377 replies to this topic

[Haylee]

I approve of the idea. Also, that's a pretty neat list of robot masters. You should totally have an Aquamentus Man *trollface*

 

But seriously, I'm curious to see where this will go.

Aqua Mantus

Wait, shit, that would make him a Maverick.

[Lejes]

If not ZC, then what would you make it with?

[Haylee]

One of the Mega Man Engines on the internet?

 

Either that, or romhacking.

[Aevin]

Friend: Wow! Mega Man's up smash looks really cool!

Me: Yeah, that's SparkMan's weapon!

Friend: Spark Mandrill? You mean the one with the electric shield?

 

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!!!!!! No!

[Haylee]

Enjoy some Hinox Man:

 

Also, Updated the Weakness List:

Redead Man --> Zora Man --> Peahat Man --> Leever Man --> Hinox Man --> Dodongo Man --> Stalfos Man (Possibly to be replaced by Lynel Man.) --> Gohma Woman

[DarkFlameWolf]

Its not entirely mandatory, there is a method to his madness. But I agree it is so vague and ridiculous that it might as well mandatory, but I thought I'd at least illuminate what's going on behind the scenes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDro_pPPwvw&list=PL4Lscasoi2utdgs7vH7LUlJXWuRhfn7E3&index=2

 

So after the Megaman 6 race, I went and played Megaman 4 last night, without save states because why not. In the past, I may have said some things like "4 isn't as good as 1 or 3". I now realize I'm a dirty liar. The atmosphere of the game itself is pretty great (especially the Cossack stages). The lack of respawn points before fortress bosses is annoying, there's some questionable stage design in places, and Bright Man is possibly the worst robot master in the series (seriously, who thought a boss with mandatory damage was a good idea?), but overall, it's a pretty fun game, ranking just behind 5 and 6.

[Haylee]

Currently incomplete, but here's Redead Man.

 

His design is meant to be a mix between the WW (Design Wise) and OOT (Color Wise) Redeads. His mouth is based on the animatronics from Five Nights at Freddy's, I thought it was fitting considering how WW Redeads look.

[The Satellite]

Welp. Tried streaming Megaman 8's demake. Got to the third Wily stage, which is where I called it quits and realized Megaman 8 is a much worse game than I thought before. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, playing games through without save states really helps give you a better feel and opinion on the game. I know this is the demake, but the demake of 7 made it feel so much better, whereas in 8's case... it sorta highlighted tons more problems in the original I didn't realize with the other terrible aspects getting in my way. Some good? Yes. Plenty more bad. Difficulty balancing is practically nonexistent in spots. I just... I dunno. 8 is so painful and painfully poorly-designed, I dunno how I ever thought it could possibly be better than 5 at any point, as much as I've disliked 5. I probably won't ever finish the demake on my own, and I watched a video recording of the last of it instead, so I'll consider 8 a game I might not ever play again. Wish I could say I liked it... but I just can't.

[Haylee]

THIS JUST IN!

 

Got to the Wily stages in Mega Man 6. Beating the first couple Robot Masters is hard, though, after that, they become incredibly easy, since "Lel better shit."

[The Satellite]

So I watched a bit of a longplay of Wily Wars, the Genesis port of the first three games that included a bonus "Wily Tower" mode at the end, then played the 3 part of it myself. Originally it was so atrocious, with sluggish gameplay and slow music that I forced myself to at least finish the eight robot master stages before quitting, after which I went back and played through the entirety of the original 3 as therapy. Then I learned that the sluggishness was mostly due to the fact that it was a European ROM, which for some reason Mega Drives just ran slower than Genesis games, and apparently both the USA and Japanese ROMs are incredibly rare. However, you can select an option in the emulator to make it play as it would on an American system, which sped it up. So I completed it.

 

It's still a shoddy port. I noticed a handful of good things, and by handful I mean I can count them on one hand. Firstly, I actually highly enjoy the graphics of the game. There's an occasional misstep but I think it's a far better style than what 7 or 8 had, not that there was anything wrong with their style. However, if you're gonna make Megaman slightly taller, don't make his bullets obviously shoot out just a little bit lower than the center of his buster. Actually I'm not sure why they made him larger at all, it just made some obstacles that were easy to manage before (jumping between a Met's three-way shot for instance) a little more difficult. Also, knockback isn't as bad and it seems you can control it to an extent, which is nice. And Flash Man's AI in the Doc Robot rematch is much improved so he isn't constantly walking on you, making it aggravating to attack him.

 

But the game still made some changes that were... not appreciated. Some weapons don't fire as quickly, such as your buster, which you can't fire anywhere near as rapidly as in the NES games. Hard Knuckle comes out a little slower, which makes it nearly useless against Crash Man, and Magnet Missile now targets enemy projectiles it didn't before, like Metal Man's blades! I mean, I'm pretty sure it targeted Hammer Joe's hammers in the original, and that was aggravating but that was it; it targeted the spring enemies' missiles but that made sense because you could kill those. But targeting metal blades makes no sense! It even takes a little longer to fire, which is just a tad irritating. At least they fixed the issue where Top Spinning inside an enemy will just eat all the ammo rapidly.

 

The physics don't seem entirely accurate either. I'm not sure what it is, but I think it's just the jump, it doesn't seem as high as it should be. Then there's the music... it's terrible. The remixes are often off-tune and just sound like garbage. I often cringed at how poorly whoever arranged the tracks did their job, it even felt like an assault on my ears at times and a disgrace to the original songs.

 

I probably won't play the other two games in this collection, which means no Wily Tower for me. I know I could probably download a save to start there, but it's not worth it with this engine. I'll just watch how it ends on YouTube.

[The Satellite]

Continuing from that last bit, Wily Tower actually seems quite cool, and the music, being an original composition and not apparently hastily-remixed garbage, didn't sound bad either. Worth playing through the entire original three games to play it? ... no, but it at least seemed fun.

 

Anyway, my biggest accomplishment right now is having decided to, on a whim, attempt to beat Megaman 7 legitimately, without save states, all the way to the end. Achievement done. It actually wasn't that bad, it's only the Wily Capsule I dreaded. Recently I had given Megaman 7 8-bit another crack (and I'm really late in uploading that which I had planned to do), managed to no-damage the Machine and didn't need an e-tank against the Capsule. Comparatively in the SNES version, I almost no-damaged the Machine (still quite easily possible to do in the SNES version) and... needed two E-tanks against the Capsule. Well, an E-tank and an S-tank to refill the coil. Got it first try, but I only managed to dodge twice and it was just a painful experience. Sorta. It's not bad if you have plenty of tanks, but I can't imagine doing it with low items. I'd probably go (even more) insane. Still, that's 1-7 and 9-10 complete without save states, I feel good, like I can do anything!

 

*goes to attempt Megaman 8 without save states*

 

I LIED.

[runa]

I have played through 1-7 and X 1-3 and Rockman & Forte (Megaman & Bass) and Mega Man for Game Gear.

 

I feel like the best one out of all of those what I've played is Rockman & Forte (love the musics in that game!)
With the weakest being Mega Man for the Game Gear, which I literally beat just a minute ago. The biggest problem with it is that you can't see anything surrounding you because of the screen and it's too short and easy. The musics are in my opinion pretty good remixes of the NES versions.

 

Overall, I love the Mega Man series and it's music

[Aevin]

It's refreshing to see someone who really likes Rockman and Forte. I think it's an entry that's really overlooked in the series.

 

The GBA versions of the music have their own unique charm, but on the whole I prefer the SNES Rockman and Forte over the GBA Mega Man and Bass, due to issues with the screen size and field of view in the GBA version being different. Here's what I mean:

 

Rockman and Forte vs Mega Man and Bass.

 

To me, it feels like the screen size in MM&B is so restricted you can't see anything, making a challenging game into a nightmare while limiting the scope of the scenery.

[Aevin]

I recently finished playing through all five of the game boy Mega Man games. I had played and loved MMV as a kid, but never played through all of them until now. There's some great games in here, and I think they're overlooked by many fans of the series. I figured I'd write mini-reviews for each of them. So ... here you go!

 

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge

No, not the Zelda Classic quest! This was the first of the Game Boy Mega Man games, and it really shows it. The game had extremely simple level graphics, and a very small cast of enemies. Given the limitations they were working with, I was impressed at the way they were able to pull out a cohesive game, and the music is pretty nice. Like all of the first four GB games, this features 4 robot masters from one NES game, and 4 from a later game. In this case, you have 4 from Mega Man, and 4 from Mega Man 2. The stage musics fairly faithfully recreate the NES tunes and are pleasant to listen to, but the limitations are pretty clear. There were a lot of really tough situations arising from weird physics or other Game Boy limitations, making the game feel a little unfair. While I respect what they were able to do, I'd say this one is better as a piece of history for die hard fans rather than a great game.

 

Mega Man II

This one's a considerable improvement over the first game, with longer stages that feel a lot more complete, fair and satisfying on the whole. However, the issues from the first game aren't completely resolved, and there's a lot of lingering unfairness. Some of the stage design also feels pretty bland, and robot masters, much like in the first game, felt like they had strange AI and sometimes just jumped or ran on top of you with no way to evade in the tiny boss rooms. Unlike most games in the series, this game opted to have original music instead of ports of NES music, and ...  The sound is the worst part of this game. It's awful. To be fair, the songs themselves aren't bad, but the music programming reduces them to a shrill, jumbled mess. On the whole, this one's pretty average. It successfully builds on the first game, but still isn't a great game.

 

Mega Man III

Now this is what I'm talking about! This game continues the trend of taking NES levels and bosses, but it does it so much better than the previous entries. Most of the music is very faithful GB ports of the NES music, and they sound great! Stage aesthetics no longer have that simplistic, empty feel of the first two games. They capture the aesthetics of the NES stages very well, and look great in black and white. Mega Man now has a charged buster and a slide move (introduced in MMII), which really opens up possibilities for level design. This feels like a complete game with well-conceived stages and fewer unfair obstacles. My biggest issue here is that all of the stages stick a little too closely to their NES counterparts, making it feel like there's not many original ideas here. But if you're looking for a portable game that neatly captures the look and feel of Mega Man 3 and 4 on NES, this game succeeds very well at that. Another issue here is with the Wily stage, which is long and challenging, with a boss in the middle and a 2-phase boss at the end with no break. Ouch!

 

Mega Man IV

Like the others, this game builds on what came before it, making big improvements and adding new features.  Like MMIII, this one has great looking, detailed stages with faithful recreations of the music from the NES source games. The bosses feel diverse and fairly challenging, some of them requiring a great deal of strategy even if you have their weakness. Stages now have some hidden compartments with powerups in them ... but oddly, the most unique "secret" items are hidden in plain view. Some of the stages, most notably Nitro Man's and Crystal Man's, have some weird surprises that may seem unfair, but using the right items can really mitigate the difficulty. An item shop has also been added, but the items for sale feel pretty uninteresting. Another welcome addition is in-game story cutscenes. The story is very simple, but the scenes are remarkably well done and have a great impact. This game took me longer than the previous games to beat, and all the stages, especially the Wily stages, felt much meatier, resulting in a far more satisfying experience overall.

 

Mega Man V

I may have some nostalgia glasses on for this one, but in my mind it's unquestionably the best of all the GB Mega Man games. It takes everything from the games before it and improves on them, incorporating the best of the old with a bunch of new stuff. For starters, this is the only game in the GB series that has brand new stages and robot masters. No more ports of NES stages, bosses and music. It's all new, here. Mega Man must face the Star Droids, strange robots from outer space. To combat them, he even has a new weapon to replace his charged Mega Buster -- he fires his fist at enemies, and with upgrades it can strike them repeatedly and retrieve distant items. Compared to the challenges of the previous games, I found this one pretty easy, but it could be that since I've played this before, I knew the stages well enough to get through without much trouble. But for more casual players, there's also a sort of easy mode in the form of buster upgrades that increase the charge and shot speed of your weapon, given after multiple game overs on the same stage. The items in the shop this time around are far more rewarding, and the hidden items in the latter 4 stages are tucked away in places that feel more challenging and interesting to search for. The music, stage design and bosses are all great, with the game feeling much more fair than previous entries, too. MMV retains the great cutscenes from MMIV, with a more interesting story as well. I could gush about this one for much too long, but this is a fantastic overlooked Mega Man game that in my mind, deserves to be judged alongside many of the NES titles. I definitely recommend it for any fan of the series.

 

Most people would agree that the NES Mega Man games have a lot of ups and downs, and which games are the best are always up for debate. But in my personal opinion, the GB games follow a clear progression, with every single game improving on the previous one. I think the last 3 games are all worth playing, but if you want only the best ones, I highly recommend MMIV and MMV. I had a blast playing these, and I hope some of you will give them a shot.

[DarkFlameWolf]

Megaman Zero series, full stop. My favorites? Zero 2 and 4. But what about 1 and 3 you ask? 1 had that early installment weirdness that marred it from being something grand, and 3 seemed a bit 'too' safe with its mechanics and implementation, leading to some boring levels or sections. Zero 4 switched things up a bit and took some risks despite sticking to the formula Zero 2 laid down.