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Some thoughts on video games: January 20XX

I felt like writing about games without worrying about the fact it was a review. So I'm going to put out a monthly list of games and my thoughts on each one. With Alex starting to play through all the mainline Mega Man games I thought it would be fun to play through some of the side games. So the gist of this list will be mega powered. I'll be including some screenshots of each game in this beginning paragraph.

Mega Man V Ending: MMV has quite a few cutscenes. They even take control of Mega Man from the player in one scene. You might note this isn't in black and white since I played it on a Super Game Boy.

Mega Man Xtreme : I ran into a bug that stopped scrolling the screen. Seemed to have something to do with the final teleport after the boss rush. Had to reset the Game Boy Player to finish the game. Oh yeah, Zero is in this game as an item. Would have been nice if he was actually useful. My photos this time aren't as good.

Mega Man Powered Up : Dean Galloway has a great Wily voice. The yellow devil in this game felt even more annoying since it gave me less room to move around the room. Mega Man running through the credits is still a cool way to end a game.

Mega Man Maverick Hunter X : Huh I don't have anything to say here that I didn't already go over down below.

Mega Man: The Power Battle : A nice touch was the fact that the boss before the final one changes depending on which bosses you fight. The backgrounds change slightly too like changing Wily's background into a light show.

Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters : Seems a bit odd that a random arcade game would have an ending that links up Mega Man to X. Duo may look visually different from the rest but he still plays like them.

Bionic Commando Elite Forces : So just about everything in this game points to it being in the future. After all, everyone has a bionic monocle. Yet one of the antagonists is a classic executioner who uses a ax. Since I didn't mention it below at the end of each level the player also gets an item that will help out in a few different ways.

List items

Mega Man V

Mega Man on the Gameboy was always just an imitation of the NES games up to this point. Then Capcom decided to go all out with this one. This game starts with earth getting invaded by Stardroids and Mega Man's buster has no effect on them. Dr. Light uses his brilliant mind to create the rocket powered Mega Arm to combat them. No clue how a fist is stronger than plasma but hey I'm not a scientist.
Unlike, some games this is built for the GB. Most stages are built around the fact you have limited space. While still including a ton of spikes to ruin your day. A few levels certainly tested my patience but all around this felt like a well-balanced game. How can it not be when Mercury's (All the bosses are named after planets.) power let me steal life energy from any normal enemy. To counter that a bit special weapons don't recharge without a game over or collecting power-ups. That may sound annoying but it never was an issue.
Mainly because I could almost take out every boss without using their weakness. Other than a few annoying fights each boss had a very obvious pattern that made it easy to beat them. Capcom seemed like they wanted to give the player the tools to succeed. They even give the player a few e-tanks before the final boss. Although that sounds like it would make it easy the 4 phase final boss is no joke. Plus Wily doesn't get to be the last boss this time with Sunstar taking his place by blowing him out of the sky.
To wrap this up I think MMV is a well-made game. It has a lot of nice touches like giving Wily a Death Star. Sure it doesn't bring anything new to the formula but it is still fun.
Mega Man Xtreme

Unlike the last game, this one repurposes Bosses and levels from Mega Man X/X2. They did at least give a reason why X is fighting old bosses since he has to virtualize himself to break through the protections around the mother computer who has been hacked by mavericks. Other than a few new expendable characters that do nothing the only new stuff is two new bosses.
The fact that these stages weren't made for the Game Boy means some sections have blind leaps. Luckily most of these stages stay away from pits and spikes but it doesn't feel very good. Along with the boss rooms being way to small. Making it a lot tougher to dodge attacks. Since X bosses take a while to beat this turns most fights into either an endurance test or constantly wall kicking up a wall. The way the bosses are set up is odd too. Making 3 stages from X and then one from X2 requires me to beat two bosses with just the mega buster.
Hate to keep bringing up bad points but this just didn't hold up at all compared to the SNES games. Sure they did a great job of making this feel like an X game. No issues with the controls at all. Plus the odd thing is some of those issues could have been fixed by giving me access to 8 bosses at once. Which is a unlockable mode after beating the game twice. Yet I don't see much of a reason to play through the same game 3 times. My memories tell me the sequel is better but I'm not going directly into that one next.
Mega Man Powered Up

I had forgotten how much they actually changed with this remake. In some ways, it is an entirely new Mega Man game. All the levels have been set up differently along with some collectibles and bosses to round out the package. Some cutscenes with voice over were added to tell a more coherent story too.
At first, I expected this to be a remake that was more balanced difficulty wise to match the colorful art style. Turns out I was completely wrong. The game is actually harder than Mega Man 1. Mostly because I wasn't able to cheese my way through levels with the platform item. Oh yeah adding in even more pixel perfect jumps wasn't a good idea from a players perspective either.
Other than those mild annoyances this is a fun game to play through. The cutesy art style makes it fun to look at even when I have to replay a level multiple times. A brand new boss order did make this game more of a challenge too with more time spent megabustering my way through a fight. On the plus side doing that unlocked one of the robot masters as a playable character. The vast amount of playable characters does add quite a bit of replay value to this package. Along with the level creator that could have been amazing in a more popular game. In the end this is a good Mega Man game even if I didn't like it as much as I was expecting to during this session.
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X

Mega Man X is my favorite Mega man game. I've replayed it multiple times throughout the years. Maverick Hunter X mostly just puts a new coat of paint on it with a few changes. Not much changes about X's playthrough other than making the first boss beatable and changing up the location of all the part upgrades. Pretty much blew a hole into my standard boss strategy causing me to beat all the bosses with only a few heart upgrades. I still went around collecting items afterward since beating Sigma without upgrades is no easy feat.
Plenty of cutscenes and voiced dialogue are in this release too. It at least gives a bit of personality to all the bosses and expands a bit on why Sigma decides to go maverick. Capcom even went all out and produced a 40-minute animation as a prologue that is only watchable after finishing the game.
The biggest addition is Vile as a playable character with his own story arc. It isn't often that Mega Man X gets to be a boss so that was neat to see. Each stage is still the same layout wise but the enemy placement is brand new along with new item placements. Vile has 3 different types of weapons at all times letting him deal with just about any situation. By the end I had quite a few choices but I really only used the 3 that seemed great for any situation. Too bad this budget series didn't go over well so we never got any other remakes on the PSP.
I didn't bring it up but both of these PSP games have a reasonable amount of slowdown while a bunch of enemies are on screen. It never effected me in a negative way but I felt like I should mention it. Overall I'm sure it's not surprising that this still feels like a great video game. Maybe it shouldn't be balanced where it almost requires you to find most of the upgrades. The short length makes it real easy to go back to collect anything you might miss after all. Doubt they'll ever do it but I would kinda like to see Capcom create a SNES looking Mega Man X9.
Mega Man: The Power Battle

I never did see either of these arcade games in an arcade. The Mega Man Anniversary collection has been the only version I've played. Kinda curious if these two games are set on 1-star difficulty since I'm not used to an Arcade game making it easy to clear it with one credit. In just about every way this is a fighting game starring Mega Man. No levels to play through with the bosses being the main challenge to overcome. Each fight feels programmed to emulate how each boss acts in their original game. Overall this game has bosses from all 7 of the Mega Man games but it doesn't have all of them.
Meanwhile, players can play as either Megaman, Bass or Protoman. Each one has slight differences like the fact Mega Man can slide or Protoman's attack being stronger. Yet those differences don't really change up the gameplay much. Since most of the bosses are mixed in together with another game the weaknesses you remember won't help you at all. Although beating Gutsman first gave me the most overpowered weapon ever. It knocked down every boss. Leaving the boss order up to random select makes it pretty hard to beat bosses with their weakness. At first I thought that would be a good way to get extra money out of players but like I mentioned before it wasn't that hard to beat the game on a single credit.
Not a bad little arcade game that would have been fun to see in person.
Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters

The Power Fighters feels like a well thought out game. It actually has a bit of storyline and some endings that go places. Gameplay wise all the characters still play the same with Duo from MM8 as a new playable character. Even more so than before Capcom really wants players to survive. At the midway point of a fight, Eddie might stop by to give out a invincibility power up. Bass actually gets an even better power with Treble stopping by to knock down bosses every time he attacks.
So yeah this is another easy game to play through. Really short too but that is kinda every arcade game. Mechainc wise this time they let the player choose which boss to fight but they are from different games making it hard to figure out the weakness order. Overall another short fun game to play through.
Bionic Commando: Elite Forces

I'm more curious about how this game was made looking at who developed it. Capcom let Nintendo create a new Bionic Commando game for no real reason. Curious to why Nintendo even wanted to use the license. Anyway, this is a retelling of the original NES game. This time it is possible to choose either a male or female commando. After choosing one or the other the player must go through all the stages to stop the plans of Arcturus who wants to take over the world. By using the power of the Albatross.
Like the previous game, the main movement mechanic is using a bionic arm that allows the commando to swing around the level. Accurately swinging from one platform to the next is a necessary skill that will need to be mastered by the time the credits roll. Going by the fact my last save wasn't on the last level I must not have finished the game till now. Pixel perfect swings to offscreen platforms aren't fun when death is the penalty for missing one. Luckily being able to grind out 10 lives made it doable. A lot of the enemies and bosses feel like they came from the original game. With a few unique ones like the executioner who can only be hurt after he attacks.
Gameplay wise the controls are perfect and the GBC doesn't have any slow downs that could cause a mistimed bionic arm grab. So any death is because I miss timed the jump. So it is fair most of the time but I did notice random death pits without any warning. Plus the escape sequence has a few annoying moments. I can't say the final few levels weren't testing my patience a bit before I overcame the challenge. That doesn't make this game bad. At least these days it felt average GBC game.