The NES Megaman Franchise (my thoughts)

[GryeDor]

Well, as I mentioned in theLast Games I Finished forum, I just finished Mega Man 2 through 6 for the NES and was going to write brief thoughts about each of them through my modern perspective, but it became far too large, so I thought I'd drop that info over here. Don't consider this necessarily as a "Review" but more of my impressions and how I saw things progress through the series.

I have obviously played Mega Man, the original, but never beaten it, so while I will include some thoughts, it won't be too much.

So... All 6 Mega Man games are consistently ranked up rather high in the "Best NES Games of All Time" lists, SydLexia (http://www.sydlexia.com/top100nes.htm) has them all listed within the top 60, which is a pretty amazing feat for an NES series spanning 6 games and are noted for getting considerably worse over time. Nice job Capcom! 6 games within the top 10 percentile? All within the same series?! Unreal. Mega Man is a legend.

All that said, I love Mega Man, I always have. So playing 2 through 6 was a lot of fun for me, and an intense blast of nostalgia. So, here's my recent impressions rather than thinking of them through the lens of my childhood.

The first set not only the pace, but a rather high bar as well. It's game play was unique for 1987 and rather addicting, on top of that it is legendary in difficulty. Three lives and then Game Over. Unfortunately it wasn't very commercially successful, but thankfully, they made a sequel.

2 was toned way down in difficulty from the first, most notably because of the addition of a password feature. The jump from Mega Man to Mega Man 2... the game play was perfected. The number of robot masters increases from 6 to 8, and the Rock-Paper-Scissors effect works beautifully with each robot being very vulnerable to another. And to top it off Wily's castle was a sufficient challenge to round out the experience. This is, in many cases, a persons first exposure to Mega Man since it's easily the most popular, and it raised the high bar even from the first.

3 continued the success and introduced Rush, Mega Man's robot dog pal. Mega Man 3 hit stores even though creator Keiji Inafune himself said it was released before it was ready - too bad that Rush Drill Adaptor never made it in. Mega Man became a bit more dexterous since he can now slide, which made for some new possibilities in gameplay. The difficulty was the lowest yet, but the gameplay was still so satisfying, so who cared? The big debate, as everyone knows, is which is the best Mega Man? 2 or 3?

4 introduced another two staples of the Mega Man series: Eddie (a.k.a Flip Top), but, and something that was "an overused mechanic" according to Inafune, more importantly, the Mega Buster. Charge it up and blast everything in sight. There was no reason NOT to keep your Buster charged every moment of play. In what seemed like an attempt to compensate for the ability to deal more damage with your main weapon, all the robot master weapons are insanely underpowered and do next to no damage against the bots they are supposed to damage. On top of that, if you run into the robot, it's a quarter of your energy gone. This one gets my award for the second hardest in the NES 6.

5 again introduced new elements to the Mega Man franchise, branching paths, hidden rooms and the addition of BEAT, a flying bird ally that attacks enemies for you. 5 it seemed was probably the most creative to date and utilized a lot more of the NES's hardware. You had more detailed backgrounds, multiple paths, bigger enemy sprites and of course, the fun Gravity Man stage, not to mention added replay with the addition of collecting stage specific items, in this case letters, to get BEAT as an item. It was fun and unfortunately easy, but overall a better entry than 4, in my opinion.

6 again continued to develop new ideas into the franchise with the new Rush Adaptors, instead of using Rush, you combine with Rush to give Mega man a jet pack and power punches. All in all, Mega Man 6 was rather easy, with the only challenge coming from some expanses of instant death traps. The bosses were simple and predictable, which is saying a lot because to date, all 38 bosses from 1 - 5 had patterns too, yet still maintained some semblance of challenge. I will say, there's at least some more creativity poured into the label here. Four of the levels have alternate ways to complete them, and are only accessible if you already have one of the two Rush adapters. All in all 6 was fun, and great in some aspects but lacking in others.

So, let's rank them. Remember this is MY order, disagree if you want. That's one of the beauties of Mega Man, If you like games more difficult, or more colorful, or longer, or whatever... Mega Man probably has the perfect entry for you.

Difficulty?
1 > 4 > 2 > 3 > 5 > 6

Overall?
2 > 1 > 5 > 3 > 4 > 6

Now, keep in mind, that even though I'd say Mega Man 6 is my least favorite, it's still a game I'd pop in any day. They are all great games when compared over all in the entire encompassing assortment of NES games out there. Mega Man is, simply put, awesome.

[sevin0seven]

...Mega Man is, simply put, awesome.

indeed!

[Hatta]

So, here's the thing I never got about Mega Man. You have this awesome cyborg with all sorts of weapons, and he can't shoot up. You'd think they would have put a hinge in his shoulder or something.

I get the feeling that they were just too lazy to implement it in the first game, and it just became traditional. I can see how the levels got designed around this limitation, but it still feels awfully, well, limiting.

[Crabmaster2000]

Awesome write up!! I'm a huge fan of the first 6 Mega Man games myself. I agree with pretty much your entire write up, but even though I'd still rank them slightly different.

Difficulty

1>4>3>2>5>6

Overall Favorites

3>2>1>6>4>5

The difficult parts in 1 are, like many NES games, easier the more you play the game. If you can figure out and remember patterns the challenge goes waaay down. So much so that I was able to finish Mega Man in one life for a highscore challenge over at Nintendoage earlier this year.

I found 3 harder than 2 simply because you have to fight the bosses from 3 twice (not to hard) aswell as the bosses from 2 sometimes with little insight into which weapon would be ideal. Not a huge difference in difficulty, but I think it bumps it slightly above 2 for challenge.

And while Gravity Man does have a fun stage I like the overall level/boss design much better in 6 and the Rush Adaptors are the best versions of Rush (IMO) since the 3rd one (which are still my favorite).

Mega Man 3 also gets a huge boost in my books for having the best music in the series (on the NES).

[ujnhunter]

Nice write-up! I personally don't care for anything after Mega Man 2. Mega Man & Mega Man 2 were the best for me. The introduction of the pointless slide & weak sauce charge shot ruined Mega Man in my eyes. But... that's just my opinion! Thanks for the post I enjoyed reading it!

[Breetai]

So, here's the thing I never got about Mega Man. You have this awesome cyborg with all sorts of weapons, and he can't shoot up. You'd think they would have put a hinge in his shoulder or something.

Of course he has a hinge. It's called the Mega Hinge. The problem is that the recoil from the Mega Buster is so great that his elbow kept smashing the Mega Nose during Mega Training, creating Mega Nose Bleed. This would be Mega Embarrassing, so Rockman only likes to shoot the Mega Buster horizontally.

Fortunately, Metal Blades have very little recoil.

[final fight cd]

i am surprised that you have MM1 ranked as your number 2 favorite. forgetting that it was the first in the series and the first of its kind, i think it is head and shoulders below the rest.

good write up, though. i liked how you ranked all games in order of difficulty and favorite.

[Erik_Twice]

Of course he has a hinge. It's called the Mega Hinge. The problem is that the recoil from the Mega Buster is so great that his elbow kept smashing the Mega Nose during Mega Training, creating Mega Nose Bleed. This would be Mega Embarrassing, so Rockman only likes to shoot the Mega Buster horizontally.

Fortunately, Metal Blades have very little recoil.

You, sir, deserve a Mega Cookie.

Nice writing. I have yet to play any Megaman games seriously, I'm waiting until I get the cartridges.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

You have this awesome cyborg with all sorts of weapons, and he can't shoot up.

Megaman is an android, not a cyborg. Cyborg would imply he's part organic, which is not the case. An android is a humanoid robot built by man.

But enough nitpicking, I see your point and agree. Metroid allowed you to shoot up, and it came out over a year earlier than the first Rockman. You really just need to accept that
s how it is, and appreciate the games as they are, not what you wish they could be. As you said, the level designs were made with the ability to shoot sideways only in mind, and so were many other platformer shooters.

[jfe2]

Great topic. I'm currently playing through Mega Man 2, in an attempt to beat it for the first time. It's odd, because I grew up playing the Mega Man games but never actually beat any from the main series... although I did beat Mega Man X on the SNES.

I am playing Mega Man 2 on the iPhone, and the controls are giving me a bit of trouble. It's definitely playable, but since they aren't perfectly precise I'm having issues on a platforming section at the first part of Wily's castle.