Blueflower's Gaming Blog and Reviews

[Maelstrom]

Nice review.
Random compliment to tell you someone read it and enjoyed it.

[blueflower999]

Nice review.
Random compliment to tell you someone read it and enjoyed it.

Why thank you. That's very nice because often I wonder if anyone reads them. 

[mikey]

good review, but comparing everything to megaman made it hard to digest

[blueflower999]

good review, but comparing everything to megaman made it hard to digest

If you played Mega Man as much as I do then you'd see why. The comparisons are incredibly easy to make and it's what my mind kept jumping to the entire game.

Sorry if that made the review unfocused or hard to follow, but I've reviewed like four Mega Man games in the past so the formula has been discussed here before

[mikey]

I've just never played megaman so saying something is like megaman is meaningless

[SlowPokemon]

It's not meaningless, don't post something so rude??

I really enjoyed your review even though I've only played a very minimal amount of Mega Man before, and your review made me want to play Shovel Knight.

[Sebastian]

Awesome review! I need to play Shovel Knight now

[blueflower999]

Mega Man 7:

I'm skipping 3, 4, 5, and 6. Why? Because I want to. And this one holds a special place in my heart.

Years ago, before I even played a Mega Man game, I watched Brentalfloss's great video "Mega Man 2 With Lyrics," in which he adds lyrics to the famous music from the first two Wily stages of that game. One of the lines he says is

"3 was good and 4 was pretty good
and 5 and 6 were okay
but 7 sucked big dinosaur balls"

For years therefore, I had the impression that the retro, 8-bit Mega Man games were the only good ones, and 7 and 8 were these freak misfits that I didn't really want to touch.

Fast forward then to me playing 1-6 (and 9-10) and craving more, so I order the Mega Man Anniversary Collection online for the Gamecube, which includes Mega Man 1-8 and two arcade fighting games. I played through the first six games and then started up Mega Man 7. And boy, was I in for a shock.

Gameplay: 9/10 After six NES installments, I'm sure fans were excited to see how Mega Man would transfer over to the Super Nintendo. Actually, they had already seen it in Mega Man X, but how would the classic series fare? Well, in my opinion at least, quite well! Mega Man's sprite is a bit bigger in this game, and thus so is his hitbox, but the stages are designed around it and it doesn't feel like a problem. The slide and the charge also return from the previous games that implemented them, and the charge shot is similar to how it behaved in Mega Man 6. In addition, through exploring various optional hidden secrets in the game's Robot Master stages, Mega Man can acquire a Super Adapter (which is like a combination of Rush Jet Adapter and Rush Power Adapter from Mega Man 6), Beat, Proto Man's shield, Rush Jet, Rush Search (which finds hidden items in stages for you), and some other cool stuff. Mega Man 7 introduces a bolt currency system as well that could continue into Mega Man 8, 9, and 10. Enemies can now, in addition to occasionally dropping small and large weapon or life energies, can also drop small and large bolts. Bolts can be exchanged at a shop for E Tanks, extra lives, and other useful items. It's a nice system that works well in the game, and although the shop is relatively annoying to navigate and use, it would be perfected in later installments. (And by later installments, I of course mean Mega Man 9. Mega Man 8's shop sucked.)

And now we get to my favorite part: the stages. Mega Man 7 is the first Mega Man game that I'm aware of in the classic series (we're not talking about X!) to include an intro stage. It has awesome music and two neat little mini-bosses, and lets the player figure out the controls pretty nicely. It's nowhere near as cool as Mega Man X's or 8's intro stages, but I like the music a bit better. After that, we're taken to a stage select screen with our usual... wait, there are only four Robot Masters in this game?! What a rip off! Freeze Man is the obligatory ice level, Cloud Man's level is reminiscent of Air Man's stage from Mega Man 2 with some weather gimmicks thrown in, Burst Man's level is really neat with lots of water mechanics and disappearing blocks, and Junk Man's stage is an abandoned factory. After beaten them, another stage opens where you enter a Robot Museum, whose music remixes the themes of Guts Man, Heat Man, and Snake Man. Awesome! You then fight a boss, beat it, and then... four more Robot Masters on the stage select! Heck yeah! I don't really mind the four and four design (Mega Man 8 did it too, whereas 9 and 10 went back to giving you 8 choices from the start), but it does kinda chop the game into two halves. The second half is significantly weaker than the first imo, but still has its moments. Slash Man's stage is a dinosaur forest with one of the hardest Robot Master fights in Mega Man history. Shade Man's stage is really neat too: it's the first time the series tries for a horror level with haunted-house type themes, and it works really well. Spring Man's stage and Turbo Man's stage are both kind of lame though, and I don't really have much to say about either other than that they're not particularly fun to play and are just kind of annoying.

All in all though, it certainly feels very much like a Mega Man game. There are four Wily stages at the end, each having at least one and sometimes two bosses in them, all leading up to the usual boss rush and final encounter with Wily. It's not new, but it's solid and well-done.
Addictiveness: 8/10 All ten classic Mega Man games have incredibly high replay value because they're so much fun to pop in and play through again trying out different things, and Mega Man 7 is no exception. It's a true game in the series in that sense. It was fun the first time, but it's honestly even more addicting each time you play through it.

Story: 4/10 Because I haven't covered them yet, I'll talk briefly about the stories of Mega Man 3-6 before I talk about 7. If you don't want to be spoiled for an incredibly lame story-arch (i.e., Bowser kidnaps Peach kind of lame), then don't read ahead. All four of those games try to pull the "The villain isn't Wily! Surprise, the villain is Wily!" twist. Even Mega Man 9 and 10 do this. Mega Man 7 is a breath of fresh air because it's very clear right from the start that Wily is the villain, and it doesn't feel like it's trying too hard to be clever. Wily's actually arrested at the end of Mega Man 6, and I'm sure many fans back then thought that would be the end of it. Lolnope, he programmed some robots to automatically wake up if he didn't contact them for a while, so that activates Freeze Man, Junk Man, Burst Man, and Cloud Man. They go and break him out of prison, and then he sets Spring Man, Slash Man, Turbo Man, and Shade Man loose as well. Along the way, Mega Man meets a similar robot named Bass (Named after the instrument or the clef, not the fish) and his canine companion Treble. At first they pretend to be friends, but later Bass reveals that he's working for Dr. Wily and steals a super-adapter part from Dr. Light's lab. That's about the full extent of the plot, everything else carries over. Mega Man beats the 8 Robot Masters, storms the Wily Castle, beats Bass twice, beats the 8 Robot Masters again, and beats Wily's machines.

Music: 10/10 One of the best soundtracks in Mega Man history. There's only one weak track, and it's Turbo Man's theme. Spring Man's theme takes some getting used to, but it's not bad. Turbo Man's theme is just really annoying. On the positive side, Mega Man 7 has hands down the best Wily stage music in the entire series (Wily Stage 4 is my favorite Wily stage theme in the entire series), as well as one of my favorite boss battle themes and my favorite stage select screen. It's some really good stuff.

Intro Stage

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Junk Man's Theme

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Freeze Man's Theme

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Burst Man's Theme

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Cloud Man's Theme

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Stage Select

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Boss Battle

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Slash Man's Theme

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Spring Man's Theme

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*sigh*, Turbo Man's Theme

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Shade Man's Theme

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Wily Stage 1

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Wily Stage 3

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Wily Stage 4

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Character Design: 9/10 Ah, now I finally get to talk about the characters. Dr. Light, Mega Man, Roll, Eddie, and Dr. Wily (or "Dr. Willy" as it's humorously misspelled in the opening cutscene) all return from previous games, and are all as awesome as ever. Dr. Light's new robot, Auto, also operates the shop, and he's pretty cool. Bass and Treble (Hey Bass!), as discussed above, are great too. But, of course, my favorite characters are always the Robot Masters. And, unfortunately, we have two stinkers mixed in with six of the best RMs in the entire series. Cloud Man is certainly a good electric themed Robot Master, and while he takes a few things from Air Man on his stage, his theme is great, his weapon is useful, and he manages to be a great RM in his own right. Burst Man is sort of an interesting spin on Bubble Man, combining his aquatic properties with a non-aquatic battle, a bomb-type weapon, and one of the most interesting RM boss fights in the series. Burst Man is great. Slash Man is one of the most epic RM designs in the entire series. Everyone loves Shadow Man and Metal Man, and while they're both great, I love Slash Man. He's like Wolverine with Super Saiyan hair. As a robot. Everything about him is great. Shade Man, as explained above, was the series's first venture into having a horror-themed RM, and it works really well. Finally, Junk Man is my favorite Robot Master in the game. He's huge, he's an easy RM to learn how to fight but a tough one to master fighting. His weapon is a shield weapon that doesn't suck, his theme is my favorite song in the game, and he's just all-around really likable to me.

Unfortunately, two of the RMs aren't so great. Spring Man, while I don't hate him as much as everyone else does, is indeed lazy and a bit forgettable. His weapon is a bit unwieldy, his stage and theme, while not bad, are a bit lackluster, and his boss fight is kind of boring. Turbo Man, on the other hand, is unforgivable in my opinion. A lot of people really like him, and that's fine, but I don't see what's to like. His stage is one of the most irritating in the game, including force beams straight out of Quick Man's stage, his boss fight is really annoying, his weapon is useless, his theme grates on my ears, and I just don't like him. At all. He's definitely in my bottom five RMs.

Humor: 4/10 The game takes a few instances to crack jokes. Within the first thirty seconds, Auto does something that's sort of a tongue-in-cheek moment that's kind of funny. Something that Freeze Man does, that I'll explain later, is pretty great too.

Difficulty: 9/10 This game would be ranked as one of the easier Mega Man games if it weren't for one thing. The stages, except for Turbo Man's sometimes, are all fairly easy if you know what you're doing. Burst Man's boss fight can be really irritating for a newcomer, as can Freeze Man's, and don't even try to beat Slash Man without his weakness. The Wily stages, while difficult, aren't very bad if you collect bolts throughout the game and spend them on E Tanks to use.

The one thing that kills this game is the final boss battle. It's probably the one thing that's preventing this from being my favorite classic Mega Man. The battle with the Wily Machine is long, tedious, and while not overly difficult, really annoying. The battle with the Wily Capsule, on the other hand, is long, tedious, overly difficult, and really annoying. You need to have four-five E Tanks, at least one weapon energy W Tank, and a whole lot of patience and luck. Wily spams almost unavoidable attacks, his weakness is the Wild Coil (Spring Man's unwieldy weapon of choice), and his attacks do tons of damage. The fight takes a long time and it's a total pain. Once you've learned a little bit of how to handle it, it's not horrible if you have full E Tanks, but why would you make a player grind for those on the last stage? The creators of the game literally said "let's make the final boss as hard as we can."

Other Memorable Features: There are lots of really small and cool secrets and hidden things in this game. Using the Rush Search item in a certain area will have him dig up a Nintendo Gameboy. A certain password allows access to a 2 player fighting mode, where you can play as either Mega Man or Bass. If you use Freeze Man's weapon on Freeze Man, the music stops, the game freezes, he looks at the camera, strikes a pose as if to say "really? you did that?", and then recovers some health. It's honestly funny enough to do it at least once per playthrough. I also really like the little jingle that plays before going into a Wily stage on the map screen. It sounds so much more intimidating than in the other games. If you hold B while selecting Shade Man's theme, it plays a really nice 16-bit remix of the Ghosts 'n' Goblins theme on the stage. It's touches like these that make Mega Man so much fun.

Overall: 9.5/10 Despite a few flaws, the real gold in the game shines through. I can look past Turbo Man and the final boss battle to see everything else that's so wonderful about Mega Man 7. I would recommend this one to someone as their first Mega Man game. It's the second best Super Nintendo game I've played, behind only EarthBound.

[Maelstrom]

"and Dr. Willy (or "Dr. Willy" as it's humorously misspelled in the opening cutscene)"

Great review, btw.

[SlowPokemon]

Really enjoyed this one--it's that good even among Mega Man, huh?

[blueflower999]

Kind of like Apollo Justice, it's one of the games in the series that a lot of people seem to hate on because it's different from the previous titles. It's just really good though, not sure what the problems are.

[blueflower999]

Top 10 Mega Man Robot Masters:

I'm in a really Mega Man-y sort of mood recently. If my incessant talking about it didn't tip you off, then my avatar or my recent raving about Mega Man 7 probably did. I'm saving my 50th review for a special little game, so what to do until then to blow off some Mega Man steam? Ah, I can do a countdown! Perfect!

Today I'll be counting down my Top 10 Favorite Robot Masters from the classic Mega Man franchise. This means no X, no Zero, and no Battle Network. Just the original Mega Man in all his sidescrolling glory. A few rules before we start though:

Games that could potentially be included:
Robot Masters from Mega Man 1 through 10, Mega Man and Bass, the Mega Man Killers in the Gameboy games, and the Stardroids from Mega Man V.

Games that will not be included include the Genesis Unit from Mega Man: The Wily Wars, Time Man or Oil Man from Mega Man: Powered Up, or main characters like Roll, Proto Man, Bass, and Mega Man himself. I also won't include Metal Man on this list because I don't like him too much. I'm also not putting Splash Woman on this list because this is not an equal opportunity listing I don't like her enough either. Sorry!

In order for a Robot Master to stick out to me as particularly good, it must excel in one or more of the following areas: design, fight, weapon, stage, and theme. This list isn't final, but it's pretty close. It might alter a bit in the years to come, but shouldn't too much. Narrowing this down to just ten was really, really hard. I honestly felt like I was picking from my own children. But, regardless, here I go!

#10

Cold Man


First up on this list is King Number 002, Cold Man, from Mega Man and Bass. Cold Man was originally created by Dr. Light to store dinosaur DNA at low temperatures to prevent it from decaying. In the events of Mega Man and Bass, King modifies him to be a combat robot.

To be honest, picking the lower members of this list was a lot harder than picking the higher members, mostly because I've had the higher ones picked out for a long time in my head. So, what is it about Cold Man that I like?

First of all, his design amuses me. It took Capcom a long time, but they finally came up with the most ridiculous ice-typed Robot Master design possible. They had an Eskimo (Ice Man), a ball of snow on skis (Blizzard Man), and a giant ice golem (I'm Fwost Man). But a refrigerator? I just love it, it's the kind of ridiculousness that I expect from Mega Man without being annoying and stupid. His fight is fun enough, if a bit tedious. Ask anyone who's played Mega Man and Bass what the biggest flaw with it is, and they'll say the difficulty. Every RM in the game except for Cold Man is ridiculously annoying to fight, and you either need to practice a lot or have their weakness (or both) to be able to stand a chance against them. Cold Man is the only one who's both fair and not too challenging. His stage is reminiscent of Frost Man's from Mega Man 8, minus the annoying parts (jump, jump!). His weapon, as well, is fine. It's called the Ice Wall, and it essentially creates a wall of ice that you can push around into things and even use as a temporary platform. It's great if you're playing through the game as Mega Man because it can help you get into certain areas that Bass can.

However, what I like the most about Cold Man is the music that plays on his stage. It's not my favorite song in Mega Man and Bass (the game's strongest point is its soundtrack), but it's really very relaxing and pretty, almost a bit sad. Give it a listen!

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#9

Tornado Man


At #9 we have Dr. Light Number 066, Tornado Man, from Mega Man 9. Tornado Man was created by Dr. Light to control weather at a regulation facility.

As many of you may know, Mega Man 9 is my favorite game in the classic series. This list isn't going to be flooded with Mega Man 9 RMs, but it will receive its proper representation. Tornado Man is one of the best the game offers in numerous regards. Although he looks a bit like Gyro Man, I like Tornado Man's design quite a bit more. Mega Man 9's designs really pop out because of their strong, bright colors.

Tornado Man's weapon is perhaps his only weak attribute. While far from terrible, it's essentially a screen-nuke weapon that's similar to Toad Man's Rain Flush or Astro Man's Astro Crush. It's been done before, and while Tornado Man's Tornado Blow has the added bonus of giving you a jumping boost, it's one of Mega Man 9's not-so-memorable weapons. Far from terrible, but not stellar.

His fight is fun. Tornado Man will constantly fly around into different locations and summon little tornadoes that come up from the ground. You need to jump high and dodge them quickly without going too high to hit the spikes on the ceiling, all while trying to aim your shots at Tornado Man.

In my opinion though, Tornado Man's stage and theme are his best attributes. His stage is a weather stage that's similar to Cloud Man's or Wire Sponge's from Mega Man X2, but it does the job fantastically well. Rather than having changing weather, the stage goes through different sections with different themes, and it builds on itself. The opening segment features rotating platforms, spikes, and pits in clear weather. Then there are a few screens of simple platforming that use ice physics and snowy weather. Finally, there is a segment with wind blowing forward, increasing your jump distance, and backwards, decreasing your jump distance, all while trying to stay on top of rotating platforms. It's a really fun and challenging stage that takes a long time to master.

The music on it is equally awesome. It's long and it's intense, and it's one of Mega Man 9's best Robot Master themes.

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#8

Slash Man


at #8 we have Dr. Wily Number 054, Slash Man, from Mega Man 7. Slash Man was created by Dr. Wily for the sole purposes of destroying Mega Man, as well as taking over the world.

Look at his picture. Seriously, look at it. Slash Man is awesome incarnate. In fact, (because design isn't really all that important to me in comparison to other things) I might award Slash Man the "best designed RM" award just because I love how he looks so much. I don't remember if I used this description in my Mega Man 7 review or not, but I'm going to again. He looks like Wolverine with Super Saiyan hair. And he's a robot. And he leads an army of dinosaurs. Seriously, Capcom outdid themselves with this guy. I love Slash Man.

His boss fight is absolutely insane, too. He'll jump around, slashing at you randomly with his claws, and then retreat up behind a wall in the ceiling and drop goop on you. If you get stuck, he'll fly down out of nowhere and slash at you again. I haven't even tried going after this guy with only the Mega Buster yet because I know it won't end well. Come here with the Freeze Cracker at full energy, you're going to need it.

For those of you who have played Super Smash Bros for 3DS or Wii U, Slash Man's weapon is Mega Man's back air, the Slash Claw. Compared to things like the Charge Kick and the Top Spin, one might call the Slash Claw the first successful close-range weapon in a Mega Man game. It's not great, I still prefer the Flame Sword personally, but the Slash Claw is fun to use and it's great against some bosses too.

Slash Man's stage is a bit like Jurassic Park. It's a jungle with lots of robotic dinosaurs roaming around. There is a great T-rex miniboss, some tricky spike navigation, and some interesting enemies like robot stegosauruses and snakes. The music on the stage, however, is quite frankly fantastic and makes me think of Slash Man going crazy chopping down things.

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#7

Solar Man


At #7 we have Dr. Wily Number 080, Solar Man, from Mega Man 10. He was designed by an unknown scientist and stationed to research solar energy in a lab.

Some of you may remember a few years ago when I reviewed Mega Man 10, and I really hated it. At one point I probably would have called Solar Man the only good Robot Master in the game. Well, since then, my attitude has changed a bit and I've seen a lot of good in Mega Man 10, and that it can stand on its own without being compared to the masterpiece that is Mega Man 9.

That being said though, Solar Man is still the game's saving grace in my eyes. There's something about him that I just really like. Solar Man's design reminds me a bit of Pharaoh Man's weapon in Mega Man 4. His fight is rather interesting as well, as Solar Man will jump around the room throwing blasts of his Solar Blaze down onto the floor, which break apart and spread across the room. The more your shots accidentally hit the blaze on top of his head, the bigger it grows and the harder the attacks get to dodge. Although he's absolutely decimated by the Water Shield, Solar Man with only the Mega Buster isn't easy, especially on hard mode.

His stage isn't very easy either. Lots of tricky enemy placement, a very annoying mid-boss, and some instant-death lava make this one of Mega Man 10's more difficult stages on normal mode, in my opinion. While all of this about Solar Man is solid, the worst part about him is his weapon. Like a lot of Mega Man 10's Robot Masters, Solar Man has some good attributes but fails to give the Blue Bomber anything useful in his arsenal. The Solar Blaze, while not useless, is awkward and never really needs to be used instead of the Mega Buster, except for maybe against Chill Man.

So what makes Solar Man this high on the list? His theme song. What else? It's my favorite Mega Man 10 Robot Master theme. In fact, I might nominate it for the most headbang-worthy song that I've heard in a video game. Just give it a listen.

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#6

Cut Man


#6 is Dr. Light Number 001, Cut Man, from the original Mega Man. He was originally designed by Dr. Light and Dr. Wily together as part of their original batch of RMs. Cut Man was originally designed to cut down trees.

Cut Man will always go down in history as the single most iconic Robot Master to Mega Man fans, and there's a reason for that. In the original Mega Man on NES, the concept of choosing stages was unheard of, so most people just pressed start on the first option. That first option was our friend Cut Man here. He's probably the easiest boss in the classic Mega Man series (outside maybe Toad Man) because he takes three damage from the Mega Buster and goes down relatively easily. Most newbie players can and should start with him.

Cut Man's actually pretty flawless in every way. His design is really cute, especially in Mega Man Powered Up where he's essentially a little kid. I imagine that the developers knew that everyone would attempt his stage first by default, so they made his boss fight relatively simple. Cut Man will jump around, throwing his Rolling Cutter like a boomerang at Mega Man. It's a fun little fight that's a taste of things to come. The Rolling Cutter also acts like a boomerang when you receive it as a weapon as well. It's pretty good, and although it's outclassed by Elec Man's Thunder Beam and Fire Man's Fire Storm later in the game, in the first few levels it's very good at destroying enemies that the Mega Buster can't. His stage is fairly simple too. For a beginner Mega Man player it's a challenge, but for an experienced player it's a breeze. Very few serious hazards, lots of predictable enemy placement, no gimmicks, and not a lot to watch out for.

The music on his stage is actually pretty well-known. You might have heard it before if you've played Super Smash Brothers on the Wii U, because it's a song in the game. The original track, of course, is awesome.

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#5

Enker


#5 is Mega Man Killer Number 001, Enker, from Dr. Wily's Revenge on the Gameboy. Along with Punk and Ballade, Enker was created by Dr. Wily to destroy Mega Man. Enker, like his two counterparts and like most Mega Man classic main characters, is named after the Japanese style of music "Enka."

Enker is the most recent addition of mine to this list because I only beat Dr. Wily's Revenge a few months ago, but I do really like him. And honestly, I'm not really sure why. Enker doesn't have a stage, you fight him after fighting Bubble Man, Heat Man, Flash Man, and Quick Man in a teleporter room in Dr. Wily's castle. He does, however, have a very fun and intense boss fight. Enker will jump around the room in varying patterns, charge up his Mirror Buster, and then reflect Mega Man's shots back at him in a wave. You want to have a good balance between damaging him and feeding him too many shots to power up his blast. Dodging his jumping patterns and his shots is quite challenging, but still fun.

I think most of what I like about Enker is in his design. Punk looks a bit too intimidating, and while I really like Ballade too, Enker's bright yellow and blue design really sticks out to me.

The Mirror Buster is a good defensive weapon too. I wouldn't use it too much in stages, but in certain boss it can reflect projectiles back at the boss and do damage. It's also the only way to beat Wily's Machine in Dr. Wily's Revenge.

A few weeks ago, I liked Enker a lot, but I wouldn't have put him on this list. He got bumped up tremendously when I heard the song "Heart of Enker" from his DLC stage in Mega Man 10 (that I haven't played). I'm counting this as his theme, and it's just that good.

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#4

Elec Man


Now we're starting to get into the truly flawless Robot Masters. #4 is Dr. Light Number 008, Elec Man, from the original Mega Man. He was originally built to control the flow of electricity at a nuclear power facility.

Elec Man is the insane, crazy, and unpredictable boss of the first Mega Man game. Most games have one. Mega Man 2 has Quick Man, 3 has Shadow Man, and 4 has Pharaoh Man. Elec Man, I would argue, is the worst of all of those to go up against unprepared. He can kill Mega Man in three hits. He also only takes one hit from the Buster, and he's very rarely in firing range because of how big and deadly his own attacks are. His boss fight without the Rolling Cutter is an absolute nightmare.

His design is rather sleek, too. He's cocky and narcissistic in Mega Man Powered Up, and I rather like it.

His stage, the nuclear power facility, is supposedly very difficult. I never had much of a problem with it, but a lot of people do. There's some tricky enemy placement, a lot of vertical scrolling, and some disappearing block puzzles. It's fun and challenging, but not, in my opinion, unfair. It's a lot easier if you have the Rolling Cutter to deal with Spines, though.

Elec Man's weapon is without a doubt the best weapon in Mega Man 1. It's not as broken as the Metal Blade in Mega Man 2, but it's up there in the list of best weapons. It fires a huge blast in front and two smaller blasts going vertically up and down. It kills most weaker enemies in one hit and does a lot of damage to pretty much everything else. It also kills Ice Man in three hits.

Elec Man's music is one of the first Mega Man tracks I fell in love with. It's not overly complicated, but it's pretty and I like it. It's also based on a song by Journey.

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#3

Crash Man


Rolling in at #3, it's Dr. Wily Number 013, Crash Man, from Mega Man 2. He was originally created by Dr. Wily to destroy Mega Man using the speed and agility of Bomb Man with the strength and defensive capabilities of Guts Man.

Okay, I'm not going to end with it this time. Crash Man has the single best song in Mega Man 2 and quite possibly the catchiest song in the entire Mega Man classic series. If you play Mega Man 2 I almost guarantee you will have this song stuck in your head at some point or another. It's really, really good and I sing it every time I play the stage.

Other than the song though, what else does Crash Man have going for him? Well, his boss fight is, to put it bluntly, either a hit or miss. If you know what you're doing, you can lock Crash Man into a pattern really easily (that I learned how to do a month or two ago) and not take a single hit. If you don't know what you're doing, Crash Man becomes almost as hard as Quick Man, jumping around randomly firing bombs at you. I do really like his design though. He's really sleek, has two bomb-launcher drill thingies for hands, and is a nice shade of orange.

His stage is an interesting network of tubes. I'm not really sure what it's supposed to be, but it looks visually impressive like most of Mega Man 2's environments do. Plus, it has annoyingly placed Mets. Cute!

Crash Man's weapon is the Crash Bomber. Again, for those who play Smash Bros 4, it's Mega Man's side special. It sticks to surfaces and explodes, which is great for breaking through walls or defeating one of the worst Wily Fortress bosses in Mega Man history.

Seriously though, Crash Man is awesome and I love him.

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#2

Junk Man


Number 2 is Dr. Wily Number 050, Junk Man, from Mega Man 7. He was originally made from pieces of scrap by Dr. Wily and designed to find other pieces of scrap to make more robots, but Junk Man became such a resistant fighter that Dr. Wily modified him for combat. I really like this backstory for some reason, it kind of amuses me.

When I first looked at the list of Robot Masters from Mega Man 7, Junk Man stuck out as being one of the most hideous-looking characters in the series, just like how Mega Man 7 originally didn't look like too good of a game. Well, I love Mega Man 7 and Junk Man is my favorite Robot Master from Mega Man 7. Everything about him is perfect. Let's start with his fight.

Junk Man has numerous attacks. He'll create a junk cube and push it across the room, drop junk on you, jump around the room, throw junk at you, and use his Junk Shield. It's not a super hard fight, but it's not easy either and it keeps you on your toes.

His stage is a molten trash-disposal facility, I believe. It's infested with cockroaches and lots of other enemies. There are a few elevator segments even a branching path. It's a fun stage.

Junk Man's weapon is, in my opinion, the second most useful shield weapon in the series, behind only the Jewel Satellite in Mega Man 9. It's very durable, it can fire in lots of directions, and it kills enemies reliably.

His design is big and hulking, perhaps the biggest Robot Master in the series until Mega Man 8 introduced Frost Man. Junk Man, however, doesn't use his size to his advantage in the same way Frost Man does. Most of his attacks involve his element, junk, and the manipulation of it using electromagnetic forces inside his body. In fact, his body is just junk being held together by these forces. Neat!

The song, as you know, is awesome. It sounds really sad and it's pretty catchy as well. I talked about it in my Mega Man 7 review, but it can't hurt to post it again here.

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#1

And my number one favorite Mega Man Robot Master is...

Spoiler

Hornet Man


Doctor Light Number 070 is Hornet Man and my gosh I love him. He's my favorite character from my favorite Mega Man game. He was originally designed to take of a flower park, and that's what his stage is.

Hornet Man is flawless. He symbolizes to me everything that a Mega Man Robot Master needs to be. I want to gush over him a bit but I'll just try to keep things quick.

Hornet Man's design is great. It doesn't try to make him look like a bee but it makes it quite clear that he's based on a bee. All it really gives him is a stinger. He doesn't have wings, or a bee's face, or even multiple legs. He still keeps the humanoid shape that I prefer in Robot Masters without sacrificing his design. Plus, the yellow on his body really pops out, similarly to Enker.

Hornet Man's stage is great. It's not too long, and it's not too short. It's also really hard. Lots of death spikes, lots of tricky enemy placement, a really tricky miniboss, and it just overall requires a lot of practice and a lot of good, solid platforming technique. It's hard, but it's fair.

Hornet Man's fight is intense and awesome, and only recently did I manage to do it only with the buster. He'll run to the side of the screen, shoot three Hornet Chasers out of his chest, and then run to the other side. It's a simple pattern, but the problem is destroying the Hornet Chasers before they hit you, and that's not always easy. He's durable and he can last for quite a while, so the fight turns into a "how fast can I destroy these three things and still manage to hit him" kind of a thing.

Hornet Man's weapon is my favorite weapon in the Mega Man series. It's amazingly useful. It's a homing weapon, like the Dive Missile or the Homing Sniper, that seeks out and finds enemies. However, that's not all it does. The Hornet Chaser will pick up and will bring back to you any life energy, weapon energy, or even extra lives that it sees on screen. This means that it will essentially heal you and recharge its own energy without you even having to move. It's awesome! It's also great for snagging hard to reach items or items that enemies dropped in impossible to reach places, like over spikes or inside a wall. You don't know how many times I've been playing Mega Man 2 or 3 or whatever and an enemy will drop an extra life inside a wall and I'll curse my luck that I don't have the Hornet Chaser.

And the music. Oh my gosh, the music. Hornet Dance is quite possibly my favorite classic Mega Man song. It's not long, it's not complicated, and it might not even be musically interesting. I just think it's catchy, pretty, and fits the stage. And I love it.

Hornet Man is my favorite. the end.

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Well, there you have it! That took quite a while to put together so I hope at least some of you enjoyed it!

[mikey]

elec man only #3?

[blueflower999]

elec man only #3?

Yes, because I like him the third best.

[blueflower999]

Today's review (as my 50th review!) is kind of special, because in one sense I'm reviewing four games, and in another sense I'm only reviewing one. In one sense I'm reviewing my favorite entry from a series, and in another sense I'm not. Finally, in one sense I'm reviewing a game for the GBA, but I have it on a DS cartridge.

What the heck am I talking about? Let me explain.

I found the Mega Man Zero Collection at a Gamestop back in June, and although at the time I had little experience outside of the Classic Mega Man series, I decided to buy it because of a recommendation from Dudeman. This is one of my most rewarding "on a whim" video game purchases, right up there with EarthBound, Pikmin 2, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, and 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors. The Mega Man Zero Collection is one DS cartridge that contains four GBA games: Zero 1, Zero 2, Zero 3, and Zero 4. Like I said earlier, it's kind of my favorite Mega Man game. Mega Man 9 I feel is more rewarding of an experience than any of these games individually, but when you play Zero 1 to Zero 4 back to back (like I did over the summer), not much can really compare. Something similar would be me saying that the Phoenix Wright trilogy on 3DS is probably a more rewarding experience than Investigations 2, but Investigations 2 is my favorite individual Ace Attorney game. Does that make sense?

The games do everything that the classic series does and so much more. I'll be treating this as a review of the entire series for several reasons. Normally I would like to review each game individually (I didn't review Mega Man 1-8 at one time and call it a review of the Anniversary Collection, nor will I do the same thing for the X Collection), but because I played all four of these games so consecutively, they're all tied together so intricately, and because they're all essentially four parts to the same game, this makes more sense to me. There's a lot to talk about here, though, because it is four games. So bear with me and I'll show you why everyone should play these games.

The Mega Man Zero Series:

Before I begin the categories, I'd like to say a few things. When you play a Mario game, you expect to play as Mario. When you play a Kirby game, you expect to play as Kirby. Mega Man Zero is a bit different. As its name might suggest, you don't play as Mega Man (who's been dead for hundreds of years, by the way. And you don't play as X, either), but rather as Zero. I could go into great detail about how Zero has been a fan favorite since his induction in Mega Man X1, how he became a playable character in X4 and has been a stable of the series ever since, and how I've heard people call him the greatest character in all of video games. But we'd be here all day if I went into that kind of detail with everyone, and that would honestly spoil a lot of Zero's personality and backstory. Just know that he's awesome and everyone loves him.

Gameplay: 9/10 Mega Man Zero 1 follows a bit of a different formula than the other three games, but Zero 1 through Zero 4 are all essentially the Mega Man you know and love in terms of gameplay. Take Zero's moveset from X4 (he mainly uses a saber for melee combat), give him the option to use a buster and a few other weapons, and viola. In the first two games, weapons level up and unlock new skills as they're used, but this was removed in Zero 3 and Zero 4.

Mega Man Zero 1 is the odd-one-out in terms of gameplay, so I thought I'd talk about it first. Every other game in the Mega Man Classic and X series (that I'm familiar with, anyway) gives the player a stage select, typically with eight bosses, and the player is tasked with figuring out which order to tackle the stages and which weapons work well on different bosses. Mega Man Zero 1 is entirely different. It essentially has an open world, with different missions being available at different times and more missions being unlocked after previous ones are completed. Many of the missions involve the same areas, too. For instance, the desert outside the Resistance Base is visited several times, first to rescue a downed helicopter and later to counter an invasion by Neo Arcadia. In addition, you don't get to see which boss is at the end of the stage (and there pretty much always is one, in true Mega Man fashion), so it leaves a lot up to the imagination who you'll be fighting. The game even allows you to fail and not do certain missions if you don't want to, although I don't recommend this because it detracts from the plot, and if you're not good enough to beat all the missions then you won't beat the final stages. Practice is important in Mega Man Zero 1, even more so than it is in the other Mega Man games I've played. Almost never will you beat a level on your first try, so perseverance is key.

Mega Man Zero 2, 3, and 4 aren't nearly as complex as Zero 1 is in terms of stage choice. Zero 2 (after an intro level, of course) presents four stages to select, then a mid-stage, and then four more stages. Mega Man Zero 3, similarly, presents four initial stages, three mid-stages, and then four other stages. Zero 4, however, presents eight stages from the start. All games have a series of "final stages," whose counterpart in previous games would be the Wily Stages or the Sigma Stages. In all Zero games, however, one does not always get a weapon from beating the bosses. Only if the stages are cleared with a high rank (low damage, high number of enemies killed, few continues, etc.) does the boss give Zero a new technique to be performed with the weapons he already has. The only game that's different than this is Zero 4, where just beating a stage with the right weather conditions (which can be changed freely from the stage select screen) will the boss give you a new technique. Because of this (and because I wasn't nearly good enough to get high ranks on all the stages in Zero 1-3), I can't speak for the techniques that bosses give you. This doesn't really detract from the game, however, because Zero's saber and buster are both really fun to play around with.

This leads me into boss weaknesses. Rather than always having to guess what a weakness is, bosses are universally divided up into four "elements," or, rather, three elements and then a category for bosses with no element. Fire bosses are weak to Electric attacks, Electric bosses are weak to Ice attacks, and Ice bosses are weak to Fire attacks, once again throwing your Pokémon knowledge out the window. The neutral bosses don't have weaknesses, so they're generally more tricky and difficult to exploit. Zero 1-3 gives you chips that you can freely change around in the pause menu to change the elemental attributes of your charged attacks, whereas Zero 4 allows you to performed elemental attacks with the skills you gain from defeating bosses. Most Zero games (except for Zero 1, I'm pretty sure) have two Fire bosses, two Ice bosses, two Electric bosses, and two neutral bosses, although often the Fortress stages have bosses that are weak to a particular element.

Lots of other staples from previous games appear here as well, such as a boss rush room where you fight eight bosses again, enemies will drop life energy, energy crystals (which act as a form of currency), and occasionally extra lives. Weapon energy is never dropped because Zero's weapons can all be used infinitely. The Zero series does, however, introduce a new mechanic, especially in Zero 1-3. Cyber Elves are cute little sentient beings composed of raw energy that can be collected and used for everything imaginable. Each Cyber Elf can only be used once, but some of them have effects that last forever, like giving you a Sub Tank or increasing maximum health. Finding these Cyber Elves is equivalent to finding Heart Tanks in the X series, so using an online walkthrough for them is recommended.

That's about all I can say on the gameplay, although I might be missing a few things.

Addictiveness: 9/10 These games match the "this is so much fun," nature of the classic games with the perfect level of difficulty to piss you off, but still keep you playing. It also has the factor of never knowing what's going to happen next in the plot (which we'll be getting to shortly!). In general, once you've played one Zero game, I've found it's hard not to play all of them.

Story: 9/10 This is for the people who view Mega Man as a fun little mindless game with high levels of entertainment but little value of lasting artistic substance. The Mega Man Zero series has a fantastic story arc with great characters, lots of development, a really great setting, and lots and lots of lore. There's just so much going on in this series that even if I wanted to I don't think I could spoil all of it here. It doesn't even fall to the typical trope of "Dr. Wily is evil oh no!". Zero 1 has one villain, Zero 2 has a totally different villain, and Zero 3 introduces a figure who's sort of been masterminding everything in the previous games (and I HATE him more than any other villain in the Mega Man series). The plot in these games goes where I honestly never expected it to, and if you need another reason to play them other than that the gameplay is excellent, do it for this. The plot essentially takes place about 100 years after the last X game and revolves around two groups: Neo Arcadia, the so-called haven for humans, and the Resistance, who are fighting against Neo Arcadia's corrupt treatment of both humans and Reploids. I'd recommend playing at least Mega Man X1 before this game so that the player has an idea about what a Reploid is, who X is, who Zero is, and who Mavericks are, but even if you don't you'll still be able to figure everything out okay.

Music: 10/10 The music of these games is absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately Zero 1's soundtrack doesn't particularly stick out to me, and a handful of the stages have sub-par themes, but overall there are enough excellent masterpieces here to warrant a 10/10 rating for it. I haven't gone through all of the songs for all of these games yet actually, so what I'm going to post here is largely just what has stuck out to me as being particularly excellent. I won't post all the stage themes here like I usually do (after all, there are a lot more than eight stages in these games!), just the ones I really like.

(Note: all text is referring to the song directly above it.)

Songs from Zero 1:

Resistance Base

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One of the mission themes

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The song on a train-chasing mission

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Neo Arcadia's Theme

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This song's really great, one of the best stage themes in the game. Mostly because it remixes my favorite song in the game, which is...

X, The Legend

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This song essentially plays when encountering one of a handful of characters, who I'll talk about later. It's really dramatic and shows the tension of the moment.

Songs from Zero 2:

Sand Wilderness (Intro Stage)

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Poler Kamrous's Theme

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Probably my favorite song in the Zero series. If you listen to nothing else, listen to this and tell me what you think.

Panter Flauclaws's Theme

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Phoenix Magnion's Theme

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Screw this level, but the music rocks.

Hyleg Ourobockle's/Burble Hekelot's Theme

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The Neo Arcadia theme gets a nice update

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Songs from Zero 3:

Blazin' Flizzard's Theme

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Deathtanz Mantisk's Theme

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Cubit Foxtar's Theme

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Glacier le Cactank's Theme

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Probably my favorite song in Zero 3

Songs from Zero 4:

Area Zero's Theme

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This song also serves as a main theme of the game, and acts sort of like a motif throughout much of the soundtrack. It's really nice and pretty.

Heat Genblem's Theme

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Tech Kraken's Theme

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Noble Mandrago's Theme

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Any fans of hardcore rock and roll should listen to this one.

Sol Titanion's Theme

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This one too. Mega Man Zero does hardcore rock and roll really well.

Area Zero Camp Mission

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Notice how it sort of sneaks in Area Zero's theme.

Mino Magnus's Theme

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This song's a bit annoying but I still like it for some reason.

One of the final stages

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Probably my favorite song in Zero 4.

Character Design: 10/10 The Mega Man Zero series has one of the best casts of characters in a non-visual novel game that I've seen in years. Zero and X are both as awesome as they are in previous games. The main villain of the series (who first appears in Zero 3 and who I'm not going to name) is a disgusting human being and I love to hate him. Probably the best part of the game's characters, though, is that we finally get some female characters that don't suck! Ciel, who is a human scientist and the leader of the Resistance is a great female protagonist for the series, and her relationship with Zero is pretty interesting.

Secondly, the bosses. I don't know how deeply I can go into all of them, but I'll try to hit most of the good ones.

Zero 1 doesn't have a stages select, so a lot of the bosses only show up briefly and don't get stages associated strictly with them, so many of them aren't as memorable as I'd like. Aztec Falcon is a cool Electric-themed robot bird, and he's pretty neat. Maha Ganeshariff, despite having a silly name, is a giant tub-of-an-elephant, and isn't particularly memorable. Anubis Necromancess the Third and Blizzack Staggroff have cool boss fights and designs, and I do like them, but ultimately they aren't particularly memorable. Hanumachine is a flaming monkey that I completely forgot about after fighting.

Zero 2 has Hyleg Ourobockle, who's this awesome snake boss in a jungle stage. Poler Kamrous (who's apparently girl! woah!) has a cool stage with AWESOME music on it, but a pretty lame boss fight if you have the Flame Chip. Phoenix Magnion is... really...ugh. Really bad. I hate Phoenix Magnion. His stage has amazing music but his boss fight made me rage. It's so hard and I probably had to run through the stage at least 15 times before I beat him. Such a pain. Panter Flauclaws isn't nearly as hard, he's an electric panther with a really cool train level, reminiscent of Slash Beast from X4 and Grizzly Slash from X5. The second half of the game has you fighting Burble Hekelot (I call him Gero Gero Gero), who's a relatively annoying frog boss, as well as three characters that I'll talk about later.

Zero 3 introduces eight servants of the main villain, called the Eight Gentle Judges, and they range from acceptable to freaking great. All of them have humanoid forms and robotic "execution" forms. I'll go from worst to best. Tretista Kelverian is a giant three-headed dog. He's the leader of the bunch, but his stage isn't memorable at all, his boss fight isn't hard, and he's just not particularly great. Childre Inarabitta is a cute little rabbit Reploid that's has a really annoying stage. Volteel Biblio is this rather cool eel-like boss in a sunken library, and I like him. Glacier le Cactank's defining point is the music on his stage, so even though I didn't like his personality so much, I still think he's a pretty good Maverick. Cubit Foxtar (who's a boy! woah!) has a pretty cool stage, great music, and a fun fight. Devilbat Schilt has a really fun fight, a really cool stage, and a slick design. Blazin' Flizard has a really cool stage, a really kickin' theme song, a great design, and an awesome fight. Deathtanz Mantisk is my favorite. Imagine the Pokémon Scyther, but significantly more intimidating. His design and fight speak for themselves.

Zero 4 has the Einherjar, who are all based on mythological creatures. Not all of their stages have great songs, but all of their designs are pretty great. Popla Cocapetri is a rather-irritating cockatrice (and chicken) who's the only one that I actively dislike. Tech Kraken, besides having a sick name, also has a pretty fun stage with cool music on it. Fenri Lunaedge is based on Fenris the Wolf from Norse mythology, and his fight is great. The music on his stage is a bit lacking, though. Noble Mandrago (Girls!) has really rocking music on her stage, and her design is pretty great too. Mino Magnus's "big stupid lug" personality is hilarious and even though I hate fighting him, I love hearing Zero talk to him before the fight. Pegasolta Éclair didn't make much of an impression on me because I beat him so easily, but he's based on the Pegasus and that's pretty cool. Heat Genblem (HOO-JA!) is fire-breathing turtle who's really challenging to fight. Finally, Sol Titanion (even more girls!) is probably my favorite because her stage and her boss fight are both really fun and really challenging.

Finally, I'd like to talk about my favorite characters in the games, and probably my favorite group of characters in the entire Mega Man series. Zero 1 introduces the "Four Guardians of X," essentially four Reploids that are modeled after different sections of X's personality. They serve as antagonists throughout much of the first three games. They're so awesome, in fact, that I'm going to put a picture of them here.

Spoiler

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On the left is Fefnir (officially Fighting Fefnir), who is the hot-blooded, loud-mouthed Fire elemental with two huge guns. He's currently in my signature. He says NYOOOH at the beginning of his fights and DOO-YAH whenever he fires a shot. Love him.

Second is Harpuia (officially Sage Harpuia), who's calm, mysterious, and the leader of the four. He's an Electric elemental who can fly around and fire off beams with his two electric swords. Harpuia is freaking awesome.

Third is Phantom (officially Hidden Phantom), who's literally a ninja. I don't need to say anything else.

Fourth is my favorite character in the Mega Man series, Leviathan (officially Fairy Leviathan). At the time of writing this, she's my avatar on the forums and on Skype. She's an Ice-type elemental and always manages to have really fun boss fights. And I just think she's cute. Okay?!

Humor: 4/10 This game often makes very little attempt to be funny because the plot is, for the most part, very dark and serious. There just isn't a lot of room for cracking jokes. Much of the humor is in references to previous Mega Man installments (Mets appearing as enemies, lots of references to the Mega Man X games, etc.) and in the names of bosses.

Difficulty: 10/10 Mega Man Zero games are hard. Very hard. Phoenix Magnion's stage is brutal. Zero 4's final boss is brutal. Almost all of the stages in Zero 1 are brutal. However, they're very rarely unfair. With sufficient practice and determination I think most people can beat these games, but they are pretty frustrating at times. Sufficient skill at Mega Man is pretty much required to succeed here.

Other Memorable Features: These games actually have a "Hard" mode that's unlocked after beating them. Yeah... no. When you beat bosses using the saber, it actually shows them being cut in half before they explode. Zero also talks to almost all of the bosses (at least the Reploid ones) before fighting, which gives them a bit more personality.

Overall: 9.7/10 These games are very underappreciated. Mega Man 1-3 are viewed as classics but few have heard of and even fewer have played or, heck, beaten them. They are, however, fantastic from pretty much every angle. Each game has its strengths and weaknesses, but when played back to back in the Zero Collection they all pretty much add up to one giant game with very few glaring flaws.

For those who are wondering, Mega Man Zero 1, 2, and 3 are currently available on the Wii U's eShop. I'm hoping that Zero 4 comes out this May.

Thanks to anyone who read this review, this was one of my most intensive pieces to write that I've done. Thanks also to anyone who has read a review of mine over the past three and a half years. Cheers!