Mega Man 7 had the potential to be the best entry in the whole franchise, by borrowing the best parts of X's formula, and combining them with the more simple structure of the classic gameplay. The more secret-oriented nature of 7 is by far the most obvious X influence, encouraging use of weapons to discover lots of new routes that'll lead you to optional upgrades. It also borrows a little from the Gameboy games, by carrying over the shop, where you can use your acquired currency for more goodies.

The visual aesthetic is wonderfully colorful - far more interesting to look at than what X has been doing imo - the music is on point, and every stage packs its own memorable setpieces, alongside bosses I really enjoyed fighting even without their weaknesses. The localization is the sort of charmingly put together trainwreck that you would expect out of a 90's SNES localization, turning the otherwise whatever dialogue into something a lot more incidentally funny and memorable. The ending also may be one of the rawest moments in this series's history, even if it's totally uncharacteristic in hindsight. All in all, the recipe for an all-time classic is all here, and more or less proves itself as one throughout.

Until you get to the final set of stages. Many things have already been said about this game's finale, so I doubt I have anything original to contribute here. But, when you read the wiki page and find out that they deliberately wanted to make the final boss unbeatable without an Energy Tank, it speaks volumes to the level of balancing that went on here, where they wanted you to tank through it rather than show any use of skill. It may be one of the worst bosses in Mega Man history, and I would honestly recommend at least placing a save state at the beginning of it, so you don't end up using up your E-tanks and weapon energy only to die 80% of the way through.

Mega Man 7 fucks with me, and it seems to fuck with a lot of others. You'd think it's one of the best games in the classic series, but all it takes is that one boss to suddenly convince you it's one of the worst. That's how bad 7's difficulty can be, but it's doubtful you'll see that at first. You'll have a really good time with this one. And then it'll sneak up on you. That one fuckin' bit.