Mega Man 5 isn't quite offensive, but it isn't very good.
Maybe it's just because this is the second Mega Man game with a Robot Master weapon that requires Mega Man to make direct physical contact with the enemy (Charge Kick in this case), but it's more obvious here than ever just how devoid of any "game feel" or any tactile sense of friction. It's not just because Mega Man lacks the movement options that would be introduced in the X games and beyond. The hitboxes, plain enemies, the lack of death animations beyond simple explosions; even compared to other popular NES games, nothing in classic Mega Man feels solid, there is no sense that anything in the game is an object existing in a space.
There are technically interesting setpieces, like the collapsing tower of the final Dark Man stage. The fact that the game manages to pull off parallax scrolling on the NES is technically impressive. In general it feels like style over substance, even moreso than what I think is already typical for the series. The first fight with Wily is probably the worse example, with the weird "shifting camera" effect altering the way Mega Man jumps: it is probably the clunkiest boss fight in the series thus far, even if it's far from the most difficult.
The difficulty in general was pretty low this time around, all things considered. Mega Man 5 continues the trend started with Mega Man 3, it is rather long. However, there is never any shortage of lives or E-tanks. The M-tank refills literally all weapons, and if you're low on ammo for most of your weapons the amount of time it takes to top them all off is kind of hilarious. By collecting a bunch of letters, mostly "hidden" in plain sight, you can unlock the special item Beat, a bird that automatically attacks enemies and bosses for you as long as you have the ammo for it.
The soundtrack isn't bad, but most of it is rather generic. It sounds like stereotypical 8-bit stuff for the mostpart, like a licensed Game Boy Color game. The boss theme is the most unexciting in the series so far, it's as if they know these fights aren't really intimidating anymore.
The boss weapons are really weird. You get two Wood Man-style orbital shields, and neither of them are very good. Crystal Eye and Charge Kick are basically just new versions of a couple of the worst abilities from Mega Man 3 (Gemini Laser and Top Spin). Charging the Mega Buster is only marginally more useful than it was in Mega Man 4, being particularly practical for a few bosses.
The ending is oddly abrupt, and the credits sequence lacks the soul that previous ones had.
There's no real reason to play this one instead of one of the others.
Maybe it's just because this is the second Mega Man game with a Robot Master weapon that requires Mega Man to make direct physical contact with the enemy (Charge Kick in this case), but it's more obvious here than ever just how devoid of any "game feel" or any tactile sense of friction. It's not just because Mega Man lacks the movement options that would be introduced in the X games and beyond. The hitboxes, plain enemies, the lack of death animations beyond simple explosions; even compared to other popular NES games, nothing in classic Mega Man feels solid, there is no sense that anything in the game is an object existing in a space.
There are technically interesting setpieces, like the collapsing tower of the final Dark Man stage. The fact that the game manages to pull off parallax scrolling on the NES is technically impressive. In general it feels like style over substance, even moreso than what I think is already typical for the series. The first fight with Wily is probably the worse example, with the weird "shifting camera" effect altering the way Mega Man jumps: it is probably the clunkiest boss fight in the series thus far, even if it's far from the most difficult.
The difficulty in general was pretty low this time around, all things considered. Mega Man 5 continues the trend started with Mega Man 3, it is rather long. However, there is never any shortage of lives or E-tanks. The M-tank refills literally all weapons, and if you're low on ammo for most of your weapons the amount of time it takes to top them all off is kind of hilarious. By collecting a bunch of letters, mostly "hidden" in plain sight, you can unlock the special item Beat, a bird that automatically attacks enemies and bosses for you as long as you have the ammo for it.
The soundtrack isn't bad, but most of it is rather generic. It sounds like stereotypical 8-bit stuff for the mostpart, like a licensed Game Boy Color game. The boss theme is the most unexciting in the series so far, it's as if they know these fights aren't really intimidating anymore.
The boss weapons are really weird. You get two Wood Man-style orbital shields, and neither of them are very good. Crystal Eye and Charge Kick are basically just new versions of a couple of the worst abilities from Mega Man 3 (Gemini Laser and Top Spin). Charging the Mega Buster is only marginally more useful than it was in Mega Man 4, being particularly practical for a few bosses.
The ending is oddly abrupt, and the credits sequence lacks the soul that previous ones had.
There's no real reason to play this one instead of one of the others.