It's finally here! It's time for the Mega Man Mega Spectacular Review Showcase (Guest Starring Menace Beach). You do not need to ask what it is because you know what it is. This is the post where I review Mega Man 2 through 6 alongside a very terrible NES game. I am very happy to finally get to do this because I love these games even the ones that are only pretty good instead of excellent. I am also glad to get to do this because these are the games I remember playing a lot of as a young child, around 5, 6 years old. I remember playing Mega Man 2 and watching like The Good, The Bad and the Huckleberry Hound while waiting for my mom to come home from the hospital with my new baby sister WHO WOULD THEN RUIN MY NINTENDO A FEW YEARS LATER I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN JESSICA I WILL NEVER FORGET. I loved Mega Man so much that I would get into Mega Man X so easily and play Mega Man 7 and even watch the cartoon by our friends at Ruby-Spears.
I also want this to be the best piece in the NES Game Reviews thing because well I turned my back on Mega Man...and Mario...and Zelda and all the popular games to be a bit of a contrarian NES hipster. It didn't last long but I would always try to turn people to play Little Samson or Panic Restaurant or Xexyz or something else by saying those games weren't that great, but they were and they still are. I didn't know people didn't like contrarians. They might have listened if I didn't slag off those games to a small degree. Never said any of them were outright terrible. Strangely enough I got my wish and Little Samson and Panic Restaurant are praised all the time......mostly for being rare by hobgoblins that want to ruin hobbies. (Neither game is that outstandingly rare either. Sorry, you can and will find a copy for less than a fucking car payment if you look hard enough) Xexyz (SORRY FOR SPOILING THE REVIEW PORTNOYD) a very good game still gets told to fuck off because he's not rare. I STILL LOVE YOU XEXYZ!!! Anyway I still feel that I am less lame than the biggest NES Hipster The Wizard from Nintendo Age who slags off the classics for......Conan and X-Men. Thank you for letting me get this off my chest and I will now finally get to the point and discuss five games that range from pretty good to excellent and one that uh is a Wizard game let's put it that way.
First of, I love this box art and think it's almost as wonderfully goofy as the first games. Mega Man didn't get actually good box art until part 3. I love that Quick Man is dancing and having a grand old time avoiding Mega Man's HAND GUN. His hand is the gun!!! And whats up with that damn helmet? I also like that EVIL DR. LIGHT (not Dr. Wily, seriously look at the guy. It's Dr. Light) is hiding behind I think Clash Man yelling at him to kill Mega Man. It's wild. Also they are above lava. This cover art did not keep me from getting a copy of this game. I don't know how but my parents picked it up and I loved it. I played this game a LOT as a kid and here is the MEGA MAN MEMORY for Mega Man 2: My dad had a friend named Gerry or Jerry or whatever. I don't know which variation of the name the man had. I was getting my butthole kicked by Clash Man and he was like STAY UP THERE and I'm like WHERE and he's like the area that was already blocked off my the CLASSIC MEGA MAN DOORS and I probably explaind to him for like 3 minutes how I couldnt do that. I'm not completely sure because this happened thirty six years ago when I was five. Anyway this game is a stone cold classic. An excellent NES game that holds up almost forty years later. This is a top 25 game, maybe even top 10 game. Everything about it is perfect. The graphics, sound, play control, level design, and the music. The music in this game is perfect. I talked about how the first game was kinda meloncholy and that carries over here to some degree too, ESPECIALLY with that ending music. That ending music is weirdly very sad but also kind of triumphant too. Not easy to do. It really was amazing what the people making music for NES/SNES/Genesis games really could do. I love the design of just about every enemy in this game but I think I have to give my favorite to the Dragon in the first Wily stage. He looks so doofy but also trying to be threatening. It's wonderful. I really cannot say anything bad about this game. The gimmick of using different weapons still works great because all of the weapons are fun to use and different enough. You can beat the bosses in so many different ways that causes you to come back to this game. I have beaten this game many times and I am sure I will beat it many times more. A true classic and probably my favorite Mega Man game.
Alright, now we get to box art that looks like the games. You got Rush and Top Man ande Dr. Wily's castle in the background and Mega Man is not going to it. LOOK BEHIND YOU MEGA MAN YOU GOOFUS. Anyway the best part of this cover is how it looks like Mega Man is shooting Spark Man right in his robot penis. Anyway the MEGA MAN MEMORY that is involved with this game is not something I actually remember but it was CAPTURED ON VHS VIDEO for all to see. It was Christmas Day probably in 1990. I had gotten some PANTS and was not pleased. You could totally tell and I just THROW THEM AWAY FROM ME and pick up the next gift which happens to be Mega Man 3.....without a box or manual. I dont know if they threw those out or just somehow got the game cheaper because it was loose from someone else. My parents never did skimp on Christmas so I doubt it was the latter. Anyway this game is another excellent game. I think people will be arguing until the heat death of the universe about which game is better: part 2 or 3. I have to give the edge to part 2 but I totally respect anyone who says this one is the best. The music is still 100% perfect. Every song is great and my favorite has to be Gemini Man. I love that entire level. It's like how the hell do we show off a Gimmick of Gemini so they just make it WEIRD AS FUCK and It's just wonderful. It also has my favorite sprite in this game the KILLER PENGUIN MAKING MACHINE it looks so happy to be trying to kill Mega Man. It's wonderful. All of the graphics and sprites are great though. Iconic, classic, fun goofy robots trying to kill you. The levels are creative with all kinds of unique twists that make returning to this game great. All of the weapons from the Robot Masters are great to use, although Shadow Man's blade is a bit jank and makes you miss Metal Man's weapon. All in all an excellent addition to any NES collectors and by that I mean your Everdrive because starting a NES collection in 2026 is the dumbest idea anyone could do, I will not go further because I will get ranty and I dont want to do that in this post. Anyway to end this off on a good note the addition of Proto Man was a really good one and I like his whistle music. He surprised the hell out of me as a child and I dont think I could ever get past him in the stages you had to fight him in.
So uh, where is Mega Man jumping to on this box art? Did he just have enough of it and just end it? Can a robot even commit suicide? These are deep topics that uh, we should stay away from. Anyway the MEGA MAN MEMORY for this game brings us to the NES Scene and the Early Internet. You know from like the early 1990s to say 2006. The Internet I still pine for to come back somehow. The Internet where you had to sit down and not type on a damn phone to use. The Internet that had LESS PEOPLE ON IT. The Internet where the weirdos were fun and not scary. Anyway enough of that One member of NESescity or however you spell that stupid name for one of the NES forums. The one that lasted the longest. A member named DDCecil was giving away games. I dont know if it was his entire collection or just some doubles but he had a contest and I won Mega Man 4. I was fucking GIDDY getting to win that game because I had only played it a little bit as a kid and a little bit on emulation. It's much more fun to sit in a comfy chair and play games which is why my dumb ass does a lot of emulating games. Mega Man 4 is a little bit of a downgrade from the Mega Man 3 and 4 but honestly If I were making a Tier list I would put it in S-Tier with them. Yeah, people weirdly kinda slag on this one but I think it's kinda underrated, at least as underrated as a Mega Man game can be. The music is still great. I think Toad Man's music is my favorite and I kinda love the stage too. This big smelly sewer were you end up fighting a Toad. His sprite is my favorite in the game where his big fat body starts to jiggle. Just amuses me to no end. A fun time I say! The levels, weapons and bosses are still as good as before except maybe the Shield weapon from Skull Man. It's kinda shit. Still the rest of them are fun to use and all the stages are well designed and have all kinds of hidden stuff in them. I dunno about you but I still really like Mega Man 4, even if the Mega Buster kinda makes the games after this one easier, however I will say that I don't think any Mega Man game is all that hard. They were hard for me when I was like 5-6 but I pretty much easily beat the games once I acquired them as a teenager/adult. The first game with it's extra bit of jank (sorry Damien you know it's got jank in that trank!.... okay that might be the worst attempt at comedy I ever made and I am sorry) is probably the hardest but even then you can beat it. I would say the challenge level of all Mega Man games is fair, it's not DuckTales easy but it's also not Battletoads impossible. This was the first game to add in a second fortress before Dr. Wily and this game did that gimmick probably the best as it had good levels for both fortresses.
I kinda of fucking love this cover. The giant smile on Mega Man's face as he DOESNT EVEN LOOK BACK to shoot Gravity Man. He's totally like "YO BITCH I GOT THINGS TO DO I DON'T GOT TIME FOR THIS FUCKIN SHIT" The memory for THIS game is well we were living in a house with us on the bottom and another family on top. Something about that just kinda depresses me now. I had ingrown toenails removed (yes i'm gross Bratwurst should not eat me) and had to sit on the couch for a week! an entire week! This was around when I found emulation and played through this game and actually beat it while the computer was awkwardly put on the couch so I could play it. That was a weird house and I don't miss it but the memory was really nice and still amuses me. This is an outlier to the FAIR CHALLENGE I just mentioned above. This game gives you so many fucking one ups that any human being could beat it. You could only have one hand and one foot and you could beat Mega Man 5. It's really quite funny honestly. This is where the games kind of step down in quality, not a lot but it's clearly noticeable. The worst thing is that they did the second fortress in part four and felt like they needed to continue that for the next two games so it's made to look like Proto Man had gone bad. Being framed for the crime of kidnapping Dr. Light. The Dr. Wily stages in this game are honestly pretty forgettable. They feel like they just had to be done. Gravity Man is the best stage and and has the best music. The graphics are still pretty great and I do like the addition of Beat. Just watching that little Bird smash his face against Dr. Wily and actually do damage is incredibly amusing. He's my favorite sprite of the game. The game also does two instances of hiding a one up in some blocks and you have to find out how to get in there to get it. I wish they had done a few more of those but with stuff that wasn't one ups because EVERY ENEMY DROPS ONE OF THOSE. The music is still great. I think that's the one thing they worked on the most for these games. I'm not going to say it's as good as 2, 3 or even 4 but it has some really killer tunes within. It's really amazing what they were able to do with chiptunes back then. My only problems is that some of the weapons are kinda not great. I dunno if I'm in love with Wave Man's weapon seeing as you can only use it on the ground and Stone Man's weapon FUCKING SUCKS SHIT. Even if they were running out of ideas in some parts I'd still say Mega Man 5 is a worthwhile game that you should check out.
We finally end our journey of Mega Man reviews and I hope you enjoyed them. I hope I did these games justice and I hope if you somehow read this blog and never played Mega Man before that you give yourself that chance and play them. You will have a great time doing so. This was another game that I knew had to exist (I played Mega Man 7 and it was the first Mega Man game I ever beat) but never did play when it originally came out. I had to wait for emulation. Anyway the MEGA MAN MEMORY involved with this game involves CRAIG a man I know port knows from one interaction and that was enough for him. Craig and I raced through this game once and he beat me soundly so years later when he was being a NUISANCE i had to SPANK HIS BOTTOM and I did. I beat the game while he was like in the first fortress. That's all I really got for MEGA MAN 6 memories, sorry. This game is pretty good but like Mega Man 5 drops a few things and also feels very rushed out to meet the end of the NES. However it's still pretty good as I said. I don't think any of the Mega Man games are bad in any way, it's just the some are clearly better than others. Anyway Mega Man 6 new idea is the change Rush from a cute puppy robot to a machine Mega Man can use. He can blow up shit with his fist which is fun or fly around which is NOT fun. It is a pain in the ass and you will find so many annoying places that you have to use it in. I am NOT a fan of the Rush Flying Armor thing. Beat returns and he still works pretty good against the Final form of Wily (which was the same in parts four and five and even in seven. I think they brought it back for nine and ten. I kinda wish Dr. Wily would do something different!) The graphics are pretty great and I like this Dinosaur Robot the most. he shoots out platformers and you have to beat him with it. The end of this game with the two fortresses are just not great and full of annoying shit. I'm glad they dropped that for Mega Man 7 and just went with one fortress. Mr. X???? GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT SHIT. The weapons are fine but most of them don't feel that different from your regular buster. I think Mega Man 6 might just have better music than Mega Man 5. I don't know how controversial that statement is but I do think it. Would you like a blog series posts called HOT LAKES where I give out my HOT TAKES, Port? Despite my complaints I would say to give Mega Man 6 a whirl. You finally get to actually CAPTURE DR. WILY in it. That's pretty great!
A fun thing that we used to do was RANK the Mega Man games. All six of them. So I am going to rank them here before getting to THE SPECIAL GUEST and believe me he's quite special. First would be part 2, then part 3, then part 4, than part 1, then part 5 and finally ending it off with part 6. each game has some strengths (especially parts 2 and 3) and weaknesses. Even part 2 has that annoying level where you need the crash man bombs to kill the boss. You know it Dr. Wily's fortress. neat idea just not done the best. Anyway, I don't even remember what I would have ranked them in like my NES CONTRARIAN PHASE or even a bit after that but thats how I ranked them after playing all six of them again. Now let's get to the last game because it's one hell of a doozy.
You know how I went on and on well at least a little bit how despite not being GREAT Mega Man 5 and 6 were still perfectly good NES games worthy of being played. Like if you were ask most NES fans to name I dunno the top 230 games (it makes sense when you realize that 800+ games were made worldwide for the ol' NES) that all six games would probably make it on that top 230. That would mean they were probably in the top 20% of NES games and that's a good thing. This game however is not in the top 20%. I do think it might be in the bottom 1%. I think this might be my least favorite game made by Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree/Bunch Games. I mean you can at least get a good laugh at Bible Adventure's existance and the poor children who had to play it as kids because Grandma bought it for them so they could learn about THE RIGHT AND RESPECTFUL TEACHINGS OF JESUS. This game has all of the awful shit that Color Dreams is known for. Levels that just test every bit of your patience and not in an interesting way. awful, awful jumping controls (along with all other controls). I think I would have an easier time somehow going back in time and making sure I never played this game then actually picking up a bomb and throwing it at those fucking sumo wrestlers. Were as say, Mega Man was well thought out and planned out with enemies that made sense and all that this was just barfed up in one Friday afternoon when everyone is just antsy as fuck to just get to go home. The music is not very good but I will give it credit I do like how 1990S-TASTIC that kid on the cover is. The only thing he needs now is a backwards hat and he'd be A COOL CAT. The Wizard would probably try to tell you this game is great and Mega Man is bummy crap but he's somehow still a contrarian at forty five years old. It's not that you can't dislike something popular just give us a good reason you fools! Anyway this game sucks and I hate it. I will thankfully never have to think about Color Dreams again because the one person THE GAMING HISTORIAN on Youtube who would have made a video on them quit. Oh well. Don't look at me to do that video. I barely have enough energy to make these posts!
GOOD GAMES: 185
BAD GAMES: 142
OKAY GAMES: 60
GAMES IMPATIENT: 7
HAVEN'T PLAYED ENOUGH: 3
GAMES OVERALL: 397
