There's a point in time where you simply need to stop convincing yourself that you're actually having fun. Once I was at the final level, it really started to dawn on me: this game is completely ridiculous. While watching a walkthrough just to see how to get through this last level, I see someone comment that this game is "difficult but fair." Now that is some BS if I ever smelt it. If this game was fair, you'd have a lot more mobility, ways to evade attacks. Ways to defend yourself. You simply don't have that. All Mega Man has is a crappy jump and some weapons that are inconsistent. There's like I think 3 that actually are helpful.

So yeah eventually, I just shelved this. I really don't have too much left but the nail in the coffin was that I tried out Mega Man 2. And holy crap. The level of improvement is beyond bewildering. Should be uphill from here.

But yeah, I still don't get the appeal of the NES in a modern context lol