Note: Played on the Mega Man Legacy Collection.
I'm going to be honest, I wasn't expecting to like this game in the slightest. I went in with the lowest of expectations and just wanted to push through so I could play Mega Man 2 and beyond. However, I found myself surprised at a pretty decent experience. Nothing that great, but it holds up well to this day.
For the first half of this game I was actually having a lot of fun. For a NES game, I was surprised at how tight the movement, combat, and especially ability switching was. While I think some of the abilities could've been handled a bit better (especially bomb), they still all hold unique purposes in battle. I found myself switching between them a lot more often; changing to Cut to hit groups of enemies, changing to Ice to freeze enemies and jump past, using electric to obliterate everything, etc. This game is most enjoyable when you're jumping from ability to ability, and in that aspect it's fantastic. And as alluded to earlier, switching between abilities is super fast and responsive, especially for an NES game. It takes a second at most.
The visual style is generally great and pretty charming too. All the stages are very unique and have different obstacles and structures to fit their themes, with the most notable being Flame Man's stage being built around more stage hazards rather than actual enemies, which was a nice change of pace.
The stages were generally fun too, though I have some big things to say about them later in the review. For now though, I thought they were decent. In terms of level design, they're pretty well made. Going through them and platforming is pretty fun. I even thought gimmicks like the fire pillars or the dropping platforms were enjoyable. I will say though, I do not like those jumps with roofs; they're just extremely annoying.
Also one final compliment, the game is surprisingly lenient. I was expecting ball crushing NES unfairness, but no the game really helps you out a lot. Specifically with deaths; instead of the game just restarting or some shit, your just sent right back to the start of the stage, with all the abilities you had still available and now fully recharged. The game also gives out a very generous amount of HP and ammo; after any difficult part there's almost always a big heal. I very much appreciated these aspects, and they're probably the main reason I was able to push through the bad.
The music is sadly unnotable. I can't recall a single track from the game. None of it was bad per say, its just that all the tracks were basically kinda just bland. Luckily the series didn't stay like that for much longer.
However, this game is definitely NOT without its flaws. Starting small, I hate the little slide you do while moving. It makes sense during the Ice Man's stage, but it's slightly there at all times and it's slightly aggravating. Secondly,
However, all those prior problems are dwarfed by my biggest issue: the enemies and hazards. Most of them are alright an unnotable. However, there are some that genuinely wanted to make me pull my hair out. Those fucking floating laser robots who shoot you down on ladders, those heads that swoop down in swarms at the worst possible angle where you can never hit them, those helmet guys with the terrible timing... I could go on.
There's also the bosses, who I thought were pretty flawed. I think the bosses having weaknesses to elements was actually a really neat idea. It encourages experimentation and diversity. However, at the same time they also made your normal blaster super weak against bosses, so your first is always guaranteed to be a bit of a slog. And also, some bosses resist abilities, so you have to make sure to use the right one. The ability issue is not the main focus, however, as I think the bosses are generally just badly designed. On almost all of these bosses, you're guaranteed to take damage. Ones like Flame Man and Guts Man are particularly bad; the former being basically impossible to dodge and almost always taking half of your health even with ice spam, and the ladder shaking the ground constantly, causing you to be immobile while he chucks giant boulders at you that are nearly impossible to dodge. Luckily the fights aren't that long, however fighting them again in Wily's tower was pretty painful.
However even then, all of these enemies pale in comparison to the worst: the robot turret platforms. Whoever designed these pieces of trash is a terrible person. First of all, these platforms seem to count as enemies rather than actual platforms, so you can get him by them if you touch them anywhere but the top of their head. Hell, I got hit by them before even if I didn't hit their sides, they're overall just super buggy and inconsistent. Secondly, there's the stupid ass turrets. Just because they though janky ass platforms weren't good enough, they decided to make them shoot out bullets. Luckily these bullets don't do much damage, are slow, small, and are not frequently launched. However that still didn't stop me from being thrown off multiple times by them. And lastly, there's their paths. Rather than giving them a consistent pattern to follow, they decided that the best idea would be to give them paths they could follow, but randomize which direction they went in while on the path. This means that if you're unlucky (if you're like me and had to do this part multiple times just to do it, trust me, it's inevitable), then sometimes you'll just have to sit there for 30+ seconds waiting for the damn platform to move in the direction you want. And not only that, but you also have to pray that the other platform is cooperating too and so happens to line up. And while all of that is happening, you're being shot at constantly and have to jump, and if you even slightly mess up the jump or get hit, then it's instant death.
Now you may be thinking "if there's platforms as annoying as these, surely they can't be that common right?". 14. There are 14 of these damn platforms in the game. And if you think that's a low amount, scroll up to what I just said about the platforms and imagine doing that 14 times without dying. And if you die? Well, you have to do those platforms all over again. I hope you can see now why I genuinely despise these fuckers, and how they single handedly took off an entire point from the game by their mere existence.
Mega Man is overall a decent game. Even for its time, as we would see very soon, it wasn't that great and still had lots of room for improvement. For a first game in an iconic series though, it's a fantastic start that immediately introduces so many of the series' staples.
I'm going to be honest, I wasn't expecting to like this game in the slightest. I went in with the lowest of expectations and just wanted to push through so I could play Mega Man 2 and beyond. However, I found myself surprised at a pretty decent experience. Nothing that great, but it holds up well to this day.
For the first half of this game I was actually having a lot of fun. For a NES game, I was surprised at how tight the movement, combat, and especially ability switching was. While I think some of the abilities could've been handled a bit better (especially bomb), they still all hold unique purposes in battle. I found myself switching between them a lot more often; changing to Cut to hit groups of enemies, changing to Ice to freeze enemies and jump past, using electric to obliterate everything, etc. This game is most enjoyable when you're jumping from ability to ability, and in that aspect it's fantastic. And as alluded to earlier, switching between abilities is super fast and responsive, especially for an NES game. It takes a second at most.
The visual style is generally great and pretty charming too. All the stages are very unique and have different obstacles and structures to fit their themes, with the most notable being Flame Man's stage being built around more stage hazards rather than actual enemies, which was a nice change of pace.
The stages were generally fun too, though I have some big things to say about them later in the review. For now though, I thought they were decent. In terms of level design, they're pretty well made. Going through them and platforming is pretty fun. I even thought gimmicks like the fire pillars or the dropping platforms were enjoyable. I will say though, I do not like those jumps with roofs; they're just extremely annoying.
Also one final compliment, the game is surprisingly lenient. I was expecting ball crushing NES unfairness, but no the game really helps you out a lot. Specifically with deaths; instead of the game just restarting or some shit, your just sent right back to the start of the stage, with all the abilities you had still available and now fully recharged. The game also gives out a very generous amount of HP and ammo; after any difficult part there's almost always a big heal. I very much appreciated these aspects, and they're probably the main reason I was able to push through the bad.
The music is sadly unnotable. I can't recall a single track from the game. None of it was bad per say, its just that all the tracks were basically kinda just bland. Luckily the series didn't stay like that for much longer.
However, this game is definitely NOT without its flaws. Starting small, I hate the little slide you do while moving. It makes sense during the Ice Man's stage, but it's slightly there at all times and it's slightly aggravating. Secondly,
However, all those prior problems are dwarfed by my biggest issue: the enemies and hazards. Most of them are alright an unnotable. However, there are some that genuinely wanted to make me pull my hair out. Those fucking floating laser robots who shoot you down on ladders, those heads that swoop down in swarms at the worst possible angle where you can never hit them, those helmet guys with the terrible timing... I could go on.
There's also the bosses, who I thought were pretty flawed. I think the bosses having weaknesses to elements was actually a really neat idea. It encourages experimentation and diversity. However, at the same time they also made your normal blaster super weak against bosses, so your first is always guaranteed to be a bit of a slog. And also, some bosses resist abilities, so you have to make sure to use the right one. The ability issue is not the main focus, however, as I think the bosses are generally just badly designed. On almost all of these bosses, you're guaranteed to take damage. Ones like Flame Man and Guts Man are particularly bad; the former being basically impossible to dodge and almost always taking half of your health even with ice spam, and the ladder shaking the ground constantly, causing you to be immobile while he chucks giant boulders at you that are nearly impossible to dodge. Luckily the fights aren't that long, however fighting them again in Wily's tower was pretty painful.
However even then, all of these enemies pale in comparison to the worst: the robot turret platforms. Whoever designed these pieces of trash is a terrible person. First of all, these platforms seem to count as enemies rather than actual platforms, so you can get him by them if you touch them anywhere but the top of their head. Hell, I got hit by them before even if I didn't hit their sides, they're overall just super buggy and inconsistent. Secondly, there's the stupid ass turrets. Just because they though janky ass platforms weren't good enough, they decided to make them shoot out bullets. Luckily these bullets don't do much damage, are slow, small, and are not frequently launched. However that still didn't stop me from being thrown off multiple times by them. And lastly, there's their paths. Rather than giving them a consistent pattern to follow, they decided that the best idea would be to give them paths they could follow, but randomize which direction they went in while on the path. This means that if you're unlucky (if you're like me and had to do this part multiple times just to do it, trust me, it's inevitable), then sometimes you'll just have to sit there for 30+ seconds waiting for the damn platform to move in the direction you want. And not only that, but you also have to pray that the other platform is cooperating too and so happens to line up. And while all of that is happening, you're being shot at constantly and have to jump, and if you even slightly mess up the jump or get hit, then it's instant death.
Now you may be thinking "if there's platforms as annoying as these, surely they can't be that common right?". 14. There are 14 of these damn platforms in the game. And if you think that's a low amount, scroll up to what I just said about the platforms and imagine doing that 14 times without dying. And if you die? Well, you have to do those platforms all over again. I hope you can see now why I genuinely despise these fuckers, and how they single handedly took off an entire point from the game by their mere existence.
Mega Man is overall a decent game. Even for its time, as we would see very soon, it wasn't that great and still had lots of room for improvement. For a first game in an iconic series though, it's a fantastic start that immediately introduces so many of the series' staples.
Lex
1 year ago