Wednesday, September 6, 2017

What I'm Playing (Volume 19): Mega Man

Rockman??? I just can't do the North American Box Art. Sorry.
Known as Rockman in Japan, Mega Man is one of my all time favorite series of platformers. When I started this blog, I started out the gaming portion by talking about Mega Man, and noted that one of my biggest regrets is using save states to beat Mega Man 1-6. While I still used save states to beat them this time around (I'm working through 1-6 at the moment, spoilers), I did nothing using save states that couldn't have been done with regular hardware. If I had really wanted to leave my NES on for days, I could have, but instead I just used save states when I wanted to turn it off, but would have liked to keep my progress, rather than stopping at difficult moments and repeating them over and over again until I won, like last time (for shame). This is particularly important in Mega Man, as the game tragically lacks a password system to save your progress, making save states really important unless you really want to leave your NES on for days.
So how did the game hold up while taking a more adult approach to it? It was fantastic! I recall not enjoying Mega Man as much due to the lack of passwords and some of the polish of the newer Mega Man titles, and that is all still true. But the reality exists that while Mega Man 2 solidifies the Mega Man brand, trimming some poor practices, polishing up some old ones, and introducing a few new ones, the Mega Man formula is about 90% there on Mega Man.
Like in subsequent Mega Man games, you begin with the chance to choose your level from a set. When you make it through that first level, you get to take the end boss' weapon, and use it on subsequent levels. Each boss is weak against one of these special weapons, making it important that you experiment with different weapon types in order to beat these challenging baddies.
Clearing each level is a not so simple task of jumping over enemies and obstacles, and shooting your basic arm cannon and your special weapons to reach the boss, kill him, and take his weapon. Once all six of the bosses have been beaten, you then have the chance to tackle Wily Castle, defeat the sinister Dr. Wily, and save the day.
Mega Man is a remarkable NES accomplishment. The graphics are bright and fun. The sprite work is superb, and imbues the characters with character that jumps out at you with no exposition whatsoever. The storytelling aspects are excellent, with the flexibility present for you to tell your own story, at your own pace, following your own path. The innovations involved in having the choice of level to select, and being able to steal enemies' weapons, are really excellent, and deserve every ounce of credit which they have been given. 

The music, while perhaps not quite to the level of Mega Man 2, is still a gem of the 8 bit era. There are so many memorable tunes on this game that it is, in some ways, a shame that the second game has stolen so much of this game's thunder, although deservedly so.

The controls and gameplay are mostly perfect, as Mega Man performs the way you feel that he should. The level design is excellent, and the bosses at the end are well designed, and feature several classic Mega Man villains, including Guts Man and Cut Man.

While there is slowdown at times, it is much better than the slowdown in Mega Man 2, which itself is much better than the slowdown in Mega Man 3. So on that count, Mega Man suffers, but it's the best of the bunch, in my opinion.

Part of the lack of slowdown, however, comes from the lack of detail in many of the stages. The characters are all well animated, but most of the backgrounds of the stages are fairly nondescript, frequently featuring solid colors.

The game could, indeed, have benefited from a password system. And the game is really hard, and sometimes unfairly so. But most of the really hard sections can be bypassed after an hour or so of tough practice (here's looking at you Yellow Devil), and the unfair sections are usually navigated cleanly after a few iterations, making them more of an irritation than true brokenness.

Mega Man, flaws and all, is one of the best NES games of all time. It doesn't always get the love it deserves, but it's a true gem of 8-bit platforming, and set the stage for some of the best games of all time, including Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3, and Mega Man X. Here's to you, Mega Man.

I'll give Mega Man a 9.2/10.

Next up, as I already spoiled it, is Mega Man 2, followed by some hard hitting reviewing of Mega Man 3! Tune in for the next two articles where I definitively answer the question that everyone has been arguing over for the last thirty years, which classic Mega Man game is better, 2 or 3? Not really. But I'll give my answer in two more posts!

-TRO

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