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.

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.

Ehhh… it’s very nearly better than the previous two Game Boy Mega Man titles, but, as several other Backloggd reviewers have noted, the second half of this is miserable. Good music, though, and I also like the Mega Man 3 boss weapons, which all return here. Shout out to Punk, too, who is easily the coolest of the “Mega Man Killers” so far.

Anyway, I am not at all keen on Mizakuchi’s decision to prioritize pixel-perfect jumps throughout many of Mega Man III’s levels. That approach really cuts into the kinetic flow of Mega Man in a way that no other title I’ve played has. This game also runs like absolute slop. I did some research to see if the immense slowdown was emulator-based, but no… that’s just how this game is.!Looks pretty great for an original Game Boy game, though, so it was probably pushing the handheld near its limits.

Well, that’s that on Mega Man 3 and Mega Man III. Two sides of the same shitty coin.

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.

A definite step forward from the first Mega Man on Game Boy, but still not a huge leap. The stages and Robot Masters are designed a bit better, the music is way less grating, and the game is quick and eminently playable. I’m also a big fan of the weapon from Quint (the second of the “Mega Man Killers”), which is a… bladed pogo stick named Sakugarde? Unfortunately, you only get to use the Sakugarde for a single level, and then you get what might be the lamest Wily fight that I’ve seen in ANY Mega Man game.

Mega Man II is fine, but there’s a good reason why it’s a footnote beneath the NES’s stellar Mega Man 2.