Known in Japan as "Rock Man Rock Man", this is one of the last proper Mega Man games I hadn't yet played in my marathon (the 25th one in the marathon, to be exact X3), this was a game I had as a kid but never quite ended up beating. I was really determined to beat it on hard mode, but just couldn't best the last couple Wily stages, and if I wasn't going to beat it on hard mode, I wasn't going to beat it at all. Thankfully, I hold no such convictions now, and was able to beat the Japanese version of the game on normal mode in about three hours via my PSTV. However, after that, I ended up playing it for another six hours, as there is much more to do than simply beating the game as Mega Man.

Powered Up is, at the pitch level, a re-imagining of Mega Man 1 with a new chibi art style and a silly sense of humor. The original six robot masters are here and have their own stages, but those stages are very different to their original versions, however they do have stages that maintain a "feel" of those originals while still being quite different. The Wily stages are similarly "similar feeling, different content", but the fortress bosses have been changed in how they fight you quite a bit. They even add an intro stage as well as two whole new robot masters to fight (Time Man and Oil Man) to round out the roster to an even 8 robot masters. The game has a lot of voiced dialogue before fighting each boss that's really lighthearted and funny, and it even changes depending on who you're fighting each boss with.

That's right! This is a Mega Man game with multiple characters! That's actually what the weird Japanese title is for, as when you save and quit as a character in that version, the title changes so the second "Rock Man" in the title changes to their name (e.g. Rock Man Fire Man, if you just played as Fire Man). Beat a robot master with only your mega buster, and you'll unlock the ability to play as them in their own story mode as opposed to Mega Man. In their own story modes, it's them who is the only robot not to get kidnapped and mind controlled by Wily, which means you even get to fight an evil version of Mega Man in those modes~. Each boss has their own abilities that they have when they fight you as well as sometimes other abilities as well, such as how Cut Man gets a wall jump. In addition to that, you also unlock other variations on Mega Man to play as when you beat the game, and can even unlock a shield-toting Proto Man by beating every stage in challenge mode (which is SUPER hard and I would never recommend doing).

Thankfully, you can also just download Proto Man as free DLC, and you also can get Roll as a playable character through that free DLC as well! She uses a sword, and ends up playing a fair bit like Zero does in the X games as a result, and she was another character I ended up beating the game with. I played a fair bit as Cut Man and Fire Man as well, although I only beat it again as Fire Man. Playing as the robot masters is quite the difficulty bump compared to playing the game as Mega Man, as you lose your ability to change weapons.

The game overall being just a bit too hard is my only real overall complaint with the game. The platforming is a bit unpolished and overly difficult in a few places, and some bits like the boss rush at the end are ridiculously hard due to the fact that this is one of the only games in the extended Mega Man series where you don't get healed after each boss fight. This manages to be basically the only game in the classic series' style with both difficulty levels and multiple playable characters as a main conceit of their design to actually manage to still be quite good. A lot of that is due to how simple yet quick-paced the stage design is, which allows this game to avoid the "too hard for its own good" issue that Rockman & Forte has, and they're also small in scale enough to avoid the "big, boring, and empty" problem that Mega Man 10 has. The stage design could certainly use some polish in some places, but the bosses manage to be for the most part excellent no matter who you're playing them as.

The presentation is also excellent. The cutesy art style goes great with the silly writing, and it's an incredibly charming game. The music remixes are also quite fun and well done. The game even has a stage contrusctor mode where you can make your own stages to upload online, and download others' stages to play yourself! (this level uploading mode is actually where you download Roll and Proto Man from, and not the PSN store).

Verdict: Recommended. It's a real shame that this game is the only one like this that ever got made. This idea is a really cool one that's executed on pretty darn well, but it's definitely lacking some polish in the level design in just a few too many places to make this a game I can recommend quite that highly. It's definitely a game worth tracking down if you're a Mega Man fan, though, as the extra characters and difficulty modes make it a great value to fans of just about any skill level~.

I didn't realise I had rated this so highly... Don't know what that's about but this was a really solid remake of MM1 and is now the only way I play the original game. Unfortunately though I don't use two of the most core additions to this game. I don't care about the map maker and honestly the idea of playing as different robot masters doesn't really appeal to me, I don't know why.

But this is just a better game than the og and fixes many of the problems, I just wish they added E-Tanks, feels weird to stay faithful in that way. Love the cheesy yet endearing voice acting and the chibi style, really fits even if it isn't my favourite style of a classic Mega Man game. Final boss is real annoying though.

One of the most definitive Mega Man classic releases. A remake that offers the original experience intact while also offering a fully remixed campaign with new bosses. The music is all slapping, you can play as all the robot masters which is very neat. (Though in reality it offers very little more than a diversion and is a bit shallow)

There's also a variety of cool challenges that test the players different mechanics and platforming prowess. Easily one of the best Mega Man game and likely the best PSP release overall.

This one is great and i wish the rest of games recieved this treatment.
It's a polished version of MM1, with two new robot masters, PLAYABLE ROBOT MASTERS, other playable characters like Proto Man and (FINALLY) Roll... with like 300 different costumes holy shit Capcom instead of showering her with love once why not make her playable more often?

The characters also get dialogue and it changes depending on who you're using, there's a hard mode and there's also a "classic" mode using the original level design.

I really wish we got to see what would a Powered Up version of the other games would look like, MM2 and 3 would have loved to get their issues fixed, 3 had potential to be the BEST MM game with some extra time.

Sadly we'll never know.