Mega Man 1: A Review

Does everyone remember Mega Man on the NES? This game is infamous for the difficulty in Guts Man stage mainly with the beginning of it and the rest can be beaten just like that. It was also infamous for having the single worst cover for any Mega Man that would ever be created in the past 21 years. It’s hard to believe that it has been around this long. With the upcoming Mega Man 9 game going to be on Wiiware, Xbox Live Arcade, and the PlayStation Network, it would be fitting to take a look back at what started the Mega Man Classic series.

Graphics: For 8-bit, it was pretty impressive. The game was made in 1987 and it was improving even in the 8-bit era.

Story: Nothing too fancy at all and was pretty straightforward as the main plot was to stop Dr. Wily from taking over the world. For story of the time, it was done just to be simple. You didn’t need anything overly complex to get your point across.

Innovation: The one part I thought was different and was unique for the time was taking the robot masters powers and using their strengths against another opponents weakness. Keiji Infaune actually said the idea about it being was inspired by the game Rock, Paper, and Scissors. At the time, this was rather unique and different from other games out during that time.

Game Play: Pretty simple to control and didn’t require anything special. A is your jump button and B is your fire button. Of course, if you are playing this on the GameCube version, reverse that with it B for jump and A for fire.

Challenge: You get your biggest challenge early on if you select Guts Man stage. The mine part at the beginning is perhaps the most difficult section and takes plenty of timing especially if you don’t have the magnet beam. If you can manage the jumps and get that past, the rest of that level will be simple and not have to worry about it again.

In fact, here’s a trivia note about this. Did you know that in the first Mega Man Episode in the Mega Man Animated Series that was created by Ruby Spears actually goes a little bit in depth? If you’ve ever seen the series, you probably will know what I am talking about. There is also the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for any of the previous generation consoles though it does have that plus the two Mega Man Arcade games never before released in North America. Of course, if you want the authentic NES game, you’ll probably have to search through Ebay, Amazon, or if you get lucky a flea market. There is a PSP remake in chibi form called Mega Man Powered Up but there is a significant difference in order for it to seem like a different game.

The main differences is that there are two additional robots being Time Man and Oil Man. If you beat a robot master without using their weakness, you can start a game playing as that robot master. There is even a challenge mode and you can set the difficulty to what you want it to be. You could even play possibly as Proto Man or Roll. It is available on the PSP and is pretty much an enhanced remake.

Final thought on the game is that this is really a good prime example of not judging a book by its cover. In this case, it’s a video game cover but still give this a go if you are a Mega Man fan. However, if you are into this at all or any of the others, I would probably suggest staying away. You have your difficulty and your replay value. No passwords for this but in the Anniversary Collection, it does save automatically so you won’t lose your place in the game.