Finished as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Nintendo GameCube.
Robot Master Order: Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, Elec Man. You go left to right (in this case, clockwise) and you use the Mega Buster on everything that's not a boss. This is the way GOD intended Mega Man to be played!
No... No that's insane. I need to deprogram myself from this psychotic way I've been playing the Mega Man games my whole life. And to do that, I'm going to play all the Mega Mens while being far more conscious of Mega's copied powers and boss weaknesses. I shall exterminate everything around me that restricts me from being the Mega Man.
The best place to start, of course, is the original Mega Man. Ok, actually that's the worst place to start. Mega Man has not held up - hell, you could say it hadn't "held up" in 1989 when Mega Man 2 released. It's rough, it's janky, and at times it's downright sloppy... but after looking up the suggested boss order and playing the game properly for the first time in my life, I found myself actually having fun. It probably helps that I'm playing this on the Mega Man Anniversary collection, which not only lets me enjoy these games on my CRT but allows me to use my new Retro-Bit LegacyGC controller as well. I am unshackled from the GameCube's shitty analog stick and no longer weighed down by the hideously cheap click of its face buttons, and it feels good.
However, having a better time doesn't make Mega Man a great game. Or even a good game. It's more like my opinion has gone from thinking it's bad to mediocre. Mega has a really strange momentum to his movement that always makes you feel like you're on ice, which needlessly complicates already precise stretches of platforming. Some level gimmicks are just irritating to engage with, like the asynchronously moving platforms in Ice Man's stage, or the vanishing blocks that appear periodically through the game but which are also in Ice Man's stage. Man, I'd like to take a torch to Ice Man, but for some reason his weakness is Elec Man's weapon? ... Alright! Strap this parka-wearing freak to the chair, no sponges, I want to watch his eyes pop.
Every level has a stretch that's just tedious to get through, like slowly climbing the ladders in Elec Man's stage while waiting for nodes to finish discharging energy. It's a snooze, but on the other end of the bullshit barometer is how frequently the game throws swarms of enemies at you that move erratically and exist to knock you into bottomless pits. Once you understand the sequence of how they spawn in, they're not a problem, but you'll probably take a few undeserved deaths until you realize how each level is paced. The most satisfying moments of the original Mega Man, the ones that clue you into why this series has endured, are when you turn a Robot Master's weakness against them, utterly dominating them after an arduous trek through their level. It feels good to turn the tables like that, but part of why it feels good in Mega Man: The First specifically is because the game is such a slog. It's like, I overcame this and I don't have to play it again. That's nice. That's a good feeling.
I don't think anyone in their right mind would recommend Mega Man as someone's first game in the series. They'd probably point you to Mega Man 2, which is far more refined and better at realizing Mega Man's core concepts. In fact, the series really owes its longevity to that game, but it's still worth looping around at some point and paying the original to appreciate the genesis of these mechanics and ideas. It definitely has worth as a novelty more than it does something you want to sit down and earnestly spend time with.
Actual boss order: Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, Fire Man.
Robot Master Order: Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, Elec Man. You go left to right (in this case, clockwise) and you use the Mega Buster on everything that's not a boss. This is the way GOD intended Mega Man to be played!
No... No that's insane. I need to deprogram myself from this psychotic way I've been playing the Mega Man games my whole life. And to do that, I'm going to play all the Mega Mens while being far more conscious of Mega's copied powers and boss weaknesses. I shall exterminate everything around me that restricts me from being the Mega Man.
The best place to start, of course, is the original Mega Man. Ok, actually that's the worst place to start. Mega Man has not held up - hell, you could say it hadn't "held up" in 1989 when Mega Man 2 released. It's rough, it's janky, and at times it's downright sloppy... but after looking up the suggested boss order and playing the game properly for the first time in my life, I found myself actually having fun. It probably helps that I'm playing this on the Mega Man Anniversary collection, which not only lets me enjoy these games on my CRT but allows me to use my new Retro-Bit LegacyGC controller as well. I am unshackled from the GameCube's shitty analog stick and no longer weighed down by the hideously cheap click of its face buttons, and it feels good.
However, having a better time doesn't make Mega Man a great game. Or even a good game. It's more like my opinion has gone from thinking it's bad to mediocre. Mega has a really strange momentum to his movement that always makes you feel like you're on ice, which needlessly complicates already precise stretches of platforming. Some level gimmicks are just irritating to engage with, like the asynchronously moving platforms in Ice Man's stage, or the vanishing blocks that appear periodically through the game but which are also in Ice Man's stage. Man, I'd like to take a torch to Ice Man, but for some reason his weakness is Elec Man's weapon? ... Alright! Strap this parka-wearing freak to the chair, no sponges, I want to watch his eyes pop.
Every level has a stretch that's just tedious to get through, like slowly climbing the ladders in Elec Man's stage while waiting for nodes to finish discharging energy. It's a snooze, but on the other end of the bullshit barometer is how frequently the game throws swarms of enemies at you that move erratically and exist to knock you into bottomless pits. Once you understand the sequence of how they spawn in, they're not a problem, but you'll probably take a few undeserved deaths until you realize how each level is paced. The most satisfying moments of the original Mega Man, the ones that clue you into why this series has endured, are when you turn a Robot Master's weakness against them, utterly dominating them after an arduous trek through their level. It feels good to turn the tables like that, but part of why it feels good in Mega Man: The First specifically is because the game is such a slog. It's like, I overcame this and I don't have to play it again. That's nice. That's a good feeling.
I don't think anyone in their right mind would recommend Mega Man as someone's first game in the series. They'd probably point you to Mega Man 2, which is far more refined and better at realizing Mega Man's core concepts. In fact, the series really owes its longevity to that game, but it's still worth looping around at some point and paying the original to appreciate the genesis of these mechanics and ideas. It definitely has worth as a novelty more than it does something you want to sit down and earnestly spend time with.
Actual boss order: Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, Fire Man.