Mega Man Legends

And so we start off the ill fated Legends series. The first Mega Man Legends actually didn't do too terribly, selling well enough to make the Playstation greatest hits lists (at the time 150,000 sales within a year), but it didn't quite match the sales of the other 2d games.

The biggest problem with the game is that Mega Man didn't transition very well into 3D. 3D platforming is a bit of a tough genre as it is, and 3rd person shooting doesn't compliment it much either. The controls for this game are what really hold it back, and it really could have benefited from more conventional control schemes.

Despite the flaws that hold it back, it still has a lot going for it, and it is Keiji Inafune's favorite series of the franchise. I've always said Mega Man games and story were like poison, and this one certainly has some toxicity to it, but the characters really drive this game like no other before it, and even though the controls aren't great, exploration is still pretty fun.

Story
Mega Man and Roll crash land on an island, hijinx ensues, then suddenly a gigantic mind fuck happens and the world is in danger. This accurately describes the main plot of Legends. Nothing really important happens till the end of the game, and then it ends on a cliff hanger. Yeah, seriously.

In Japan, this game is called Rockman DASH, or Diggers Adventures Stories in Halcyon days. This time period is apparently an Egyptian mythology for around 8000 AD. That puts this game at the very end of the Mega Man time line, and we know for sure that's where it is because, according to an interview in Mega Man Zero Complete Works, the Zero and ZX time lines have been written specifically setting up Legends in mind.

The Earth has changed significantly. The world is flooded, and most of the remaining civilization are spread throughout the world on various islands. Much of the old technology has been lost, and has found itself buried deep in ancient underground cities. The remains of the ancient cities are constantly scavenged by adventurers, known as Diggers, who constantly search for items known as refractors, or giant energy crystals used to power current civilization. MegaMan (yes that's how they spell it for this series) Volnutt, and his companions, Roll and Barrel Casket, are Diggers. MegaMan also has a little monkey companion named Data, who can save your game.

The game begins proper after their ship, the Flutter, goes down and they are forced to scrounge for parts to repair it on an island named Kattelox. As they are doing this, a gang of pirates, known as the Bonnes, attack the island looking for hidden treasure there.

The majority of the game is spent dealing with the Bonnes and trying to find the hidden treasure before they do. I hate to gloss over it, as these are the best scenes of the game, but no significant plot points happen until MegaMan actually opens the hidden treasure.

This hidden treasure turns out to be a robotic man named MegaMan Juno, a bureaucratic model robot from Eden, a giant space station. MegaMan Juno recognizes MegaMan as a purifier unit (Japanese translation is Irregular hunter, or Maverick Hunter), named MegaMan Trigger, and notes MegaMan is suffering from memory loss. He assumes Trigger has awakened him to purge the island of what he calls "carbons," which turn out to be all of the townspeople. Suddenly, a gigantic space laser beam of doom aims at the island, ready to wipe out all life there. Yeah... this comes out of left field for a game that's pretty silly until this point. Didn't we just do the laser cannon of doom last X game Capcom?

Anyway, MegaMan Juno taunts MegaMan trigger and tells him that if he can "deactivate" him, he may be able to stop the purge. Trigger takes him down, but has no idea how to stop the purge. Just then Data, the monkey you save with, contacts Eden and indefinitely postpones the purge, and he transfers all of MegaMan Juno's duties to MegaMan Trigger. Trigger gives him a look of "what the flying fuck?" and asks Data if he knows what's going on. Data tells him he knows everything about MegaMan, where he came from, what his function is, and why he lost his memory but, sorry folks, we're out of time, guess you'll have to buy Mega Man Legends 2! MegaMan gets over this kick in the balls of a cliffhanger pretty much instantly, and he and his friends leave the island in the sunset. Game over.

While the story isn't amazing, the characters really keep it interesting, as all of them are so damn likable, especially the Bonne family. You will want to see what's happening next this entire game.

Aesthetics
For it's time the graphics weren't especially good, but they didn't suck either. We're talking about a game that came out to compete with Goldeneye, Tomb Raider 2, Quake 2 and Final Fantasy VII to give you an idea of where graphics were at the time. Capcom was a lot better at sprites at the time then they were full 3D games, and the sprite games are more detailed to be sure.

The animation in this game is really good though. Everything flows really nicely and the texture changes on the characters faces when they are talking look pretty good, despite some occasional lip sync problems.

The town and outdoors look nice, and for the time feels like an actual bustling city. Remember, there was no Grand Theft Auto III at the time, and getting run over by a car is a real concern in this game. The dungeons themselves are a bit lackluster though, many of them look exactly the same and the textures used are pretty boring. One weird thing is that some textured walls have holes on them, and for the first time I thought they were just decoration, but you actually can gather items from them by examining them. It would have been a bit more intuitive if they had bothered to indent the walls a little bit or something like that.

I grade on aesthetics instead of straight graphics because I think a game can look nice for itself without pushing the envelope of what a system can do graphically. Lots of games have high end graphics but look like shit, check out any of the shit brown ps3 and 360 titles out to prove that. Mega Man Legends is a bit blocky, but still looks decent. In fact, it's use of style and color makes this game look better today than Goldeneye, Tomb Raider 2, Quake 2 and Final Fantasy VII.

Sound
What's this? Capcom gave a shit about the localization this time? Yes, they did! Holy crap! This game has some of the best voice acting Mega Man games have ever gotten! Rob Smith, the voice of Teisel Bonne, not the guy from The Cure, is absolutely hilarious! Every thing he says is pure gold in this game. The other characters sound great too, the servbots, Tron, even MegaMan sounds better than he has in past games. Roll is a bit high pitched, but not really annoying, she just has some sugary dialog.

The sound effects are pretty nice, giving the explosions and blasts the effects you would expect. The music is nice and mood setting too, and there's even a Metal Man remix thrown in there for good measure. The sound is very enjoyable this time around, and it shows you Capcom can make the effort for their North American audience when they want to.

Design
The basic design of this game is about exploration more than anything else. You enter a dungeon, find various items, take them back to Roll to upgrade your gear, then go back to the dungeons and check out the new areas you have access to. There is a very metroid like feel to this game. While there is a lot of backtracking, it is mostly optional, and you'll probably do it to find parts to create new weapons and buster upgrades. This is a significant portion of the game.

Roll will create a new weapon for MegaMan and upgrade it for you if you pump some Zenny (cash) into it. Unfortunately, this isn't as cool as it sounds. First, you can only carry one special weapon at a time, meaning you need an all around useful weapon, instead of taking anything with situational usage. That means most of the weapons won't ever get used. If you could switch between them at any time they would get a lot more uses.

The dungeons themselves are pretty bland, consisting of a room full of enemies, followed by another room full of enemies. Your strategy for taking them on won't change much either, as there are only a handful of enemies that require more than just shooting them until they explode.

The bosses on the other hand are a blast, and the Bonnes always come up with new interesting ways to face MegaMan. You'll have several David vs. Goliath setups here, taking on gigantic robots, and just about all the fights are spectacular. They are a bit easy though, with only the controls being the challenging part.

The game offers an assortment of side quests and mini games to break up the dungeon crawling, and even offers a primitive dark side / light side meter. Basically, you get a few choices like stopping some bank robbers, or taking their loot for yourself. All this does is make MegaMan's armor turn darker, and you get some of the merchants prices jacked up a bit, but not so much to be noticeable over the light side of choices.

Overall though, it's not a bad starting entry, and Legends 2 does improve the design much better, I just wish it included more Mega Man staples, like choosing where you want to go at any time, or using boss weaknesses and choosing weapons and the like.

Playability
As said before, the biggest problem with this game is the controls. Mega Man Legends does not make use of the Dual Analogs, and to turn by default, you need to use the R1 and L1 buttons. It's as obnoxious as it sounds, and you can alleviate this a bit by setting these buttons to strafing instead. It won't fix it though, as the only way to look up and down is by holding the R2 button, and if an enemy is nearby, it locks on to them. This wouldn't be a problem if the lock on ever worked right, because half the time MegaMan won't be at the right angle to hit them. Worse yet, you can't move while locked on... what the hell?

Most of the combat in this game isn't so tough that the controls will screw you over completely, but they are not fluid at all. There aren't any precision jumps or instant death traps, and this is good because the controls would not work well with them. The controls are what really hold this game back the most. The design is a bit lack luster in areas, but if a game has control problems you'll always notice those first.

Extras

• Pick up a range item for your buster to help out with boss fights. You'll never know when you need that extra distance between you and the boss, and some sections force it on you. Otherwise focus on Attack, and then Energy for more damage and more shots. Rapid isn't too useful, as shots travel faster, but you can't fire more and they don't do more damage.
• The X-buster and Z-saber are in this game as weapons you can use as little extras. The Z-saber kinda sucks, but the X-buster helps make the most powerful weapon in the game.
• Want some extra cash? Kick the can in apple market into the bakery, you'll get 1000 extra zenny each time. After you get further in the game though, farm the wasps nests inside the Cardon Forest sub gate, they drop much more.
• If you get stuck, ask the mayor where to go next.

There's a lot of problems with this game, and to be honest you may not like it. There are a lot humorous cutscenes, and the whole setting is really interesting, but that's not enough to save it for many people, hence why the series is on hold. It's pretty short too, offering about 10 hours if you really take your time, or 35 if you have some sort of mental deficiency. If you know what to do, it's about 2 to 4 hours. Still, I find it enjoyable, and pick it up from time to time. Try it out though, its flaws don't hold it back from being enjoyable.

Playthroughs
Megaman Legends: Everyone Loves The Monkey by Golden315
Megaman Legends: KICK THE FUCKING CAN by Vprisoner
Speedrun by Tom H. Nguyen.