I'm honestly crushed that I can't easily recommend the story mode for this without a second thought because the highs in it are some of the strongest in any Mega Man piece of media. It's obvious how much reverence for the classic series is on display here, featuring content for even the most niche side-notes for the series (Wily Wars, the GB spin-offs, etc.) while still carving out its own interpretations and ideas for established characters and bosses.

The downside to this is that you have to play many, many rounds of deathmatch against bots to get to that part. It's fun deathmatch, for what it's worth! Seeing iconic Mega Man stages rendered in a 3D area and watching how the stage gimmicks play into that is really cute, but it's hard for it to not blend together after awhile when you have to do such a huge number of them in a row, and the first half of the story being fairly restrained and uneventful compared to how much it escalates by the end definitely doesn't help either. They do start switching it up by the later chapters where you'll get to experiment with different modes and unique mechanics, but getting there can be a bit rough.

I feel guilty even complaining about this when the game is so high-quality and it's clear how much passion went into it, but it's the main reason that I'd probably have to attach an asterisk when suggesting the single player mode to others. If it sounds interesting to you though, I'd highly recommend checking it out! Even if you don't finish the campaign it's still cool to play around with and there's the other main attraction--the multiplayer mode--which you can also get a ton of mileage out of. I'm really happy this game exists.