The Unrivaled Innovation of Mega Man 1, 2, & 3 | Mega Man NES Review & Retrospective
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- Опубліковано 28 сер 2023
- Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 were not only a great way to start the Mega Man series, but also pioneered many aspects of game design. Most notably non-linear mission structures, and a variety of combat options, which are things the Mega Man series, as well as many others, have kept around. Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 are some of the most important games ever made, along with Mega Man 4, 5, and 6, but I'll save that for another time. For now, let's discuss what made Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 so great...
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Mega Man review - Ігри
Fireman will only attack if he takes damage, or the player crosses a set distance. I don't blame you for thinking he has no pattern since this isn't explained at all.
A pretty cool thing from Megaman 3 is that every robot master ever created in the series up to that point appeared in the game, either as rematch battles or as a cameo in the ending. In a time most game series concluded in a trilogy, the robot masters callback fitted perfectly for a third game.
Also, the theme in Wily Stages 3 -4 totally gives me that vibe of "the series is coming to an end" , "the final stages of the final game!". It made it even more intense (I love that theme).
And, I feel like the top spin being a one shot is like finding a secret self destruct failsafe. I don't mind it.
@@gamesake999 They planned for snakes to hit that self-destruct button too, but not as fast as the top spin (needs more snakes)
I also love the Wily Boss theme from MM3. It is so frantic.
31:23 search snake also works on the last gamma phase btw
Mega man zero mightve been when the series peaked, but mega man would not be where it is without mega man 2. Entire series were inspired and born because of these classics!
26:30 I'd argue that Spark Shock is even worse
Top Spin as least does *something* useful against smaller enemies and certain bosses, Spark Shock is only remotely useful for boss weaknesses. As a weapon on its own, it's literally worthless as it feels like the devs never actually finished this weapon. It's meant to be like Ice Man's weapon, but the enemies aren't stunned when you switch weapons, not to mention that you can only "shock" one thing at a time
Interesting. I agree that the Top Spin is technically more functional than the Spark Shock, but to me the Top Spin is more frustrating to use. I see where you're coming from though, thanks for sharing!
@@DeltaOtaku just observing patterns throughout the series, Top Spin looks like it was intended to be the "barrier weapon" of MM3, but it does definitely suffer from the game being rushed. My best guess, based on how the weapon is used and its seeming inconsistency is that Top Spin was intended to one-shot most enemies. I think that on contact with an enemy, it determines how much health the enemy has, subtracts that much energy from the weapon, and deals that much damage, although it has a limit of how much it is supposed to do at once, I think probably 8 or 12. However, the problem with the weapon is that it isn't programmed correctly. Each frame of animation can count as a hit, causing the weapon energy to drain during a boss's I-frames. Also, due to how you have to attack with it, if you attack something with more health than the weapon's damage limit, MM will collide with the enemy, which would also cause more animation frames to overlap the enemy's hit box, draining the weapon faster. It seems like they should have included a sort of bounce-back feature to it, so that if MM didn't kill immediately, he would bounce off the enemy to prevent the collision. They also needed to account for the energy drain due to animation frames.
If you're wondering why I think the weapon is intended to one-shot most enemies, try it out. It is especially effective on the monkeys in Hard Man's stage and the penguins in the Wily sewers. I'm sure it will work on a number of other enemies as well, but I haven't incorporated it more into my normal gameplay. Aside from Shadow Man, it one-shots everything I've used it on. You want to make sure you're jumping into the enemy from their side, and not from above or below, to minimize the number of frames of overlap.
@@DeltaOtaku Inafune has mentioned that he spent three days remaking Top Man's stage from memory after someone accidentally pulled out a power cord during development. I've heard the claim that the original code for the Top Spin weapon was also lost, but the person who recoded the weapon only had the time and/or knowledge to put together what we ended up with.
I actually like to use the spark shock to stop enemies that are tricky for me. Really weird, because I feel like I’m the only person who uses it. Although I tend to use subweapons than most people do, probably the Castlevania in me seeing how to use weapons in different ways
The boss rush is there so you have a chance to use and experiment with every weapon on each boss before replaying the game. As a kid, that was how I learned you could cripple Flame Mammoth with Boomer Kuwanger's weapon.
Thank you for this video. I agree that the Mega Man games are the NES games that have held up the best all these years later. Perfected gameplay with great music and replayability. Whenever I have free time and dont know what I want to play, I'll run through the 8 robot masters of a Mega Man game. I prefer the first 3 because I think the series is better without the charging Mega Buster, which just made enemies take more hits to kill, adding nothing else.
HUGE props for calling out the nostalgia culture surrounding Megaman 2. I personally think the NES Megaman games only got better as they went. The circlejerk around MM2 was what spawned Megaman 9 and 10, which were regressive sequels and boiled the series down to nostalgia cash grabs, and the series still hasn't really recovered from it.
Talking about how overpraised Mega Man 2 was isn't something worthy of "huge props" these days. Like I said in the video, Mega Man 2 has received a lot more criticism thanks to the Legacy Collections allowing people to experience all 6 NES games and compare them conveniently. Also, I think Mega Man 9 and 10 are the best Classic Series games. The DLC especially elevated them higher than being "nostalgia cash grabs". I don't know what you mean when you claim they had a negative effect on the series that we still haven't recovered from. Mega Man 11 didn't use an 8-bit art-style and introduced new mechanics like the Double Gears. The recent Battle Network collection gave us official online play for those games, and X Dive is like a celebration of the whole Mega Man series, not just the 8-bit stuff. My question is how the series is still being poorly affected by MM9 and 10 given everything we've gotten since then.
Unfortunately, Mega Man 2 is now considered a bad Mega Man game, which sucks
Finally, someone who understands the masterpiece that is Mega Man 1
Mega Man 1 was the first game I ever rented. It's still an amazing game. For the time, the fact that he blinked was AMAZING. Never could beat it back then (didn't know about the electric beam pause trick, so the Yellow Devil stopped me cold), but Mega Man is still one of my favorite franchises.
I've always found Flame Man's flame swaying in the opposite direction he is running to be adorable.
International Megaman 3 not having Megaman on the title screen is more likely because the logo is much bigger than the Japanese version, thus not leaving enough RAM space to actually have Megaman there
The Boss rushes are actually a semi smart way to help the player in the future. You now have every weapon you can try on them. Sure you might already know before you get there, but you may have beaten some with out their weaknesses, and a gameover in that level lets you work back to focus on just practice on the boss fights.
27:15 That's only the tip of the iceberg. If you jump off of Rush Jet, he stops burning gas, but he will continue to move with you if you start moving again, meaning you always have a safety net if you place him correctly! All of this can also be done underwater, which completely negates the usefulness of Rush Marine!
This also means that in the second half of needle man, act 2, You can cross that ginormous pit without burning nearly as much gas, as long as you keep jumping while riding him! RushJet in Mega Man 3 is straight up busted! Lmao
I’m more of a Castlevania guy than a Mega Man guy, but these games are definitely among the best of the NES, at least for platformers as I cannot speak on shoot ‘em ups, RPGs or Puzzle games which were big genres at the time. I have only played the first few games, the first Mega Man is very good, although I hesitate to call it great, and it’s been a while since I’ve played the others since I was a teenager in like 2015, but I assume they are on the level of high quality of the best platformers like Mario 3 and Ducktales. I can’t wait to continue playing these games and I look forward to your next video on Mega Man
20:31 there are 2 things u forgot to mention about the Wily Alien:
1) If he touches you, that's your ass.
2) The only weapon that can damage him is bubble lead. Shoot him with anything else, including your default megabuster, and you give him a full health restore, which also means, like the boo beam trap, If you run out of bubble lead, you ain't beating this boss!
Finally some praise for 3's Wily music. So good. I always felt 3's intro music sounded like something Iron Maiden could have wrote.
19:06 The concept of the Pico Pico Kun boss was that it would create holes in the ground and walls anytime a robot would form, holes through which Megaman would fall. They decided to remove this and kept the boss as it is today. To me this was such a bad decision. I can overlook any other imperfection about this game but this. The boss makes much more sense with that in mind.
There's a Lua script for emulators created by Warmcabin on UA-cam that recreates the boss as it was designed for anyone interested. And I won't try to find the source of what I'm explaining here but it can be found in written interviews with the developers.
A least the Block Devil actually makes holes in the ground in his boss in MM10
Oh, my friend, as you said, Mega Man games are hard. They reward you by mastering them and though, yes, Quickman's lasers are brutally difficult, they are not cheap, and the level doesn't suck. They reward patience, persistence and mastering. There is little in any Mega Man game, much less gaming, more satisfying than mastering a run on a level like Quickman's. It makes that stage and the game as a whole something special.
I can see the satisfaction in mastering the level, and as I said in the video, I'm pretty good at the stage now that I've played MM2 so many times. But as it stands, I still don't think it's a good level because the punishment is too great and the reward of being good at the stage falls flat for me since I don't find diving through pits to be fun gameplay. Memorizing disappearing block patterns, timing my jumps around projectiles, and blasting away at tough enemies are what comes to mind when I think of rewarding and satisfying gameplay. I appreciate hearing your thoughts though, it's good to engage with other perspectives.
I think the idea of Quick man Stage was "Very hard to beat without Time Stopper, so, either use Time Stopper or have a hard time learning by punishiment!" Eventually we learn, but it can be frustating.
The series fortunately drifted away from this posture to the (much more appreciated and funny) "learn through your mistakes by laughing about them at the same time". Galaxy Man stage in MM9 is the perfect example of a stage to watch someone play for the first time. Everything there is planned to meticulously make fun of the player, but in a fair and "didatic" way.
Quick Man's Stage can be a little fun to watch, but it did punished hard. At least it was a short stage, so it felt more like a difficulty spike. Can't say the same about a much longer and even more punishible stage from years later -- Metal Shark Player, from X6. This last one is horrendous, navigating through it was tedious (when not simply infuriating), specially with all those bad controls and hit-boxes.
On the other hand, Wily Stage 2 from MM10 -- another famous difficult stage -- was brilliant. Never I took so many continues in a single run in my recent memory... and I loved everytime I had to retry everything again. It simply was funny/hilarious to notice exactly how "devious" the developers managed to put just to mess with the player's run the very moment any mistake is commited.
I mean, you try to proceed jumping from the the top of the screen pathway just for a precisely placed (but avoidable) enemy shot hit you and make you fall down the platform... but not to the pit itself because you fall exactly in a tile the lower screen pathway, the path that intuitively is the more difficult one and requires double care for you to not fall for real. Then you carefully try to use Rush Coil to climb back to the less dangerous upper pathway just for that same enemy shot from earlier hit you during the process right when you try to climb up... but once again the stage's positioning is placed about right to not let the poor player fall completely off screen, so he can try again for the second time the same thing or something new.
The planning is incredible, it keeps "torturing" the player in a loop until he learns how to get out of it by anticipating, memorizing or innovating.
Great video, I’ve been playing through the classic mega man series during breaks at school. It’s been really fun since I only played mega man 1 and 2 as a kid
The first three are amazing, I definitely love these games a lot
Ice Man's projectiles may be slow at first but they actually speed up overtime
Wow you are a great, underrated youtuber. Very good stuff dude! Keep it up!
Thanks! Your content looks great too.
@@DeltaOtaku aw thank you so much!
Hard man is funny name hard hahah
Top Man
Mega Man 3 has always been my favorite Mega Man game and probably NES game.
I always used the 2nd controller cheat for the MM2 bosses in MM3 especially quick man
Flashman stage is frozen over? I thought Rock was just walking around on slippery glass?
I used to think it was a cave like Crystal Man's stage xP
@@DeltaOtaku personally, I love all the strobe lights in the glass.
Gamma 1 is literally a New Shotman from earlier stages
yeah i always knew megaman is the best game series on nes and nobody will convince me to think otherwise
Man, I don't get the refight stage hate many reviewers of these games have. Like, I know they feel like "bloat" or "padding" or whatever but they're fun, and Mega Man games are pretty short on their own anyway. 😭
Fair enough. I don't find it fun and that's where it ends for me. That's why I made the point of not talking about it past MM3.
@@DeltaOtakuI do feel like a lot of reviewers miss the idea behind the refights which is to show you how far you’ve come now that you have all of the weaknesses. Doesn’t mean you have to like it, but I just feel like calling it padding is missing the point of why they are there.
Fireman vs HeatMan
Cutman vs QuickMan
Metalman vs Shadowman
Gutman vs Hardman
The idea of revisting the stages previously beaten, but changed with increased difficulty, just blew my mind the first time I played MM3 and I always wondered how the other four unused stages would be if they too have received the same treatment.
For me, the four stages rematches were always a major strong point in the game. Maybe not perfectly executed (specially the rematch bosses difficulty spike and unfair mechanics), but the concept was genius and, up to today, unique to megaman 3. I don't think the idea was lazy at all (as I've seen some people in other places stating).
My issue is that they should have done 8 stages with 1 doc robot per stage. The choices feel arbitrary. Maybe 8 were planned and those 4 were the first done
@@gamesake999 I strongly feel that the original plan was exactly that: 1 robot per (remodeled) stage, but then, time constraints happened and they mashed 2 per stage, which were the first thet've done. Those eventually became the diagonal stages in the stage select grid.
I can picture Air Man in the final sections of Snake Man's Stage, or Wood Man being battled in the end of Hard Man's Stage. An underwater segment in Top Man's stage to host Bubble Man is reasonable, too.
I would play MM1 more often if it weren't for the slippery physics.
"Megaman is my favorite game franchise because it requires you to master the weapons and stages to be the most fun it can be"
*actively spams rewind, autofire and pause glitch while recording illustrative footage*
I don't use autofire, I'm just THAT good at spamming. But believe what you will, it doesn't bother me. I do agree that my use of the pause glitch was a bad decision while recording. That and the rewind use came from me being lazy. Skimming through this video again made me realize how weird it looked, especially considering the commentary. I won't be using rewind for my footage of 4, 5, and 6, that's for sure.
The Yellow Devil is a cult enemy. His pattern is not hard to figure out.
Top Spin is a better weapon than most people give it credit for. Yes, it was bugged due to the rushed production (and I hear they fixed it for The Wily Wars on Sega Genesis), but it's still an effective weapon if you know how to use it properly and on which enemies it's effective. And those who say it's the *worst* weapon in Mega Man history are objectively wrong. Spark Shock is the absolute worst weapon. It's completely useless. You can't damage anything with it except one or two bosses, it only creates obstacles you need to go around because it freezes an enemy in place, and when you freeze an enemy you can't switch to another weapon to destroy the enemy like you could with Ice Man's weapon in the first Mega Man.
At least spark shot is usable.
@@thomasffrench3639 Top Spin is usable, too. But Spark Shock just creates an obstacle. It freezes the enemy in place and you can't switch to another weapon to destroy the enemy like you could Ice Man's weapon in the first game. So it's usable but it's worse than useless -- it actually can create more of a hazard for you if you're not careful. Top Spin is buggy but can still be used.
@@clintonwilcox4690 I found the top spin created more of a hazard than Spark Shot, because I would get damaged using it. That doesn't happen with Spark Shot.
@@thomasffrench3639 It does happen with Spark Shot if you're not careful. Yes, chances are excellent you'll take damage when using it on a boss, but you can use it consistently on stage enemies without taking damage. You can get through the area of Shadow Man's stage where the parachuting robots come down at you while you're jumping over a pit to get rid of those robots (plus the smaller jumping robots), though you do have to be careful not to fall into a pit when you do that. So Magnet Missile is a better choice going through there. But it's still a viable way to get through that if you haven't done Magnet Man yet. It just takes practice. I don't begrudge anyone who doesn't want to use it because of the bugginess of it, but if you practice with it, it becomes a viable tool in your toolbelt, though definitely not the best.
@@clintonwilcox4690 I just find that the Spark Shock is overhated. That is more my point. I'm sure that Top spin has it's uses, I just preferred to use the Spark Shock. Maybe it's because I'm careful that I didn't run into problems with the Spark Shot. Actually when I was going through Shadow Man stage I only had the top, but instead I just jumped back and forth between the platforms.
Okay so, I'll probably edit this comment later once I've finished the video (I'm 13 minutes in, and enjoying it for the most part,) but I just wanted to say that I'm bothered beyond belief that you didn't go over the pause glitch in MM1 in the MM1 segment, despite showcasing it *several* times in the video. Not only that, but also specifically using it against certain bosses (eg the Yellow Devil,) while talking about how difficult they are. That instance I find to be 'really not good,' considering if someone new to Mega Man were to click on the video, they'd see him go down in a single shot, and have zero context for why he should be difficult. ESPECIALLY with how extensively you talked about him being a rough boss, and one of the most infamous in gaming history. Same with the other bosses like Elecman you used it against. Context is very important
It's not a bad thing to use the pause glitch in Mega Man 1, I find it makes the game more enjoyable at times, especially on casual runs, but at least mention it like, at all. It's kinda an enormous deal on every level of gameplay, and can trivialize a good portion of the game when abused
(Also, hard disagree with you on the music for this game. I place it in my top 5 MM OSTs of all time, and up there with games like Mario 3 as some of the best music the NES has to offer)
I didn't go over the pause glitch for the same reason I didn't talk about the bad NA boxart, if someone is watching a 30 minuite retrospective of the Mega Man games, they're probably already a fan of the series and know all of those things, so going over them again is redundant. Although, I agree that I should've went back and got more footage of Mega Man 1 without the pause glitch so it would match the commentary, I didn't because I had procrastinated this video for a while and didn't want to keep people waiting any longer. I didn't think it would be a big deal, but looking back I should've removed those pause glitch clips.
A very good and appropriate review. Unfortunately I have to disagree with you on one point. The boss battles in Willy Styge from Mega Man 2 and following made a lot of sense for the time in my opinion. Sure, today everyone knows the weaknesses of the robotmasters and can play through the game in an hour. If you don't know them, it's just a Google search away. But back then, without rewind and saves, you spent a long time learning the stages, even seeing a boss. If you didn't have the right weapon and the boss was too difficult for you, you had to go back and try to learn another level. It could take months to get to the rematches. Then this throwback and you could show each boss again how much stronger you've become through playing. that was a feelgood moment back then.
Even in that context, I still don't think it's a worthwhile mechanic. I think the epic final battles are enough to put into perspective how much the player has grown throughout the game, as well as using the weapons to their fullest potential in the stages themselves. It's cool to hear your thoughts on it though, thanks for sharing!
Poggers
i think the boss battles in 4, 5, and 6 are worse overall. Most have a very simple pattern and walk through a very stripped down room, and are weak to exactly one weapon by a specific amount.
Too streamlined. Too sterilized.
So... Let's get this straight: the Doc Robot stages were filler, but the Cossack/Proto/X castles from the next trilogy were not? That's asinine. You're just hating on the Doc Robot stages because that's what the internet told you to do. It's the first time they know for a fact you're fully powered up and have a certain weapon for a certain situation, so they're able to throw these kinds of challenges at you. Can't have a flying stage if you're not guaranteed to have rush jet, yeah? If they put that section in Needle man proper, you wouldn't be able to choose his stage without first having beaten Needle man... Bad example, but you see the paradox. It defeats the purpose and draw of Megaman in that the player gets to CHOOSE which order they want to tackle the stages. But they should have just added these sections to the castle stages... There WAS a second flying section in one of the Wily stages if you recall. Here's another, simpler example. You can't have the single ladder bug at the beginning of Spark Man's regular stage because you can't be guaranteed of having a way to kill it via shadow blade or gemini laser. That's ONLY possible after the designers can guarantee you're able to overcome the challenge.
I think it's neat to be able to go back through these stages and see the destruction you've caused the first time you went through. Of course there are pits and spikes everywhere, it's all in ruins! Of COURSE there are two giant mets here, I broke open their cages my first time through the stage when I was blowing through all the big cannons and dragonfly things. (
It may not be filler per se, but it definitely feels like it just because you have to revisit the levels and bosses you already completed before, except longer. I would argue that the Cossack stages didn't feel like filler because going from Mega Man 3 straight to Mega Man 4, you still assume that Cossack is the big bad of the game and then the twist is revealed. I'll agree with the Protoman and X sentiment though because it just seemed like those games just had twists because Mega Man 4 also had one (Mega Man 2 and 3 also had Wily twists, but they were minor and you already knew Wily was the main villain.). I'd also agree about the mandatory flying sections. The final levels should test you on your abilities with every item you have.
I'm 38 years old and I only just learned about the actual story of Mega Man 3 last week and I had no idea that the game takes place on eight different planets. that's why I always thought it seemed so odd when you defeat the eight Robot Masters and you start dr. Wily's Castle and you appear before doctor Light and he says something weird that made no sense. that as soon as you return with the last element dr. Wily escaped with gamma I never understand what that was it didn't make any sense I always assumed the element was the weapon you carry back from the boss fights but no it was an actual element unique that planet that they never explained, fortunately someone went and restored all the missing content and now there's a full version of the game with all the missing stuff included and completes the story. I'm surprised you crapped all over Mega Man 3 as hard as you did I think the gameplay in Mega Man 3 is far superior to MegaMan 2 and has almost a more mature theme to it and I also like the level design a lot more. I also agree that the darker Musical darker musical score is excellent. I agree with the weapons I never really felt they had any useful purpose except for a few different spots and just using them to finish off the bosses quickly. Top man's weapon was really hilarious I would just use him to one-hit-kill shadow man. I thought that was its only purpose I didn't use him to kill the last boss I always had to use Snake Man. I personally love the retooled stages after you fight the initial eight Robot Masters and then you have to go back to for the other ones and fight the bosses from Mega Man 2 I really love the way it extends the game. I've never minded the Boss Rush In fact it's a staple of Megaman in general all the way through all the X games. For me I always felt it was away for the developers to say hey now you're ready to fight them all over again show us what you've learned. Adding the slide really was a great enhancement to three and then of course from 4 onwards they added the Mega Buster Cannon. I never played all of Mega Man 1 Mega Mentor the first game I ever played as a little boy back in the late 80s early 90s when my parents bought me a Nintendo so Mega Man 2 for me will always carry the trophy as the greatest Megaman game simply because of personal Nostalgia reasons. I really only played the original Mega Man games up until Mega Man 4 and then I moved to Megaman X on Super Nintendo and played 1 through 3 and then played the fourth one on Playstation when I was a teenager I really like your review of this hope to see you do the other Mega Man games.
Dude, spark shock in MM3 is way worse than top spin. It's one of the worst weapons in all MM, possibly the very worst.