ABOUT MEGA MAN
The Mega Man series is often cited as one of the most renowned video game franchises of all time. Beginning in 1987 with the release of the first game for the Nintendo Entertainment System - simply called "Mega Man" - the franchise now spans approximately fifty games in at least seven different series. And it all begin with the original story of Mega Man:
In the year 200X, brilliant scientist Dr. Thomas Light was the first to create a convincing, life-like humanoid robot. Using that prototype plan, he first built lab assistant robot Rock and housekeeping robot Roll, and then - with the help of his colleague Dr. Albert Wily - built six more Robot Masters designed to oversee less intelligent robots to handle tasks too dangerous or tedious for humans. All was going well until Dr. Wily mysteriously reprogrammed the Robot Masters and took of with them! Now, he's using them in a massive takeover of the entire planet!
But Rock, having resisted reprogramming and having a strong sense of justice, volunteered to go after Dr. Wily. Dr. Light equipped Rock with the Mega Buster and the ability to use any of the weapons of other Robot Masters he defeated. And so, the super fighting robot was born: Mega Man!
ABOUT THIS CACHE SERIES
To help Mega Man defeat Dr. Wily, you'll first need to stop the six Robot Masters and collect their weapons by finding their caches: Bomb Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Fire Man, Guts Man, and Ice Man. Each Robot Master's cache contains, inside the cache lid, a weapon for Mega Man - and, for you the cacher, a corresponding "clue number." Finding those six clue numbers is the best way to determine the coordinates for the first stage of this cache, which is the final challenge against Dr. Wily. Find Dr. Wily's cache to bring peace back to the land!
Of course, Dr. Wily won't make things easy. Each of the Robot Master caches has a puzzle to solve to find its coordinates, and this final cache has four stages to complete, each with its own puzzle. But don't despair! Each of the Robot Masters has a weakness - and that weakness is one of the other Robot Masters' weapons. For you, that means each Robot Master cache also has a "hint" inside it (along with the "clue number" mentioned above). Each cache has a different hint, and each hint will help you solve another cache in the series - the cache for whichever other Robot Master is weak to the Robot Master's weapon you've just found. So if you're stuck on one of the puzzles, try a different one - perhaps you'll have an easier time solving that one, and maybe inside that cache is a hint to the puzzle you're stuck on!
One wrinkle though: the hints don't tell you for which puzzle they apply. You'll need to figure that out on your own! Of course, none of those hints are actually necessary - you could solve all six Robot Master caches without the help of any of those hints. It's like beating all six Robot Masters with Mega Man's regular gun - eminently possible; just more of a challenge! (It's even possible to figure out the starting coordinates for this final cache without having beaten all six Robot Masters - but that's a quite obscure challenge, and so I strongly recommend solving the rest of the series instead.)
Given all this, I strongly recommend that you PHOTOGRAPH THE INSIDE OF EACH CACHE'S LID! As detailed above, the information there will help you solve this final challenge!
All caches, including all stages of the final, are within Monmouth County Park System's Perrineville Lake Park. The park is large with multiple parking options, so I highly recommend grabbing a trail map to keep yourself oriented while out on the trails.
ABOUT THIS CACHE
Four stages of mayhem with some of the evil Doctor's strongest creations await the intrepid adventurer who tackles this challenge! First, Mega Man will have to defeat the Yellow Devil, a massive gelatinous robo-mass that attacks by flinging pieces of itself, with the only way to defeat it being to shoot the eye...
Next up will be the Copy Robot, a diabolical clone of Mega Man designed by Dr. Wily to use whatever weapon Mega Man tries to use, meaning that Mega Man will need absolute mastery over his arsenal in order to succeed...
After that is CWU-01P, a set of seven aquatic bubble-droids that will attack in sequence, spinning clockwise around the outside of their watery chamber, against which Mega Man will have to second-guess their positions to have time to succeed without running out precious minutes and falling at their hands...
And finally Dr. Wily himself. Who knows what final challenge that evil mastermind has planned?
So, ready to challenge Dr. Wily's fortress? Good luck! The Robot Masters' weapons' six clue numbers can be used to compute your starting coordinates:
N 40 13.000 + .GCB
W 74 26.017 + .IEF
The final stage holds two unactivated trackables as FTF and STF prizes. Good luck all!
MUSIC TO HELP YOU THINK
The Mega Man games are well known for their classic soundtracks, many of which have received remixes. Here's one for Dr. Wily's stage!
Congrats to trowel32 for FTF and knuckles77 for STF!