4th April 2003, 12:53 AM
(This post was last modified: 4th April 2003, 1:22 AM by Dark Jaguar.)
Okay, enough of my little rant :D. Sure, I actually think that word should be changed, but I'm about as serious about that as any comedian is about how society should change totally pointless things.
Anyway, I've beaten this now, and so onto my review. My score? I think I'll go as far as to say this is my favorite of all the original Mega Man games. This finally beat Mega Man V for Gameboy and Mega Man 7 for SNES (which previously tied for first)! Maybe it's due to not playing a new original Mega Man game since 8 (though of course the X series is pretty much an extension of the gameplay), but I really enjoyed this.
First off, this game was challenging. The only Mega Man game harder than this is Megaman Zero, which I still say is the hardest Megaman game yet. The last stages really push ya, what with me beating what I THOUGHT was the boss of a fortress stage only to find out that giant tank was a MINI boss! I love it!
As far as the look, they cut the sprites and background images from Megaman 8 and pasted them right in here. That impressed me, MM8 being a PS1 game and all, but then again the SNES was capable of more than was fully used in it's lifetime, so the GBA being more powerful is easily capable of that, and it's all just 2D stuff anyway. MM8's Megaman is my favorite looking Megaman (then again, I have stubby mcpotbelly from NES/GB and his one SNES appearence to compaire him to, so basically I'm saying I like the MM8 version better than the MM7 version), so it's nice to see him again. They even put in the green devil from MM8 (you know, the standard slime or lego block monster from old games that could divide and fly around), but with all the frames of animation that had in the PS1 version, he was somewhat less than animated transferred here, so sadly he just stood there, not once dividing and flying across the screen. So inanimate... Oh well, his being there at least was nice.
The music? All good stuff. Some of it was familiar old tunes, a lot of it was new, all of it standard style. The sounds got the job done. Some were from MM8, some from MM7, some new.
Then there is the pure nostalgia factor. Like most games these days, you had a nice collecting spree you could go on when you got bored or frustrated with the normal quest. King managed to steal many CDs, containing everything on specific robots, from schematics to programming (though you only get to see some fanservice info on them :D), and you are given the submission of getting all that data back. There are 100 in all! I loved finding all these CDs! It was a fun quest not only finding them hidden across the land, but also reading the data on the robots they contained. They have ALL the robots of the original series (MMX, being in the future, is the series not mentioned at all, but hey, that's for the X series to deal with!), and I say that including the spinoff titles, like the Megaman World games (for Gameboy, the ones that reused all the NES game robots until 5, where they had original planet based bots), and even the bonus bosses in the battle mode of the Genesis Wily Wars game with remakes of Megaman 1 2 and 3. Everyone is in here! They have descriptions of them, a cool quote, personality traits, likes, dislikes, and a nice picture. For instance, Slash Man was built on Pluto's (Mega Man 5 boss) design. Tango can't stand Rush. Treble hates both Rush AND Tango. (Of course, since free will and emotions weren't truly invented for robots until X and Zero, this is all superficial personality stuff, like The Sims, except Megaman, Bass, Protoman, Duo, and Sunstar. Those are totally unexplained in their free will, the first three being strange flukes their creators are trying to find out how they managed to do, and the last two being from space made by ancient more advanced than Earth cultures.) These things are GREAT fanservice and really pulls it all together. This also means that the Gameboy games and the Wily's Tower quest in Wily Wars is ALL cannon stuff in the Megaman timeline, and not alternate reality stuff.
As far as gameplay outside those lovely disks and the difficulty, here goes. Megaman controls exactly like he did in Megaman 8. That only differed a bit from MM7 anyway, so eh. Loved that. Bass being playable really is great. While I would have liked to see Bass get different weapons from the bosses (stuff that worked more machine gun like to fit his weapon, while Megaman got more charge gun style weapons), his different abilities were good enough on their own. You have to switch between the two if you want to get all the CDs (it saves the CD database data seperate from the individual save files, so if you get a CD in one save file, it's there to see in the rest of them). Again, the shop is open for business. Auto does his best to make amazing things, and they went back to the MM7/later GB MM games style of shop. That's great, because I hated MM8's shop system. While MM8's system, had limited bolts you had to find, which was a fun quest in and of itself, the way it made you choose what to buy instead of being able to buy it all was very annoying (since you couldn't just sell stuff back and buy the other items if you wanted them instead later).
The powerups are also very cool. Megaman has Rush digging up stuff (the only way to get many CDs), beat dropping a shield that prevents damage, but depletes energy, and of course the many little upgrades to various speed and power ratings. Another little thing that some here have desperatly wondered about is Megaman's disdain of spikes (in EVERY game, spikes = death). First off, they are SPIKES, they stab, you wouldn't last a single hit either! Second off, they added a little powerup here. It lets Megaman survive contact with the spikes one time (and a little immunity for a few seconds after contact to make good use of). In fact, there is one CD where you NEED to use a spike guard to get to it. Bass gets some cool stuff, like being able to shoot through walls (I forgot to mention this before, only Megaman can shoot through walls, normally), shoot more powerful blasts (you can't have both, you have to switch between these two bits of equipment) and the coolest powerup in the whole game, TREBLE BOOST! (In the instruction booklet, which uses the Japanese names for everyone except Megaman and Bass for some reason, it's called Gospel Boost, which sounds pretty cool too.) Treble Boost summons Treble who fuses with Bass in an awesome flash of light and causes him to tremble with the very power coursing through him (like he's saying "FEEEL this power little punks!"), and then he can fly around in any direction while firing a powered up three way shot (that isn't exactly as rapid as I would have liked, but it's multidirectional and, well, decently strong), which is just plain fun.
For all these reasons, the fanservice, the challenge, the lovely duel character gameplay, the double fortress (which basically translates to a game with twice as many fortress levels as single fortress games), the classic shop system, and the awesome powerups, I finally decided this is my fave original Megaman game. Number? Pfft, I already said I now officially consider a number system moronic! By not including a number I force you to read my review :D.
Anyway, I've beaten this now, and so onto my review. My score? I think I'll go as far as to say this is my favorite of all the original Mega Man games. This finally beat Mega Man V for Gameboy and Mega Man 7 for SNES (which previously tied for first)! Maybe it's due to not playing a new original Mega Man game since 8 (though of course the X series is pretty much an extension of the gameplay), but I really enjoyed this.
First off, this game was challenging. The only Mega Man game harder than this is Megaman Zero, which I still say is the hardest Megaman game yet. The last stages really push ya, what with me beating what I THOUGHT was the boss of a fortress stage only to find out that giant tank was a MINI boss! I love it!
As far as the look, they cut the sprites and background images from Megaman 8 and pasted them right in here. That impressed me, MM8 being a PS1 game and all, but then again the SNES was capable of more than was fully used in it's lifetime, so the GBA being more powerful is easily capable of that, and it's all just 2D stuff anyway. MM8's Megaman is my favorite looking Megaman (then again, I have stubby mcpotbelly from NES/GB and his one SNES appearence to compaire him to, so basically I'm saying I like the MM8 version better than the MM7 version), so it's nice to see him again. They even put in the green devil from MM8 (you know, the standard slime or lego block monster from old games that could divide and fly around), but with all the frames of animation that had in the PS1 version, he was somewhat less than animated transferred here, so sadly he just stood there, not once dividing and flying across the screen. So inanimate... Oh well, his being there at least was nice.
The music? All good stuff. Some of it was familiar old tunes, a lot of it was new, all of it standard style. The sounds got the job done. Some were from MM8, some from MM7, some new.
Then there is the pure nostalgia factor. Like most games these days, you had a nice collecting spree you could go on when you got bored or frustrated with the normal quest. King managed to steal many CDs, containing everything on specific robots, from schematics to programming (though you only get to see some fanservice info on them :D), and you are given the submission of getting all that data back. There are 100 in all! I loved finding all these CDs! It was a fun quest not only finding them hidden across the land, but also reading the data on the robots they contained. They have ALL the robots of the original series (MMX, being in the future, is the series not mentioned at all, but hey, that's for the X series to deal with!), and I say that including the spinoff titles, like the Megaman World games (for Gameboy, the ones that reused all the NES game robots until 5, where they had original planet based bots), and even the bonus bosses in the battle mode of the Genesis Wily Wars game with remakes of Megaman 1 2 and 3. Everyone is in here! They have descriptions of them, a cool quote, personality traits, likes, dislikes, and a nice picture. For instance, Slash Man was built on Pluto's (Mega Man 5 boss) design. Tango can't stand Rush. Treble hates both Rush AND Tango. (Of course, since free will and emotions weren't truly invented for robots until X and Zero, this is all superficial personality stuff, like The Sims, except Megaman, Bass, Protoman, Duo, and Sunstar. Those are totally unexplained in their free will, the first three being strange flukes their creators are trying to find out how they managed to do, and the last two being from space made by ancient more advanced than Earth cultures.) These things are GREAT fanservice and really pulls it all together. This also means that the Gameboy games and the Wily's Tower quest in Wily Wars is ALL cannon stuff in the Megaman timeline, and not alternate reality stuff.
As far as gameplay outside those lovely disks and the difficulty, here goes. Megaman controls exactly like he did in Megaman 8. That only differed a bit from MM7 anyway, so eh. Loved that. Bass being playable really is great. While I would have liked to see Bass get different weapons from the bosses (stuff that worked more machine gun like to fit his weapon, while Megaman got more charge gun style weapons), his different abilities were good enough on their own. You have to switch between the two if you want to get all the CDs (it saves the CD database data seperate from the individual save files, so if you get a CD in one save file, it's there to see in the rest of them). Again, the shop is open for business. Auto does his best to make amazing things, and they went back to the MM7/later GB MM games style of shop. That's great, because I hated MM8's shop system. While MM8's system, had limited bolts you had to find, which was a fun quest in and of itself, the way it made you choose what to buy instead of being able to buy it all was very annoying (since you couldn't just sell stuff back and buy the other items if you wanted them instead later).
The powerups are also very cool. Megaman has Rush digging up stuff (the only way to get many CDs), beat dropping a shield that prevents damage, but depletes energy, and of course the many little upgrades to various speed and power ratings. Another little thing that some here have desperatly wondered about is Megaman's disdain of spikes (in EVERY game, spikes = death). First off, they are SPIKES, they stab, you wouldn't last a single hit either! Second off, they added a little powerup here. It lets Megaman survive contact with the spikes one time (and a little immunity for a few seconds after contact to make good use of). In fact, there is one CD where you NEED to use a spike guard to get to it. Bass gets some cool stuff, like being able to shoot through walls (I forgot to mention this before, only Megaman can shoot through walls, normally), shoot more powerful blasts (you can't have both, you have to switch between these two bits of equipment) and the coolest powerup in the whole game, TREBLE BOOST! (In the instruction booklet, which uses the Japanese names for everyone except Megaman and Bass for some reason, it's called Gospel Boost, which sounds pretty cool too.) Treble Boost summons Treble who fuses with Bass in an awesome flash of light and causes him to tremble with the very power coursing through him (like he's saying "FEEEL this power little punks!"), and then he can fly around in any direction while firing a powered up three way shot (that isn't exactly as rapid as I would have liked, but it's multidirectional and, well, decently strong), which is just plain fun.
For all these reasons, the fanservice, the challenge, the lovely duel character gameplay, the double fortress (which basically translates to a game with twice as many fortress levels as single fortress games), the classic shop system, and the awesome powerups, I finally decided this is my fave original Megaman game. Number? Pfft, I already said I now officially consider a number system moronic! By not including a number I force you to read my review :D.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)