Mega Man

Game review

The game is a platformer from a sci-fi environment in which you control a blue something. And it is something really cool - Mega Man, also called Rockman in Japan. This guy shoots and jumps and I must say, it's a lot of fun. We have original NES game and also port for DOS. The port of the console game Mega Man (from 1987) to the PC brought a number of changes and most of it for a worse, namely vague story background (Dr. Willy controlled almost all robots in the country and only one uncontrolled robot - Mega Man - has to stand up to robot bosses, Willim himself) and reducing the number of bosses from 8 to 3. Also in the original version of the game, more bonus items (Power-Ups) fell from the killed enemies. Another change in the PC version is a deterioration in graphics and also a worse control system. Due to the above, the PC version of Mega Man did not enjoy the same favor of the players as the console version, which experienced seven sequels on the consoles in the 90s.

The game follows the struggle of the humanoid robot and player-character Mega Man against the mad scientist Dr. Wily and the six "Robot Masters" under his control. Mega Man's nonlinear gameplay lets the player choose the order in which to complete its initial six stages. Each culminates in a boss battle against one of the Robot Masters that awards the player-character a unique weapon. Part of the strategy of the game is that the player must carefully choose the order in which to tackle the stages so that they can earn the weapons that will be most useful for future stages.

Of course, being a 1980’s game and a early NES game, the graphics are rather simplistic, with the character sprites and backgrounds not having very much detail. However, for a game released in the 80’s, they are quite dazzling. Although they’re not very detailed, each level is very colorful and varied in how it looks, fitting each Robot Master nicely in the context of their name and their abilities. To give a good example, Guts Man’s level is basically a construction site, while Ice Man’s level is an island covered completely in ice. Even if they haven’t exactly aged well in some areas when compared to the sequels, the graphics are still very good for a 1987 game.

Mega Man consists of six side-scrolling platform levels freely chosen by the player. In each level, the player-character, Mega Man, fights through various enemies and obstacles before facing a "Robot Master" boss at the level's end. Upon defeating the boss, the player assimilates the Robot Master's signature attack, or "Special Weapon", into Mega Man's arsenal for the rest of the game. Unlike the standard Mega Buster (Rock Buster in Japan), the Robot Master powers have limited ammunition replenished by collecting ammunition cells dropped by defeated enemies at random. Enemies also drop energy cells that replenish Mega Man's health gauge. While the player is free to proceed through the game in any order, each Robot Master is especially vulnerable to a specific weapon, which encourages the player to complete certain stages before others. The player can also revisit cleared levels. Besides the weapons taken from the Robot Masters, the player is able to pick up a platform generator item known as the "Magnet Beam" in Elec Man's stage.

When all six Robot Master stages are completed, the seventh and last stage appears in the middle of the stage select menu. This stage, in which the player traverses Dr. Wily's robot factory, is a chain of four regular stages linked together, each containing at least one new boss. During these final stages, the six Robot Masters must also be fought again in a predetermined order before the final confrontation against Dr. Wily. As Mega Man's ammo is not restored between stages, every action the player takes is consequential.