Mega Man Legends (1997)

Replaying this in preparation for beating Mega Man Legends 2 for the first time. Actually, this will be my first time completing the PSX version of MML. I owned the N64 version growing up.

This game is an utter delight, just as I remember. The action gameplay is clunky, but the art direction is top notch. What's surprising me, if anything, is how quickly paced the game is. I'm trying to recall the content I remember alongside the scope of the game's world map, and it seems like it could be a fairly short game.

Growing up, I had rented Mega Man Legends on the Nintendo 64 many times. Back then I didn't have a memory card so I never could save, having to restart every time. I never beat the game, or even got very far, but I had a heck of a lot of fun with it. The transition from a serious 2D megaman game, to a 3D Action Arcade/RPG hybrid was an incredibly bold move and it paid off incredibly. Since then, I had restarted this game many times now with the ability to save but kept falling off it for some reason. This year I was determined to finally finish this game and glad I did!

You still get to play as the blue bomber we all know and love, but this time in a 3D world as almost a sky pirate looking for treasure. The story and setting play out almost like a Saturday morning cartoon ripped straight out of the 90s with a colorful cast of characters both good and bad. The story is pretty basic, with the island supposedly having some super mysterious, powerful treasure that everyone wants but no one knows if it's real.

Gameplay consists of third person adventuring with the camera directly behind Mega Man. There's a sizable town to explore, many residents to talk to, sidequests to find and complete, but most of the action takes place in "gates" that lead to the underground. Here is where you look for treasure or parts to upgrade Mega Man, or additional stages/levels to advance the story.

Trying to play any retro game always comes with a level of dealing with the times. I played the psx version, which at the time had no control stick. Movement is with the d-pad, turning assigned to R1 and L1 by default, and basically tank controls. You can move and shoot, though fighting the camera to stay focused on your target makes this quite the challenge. Other than tank-ish controls, and a camera that seems to want to fight you most of the time, the gameplay still holds up pretty well to this day. I did joke with a friend that the final boss of the game was the camera itself.

Don't be like me and wait forever to play this gem. I'm excited to start up Mega Man Legends 2 later this year and continue this adventure!

Mega Man Legends just oozes charm. There certainly are rough areas in the gameplay and other departments that have aged poorly, but at it's core, the game left me with a lasting fuzzy sense of warmth from the characters and this world they inhabit.

Pros:

+A great, cute art style that looks really impressive for a PSX era 3D game.

+Some great voice deliveries that help bring some characters to life. There are plenty of flat or poorly delivered lines in the mix, but there's enough great stuff to get these characters across to the player.

+Fun worldbuilding with lots of secrets to find and exploration around town and nice chunk sized dungeons.

Cons:

-Combat and navigating can be tedious and clunky. A number of camera control dedicated buttons helps a little.

-Extra weapons that can be found/made require extra precious time to fire or setup without expensive upgrades. This and combat mostly boiling down to hit and run tactics that generally reward you for being as safe and cautious as possible make for some tedious feeling battles.

I did finish this one a while back, and unfortunately my initial enthusiasm for the game gradually deteriorated the more I played, until it finally evaporated and I decided I needed to drop it and move on. (I watched the remaining cutscenes I needed to on Youtube. And WOW, what a complete nonsense finale that was!) Long story short, this is definitely a game of its era and definitely feels like it was innovative for its time. But it got tedious after a while, and some of the bosses were awfully frustrating. Too many times where it feels like the game requires you to move much more quickly and nimbly than the controls are actually capable of allowing you to maneuver with. I'm sure that with enough perseverance I could have eventually pushed my way through, but it just wasn't fun anymore.

I do own the sequel (digitally), and am still interested in giving it a go one day. But I'll probably want to emulate for the sake of using save states. The setting and general presentation for Mega Man Legends is endearing, but the gameplay... the struggle is real, and not in a good way.

On a whim, I decided to pick up this game since it was on sale for two bucks. I wasn't expecting much from it, but I'm already a couple hours in and having a surprisingly good time. The controls are definitely... a product of their time. But the game has a certain charm to it that has won me over. I hesitate to call the characters or story good -- but it's all very cute and amusing. Feels like a cheesy Saturday morning kids' anime, but in an endearing way. I might go ahead and pick up Megaman Legends 2 and the Tron Bonne spinoff while they're both on sale for $2 as well.

Will mention that I'm playing PS1 games like these on my Vita, which I try to always tell people is a wonderful way to experience those older classics. They look nice on a smaller handheld screen, and you can remap all the buttons however you wish. This means I can change R2 (the lock-on button) to the R1 shoulder button, and make the R1 and L1 camera rotating be mapped to the right joystick (right and left). Also, I set the left joystick to move Mega Man, instead of having to use the D-pad. It's still pretty clunky, but setting it up this way helps a lot IMO.