Mega Man

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.

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.

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!

This was the begining of a major video game franchise. Dr.Light makes 8 robots each of which has its own special ability. Then his assistant Dr. Wily reprograms 6 of them, and makes them do evil. Thus one of the 8 robots of Dr. Light Rock becomes Mega Man, whose new duty is to defeat the evil robots, and then defeat Dr. Wily himself. This game was the begining of one of the longest running video game franchises in the world, not to mention one that would have over 20 sequels! This game will go down in history as one of the best ever!

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.