Played as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Nintendo GameCube.
I know I've made the "this is the most Mega Man" joke before, but damn, Mega Man 5 really is the most Mega Man a Mega Man has been. There's almost nothing new here, even the bait-and-switch with Proto Man is expected, and following his tower with Wily's is by this point a little tired. Mega Man 5 feels strained by a lack of creative ambition, its development largely guided by the principal that every good idea for a Mega Man game has already been used, but hey, gotta crank out another one of these because they sell.
I'm not saying Mega Man 5 is bad, but it is hard to talk about what makes it good without regurgitating talking points from past reviews. It's competent and it looks sharp, as you'd expect from a series five games deep and launching this late in the NES' lifespan. Everything plays smoothly, and the difficulty has been toned down overall outside of a few poorly balanced areas. 5's only real innovation is the inclusion of Beat, a robotic bird that homes in on enemies, which can only be unlocked by collecting hidden letters that spell out MEGAMAN5. Compared to the likes of Rush, the slide, or the charge shot, Beat feels a bit underwhelming, but at least the effort it takes to unlock him is rather minimal outside of two particularly tricky letters.
Speaking of the charge shot, it's now more powerful and larger than before. This has the unfortunate side effect of trivializing most of the weapon powers. When I started this journey, I set the expectation for myself that I would use different powers more often while playing through levels, but in Mega Man 5 I felt straight up disincentivized in doing so. This is especially apparent when fighting bosses, who - similar to the Robot Masters in Mega Man 4 - require a bit more effort to defeat than simply spamming their weaknesses. That is unless you use the charge shot, which is so effective that exploiting boss weaknesses becomes wholly unnecessary. Using weapon powers actually feels like giving yourself a handicap, which is the opposite of how it should be.
But hey, it's fine. It's fine! Mega Man is a good boy, I still want to give Rush a treat and a few scratches behind his ears, and I'd like to take Beat home with me and teach him swear words. Mega Man 5 just feels like a reheated meal. It's not as good as when you pulled it out of the oven but it's still fulfilling. Yeah, that's a very dull analogy, I put about as much thought into it as Capcom did making Mega Man 5.
GOTTEM!
I am struggling to think of another game so bereft of passion that turned out to be otherwise fine. It is so uninspired yet inoffensive, the video game version of that hanger-on in your friend group who the rest of you barely recognize, who has done nothing wrong yet does so little to make their presence known that they are practically a living ghost. Apparently they had to bring back the guy who invented the charge shot (Hayato Kaji) because the project was rudderless, adrift with zero idea of where to go and what to do. Inafune even had trouble conceptualizing how to color the game. And despite being so creatively bottomed out it's... good? What even are you, Mega Man 5?
I know I've made the "this is the most Mega Man" joke before, but damn, Mega Man 5 really is the most Mega Man a Mega Man has been. There's almost nothing new here, even the bait-and-switch with Proto Man is expected, and following his tower with Wily's is by this point a little tired. Mega Man 5 feels strained by a lack of creative ambition, its development largely guided by the principal that every good idea for a Mega Man game has already been used, but hey, gotta crank out another one of these because they sell.
I'm not saying Mega Man 5 is bad, but it is hard to talk about what makes it good without regurgitating talking points from past reviews. It's competent and it looks sharp, as you'd expect from a series five games deep and launching this late in the NES' lifespan. Everything plays smoothly, and the difficulty has been toned down overall outside of a few poorly balanced areas. 5's only real innovation is the inclusion of Beat, a robotic bird that homes in on enemies, which can only be unlocked by collecting hidden letters that spell out MEGAMAN5. Compared to the likes of Rush, the slide, or the charge shot, Beat feels a bit underwhelming, but at least the effort it takes to unlock him is rather minimal outside of two particularly tricky letters.
Speaking of the charge shot, it's now more powerful and larger than before. This has the unfortunate side effect of trivializing most of the weapon powers. When I started this journey, I set the expectation for myself that I would use different powers more often while playing through levels, but in Mega Man 5 I felt straight up disincentivized in doing so. This is especially apparent when fighting bosses, who - similar to the Robot Masters in Mega Man 4 - require a bit more effort to defeat than simply spamming their weaknesses. That is unless you use the charge shot, which is so effective that exploiting boss weaknesses becomes wholly unnecessary. Using weapon powers actually feels like giving yourself a handicap, which is the opposite of how it should be.
But hey, it's fine. It's fine! Mega Man is a good boy, I still want to give Rush a treat and a few scratches behind his ears, and I'd like to take Beat home with me and teach him swear words. Mega Man 5 just feels like a reheated meal. It's not as good as when you pulled it out of the oven but it's still fulfilling. Yeah, that's a very dull analogy, I put about as much thought into it as Capcom did making Mega Man 5.
GOTTEM!
I am struggling to think of another game so bereft of passion that turned out to be otherwise fine. It is so uninspired yet inoffensive, the video game version of that hanger-on in your friend group who the rest of you barely recognize, who has done nothing wrong yet does so little to make their presence known that they are practically a living ghost. Apparently they had to bring back the guy who invented the charge shot (Hayato Kaji) because the project was rudderless, adrift with zero idea of where to go and what to do. Inafune even had trouble conceptualizing how to color the game. And despite being so creatively bottomed out it's... good? What even are you, Mega Man 5?
12 Comments
5 is like legitimately the most "this exists" of the NES games, so I totally feel you on not having much to say about it. 6 is the last of true NES games and that one gets the "we made how many of these?" jokes, but that one at least has a feeling of an end of an era.
Just wait until 6, it's my fav classic megaman
This is interesting to me since I would say 5 is one of the best on the NES for incentivizing powers and my personal favorite, but also I don't like the charge shot. This is why 9 is the actual GOAT but I don't want to get ahead of you here.
@NOWITSREYNTIME17 I do remember liking six more than this. I'll find out in a few days!
@MeowPewterMeow I gave 9 a 3/5, but I was rating things a bit on the lower end at that point in time, so adjusted for Weatherby Score Inflation it's prob a 3.5/5. I will probably play it again since my review draws comparisons to earlier games that I hadn't played in close proximity to 9, and I'm sure my opinion of it would be different now.
@MeowPewterMeow I gave 9 a 3/5, but I was rating things a bit on the lower end at that point in time, so adjusted for Weatherby Score Inflation it's prob a 3.5/5. I will probably play it again since my review draws comparisons to earlier games that I hadn't played in close proximity to 9, and I'm sure my opinion of it would be different now.
@meow oh its definitely one of the best on the NES, just under 6 and 4 for me
Echoing Vee in that MM5 certainly exists while 6 is a close runner for the best NES title. The most I can give this credit for is utilizing different setpieces within the structure, such as the jet ski stuff in one stage and the train run on another, but even then I remember so little about the contents of those stages that it ends up feeling undercooked regardless.
@BlazingWaters I also don't think those set pieces are that impressive for an NES game circa 1992. The design ethos of Mega Man 5 is "more of the same, but BIGGER," and that certainly results in a fun and competent game, but the final product is also the result of Capcom having clearly run out of ideas for how to push the series forward. I don't think they can be faulted too much for that. Five games in on the same console, there's going to be burn out and there's going to be an upper-limit to what they're even able to do.
I probably sound more hard on this game than I actually feel. I really want to stress that I do think it's fun and I had a good time with it, and I'll play it again. It's just that its strongest qualities are all things I've talked about four times now, and the pieces that are more identifiable to 5 exclusively I am a bit more critical on. I would still recommend people play it.
I probably sound more hard on this game than I actually feel. I really want to stress that I do think it's fun and I had a good time with it, and I'll play it again. It's just that its strongest qualities are all things I've talked about four times now, and the pieces that are more identifiable to 5 exclusively I am a bit more critical on. I would still recommend people play it.
@blazingwater ong, mm6 is my fav alongside mario 3
Yeah the thing with every Megaman game is that my opinion wildly fluctuates every time I play them, up or down. Partly depends on how in-tune with the specific idiosyncrasies of the weapons. This is despite the fact that they're all basically the same game to anyone who has a normal brain
@MeowPewterMeow Nah I can totally get that, even though the way my brain processes these games I know five or six months from now I'll not be able to tell them apart without referring to my own reviews lol
Actually, part of what I like about the original series of Mega Man games is people's opinions on which are the best vary pretty wildly. I feel like that's less the case by X.
Actually, part of what I like about the original series of Mega Man games is people's opinions on which are the best vary pretty wildly. I feel like that's less the case by X.
Weatherby
11 months ago