X, you can't dare to fight me. Your big heart. That is your kindness and your weakness. I'm okay... trust me.

This was my childhood Mega Man X game, and, unfortunately, I cannot stand it. Inconsistent difficulty that hovers between grueling and piss-easy, one of the worst sets of levels of any of these games, a baffling slate of boss weapons, grating music, far too many collectibles, and a countdown system that I’m still not sure I understand. It looks nice and plays pretty well, but that’s a pretty low bar for Mega Man. Miserable.

My machines will usher in a new world of light!

Super Adventure Rockman is an interesting little project. It is, effectively, an OVA with some light interactivity and a few rail shooter segments sprinkled in. I tried to play this one myself, I really did. I even tried to install a plugin that translates Japanese text on the fly, and, failing that, I then tried to use Google Lens. Unfortunately, the text here moves too quickly for a translation tool to keep up with, so I had to just resort to watching a playthrough. Anyway, this seems fine! The OVA animation is surprisingly great, and the story goes to darker places than anything seen in a Mega Man game up to this point. Ra Thor, Ra Moon, and the Neo Yellow Devil are all insanely cool antagonists as well. Other than that, though, Super Adventure Rockman is a very mixed bag. Still, Capcom should localize this so I can play it. Where's the Mega Man: Handhelds and Spin-Offs Legacy Collection?

As long as Mavericks exist… As long as evil exists in the mind of humans… I’ll come back again and again!

For the most part, Mega Man Xtreme is a brisk, condensed version of Mega Man X. The setup here is pretty interesting—a new group of Mavericks, the “Shadow Hunters,” hack into cyberspace to destabilize the planet’s security systems, thereby forcing X to jump into cyberspace himself to stop them. It’s a decently novel, if convenient, reason for X to replay stages from his very first game. Xtreme feels pretty great to control, and the graphics are very good for a Game Boy Color title. While this can never replace Mega Man X, it’s more than worth its salt as a fun little companion piece.

Hey! I got this weird little thing added to Backloggd!

I actually... didn't really hate this. For starters, this isn't really a game. Instead, it's more of a... Mega Man X themed... math practice... tool? When you run the game, the Capcom bumper and opening movie of Mega Man X4 both play. That was pretty funny, and I have my doubts that this was really sanctioned by Capcom. Still, the production value actually kind of surprised me. Everything was completely legible to me, even though I do not speak Taiwanese or Mandarin. There's even some bland original music and a decent little UI going on here.

When you start the game, you enter your name, and then you're taken to a screen full of legally distinct Mavericks. Each "stage" is sort of an endless stream of various math problems, and you select your answer by running forward and jumping into the correct answer bubble. You avoid the wrong answer by ducking. As far as I could tell, there's no shooting to be had here. Occasionally, X performs an idle animation and removes his helmet to reveal a full head of hair. Once you score over 500 points (50 correct answers, by my estimation), you're teleported into a... math... battle... with the corresponding Maverick of whatever stage you're on. The Maverick just stands there while you solve slightly harder math problems. When you get enough answers correct, the Maverick dies, presumably through the power of math. There's no stage clear status or final boss.

Like I said, this is barely a game, but I had a lot more fun that I did with Mega Man for DOS.

I think that to truly love something, you have to go into the deepest depths with it. That's exactly what I've done here. Mega Man for DOS feels like a freshman's legally distinct computer science project, because that's not terribly far off from what it it is.

This is kind of interesting in that it was developed entirely by Stephen Rozner, an aspiring young developer who was acquired by Capcom for development of this title. Rozner somehow left Capcom during official development and, through a vaguely interesting legal loophole, was still able to release the game. Because of his departure from Capcom, Rozner completely drew up the assets and code for this, from scratch, on his own. In that way, Mega Man for DOS is among the earliest examples of a fan game.

Pretty interesting story, right? Unfortunately, that story is much more interesting than this game. It's about as amateurish as games get, with enemies that are either too short or too fast to properly land hits on, practically nonexistent level design, and 3 Robot Masters that have, luckily, been confined to the annals of history—"Voltman, Sonicman, and Dynaman." This doesn't even have music; in fact, it may not even have sound, although that could've just been the DOSBox emulator acting up. I can't finish this, as I'm neither compelled to nor am I convinced that it's possible to. I'm actually convinced that this game is fundamentally broken by design.

Shout out to Stephen Rozner, the only man whose idea of sticking it to your ex-employer is to make something completely meritless.

So, you intended to use King to take care of me, did you? You dirty son of a bitch!

I promise I’m not just trying to be different. Am I missing something here?

Playing as Mega Man feels like, well, Mega Man 8, which was already one of the better controlling games in the classic series. Playing as Bass, on the other hand, turns Mega Man into Gunstar Heroes, and I’m not sure how it could possibly be more entertaining. The levels are astounding, the boss designs are deeply imaginative and memorable, the graphics are truly mind-bending for the SNES, and the shop/upgrade system is the best it’s been in any of these games so far. Capcom hits a difficulty balance that lies perfectly between intense and rewarding; it is truly a joy to hit one of this game’s many walls, only to finally overcome it through sheer tenacity. You have the tools, you just have to put it all together. I’m not sure where the mixed reaction for this game comes from, but my assumption is that most detractors played the terribly compromised GBA version (or died a lot). The ONLY real complaints I have is that the music could be better, and the absence of E-Tanks feels a little strange. If you play Rockman & Forte/Mega Man & Bass on the SNES, as it was meant to be played, you may see this in a whole new light. This is literally my favorite game in the mainline Mega Man series, and I don’t see a world where that changes. Next level stuff.

Mission Perfect!

Ugh… I was dreading this one, and it looks like those feelings were completely warranted. This is a very strange pastiche of various NES Mega Man titles by an American developer (USA Gold) that clearly had no idea what they were doing. Horribly grating sound effects and music paired with short, amateurish remakes of classic levels and a Megaman that feels as bad to control as he’s ever felt. So many puzzling choices in this one. Megaman can only fire 2 shots at a time instead of 3, and all of the boss weapons reach new heights of uselessness. Just as well, for the first time in the series, the camera scrolls vertically as well as horizontally, making every second of this utterly nauseating. Interestingly enough, you can control the camera by holding down the jump button and using the D-pad as one would in a Sonic game. However, this technique is never actually taught to you, and, because of the unimaginable screen crunch, I’d imagine that most players would jump into nothingness and hope for the best. I’ll attempt to say something nice though: USA Gold had the good sense to make this roughly an hour long, and the graphics are pretty impressive! They’re clearly based on the NES games, but with added shading and some slightly brighter colors. Maybe I would’ve liked The Wily Wars more if it looked like this.

I’ve played some really bad Mega Man games, but, at this point, this one stands alone.

I love the Sega Genesis. It was my first console, and the Genesis version of The Pagemaster was my first ever game. Actually, I have no affinity whatsoever for the NES. I’ve never even owned one, and I’ve only played a handful of games for it. Because of my undeniable attachment to the Genesis, I was so excited to see what The Wily Wars would be like.

Turns out that The Wily Wars is like a Bluepoint remake of the first three Mega Man games. They give you the slide in all three games, and they’ve also clearly boosted weapon damage, jump height, run speed, and health across them—it’s to the point that the original Mega Man, one of the most difficult mainstream games I can think of, is reduced to something mind-numbingly simple and surprisingly inelegant. All of the music is slower and completely devoid of its former personality. Also, each game is layered in that trademark Genesis crust, and I could not stand how any of them looked. I didn’t even bother to finish this. I got to Yellow Devil in the first game and was so appalled to see that they give you zero gravity jumps for that fight that I just couldn’t go on. I’ll pick this back up sometime because I’d like to try the newly-added Wily Tower mode, but for now, I’m happily putting this one back in the attic where it belongs. I can’t think of a single good reason to play this over the NES originals.

-Megaman, why are you helping me?
-Because we are both robots.

I played the Mega Man World V DX fan hack. Minakuchi puts on an absolute clinic in how to make a great Mega Man game. The formula that we know and love remains intact here, but it’s been refined to a science and the level design is often more original than Capcom themselves tend to be. There’s so much personality in Mega Man V’s memorable new enemies, its fun platforming challenges, and its spacey, high-tempo music. Interestingly, there are no Robot Masters, and, for the first time in the mainline series, Dr. Wily isn’t the final boss! Instead, Minakuchi puts forth 8 new “Stardroids,” all of whom are based on planets and have very good designs. A couple of the Stardroid weapons are essentially the same as ones in prior games, but most of them are as good as we’ve ever gotten in any other game. This is one of the best titles on the Game Boy. Outstanding.

Congartulations!

Seriously? Mega Man Soccer is one of the lowest rated Mega Man games on Backloggd? I bet whoever gave this a low score doesn't like Blitzball either, and Blitzball detractors are never worth paying attention to.

I've loved this game for as long as I can remember. So, so many fond memories of playing this with my older brother growing up. He'd always run Elec Man at forward, and he'd always, always kick my ass. This is frantic, arcadey soccer with expressive graphics and a, frankly, comical amount of tackling, sliding, and stealing. Just about every fan-favorite Mega Man character and Robot Master is playable, and each has their own special shot with different properties.It has a couple of significant oversights—the camera is pulled too close to the players, making a lot of your passing feel a bit random, and there's also no way to adjust the length of your matches or track how many special shots you have remaining. The music can also be a little grating at times. But, still, this is a blast, and I've thrown it onto every emulation device that I've ever put together to play a few matches now and again. It's sort of the proto-Super Mario Strikers. I'd kill for a sequel (or Mega Man Basketball...).

I need to reiterate; how on Earth is this rated so low?

Yeah, sorry, I know Batlle & Chase has a few fans, but I’m not quite sure how. Some decent fanservice going on, I suppose, and I like the illustrated, animated driver portraits. I also love the concept of a Mega Man kart racer on its face. That’s about all this has going for it. Unfortinately, this is a kart racer where it feels like you’re controlling the track itself instead of a kart. All of the tracks feel like they came out of a first grader’s notebook, too. As far as I could tell, you also have to hit 10 obstacles in between each weapon pickup to free up your slot again? Who came up with this shit? A couple of points for some originality, but little more than a participation trophy. Battle & Chase is unattractive, hollow slop that shoots for Mario Kart 64 and ends up somewhere closer to South Park Rally.

The Power Fighters only makes a few small changes to its predecessor, such as allowing players to select stages in any order and dropping items/powerups mid-battle. For the most part, those changes are pretty insignificant, but they’re more than welcome. Feels a lot like an expanded re-release that irons out the kinks of the first arcade game, rather than a full-fledged sequel. Still, it’s a wonder how far those small changes go in practice. It’s a really fun game! I’d definitely play this at, I dunno, a barcade or whatever, should the opportunity ever arise.

Played the Rockman: Power Battle Fighters re-release for PS2! This was a surprisingly neat and brisk little boss rush game. Feels a good bit better than it has any right to—a lot better than Mega Man 7, which it borrows some of the sprites and backgrounds from. Unfortunately, the graphics (very, very cool to see a lot of the classic Robot Masters rendered in the MM7 style) and feel are about where The Power Battle’s appeal ends. Randomizing the Robot Masters and providing no method to heal between battles suggests that this was transparently intended to be a Mega Man themed coin inhaler back in the arcade. Of course, I avoided that coin munching by playing the PS2 version, but the game still seems to have been designed with money in mind. Still, The Power Battle is not bad at all, though it probably isn’t worth playing unless you’re going for series completion.

A competent Game Boy Mega Man title! Wasn’t sure that I’d ever see the day. Feels pretty great (other than the slowdown), and this one gets back to the action-platforming flow that Mega Man III was sorely lacking. I would’ve liked to have seen a new set of Robot Masters, but some of their levels are given thoughtful reworks (Napalm Man’s stage is no longer set in the Vietnamese jungle, for one) that have finally started taking advantage of the Game Boy’s limited screen size. I was also glad to see the final Robot Master gauntlet make its debut on the Game Boy, and the final stretch through Wily’s space fortress is among my favorites in the series so far. We also get the fourth “Mega Man Killer” here, Ballade, and he’s a lot of fun. A couple of weird things here, though—(1) Megaman’s charge shot has… recoil? That sure feels bad; and (2) to my complete surprise, it seems like this game introduced the upgrade shop to the series, not Mega Man 7. Anyway, yeah. This could’ve been a lot better, but points for being the first Game Boy Mega Man title that I’d actually recommend.