I'll give this game credit for one thing- the presentation. Although the in game sprites couldn't rip off Megaman more if they tried, the Ninja Gaiden-esque cutscenes are incredibly well done and the hexagon transition that takes place between boards is super cool.
That being said...they forgot to make the game any good. Being able to duck and fire in multiple directions is a nice change up from what this game is obviously inspired by, but the level design is terrible and it's like they didn't actually play megaman to see what made it work. 99 percent of what I encountered in the first two worlds was using the incredibly awkward and janky broom (think rush jet but not as intuitive) or figuring out what weapon to use and what specific tile I needed to be standing on to land a hit. The flow of Capcom's classics isn't here.
Perhaps the worst thing about this game mechanically is how the character drops like a sack of potatoes if you attempt to jump and shoot at the same time. That's right- simply trying to shoot will cancel out your jump arc and will lead to cheap deaths in a game that's already full of them. Again, it's like the developers only ever saw still images of the game they're attempting to clone.
As others have said, this game is brutally hard. But not in the way that Megaman was. You know how you'd sometimes get health pickups or even energy tanks? How about checkpoints? Magical Dookie here has none of that. Even the smallest enemies are capable of taking off half your life bar...even in the first few stages.
The game does (sort of) try to give you one advantage by making all of your weapons accessible from the start and not needing to worry about their respective energy meters. That being said, all but two of them are pretty much worthless. You'll need to use the broom to navigate over spike pits and the ball to shoot diagonally in order to nail certain enemies. I did find the freeze projectile useful in a few specific spots, but that's it.
I may pick this up again and go for beating it just to check it off a list, but as it stands, this is the worst megaman clone I've ever played. I had more fun playing Mighty Number 9 when that came out. A shame too because Vic Tokai actually did a decent job emulating Sonic with Socket/Tume Dominator a few years later.
I highly recommend you just play darkwing duck or (if you want a game that does things a bit differently) Whomp Em if you need your "I can't believe it's not megaman" fix on the NES.
That being said...they forgot to make the game any good. Being able to duck and fire in multiple directions is a nice change up from what this game is obviously inspired by, but the level design is terrible and it's like they didn't actually play megaman to see what made it work. 99 percent of what I encountered in the first two worlds was using the incredibly awkward and janky broom (think rush jet but not as intuitive) or figuring out what weapon to use and what specific tile I needed to be standing on to land a hit. The flow of Capcom's classics isn't here.
Perhaps the worst thing about this game mechanically is how the character drops like a sack of potatoes if you attempt to jump and shoot at the same time. That's right- simply trying to shoot will cancel out your jump arc and will lead to cheap deaths in a game that's already full of them. Again, it's like the developers only ever saw still images of the game they're attempting to clone.
As others have said, this game is brutally hard. But not in the way that Megaman was. You know how you'd sometimes get health pickups or even energy tanks? How about checkpoints? Magical Dookie here has none of that. Even the smallest enemies are capable of taking off half your life bar...even in the first few stages.
The game does (sort of) try to give you one advantage by making all of your weapons accessible from the start and not needing to worry about their respective energy meters. That being said, all but two of them are pretty much worthless. You'll need to use the broom to navigate over spike pits and the ball to shoot diagonally in order to nail certain enemies. I did find the freeze projectile useful in a few specific spots, but that's it.
I may pick this up again and go for beating it just to check it off a list, but as it stands, this is the worst megaman clone I've ever played. I had more fun playing Mighty Number 9 when that came out. A shame too because Vic Tokai actually did a decent job emulating Sonic with Socket/Tume Dominator a few years later.
I highly recommend you just play darkwing duck or (if you want a game that does things a bit differently) Whomp Em if you need your "I can't believe it's not megaman" fix on the NES.