In my eyes, Mega Man 3 is where the series finally got into gear, and the formula that Mega Man 3 perfected would pave the way for the remaining 4 NES Mega Man games to be some of the best platformer games on the system. This is a bit of a departure for me, since it’s the first review I am writing of a game I really enjoyed rather than one I disliked, so we’ll see how I do. This game perfected the core gameplay loop of the boss order, has good stages, and has the best visuals the series had ever seen at that point in time. It even had more content than the prior two games, as well as many quality of life improvements and touches of polish that make it one of the best in the series.

Full review continues here: https://queenemilyscorner.wordpress.com/2024/04/20/mega-man-3-the-first-great-mega-man-game/

I have never understood the love for Mega Man 2. Among many fans of the Mega Man series, as well as fans of platformers and retro games in general, Mega Man 2 is often considered the best game in the series. Of the original classic games for the NES, it sold the best by a considerable margin. Some would say that is reflective of the game’s quality, but to me, that sales figure just reflects why the game is so beloved. It’s the most popular, and most people’s first entry into the series before the Legacy Collection came along. I think Mega Man 2 is the worst of the eleven classic Mega Man games, and I will try to explain my numerous issues with this game. Unlike in Mega Man 1, where most of the issues were systemic and affected many different parts of the game, in Mega Man 2, a lot of the issues are caused by a single bad decision that just casts a wide shadow over the game.

Full review at https://queenemilyscorner.wordpress.com/2024/04/11/mega-man-2-the-worst-classic-mega-man/

There are two ways to approach a review of a game like Mega Man 1. The first way is to look at what elements the game implements as the baseline formula that would eventually define the gameplay of the long series it spawned. You can look at whether or not those elements laid a good foundation for a long-running series, and how those building blocks set Mega Man apart from other games in the 2d Platformer genre. For example, every other game in the series afterwards takes ranged weaponry being the default as an assumption, but in the first Mega Man game, that was a deliberate choice made by the developers of the game. If you take this approach to reviewing Mega Man 1, it is a fantastic game. It lays down gameplay loops, moveset concepts, level design concepts, and overall game structure in a way that was unique and innovative for the time, and it deserves all the credit in the world for that. However, you can also take a second approach to reviewing Mega Man: The perspective of a player who first played the game in 2018 as a part of the Legacy Collection, and who thinks it’s significantly worse than most of the games that followed it.

See my full review here: https://queenemilyscorner.wordpress.com/2024/04/04/mega-man-1-review/