Mega Man

Yes, called Mega Man in the United States this game would be the first of many titles in this series. Though I wonder why it is called Rockman in Japan, is it because they equate him to a rock somehow or is he rocking cool? Anyways in this game the evil Dr. Wiley has turned his robots evil, robots that were initially used for various construction and such type jobs. You have one who uses fire, a cold one, an electrical one, a bomb expert, one who cuts, and a strong one. As the title character you must progress through these characters deadly levels and defeat each one and gain their powers so that you can infiltrate Dr. Wiley's stronghold and go toe to toe with the evil creator himself. The game was rather fun for its time, though I found a few levels especially annoying, the first time I played it I especially had difficulty facing the first boss in Dr. Wiley's place. A creature that flies into the room a part and you must dodge each part or suffer damage and then when totally together you can shoot him once and he does it again. Granted, on subsequent playings I did not have all that much trouble against him. You also have another headache in this game common in many games of this era, the pit with no end. You know, the bottom of the screen has no floor, you fall in, and you instantly die. It is fun trying to figure out what villains powers can work against the others effectively and for the most part this game is a fun game, though part II is more fun...granted the enemy robots would start getting a tad strange as the series goes on, like Pharaoh man.

Man, talk about a mixed bag. This game was way ahead of its time in some elements, and totally behind in others. Lots of contradicting ideas here and there. Like, the game has this ingenious choose-your-level mechanic, where every boss you beat gives you a new weapon to use in further stages, but then the game makes it so that half of the stages REQUIRE a specific weapon because either the boss is too hard to defeat without its weakness or there's a special, MANDATORY ITEM for game completion that you need an external weapon to collect. Consequently, I think you have what? 2 or 3 out of the otherwise numerous possible stage orders you could take that are actually reasonable. Some bosses have straight up ridiculous patterns, the level design, while good for the most part, has a couple of really annoying sections that revolve around RNG with certain enemies/obstacles, which on one hand motivates you to make the most out of your weapons to clear them, but on the other just reinforces the linearity issue, making you avoid stages that contain said sections until you've acquired the optimal weapons for them.

Regardless of everything, though, I still think there's a lot to like about this game. Sure, in hindsight, it's one of the bumpier Mega Man games, but for an early NES title? This is great. It's got that characteristic charm of the series, a really good (although lackluster for Mega Man standards) OST, mostly fun and creative levels/bosses, awesome Run & Gun action, and at least some amount of replayability thanks to the trial-and-error nature of the game's learning curve. I think it says something about a game's core design when it transcends several generations. You can see every single aspect of this game present in the following entries of the series, all of which getting progressively more refined over the years. While I find some of the creative choices questionable, Mega Man laid the PERFECT groundwork for one of my favorite franchises of all time, and its daring, innovative design can NOT be understated. I will always love replaying this game, despite all of its flaws.

The first Rockman/Mega Man game was definitely a good point for its time, but the term "First Game Syndrome" is appropriate for this title. Weird decisions, absurd difficulty spikes from potential lack of play testing or lack of experience, hit-or-miss weapons, primitive controls, and wonky physics are all present within the first title of this franchise, but it has laid down enough foundation to still be a game worth playing through at least just once. It only lasts 2-3 hours, so it won't take up too much of your time, even if you didn't like it. If you're okay with going out of order, however, you can skip this one, since almost every other Mega Man game does what this game does better.

Mega Man was one of the Nintendo games I grew up. This will remain as one of my favorites. Despite the fact that it was an 8-bit game, the graphics, gameplay, and sound\music were much better than most Nintendo games of that time. I especially love the "de-dit" sound that Mega Man makes every time he lands on the ground!

The game that started it all, Mega Man is one of the NES games that is infamous for being one of the hardest for the console. You take on the role of Mega Man, a helper robot who has been modified into a super fighting robot after six of Dr. Light's robots are stolen and reprogrammed by the evil Dr. Wily to aid him in world domination. Don't let the cutesy character fool you, this game is hard. Each stage has a hazard that can cause instant death if you fail to correctly time your jumps (like Guts Man's moving platforms at the start if his stage, or the floating platforms in Ice Man's stage that are over a bottomless pit). However, the game is easy to play (D-Pad moves Mega Man, A jumps, and B fires his arm cannon or the weapons he can gain by beating the six Robot Masters). Also, the first six stages can be done in any order, with the next four stages being linear. If you are looking for a classic challenge, Mega Man is a must play.