Mega Man Handheld, the Classic Series

If you're like me, you over look a lot of hand held games. I don't fault them for quality or anything like that, some of the best games out there are the portable games, I just hate looking at a small screen, and I have a hard time getting comfortable to wrapping my gigantic ape sized hands around these systems, and cocking my head at them.

A lot of times games that get made to the portable consoles do suffer in quality because they're seen as sort of the "b series" to whatever game series they follow. And indeed, the Mega Man games start out like that, but eventually they actually start branching out a bit, and creating stuff that is just as good, if not better, than some of the main series.

There are tons of Mega Man games for portable systems and we'll be covering all of them when we get to their respective series, but the original series is the only one I feel necessary to break up into a smaller subset category. While each one takes place between the main games, they're rarely even mentioned by Capcom, which is a damn shame considering their quality.

If you're following the Mega Man canon time-line (god help you), you'll see the portable games fit into the time-line, but at the same time follow their own a bit. Take Mega Man 9 for instance, at the end of the game, Mega Man shows Dr. Wily the past 8 times he's already defeated him, but that's not how many times he actually had defeated him prior if you count the 5 game boy games, Mega Man and Bass and Super Adventure Rockman. The reason is Capcom sees those games as the "B series" to the numbered games "A series". Luckily for us, the B series is really damn good overall.

Here are the games:

• Mega Man: Revenge of Dr. Wily
• Mega Man II
• Mega Man III
• Mega Man IV
• Mega Man V
• Mega Man (Game Gear)
  
• Mega Man and Bass (it was on the Game Boy Advanced for the US Release)
• Mega Man and Bass: Challenger from the Future ( a release for the Japan only Wonderswan)
• Mega Man: Powered Up!

If you skipped out on these, the one I'd say is a must play is Mega Man V. It's a completely original game in the series, and introduces a lot of elements that would be used in later games. It is the very last Mega Man game until Mega Man 9 to hold onto that classic game play and Mega Man look. It is a lot of people's favorite Mega Man game for those lucky enough to play it, and shows just how much the series could utilize it's potential before moving on to newer systems, newer graphics, and newer game changes. I can't wait to play it again.

Mega Man 2 LCD

Here it is, the first LCD game by Tiger Electronics for Mega Man. LCD games like these have a few pre-made sprites that sit in immobile spots across the screen. The background is painted under the screen and generally doesn't change, while the individual sprites are overlayed on it.

From what I understand however, the Mega Man games are pretty complex for LCD games. Consisting of 8 stages with small enemies and robot masters, which should sound surprising to anyone who has played one of the typical Tiger Handhelds.

Mega Man is a bit strange as he carries a pistol now and it runs out of energy. I guess it looks more like the Mega Man 2 box art. Anyway, I can't really say much more on this game since I haven't played it and getting my hands on it probably isn't feasible for a while. For now, I'll leave you with a link to a website of someone who has gotten his hands on the game. Check out Joey's Mega Man corner. Picture stolen from some random Google Image Search.

Mega Man, the LCD Series

Lots of these coming up today because I have absolutely nothing to do.

Anyway, the LCD series is quite interesting as it goes from the really shitty tiger hand held gimmick machines, to much more complicated Battle Network PET games, and the Star Force Transers.

That said, sorry, I haven't gotten a hold of a single one of these things. Most were Japanese only, and Tiger Hand Held games these days are only a product of E-bay. There's no way to cheat with them either and emulate them.

I'd hate to skip them, but I know next to nothing about them. I know from past experience that most Tiger Hand Held games suck ass, but some of these LCD games look pretty complicated. Like the PET games where you insert real battle chips into them and can hook them up to your game boy. Sounds ridiculously extravagant, but also kinda cool... I do have some of these battle chips actually, that I got from my sister who went to Japan recently.

I'll try to research them as they pop up release date wise, but don't expect much as I only have a list right now, and I definitely won't be looking over them critically. Anyway, here is the list of Mega Man LCD games.

• Mega Man 2
• Mega Man 3
• Rockman X2 Game Project File (it's mostly a calculator and phone book)
• Rockman X3 Buster Battle Game
• Rockman X (this will be fun to search for... ugh)
• Rockman.Exe Plug-in PET
• Mega Man NT Warrior Advanced PET
• Rockman.Exe Progress PET
• Rockman.Exe Link PET
• Shooting Star Rockman Wave Transfer
• Shooting Star Rockman Star Carrier

Out of all these, only three of them are localizing Rockman to Mega Man, and all of them are very old, cluing you into my chances of getting a hold of any of them. Still I'll do my best to dig up whatever information I can find on them.

Mega Man PC, fuck this game.

So it's 1990, Mega Man 3 is kicking ass and you're the bum-fuck company Hi-Tech Expressions and you can't develop a game to save your ass, so naturally you try to use big time licenses to sell your turd games. Can you tell this is going to be a nice review already?

Rather than harp on the failings of Hi-Tech, lets harp on those of Capcom. WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU GUYS THINKING HANDING OFF MEGA MAN TO THE BARBIE GAME'S MAKERS?

This review is going to be a bit different, because I need lots of screenshots to illustrate how bad this game is.
First, look at the fucking box art. It's just Mega Man 3, cropping out Sparkman and Top Man. Interestingly enough they went to the effort to actually move Rush into frame better with Mega Man despite him not appearing anywhere in the game. This just screams "buy me thinking I'm Mega Man 3!" Too lazy to draw up something that makes the terrible box arts of the first two games look good, we're off to a fantastic start.

Alright, so what we have here is an old DOS game which means it doesn't work at all anymore without emulating on DOS Box. That's a big pain in the ass as it is, but that's hardly the developers fault today. The game is like many old DOS games by which I mean it runs it's own speed based on the speed of your processor, meaning if you have a great computer the game shits itself in hyper mode, or if you have a slow computer it crawls slower than a snail caught in some glue. Adjust the cycles to where they need to be on DOS Box to play this game.
So this is the first screen you get. It asks if you want the graphics to be shitty or extra shitty today. Being as we have a computer made long after 1990, we'll choose just the regular shitty. Also, make sure you turn Joystick off as Mega Man will just run to the left of the screen if it's left on... you know, regardless if you actually have a joystick or not... god I hate this game.
So we go to the title screen and get our first look at the blue bomber... He looks like a fat kid in spandex. Great, I already hate this fucking game and I'm just at the god damn title screen. We press enter and come to the first stage which is... a straight path with robot cats in it.
We already have a major problem... THE FUCKING CONTROLS! You use the arrows to move, space bar to fire and the esc button to pause, all well and good. But jumping? Ah yes... to jump... YOU PRESS "J!?" OF ALL THE FUCKING KEY'S YOU PRESS J!? Do you know how awkward it is to play this game with the most important damn button being so retardedly mapped on the keyboard?! I said, "Fuck this," and got out X-Padder, mapped my controller, and by passed this stupid oversight as soon as I could.
So now we reach the point of the game where we can choose the bosses to fight. Thankfully there is only three of them instead of 8 since, I don't think I could take much more than that.
Look at these guys. They look like shit. Sonicman here is a Bubbleman rip off with a mohawk. Voltman looks like he belongs battling the Justice League, and Dynaman... what the fuck does Dyna mean? Well it's short for "dynamite" as I later found out when I got his piece of shit weapon, but more on that later.

So we go to Sonicman's stage and it's a sewer level. The first big encounter we have is with a wall you have to destroy in order to move on. Unfortunately there are these bats that keep respawning from this immobile unkillable texture on the wall. It will piss you off, chipping away at your health while you deal with the damn thing. Once you blow up the wall, the explosion from it damages you... so unlike 90% of other games out there, explosions you create damage yourself. This wouldn't be a problem if you had anywhere to move away from the explosion, but this game isn't so forgiving.

But here's the biggest problem with this game. Take a look at the screenshot above. Every-single-god-damned-mother-fucking-enemy is too god damn short to hit with any of your weapons! Every shot goes flying over their heads, you can't fucking shoot anything! And look at the rest of the picture, do you see anywhere for me to jump the fuck out of the way to dodge this fucking rat? No? Welcome to the entire fucking game!

Losing my patience, I gave up on this horrible stage and moved on to Voltman's level.You can't see it here, but I'm being pulled backwards in this screenshot as if I was moving on a conveyor belt or something. Being confused as all fuck as to what the hell this could be since... you know... there are NO GRAPHICS ON THE SCREEN TO INDICATE WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, I press on, thinking I've gotten past this horrible section when low and behold I discover the source of these wonky game play mechanics is...
A giant magnet underground that is for some reason affecting the gameplay ABOVE GROUND! Is this intentional? I don't understand what the hell is going on above these sections at all. It can only be a bug because it sure as hell acts like one. After attempting to shoot more enemies to small to hit in corridors to small to jump over them, I make another startling discovery...I'm in another sewer level... that's some creativity there guys to use the same level design twice...

Eventually I meet Voltman, but he has a regenerating shield and only takes one line of damage from each shot I fire at him. So naturally I die. The game asks me if I would like to continue and I'm pretty pissed off so I say no... but we still have Dynaman's stage to check out, hopefully it's a new type of lev...
ARE YOU SHITTING ME!? ANOTHER SEWER LEVEL WITH ENEMIES THAT MY SHOTS FLY OVER AGAIN!? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG! FUCK THIS GAME!

Needless to say, I quit playing this game once I had a few screenshots, but I remember it well enough to give you the final rendition. The very last stage is the Wily stage in which you traverse ANOTHER FUCKING SEWER, battling the robot masters using Sonic Man's weapon because it's the only useful fucking weapon in the game against EVERYTHING and eventually you fight one form of Dr. Wily then the screen goes black.

That's it. That's the ending. The screen goes black. DID ANYONE PUT ANY FUCKING EFFORT INTO THIS GAME? FUCK YOU HI-TECH EXPRESSIONS! FUCK YOU AND FUCK EVERY GAME YOU EVER MADE! FUCK YOU CAPCOM FOR LETTING THEM MAKE THIS PIECE OF SHIT AND FUCK YOU FOR LETTING THEM MAKE ANOTHER FUCKING GAME FOR YOU!

This is by far the worst Mega Man game ever made! Forget X7, forget Battle Network 4, forget Mega Man 8, THIS IS IT. This game is so bad you can put it high up on the worst games of all time list, a list Hi-Tech Expressions would have more games on if anyone would have even risked the money to play more of their shitty licenses. Don't buy this game, don't steal this game, don't receive it as a gift, and most importantly don't play this game. I don't care if Keiji Inafune holds a fucking gun to your head, DON'T FUCKING PLAY IT.

Story
Dr. Wily builds a computer to fight Mega Man and 3 more robots. Or something, this game manages to have a story worse than other Mega Man games.

Aesthetics
Just look at the game! It looks like shit.

Sound
No music (thank god) and everything else is the standard blips and bloops computers make that sound like ass.

Playability
Unplayable.

Extras

• Who gives a fuck on boss orders. Dynaman is the only one boss stupid easy to defeat, but his weapon is so useless you might as well buster duel the others. Sonic man has the only weapon capable of hitting anything so you might as well kill him first if you are sadistic enough to try to complete this game.
• The sequel to this game, Mega Man III (yeah they didn't make a Mega Man 2) uses the same box art AGAIN.
• Hi Tech Expressions was eventually bought and sold by NewKidCo, a partner of Ubi-soft. I think I'm going to go spit on my copy of Splinter Cell now...

Overall... well if you didn't catch my drift up to this point, I did not enjoy this game.

Playthroughs
No one is going to play this fucking game are you kidding me?

Ok... here is some video I found on youtube if you are dying to see it in action...

Update: Boy do I sound like a twat in this review! The game still sucks though. Also, my very poor choice of words on this page have led to many hits from very horrible people. There is no Mega Man porn here you sick fucks, and you outta be ashamed of yourself!

Mega Man Miscellania, because he doesn't have enough shit with his face on it

Now we're entering a new series. Well, technically these games are divided into their own various Mega Man/Rockman universes, except I exclude them for a number of reasons from each of the main series.

Most of these games are not made by Capcom, but rather just licensed off to some other company. Capcom, I love you, I love Mega Man, BUT STOP FUCKING DOING THAT. 90% of the games coming up on this list are pure shit, and you didn't even make half of them! Sometimes I wonder if you are trying to kill Mega Man by letting some Korean developer rape your franchise with this crap. Inafune, don't you care when a bad Mega Man game comes out? Let alone one that you didn't even have anything to do with? FUCK!

Let's go over the list:

• Mega Man PC (SHIT)
• Mega Man 3 PC (SHIT)
• Light and Wily Rockboard: That's Paradise (SHIT) although developed by Capcom
• Mega Man Soccer (SHIT) developed by Capcom
• Mega Man The Power Battle (actually ok and developed by Capcom)
  
• Mega Man: Game Gear (SHIT)
• Mega Man The Power Fighters (decent and developed by Capcom)
• Super Adventure Rockman (not bad actually developed by Capcom)
  
• Rockman's IQ Challenge (SHIT)
• Rockman X's Mathematics Tornado (SHIT)
• Rockman DASH: To Save The World Adventure (SHIT)
• Rockman Gold Empire (SHIT)
• Rockman Battle and Fighters (really good for once)
• Rockman Strategy (SHIT)
• Shooting Star Rockman: Wave Change On Air TV Game... (kinda looks fun)

This is the story of the miscellaneous games. Even the decent ones aren't worth the effort to check them out. Super Adventure Rockman might be worth it for the novelty of it, but I can't read Japanese and I'm betting most people who will come across this won't be able to either. The learning games are bad too, but nothing will prepare you for the vile of shit that is the next game I'm reviewing, Mega Man PC.

A Passing Mention, Mega Man 3 Arcade

The Playchoice-10 arcade machine was essentially a large Nintendo console that played 10 of the top rated NES games and charged you money for it. Mega Man 3 was one of the games that made it on this system.

There is no difference between this version of Mega Man 3 and the original except that you play with a Joy Stick and are charged a quarter for every 5 minutes of play. It would personally cost me about $2.25 to finish the game if I were to play it now. A second screen at the top of the console would give you instructions on how to play the game you had chosen off the list. Being a part of the Playchoice-10 list is a good indication of how well Mega Man was coming along in terms of being a big part of building the industry.

The colors seem a bit duller, and the pallet seems a bit off, but otherwise everything is the same. If you're dying to see this version of the game in action, you can try it on a MAME emulator to see what I'm talking about. It seems to run better than most of the shitty NES emulators out there.

Mega Man 3, "The End of Dr. Wily!?"

It's 1990, and Mega Man 2 is a smash hit. Mega Man 2 is not only one of the best games out at the time, it would become a lot of people's favorite game ever made. Capcom see's the huge amount of money they could be sitting on with the Blue Bomber and it doesn't take them long to start pumping these games out.

Mega Man 3 is a great game, but it is the start of the proverbial milking of the series. Between 1990 and 1995 alone Capcom released 25 Mega Man/Rockman games. That's about 5 a year. Imagine if Nintendo pumped out Mario like that? Hell, Sonic is milked pretty bad and he's not even close to Mega Man in terms of game numbers.

Still Mega Man is a formula that works, even if it's predictable. Some people find Mega Man 3 the start of the series downfall, others place that at 4 or 5, but it's not really a matter of something being wrong with the games themselves per se, it's more a matter of the games in comparison to earlier Mega Man titles. Mega Man 3 holds a dear place to my heart because it was my first venture into the series at a very young age. I don't play it as much anymore compared to 1 and 2, but 3 is what hooked me and I'll always love it for that.

New Features

• Mega Man can now slide by holding down then pressing the Jump Button
• The Items from Mega Man 2 are now replaced with a new side kick for Mega Man, a robotic dog named Rush.
• A new mysterious character joins the frey, Mega Man's brother Proto Man.
• This game starts the tradition of 8 levels instead of 4 after beating the robot masters, thus making it the longest Mega Man game at the time.
• E-Tanks now carry over with you after a Game Over

Story
After being defeated twice by Mega Man already (3 times later Retconned after the release of the first Gameboy Game), Dr. Wily has reformed and is helping Dr. Light on a new peace keeping robotics project in building a new robot named Gamma. To complete the project, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily need energy crystals which are obtained through various mines, but Uh-Oh, those mines are being taken over by out of control Robot Masters! It's up to Mega Man to go in with his new companion Rush and stop these mad robots and retrieve the energy crystals.

Only one of the stages could even be considered to look like a mine though... Mega Man is not a game for people looking for stories....

Anyway while searching for the crystals Mega Man is accosted by a mysterious robot several times named Proto Man, who fights Mega Man each time they meet. His motivations are unknown, but he is quite strong... or incredibly weak depending on your skill level...

After defeating the 8 robot masters, more disturbances pop up in the places Mega Man had just returned from involving a new Robot named Doc Robot. Strangely Doc Robot seems to be using powers of the old Wily robots Mega Man had previously faced only a short time ago. After defeating Doc Robot, Mega Man is called out by Break Man, who is Protoman in disguise with a Sniper Joe helmet. (If you couldn't figure that out god help you.)

After beating "Break Man" Mega Man returns to Dr. Light, but woe and behold, Dr. Wily has stolen Gamma and flown off to his new skull shaped fortress! After fighting a robot frog generator, the return of the Yellow Devil, himself, and the 8 Robot Masters again, Mega Man finally confronts Dr. Wily now controlling Gamma. After destroying Gamma, with of all things Top Spin, Dr. Wily and Mega Man are crushed under rubble of the skull fortress, which I guess was collapsing from the fight the two had. Mega Man is saved by Proto Man, but it's too late for Dr. Wily who gets crushed by a rock.

The credits roll with Mega Man finding out that Proto Man was originally a creation of Dr. Light and Dr. Wily that would serve to be the prototype of the new robots, and a prototype of Mega Man himself. Unfortunately Proto Man ran off, with an imbalance in his energy core that would one day cause his systems to fail and ultimately kill him.

We later find out Dr. Wily would extend Proto Man's life by altering his energy core which is why Proto Man decided to help out Dr. Wily in the first place. While Mega Man looks up into the sky a strange UFO can be seen flying off in the distance.

The short version of the story is, kill 8 robot masters, take their weapons, beat Wily.

Aesthetics
Visually Mega Man games never looked better. There's much more highlights and shading in all the enemies, environments and even weapons. For NES standards, Mega Man is a pretty game. The new slide animation looks good, and Rush's transformations look great. Enemies have much more fluid movements and creative actions, like the enemies that try to pole vault into you, or the Giant Snake machines.

The backgrounds are nice too, with a variety of environments ranging from an actual mine, to outer space to ... I dunno... a lava factory? If not making sense, at least they're creative.

The Robot Masters designs have branched away from simple elemental designs and we're seeing robots made out of Tops, robots made into ninjas, robots made out of snakes, robots with silly names like Hard Man. Yellow Devil returns with a visual boost as well and Gamma, although not the hardest final boss fight is really cool to look at. Visually the game is ahead of it's predecessors by far.

Sound
The music in this game is superb. Proto Man's theme would go on to last the series, and it encompasses the ending/beginning themes well. Mega Man 3 doesn't open with Rock and Roll but with Blues (Proto Man's Japanese name). Snake Man's music is great, hell they're all great. My personal favorite being Gemini Man's. There's no real significant differences otherwise from past games in terms of sound effects though.

Design
Mega Man 3 is a good game, but it suffers from some major problems. First off, the Doc Robot stages are so boring. I absolutely hate this part of the game. Backtracking is annoying in most games, and even though it isn't technically backtracking, it is reusing pretty much all the same stuff from the 4 levels Doc Robot takes over. I love the of fighting the previous games bosses, but I hate these stages.

The Shadow Man Revisit level is particularly painful for a lot of players. First off, there are a few "fuck you" spike placements added to the level, as well as a section where these swoopers come down and knock you off of teeny tiny ledges. Second, the Doc Robot fight against Woodman is a hell of a lot harder to dodge than it was in Mega Man 2 and doing this without an E-tank is next to impossible.

Speaking of E-tanks though, this game hurls them at you. Many stages have 2 E-tanks right next to each other. There are so many in this game I start ignoring some of them to save time myself. E-tank placement alone is a cause for a significant drop in difficulty, although some players may find this to be a welcome.

The boss patterns are more concrete this time than even in Mega Man 2, so figuring them out is pretty easy. Some are a bit tough like Needle Man and Shadow Man, but most are easy enough to buster duel it out.

Stage wise the game has more "Mini-boss" like encounters than last time. The Hot Dogs from Woodman's stage have evolved into Robot cats and giant mettaurs.

The game makes use of Mega Man's new buddy Rush, having some sections require the Rush Jet adapter to progress. Rush Marine is, unfortunately completely useless, as there are three sections in the game where you can even use it, and many times it's either faster to just jump past it or safer to use Rush Jet which travels underwater just as well.

The weapons have taken a decline as well. Gone are the days when you'd throw away the P-Cannon for the likes of Elec Beam or Metal Blade. Most weapons are situational such as Magnet Beam or Hard Knuckle or completely useless like Top Spin and Gemini Beam. Gemini Beam... good god, Gemini Beam is such a horrible weapon. You can fire one shot at a time and it bounces off of walls back and forth until it hits something or eventually moves off screen. While this is happening you are left completely vulnerable to attack, and using this on bosses requires precision aiming.

Shadow Blade is a bit like Metal Blade in the directional aiming department, but has less range and is overall slower. Spark Shot freezes enemies instead of killing them, but if you touch a frozen enemy you still take damage so what the hell is the point? Another great thing is that Magnet Missile homes in on projectiles thrown at you, sometimes completely missing the enemy you are aiming at. This is especially noticeable against Metal Man as it's his weakness and your damn Missiles are chasing after his blades.

Rush Jet is fantastic though, giving the utility of both Item 1 and Item 2 from Mega Man 2. Needleman is a tough fight, but it's almost worth it to go after him first to get Rush Jet so you can skip many of the tough platforming sections of the game.

Overall the design is a step back, but not a big one.

Playability
Not an extremely glitchy game, but a few here and there are actually beneficial. For example, jumping while using Rush Jet depletes the energy much much slower. Use this to get past Needle Man's Revisit stage with ease. Another glitch allows you to skip a Proto Man section in Gemni Man's stage by sliding through the screen transition and jumping through where he lands.

Speaking of, the new mechanic of sliding helps a great deal with dodging projectiles (Air Man is cake with it) and the controls are pretty responsive. There are few Mega Man games that control awkwardly so I usually don't have much to say here.

Extras

• The order of bosses is a bit weird in this one. Snake Man, Needle Man and Gemini Man's weakness chain loop around so you're looking at two buster duels this time. Snake Man is the easiest of the three here, but the end of his level is a bit annoying without Rush Jet. Gemini Man has two E-tanks, but coming here without Rush Jet or Rush Marine takes some time. Needle Man is the toughest fight by far, but survivable with the E-tank it gives you and you win Rush Jet as well. Still, I don't tend to bother with the three of them till the end, so my personal order is Top Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Magnet Man, Hard Man, Needle Man, Snake Man, Gemini Man. Top Man's weapon is useless but he's easy to fight and Shadow Man has a decent weapon. You may consider getting Rush Jet before Shadow Man, Snake Man and Spark Man's stage however, as it is considerably helpful.
• Top Spin through doors is fun.
• Using Top Spin almost always damages you. You can avoid taking damage, but it's hard to do. Luckily it does a lot of damage to those you use it against (Shadow Man, Heat Man, Gamma).
• Use E-tanks when you're in trouble. The game throws a ton of them at you.
• Proto Man is an easy fight most of the time, just try to get behind him and shoot him while he is facing away from you.
• The only practical use for Spark Shot is to freeze the giant jumping enemies found at the end of a few stages. Just like the Big Eye's in Mega Man 1, a Spark Shot in mid-air will allow you to safely walk under them.

Overall a decent game, but not as good as Mega Man 2. To me, this is the start of the decline of the classic series, but it won't hit the bottom for a few more years to come. Coming up next however, is a review of the first official bad Mega Man game... ugh hold on to your hats for Mega Man PC...

Playthroughs
How Break Man got his groove back: Let's Play Megaman 3! by Oyster
Speed Demo Archives run by Sattik 'Tiki' Ghosh

Mega Man 2, "The Mystery of Dr. Wily"

The first Mega Man game through word of mouth was a bit of a sleeper hit. People loved the game, but it was a bit hard to find, and didn't quite sell as well as Capcom had hoped. Still, it was enough to push on for a sequel using left over content not used in the previous game, as well as adding a few more things that would become staples of the series for years to come.

Mega Man 2 is almost universally recognized as the best Mega Man game of all time, and many people consider the best game of all time. The game sold much better than it's predecessor, and it help build Capcom into the multi-million dollar company it is today.

If you've never touched a Mega Man game, this is the one to play.

New Features

• 8 Robot Masters instead of 6
• A password system
• A new energy refilling pick up called the E-Tank
• The Robot Master Re-fights now consists of 8 teleporters before the final encounter with Wily
• Mega Man is much less slidey while walking
• Levels are not re-visitable anymore
  
• Score has been removed
• Spikes are not instant kill while the player is blinking from the Invulnerability time after taking damage

Story
Dr. Wily takes on his revenge from the last game and builds 8 new Robot Masters to take over the world. He deploys his team of Quick Man, Metal Man, Bubble Man, Heat Man, Air Man, Flash Man, Crash Man and Wood Man to various locations in which Mega Man must teleport to and stop them.

Eventually Mega Man catches up to Wily and captures him after destroying his latest machines. These games aren't meant for Pulitzers here people.

Aesthetics
Mega Man 2 is a much more colorful, brighter game than Mega Man 1. The levels look so much better with new environments, better backgrounds, and new enemies with a little more creativity behind them. You'll be attacked by fire spewing robot dogs, egg dropping birds, giant fan men, jester looking things riding cogs, etc. Compared to the last game, this one is a visual masterpiece. This is also the first Mega Man game with an opening cutscene.

Not much else has changed though. The animation is on par with the last game and we won't see any graphical improvements on Mega Man himself for a while.

Sound
Mega Man 2 is one of the best soundtracks to a video game ever made. The tunes just rock from each and every level. Few games come close to how good the music is for this game, let alone other Mega Man games. Don't be surprised if you find yourself humming some of these songs to yourself over and over again. While they are all great, in particular Wily 1 and 2, and the opening theme, tend to get the highest accolades from most of the fans. I personally think Mega Man 2 is one of the reasons Capcom eventually decided to put all of their games' music on CD's to buy. Nobody in the business does music better than Capcom.

Aside from the music, the sound is pretty much identical to Mega Man, but what do you expect from the NES?

Design
Of all the Mega Man games, this one is just designed the best. Almost all the weapons are useful in some way or another, and the stages are blended nicely to make use of them for each situation. The boss patterns are also a lot easier to figure out compared to the more random patterns of the first game.

That's not to say there aren't some dick moves and shitty weapons though. Crash Bomb is useless in every situation except the few it was shoe horned in to (more on that in a bit), and Quick Man's stage is the recurring nightmare of every Mega Man novice. Instant Death lasers come flying in from both sides of the screen giving the player very little reflex time to make it through the stage. There is no way to beat this your first time through, it's impossible. You'll just have to memorize the route you'll need to take. Luckily, you can use Flash Stopper to make this section incredibly easier, keeping it from being nearly impossible without direct memorization. Look at the screenshot... I'm about to die there.

The other real bullshit move is against the boss of Wily stage 3, The Boo Beam. My god... fuck that boss. This boss only takes damage from Crash Bomb and requires you to fire at it with at least 5 out of the 7 shots of you have available. It's also practically impossible to dodge without using a glitch as it shoots shots that home in on you from every direction in the room, all fired at the same time. Oh, and if you fuck up and die on this boss, you'll need to refill all your weapon energy up again to take him down. This is the worst designed boss in any Mega Man game, ever.

Thank god for E-tanks, which make the hardest parts of future Mega Man games so much easier. One of these babies will refill your health to full, essentially giving you a second chance mid-battle to deal with the trickiest of sections. Without this, the Boo Beam fight would have been a game breaker to all but the most skilled players.

There's also disappearing blocks in Heat Man's stage, but thanks to a utility weapon you earn from defeating Air Man called Item 2, you can bypass that section entirely. For the shit the game throws at you, it gives you some pretty good options to get past them. This is probably the best game design wise barring the Boo Beam fight in the series.

Playability
Control is a bit tighter this time around since Mega Man doesn't slide everywhere, and the usefulness of the weapons keeps any section from being too terribly difficult. Generally if you have a problem at some point, odds are you can find something to help you.

Glitches and bugs wise the game is a lot cleaner as well, but still has a few issues. You can use the pause menu to reset Mega Man's momentum in mid air, making some longer jumps possible, or even take the brief invincibility of the animation to dodge shots taken at you. The controls are smooth and tight like they need to be.

Extras

• There's no backtracking in this game so choosing a route this time means planning for how you want to deal with the challenges each level offers. Having Item-2 means getting across large gaps such as Heat Man's stage without any trouble. Flash Stopper has about a million uses, but it's a must have against Quick Man's lasers if you haven't memorized the route. Only Quick Man himself is particularly tough to buster duel in this game, so base your choices around the stages. My route is Air Man, Flash Man, Quick Man, Metal Man, Bubble Man, Heat Man, Wood Man, Crash Man. This ensures I have item 2 and Flash Stopper right away, while getting Metal Blade halfway through as well.
• Speaking of Metal Blade, once you get it you can practically throw away the plasma cannon. It has a huge number of shots, aims in any direction, and kills most things faster than the P-shooter as well.
• We all know the Flash Stopper works well against Quick Man's level, but have you tried it to get past the falling crushers in Metal Man's stage? In Wood Man's stage you can use Flash Stopper before encountering the Hot Dogs to keep them from spawning at all. Flash Stopper when applied correctly is a speed runners dream.
• Air Man's weakness is Wood Shield, but it's usually faster to just shoot him with the P-Cannon since the wood shield bounces off of Air Man's air shooter attack.
• The Mecha Dragon can be a pain in the ass unless you know the secret to defeating him. Stand on the top platform, that way any shot that hits you will knock you safely to the second platform below you.
• While going through the Wily stages, save up Crash Bomb and Item 1 for Boo Beam. You can't beat him without them.
• The final encounter with Wily requires you to have Bubble Lead as well, but it's unlikely that you'll use all of that up before fighting him.
• Speaking of Bubble Lead, it's pronounced lead as in Leader, not lead as in the metal.
• Air Shooter will take out the Sniper Armors in one hit.
• The original Japanese game has no difficulty setting, it just plays on difficult. There are some notable changes between the settings, but mostly it just means the bosses die faster and the player lives longer on normal.
  
• The box art is terrible again, but better than last time I suppose.

Even if you take away all the nostalgia associated with the game, it still stands up, and it has aged fairly well. This is the Mega Man game to play if you've never played one, and this is the one that might hook you into the series. Don't worry if it doesn't do it for you though, there's still a few more that might be closer to your own tastes. This, by world wide consensus, is the best Mega Man game, and I have to agree.

Playthroughs
Megaman 2: This is too much Megaman! by Oyster
Speed Demo's Archive
Duane and BrandO Mega Man 2 Rap

Mega Man, Where It All Started

In 1987, gaming company Capcom was looking for a new game to push the company further than they had gone before. Previous titles such as 1942, Gun.Smoke, Bionic Commando and Ghost N' Goblins where all great games but none of them would even compare in success to Keiji Inafune's new idea for a game, Rockman.

Keiji Inafune was a new artist hired by Capcom to help come up with the art for Rockman. The game featured a rock-paper-scissors approach in which the enemies the players would face would all have strengths and weaknesses against each other. Players would be allowed to choose their level order and form a strategy as to how to tackle the game based on their own preferences.

Being heavily inspired by old Japanese Animes such as Astroboy and influenced by the musical genre of Rock and Roll, Rockman was finally created.

Story
Rockman was a robot created by Dr. Light, who, with his partner Dr. Wily, revolutionized the world in robotics technology. They would go on to create more robots such as Cut Man, Fire Man, Elec Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man and Roll all who would have various functions to serve mankind.

Dr. Wily, however, jealous of Dr. Light's brilliance and world renown, would steal the robots and use them in an attempt to take over the world. Figuring Roll was too weak, he captured the other robots and reprogrammed them, however, Rock resisted his attempts and managed to return to Dr. Light who rebuilt Rock to become a super fighting robot capable of stopping Dr. Wily.

While far from a brilliant story, the game laid the ground work for many games to come, and is itself a piece of gaming history. When Rockman finally came over to the United States, his name was changed to Mega Man due to a copyright issue with Rockman Amps, a product now most famous for causing Rockman to change his name to Mega Man.

Aesthetics
Visually, the colors in this game are duller than everything that comes after it. Many levels look downright ugly such as Cut Man's vomit green brick stage. Mega Man and all the enemies, however, all look pretty well for the time. Considering Super Mario Brothers had just come out the year before, the graphical looks for it's time were superior to a lot of games. Still, it is definitely the least pleasing of the Mega Man games to look at.


Sound
As one might expect from a game inspired by music, Mega Man has some fantastic tunes. While not as great as games to come, they're still pretty good overall. Elec Man's theme is one of my personal favorites.

The sound effects themselves are a bit staticy sometimes and this leads to many unpleasant sounds outside of the music. Later versions of the game (such as the re-release on the Anniversary Collection) seem to have cleaned these up a bit, but the original can be a bit grating at times.

Design
Mega Man isn't so much a difficult game by design as it is challenging by small bugs at certain points. In the above screenshot, Guts Man's stage is notorious for those platforms in which Mega Man is standing. Due to a bug on the platforms, when Mega Man is standing on those platform his downward acceleration is not reset as it normally would be when standing on normal ground. This means when the platforms slide out from under him, Mega Man is at terminal velocity and falls faster than possible to recover from the gaps in the chains.

The stages on whole are designed well. Offering a variety of locations and environments suited to the robot master you have chosen to fight. The bosses themselves are a lot more unpredictable in patterns to bosses that would follow; seemingly acting a bit more random, making a lot of fights really hard to avoid taking damage in. Fire Man, Elec Man, the Yellow Devil and the Copy Machine in particular are near impossible to dodge effectively. Luckily, each boss has a weakness allowing players to more easily overcome the difficulties if they bring the right weapon.

As for the weapons themselves only a couple of them prove to be completely useless most of the game. Hyper Bomb and Super Arm are complete garbage in terms of utility as Hyper Bomb is too slow to kill anything, and Super Arm is only used in very specific spots. Ice Slasher has a few uses in freezing the Big Eye enemies (the huge jumping Cyclops looking things), but it's usually not worth the effort to freeze an enemy when you can kill them. Firestorm, Elecbeam and Rolling Cutter are all fantastic when applied right and the Magnet Beam is the most useful utility item in the entire franchise with how it allows you to skip some of the more bullshit sections of the game (Ice Man's stage).

This game has some of the hardest stages in Mega Man games though. Ice Man's stage, as mentioned earlier, has floating platforms that move about randomly and also shoot at you, making it such a pain in the ass to get across without the Magnet Beam. The Yellow Devil Stage has these same platforms right before you take the boss on, and he is one of the toughest bosses in the series. You'll die to him quite a bit before you finally get down his pattern and even then it's quite easy to fuck up and lose your composure on him.

This is followed by one of the hardest stages in the franchise where you must fight Cut Man, without his weakness, followed by Elec Man, and then the Copy Machine, which mimics your own movements and attacks as Mega Man. These two stages alone keep me hesitant to recommend this to first time players.

Playability
This is one of the more challenging Mega Man games, and I don't think I would recommend it to someone whose never touched the series. This game is a little more buggy, a little more primitive and a little less polished than the others. Mega Man is a bit more slidey along the surfaces in this game, and this becomes all too apparent in the Copy Machine stage, where the slightest momentum hurls Mega Man off a platform to his doom. It make precision jumping quite a pain in the ass as you'll send Mega Man flying off an edge when you just meant to stop just short of it.

It also lacks a lot of features that make the later games easier such as E-Tanks (health restoring items), sliding and charged shots. This game is tough and not for beginners.

Extras

• My personal order to fight the robot masters is Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Ice Man and Fire Man. This order ensures you pick up the magnet beam without having to backtrack, as well as fighting the bosses in the order you will have their weakness. Bomb Man is relatively easy to figure out pattern wise, Elec Man is a bitch to fight without Rolling Cutter, and I don't even like to try Ice Man's stage without the Magnet Beam.
• Mega Man's weakness is the Elec Beam. It will kill you in three shots at full health, so the best way to avoid it is to, believe it or not, run head first into Elec Man.
• You will need to learn to fight Cut Man efficiently enough in order to make it past Wily level 2. He takes more damage from the Plasma Cannon than any other robot though.
• Many people don't know that you can extend the platform the magnet beam creates by holding down the button longer.
• Don't use the Elec Beam on the Copy Machine! It's guaranteed death as he'll shoot it back at you. Stick with something easier to dodge such as firestorm.
• The Magnet Beam allows you to skip the flying platforms in Ice Man's stage. Use it to your advantage.
• This game is infamous for it's Boxart, which looks absolutely nothing like the game. The colors on the guy don't even match Mega Man's blue and cyan color scheme.
• A glitch involving pausing the game when a weapons projectile is in mid air will cause enemies to skip their invulnerability time after taking damage; allowing you to kill any boss quite fast with one or two good shots. Works extremely well with the Elec Beam if you are having trouble.
• Speaking of Invulnerability, take damage to get across hazardous jumps. Let an enemy hit you, then use your blinking time to run past them. You'll waste a lot of good time trying to kill everything on the screen.
• This is the only Mega Man game where touching spikes, even while blinking, will cause instant death. Simply put, don't touch them at all.

Mega Man one is a great challenge once you've tried the other games and have some experience under your belt, and I'd recommend checking it out once your confident enough in your own skill for it. This is probably the game I've beaten the most because, usually when I decide to play through the series, I always start with this one just because it's first. It's good, but if you're just starting the series, start with number 2.

Play Throughs
The game that made 8,000 sequels and LP threads: Let's Play Megaman! by Oyster
Speed Demo's Archive run by Trevor Seguin

Mega Man Classic Series

One last thing I'm going to do before starting a review, is gloss over the various series in the Mega Man universe before actually starting to review games from that series.  Most Mega Man games, with respect to whichever series they belong to, are similar enough that if you pick up one of the games, you've played the general gist of all of them in that series.

My end goal with these posts is to get anyone who stumbles across them to give some of these games a shot, but for the most part, there is no need to play any of them in order.  With these games especially, it can help to see the games in the larger context of each other if you are a new player to this franchise, and want to know where to get started.  I'll be reviewing the games in order of release date, but when a new series comes up I'll preface it like this post.

Speaking of a series, lets discuss the Classic series.

The Classic Series

• Mega Man
• Mega Man 2
• Mega Man 3
• Mega Man 4
• Mega Man 5
• Mega Man 6
• Mega Man 7
• Mega Man 8
• Mega Man 9
• Mega Man and Bass

I've decided to make the hand held games their own category although they do fall into the classic series.

The classic series is the simplest and probably the least challenging. With the exception of Mega Man, Mega Man 8 and Mega Man and Bass, these games are fairly easy. The concept of each game works like this: The player must defeat 8 robot masters (bosses) before proceeding to face about 4-8 final stages leading up to the final encounter with a Dr. Wily robot. The player must make use of the weapons gained from beating the bosses in order to gain advantages in combot as every boss has some sort of weakness to one of those weapons.

The series starts out pretty strong with Mega Man introducing these new elements and Mega Man 2 really perfecting them. While many argue that Mega Man 2 is the peak of the franchise as a whole, most don't feel the game decline until about Mega Man 4 or 5.

That isn't to say those games are even bad, but one of the biggest problems of the Mega Man games is that Capcom has always been afraid to move to fast into the next generation of consoles with the Mega Man games and even to this day don't utilize the full potential of newer systems to bring Mega Man back into AAA status. When the SNES came out, nobody was buying any NES games anymore, let alone ones that were essentially the slightly tweaked games from the same formulas as the last games.

Mega Man 7 was a bad start to the series going to the next step as well. Mostly cited for the bosses having a distinct lack of creativity, controls that seem a bit sluggish and floaty and a soundtrack that is far sub-par for a Mega Man game it is often called the worst game in the classic series. A lot of this comes with bad timing as well, as Mega Man X had just come out starting that series and not only was it a far better game, it's in most people's top 5 Mega Man games.

Mega Man 8 for the Playstation/Sega Saturn would deteriorate the series even further taking some of the above problems and adding one of the most laughably bad animie dubs ever seen.

Mega Man and Bass would be the first significant step back in the right direction, but it wasn't released in the US until a re-release for the Game Boy Advance. Plus, it's ball-bustingly difficult.

Finally, Mega Man 9 would return to the old school with a retro 8-bit look and a return to the fundamental game play style of the first few games. Mega Man 9 brings back a lot of hope to the classic series, but I doubt we'll see a Mega Man 10 for a long time. It will come out eventually but Mega Man 9 feels a lot like a one time deal instead of setting up the series to continue. While I personally loved seeing the game go back to 8-bit for one more game, I think I would just be frustrated to see Capcom continue in that style with it.

The Classic series really needs to reinvent the wheel here with a new next-generation Mega Man game. I'm talking more state of the line visuals, audio and gameplay. It's a huge task, but I think if done right Mega Man would be back on the Triple A for a while. I think this is why we won't see a Mega Man 10 for a while. Mega Man needs to quit playing it safe and push a few boundaries of limitations. How about taking some of those Resident Evil and Devil May Cry guys and have them start modeling us some new 3d robot masters?

If Mega Man 10 were to continue on as an 8-bit game, I'd feel a bit cheated myself that the series with as much potential as it has, constantly squanders it by playing it safe. I think Keiji Inafune knows this as well but his hands are tied a lot with the corporate HQ and I'll definitely get more into that when the Legends Series comes up. Mega Man 10 will definitely happen one day, and I'll even bet they finally make that push with the series then, but I wouldn't be surprised to not see it this console generation.

Of all the series to skip out on, this is the one not to do it to. This is gaming history right here, and if you fancy yourself at all to be any kind gamer or just someone interested in the evolution of video games and game design you should just not miss this one.

My individual review of Mega Man 1 should be up some time tomorrow, but I want to replay the game one more time before starting proper. Check back soon.

Mega Man, a critical look at the franchise

Let's get one thing straight here. The fact that I have played every US released Mega Man game alone should serve to tell anyone that my own bias towards Mega Man might be a bit skewed.

I love the games, I love the series, I love the character. I mentioned before that Capcom acknowledges the milking of this series, and if that's true, then I'm probably one of the biggest teat suckers this franchise has.

If you read the reviews at this site, you will mostly be seeing a general positive look at the games because that's how I feel about them. I'll mostly be comparing them to other Mega Man games most likely and my general feel towards these games is that they are worth the money you pay for them, however, being that there are over 50 games in the regular series alone that kinda adds up to a lot of dollars spent, and I can't certainly consider it normal behavior that most gamers would want to live through the same Mega Man experience again and again and again.

I don't want the integrity of these reviews to be compromised by this however, so I feel a general disclaimer at the start is necessary. There are many legitimate gripes with this series and I really doubt there are many people out there that are even going to find half of these games good.

To add some credence to my own critical reviews I did some small research seeing what the harshest of mega man critics thought about some of the best and worst games.

In general the games receive positive reviews but unfortunately a lot of the gripes I saw came from people who equate difficulty with quality.

Difficulty itself has nothing to do with a games overall quality, and many of these people need to realize that Mega Man might just be too difficult for them. It's not a bad game because you suck at it, and likewise it's not a fantastic game because you are good at it.

There are legitimate complaints about difficulty though, because some of these games ramp up on the bullshit instant death factor more than the actual skill of the player. Mega Man games are a bit flawed in that they require memorization of the level layouts, boss patterns and quick timing more so than anything else. Being patient with Mega Man seems to be the most necessary skill to defeat these games and you are more likely to die because some stages require the most precise timing (such as the infamous Quick Man Lasers) on very restricted paths. Most games aren't so bad they aren't playable but occasionally it feels Capcom doesn't even try on the level design.

The other complaint I usually see is the lack of a good story for the games. It's true, don't go into a Mega Man game expecting a great narrative, expect something so far in the background you might as well skip all the text given to you.

I don't hold games up to high standards with stories myself, but a lot of people buy games soley for the story. Mega Man players are a different breed of these people. We buy games that play well over games that write well.

Mega Man is a bit all over the place with story depending on which series you go to. Most of them range from mediocre to horrible and I can't really pretend to care about the mellow drama involved with X and Zero or how Dr. Wily inacts the same plan to take over the world every time. Nothing is so inconceivably bad that I don't want to finish any of the games (a problem I had with Metal Gear Solid 4) but there isn't anything special in here either.

The last gripe is that there are just too many damn games. Look at the timeline a few posts down. Mega Milked can't really be said enough and a good majority of the knock off games are terrible. Mega Man Soccer? Battle and Chase? Rockman's IQ Test? Are you shitting me?

Not to mention that most games just don't vary all that much. The formula works, but damn is it tired. It's a shame that the most unique games in the series are some of the worst playing (Mega Man Legends) and those games don't seem to have the life span that Capcom needs to keep going with them, opting instead to go back to beating the same dead horses.

If your a casual gamer, you'll probably want more variety in say your game boy advanced library than say all four Zero games which barring minor changes are pretty much the same game over and over.

I love these games, but most of them you could buy one of from the series and experience the entire thing. These reviews I have will go into intricate detail but the generalities will always be the same. If you can't get past that road bump, stick with buying a more diverse library than what I pick up at gamestop.

That all said, if you enjoy Mega Man enough to play through more of the same but slightly altered, then there's nothing wrong with one more game not fixing what isn't broke.

Before I move on to individual game reviews I'll be posting reviews for individual series so stay tuned for that.

Mega Man is Mega Milked

Speaking of Mega Man real quick, everyone knows that Capcom milks the hell out of the franchise. I can't deny it, hell they don't deny it. From joystiq.com

Mega Man holds the Guiness record for "Most Number of Games In a Single Series," [Capcom] admits that the franchise has been "milked like no other milking in the history of video game milkings!"

For the record, this is the best list I could find. I will be reviewing every American released game for sure, and a few Japanese ones, but I just can't get a hold of some of these games to review them. I'll try to make notes about them when they come up if I can. (click it to make it bigger)

The Best Gaming Franchise

Everyone who has ever touched a console has a favorite game series of some sort. According to Wikipedia, the top selling franchise of all time is Mario with over 210 million copies of various games sold, followed by Pokemon with 193 million and then Tetris with 125 million. There are many notables on the list including The Sims, Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog and much more.

Think back to your own gaming collection. Today and growing up, is there any series you bought more times then every other? I can name more than a few people who have played the entire Final Fantasy series, and who hasn't picked up a copy of Donkey Kong or played a game of Madden at some point in there life?

After giving it much though, it was pretty easy for me to list my top 5 gaming franchises. This is a personal list based on how much enjoyment I received from the series and the number of games I've bought over the years of it. How close is your list to mine?


Number 5: Doom
Developed and produced by Id software, Doom goes back a long way with me growing up as a kid amazed at having an 8 mb hard drive being just enough to play the only game that ever mattered on my PC. Doom puts the player into the role of a nameless space marine fighting hordes of demons through Mars, Earth and Hell.

Graphically amazing for it's time, the series amazingly has aged really well. With hundreds of really good free fan made levels, a majority of good level design in the original game and the much care and craft put into it by the likes of John Romero, Sandy Peterson, American McGee, John Carmack and others this game and it's sequel will live on an eternity. If you have never touched one of these games, it's not to late. Buy em off of steam and see why first person shooters used to be called "Doom Clones" in 1994.



Number 4: Metal Gear

Metal Gear originally released on an old computer console MSX brought forth a new genre of gameplay with it's stealth elements favored over direct combat, and a heavily developed narrative that keeps fans returning for more. When the utilization of 3d graphics in Metal Gear Solid the game was reborn and turned Solid Snake into a house hold name.

I rag on Metal Gear Solid all the time for it's story that seems dumber every time I play it, but I'll never forget my first time through experiencing what was almost literally the first game to utilize so much more story and characterization than anything previously seen.

Sure, by today's standards the games are incredibly long winded and full of so much shit you'll need to spray your Playstation with a bottle of Fbreeze, but it'll always hold a special place in my heart. The Metal Gear Solid series is incredibly fun to just dick around with the enemies, and worth multiple playthroughs just to see all the little tiny hidden details that make it so great. Hideo Kojima is insane, but the man knows how to implement the tiniest things to be some of the most memorable.

Number 3: Mario

Today there isn't a single person alive that hasn't heard of Mario. Whether it's the old school platforming of the original NES games or the newer incarnations of some of the only 3d platforming that has ever worked, Mario almost always guarantees a decent experience.

He's a bit whored out by Nintendo as their mascot no doubt as he seems to have his own Kart Racing, Tennis, Soccer and hundreds of other leagues he's at the head of, and every Mario Party he throws is another $50 bucks out of your pocket if your down for a mini game mash up. That said, some of the spin off games have been some of the best games of all time. The Paper Mario series as simple as they are have some of the best writing video games will ever get! Mario is an obvious choice, but he can't be ignored.

Number 2: Sonic the Hedgehog

Oh Sonic... what has Sega done to you? At one point everything was happy days of running fast, eating chili dogs and spouting one liners. Now you're dealing with inter-species relationships with princesses, going back in time to sword fight, or turning into a Werehog...

And the fans... good god... the fans. Some of the most horrific fan art is Sonic inspired and these people will swallow up whatever trash Sega throws up at them further degrading their mascot more and more.

Despite this, he's number two for me, because except for number one, no other character had a bigger impact on my child hood in the world of video games. I had the cartoon, the comic books and the games. Had Sega not continually let me down with their fight at the console wars, I probably would have followed more closely with the Sega CD, 32 x, Saturn and Dreamcast. Sonic gets a lot of free Nostalgia points with me because I just love the Hedgehog with an attitude, but I'm not going to lie and say most of his games are good. Trust me though, if Sega ever turns it around and Sonic makes a real substantial next gen game with the care and love the original series had, I'll be there... God this section was probably the most pathetic thing I've ever written...

Number 1: Mega Man

Mega Man is my favorite, without hesitation, without remorse, and sometimes without logic.

Keiji Inafune created the blue bomber with a simple formula. Rock beats everything.

Alright, a bit of exaggeration, but each game has the player fighting through dangerous stages full of pits, spikes and enemies to make it to the area's final boss, where upon defeating them you'd receive their weapon or power up of some type for which another boss was weak to.

In the more RPG series of the games, this usually would be some sort of elemental ability more than a direct weapon weakness. The Legends series doesn't really pick up on this, but it has it's own sort of homages to the original games which I'll get into at a much later date.

The Mega Man franchise as a general rule is hard. I used to wonder how hard it was up until the speed gamers went for a marathon of the series. If you're a seasoned Mega Man veteran like myself, the challenge of the games is going to substantially smaller then first time players. This is not a pick up and go franchise. It takes effort and practice to utilize every move in your arsenal and to learn to do this with new games as they come out. The speed gamers marathon was painful to watch as they just seemed to die over and over again, and some of these games get just plain stupid on the difficultly level when cheap deaths involving instant kill level design take precedent.

That said, I know this going into any Mega Man game that there is going to be a bullshit spike trap somewhere, and I tend to give them passes myself. Really, buying any Mega Man game is usually not a gamble, because you tend to get at least a decent product out of it. Yes, there are flops and terrible games out there with Mega's face on it but these are few and far between. With over 50 US releases alone, Mega Man is probably the most prolific character in all of gaming.

While I haven't been updating much as of late, expect that when I do, it will be to review a Mega Man game. I'll be going over every Mega Man game I've ever touched, and hell I might review some of the various cartoons as well. Mega Man games are the best out there, and I'm going to show you why I think so in the comming months.