Full analysis of the game on my YT if you'd like to support my efforts there!

Mega Man Legends is a game that managed to surprise me in what it was going for. For years I'd heard comparisons to other 3D games of its time (even those it technically predates) and hearing pretty unfavorable comparisons while people would praise the charm the game absolutely exudes from just looking at it. Playing it for myself after all these years has left me in total awe. This whole package clicks together a lot of things that I just fuck with and appreciate in games in general.

Like that art direction man, the fuckin Ghibli/Nadia Secret of the Blue Water ass aesthetic, that Tatsuro Yamashita For You album cover art summertime aesthetic, the vibes, THE VIBES, they're all there man. This game, these character models, everything about the visuals is peak 90's PS1 aestheticism to me. I never even played this game as a child yet looking at it just fills me with a kind of warm nostalgia that's just really nice to sit in.

Gliding around this island, exploring its depths and mysteries hidden within it, learning more about both Mega Man and Kattleox as a place, meshing with the people of the island and getting closer to them as ya help em out with their day to day problems. By the end of the game I came to adore Kattleox, slowly becoming one of my favorite locations in a game due to how much focus and attention every inch of it gets. It ends up feeling alive in ways that feel so great to just be in, characters running around doing their thang while you're doing your own thang, climbing buildings, going on dates, hanging out, running the news station, working on their own artistic masterpieces. None of them are waiting for you to come back to them, they're all just living their lives.

The characters too, oh my GOD the characters. Data, that little dancing friend, just such a wonderful little companion/save point for ya. The Bonnes and their Team Rocket-esque goofiness that Mega Man has to reign in every now and then, Mega Man's dumb goofy energy, Roll and Gramps laid back and inquisitive yet caring demeanors. The whole cast just hits the neurons really well for me here, especially the Bonnes who were a treat every single time they appeared.

The only rough spot I majorly had with this game was just the gameplay is a little rough, part of that from age but I honestly think the encounter design in this game just isn't the best. The lock on can be a total mess in any fight with more than 2 enemies, jumping and shooting doesn't feel the best. Thankfully though if something ever bumps ya on the head a bit harder than ya'd like ya can just go and upgrade your shit which is at least nice as a kind of trade off but I really do hope Tron Bonne and Legends 2 fix that a bit.

Such a beautiful experience that I cherished quite deeply by the end, honestly reminds me of when I first finished Trails in the Sky FC, I was just in total awe there as well. I'm gonna miss Kattleox and I really hope to go back someday soon.

Why didn't they just roll with calling him Rock in the US release of this one! Mega Man doesn't make no damn sense as a name you'd call someone on the regular! I'm sorry is that Mega Man heresy? Oh no they're beating down my do-

Eu joguei esse game na época que eu tinha play 1 (ou seja, a uns 20 anos atras), mas nunca terminei (sei lá o porque). E depois de um jogo gigante de mundo aberto, eu precisava de algo curto. E finalmente eu entendo pq os fãs desse game tem tanto carinho por ele.

O charme que esse game tem é inegavel, principalmente com os designs dos personagens e as musicas, que na maior parte são bem mais calmas e até algumas vezes nem tendo trilha no jogo.

Diferente dos outros jogos 2D de Mega Man, aqui nos vamos nos aventurar em uma ilha com uma cidade relativamente pequena e dungeons para coletar dinheiro e peças para fabricar armas. Pois zé, nada de 8 robos com poderes diferentes, aqui a Roll fabrica as suas armas com os itens que vc encontra, como minas, lança foguete, um sabre de luz e por ai vai.

E por ser um game em 3D de play 1, o maior problema dele é a camera. MINHA NOSSA COMO ERA TERRIVEL CONTROLAR A CAMERA PELO L1 E R1. Apesar de ter um sistema de lock on, nao da pra se movimentar quando vc ta travado em um inimigo. É um problema da época, mas se vc ta acostumado a jogar jogo antigo, vc acaba se acostumando.

Mesmo terminando o game em 2023 e enfrentenado seus controles datados, nao tem como nao ter um carinho por ele.

DESIRING ANALOG STICKS IN HALCYON DAYS

So I first played this game as MegaMan 64, way back when I was plugging anything and everything into Project 64 on my crappy Compaq laptop. I knew absolutely nothing about it, but I did like Mega Man, so there wasn't much of a reason not to give it a try, right?

It was... Weird. I know I beat it back then, but even though I was kind of obsessed with MegaMan (or Rock) Volnutt and Roll Caskett for a while there, I recall not being terrifically enthused about the experience as a whole. Why, exactly? Well, that's what I'm here to find out.

The game follows the aforementioned duo along with Roll's grandfather Barrell, and a robotic monkey named Data. They earn their living as Diggers, an occupation that entails delving into ruins in search of quantum refractors, an energy source that doubles as a globally-accepted currency. It's a dangerous job, and after a near scrape, they soon find that their airship (dubbed the "Flutter") is having some trouble staying afloat. Roll crash-lands the ship on the nearby Kattleox Island, and after being welcomed in by the small settlement's friendly citizens, they start work on getting the Flutter airborne again. It's not long after that a family of pirates, known as the Bonnes, suddenly start attacking the island in search of a legendary treasure rumored to be hidden underground. Mega steps up to fight off these thieves, but along the way stumbles headlong into the truth behind this legend - a secret that might have been patiently waiting for him to discover it.

I don't think it's reasonable to say that Mega Man Legends doesn't look its age - it's unquestionably a product of the upper 90's. Amongst its peers, though, it's one of the better looking 3D games of that era. It's bright and colorful and makes good use of baked-in shadows to help the flat shading pop. You might not like it, but this is what peak 3D looks like. It's telling that when the game was ported over to the N64 in late 2000(!), it looked right at home on the system. I think it's fair to say the graphics are one of the first things that come to mind for most people when the topic of Legends is brought up, if all of those "Mega Man Legends-inspired" 3D games (not that one), animations and models out in the wild are any indication. Of course, they probably wouldn't be quite so fondly remembered if the art style and the characters they're applied to weren't also rock-solid. The main and supporting cast have iconic designs and they translate very well into 3D. These may very well be my favorite designs for Rock and Roll in the entirety of Mega Man's history. And I need to give big props to whoever was in charge of designing the character's faces during cutscenes. You'll see a lot of cool tricks being used, like textures that are obviously custom made for the scene they're being used in, giving a pseudo-3D perspective. A lot of effort and love clearly went into making the cast look as good as possible.

On the audio end, Legends simultaneously surprises and disappoints. To wit, the voice acting is actually quite good for its time. It's nothing mind-blowing by any means - no Oscar-worthy displays here - but all of the voiced characters sound exactly how you might expect them to. Not only do I think there are no bad performances in the game, I think some of them really nail the delivery. In particular, Mega Man, Roll, Tron and the Servbots sound downright adorable. Teisel Bonne chews it up in every scene where he appears, and he's my favorite character as a result (just don't look too deep into what his actor had been up to in the intervening years). On the other hand, the music is just decent, with a few catchy standout pieces. The OST on the whole isn't anything to write home about, which might be acceptable for other franchises - but c'mon. This is Mega Man we're talking about, here. It really ought to be bangers from top to bottom. But what's here does suit the tone of Legends well, and perhaps it's simply a trade for how broad the soundscape is, with plenty of short one-off pieces to match every scene and location. Very few recycled tracks.

So how about the story? It's fun! Some good worldbuilding, and it doesn't dwell on any particular note for too long. Legends does a great job of building its own identity and not relying on what had already been established in the franchise up to this point. Mega is here, and so is Roll. You jump and you shoot. You can get new weapons. That's about it. It's telling that one of the only other familiar elements that appears here is Wily, who has gone from being a mad scientist to... A rad old seafaring dude. This game's story supposedly takes place a few thousand years after the other games and boy does it show. As to the story beats themselves, everything is paced well and the Bonnes serve as entertaining antagonists. Things predictably start getting real just before the final showdown and it's all capped off with a pleasant, feel-good ending, while also leaving plenty up in the air for the inevitable sequel. The only downside I could possibly level at the narrative is that you don't get more of it. Legends is rather short and leaves enough on the table that it's hard to imagine what it must have been like not being able to jump into the second game right after the first. Hopefully that game doesn't have the same problem!

All in all, the presentation layers are well-constructed and have definitely conferred a kind of timeless coolness to the world of Mega Man Legends. It stands out from other iterations of Mega Man, both past and present, and inspires a lot of imagined scenarios in me of other stories that could be happening in other parts of its world.

But games have gameplay! So how's that?

Well!

Let's start off by discussing the elephant in the room, which is the fact this is a 3D adventure game that predates Sony's first dual-analog controller (from a development standpoint, anyways - the Dual Analog was released a few months before Rockman DASH's debut, although the game doesn't make any use of analog controls). Predictably, it's got some quirks. Press the D-pad to make Mega move or strafe in the indicated direction. Press L1 and R1 to turn, R2 to lock onto an enemy. Square and Triangle to fire your weapons, Cross to jump, Circle to interact and do other walking-related activities. There's a couple other fancy tricks you can perform, like a dodge roll, but all of them feel a bit cumbersome in practice. The biggest issue for me is the way the targeting system works. It's not unlike the 3D Zeldas insofar as you press down the button to lock onto the nearest enemy. That can be a problem. Unless I missed it, there's no easy way to switch targets. Once you're locked on to a foe, that's it, until something else moves in a bit closer. You're also rooted to the spot while targeting, and it's tricky to perform any kind of evasive maneuver while in this stance. What's more, you can free-aim so long as there's no target close enough to lock onto. Shame when there might be something you'd prefer to target, but can't because whatever's closer takes precedence - there's no way to force free aiming. So maybe circle strafing is the way to go? The game does have a sort of soft lock-on where your buster shots naturally gravitate towards whatever's in the center of your camera, and you can fire while strafing... As long as you don't try to walk backwards. Mega circles around pretty fast so trying to shoot smaller, more mobile targets means a high possibility of over adjusting. Either way, precision means standing stock still, and mobility means a distinct lack of control over shooting. The more dynamic fights really make you wish for a more fine-tuned movement scheme. The game really isn't too difficult on the whole, so it's not a game-killer, but it is very clunky and can sap some of the enjoyment out of the experience.

Legends follows a very familiar gameplay structure of event, dungeon, event, dungeon. You'll delve into one of the several gates that dot Kattleox with the intention of blasting bad guys and scooping up treasure. Once you're done, it's typically capped off with a boss. Between each engagement you can spend time exploring the island, collecting gear or interacting with and helping out the various NPCs. Kattleox is deceptively large, having a reasonably expansive map to gallivant about but only so much to see and to do. Some buildings will be host to one or two sidequests, or perhaps a minigame, but otherwise don't serve much of a purpose. At least one area is conspicuously altogether unused. Meanwhile, the great outdoors are sparse and largely just serve as connectors between dungeon entrances. The dungeons themselves are also something of a letdown. When I first dove in, I was excited by the prospect of plumbing the depths for whatever secrets I could find. Every now and again I would encounter cracked walls I couldn't proceed past, or ledges I couldn't reach, and recognized I would probably need upgrades to proceed further. Once I finally had them, I broke through these barriers to find... Largely more of the same. There really isn't anything noteworthy or exciting about the dungeons in Legends. Most of the environments are bland and same-y and the enemy types aren't diverse, either. There are no gimmicks to speak of and not a whole lot of "hidden areas" - just parts of the dungeon that you can't access until the plot demands. Hell, most of the areas I unlocked mostly served as bridges to other parts of the dungeon, maybe with an item tucked in, but nothing worth getting worked up over. What's more, there's a lot of hallways, and maneuvering those with the given camera and aiming controls could be a real pain in my rear at times.

Other gripes... The weapon system was a bit underutilized. You have a remarkable selection of sub-weapons at your disposal, some of which are quite powerful and require rare parts to build, a lot of money to upgrade, or both. With that being said, your armament grows at a reasonable pace, but there just aren't enough meaningful fights between start and finish to give you much of a reason to invest time into working on them. This is especially noteworthy during the last section of the game when you need to start going out of your way to complete sidequests for access to the last few weapon components. Once you've spent all this time getting your hands on them, you're still asked to grind out some cash to upgrade their statistics. Of course, you also have maybe one or two bosses left to fight, and then you're done. Standard enemies go down just fine to an augmented buster and so there's no real reason to invest or diversify your sub-weapons for general combat. Bosses are where they really shine due to their higher damage output and limited ammo. At least a couple of your special weapons are fairly broken to start with and get even better after you drop some cash into them, so you're better off just picking one and dumping your resources into it. Assuming you're playing on the Normal difficulty, the big bads will drop easily enough. If there were some fun ways of earning zenny I might have been more inclined to do the grinding anyways, but the most efficient means you have is to leverage respawning enemies to rake in cash. Also, this is just a personal note, but it's a little disappointing that the Blue Bomber's trademark ability-stealing isn't represented in any way here. Not that any of the boss designs really support the concept anyways, but it would have been cool if at least a portion of your weapons were gained from ripping the bits off of baddies and grafting them to your arm. C'est la vie.

Also, there's actually a "karma" system built into the game! It's keeping score on how heroic or naughty you are, though it doesn't go out of its way to tell you this is happening. Helping people out or choosing to be kind instead of a jerk will make you... Gooder. On the other hand, vandalizing the island, attacking friendlies or just generally not being very nice will make you the opposite of that. The key issue is that there's really no meaningful difference to whether or not you're heroic or anti-heroic. No plot changes or shop modifiers or optional events. Some dialogue changes and you might impact a couple of very small details on the island. Otherwise, the only noteworthy difference is that Mega's armor darkens when you're a really nasty dude... But good luck ever seeing that organically. As you might anticipate, there are far and away more opportunities to be a goody two-shoes than there are chances to act up, and there are actually even less ways to net negative karma in the international version of the game (because somebody determined assaulting pets and wildlife might have been just a step too mean-spirited for a kid-friendly game in the English-speaking world). There's a singular event towards the end of the game where you can make your karma plummet to rock-bottom by being a particularly greedy little bastard, but there's basically no repercussions so... Y'know. I actually think this system had a lot of potential. For instance, there are artifacts you can donate to the museum in this game. Donating them all gets you a step further to the best weapon in the game - not that you'd be aware of that. Alternatively, you can sell them for profit, but the amounts you earn are fairly negligible. I'd wager most would be inclined to donate them on principle (if they even know they can, but that's its own problem). What if there was some shady back alley dealer who'd buy them off of you for a mint, but doing so would hurt your reputation? What if the trade off for more funds in your pocket would then mean higher prices at shops, somewhat undermining your efforts? Maybe you could even cut a deal with the pirates? More circumstances where you could be evil for fun or profit would have added a lot to this, as would having real consequences for your actions. As it is, all being a bad dude does is make Volnutt look like he dropped through somebody's chimney. I will say, though, if nothing else, that the denizens of Kattleox all make it abundantly clear how much they admire and appreciate MegaMan for his efforts. If you get that warm fuzzy feeling when your favorite bundle of polygons thanks you for giving them a ring, then maybe being the goodest guy to ever good will serve as its own reward.

Oh, and the few available minigames were just not much fun, except for maybe the "racing" one. Honestly, zipping around with the jet upgrade was one of the more enjoyable parts of the game. They should have expanded on that some.

The more I played, the more I felt that Legends was just kind of missing that X-factor (no pun intended). The combat worked in a pinch but wasn't especially enjoyable. The dungeon crawling was mundane as could be. The game was big in charm but low in character, if that makes any sense at all. Even though Legends shines like a big golden refractor aesthetically and conceptually, it largely smacks of mediocre fifth-generation 3D adventure game... Because once you dig beneath the surface, that's exactly what it is. All the pitfalls of this era and genre are present, which is a bit hard to swallow given the franchise's history of simple, tight gameplay. What's more, it never truly capitalizes on the strengths of its setting. It falls into that oh-so-familiar territory of "cool concept, middling execution" that managed to win its fair share of hearts but obviously still had a lot of maturing to do. MegaMan Volnutt's first story is one that I'll happily retell, but not one that I have any particular desire to relive.

Of course, this wasn't the end - Rock and friends would make yet another outing a few years later on the same system. I'm eager to see if they'd grown from their experiences.

I was going to be harsher on this game due to its controls, but after a certain point I got used to them. They are still bad though, everything that is hard about this game comes from its control scheme.

Moving away from the negatives, this game is super charming. All of the designs are great, especially Roll's, a straight up 10/10. Graphically, this game is still great; the only way I can describe it is as charming. All the characters are fun, and the Bonne family makes for entertaining villains. Considering the era, the dub is surprisingly alright; again, it all helps create this charming quality.

Despite the terrible controllers, it aged like a fine wine...
The story is lighthearted and funny. The graphics are pretty good to the point of inumerous indie games still taking inspiration until now.
The characters are adorable, the scenarios are welcoming and relaxing, and the interconnected "metroidvania like" map makes this game an underrated gem. You can even make your own builds in this game. Definitely a unique game...
I am happy to finally played it and finished it. This already makes me sad that Capcom abandoned this franchise...
Looking forward the sequel.

In the gaming era where 3D worlds are still being studied and understood by the top dogs of the industry, people were subject to very inventive and, well, borderline insane game design. Thankfully, Mega Man Legends lands snugly on the inventive side.

This game has this weird tank/platforming control scheme that, in the hands of a new player, would be confusing to pick up. However, once it's understood, mastering the controls makes you feel invincible. It feels good!

This game is surprisingly short, perhaps the pacing has something to do with it. There's (nearly) a full story being told here, but the side content is far and few between, that is, if you can find it. Characters are all lovely in their own way and the cutscenes are entertaining. Perhaps its sequel enhances on everything it did well, and then some. I wouldn't know, I haven't played it yet.

Tinha pulado esse jogo e ido direto para o 2, mas que grande gafe cometi, perdi um jogo bem divertido.

O que mais me encanta apesar dos gráficos poligonais, é o estilo artístico de anime, ele deixa o jogo tão atual, enquanto outros que apelavam para o realismo naquela época, ficaram velhos, aqui envelheceu como vinho. O combate é bem embaraçoso, já que megaman não possui uma mira fixa, e o máximo que ele pode fazer é parar com uma mira fixa, porém não é tão doloroso controlar ele, fica parecendo um doom de megaman, o boneco responde aos comandos e ele é ágil, coisa que ajuda muito nas batalhas. A trilha sonora, achei fraca, o único tema que lembro de cabeça é o grupo da tron bonne, que tema bobo e divertido! Principalmente pra esses palhaços que tentam nos atrapalhar, achei eles bem carismáticos, e dão uma vida para o jogo.

O jogo possuí sistemas de RPG, e por isso, não são fases e sim objetivos que progridem a história, para iniciantes desse gênero, vão provavelmente ficar perdidos na primeira cidade inicial, mas é só falar com todos e interagir com tudo no mapa, nada aqui é um bicho de 7 cabeças. Ele também vai ter equipamentos e dinheiro para possuir esses tais, e é bem fácil possuir armaduras nesse jogo, não precisa se esforçar tanto pra ter equipamentos poderosos.

De resto é isso, se você não gosta muito de jogos velhos, provavelmente vai estranhar da forma de jogar, mas se está acostumado com jogos dessa época, vai ser bem divertido.

The charm and charisma of this game hold the rest of it up like how Altus holds the weight of the world on his back.

I really like Mega Man Legends. It has a passive peacefulness that could trick you into thinking you’re playing an island life simulator. You run errands for the townspeople of Kattlelox island, you play game shows on tv, you become a local legend for donating money to get better medical equipment at the hospital. Cutely designed characters have funny dialogue, you can tell the lady who runs the junk shop that your name is Hippopotamus. Hippopotamus can look at a magazine rack full of dirty magazines and contemplates reading one. The music that plays while you avoid oncoming traffic downtown sounds like the happiest trip to the mall you’ve ever had. Mega Man Legends is so pleasant.

But then, deep underground beneath the town, lies the Ruins. Eerie mines full of mindless Reaverbots, ready to kill anything they see. Under the silent cover of low draw distance, they wait for you. Some of these robots can drain your health in an instant, while you’re several loading screens away from salvation (and your latest save file). Mega Man Legends can be a little tense. (The hamburger-lookin ass crab Reaverbot, called Kuruguru, was particularly frightening to me and my younger brother when we played this game together.)

The tonal whiplash between the happy town and the harrowing ruins is only further compounded by the hysterical (and I mean that in both that they’re funny and that they’re constantly in hysterics) Bonne family. Between Tron Bonne’s violent and confused feelings towards Mega Man and Tiesel Bonne’s maniacal laughter after he plots a doomed scheme, any time they show up you’re in for a fun time.

That is, when the cutscenes are playing.

Early on, you gradually ease into the combat after a good amount of time hanging out in the town. But then BAM you’re hit with two back to back missions with their own boss fights. I guess the game wanted you to grind in the ruins for a lot longer than I did before starting those missions, because Defending City Hall is a huge difficulty spike.

And that difficulty, of course, comes from the controls.

Everyone hates tank controls. I won’t spend time reiterating what we all know, tank controls aren’t great for 3rd person action adventure games. This game is early enough in the genre’s existence that it was all they could conceive at the time. It’s really hard making two dimensional games as it is, and now you have to make a 3D game work and not completely copy Mario 64.

And besides, it’s not like Mario had a gun he could aim in Mario 64. They had to figure that out with what they had.

It’s a tough job, and I think they did OK with it. Decent enough to play, but not fun enough to where I get excited that a saving issue brought up the possibility of replaying 8 hours worth of the game. I didn’t have to replay those 8 hours, thankfully.

The main problem with Mega Man Legends’ turgid tank controls is half of the game’s loop is long term money grinding for obscenely expensive purchases. If you want to keep up with the dangerous enemies that threaten your life, you’re going to have spend a sickening amount of time grinding for zenny, all while moving around in that awkward and uncomfortable way. You get used to it, but it doesn’t make the grinding fun.

I genuinely recommend looking into cheat codes or something for this game to just give yourself a huge amount of money to mitigate the grinding. I played it “pure” and spent days running around the same spot in the ruins making chump change. Just cheat. Cheat because that half of the game is so lackluster compared to the side quests.

The side quests is what makes this game shine. There’s not enough of them to feel like a substantial Zelda-like adventure, but the amount we get is still satisfying. When you’re not raising money to rebuild the island from collateral damage you could have prevented, you’re helping the citizens with their simple problems. In return, you get an item that goes towards improving Mega Man (which you might need that grinding money to make use of), but more importantly, a fleshed out Kattelox Island. It makes it feel like a real place, and I love it.

However, these side quests have a dark side to them. A problem that could leave a “pure” playthrough completely in the dark.

A lot of these side quests/things to do are not blatantly advertised enough.

Much like the hidden treasures in the ruins beneath Kattlelox Island, Mega Man Legends hides it’s delightful and rewarding supplementary content behind obscurity. While some games with a racing minigame have some kind of eye catching indicator of its existence, or even a cutscene to let you know about it, Mega Man Legends has a nondescript npc in the corner of a building you might not think to go in anymore because you cleared the other two minigames it offered.

There are important npcs who have things for you to do who look like any other npc. Sometimes you have to talk to an obvious quest npc multiple times after you finish their quest to get a second or third quest. And I don’t mean just talk to them again I mean again and again and again. Some of these quests are built around the in-game timer, but it’s never specified exactly how much time it’s built around.

If your Saiyan Pride doesn’t let you cheat or use a guide, I respect that, but understand just how much of your precious time will be spent grinding zenny and talking to every npc multiple times. It is not weakness to save yourself an hour because you know where you have to go.

At the very least, I recommend having a guide handy while you play this game, just so you can give yourself everything it can offer. My first full playthrough was without a guide and I missed half the game and it really felt like it.

That full playthrough completely missed all the quests that went into the most powerful weapon in the game, maybe the entire Mega Man Series: the Shining Laser. The incredibly expensive culmination of several quests and mountains of money, the Shining Laser turns the already easy final boss into a seconds long joke.

Normally I’d be upset at the prospect of being robbed of a good fight, but I think it thematically works. The Shining Laser is everyone you helped on Kattelox returning the favor. It’s the final episode of the anime where everyone opens their hearts to send their energy to the hero. I like it. It’s a reward for players who aren’t good at combat but love the side quests, and it’s a reward for people like me who put too much thought into it.

But anyways,

I’ve played this game three times and rolled credits twice. I got every item on the second full playthrough, but I didn’t upgrade the weapons all the way because I didn’t cheat this time lmao. I fully upgraded the Shining Laser though, which is more than enough for me.

I recommend Mega Man Legends to anyone willing to put up with the few drawbacks it has. They are certainly drawbacks, (though I think the controls are much less of an issue) but the characters and world this game creates are vibrant and endearing and maybe the strongest in the entire Mega Man franchise.

There’s a reason why Tron Bonne shows up in more games as a cameo appearance than Mega Man Volnutt. It’s because she’s the best character in the game.

Mega Man Legends is almost 30 years old and I have had dozens of gaming experiences, and I still do not know how to discuss what makes Mega Man Legends sticks out to me like no other game does. I’m not trying to put it on some pedestal or anything, It’s not among my favorite games, even with nostalgia bias, and I even like its sequel more than this game. But I don’t think there’s a game that invokes quite a blend of comfort, mystery, excitement, horror and whimsy in a way as effectively like Mega Man Legends did.

The controls haven’t aged in a way that might be for everyone™ or whatever, but I think Mega Man Legends is still a game worth trying out to anyone who is trying out games in the PSX library, or those who like that genre of third-person action rpg-ish? games that was prevalent in the era. Despite the jank you’ll have to get used to, the Story, World, Cast and Game play here will definitely leave most gamers who like action games satisfied.

eu já maratonei yakuza do 1 original até o 6 (pretendo começar judgment em breve! tô jurando isso tem uns 2 anos) e se me perguntarem de alguma side quest dele eu provavelmente vou falar que não sei, não lembro, não fiz, com algumas exceções. é engraçado até que ainda sim eu amo os ambientes desse jogo e associo eles a minha experiência com o jogo de uma forma bem forte e marcante.

no finalzinho do mml, enquanto estava para dar tchau pro povo da cidade, minha namorada, que zerou tem uns dias, apontou que a mulher que ainda estava grávida no meu jogo, no dela já estava com filho e nomeou ele de megaman porque ela fez a sidequest. eu achei um charme isso e eu gosto dessas diferenças, mas pensei muito que considero mml um jogo estilo yakuza, o joguinho focado numa só cidade charmosa, cheia de lugares pra visitar e interagir.

minha relação com esses jogos é de dar uma passeada, fazer alguma quest que apareça no caminho e ir curtindo a história. não me levem a mal, tem vários jogos que eu perco horas fazendo esse tipo de coisa, mas acho que em jogos de cidade assim o que eu absorvo e guardo pra mim são as pessoas que eu conversei, as construções que vi, os acontecimentos e consequências deles. fiquei fascinadíssimo quando li na biblioteca da cidade que o mundo supostamente funcionava em vários ciclos - toda vez que um ciclo acabava acontecia um desastre que acabava com a sociedade de lá.

depois de desbravar várias escavações e chegar na construção central que é base de tudo o que acontece abaixo da ilha onde a cidade se encontra, você descobre que isso é bem literal e o megaman fica olhando para o amontoado de informações que recebe no final igual o neo fica no final de matrix reloaded, fica parecendo que esse jogo se passa numa realidade alternativa controladinha e projetada pra gente explorar, se afeiçoar e ver tudo ruir diversas e diversas vezes (vai saber quantos megaman passaram por isso sem ter memória nenhuma), aí novas sociedades nascem, crescem, constroem se esbalecem e puft chegou a hora de destruir tudo novamente. é uma revelação bem legal, eu achei lindo como foi tudo construidinho assim.

claro que nossa afeição vence, quem disse que eu não decorei o caminho pro hospital, me acostumei a andar pelas florestas e campos pra achar passagens pro sub-solo, ou fui todo preocupado reconstruir umas casas que foram destruídas. tenho certeza que se fizessem megaman legends anualmente eu ia prestar atenção nas mudanças que ocorrem no apple market a cada sequência e quebraria o ciclo que as forças tecnológicas misteriosas querem impor aquela cidadezinha todas as vezes.

tem jogos que as palavras me fogem e esse é um deles. eu posso falar como ele é um dos jogos mais visualmente bonitos já feitos, como o uso de musica clássica é surreal, como os tank controls não são nem 1% tão ruim quanto o resto desse site reclama, como toda sidequest é fofa, como a Tron é ícone, como a dublagem americana é charmosa, como o jogo simplesmente surta do nada nos últimos 10 minutos. coisas que certamente todo mundo falou

mas eu acho que esse eu quero focar em outra coisa, eu quero focar em como eu engajo com videogame hoje em dia. eu ando em uma revolução, ou crise dependendo da conclusão, com videogame, eu perdi a minha capacidade de não querer jogar um jogo só pra terminar. sim, triste, lamentável e coisa de youtuber ruim. e porque isso é relevante pra mega man legends? porque esse é jogo de viver. é um skyrim, um gtazinho, em mini escala. a cidade é seu open world e é pra você explorar cada canto dela, ficar pulando em telhado, se divertir e não ligar pro tempo. mas eu não consigo mais fazer isso. provavelmente porque sou adulta e tenho outros compromissos, acabo ficando extremamente consciente do quanto tempo o jogo ta levando. fui procurar guia de sidequest porque não tava afim de falar com todos os NPCs depois de cada dungeon.

isso, pra mim, é ruim. eu não consigo aceitar que minha interação com jogos mudou, que hoje em dia as coisas são diferentes. se eu tivesse jogado mega man legends com meus 9 anos, eu teria, sem duvida, passado mais tempo na cidade fazendo absolutamente nada e chutando a latinha que fica no chão do que prosseguindo a história. mas hoje em dia não consigo mais isso, parece plástico, parece uma tentativa de retorno a algo que eu não sou mais. mas também me entristece essa minha corrida pelo termino do jogo. a verdade é que 10h de jogo hoje em dia não tem o mesmo peso de 10h de jogo há 20 anos atras, agora parece curto, consegui formar uma ligação superficial com os personagens daquela cidade mas não o suficiente pra eu me emocionar muuuuito (me emocionei um pouquinho) quando tive que dar tchau pra eles. é meio triste, queria conseguir retomar um pouco a essa epoca mas da minha propria forma, sem ser um espelho do que era antes. quem sabe eu estou trabalhando pra isso.

o pior é que quando eu for pensar nesse jogo em retrospecto, minha memoria vai suplementar todos esses sentimentos que fiquei confusa e não senti direito nela. vou lembrar como se eu tivesse vivido nessa cidade e me emocionado muito ao sair dela. é estranho, minha cabeça é esquisita mas eu acho que deixei de tentar entender. talvez seja um sentimento de culpa por estar jogando quando eu deveria estar fazendo outra coisa. talvez eu não saiba mais direito porque eu jogo videogame. costume? experenciar arte? passar o tempo? preencher uma lista? seja la o que for talvez eu devesse passar um ano sem jogar. mas não vou e provavelmente continuarei dançando essa valsa pelo resto da vida, só espero que acertar os passos volte a ser algo mais natural e menos consciente.

Don’t worry, Tron. If anyone can do it, he can.

I mean… Mega Man Legends should probably, at the very least, be mentioned in the same conversation as Super Mario 64 when we talk about positive 2D-to-3D conversions. It’s an unbelievably confident, interesting game that shakes up the Mega Man IP with good voice acting (!), a robust and surprisingly dark story, open exploration, can kicking, stat-altering equipment, and dungeon crawling. Oh, and Tron Bonne, of course. Gone are the days of Robot Masters, Mavericks, boss weapons, and stages (for now). The game even has things like an optional morality system, lots of items to find, and, I suspect, sidequests that most players will never even be privy to. Legends also has this low-poly, 90s anime aesthetic that is utterly to die for, and it’s unthinkable that nobody has tried to ape this exact look in the years since. It’s certainly not perfect, but, for Capcom’s first stab (and, unfortunately, one of their only stabs) at a 3D Mega Man title, it’s not terribly far off.

what a delightful little game! not without its flaws, but i had a great time with this one. actually, it mainly has one giant flaw. the camera is so monumentally shit. look, i get it, its a ps1 game and the developers have never made a 3d game before, yada yada, i don't really care. i'm not playing this game in 1997, its 20XX now and the camera is so bad i almost dropped this game entirely. i got better at handling it over time, sure, but even by the final boss battle, after about 8 hours of playtime, it still felt like i was fighting more against the camera than the boss itself.

but other than the camera, i really loved this game. interestingly, if you analyse each element of mega man legends individually, you'll find that it doesn't excel at anything at all. as stated, the camera is dogshit, but also the voice acting is terrible and combat is mediocre and the music is repetitive and the dungeons are very uninspiring. the exception is the art direction, this game is absolutely gorgeous and everyone knows it. but i feel that mega man legends is a textbook example of a game that is so much greater than the sum of its parts.

sure, the voice acting sucks, but it's also kind of charmingly bad and the cutscenes were always a joy to sit through. the combat is nothing special, but there's a decent level of depth to trying out different combinations of buster parts and special weapons, and learning the attack patterns of each enemy so you know how to avoid getting hit is pretty rewarding. the dungeons consist of narrow hallways and tunnels, occasionally throwing in a large arena-type room for some variety, and it all kind of feels like they were built by one of capcom's interns, but they're still a lot of fun to run-and-gun through. there's just something really cozy about the atmosphere, i'm not sure how to explain it. it's the vibe of the thing.

the last thing i want to comment on is the narrative. no spoilers, but it took a really strange twist at the very last second that i was not expecting at all, but then that twist is promptly resolved by an unexpected character and i loved it. there's lots of humour sprinkled throughout the game, you'd do well to speak to all the npcs just so you can experience all of the dialogue boxes. i only wish i got some more tron bonne, she was my favourite character. they should make a spin-off based on tron bonne, i think.

anyway, great game, i highly recommend it, it's not long so you might as well play it especially if you like cozy comfy ps1 games and shooting and robots

Me surpreende ele não ser tão comentado, esse jogo é excelente em (quase) tudo que faz, art style lindo, bom nível de desafio, os upgrades/customização instigante realmente recompensando jogadores que fuçam cada buraco desse jogo, os personagens são carismáticos, história divertida e simples, até as histórias de sidequests são boas, esse jogo entrega muito.
Acho que únicas coisinhas dele seria o Voice acting que alguns personagens incomodam, mas é coisa da época e você se acostuma e algumas quests que é meio anti intuitivo descobrir onde ir, mas nada que uma pernada a mais ou um guia não resolva.
Enfim, MARAVIGOLD!

I remember watching friends play this game as a kid and watching Let's Plays of it years ago, but never got around to playing it myself. I was a Nintendo baby growing up and despite my family owning a PS1 and PS2, I never got around to playing a lot of Sony classics like this other than the occasional Blockbuster rental. Playing it now, I can say that I probably would have loved it back then due to how much I enjoyed it as an adult. Might be my favorite PS1 game I've played so far.

For a 3D adventure game that came out before OoT set the standard for the genre, it's pretty amazing how well this game aged. Most of the combat situations can be won by strafing and holding down the shoot button, but it all works surprisingly well. Dungeons are a lot of running down hallways, but it never really bored me. Exploring these underground ruins and finding random crap that you can turn into cool weapons surprisingly makes up for any issues with the relatively simple level design.

What also helps is the atmosphere. The game is generally pretty cutesy and lighthearted, which makes the much more creepy and unsettling underground areas stand out significantly. I could easily see kids getting genuinely freaked out by the enemy designs and creepy sound effects when exploring.

The story is fun and very much reminiscent of 90s anime, down to the surprisingly good English dub. The Bonne family is basically Team Rocket only actually somewhat threatening at times. The wacky tone of the writing gradually getting a bit darker toward the end is something I've always liked with media like this. Reminds me of the stuff Capcom would later do with the Battle Network series.

Also this game may have one of the best artstyles of any 3D 90s game. They really pulled off the anime aethestic extremely well. Still waiting for indie games to stop going for pixelslop and start making games that look more like this. I can only assume it's just genuinely difficult to pull off.

This is by far my favorite Mega Man game I've played. It's no OoT or Mario 64, but it's still one of the better 3D 90s games I've played. I can see why Legends 3's cancellation was so devastating to people. Maybe since Capcom is kind of in their redemption arc, and hack fraud Inafune is gone, they'll reconsider and finally bring it back. DMC5 came out, Dragon's Dogma 2 is releasing soon, and Resident Evil isn't garbage anymore, so it's not impossible, right?

Has a ton of personality, charm, and love poured into it. I found the dungeons to be fun, if not a little short at times. The controls are awkward but I don't find it to be too bad.

I feel like some things could be more rewarding, but you get most of your rewards through digging. There are some side quests you can do which also give you rewards. I enjoyed wandering around the town.

The dungeons I felt were eerie and I loved the environments in them. Exploration in the dungeons was incredibly fun. I liked searching through the area finding the holes in the walls, as well as chests. Sometimes the backtracking through them was somewhat of a chore but I didn't mind it.

The voice acting adds a lot of charm to the characters which are already full of personality. The Bonne's especially come to mind when mentioning the voice acting.

The buster upgrades are fun to get and use. You can get buster shots from doing side quests, digging, and giving the parts to Roll. You also get special weapons which are fun to use but I didn't use them too much during my playthrough.

You also get upgrades to yourself like spring parts, and the hover skates which are incredibly fun to use.

Tell me, how many other games delve in genocide, phagogenesis, evolution, war, classism, human nature on a fundamental level, transgenderism, absolute monarchies, social imperialism, corruption, democracy and the flaws of political government with direct democracy, criminal minds, reincarnation, Loyalty, Love in all its obsessive and unconditional forms, the meaning of life, the concept of a soul, Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism humanity and inhumanity, revenge, abandonment as well as a slew of other topics and concepts as nuanced and well written as Megaman Legends while seamlessly weaving in and out of genres, going from pirate wars to the Elder System to the epic rise and fall of an entire civilization to politics, to succession wars and a new era of exploration and colonialism.

Anyone who is a fan of video games owes it to themselves to play this masterpiece.

Peak. Fiction.

This game means the world to me and this tiny review won't do any of that justice but gosh this game is so good. It really feels like the type of game you can't just like. You either feel indifferent towards it or absolutely adore it, at least that's what I see alot.

This was one of the last Mega Man games I played. I went through all the platformers I absolutely adored and the RPGs only to come to this one niche sub series and have it absolutely blow everything else out of the water.

There isn't a single aspect about this game that isn't charming. The low poly playstation aesthetic is something I can't get enough, I seriously think it hasn't aged a day. Can we please get more retro throwbacks in this style?

Kattelox Island is an amazing game world, each corner of the small map feels alive and atmospheric despite the limitations, the above world just feels so peaceful (as long as you ignore those darn pirates).

There's a whole lot of memorable NPCs, weird optional scenarios and sometimes dumb yet endearing dialogue. Upgrading Rock Volnutt is really fun though I never really get much use out of the multiple sub-weapons.

The controls take some getting used to, they are outdated, I understand that... It takes like 5 minutes to get used to them, I don't think it is a big deal.

I love the contrast between the bright overworld and dark, repetitive depths. That's one of the reasons I actually prefer the samey ruins in this game compared to the themed ones of the sequel. I think the lack of variety helps contrast the regular world and gives a more dreary atmosphere to the place.

I love the Bonne family, I love the ridiculously loud bird chirping, I love running around, getting hit by cars in the city, I love the revearbots who manage to be both goofy and slightly unsettling, I love the missions (even if they almost made me give up multiple times on my first playthrough), I love the ending, I love collecting treasure in the ruins, I love beating up innocent cans, I love interacting with the people of Kattelox Island.

This game is everything. I absolutely adore it.