What a precious little thing this game is. To be honest, I was waiting for way less than it actually ended up to be, and I'm pretty glad my previous expectations were not matched.

This is, indeed, an 8-bit re-imagining of the original 16-bit SNES game. It looks and feels perfectly in between the first six games and Mega Man 9 and 10, and the gameplay is super tight and fun. For the ones who didn't like the original (don't count me in, I love it) and its more crunched field of view, maybe this is what you're looking for.

Not everything from the original was fully translated into this NES-style demake, though.
Rush Search is absent, so the extra items/power-ups scattered throughout the stages have been slightly replaced and some require other methods to be obtained, like the PU fist in Turbo Man's stage requiring you to hit the traffic lights with Cloud Man's weapon. To be honest, I quite enjoyed this, and I think it both adds some replay value for people who played the original and makes the item hunting feels more organic. I like when remakes and such do that, like Maverick Hunter X for the PSP did for the original Mega Man X.
Also, granted the fact this was being developed before the release of Mega Man 9, the developers aimed to make the game more akin to the original six Mega Man games on the NES, so currency and the shop feature are missing. This can be good or bad, depending on your take on it - especially since these were features present in Mega Man IV and V on the Game Boy even before Mega Man 7 came out, so their absence here can be somewhat strange -, but I gotta say I was perfectly fine with it, since the end product was designed around it, and ultimately leaves the game with the desired retro feel the developers intended for it, giving it a distinct flow in comparison to the source material. Because of that, it's up to you to collect and stock up refill items, which is frankly easier and faster to do than collecting bolts to spend on Auto's shop.

Not only that, but now you can also face all eight Robot Masters at the very start, instead of having to beat the initial chunk of four first in order to progress to the other four. Because of that, the introductory stage and the Robot Museum mid-stage were removed, as well as the Clown Robot boss. To be fair, I didn't miss this and I don't think the game is less good than it is because of it, but at the same time I would like to see this fight in full 8-bit glory.

How this game achieves this 8-bit feel is, frankly, absolutely lovely. The stages are faithful to how they were on the SNES, but perfectly translated (for the most part) for the NES Mega Man style. The entire thing is super colourful and detailed, and reminded be exactly of how Mega Man 9 and 10 look and feel. The chiptune rendition of the soundtrack is amazing, and some of the original compositions that were a bit on the softer side of things actually pop here.
The boss fights are also more "retro" than they originally were: they are no longer dumbified by their weaknesses like they were on the SNES, which definitely requires you to learn the patterns for the likes of Junk Man, Cloud Man and Spring Man. They are also faster here and, with the larger arenas, it really makes me think if I like them better in here or in the original game. To be honest, I LOVE this aspect of this demake the most.

...for the most part, that is. Burst Man's and Turbo Man's fights definitely took a hit here, with the first being EXTREMELY frustrating to deal with (and it is the first boss I usually fight against in the original!) and the second being not only way faster than it should, but there's little to no warning for when he charges against you, requiring some leaps of faith. That's not good design at all, and it was dreadful to face them again in the endgame.
Also, there are some pixel-perfect jumps and larger pits that were not present in the original, which is a bit counter-intuitive for veterans and will for sure require some use of Rush in the end. Were not for this and some small annoying jumps, I'd definitely think the level design of this thing to be close to perfect, which it isn't.

Because of these small imperpections, If I were to rate this one in comparison to the original, I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5.
But, in the end, I can only find myself to love this thing. It looks, feels and plays amazingly and, as it stands out on its own, I'm giving it the same score I gave to the original Mega Man 7: 4 out of 5. It deserves it, for its own particular reasons.

It's super fun and solid, and definitely a fan game not to be dismissed by any Mega Man fan. It will require you to fiddle a bit with JoyToKey in order to properly set a game controller, but once you get this out of the way, be prepared for a lovely Mega Man experience.