It’s probably worth mentioning that everyone who grew up during the 8-bit era had their personal favorite video game character, and they’d argue to the death that theirs was the best of all. You naturally had the dozens of people who loved Mario. Link was also quite a popular choice, which was pretty interesting since he was only in one good game at the time. There was even that one poor kid who tried, quite in vain, to argue in support of Alex Kidd. But me? I liked Mega Man the best. The game play wasn’t quite like anything else. Those games gave options. Those games had strategy. And I ate them up.
On one hand, it was the ten-year old in me that jumped inside with glee when Capcom released the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. The first eight Mega Man games, in one place, along with the two Mega Man arcade games on one disc. It seemed too good to be true. Of course, the older, and more financially concerned, voice said, "Is thirty bucks a bit much to pay for only five games you don’t already own? Considering that you’ve already beaten three of those?" It’s probably worth noting at this point that my inner child is a petulant little brat who only listens to my wife. And my wife didn’t think it was a bad idea.
So, starting up the game, you get thrown into a choice of doors, using the finest 32-bit two-dimensional graphics (culled from Mega Man 8). The one thing that might throw you off right off the bat is that the graphics look much more dark than you’re used to, particularly if you did play Mega Man 8, like I did. It’s almost like Capcom just threw together the load screen. Not necessarily the most auspicious of beginnings.
Even more disturbing is that, once you do start up the game and go to select a new Mega Man game to begin, you are locked off from the two arcade games initially. I wouldn’t mind this much if they were thrown in as surprises. However, a big part of Capcom’s push is that you’d get to play Mega Man: The Power Battles and Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters for the first time in this country. Well, maybe first off, someone should have told them that many arcades are willing to port arcade machines from Japan. I plunked more than my fair share of quarters into Power Battles myself. But second, if you’re going to brag about allowing people to play Mega Man games that they would have needed to hunt for, you should let them play them right off the bat. I’ll save people some time here – beat #3 to unlock Power Battles, and #7 to unlock Power Fighters. Now don’t say I never did anything for you. I’m bitter enough as is.
Okay, so going beyond locking up two of the biggest advertised reasons for the collection, how does it hold up? Well, I suppose the fairest way to discuss it is to run through each game and discuss how well it was ported. Bear with me on this; I’ll resist the urge to discuss them too much (because I know you don’t want 10 full-length reviews in the middle of this). One thing I will note, for everyone’s ease, is that the game will save your progress as you need it. For Mega Man 2 and on, the passwords also work – if you can dig up your old ones from the games’ first run (A6 red in Mega Man 3 – trust me on that one).
Of note as well are the controls. For the first six games, the controls are mostly the same, but with the addition of a rapid fire button (useful in the first three, but a bit outdated once you get the Mega Buster) and a slide button (where appropriate). However, in both the Gamecube and the Playstation 2 setups, these new buttons are a bit out of the way. You’ll probably end up angling your index finger to hit these in both cases. A feature to re-map the controller would have been quite useful, but we sadly have to suffer. Anyhow, on to the game-by-game breakdown.
Mega Man. If you’re unfamiliar with it, this is the one that’s going to strike you as the most off. There are no Energy Tanks to allow you to refill energy partway through a stage. You get points for beating enemies. And there’s no password. That said, at the time, it was one of the most innovative games to roll down the pike. The control was simple, but rock solid. You got new weapons from beating bosses, and not just any new weapons – their weapons. You got to choose the order you took on stages, so you got to plan your own way through the game. The music was legendary at the time – Cutsman’s stage music is still, after all these years, one of my all-time favorite video game tunes. Plus, the ending gave the classic line, "Fight Megaman, for everlasting peace!" Yeah, everything was much more silly back then. For those who remember it, the pause trick is still in the game, although you have to pause more slowly than you used to on the NES.
The game is faithfully reproduced from the NES version, which is also its greatest flaw. The game was from 1988, and they didn’t know as much about how to program a lot of moving objects back then. So, in short, you’re going to see flicker. Tons of flicker. If you get three enemies on screen at the same time, you are going to see flicker. If one is extra-large, you can get it with just two. Heck, Elecman throwing the Thunder Beam causes flicker. I never thought much about it at the time, because back then, everything flickered. But why is it flickering on a 128-bit machine? Capcom really could have gone in and cleaned up the programming, so that you can always see everything clearly. For the most part, you can still see what you’re doing, but you’ll probably get hit more than once because you aren’t sure where a projectile or an enemy is exactly.
Mega Man 2. Interestingly, this is where most people started playing the series. I personally think it’s because of the horrendous cover art Capcom slapped on the first one (still in the top five worst art ever for a game). But this is where Capcom introduced a lot of options that made it the solid benchmark for side-scrolling shooting games. It had passwords. It had ways to restore your energy at any time. It had multiple items to help you through stages. It had a noticeably larger pool of enemies. It also had the best cast of Robot Masters ever.
This game is brought back mostly intact, with only one noticeable change. Before, the game would make you invincible when you got hit by an object, but the invincibility period would be extended if there were enough projectiles to slow the system down. This was most prone to abuse during the fight against the Mecha Dragon in Dr. Wily’s castle. This time, the game actually hammers you with more projectiles if you attempt to abuse this. This game is still prone to flicker, but not nearly as much as the first was, which is another reason why Mega Man wasn’t taken seriously until the second. There’s a reason that many would consider this Mega Man game the greatest of the series.
Mega Man 3. Keeping in mind what I said previously, this is the one game where I think Capcom managed to get it all collected together the best. This is where they actually attempted to tell a story in the game. Instead of saying, "Dr. Wily is causing trouble and Mega Man has to stop him," Mega Man has to help Dr. Light, his creator, and Dr. Wily, his longtime nemesis, build a robot to help out all of mankind. Of course, you just know this is ripe for betrayal, but at least it’s a step. But this game also introduced sliding (now Mega Man could dodge low shots – you can’t underestimate how important this became for combat, particularly against bosses). This game also had the bonus points of introducing Rush, who gave character to the devices that helped Mega Man get around, and the ever-popular Proto Man.
Mega Man 3 is probably the most obviously changed game in the collection, if you’re at all familiar with the original. The most obvious change is that the font used for the story bits, including the ending, has been changed. To be honest, I couldn’t give you a reason why. In fact, the font used originally is used still in this collection, in the appropriate sequences in Mega Man 4 through 6, and during the credits for the first six. A more subtle change, if you’re quite familiar with the original NES version, is that the "leap out of pits" trick, with attendant invulnerability trick, has been taken out of this game. This is really just as well, because that trick could cheese you through most levels in the game, and I hate it when things get too easy. However, I do find it funny that Capcom saw fit to change those things, but not the flicker problem which continued to plague the series. Granted, by the third game, they had it mostly under control, but it still appears against the largest enemies that throw projectiles.
Probably worth noting for Mega Man 3 is that it simultaneously brought into the mix the most great elements (including reappearances by two classic foes, the Yellow Devil and Gutsman) and also had the harbinger of the series’ downfall: Snake Man. I hate to rag on it too much, but it was obvious, even when I was 12, that Capcom was running out of ideas. Yeah, he’s a robot... that likes snakes. And he gives you a weapon called the "Search Snake." When I first saw him on the stage select screen, I asked myself, "Why?" Over ten years later, and I still ask that about Snake Man. Also, one thing that annoyed me is this is where they first had the hole in numbering the robots (every robot had been numbered, including Roll, who only appears in the endings). Namely, Rush wasn’t numbered at all. I guess he just wasn’t important enough.
Mega Man 4. This is when Capcom decided that people wouldn’t just swallow the "Dr. Wily is coming after Mega Man" plot, so instead he would get some intermediary to do his dirty work. For this game, Dr. Cossack (complete with pseudo-Kremlin castle) is the chosen intermediary, and it’s up to the Blue Bomber, once again, to save the day. It might seem odd to believe, but it’s actually in this game that Mega Man’s arm cannon was upgraded to the chargeable Mega Buster. This is also the first appearance of Flip-Top/Eddie (depending on Capcom’s current whim), the robotic suitcase who would occasionally deliver items to Mega Man. Every so often, they were even useful when he delivered them.
Mega Man 4 is notable in that it was the game where Capcom finally defeated the flicker problem. It’s also worth noting that the Mega Buster made fighting enemies so much easier. It is the game where they gave Mega Man the most items for getting around the stage, and also the first time they gave Mega Man new animations. Finally, it was the first time since the original that you could re-enter a stage you’ve beaten. That said, this game did have the sorriest bunch of Robot Masters ever. Just in case Snake Man wasn’t a bad enough idea, along came Toad Man, who managed to be simultaneously the easiest and most annoying Mega Man boss of all time (just because he was easy to fight doesn’t mean the battle didn’t take too long). Most of the bosses had poor ideas, or themes to their stages, or just lousy weapons. Drill Man was probably the only well-executed boss in this entire game. It’s pretty obvious that Dr. Cossack wasn’t known for his robot design for a good reason. And, to top it off, Eddie is also not given a robot number. No love for the non-humanoid, I swear. Apropos of nothing, this Mega Man game also had the worst music of the series – both overall, and in particular (the opening intro music).
Mega Man 5. Capcom, at this point, actually realized that they were running out of ideas and actually held a contest in Japan to design new Robot Masters for this game. It did pay off, because there was only one real question mark of a boss in this one (give a warm round of applause to Charge Man, the anthropomorphic train engine). Moreover, this is probably the Mega Man game that tried its best at plot tension, as Dr. Light, Mega Man’s creator, gets kidnapped and it appears that his own "brother," Proto Man, did the deed. Now, everyone answer at once: What are the odds that it’s really an impostor made by Dr. Wily? Yeah, thought you’d guess that. On the bright side, Dr. Cossack is a good guy, and he even makes the Mega Buster cover more area than before – it’s in fact this Mega Buster that appears, basically, for the rest of the series. And should you collect the proper letters, you get joined by a new ally, the attack bird Beat.
Beyond Beat, which is actually overly useful (you can easily just hide and let Beat do the work for you), nothing is really added to this game. However, it might be the third-best Mega Man game because it had the most elements and wove them together the best. The animation was completely smoothed out, had much more detail, and even introduced backgrounds that scrolled at a different pace than the foreground. The Mega Buster covered just the right ground, and was even useful for attacking Dr. Wily’s final forms for the first time since Mega Man 1. And while the Charge Kick was beyond useless (I personally consider it the worst weapon in the entire series – counting items, that’s out of around 75 different weapons to acquire), the weapons were overall useful and fairly balanced. It also probably had the game’s best theme stage of all time (Gravity Man, where the gravity would actually change at different points, including whenever the boss felt like it). Also, note again that Beat doesn’t get a robot number. I’m firmly convinced that Capcom was just getting sloppy at this point.
One other problem, which is actually pertinent for the rest of the entire series – Mega Man 5 is where they really started throwing extra lives at you. For the last four console games, you couldn’t get through a level without some enemy throwing an extra life at you. I always thought those things should be rare, not like candy. This is probably the sign that Capcom was more interested in having people see the whole game, not presenting a challenge.
Mega Man 6. Often times called the "forgotten" Mega Man, because it was overshadowed for appearing after the debut of the Super Nintendo. This is also the one where two people from North America got robots in, because Capcom decided to offer a Robot Master contest through Nintendo Power. This time, someone called Mr. X is using robots from a robot building contest (yeah, really cute, Capcom) to take over the world. Hmm... Wears dark glasses, but has white hair in a distinct poof and a bald spot, and wants to use robots to take over the world. No, that can’t be Dr. Wily. Not at all.
Mega Man 6 was fairly solid in the design of the enemies, although I’d love to know what they were thinking when they decided Centaur Man just had to be in there. He also was primarily green, like Snake Man and Toad Man. If Charge Man had been green, we’d be on the obvious clue to a bad boss. It’s also where they decided to change things around, and make Rush transform into add-ons for Mega Man instead of tools for him to use. Given the character Rush gave the game, this was not Capcom’s best idea, although the Power Adapter (which gave Mega Man stronger shots at the price of range) was a good idea. Capcom even changed the animations for Mega Man in this game, making his motion more fluid and even making his hair peek out of his helmet at times. While this game was quite solid, it did lack a certain panache that the other games had. It just felt less ambitious. This may be because it was made at the dawn of the 16-bit age, and Capcom didn’t want to invest too much capital into a project for a dying system.
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Just to mention, but overall the NES Mega Man games were all exceptionally solid for their day. Graphically, they were always top notch, although the first couple did have flicker problems when too much appeared on screen. The controls were always solid, and that is kept faithful. In fact, the new controls added in this collection are still quite solid, and overall, the sound effects were consistent and enjoyable. Truth be told, there were games coming out around the time of Mega Man 4 that were still vainly trying to rip off of Mega Man 1. That, ladies and gents, is the staying power that made me fond of the Blue Bomber (I’d like confirmation, though – did Nintendo sear that nickname into my brain, or did someone else come up with that?).
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Mega Man 7. Now we move on to the Super Nintendo days, and in this one, Capcom decided to forego the "it’s really Dr. Wily hiding behind something else" plot to just have Dr. Wily activate an escape plan 6 months after his capture at the end of Mega Man 6. At the same time, Mega Man gets introduced to three new additions to the series. On his side, Mega Man can buy new parts from Auto, using bolts dropped from enemies. This, I must say, is much better than going back through stages to find extra energy tanks. However, on the other side of the field, Mega Man now has to contend with Dr. Wily’s best robot, Bass, and Bass’ robot dog Treble. One sad thing, though, is that the lack of pretense also means that there’s a relative dearth of stages – this one is only slightly longer than the first game, and thus the second-shortest Mega Man game.
That said, though, it’s probably the second best. For one, the Jet Adapter and the Power Adapter from Mega Man 6 are combined into one, the Super Adapter here, which is actually more useful than the sum of its parts. In addition to that, Rush still comes by and forms his old useful items. There’s actually a bunch of secrets to be found, many which can be accessed by the new Rush Search ability. Finally, and in my opinion the best part, it’s actually possible to get Proto Man’s shield to use yourself. My sincerest wish was for his whistle as well, but the shield’s pretty good too. The boss lineup wasn’t the absolute best (Burst Man felt like a Bubble Man rehash, Cloud Man looked like the Lightning Lord enemies from Mega Man 2’s Air Man stage, and Spring Man is the requisite bad idea for the game), but the weapons were, overall, quite useful, and the stages were much more expansive than had been done before. Mega Man 7 also had brought Mega Man into the 16-bit era looking clean, and the controls were as solid as ever. The rapid fire and slide buttons disappear from the repackaging, but it really doesn’t matter. Because of the fact that you can run through stages three or four times and not catch everything (Shade Man’s stage is probably the one to comb over the most), this is probably the second best of the entire series. Also, since it’s my own pet peeve, I have to say that Auto, Bass, and Treble all aren’t given numbers. Making Capcom give out robot numbers to these guys is my personal mission.
Mega Man 8. Finally, we get to the game where the package’s shell graphics come from. In this one, a meteor crashes to Earth, containing something called Dark Energy. (Apparently, Capcom thought their audience for a game series already 10 years old at the time consisted of people born around the time the first was made.) At the same time, a robot called Duo crashed with it, hoping to destroy this energy. Of course, Dr. Wily manages to find it, and it’s up to Roll to save the day. No, I only wish. Mega Man has to step in, stop fighting Bass for two seconds, and save the world. Again.
Now, the first thing you’ll notice is that Capcom decided at this point to integrate anime, from the same production company that made the Mega Man anime, into the game. It’s also where you’ll note that Capcom really cheaped out on paying for voice talent. Why does Roll have a deeper voice than Mega Man does? Why does Elmer Fudd have less of an accent than Dr. Light does? I know he acts like a sullen teenager, but does Bass have to sound like one too? And how did they keep a straight face during all that corny dialogue?
The graphics are pretty solid, and it shows what you can do if you make a two-dimensional game on 32-bit architecture (originally the Saturn, although I personally picked up the Playstation version). The control was probably the best ever, given that you could finally fire the Mega Buster even if you had another weapon available. (Among the other sneaky things, this meant that you could use a Master weapon to set up your opponent and then lay into them with a fully charged Mega Buster). You could also purchase different parts to make your life easier. However, the Rush implements were only usable once per entry into a stage, and you actually had to rely on the Robot Master weapons to get around – you’ll find yourself relying a lot on Tengu Man’s Tornado Hold, so get good at using it.
The problem this game had, though, was that it was dumbed down. Seriously, I know we aren’t talking about Shakespeare, but Capcom could have invested some thought into writing this script and not let a kindergartner write it. Also, the voice acting is distracting, particularly when you get to the bosses. Only Tengu Man had a voice I’d consider good, although Sword Man and Search Man were passable. But then, it all fell apart, and I mean practically the entire game, when I ran into Aqua Man. No, seriously, that’s what they called him. First off, didn’t someone warn Capcom that Aquaman was already taken by the worst comic book character to have his own title? Didn’t Capcom think that having him start the battle by making his name appear in a rainbow a bad idea? What prejudiced voice actor gave him a slight lisp when reading a line like, "I’m Aquaman, but you can call me handsome!"? Do we really need a homosexual robot? And one named after freaking Aquaman? I always thought robots didn’t have genders, and I also thought that Aquaman was a subject of international derision. I was apparently wrong on both parts. I won’t even get into "jump, jump, slide, slide," which just adds to the annoyance of the voice acting.
Thus, Mega Man 8 had some very good points – which managed to get drowned out by the poor job Capcom did in the presentation of the game. Seriously, it’s not often a game is less fun because of voice acting and the story. It’s even more rare that these things hurt an action game. Mega Man 8 was, however, and it may be this reason that Capcom hasn’t brought back the original Mega Man since then and instead decided to make bad games featuring Mega Man X.
Mega Man: the Power Battles. Congratulations for beating the second-most annoying final boss in Mega Man history (namely, the third) – you now get to play this arcade romp. It was pretty simple. You got to choose to control Mega Man, Proto Man, or Bass, and guided them through a gauntlet of 8 stages – 6 Robot Masters, and two boss levels. You also got to choose which of three courses to follow, although the game would randomly pick which Robot Master you took on in the first part. This one also had the benefit of being two-player, just to settle those "Mega Man vs. Proto Man" debates.
As you’ll quickly notice, this game was meant to be both short and a quarter muncher. You couldn’t choose how to tackle the stages, so you were stuck. More often than not, you had to attack the Robot Master with the Mega/Proto/Bass Buster instead. Also, you skip straight to the boss fights, so you really only have about 7 or 8 minutes of play before you beat it. If you should shoot for a time over every time, you could stretch it to 12 minutes. One nice thing is that each character does have his own different moves, and there’s even some plot advancement in the ending. However, the controls aren’t outlined in the instruction booklet, and the game’s two-player mode gets laggy. It’s good to be able to play this whenever I want, but there’s a reason that people didn’t jump on this a ton, even in Japan.
Mega Man 2: the Power Fighters. For pulling off the most annoying final boss battle in Mega Man history (Mega Man 7 – seriously, just try hitting anything with the Wild Coil, let alone the final boss), you open up the much less known second arcade game Mega Man and friends appeared in. This time, the game is set up slightly differently. You get to select Duo, the newbie from #8, in addition to the other three from the first arcade Mega Man game, and when you actually step into one of the three "plotlines" given to you, you actually get to select which order to do everything.
The problem with this one isn’t so much that it’s a rehash of the previous game (though that is a big problem – many Robot Masters appear in both Power Fighters and Power Battles, and even use the same basic patterns of attack), but that it’s designed to quarter munch even more. Only the first hit with a Master Weapon does extra damage. Beyond that, though, you’re better off switching to your Buster/fist (Duo just punches – apparently, that’s what the cool robots from other planets prefer to do). Thus, the point was to get people to drop more quarters in the machine, but since both of the arcade games were ported to be Free Play, you never have to worry about that. All you need is patience. However, it is worth running through the game just to see Bass’ best ending. It actually makes it worth the 10 minutes you’ll spend beating it.
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One note I have to make that is consistent through the entire series, though, is about Mega Man’s outfit. Yes, the classic blue always works, as does the red and white used for most of the items used for accessing areas (#1’s Magnet Beam and #5’s Super Arrow oddly enough used the classic scheme as well). However, some of the color schemes Mega Man wore were horrendous, and he would repeatedly wear them. I mean, it’s like he was magnetically drawn to ugly shades of purple, and he went after some nasty shades of pink too. There’s always at least one ugly outfit, and it’s usually on a weapon you absolutely need or absolutely want. Someone at Capcom obviously was colorblind – it’s the only explanation. For the record, #4 did have the worst choices, although #2 was pretty bad too.
After going through all of that, though, there are unlockables beyond the two new Mega Man games, though. I personally was most fond of the art galleries, as it was interesting to see how enemies and designs evolved over time. It’s also interesting because they show alternate names for Mega Man that weren’t used (since they decided that the Japanese name, Rock Man, wouldn’t make much sense). Even from the beginning, the art sense was quite refined – check out the sketch of the first final boss in the first gallery.
However, beyond that, there isn’t as much worth getting. The promised musical tracks are a huge letdown. Instead of going for classics like Cutsman, Metal Man, or Napalm Man, it gave us the theme to… Plant Man. Yeah, just want I wanted, #6’s poor cousin, in every respect, to #2’s Wood Man. The Drum & Bass remix of Mega Man 2’s opening theme is enjoyable, but beyond that, it’s just not worth it. As for the anime short that comes in there, I have to say this: there’s a reasonable debate about which is worse, the excessive estrogen found in the voice acting in the original Mega Man, or the excessive testosterone found in the voice acting in Mega Man: NT Warrior (just as an aside, did Lan hit puberty at the age of 7 or something? He’s got a Barry White-level bass going).
Probably what I find most tragic is that they focus almost exclusively on the original Mega Man, and they don’t even bother to touch the other three incarnations beyond one cameo by Zero (he’s not operational, and you have to know exactly where to find him). Okay, I can see why maybe you might not want to deal with Mega Man Legends (even though that gave us Tron Bonne and the Servebots), but considering how much Capcom has tried to run Mega Man X into the ground (seven games there, plus two Zero got on his own, and an RPG to come on the Gamecube featuring X, Zero, and Axl), you’d think they’d give some text or something to discuss how they’re connected. I don’t even want to discuss how they don’t compare and contrast Robot Masters to the Navis they inspired in the Mega Man Battle Network universe. Heck, even just discussing name changes would be something – it would make the name of the criminal organization in Mega Man Battle Network 2 make much more sense. But no, this is solely to celebrate the original, even if Capcom really acts like they don’t want to have anything to do with the Blue Bomber anymore.
I know that Capcom didn’t polish off these games nearly as much as they should have. The earlier ones in particular are way too glitched, particularly given today’s standards. Even with that said, these games pack in game play that’s still oftentimes more solid than the latest hot game. Even at its worst (I’d say Mega Man 4, but you have a reasonable argument for saying the first), these games are a solid and tricky play. They manage to still be fun and they age marvelously well. It makes you wish that Capcom would dust off the cobwebs and make another game starring the classic Mega Man, and make it work right. While this collection is basically to cash in on the 15th anniversary of the series, it also shows that a classic concept and production still work. If you’re going to pick this up, don’t do it because of the nostalgia for these games. Pick it up because, all warts aside, they’re still better than 90 percent of the games coming out today. Even if we never know what number Bass is.
