As some of you might have picked up on, I’ve been in a Mega Man mood recently. Ever since beating and reviewing Mega Man World 4, I’ve been thinking a lot more about classic Mega Man and have been starting to get back into the series after not having played it for a while. And while I’ve really been wanting to finish Mega Man 11, I also thought it’d be fun to look back on some of the earlier Game Boy Mega Man titles that I hadn’t beaten yet. So what better Game Boy game to start with than with the first one? Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge (which, if I may add, has a much better name than the rest of the Game Boy games going forward) is a game that definitely took me by surprise with how good it ended up being, especially for being Minakuchi Engineering’s first attempt at a Mega Man World game. Like the other Game Boy Mega Man games, this game remixes enemies and gimmicks from Mega Man 1 (and sorrrta 2? But we’ll get to that later). While I love the first 2 NES Mega Man games, they can be pretty tough to come back to due to some pretty deplorable design decisions that can make playing these games pretty tedious at times. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how much Dr. Wily’s Revenge fine-tuned the elements of these two games, to the point where I kind of prefer it over Mega Man 1 and 2, even if Dr. Wily’s Revenge comes with its own fair share of bullshit. Overall, it was a nice time if anything, so let’s dive right into the review and talk about why I think Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge is a pretty neat game.
Whenever I talk about classic Mega Man, I like to start with the level design, as it’s an incredibly important part in making any platformer (but especially classic Mega Man) play so well. I won’t go too in-depth on how Dr. Wily’s Revenge tries to shake things up from its NES counterparts, as a lot of what I said in my Mega Man World 4 review applies here as well. Dr. Wily’s Revenge still uses entirely new gimmicks to make the game feel like a fresh experience, and even when it doesn’t, it still uses its pre-existing ideas in creative ways. While Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t use nearly as many entirely new gimmicks and enemies as, say, Mega Man World 4, it more than makes up for it by fine-tuning the elements of Mega Man 1 and 2 to an insane degree. I was genuinely surprised with how much I enjoyed the first four levels of Dr. Wily’s Revenge, and I think part of that came from the fact that they removed a lot of what made Mega Man 1 and 2 tedious, so that they could fine-tune and focus on the elements that made those two games so fun. For example, you no longer have to deal with the terrible, awful, no good carrier platforms in Ice Man’s stage, nor do you have to deal with the pretty redundant yoku block sections there either. Instead, that stage takes you down to an ice cave where you hop on falling icicles to reach higher areas, which is genuinely quite creative and leagues better than Ice Man’s stage in the NES version. Fire Man’s stage also contains falling flame enemies that you have to jump past at the right time, which I prefer over the way they fell in the NES version. I also appreciate the way this game uses Mega Man 2 elements in its Mega Man 1 stages, like the section with the cloud enemies in Elec Man’s stage, which feels fitting for the stage itself and is quite fun. Plus, the flame throwing enemies can finally find their home in an actual fire themed stage! It’s just really nice to see how these older stages utilize newer gimmicks in a way that still feels fitting for the stage itself, and it’s something I wish the Mega Man World games did more often. So, if you couldn’t already tell from the many praises I’ve sung about these first four stages, I think they’ve aged really well and are still pretty fun to play. My only real gripe with these stages are their short length, which I don’t entirely mind, as this is still a Game Boy Mega Man game. However, because of this, some of the stage gimmicks or enemies can end up feeling underutilized at times, mainly the ones in Ice Man’s stage. This isn’t really a massive issue as these stages are still fun, but I’d still like to see these ideas expanded upon someday. But simply put, these stages are surprisingly well designed and fun to charge through. Even if you don’t ever intend on finishing or playing Dr. Wily’s Revenge, I’d still recommend at least checking out the Robot Master stages. They’re definitely the best part of the game in my opinion.
Now that we’ve talked about the stages, let’s discuss the Robot Masters waiting for you inside them. And spoiler alert, they’re not very good. I’ve said this in my Mega Man World 4 review, but I’m not too big a fan of the way the NES Mega Man games handled their Robot Masters. They either don’t have much of a discernible pattern to decipher and can be way too hard to dodge because of it, or are way too easy to the point where the stage may as well just hand you the weapon on a silver platter. Mega Man 1’s Robot Masters are particularly egregioius with this. If you don’t know their patterns, they’re going to be some of the most erratic and unfair bosses you’ve ever had to deal with, but are insanely easy to cheese if you do. Thankfully, Dr. Wily’s Revenge actually opted to change Mega Man 1’s Robot Master patterns, having them play differently to their NES counterparts. While this seems like a good opportunity to iron out the kinks of the old fights, these new fights just kind of just come with new problems instead. And my main problem with all 4 of these Robot Master fights is that they’re WAY too easy to completely cheese. All of them (barring Ice Man, but his fight doesn’t change much to begin with) can be completely invalidated if you’re able to figure out how to do so, which in itself, isn’t hard to figure out in the first place! Like, take Elec Man. He’ll move away from you when he starts the battle. When you shoot, he jumps towards your location. So if you just keep shooting to where he doesn’t get too close, he’ll never shoot his Elec Beam at you, so you’ve basically figured out how to do Elec Man’s fight damage-free, every time. You don’t even have to move! What about Fire Man? This one’s a bit better because instead of only needing to use one button, you need two. He’ll run towards you, shoot out a flame for you to jump over, and then shoot out another one once you attack. But, do you see what I mean? When most of the Robot Masters in the game are so easy to trivialize, you don’t really feel rewarded at the end of the stage. Like, they may as well not even be in the game at all. And sure, you could argue that most Robot Masters are like this, as they become a lot easier once you actually know their pattern. But it’s not just about figuring out their pattern. It’s about reflexes as well. Sure, you can memorize how they move and what they shoot out, but you have to be the one to be able to respond to these movements and actually pull it off. When you know a Robot Master’s pattern, it’s not a guaranteed win, so when you pull off a fight without taking damage or even just without dying, you feel rewarded because your skill and your reflexes were able to get you that far. You should not be able to automatically win once you know the patterns of the Robot Masters. They should still feel challenging to the player, even after you’ve figured out how they move, because they stand between you and those glorious special weapons, and you should feel rewarded for rightfully earning these new tools. Unfortunately, because of these unwhelming fights, Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t really do a good job of making you feel that way.
While we’re on the topic of the game’s special weapon roster, it’s kiiind of a mixed bag??? But not really in the way you’d expect it to be. It’s kinda weird, so bear with me here. At the start of the game, you of course have four robot masters to choose from, and thus, are able to get four special weapons, plus a pretty good utility item in Carry. This is the really good half of DWR’s weapon roster, and the five special weapons you’ll be using throughout most of the game. Mega Man 1 has a surprisingly great weapon roster, and the four weapons they brought to this game still manage to be fantastic, even in these new stages. They see plenty of uses across the game, feel balanced, and are really fun to use when you do so. Upon beating your fourth Robot Master, you also get the utility weapon Carry, alongside their usual weapon. This is essentially this game’s answer to Items 1-3 from Mega Man 2. Functionally, it’s very similar to Item 1, but it spawns directly below you, which is a nice piece of utility for when you need a 2nd jump or need to save yourself from falling into spikes or a pit (Keep this last part in mind, as it will be important later). So, this weapon roster’s looking fantastic already, but what about the other half of the weapons? Well, after beating the first Wily stage, you gain access to half of the weapons from Mega Man 2, as well as Enker’s special weapon, the Mirror Buster. And this is where the weapon roster of Dr. Wily’s Revenge starts to become a mixed bag for me. And it’s weird, because it’s not even like any of these weapons are that bad. Mirror Buster is a pretty solid weapon that reflects projectiles back at foes, even if it is a little situational. The Mega Man 2 weapons are actually pretty decent here too, hell, Bubble Lead even got buffed, which is always nice to see. So, what’s wrong with this half of the weapons? Well, it’s the fact that you don’t get to use them very often, AKA, you don’t get to use them until the very last stage. I know it’s common for Game Boy Mega Man games to save the Mega Man Killer weapons until the last stage, which makes sense, as they typically tend to be quite good. But when HALF of your weapon roster is only available for the final stage in the game, that’s when your weapon roster starts to feel a bit awkward. Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t have a bad weapon roster or anything, but I really wish so much of it didn’t have to be saved for the very end of the game. But while we’re on the topic of this game’s endgame, let’s talk about it, because it’s definitely the longest part of the game, and probably the part I take the most issue with.
Dr. Wily’s Revenge’s endgame is… well, it’s not great. While it’s not anything absolutely atrocious (it’s certainly better than Mega Man 2’s endgame), this is where the cracks of this game really start to show. You start off in Dr. Wily’s Castle, and I have two main issues with this stage in particular, one of which being its length. I know that Dr. Wily stages are meant to feel like gauntlets to fully test out your skill and weapon roster, but this single stage alone is almost as long as the four Robot Master stages combined. The jump in length from any of the Robot Master stages to this one is insane, and is not at all helped by the two mole sections in this stage. I do not like these enemies or any of the sections they happen to inhabit. They weren’t fun in Mega Man 2, they weren’t fun in Mega Man 10, and they aren’t fun here. That’s because these sections always have you slowwwwly inching to the end of the room, while spamming some sort of special weapon (Fire Storm in this case) to try and get through the blockade of boring burrowing bastards. They’re not particularly challenging, they’re not rewarding in the slightest, and only ever serve to increase the length of this already long stage. My other main problem with Wily’s Castle is the leap of faith drops present throughout this stage. I briefly touched upon this when discussing Mega Man World 4’s level design, but I didn’t go into too much detail because these instances were few and far between. But in this stage, if you’re about to drop down into a section, you better know what’s below you, because if you don’t, chances are you'll be taking a faceful of spikes and you’ll have to do a chunk of the stage all over again. The game sort of attempts to mitigate this with the aforementioned Carry item. Like I said earlier, you can summon a platform directly below you when you use this item, which could potentially save you from an imminent spike death. The only problem is, you’d need to know beforehand to have this weapon equipped before dropping into an area, so if you don’t have Carry equipped or ready to be selected, you’re not safe from a potential spike death. Plus, why have these falling sections in the first place? Why not just use more of that room space to create more fun and unique ways to challenge the enemies as opposed to just another section where you drop onto an enemy or onto spikes? Thankfully, the castle stage still manages to be relatively well designed barring those sections, as the rest of the stage has some fun enemy and gimmick usage, plus the weapons are incredibly useful here. But compared to the first four stages, it definitely feels like a big drop in quality. So after you get through Wily’s Castle, you’ve got a choice of four teleporters. You enter them, and now you’re face-to-face with… four of the bosses in Mega Man 2? They don’t get their own stage, which is kind of disappointing, and you instead have to fight them here. There’s not much to talk about with these fights as they’re relatively unchanged from how they were in Mega Man 2, and while they’re a lot better than the first four Robot Master fights, they still don’t feel all that great to fight. But once you’ve defeated them and gained their weapon, you can finally face off against the game’s special boss, Enker. And yeah, this fight sucks too. But unlike Ballade, where his fight just had a lot of problems that were built up over time, this fight just has one thing ruining it, and that’s that Enker’s staff has a HUGE hitbox! So, the gist of this fight is that you’re supposed to react to Enker’s movements across the screen, like whether he’ll run straight towards you, jump to the edge of the screen, etc. However, even if you predict Enker’s movements correctly, you’re punished for it because you’re still gonna get hit by his big ass staff as he’s charging up his attack anyways! If not for that, I wouldn’t mind this fight, but as it stands, it just turns into another awkward “win the damage race” fight, just like with Ballade.
Once you’ve defeated Enker and gained the remaining half of your weapon roster, you still have one more stage left to go. Wily escapes from his castle and the camera pans up to show a giant floating fortress in the sky, also known as the Wily Star. I really don’t have much to say about this stage, mainly just because it’s pretty easy. It’s a bit better than Wily’s Castle, due to there not being too many cheap deaths and none of those mole sections (thank God), but it’s just kind of forgettable, and still really long too. Because of that, I really don’t have much to say about this stage, so once you’ve gotten past everything there and collected that extra life before the final boss, it’s time to face off against Wily. His first form shoots out the sawblade enemies from Cut Man’s stage towards you, while his second form requires that you reflect his shots with the Mirror Buster while dodging a claw that occasionally tries to attack you. One thing that kind of sucks about this phase in particular is that you respawn in the boss room, so if you happen to die too many times on Wily’s 2nd phase and run out of Mirror Buster ammo, you’re basically forced to get game over here. However, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about that, as like Wily Star, both of these Wily phases are pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. Once you get in the groove of things, you should be able to take out Wily pretty easily, and once you do so, that’s the end of Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge.
It was pretty fun being able to finally check out the game that started the Mega Man World saga. While Dr. Wily’s Revenge definitely has a lot of problems, like its endgame, weird handling of weapons, and underwhelming bosses, I still had a fun enough time with it, and I feel like it aged surprisingly well despite these flaws. You could definitely see Minakuchi Engineering’s design philosophy with the Mega Man World games start to blossom here, and while this game admittedly isn’t anything too special in terms of Mega Man games, I could still tell that it had a lot of passion and love put into it. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how Minakuchi Engineering handles the rest of the Mega Man World games from here and… huh? Minakuchi Engineering didn’t make Mega Man World 2? Instead it was done by a developer team who didn’t know anything about Mega Man??? Well, that’s certainly going to be an interesting one to talk about. For now, I’ll leave the review at this. Dr. Wily’s Revenge was definitely an interesting game for me to play and check out. I’d still recommend Mega Man World 5 and even World 4 if you really wanted to play a Mega Man Game Boy game, but after which, come take a look at this one, even if only to see where Game Boy Mega Man got its initial jumpstart. (6/10)
Whenever I talk about classic Mega Man, I like to start with the level design, as it’s an incredibly important part in making any platformer (but especially classic Mega Man) play so well. I won’t go too in-depth on how Dr. Wily’s Revenge tries to shake things up from its NES counterparts, as a lot of what I said in my Mega Man World 4 review applies here as well. Dr. Wily’s Revenge still uses entirely new gimmicks to make the game feel like a fresh experience, and even when it doesn’t, it still uses its pre-existing ideas in creative ways. While Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t use nearly as many entirely new gimmicks and enemies as, say, Mega Man World 4, it more than makes up for it by fine-tuning the elements of Mega Man 1 and 2 to an insane degree. I was genuinely surprised with how much I enjoyed the first four levels of Dr. Wily’s Revenge, and I think part of that came from the fact that they removed a lot of what made Mega Man 1 and 2 tedious, so that they could fine-tune and focus on the elements that made those two games so fun. For example, you no longer have to deal with the terrible, awful, no good carrier platforms in Ice Man’s stage, nor do you have to deal with the pretty redundant yoku block sections there either. Instead, that stage takes you down to an ice cave where you hop on falling icicles to reach higher areas, which is genuinely quite creative and leagues better than Ice Man’s stage in the NES version. Fire Man’s stage also contains falling flame enemies that you have to jump past at the right time, which I prefer over the way they fell in the NES version. I also appreciate the way this game uses Mega Man 2 elements in its Mega Man 1 stages, like the section with the cloud enemies in Elec Man’s stage, which feels fitting for the stage itself and is quite fun. Plus, the flame throwing enemies can finally find their home in an actual fire themed stage! It’s just really nice to see how these older stages utilize newer gimmicks in a way that still feels fitting for the stage itself, and it’s something I wish the Mega Man World games did more often. So, if you couldn’t already tell from the many praises I’ve sung about these first four stages, I think they’ve aged really well and are still pretty fun to play. My only real gripe with these stages are their short length, which I don’t entirely mind, as this is still a Game Boy Mega Man game. However, because of this, some of the stage gimmicks or enemies can end up feeling underutilized at times, mainly the ones in Ice Man’s stage. This isn’t really a massive issue as these stages are still fun, but I’d still like to see these ideas expanded upon someday. But simply put, these stages are surprisingly well designed and fun to charge through. Even if you don’t ever intend on finishing or playing Dr. Wily’s Revenge, I’d still recommend at least checking out the Robot Master stages. They’re definitely the best part of the game in my opinion.
Now that we’ve talked about the stages, let’s discuss the Robot Masters waiting for you inside them. And spoiler alert, they’re not very good. I’ve said this in my Mega Man World 4 review, but I’m not too big a fan of the way the NES Mega Man games handled their Robot Masters. They either don’t have much of a discernible pattern to decipher and can be way too hard to dodge because of it, or are way too easy to the point where the stage may as well just hand you the weapon on a silver platter. Mega Man 1’s Robot Masters are particularly egregioius with this. If you don’t know their patterns, they’re going to be some of the most erratic and unfair bosses you’ve ever had to deal with, but are insanely easy to cheese if you do. Thankfully, Dr. Wily’s Revenge actually opted to change Mega Man 1’s Robot Master patterns, having them play differently to their NES counterparts. While this seems like a good opportunity to iron out the kinks of the old fights, these new fights just kind of just come with new problems instead. And my main problem with all 4 of these Robot Master fights is that they’re WAY too easy to completely cheese. All of them (barring Ice Man, but his fight doesn’t change much to begin with) can be completely invalidated if you’re able to figure out how to do so, which in itself, isn’t hard to figure out in the first place! Like, take Elec Man. He’ll move away from you when he starts the battle. When you shoot, he jumps towards your location. So if you just keep shooting to where he doesn’t get too close, he’ll never shoot his Elec Beam at you, so you’ve basically figured out how to do Elec Man’s fight damage-free, every time. You don’t even have to move! What about Fire Man? This one’s a bit better because instead of only needing to use one button, you need two. He’ll run towards you, shoot out a flame for you to jump over, and then shoot out another one once you attack. But, do you see what I mean? When most of the Robot Masters in the game are so easy to trivialize, you don’t really feel rewarded at the end of the stage. Like, they may as well not even be in the game at all. And sure, you could argue that most Robot Masters are like this, as they become a lot easier once you actually know their pattern. But it’s not just about figuring out their pattern. It’s about reflexes as well. Sure, you can memorize how they move and what they shoot out, but you have to be the one to be able to respond to these movements and actually pull it off. When you know a Robot Master’s pattern, it’s not a guaranteed win, so when you pull off a fight without taking damage or even just without dying, you feel rewarded because your skill and your reflexes were able to get you that far. You should not be able to automatically win once you know the patterns of the Robot Masters. They should still feel challenging to the player, even after you’ve figured out how they move, because they stand between you and those glorious special weapons, and you should feel rewarded for rightfully earning these new tools. Unfortunately, because of these unwhelming fights, Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t really do a good job of making you feel that way.
While we’re on the topic of the game’s special weapon roster, it’s kiiind of a mixed bag??? But not really in the way you’d expect it to be. It’s kinda weird, so bear with me here. At the start of the game, you of course have four robot masters to choose from, and thus, are able to get four special weapons, plus a pretty good utility item in Carry. This is the really good half of DWR’s weapon roster, and the five special weapons you’ll be using throughout most of the game. Mega Man 1 has a surprisingly great weapon roster, and the four weapons they brought to this game still manage to be fantastic, even in these new stages. They see plenty of uses across the game, feel balanced, and are really fun to use when you do so. Upon beating your fourth Robot Master, you also get the utility weapon Carry, alongside their usual weapon. This is essentially this game’s answer to Items 1-3 from Mega Man 2. Functionally, it’s very similar to Item 1, but it spawns directly below you, which is a nice piece of utility for when you need a 2nd jump or need to save yourself from falling into spikes or a pit (Keep this last part in mind, as it will be important later). So, this weapon roster’s looking fantastic already, but what about the other half of the weapons? Well, after beating the first Wily stage, you gain access to half of the weapons from Mega Man 2, as well as Enker’s special weapon, the Mirror Buster. And this is where the weapon roster of Dr. Wily’s Revenge starts to become a mixed bag for me. And it’s weird, because it’s not even like any of these weapons are that bad. Mirror Buster is a pretty solid weapon that reflects projectiles back at foes, even if it is a little situational. The Mega Man 2 weapons are actually pretty decent here too, hell, Bubble Lead even got buffed, which is always nice to see. So, what’s wrong with this half of the weapons? Well, it’s the fact that you don’t get to use them very often, AKA, you don’t get to use them until the very last stage. I know it’s common for Game Boy Mega Man games to save the Mega Man Killer weapons until the last stage, which makes sense, as they typically tend to be quite good. But when HALF of your weapon roster is only available for the final stage in the game, that’s when your weapon roster starts to feel a bit awkward. Dr. Wily’s Revenge doesn’t have a bad weapon roster or anything, but I really wish so much of it didn’t have to be saved for the very end of the game. But while we’re on the topic of this game’s endgame, let’s talk about it, because it’s definitely the longest part of the game, and probably the part I take the most issue with.
Dr. Wily’s Revenge’s endgame is… well, it’s not great. While it’s not anything absolutely atrocious (it’s certainly better than Mega Man 2’s endgame), this is where the cracks of this game really start to show. You start off in Dr. Wily’s Castle, and I have two main issues with this stage in particular, one of which being its length. I know that Dr. Wily stages are meant to feel like gauntlets to fully test out your skill and weapon roster, but this single stage alone is almost as long as the four Robot Master stages combined. The jump in length from any of the Robot Master stages to this one is insane, and is not at all helped by the two mole sections in this stage. I do not like these enemies or any of the sections they happen to inhabit. They weren’t fun in Mega Man 2, they weren’t fun in Mega Man 10, and they aren’t fun here. That’s because these sections always have you slowwwwly inching to the end of the room, while spamming some sort of special weapon (Fire Storm in this case) to try and get through the blockade of boring burrowing bastards. They’re not particularly challenging, they’re not rewarding in the slightest, and only ever serve to increase the length of this already long stage. My other main problem with Wily’s Castle is the leap of faith drops present throughout this stage. I briefly touched upon this when discussing Mega Man World 4’s level design, but I didn’t go into too much detail because these instances were few and far between. But in this stage, if you’re about to drop down into a section, you better know what’s below you, because if you don’t, chances are you'll be taking a faceful of spikes and you’ll have to do a chunk of the stage all over again. The game sort of attempts to mitigate this with the aforementioned Carry item. Like I said earlier, you can summon a platform directly below you when you use this item, which could potentially save you from an imminent spike death. The only problem is, you’d need to know beforehand to have this weapon equipped before dropping into an area, so if you don’t have Carry equipped or ready to be selected, you’re not safe from a potential spike death. Plus, why have these falling sections in the first place? Why not just use more of that room space to create more fun and unique ways to challenge the enemies as opposed to just another section where you drop onto an enemy or onto spikes? Thankfully, the castle stage still manages to be relatively well designed barring those sections, as the rest of the stage has some fun enemy and gimmick usage, plus the weapons are incredibly useful here. But compared to the first four stages, it definitely feels like a big drop in quality. So after you get through Wily’s Castle, you’ve got a choice of four teleporters. You enter them, and now you’re face-to-face with… four of the bosses in Mega Man 2? They don’t get their own stage, which is kind of disappointing, and you instead have to fight them here. There’s not much to talk about with these fights as they’re relatively unchanged from how they were in Mega Man 2, and while they’re a lot better than the first four Robot Master fights, they still don’t feel all that great to fight. But once you’ve defeated them and gained their weapon, you can finally face off against the game’s special boss, Enker. And yeah, this fight sucks too. But unlike Ballade, where his fight just had a lot of problems that were built up over time, this fight just has one thing ruining it, and that’s that Enker’s staff has a HUGE hitbox! So, the gist of this fight is that you’re supposed to react to Enker’s movements across the screen, like whether he’ll run straight towards you, jump to the edge of the screen, etc. However, even if you predict Enker’s movements correctly, you’re punished for it because you’re still gonna get hit by his big ass staff as he’s charging up his attack anyways! If not for that, I wouldn’t mind this fight, but as it stands, it just turns into another awkward “win the damage race” fight, just like with Ballade.
Once you’ve defeated Enker and gained the remaining half of your weapon roster, you still have one more stage left to go. Wily escapes from his castle and the camera pans up to show a giant floating fortress in the sky, also known as the Wily Star. I really don’t have much to say about this stage, mainly just because it’s pretty easy. It’s a bit better than Wily’s Castle, due to there not being too many cheap deaths and none of those mole sections (thank God), but it’s just kind of forgettable, and still really long too. Because of that, I really don’t have much to say about this stage, so once you’ve gotten past everything there and collected that extra life before the final boss, it’s time to face off against Wily. His first form shoots out the sawblade enemies from Cut Man’s stage towards you, while his second form requires that you reflect his shots with the Mirror Buster while dodging a claw that occasionally tries to attack you. One thing that kind of sucks about this phase in particular is that you respawn in the boss room, so if you happen to die too many times on Wily’s 2nd phase and run out of Mirror Buster ammo, you’re basically forced to get game over here. However, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about that, as like Wily Star, both of these Wily phases are pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. Once you get in the groove of things, you should be able to take out Wily pretty easily, and once you do so, that’s the end of Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge.
It was pretty fun being able to finally check out the game that started the Mega Man World saga. While Dr. Wily’s Revenge definitely has a lot of problems, like its endgame, weird handling of weapons, and underwhelming bosses, I still had a fun enough time with it, and I feel like it aged surprisingly well despite these flaws. You could definitely see Minakuchi Engineering’s design philosophy with the Mega Man World games start to blossom here, and while this game admittedly isn’t anything too special in terms of Mega Man games, I could still tell that it had a lot of passion and love put into it. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how Minakuchi Engineering handles the rest of the Mega Man World games from here and… huh? Minakuchi Engineering didn’t make Mega Man World 2? Instead it was done by a developer team who didn’t know anything about Mega Man??? Well, that’s certainly going to be an interesting one to talk about. For now, I’ll leave the review at this. Dr. Wily’s Revenge was definitely an interesting game for me to play and check out. I’d still recommend Mega Man World 5 and even World 4 if you really wanted to play a Mega Man Game Boy game, but after which, come take a look at this one, even if only to see where Game Boy Mega Man got its initial jumpstart. (6/10)