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Editorials   Mega Man: 15th Anniversary Spectacular - The NES Era
- By Francis Bonnet

Mega Man
System: NES
Released: 1987

When Mega Man was first relased for the NES the box actually boasted that the cartridge contained 1 meg of memory. For 1987, that was actually a lot (not that kids actually knew what a meg was). At any rate, the first game in the series was a lot of fun to play. According to the story, mad scientist Dr. Wily stole and reprogrammed the robots built by kindhearted Dr. Light who originally created them to help mankind. After Wily reprogrammed them to be evil, Dr. Light then converted one of his housekeeping robots, Rock, into a super-fighting robot named Mega Man. Mega Man had the ability to steal the weapons of the bosses upon defeating them. This feature was relatively new and fresh for games at this era in video games. Mega Man was a little difficult unless you knew the order in which to beat the six bosses and which weapon to use against them. Just so you know, the U.S. box art for Mega Man was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen and I still have nightmares about it. Grade: B-



Mega Man 2
System: NES
Released: 1988

This is my favorite game in the series and this set the standard for all the Mega Man games to follow, even to date. Capcom brought in eight bosses instead of six, dropped the pointless ability to gain points, and gave us a password feature. Mega Man 2 was actually Ngenres’ Classic Game of the week a while back. If you’re interested in reading the in-depth review, click here. Otherwise, the short version is that this game rocked in both graphics and music (especially music) and the gameplay was amazing. Just try it out and see for yourself! Grade: A+

Mega Man 3
System: NES
Released: 1990

Mega Man 3 is considered by many to be the climax of the NES series. Capcom tried very hard to keep the fun-factor and freshness of part 2 in a whole new package. In fact, upon defeating the 8 new bosses in MM3 you had to re-enter four stages with slightly modified maps and fight the bosses from MM2! Of course, they were in “Doc Robot” form, or in other words, a robot created by Dr. Wily that mimicked the attacks of MM2’s bosses. MM3 also introduced the slide feature, which allowed our blue hero to squeeze through narrow passages and more quickly avoid enemies and their attacks by sliding under or away from them. Although the soundtrack wasn’t as “rockin’” as MM2, it was still very good with many catchy tunes. Grade: A



Mega Man 4
System: NES
Released: 1991

By this time in the Mega Man series, the bosses started getting a little farfetched (Dust Man? Toad Man?). At least the gameplay was up to par with the other games in the series. MM4 was the first game to introduce the Mega Buster – the ability to charge your normal weapon by holding “B” and then releasing a blast of energy. Mega Man 4 had a pretty cool soundtrack, but you could tell that it was lacking when compared to MM2 and MM3. In this game Dr. Cossack, a new mad scientist, decided that he wanted to rule the world so he created eight robots and sent them to attack Mega Man. After defeating the eight bosses and going through Dr. Cossack’s castle you discovered that it was really Dr. Wily behind everything and you got to go through yet another castle. What a surprise! Grade: B+

Mega Man 5
System: NES
Released: 1992

MM5 further continued the Mega Man mythos and this time Mega Man’s brother, Proto Man (first introduced in MM3), has gone crazy and kidnapped Dr. Light. Somehow he gained the knowledge to create eight bosses and send them after Mega Man. As if you didn’t know, after beating the eight bosses and coming face to face with Proto Man, you discover that he’s a fake robot created to look like Proto Man by Wily. So again you face Wily and his skull castle. The graphics in MM5 didn’t change much from MM4, but you could tell the soundtrack lost the quality that it once had. The stages were very creative however, especially Gravity Man’s stage in which you would actually walk on the ceiling! Grade: B-

Mega Man 6
System: NES
Released: 1993

By this time in gaming history, the NES was just about dead. In fact, if it wasn’t for Nintendo we may never have seen Mega Man 6 in the states. Capcom sold the right to publish the game to Nintendo and Nintendo marketed Mega Man 6 with the newly redesigned top-loading NES. However, with the 16-bit war in full swing, the 8-bit NES was all but forgotten. Mega Man 6 featured more of the same quality we all knew but with very little surprises. The music quality was up a notch from MM5, but still far behind the quality of MM2 & 3. Graphically MM6 wasn’t much different than the others, however, a few subtle touches like the sunset background of Tomahawk Man’s stage helped give the game an extra graphical glow. Storywise, not much innovation, Dr. Wily (disguised as Mister X) took control of a robot tournament, reprogrammed the robots, and sent them after Mega Man. Ho hum… Grade: C+



Rockboard
System: Famicom (NES)
Released: 1993 (Japan Only)

From what little I could understand of this game (it’s filled with Japanese text) Rockboard was a game in which you took control of Mega Man characters such as Roll, Dr. Wily and Dr. Cossack and used them in what appeared to be a video board game. You could roll dice and then move around on a giant board. If you’ve played any of the Mario Party games then you know the basic idea. Unfortunately, I can’t give this game a fair review since I don’t read Japanese, but the game seemed to be a fun title. Grade: N/A

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