Here's something interesting: This one was one to actually innovate back to the main Mega Man series! That's right, this is the first Mega Man game to ever have an item shop, before Mega Man 7 would 2 years later! Not only that but they managed to pack even more meat into this one: Now there are two Wily stages instead of a mini stage and a boss, and a full scale Boss Rush to boot! Now it can really call itself a Mega Man game.

Another thing it does that's interesting, and partially to justify the shop, is that your weapons aren't automatically replenished between Robot Master stages. I wish the main Mega Man games would try this as while it never really becomes an issue, it's an extra thing to keep in mind as you go. If you get a Game Over you'll get all of it back, so it can't softlock you which makes it safe to experiment with. I liked it.

The final boss's first phase is bullshit and the game lags like hell, but I admire that 4 games in (well, this developer's third) they're still innovating on making Game Boy Mega Man the best it can be. It just needs to accept that it's not an NES game and remove that pesky lag, then it'd ascend from a footnote in Mega Man history to one of the best games on the Game Boy!

"The Wily Tank Fortress" is a cool as shit idea too like goddamn that goes hard.