(Originally posted March, 2016)
(1987, NES)
(Note: The game was played as part of Megaman Legacy Collection for the PC)
Like Street Fighter, Megaman was a game I never even knew existed until its sequel was already lighting up the world. The ‘Blue Bomber’ was all over TV (pea green in the Captain N cartoon) and it seemed like everyone had II, yet the original was somewhat elusive. Of course I found ways to play it over years, but the furthest I could get was the Yellow Devil. A towering, tricky guardian inside Wily Castle, capable of turning an already tough game into a seemingly impossible task only the obsessed could overcome. “I don’t care if I beat six stages already. It doesn’t matter if I memorized how the ice blocks switch around.…THIS is not worth it!”…Thanks to the Yellow Devil being made into a separate, isolated challenge within the Megaman Legacy Collection, I could immediately set off to master his pattern. Not even needing to commit to the actual game to take him on, day by day I panicked less and less as I chipped away at his life meter. Sure, I still died a hundred times, but it’s better than dying a hundred times after having put up a huge fight prior. Managing to keep cool while ingraining into my fingers exactly what to do, after his defeat I finally had the confidence to go out and conquer a game I was always ashamed to have never completed.
There’s a good reason why the series is so popular and synonymous with feel good retro gaming. Spending just a few moments firing bullets and jumping up and down feels as grounding and natural as getting out of the house in the morning and breathing in the fresh air. II catapulted the series by making everything better, yet the essence of what makes Megaman great is definitely present in the original. You’ll get your butt kicked (perhaps a bit more than you’d like) but it’s just so much fun. A couple of the challenges presented feel almost out of place in their difficulty and how they flow with the rest of the game, but are easier than they seem if you look them straight in the eye and resolve to overcome them, a running theme of the series at it’s best. So early in the game, you may not feel ready to cross the flip-platforms over the Grand Canyon-like gap in Guts Man’s stage, but you CAN do it!
The level design is solid but conservative, going not just left to right but up/down while filled with a mixture of security devices and humanoid/animal robot enemies. They’re often generic looking compared to later games, but have the occasional goofy face and are almost always fun blow up to get what’s inside. The gameplay is usually very solid and fair but bugs still lurk, such as when making your way past the hovering, bullet firing ‘footholder’ enemies/platforms. While attempting to hop from one to another over a long chasm or bed of spikes, being hit by a shot midair will sometimes cause you to fall through a footholder you’re directly above. Using the hidden magnet beam upgrade will make these encounters a lot less stressful. Featuring such iconic robot masters as Cutman and Gutsman, the boss fights play more like a fast paced and spontaneous dance between two swift equals than running away from a lumbering giant or navigating bullet waves more typical of action games. Mastering your jump timing and taking out Iceman without getting hit once is super satisfying, as is outsmarting Bombman with all his spastic fakeouts.
The music is very good and uniquely Megamanish (particularly the cheery and cleverly repeating progression of Bomb-Man’s stage), it just doesn’t reach the level of complexity and ecstasy associated with Megaman 2 and several games beyond. Same for the graphics and background design, which are very clean and effective on the NES but lack the degree of charm and variety seen later. The stage select artwork of the robot masters merely uses their standard sprite instead of a unique close-up. Yet even in the less flashy first game, Capcom cleverly integrated seamless patterns onto the sprite tiles and backgrounds to add surprising richness and texture on a system with such limited storage and output.
Even if perhaps a bit too hard and even unfair on occasion, it’s no less fun and rewarding to overcome the great difficulty within the first Megaman, as you can feel the general skill you’ve earned ready to carry over to not just the many sequels but all other games in general. I had so much fun in working through all the enemies and traps that I didn’t even want to use the save states, even with some stages requiring 100+ attempts to finally clear. Lacking just a bit of the color, stage design, personality and accessibility needed to launch it’s sequel to iconic status, the very first Megaman is still immensely stylish and enjoyable. You’ll just need to bring the skills to master the challenges, which have been made more approachable than ever in this latest reissuing.
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