"Mega Man 5" turns the page on its predecessor's flaws to bring us the best of its predecessor on a golden platter.

"Mega Man 5" sticks to its formula insanely close, bringing the "Doc Robots" and "Twin Wily" castles together for a best of both worlds situation. With some of the best boss battles, missing from the 4th itineration, and a proper stage design, missing from its 3rd itineration. "Mega Man 5" polishes everything its predecessor did, pushing the NES's graphics and sound limits far beyond its end of life, this masterful game is a treat to eyes and ears alike.

It may have had the worst Special Weapons of any game so far, and an incredibly overpowered Mega Buster, it is painfully easy to forego the use of special weapons. Notable weapons included the "Gravity Hold" and "Gyro Attack".

The soundtrack is some of the best in the series, my favorites being Wave Man's theme, as well as the title theme, which remains the raddest Mega Man opening ever conceived.

As for our opinion on the many encounters against "Dark Man", there isn't much to say about them. He is a forgettable guest villain recycled throughout Proto Man's fortress. Finally, Robot Master fights are decent once more, with working AI, although not quite as good as those from Mega Man 1 to 3.

This one was a well-built, fair entry with few flaws.

Mega Man 5 or what I like to call it "Say It Ain't So Proto Man!" is probably the first game in the classic series that feels like a downgrade after the last one.

The game probably has hands down the absolute worst selection of weapons in the series, there's three weapons that travel exclusively along the ground, Star Crash is only slightly better than Skull Barrier (not a good thing), and Power Stone and Crystal Eye are both hard to use effectively. And while Gravity Hold is a hilarious weapon it only does one point of damage and it doesn't let the defeated enemies drop any HP/ammo. This combined with how hideously OP the charged Mega Buster is in this game makes it hard to justify using any of them even in fights against the Robot Masters, I think the only time I bothered to use any of them was Water Wave against Dark Man 1, and even then I had to make sure I timed my shots otherwise I'd run out of ammo fairly quick using it. I could've used Gravity Hold against Gyro Man maybe to get the fight over with, but the guy is such a punk bitch that I wasn't willing to give him that kind of respect.

They did this weird thing where they buff/nerfed the fully-charged shot where the hitbox is bigger, pierces through defeated enemies and charges faster, but you can lose it if you get hit, but it charges so quickly that it's not really much of a problem especially if you're any good at dodging the underwhelmingly simple patterns of most of the robot masters. I really don't know what they were thinking here especially with how bad most of the weapons are. It's basically the reverse of MM2's problem with the Metal Blade, you just never actually feel a need to switch to anything.

I also dunno if they did something with the drop rates in this game, but I swear I collected like thirty 1ups just from random enemies. I seriously don't remember getting that many in the other games. It'd be appreciated if the stages and Robot Masters actually posed some kind of threat. Charge Man is seriously the only guy in this game I'd potentially struggle with only because the bastard has nine-thousand i-frames and instantly charges out of nowhere with his big-ass hitbox, and Dark Man 1 is basically the same fight except he can shoot at you. The Dark Man bots in general just feel like a retread of the Doc Bots from 3, except they're less memorable and not interesting at all compared to having a bigger boss with less uniform design.

Everything just feels forgettable and phoned in with this one, I know they were slamming these games out really quickly, but I really don't think I care too much about Say It Ain't So Proto Man. I don't see myself replaying it a lot compared to 3 and 4. It's still better than 1 and 2 though, since it still lacks Boobeam Traps and Yellow Devils.

4 >= 3 > 5 > 2 >= 1 so far

Favorite Enemy Name: Metall Mommy, maybe Big Pets too. Apparently Dr. Wily stole Big Pets from an amusement park, what the hell is wrong with him?

Favorite Music: Charge Man, he's ridiculous but his theme is pretty damn nice to listen to.

I actually didn't mind the easy difficulty at all after i had quite a lot of trouble with parts of mm1 and 3. I'm kind of bad at platformers so i personally value creativity and vibe over challenge most of the time. And this game has really unique levels where the two gravityshifting ones and the wave one especially stand out for me. While the charged megabuster is OP without question if feels satisfying to use. Found it quite fun to use some of the special weapons on the bosses that were weak to it, like the gyro weapon you can aim up after trowing, and the sliding kick. I know the Megabuster can fell bosses easily, but sometimes you have to make your own fun. The OST was unimpressive (seems to slowly decline since last game) but still serviceable.

With the outlook i have on the genre i really had fun with this.

While far from an abject failure of game design like the worst entries of the X series, I don't think it's an exceptionally hot take to express the opinion that Mega Man 5 is both the weakest and most forgettable title of the numbered classic series. Its mostly lackluster robot masters whose weapons are outclassed by the charge shot, soundtrack that only has a few songs leave an inprint on my brain, and general "been there, done that" feel with nary a thing to give it its own unique flair, make it a game that rarely ever crosses my mind unless I'm specifically talking about classic Mega Man.

I think this is a step down from the previous game, but not by much. Dr. Wily is on his bullshit again, except now he led you to believe it was Protoman doing the dirty deeds, as MM4 teased at the end. But no, it was a fake Protoman this whole time. Wow, what a shocker. I mean, it's nice how the series started developing more of a story with the 3rd classic entry, and even more so with the 4th, but do people really play these games for the plot?

Anyway, you also get a bird now. His name is Beat. Probably cuz he can lay the beatdown on bosses. Frankly, he's kind of OP, especially the final boss. You need to collect all of the letters that spell out MEGAMANV throughout the 8 main stages to unlock him, but they're all pretty easy to spot and collect.

It's a solid game with some great bosses. Some of the weapons are pretty stinky, but that's a given at this point. The second half is a bit exhausting, as usual, but once again, it was actually fun, unlike MM3. Not much to say really, as I'm mainly just cranking out these MM reviews out for the sake of consistency now. Just one more game on the NES. I'm hoping that it ends on a bang... or at least some confetti poppers.

Man... is this... the best one??? I dug this one way more than I thought I would. Great stages, great bosses... in a lot of ways this feels to me like a "fixed" version of Mega Man 2. You've got the slide and charged shot here now, you don't have anything like Metal Blades being the overpowered answer to every situation, you don't have bosses turning to dust the second you enter their room with the right weapon, there's no freakish difficulty outlier like boobeam or yellow devil... You've got a secret side-collectible thing but it's just a useful and fun bonus, not something secretly mandatory like the Magnet Beam...

Yeah I'm gonna say it, this one totally rules. If you're looking for something harder, you'll like 3 more, but if you're a big fan of 2...? I think this is the one to check out. It's hard to quantify why I feel this one is so much less bland than 4, but there it is.

Edit: I've figured out why I like this one so much more than everyone else seems to... I don't use the boss weapons outside of hitting boss weaknesses and I never have. Turns out the main complaint people have with this one is the weapons. Well, if you're usually a buster-only hero like me, you'll be right at home.

Like MM3, MM5 has an unfortunately weak set of special weapons, even with the Super Arrow as a bonus 9th weapon. Gravity Hold is situationally pretty fun. Beyond that, most of the others feel weirdly interchangeable with the charged Mega Buster.

Nevertheless, this is one of my most played classic MM games. It deprioritizes the special weapons in favor of the Mega Buster, which is a really weird choice for a Mega Man game, but not a fatal one because the Buster feels better here than in any other game. They've widened the blast and removed the kickback, making it very good for cruising through a stage and obliterating popcorn enemies, often several at once if you line things up correctly. All eight robot masters are IMO most fun to fight with the Buster; they're fairly basic (though Charge Man and Crystal Man can get messy) but executing the dance is fun. Critically, you lose your Mega Buster charge if you get hit, so if you're playing the first eight stages Buster-only you can't just tank hits. For me, that keeps this game engaging, at least in its first half. In the back half, the lack of good weapons make MM5 less engaging than several other titles in the series, but if I'm in the mood to just spend 20-30 minutes blasting through some MM stages without intent to clear the whole game, I think MM5's first half might be the most reliable little blast of action in the series.

this is probably my most replayed game of all time.

i avoided saying anything of real substance on mega man 4, because i believe it to be most similar to 5. mega man 4 and 5 are when the series got its shit together. its when the series started selling, and became a product to be expected. theres no really silly design choices, which is for the best. the dumb stuff in 1-3 made the games more entertaining, at the sacrifice of the quality. the series aesthetics really came into place here (and were later completely changed with mega man x. the mega buster being your best weapon in most cases is annoying, but its not something i mind too terribly, due to how i always liked preserving ammo. i also thought Beat was really fun, but not well balanced.

tldr: 4 and 5 are when the games got corporate, which led to them being better produced (which is a good thing)