Another mega blog.
By Dalai 2 Comments
Mega Man 3
(Or the last Mega Man game people cared about.) The 90s started off with a bang and a robot invasion by Dr. Wily (out of jail again) and so once again Mega Man has to save the day. And why not? Mega Man 2 was a huge success and they had a milk truck handy... let's suck this franchise dry! Well to be honest, at this time in Mega Man's history a 3rd game was necessary and wanted by the general public so it really wasn't until... well I'll get back to that later.I'll say right up front that Mega Man 3 is a worthy successor to Mega Man 2 and my 2nd favorite in the series. We still have the traditional 8 Robot Master scheme and they've managed to clean it up a bit by not having one weapon of mass destruction. Now there's a true path you need to figure out, but this is where discovering weaknesses gets a bit tricky. I mean, what is a top's weakness? The bosses start to dabble into the bizarre with Gemini Man and the blatantly sexual with Hard Man and Snake Man. Fair enough, we did just wasted all the elements and more generic games in the last two games, but Top Man seems to make as much sense as... a top? And speaking of Top Man, who thought Mega Man's triple lutz would actually be useful for anything? I have nothing against any of the other weapons (the rest are pretty awesome) but the Top Spin is the beginning of the end for Mega Man. And doesn't Top Man throw tops quasi-Air Man style? Can't I get that?
Despite the idiocy of Top Man, the rest of the game is quality Mega Man and adds enough small upgrades to freshen up the gameplay a little. Rush basically replaces the numbered items in Mega Man 2, but a robotic dog couldn't hurt the series any because dogs are fucking amazing. Also, Mega Man can slide through short passages. I'm still waiting for Mega Man to show off his dope breakdancing moves. The levels are of high Capcom quality and the addition of the extra levels before trudging through Dr. Wily's castle cap off an already awesome game.
Mega Man 3 is seen by some as superior to Mega Man 2 and I can see the reasons why people came to that conclusion. The run and shoot formula still works and works with great efficiency here. With that, I present Mega Man 3 with the You're Still the Man, Dawg Award for maintaining that high level of awesomeness.
Review Synopsis
- Nothing menacing about a spinning toy.
- Why can't all games have robot dogs?
- No shame being #2 on the block.
Now that I covered the all-time greats, it's time to speed up that downward spiral.
Mega Man 4
(And now we officially begin the demise of Mega Man.) This is where Mega Man starts trying to be cute with the story by adding a new physician, Dr. Cossack. He builds 8 robots (and it is always 8 robots) in order to rape, kill, pillage, the usual... and yeah I know there's no mention of rape in Mega Man 4, but it's implied here. And then we all find out Dr. Cossack was blackmailed by Dr. Wily and he's responsible for the beatings and sodomy (implied) throughout. But wait, there's more!Once again we have 8 Robot Masters (surprise, surprise) that are programmed to kill Mega Man and I learned that Dr. Cossack should never be in charge of making even a single robot, or a Battlebot for that matter. I can think about a thousand replacements for the squishy, wet Toad Man and the Jew-hating Pharoah Man. Like Rain Man and Sand Man, hehe. But I can start to see a pattern forming that will continue to this day. The weapons are all rehashes of previous weapons. You've got your shield (Skull), your homing missile (Dive), your time-stopper (Bright), your Mega Buster deluxe (Pharoah, Dust), your boomerang (Ring), and bombs that blow up walls (Drill.) And Toad Man's Rain Flush is basically the Flash Stopper without the time freeze. Side note, the gall of Bright Man to use the name Flash Stopper, Flash Man would be pissed. But enough bitching about the bosses. It's still very much your by-the-numbers Mega Man game and even the gimmicks in 4 couldn't even ruin this game it's that good.
And the other gimmicks? The Mega Buster which you can now charge to shoot one big energy ball instead of a bunch of little ones. Fine, I'll reluctantly take that, but you gotta trash Flip-Top Eddie since he's the most useless "friend" in the entire universe. I really like it when he spits out an energy pellet when I have full health. I know that don't help shit, but it makes me feel that I've got more than 100% health. Rush is back with the items of the previous model, but now Mega Man gets two new non-Rush items, the balloon and wire. Both of these serve little purpose. However the overall game is still classic Mega Man with plenty of classic action platforming.
But Mega Man 4 receives the Quit While You're Ahead Award. This probably should've been the last entry in the series, at least in the NES era. It's at this point where the added features don't really make much sense and the entire formula becomes stale.
Review Synopsis
- Robots that look like frogs and pharoahs made me realize Capcom fired its quality control.
- Same old Mega Man that we love, but nobody is impressed.
- Mega Man's friends list getting too high for my tastes.