Pole[1] is an enemy first appearing in Mega Man 3. It is a blue, robotic tadpole with a face, which spawns from eggs in great numbers and is capable of floating in the air.
In Mega Man 3, Poles appear in Gemini Man's stage, both in its normal and Doc Robot version. They initially exist as one-block-sized frog eggs, which are solid obstacles that block Mega Man's path. Shooting one such egg with the standard Mega Buster destroys it, spawning a Pole in its stead that slowly floats through the air towards Mega Man, but only takes one shot to take out. Weapons other than the Mega Buster have no effect on the egg, but can damage the hatched tadpole.
Due to their very large numbers and weak bodies, Poles can serve as an easy source for random item drops, such as Energy or 1 UPs. However, as their eggs remain gone until Mega Man leaves the section, they cannot be made to respawn simply by scrolling (but will still disappear if scrolled off the screen in tadpole form).
Mega Man III
Sprite from Mega Man III.
Poles reappear in Mega Man III on the Game Boy, again in Gemini Man's stage. They act the same as before, but have a new interaction with the charged Mega Buster shot, which was not available in the original Mega Man 3. When used on the eggs, the shot will go through an entire row, destroying them quickly without spawning any Poles. However, as the enemies are never created in the first place, this will also deprive Mega Man of any of the random items they would have otherwise dropped.
A sensor robot made for energy resource research. Destroying them in droves feels good.
HP 01
AT 01
Trivia
Pole is the only enemy in both Mega Man 3 and Mega Man III that deals only a single point of damage to Mega Man. As it also has only one hit point, this makes it the overall weakest enemy in either game.
References
↑Mega Man: Official Complete Works art book, 2009.
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