far superiour option.

Weaknesses: Needle Cannon + Gemini Laser

Again, if you fail against him, it's back to the very beginning of the stage! Gah!
Following up is forced item usage, but it's pretty much a joke; even easier than the section in the original stage, which is...strange to say the least. There's absolutely no reason to use the Marine except for novelty, flying above with the jet, just in a straight line and shooting is obviously easier.
Then comes the only interesting part, with the constantly respawning Ants from the holes in the crystals; as mentioned, I quite like it, the ladder setup and their movement makes me think of an early Mario game. Too bad that you can just blaze through it however you want, after all you've got tons of options, and their respawn speed is far too slow to hinder you at all. Could have used a bit more challenge in my opinion; the Doc Robot stages are a bit iffy in that regard, from brutally hard to bafflingly easy over the course of a few screens.
And that's it for the stage already.

Bubble Man:
Probably the only Robot Master to get far easier, his shots are now at fixed heights rather than only firing when you're level with him, making him easier to avoid completely. His being bigger is no issue, really. Also, he's weak to Shadow Blades, which can tear him a new one exactly like Metal Blades did to his original, so it's a nice breather at the end. Not that you'd need one, but eh.
Also Spark Shot haha it's so bad.

Weaknesses: Shadow Blades + Spark Shot

New Enemies:

Only the Ant makes its triumphant return; it's even more obvious that it's a spider, the way it travels on ladders. Just a quick ground-crawler in the first part, a step up from the penguins because you have to react more swiftly, then an interesting obstacle that sadly isn't much of an obstacle at all; they die to everything in one hit, so not really worth losing too many words on.

Needle or Spark next?