Mega Man (1987)

One of my favorite SNES games is Mega Man X. I played that so much of that. The Chill Penguin level is so ingrained in my head, and Spark Mandrill has one of the coolest level themes of any game.

I thought I'd go back to where it all began. See the birth of a legend. I'd always been vaguely aware of the reputation of the original Mega Man series. And it was earned.

This is one of the hardest games I've played in a while.

According to Wikipedia, Mega Man was one of the first games Capcom made for home consoles; they had previously focused on arcade games. I think that shows, too. This game has a lot of hallmarks of a quarter muncher. The amount of cheap shots in this game is almost commendable. Climbing a ladder on a screen with no enemies? Ha! They spawn like two seconds before you get to the top, and then shoot you, causing you to fall off the ladder. Right before you go through a door an enemy spawns to give you a nice slap on the ass before the boss fight.

I think it was because of this that I didn't mind...cheating a bit.

I played this on the Legacy Collection version, which meant I had access to the rewind feature. Which was still kind of annoying. It was just slow enough that it didn't feel helpful. But it did help me learn to avoid things. At best, this just helped me avoid even more frustration.

One instance where I did basically cheat was in the Yellow Devil fight. The pause strategy against it is such a fun exploit, I wouldn't look down on anyone who used it. That fight is absurd otherwise. And it seems like such a playground legend.

I did figure out what I thought was a smart strategy against the clone Mega Man fight by using Bomb Man's power. It worked weirdly well.

On the other hand, this game is kind of beautiful in a way that only games of the era can be. The pixel art and character designs are great. Cut Man and Guts Man are iconic.

I'm very glad I played this game, but man...it's hard.

Preliminary: Even though they were released in the same month, I am going to play the original "Rock Man" Japanese version, since I was all excited to finally be on Final Fantasy (one of the first games I played and rated while on this site), but the Japanese version of Mega Man came out 4 days before Final Fantasy haha.

Welp, Iceman is down. Not really sure why this is called Rockman? Haha. I have been super into my backlog recently, this late 87 time is full of good games. This game is clunky, the graphics are quite disappointing, there's no clear difficulty curve since you choose where you start, but it's got that addicting vibe, started a franchise I've been excited to try for the first time, has learnable quirks/mechanics (so far), and Megaman as an image is important/nostalgic to me from my involvement in early 2000s webcomics heh. Seems this will be a fall playthrough indeed...

Play: 7/10 Clever way of setting up the game: rather than a linear or open-world concept, you're basically choosing stages. At first I thought of them as separate fighting scenarios, but your weapon upgrades do carry over. So, I was loving doing the Fire stage with the Ice Slasher. Overall: Frustrating, yet classic and clever.

I'm never a fan of endlessly spawning enemies in action platformers, defeats the fun of having found a clever way to beat them then find out they just respawned anyway. And a lot of the gameplay (and Sound and Look) wound up feeling tedious. But I do love the Megaman series (well, I think... I didn't play that many lol) and the gameplay was hooking and fun enough (and the death mechanic relatively forgiving, with a sort of checkpoint system).

Feel: 8/10 Quickly across play sessions I was getting into the "process of elimination" type gameplay here. They did a good job making it very replayable by clearly having weaknesses for many of the bosses and allowing you access to any of them (except the final boss) whenever you turn on the game, so you could learn these over time. It's disappointing they didn't make a save or password system, a password system would've been easy enough just marking which bosses are killed and what weapons you have. Thank goodness for savestates heh.

Sound: 8/10 Great select-your-stage screen music, otherwise mostly mediocre. The Elec Man level jingle is good tho. Like really good ha. And the Wily Fortress 4 and ending jingles were great.

Attachment: 7/10 If only the Look or Sound were better, or I had more attachment to the later Megaman games, cuz I'm reallllly considering quitting during Guts Man level. That platforming part... Took me a death but I quickly realized that they drop down when going over the dashed line parts, but the way they timed the platforms makes you have to wait so long for the next one to be timed to jump to (at least in this one). That results in it just being tedious, not so much just challenging. And I don't like tedious. The Cut Man level was much more enjoyable and now I only have one more stage before the, uh, final stages? So I will stick with it I think. Maybe Guts Man is just an especially hard level. I was getting that feeling I love with NES games where I was getting used to its quirks (tho still don't like some of the tedious shooting enemies, some of the enemy maneuvering, and that platforming part in Guts Man level) and feeling good at shooting fast and quickly dodging things.

Oooo I love the Magnet Beam! Cool idea, sorta like the platforms made out of frozen enemies in Metroid (or, indeed, the frozen fire beams in this game ha). My goal is to finish the minibosses tonight but running out of time! Nice, I did it! I will do Dr. Wily's Fortress tomorrow haha, seems like it's a good chunk of the game. I hope I don't have to relearn the quirks, it helps when I just play a game straight through, but time to call it quits for tonight.

Welp it's the next day and I'm pushing through the Fortress. It's tough for sure! Making use of all the different weapons. The clone was a cool idea (albeit Zelda 2 did it before this butttt this makes sense in the plotline anyway), and the Sound and Look of that room were great

Alright the final boss sucks though. OMG THAT WASN'T THE FINAL BOSS. Lol I screenshotted and everything thinking I was done. Okay I need a break. The NES took way too much pride in having difficult games. (Welp, of course I came back and finished it, which says something good about the game's attachment. But I don't think I ever want to go through this again lol). The ending, however, was a treat! So that almosssst makes up for how brutally hard parts of the game were (Wily was more manageable--thanks to some StrategyWIki tips about how his attacks work--than Fortress 3 boss imo)

And there were 2 great jingles for the ending!

Y'all know how much I love colors like these as it faded to evening

The man behind the armor! (plus love that background) Cute ending overall. Helped save some frustrations with the more difficult and tedious parts of the game.

Completion: Main Story Playtime: 2 hr

Game #47/200

I spent a lot of time as a kid playing Mega Man games in the GameCube Anniversary Collection and admittedly had a very positive recollection of the first Mega Man. I still feel that it's a solid title with some outstanding level design and groundbreaking ideas, but it also suffers a bit from some issues that it seems like I never paid much attention to as a kid. First is the weird slowdown/lag that occurs frequently at random moments as enemies or other effects occur on screen. Maybe that was fixed in later versions of the game (I played an emulated NES version). Then there's the (minor) issue of having to pick up the Magnet Beam, a relatively obscure item, which might require replaying a level twice. This was really no big deal though. The game is also short with only 10 stages, but they're mostly all so well designed that I didn't mind. Mega Man really nails platforming in a way with which few other series can compete. The appearance of enemies whose behavior requires "studying" to overcome is a hallmark of the gameplay. Every screen has some sort of challenge that needs to be learned, and it's a blast proceeding through the levels and encountering the various hazards and enemies. I have to say, oddly, I had never used boss powers in Mega Man games during stages (only in boss fights). I have no idea why I had limited myself in this way, but I realized that Mega Man is significantly easier when you can use Elec Man's power to fuck everybody up before proceeding to a boss. So this Mega Man title is a little unbalanced. I had a lot of trouble on Ice Man's stage (not the floating blocks, but the section after that with those weird platform heads that move around and shoot), but it would've been so easy to exploit if I had Magnet Beam, as most levels became easy with that and Electric shot. So these power ups (which also kill most bosses in 3 easy hits) created a fairly uneven experience. I recall subsequent Mega Man games being about even in quality to the 1st, but as I think about it, I am guessing the later titles are probably much better than this one. The music freaking SLAPS though. Capcom's sound team from this era was something else.

As a somewhat new Mega Man Fan, (A Mega Fan? What do we call ourselves lol) I can for sure say that this wasn't my favorite entry.

That doesn't mean I don't think it's good, because I for sure got some enjoyment from it but the game has flaws and certain parts were just overly tough only because things were janky.

Even though the bosses were easy with the weapons they were weak against I got much more of a challenge when I fought them with different weapons. The bosses were by far my favorite part of the game.

I don't know if I would recommend the game for everyone, but I would recommend it for anyone that has enjoyed different games in the series and wants to see where it all started.

Also if you are interested I did a bit of research behind the scenes and came up with some things about Mega Man you might not know.

I know, I know. I've dug myself into a hole with this one. Ah well, guess I'll just get on with the review.

Mega Man isn't a great game. Look, I really loved the boss designs, the weapons, the music, etc. However the controls are pretty shite to be honest. (I am reviewing this on the Legacy Collection, so this is in no way a critique of the NES version) Sometimes you'll be running and you're about to jump but then you just fall down, or when you're barely near a pitfall and you just fall for no reason whatsoever. It's not all cons though, the boss design is pretty good (not the best in the series, but still fine) and I really love some of the stages. But the surprise traps are cheap as hell. I am SO fucking sick of falling down a vertical hall, then BAM! Your ass gets penetrated by those damn spikes, GOD I hate those things.

Still a pretty good game though. (reviewed on legacy collection for switch, I know you're sick of hearing this but so be it)

Mega Man at 3 stars? What are you doing?!

Yes, Mega Man is a classic, but the original title is a flawed, but fun game that laid the foundation that would be bettered, especially with Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3.

Mega Man was a big game for Capcom. It was the first game truly developed with the NES in mind. Most of the other Capcom games were ports of their arcade titles. The game was basically a video game version of the school yard classic "Rock, Paper, Scissors", hence why Mega Man is known as Rock Man in Japan.

Early versions of the game had another character, called "Roll", who would join Mega Man on his adventures. She was dropped from the game before release.

Most people known the story already, but in case you don't: Dr. Light creates seven robots that are used to help with functions in society. His assistant, Dr. Wiley, steals six of them and reprograms them into evil robots in order to take over the world. Dr. Light keeps Mega Man, reprograms him from a lab assistant robot into a fighting machine, and off you go.

What made Mega Man groundbreaking was the fact you could select what stage you wanted to play and in what order. While you could finish the game in any order, you would have advantages if you beat certain stages in certain orders. That's where the other unique loop comes in. Mega Man gets the ability of whatever robot he beats. And hence, here's where "Rock, Paper, Scissors" comes into play. Cut man's blade is the best weapon to beat Elec-Man, Fire man's fire melts away Ice Man, Guts Man's strength let's you throw boulders at Cut Man... you get the gist.

As groundbreaking and fun as this game was, a couple of things bring it down. The difficulty of this title is brutal. Compared to the more balanced sequels, the original is up there when it comes to Nintendo Hard. There is no password system, no energy tanks that are popular in the sequels, very limited energy capsules or 1-Ups, a lot of tricky jumping sections and tough enemies to fight. Once you get to Dr. Wiley's Castle, you face the Rock Monster, one of the toughest bosses in NES history. He's beatable if you use the Elec-beam cheat, but otherwise... it's a very, VERY tough fight.

Mega Man is a classic series and belongs in the pantheon of video game supremacy, but the first title is a fun, but flawed introduction to the blue bomber.

I beat Mega Man! And I didn't cheat!

Granted, I played it on the 3DS via the Legacy Collection, so I could pause and close the game at any time. That helped a lot when doing Dr Wily's 4 stages, because I think if I had turned the NES off back in the day, I'd have had to start the whole thing over again. For me, I would do a run, get a game over, close the 3DS, and try again the next day, when I could just hit continue and start again from the beginning of the stage.

It's the kind of game that only a 10 year old could have beaten back in the day, because no one else had the time to sit down and practice the freaking yellow devil over and over again. All in all, it took less than 5 hours to beat the game, but those 5 hours were stretched over the course of two and a half months.

Overall, it's a good game. It's really hard, but you feel good when you finally beat it.

Every series has to start somewhere and while this game isn't bad,there's certainly room to improve (most of its flaws were fixed in future sequels).Mega Man 1 is one of the harder games in the classic series due to the lack of E-tanks,hard boss fights (especially without their weakness),some really frustrating sections (ex. the disappearing blocks,the dropping platforms in Gut Man's stages,Yellow Devil,ect) and the controls feel stiff.There are also no passwords,however this is not an issue if you're playing on anything that has save states.

However,unlike some other NES games,this one is pretty nice in that,if you manage to get a game over,you get kicked back to the robot master select screen and can select a different stage,instead of starting the whole game all over again.The music has really some catchy tunes.(Fire,Elec Man and Wily 1's themes are ones I always look forward to) While the graphics are 50/50.Mega Man himself and the enemies in the levels look great and detailed.The backgrounds however,are very bland,most are ether one colour or have nothing of interest.On the plus side, Mega Man always stand out due to his cyan colour,so you can always easy see him.

It's also really cool that you can select the order of Robot Master stages and use their weapons when you defeat them. (very unique for the time of release) While it is cool to use the Robot Master's weapons,some are very situational (ex.Guts Man's weapon picks up certain blocks,but there's few blocks you can pick up,Bomb Man's weapon is pretty weak overall,Cut Man's moves in an arc so I really only found it useful for the start of Elec Man's stage and the boss himself) Elec and Fire Man's weapons are the only ones I used a lot through out the game.The story is nothing special,however for a platformer its functional.The game is pretty short,there's only 10 stages,however this will depend on how difficult you find the game to be (and how many times you re-play it).The gameplay is solid overall,but can be frustrating due to the flaws mentioned in the first paragraph.

Honestly,I only really recommend paying this game if your interested in how the Mega Man series began or for nostalgia,as there are better options out there for beginners looking for easier (but still challenging) games such as 2 (easy),4 or 10 (easy) , people looking for a fair challenging,(2 (hard),9) or for overall better quality.

I'd highly recommend playing this game's remake,Mega Man Powered Up on the PSP, instead.Everything is improved from the original,two new robot masters were added,a difficultly select,challenge mode,a stage builder,voice acting (though the quality is debatable,personally I like it fine) and two new modes -new style and old style were all added. (the former has level design changes from the original,the ability to play as the robot masters and music remixes.While the latter is identical to the original) It is the definitive version of this game,with it's only real flaw being on the PSP. (hopefully it gets ported somewhere else some day..)

Also don't play the PAL version,unless you like to torture yourself with horrible slowdown.

Overall,I give the original game a 5.5 out of 10 and Powered Up a 9/10