Mega Man (NES)
The Mega Man series of run and gun platformers has a pretty familiar structure it follows which makes playing the first one after experiencing the others almost feel like finding some rough draft for the franchise. There are only six Robot Master bosses to face instead of the eventual standard of eight, the player collects colored dots from fallen foes to build up a score for the only time in the series, and other little ideas don’t feel quite as smooth or well-realized yet. At the same time, the efficacy of the Mega Man formula is still on show from the start, meaning it’s not quite as rough to go back to as some game series that got their start on the NES.
Mega Man doesn’t tell you any story within the game, and one element that does feel a bit incongruous with the series in retrospect is the set-up found in the manual. In a city called Monsteropolis, scientists Dr. Wright and Dr. Wily created seven humanoid robots, six of them meant for various industrial or technical purposes. When Dr. Wily turns against his former ally, he reprograms the six to try and help him in his world-conquering endeavors, but the final robot, Mega Man, remains loyal to Dr. Wright and sets out into the seven empires ruled by Wily and his robotic minions. Much like the perplexing box-art depicting a grown man with a pistol instead of the small robot with a gun arm that you actually play as, this story told by the manual was a decision made by the Capcom USA team to try and make it appeal more to American audiences and one that doesn’t hold up with later entries in the franchise. Dr. Wright would become known as Dr. Light, there’s no talk of Monsteropolis ever again, and it’s later established Mega Man was once a lab assistant robot named Rock who received a battle upgrade to stop the Robot Masters. The game’s Japanese name Rock Man ties to that origin, but one reason the game didn’t really feel a need to feature a word of plot during the actual play is because the basics are still all that’s present no matter the region: a mad scientist and some evil robots need stopping and Mega Man is the one to do it.
Mega Man let’s you pick which of the game’s six main levels to play first and you can tackle those six in any order you please, the player even able to return to previous ones in case they want to scoop up some resources like extra lives or they missed the one important missable weapon in the game. Each of the six starting stages has some catchy music to accompany the adventure and is themed around the Robot Master in charge of them, meaning Ice Man’s stage will have slippery ice and Fire Man’s unsurprisingly has quite a few foes who will attack with flames themselves. Bomb Man and Cut Man don’t quite have an apparent theme in their level design though, even Guts Man’s area able to tie rather reasonably to his original purpose as a construction robot when it comes to the scaffolding making up portions of the stage. Whichever of these levels you tackle first, you’ll start only with the ability to jump and a pretty simple shot type for your arm cannon. It can fire rapidly and while you run, and while certain robots like the ones that hide under hard hats can briefly become invulnerable to it, it is possible to take down any foe with this basic weapon with well placed and frequent enough fire.
Surprisingly, despite how basic your abilities are at the start, right away Mega Man can prove to be an entertaining time thanks to its stage designs. None of them are particularly long but they are portioned into small segments that do a good job standing apart from each other. Elec Man’s stage for example is a constant ascent, but it begins first by scaling ladders and really fighting to avoid getting knocked down since the fall can set you back quite far. After that portion though it shifts to trying to slip through timed electrical barriers, there still danger in a drop but now the peril is directed more towards your life bar than your level progress. Flying enemies you need to ride in Ice Man’s stage, platforms on conveyors that try to dump you in Guts Man’s, sections like these can feel surprisingly distinct even though they don’t actually comprise much of the level space. Part of this comes from Mega Man’s difficulty, the game definitely expecting strong platforming skill and smart use of things like positioning when firing on enemies. There’s a pretty smart balance at play in terms of how much damage something can deal compared to how pesky it is. The annoying smiling faces with helicopters on their heads called Bladers are pretty hard to avoid but since they’re so abundant they don’t reduce your life too much when they hit you, but the large pogo-stick machines are usually faced on their own and you need to either kill them quick or run under them so they can deal heavy damage to force such a choice.
Mega Man does strain its difficulty at times though and while Bladers are annoying, it’s bosses like the Yellow Devil that push things almost too far. After clearing the six Robot Master stages you have a string of consecutive stages as you progress towards Dr. Wily himself, and in one of these stands the Yellow Devil, a boss who can disassemble itself and launch its pieces towards you. This process is slow and when he has put himself back together, he’s vulnerable for what feels like just a second before he’s back to being invincible and launching his pieces at you again. Fighting him fair is possible but very tedious, although there is an exploit to quickly take care of him to remove one of the game’s outright awful moments. Instant death drops and spikes can complicate other portions such as a Wily stage moment where you’re riding across enemies again but their movement feels random so it can force you into a deadly situation, and Elec Man’s stage having long drops does not gel well with the disappearing block platforms and their odd timing that takes a bit to figure out. These difficult moments have egregious issues certainly but the workarounds do mean they don’t ruin the game for players who are expecting a hard adventure, and more importantly the game overs only require a full level restart and death normally doesn’t throw you back too far. Of course, the biggest boon to your ability to conquer the toughest moments of Mega Man though are what he has become best known for: the powers he takes from the Robot Masters.
Once you’ve beaten the Robot Master waiting at the end of a level, Mega Man will acquire a power that matches whatever they were capable of. Cut Man’s weapon lets you launch scissors like boomerangs, Elec Man’s sends out electric shocks above, below, and in front of you, and Guts Man gives you the ability to pick up chunks of stone and hurl them at enemies. There are definitely some difficult enemies and bosses in the way of your success, but as soon as you’ve managed to beat at least one stage, you now have a tool that can simplify things and turn the tables. Those pogo stick robots mentioned before? Hit them with Ice Man’s shot while they’re jumping and they’ll hang in the air and you can walk underneath them without concern. Some annoying robots positioned on platforms you’ll be jumping up to? Hit them with the scissor boomerang or electric shock and you don’t even need to get near to them to take them out. What’s more, these same powers can trivialize other Robot Masters so long as you use the right one. For some the choice is a bit obvious, it’s pretty apparent that Fire Man and Ice Man will relate to each other some how, but your Mega Buster can still handle any you don’t have the right tool for and they do all have little tricks to try and overcome. The weakness system is key to making the Robot Master rematches later on manageable though and the extra weapons you get do work as a wonderful pressure valve for the experience a whole, certain moments going from potentially grueling to more manageable skill tests once you pause and select an appropriate weapon for the job. They do have limited energy so overuse will deplete them, but enemies can drop both health and weapon energy and there are points you can walk back and forth to respawn weak minions to serve as chances to refill both. Couple in Game Overs topping off all your weapons and you can afford to get daring if a certain stage is giving you incredible trouble, Mega Man’s strength in level design able to come through a lot more once you’re willing to embrace your expanding arsenal.
THE VERDICT: Mega Man can definitely be hard as nails, especially in situations like the Yellow Devil fight that are outright ill-conceived, but it also gives you quite a few hammers to smash down those nails. The different weapons you receive from the bosses continue to open up new possibilities, and even when you have the means to deal with pesky enemies or tough bosses thanks to your varied attack options, the levels still hold some strong platforming challenges and the need for ammo conservation keeps you thinking on how you’ll approach the trials ahead. While it has some glaring rough patches, overall Mega Man still entertains thanks to stages that move rather quickly through new ideas on how to oppose you yet do so with enough danger that they still feel satisfying to overcome.
And so, I give Mega Man for the Nintendo Entertainment System…
A GOOD rating. While having no ability to save the game or continue with a password does mean Mega Man will be a gauntlet for those who wish to play it, it’s also one that provides many moments of satisfaction. The order you tackle stages can help determine which areas are easier or rougher, but each new weapon still feels like it has some purpose in the world. Even the more situational block grabbing of Guts Man’s weapon allows you to open shortcuts, but almost all of them can provide incredible boons during portions that would be quite difficult yet still manageable. Mega Man definitely needs to rework some ideas like the Yellow Devil fight and the enemy riding portions, and the disappearing block platforms can grind things to a halt as you work out their patterns, but other parts of the adventure instead are both a test of your movement ability and your understanding of the weapons at your disposal. The pogo enemy is no doubt going to be the bane of some player’s playthroughs, but a little experimentation and you can waltz past one as the pay off for hard work you put into beating a boss’s level elsewhere. The final Wily stages definitely turns up the absolute need for some weapons but they also make concepts like the boss rematches feasible without being excruciating.
The ideas presented in the original Mega Man are certainly in need of a little more refinement, but I had expected a much rougher experience returning to the first installment. Certain concepts like the weapon stealing system are so solid they completely shift how the rest of the game is perceived, and since no weapon is so powerful it completely wipes away the challenge, you still have moments of interesting opposition to overcome even when you’re utilizing the helpful options at your disposal. It is certainly likely most players will be better served playing future installments as they can do so much more with the template presented in part here, but Mega Man on NES still has things figured out where it counts to provide an entertaining if incredibly tough classic.