Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. And welcome dear reader to the first instalment of Mega May. All this month we’ll be looking back at one of the most iconic franchises to ever come out of the great grey box. While Mario, Link, Samus, and other classic mascots saw their rise on the NES, one certain character saw massive success, and would become the cash cow for Capcom. That would be the Blue Bomber himself, Mega Man. And with over a quarter century under his blue belt, it’s time to look back at his first four outings. And what better spot to begin than with the one that started it all? Let’s look at Mega Man 1.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1987
PUBLISHER: Capcom
GENRE: Action platformer
Capcom was one of the first companies to work with the NES during it’s initial debut. Throughout their early days, their main exports to the console were ports of their hit arcade games such as Ghosts and Goblins, 1942, Commando, and Section Z. Capcom was ready to move on to more console style platformers that were becoming a huge hit for the Famicom and NES at the time. They would hire several young talents, including artist Keiji Inafune to work on a game that would soon be known as Rockman.
While many of the game’s elements were unique for the time, the heads at Capcom believed it wouldn’t sell, so Rockman was given a limited release. The game proves to be a major hit in Japan. So much of a hit, that Capcom takes the leap to bring it to North America. And in late 87, the blue bomber makes his way stateside under the new name of Mega Man… to a very lacking debut. But in the end, still manages to sell quite well.
COVER STORY
Yep, if ever there was a cover to talk about on the NES, this is definitely it. Mega Man’s now iconic cover is considered by many as not just one of the worst box arts for the console, but of all time. Instead of a young hero with an arm cannon, we get some haggard looking old guy in an ugly yellow and blue jump shoot holding a generic gun, among a very weird and bland setting. It’s just a mess. But why?
The president of Capcom in the US, in a rush for a cover box for the game, told their marketing department that they needed a new cover literally within the next day. A guy in marketing would have a friend of his to work on the cover in a mere span of six hours, without really any information, or emphasis on what Mega Man was really about. This is just one of the main reasons that the game started so slow in earning a fanbase. If the box is bad, you might not be so willing to see what you’re getting with the game. And in this case it was a good game being stifled by a very poor art direction. But if you think that’s bad enough, look at what the PAL box ended up looking like.
Look at this piece of beauty. Everything looks so close to the characters of the game, there’s action, the art is realistic, and gives you the sense that these characters could exist. This is an eye candy box art. It’s an absolute travesty that we didn’t get anything close to the awesomeness of this box.
But the legacy of MM1’s bad box art would still prove to have lasting power of its own. Mega Man 9 and 10 would be accompanied with mock box arts in similar veins to the first Mega Man box. The scrapped Mega Man Universe game was set to feature Bad Box Art Mega Man as a playable character. And most recently Street Fighter X Tekken would have our crude cover boy as a PS3 exclusive playable fighter. So, it’s good to see that for as awful as it was, it has become a memorable piece of gaming history.
STORY
Sometime in the year of 200x (man, what a year that was) in the land of Monsteropolis, a humanoid robot named Mega Man is created by the brilliant Dr. Light (or Wright in the original game) and Dr. Wily. With the successful creation, Dr. Light creates six more robots with the purpose of helping the world with the likes of logging, demolition, and and construction. But Dr. Wily, jealous of the success of Dr. Light reprograms the robots to do his evil biddings in a plan to take over the world. With no other options left, Dr. Light sends Mega Man to put a stop to Wily’s scheme, and save the world.
MEGA MEMORIES FROM CM WATERS
As a favor to a good friend of mine, I have invited CM Waters to share his thoughts on these classic titles. You can check some of Chris’ work over on his Watersfall Industries blog. Without further ado, here’s CM Waters with his memories of Mega Man 1.
“It’s amazing to think that a game developed only by 6 people, and upon its release in the western part of the world, could become one of the most cherished series of all times. But such is the case with the original Mega Man. Now, I do have to confess that I did not get to play the original three Mega Man titles until much later in my life, first via ROMs before I eventually got my hands on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. In fact, I didn’t even know about the Mega Man series until I read about it in the NES Game Atlas (anyone remember that?), and by the time I was able to rent games on a regular basis, the first three titles were no longer available. But I’ll get back to that later. However, just because I don’t have the same nostalgic feel to the games as some of you may, doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed my time with them.
And that includes this first installment, which some people do not like for the reason of its difficulty. Yeah, I guess I can see where people would get that (Yellow Devil and the Gutsman platforms…but I’m sure Ray will get more into those later on), but frankly I think it was a fair difficulty. It didn’t bash you over the head like a game like Contra would, and once you got the hang of things it can become a pretty fun game, especially if you know certain tricks.
While Raymond will probably go more into depth about gameplay mechanics and his recommendation about this game or not, I will say this: if you’ve only played the original Mega Man and put it down because you deemed it too hard compared to the other games of the series: give it another try. Once you get the hang of it, you might find that you enjoy it.
…then again I may be a bit biased since one of my favorite games of the Mega Man series, Mega Man: Powered Up, was inspired by this game. But that’s not an NES title, so we’ll drop it and turn it over to Mr. Gallant here for his words of wisdom.”
GAMEPLAY
Mega Man is a one player action platformer. You control Mega Man, who has to go from world to world defeating robot masters until you make it to the main villain himself, the evil Dr. Wily. To control Mega Man is quite simple. The D-Pad will move Mega Man left and right, and up and down when on ladders. The A button will have Mega Man jump. while the B button will fire your weapon.
The emphasis on the game, as mentioned before is beating the six robot masters before you can finish off Wily in his castle. However, the main gimmick of this game that separated it from most others was that the choice of levels was completely up to you. You could choose what order to go through each level, and what order you feel like playing the game. This gives massive replay value to this game as you can learn which order to take will lead to the best success.
Each level is a straightforward platforming level, filled with robots to kill, platforms to jump, spikes to avoid, and many other little quirks that will test your mettle as a gamer. At the end of each of the levels will have a room which contains a robot master to fight. These robot masters vary in terms of abilities and strengths. The roster for this game are:
CUT MAN: An orange and white robot with scissors in his head. He uses the scissors as a boomerang which will cut down Mega Man’s power if he gets hit with them. He’s generally one of the easier robots to face in this game.
GUTS MAN: this hulking construction robot is the biggest of the game. Every jump causes debilitating quakes which will keep Mega Man grounded, giving Guts Man perfect timing to grab a falling bounder and chuck it at Mega Man. He can be one of the tougher fights.
ELEC MAN: This electrically charged robot uses his shocking powers to cause waves of electricity at Mega Man. He’s not one of the harder enemies, but with a tricky enough level getting to him, you can find he can be a shocker to deal with when you do go one on one against him.
ICE MAN: This Eskimo-looking robot resides in the resident ice world of the game. He shoots ice blasts in threes that can be tricky to dodge. He’s more intermediate in difficulty, but can still be a tricky fight.
BOMB MAN: This more portly robot is a master of demolition. While he himself can cause big time damage if you get hit by him, his major hazard is his bombs. When thrown, they take a couple seconds before they detonate, which gives you time to escape, because getting hit by one can do serious damage.
FIRE MAN: This hothead lives in, as you would obviously expect, the fire level of the game. If you can survive through all of the lava, fire jets, and dropping living fireballs, the battle with Fire Man can be the toughest in the game. He shoots what feels like a never ending barrage of fire blasts, which can feel next to impossible to dodge at times. He’s definitely the toughest in the game (at least to me).
The major gimmick of Mega Man is that by defeating a robot master, you will gain their weapon to use for the rest of the game. This works into the Jan Ken Pon style of the game’s other major gimmick. Each robot mater has a specific weakness to one of the other’s weapons, and is stronger to others. For example, Elec Man’s weapon will defeat Ice Man easier, while Fire Man’s would be far less likely to defeat him. Learning the specific weaknesses is the key to victory in the game.
Another weapon you find in the game is the Magnet Beam. This weapon doesn’t hurt enemies, but instead will create platforms that you can walk on for a short period of time. This comes in handy with some of the games’ more tricky areas by the end. Every weapon has its own energy bar that depletes over time with the use of the weapon. They can be replenished with blue items you find through the levels. There’s a point system, but it really doesn’t matter since getting a high score is a severe non factor to this game.
After you defeat all six robot masters, you will go to Dr. Wily’s castle, which will be comprised mainly of many of the hazards you faced off with in the other levels of the game. You’ll face several new bosses, including giant yellow robot, and a battle with a clone of yourself. Not to mention rematches with all six robot masters before the final showdown (for this game at least) with Dr. Wily.
The game is notoriously hard, one of the harder in the series. You can take damage easily from a lot of hazards, not to mention that even with a short period of invincibility after taking damage, if you fall on spikes, it’s an instant kill. Something that would be remedied in later games. You do have unlimited continues, but no passwords. Other than that, the game controls well, and there is little to no major hit detection issues.
POWER TIP
Here’s one of the more infamous ways to cheat in the game. When you gain Elec Man’s weapon, when you blast it at an enemy, hit select (the game’s pause button) multiple times. Each unpause will have the weapon do more damage to your opponent. This can be extremely useful in the very difficult boss fight with the giant yellow devil robot.
GRAPHICS
The game’s graphics are excellent. Levels are designed well, and all of the character sprites are very dynamic and original considering the 8 bit limitations. The artwork of Inafune is used to its absolute best in this game. And while not as good looking as later instalments, it still manages to shine above most games released at that time.
MUSIC
This game, like all Mega Man games for the time has an amazing 8 bit soundtrack, though in my opinion, it’s far from the strongest of the series. That’s not to say the songs within aren’t memorable and awesome. It’s just that it’s just a minor taste of the magic that was to come from this franchise.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Mega Man is a classic title. Great level design. A perfect difficulty that isn’t insanely hard, but no cakewalk. Solid graphics, and an excellent soundtrack. It is easily one of the best games on the NES. Though personally, in terms of its importance to me when ranking it with the other six Mega Man games, I’d say this one is my third favorite in the series. It’s a classic, and excellent like I said, but it still feels like a game that was just shaping the foundation of what’s to come, and what was to come was definitely worth waiting for. If you can find it, pick it up. This Mega Debut is one you won’t want to miss out on.
Since rating them seems pointless, since all six are definite thumbs up, I will rank them in place of how I enjoy them.
RANKING: 3rd