Games I Played in 2026 - Mega Man Legacy Collection + Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 (Mega Man 1-10)

Console: PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PC

Developer: Digital Eclipse (Legacy Collection 1), Capcom (Legacy Collection 2)

Release Date: August 25, 2015 (Legacy Collection 1), August 8, 2017 (Legacy Collection 2)

Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 and 2 are collections of the first 10 games in the Mega Man franchise; Legacy Collection 1 has the six NES entries, while Legacy Collection 2 has the rest, including the DLC for Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10, included as unlockable content instead. Before playing these games, I had very little experience with all of Mega Man outside of the Battle Network series; I knew about Mega Man 2's popularity and how the music was great, but that's about it. At time of writing, Mega Man Dual Override has only had a pair of trailers after its reveal, and the game looked good enough for me to want to get into the series! Since these are collections of short games, I'm taking a different approach than I usually would: I'll review all 10(!!) games here at once, as well as the Legacy Collection features afterwards. Each review is written after I play each game in the series, without the benefit of foresight of what's coming next. First up: the game that started it all!

MEGA MAN 1 

Console: NES

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: December 17, 1987

Mega Man 1, as well as the rest of the series, is a platformer where the protagonist, Mega Man, has the ability to shoot bullets in front of him. With only shooting, running, and jumping as his moves, the player is tasked with defeating six Robot Masters, each with their own stages, and then conquer Dr. Wily's Castle to save the world. As you'd expect of the first game in a series that's still going nearly 40 years later, Mega Man 1 establishes a lot of the series' core mechanics and identity. The core idea of Mega Man as a franchise is that you gain a boss's weapon after defeating them, and each boss has a weakness to another boss's weapon that can be exploited to defeat them easily. Without these weaknesses, the bosses can be very challenging. Notably, while Mega Man's buster shots are infinite ammo, the boss weapons have finite ammo.

Mega Man 1 is often touted as one of the (if not THE) most difficult games in the franchise, and while I sort of agree, I also think it's a bit overblown. Instead of being hard the entire way through, I instead found the game's difficulty to be wildly uneven; Elec Man's stage and battle in particular felt very difficult, but then I was able to Guts Man's and Cut Man's without getting a game over. There's no denying that the majority of the game is not only difficult, but tricky and intentionally frustrating.

Mega Man 1 was one of the two games in the series I had any familiarity with: I had tried long, long ago on emulator to play this game, selected Elec Man's stage, was unable to make it out of the first room, and quit. Something quite noteworthy, at least to me, is that I found myself enjoying the lives system, more so than in any other game like Mario, Kirby, or whatever else. The stages are decently long for how difficult they are, but have checkpoints, and getting a Game Over means you need to start the stage over from the start. It made 1-ups exciting to find and get, and forced me to get better at the stages to make sure I could take on the bosses with a margin of error. It was really surprising to me how even just a few runs through a level was enough for me to breeze through most of it. The bosses are kind of whatever, though, which was to be expected. The infamous Yellow Devil is iconic and really hard, sure, but other than that it's just nothing special especially when using the boss weaknesses. Elec Man stood out as being overtuned, with his attack dealing an insane amount of damage. 

The infamous starting screen of Elec Man's stage, with annoying enemies that are too low to shoot while standing, and tight jumps.

All the stages were fun to play through, outside of Wily Stage 3, which is super simple and dull. I especially enjoyed how much verticality there is in most of the stages, even if it means there's frustrations to be had when you fall off a ladder and need to redo a screen or two. There's also checkpoints, like I mentioned, but they're... well a lot of them are kind of mean, to say it nicely. Over half of those I encountered spawned me directly next to an enemy, or in an otherwise precarious location. It was very noticeable in a bad way. I will say, though, having the boss doors lead to a small extra challenge before the boss was neat and makes things feel less uniform, since I know even without playing other games in the series that it's not like that in the future entries. There was also the first ever appearance of the infamous Yoku Blocks, which are blocks that vanish and appear at regular intervals. It's also cool how two of the six Robot Master rematches in the final stages are integrated in the stage itself as a miniboss. I'm fully aware this stops by the next game, though.

Mega Man's controls, though, were a little strange. He's got very precise movement when in the air, and it feels like you have almost granular control of his jump height, but he's sort of slippery on the ground, accelerating and decelerating a bit too much to feel natural. It makes tighter platforming a bit more frustrating than it should be. The weapons you get are basic, but fun, though Guts Man's is purely situational, which is a bit of a bummer, and Bomb Man's is borderline useless. There's also a single transport item, the Magnet Beam, that has to be acquired from Elec Man's stage. Without it, one of the final stages is impossible.

The music by Manami Matsumae is excellent, with each stage theme being unique and memorable, with my standouts being Bomb Man, Elec Man, and Wily Stage 2. However, the two boss themes are pretty lacking, and I'd go as far as to say the Robot Master boss theme is just bad. I'd also maybe argue that Elec Man and Fire Man's themes could have been switched, namely because of the latter's electric-sounding percussion. I do have to mention, however, that at least on my sound system, the bass in almost every track got a bit grating. It's very low and nearly constant, giving the game a constant buzz.

Robot Master order: Elec Man (fail) > Guts Man > Elec Man (fail) > Cut Man > Elec Man > Fire Man > Ice Man > Bomb Man 

MEGA MAN 2 

Console: NES

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: July 10, 1989

It's no secret that Mega Man 2 is the game that got the series on the map, especially in the west. It's easily the most popular game in the series and further iterates on the foundations made in the first game to fully settle the series's core concepts: Robot Masters are bumped up to 8, and the transport items are introduced, as well as E-Tanks to fully refill your health. Unique to this game for the NES hexalogy, there's two difficulties: Normal and Hard. This is unique to the western versions of the game, as the developers felt that players in the west would find the game too difficult, so they added an easier difficulty where either Mega Man does double damage or enemy health is halved (or both, hard to tell) named Normal, while the original's difficulty is preserved with Difficult.

For this game, I did two playthroughs, one on each difficulty. And, to be honest... I didn't really enjoy Mega Man 2, especially not on Normal. There's multiple reasons for this, but to start: I found it almost insultingly easy and it removed a lot of the fun challenge from the game, to the point that it didn't feel like Mega Man at all. It also exposed the game's lacking level design compared to Mega Man 1, which also hurt my enjoyment of the second playthrough on Difficult mode. Stages are shorter and more horizontal than in Mega Man 1, which I found disappointing, but what I especially found disappointing is that a lot of it is kind of boring and straightforward. This is also the first game to have boss rooms be uniform, and the boss rematches be its own dedicated level, with a hub room with teleporters to each fight.

One of my biggest issue with the difficulty settings, though, is that Normal mode also affects the enemy drops, making them drop good healing and ammo refills far too often. It's more reasonable on Difficult, but with the introduction of some infinitely respawning enemies and questionable boss design decisions, it's clear this was a sort of band-aid fix on a wider issue that they couldn't fix in the game's three month development time. Some of the bosses in this game are only vulnerable to a single weapon type, meaning grinding for ammunition can become necessary since ammo doesn't refill when you respawn. What I noticed, however, is that this isn't even a game that really needs difficulty settings, at least not in the way that they're implemented, because most, if not all of the challenge is due to tricky platforming and especially instakill obstacles, not tanky enemies or tough bosses. Mega Man 2 is also notable for its borderline overkill Yoku Block section in Heat Man's level.

The infamous Yoku Block sequence in Heat Man's stage, requiring you to do some perilous platforming with disappearing platforms over a pit.

One of the bosses near the end of the game, the Boobeam Trap, is flat out one of the worst bosses I've fought in a retro game, with it being five beam emitters that are destroyed with one Crash Bomber each, but some are hidden behind walls that can be destroyed by a Crash Bomber as well. The problem is: you only have enough ammo to shoot the Crash Bomber 7 times, so without the right strategy and full ammo, the boss is impossible to defeat. If you die against the boss and respawn at the checkpoint, the walls don't come back, but neither does your ammo, requiring you to either farm for ammo drops on difficult, tricky enemies, or game over to try again at the cost of doing the entire stage again. It's a pretty baffling design decision.

There's also some balance issues with the weapons, namely the Metal Blade. It more or less invalidates every other weapon outside of boss battles, with a huge amount of ammo (over 100 shots!), the ability to rapid-fire it like normal buster shots, the ability to aim in eight directions, and still being able to shoot through walls with it. There's even multiple rooms in the game where it felt like the level designers expected you to have and use it, with enemies spawning under or above Mega Man constantly. I also felt the enemy variety was lower than Mega Man 1, but I think it was just because there were 8 Robot Master stages and not 6, because the enemy list for Mega Man 2 is larger. The transport items are neat and can allow the player to skip some more frustrating sequences (though I had no idea where to even use Item-3) or reach some out-of-reach items, but the way they're awkwardly awarded in an arbitrary way after certain Robot Masters are defeated. There's no real rhyme or reason to this, and I didn't notice I got some of them while playing, even.

The game's presentation is great, though, and it looks much more polished than Mega Man 1, on top of Mega Man's controls being tightened a bit so he's less slippery. There's some hiccups, namely the blinding, irritating, flashing waterfall in Bubble Man's stage, but other than that, the game just looks better. The big thing, though is Takashi Tateishi's music. It's instantly iconic and catchy, being ultra popular even outside the series for obvious reasons. While Mega Man 1's soundtrack was great, Mega Man 2's soundtrack is just way better. Every track is great, but my three standouts were Wood Man's stage, Metal Man's stage, and Bubble Man's stage. Wily Stage 1 is obviously the most popular, but I've heard it too much. This game is also the start of Capcom doing Robot Master design contests for the games, with all eight Robot Masters being contest winners! I just think that's cool.

Robot Master Order: Bubble Man > Heat Man > Wood Man > Flash Man > Quick Man > Crash Man > Metal Man > Air Man

MEGA MAN 3

 Console: NES

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: November 22, 1990

Mega Man 3 is the first game in the series that I had little to no experience with, which will continue with all the following titles, which is exciting! Not only do I have no experience with this and all following titles, I'm also unaware of how people feel about them. As a fun fact, Mega Man 3's North American release date is the day after the SNES (or Super Famicom) came out in Japan! This game introduces a nice quality of life feature, allowing Mega Man to climb ladders much faster, and introduces a key mechanic: sliding. This makes Mega Man one block tall instead of two, allowing him to dodge certain attacks with the right timing, as well as to just move faster. To accommodate this, stages now feature narrow paths that can only be traversed while sliding, which makes the stages more interesting.

The game also introduces Proto Man as a character, where he appears as a miniboss in certain stages, which is quite neat! Rush, Mega Man's robotic dog, is also introduced, giving him access to Transport Items. All of this makes the game feel a lot more substantial than the previous two games, and like a real evolution of Mega Man 1, while Mega Man 2 was sort of only one step forward and mostly more of the same. The level design also strikes a good balance between Mega Man 3's predecessors, being less vertical than 1 but less horizontal and bland than 2 overall.

The Robot Masters of Mega Man 3. None of their weaknesses relative to each other is obvious.

The thing that stood out the most to me when I first started Mega Man 3 was the Robot Master selection: they're all far more abstract concepts than the previous two games's Robot Masters, which also makes most of their weaknesses much harder to parse at a glance. I see this as a positive, personally! I find that it's a lot of fun trying to guess who's weak to who, and if wrong having to either try to beat them with the Mega Buster or simply leave and come back later. To help matters, this time around I thought that almost every weapon had a worthwhile use case, such as the Needle Cannon enabling rapid fire, Magnet Missile being great at hitting low or high enemies, Top Spin being a powerful melee attack. The Spark Shock was the big miss for me this time, with it only paralyzing enemies. It's easily my favorite array of bosses and weapons so far. 

There's also four stage revisits after defeating the eight Robot Masters, turning the stages into harder versions of themselves, with two Doc Robot bosses in them. This is already kind of neat, but the Doc Robots all use data from the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters, meaning you get to refight the Mega Man 2 bosses but with different weapons in your arsenal. It's obviously a cheap way to lengthen the playtime and recycle code and assets, but I also thought it was genuinely cool to get to refight them in different circumstances.

What was noticeable even with the Mega Man Legacy Collection's Turbo CPU Speed option (more on that later in the Legacy Collection Features section) is that Mega Man 3 is unpolished and buggy. Even in the picture above, you can see one glitchy line that flickers above Shadow Man's portrait. I had some platforms push me out from under me into a pit, I got stuck in a wall once, and I know the original version of the game is very laggy and unoptimized, which is a shame because this is pretty easily my favorite of the three Mega Man games so far. Top Spin is also quite a buggy weapon; it hits every frame, so it's possible to one shot bosses weak to it... or you can also lose all of your ammo in one button press. It's a shame.

The music is by Yasuaki Fujita, except for two tracks (Needle Man and Gemini Man) that were made by the original composer, Harumi Fujita, before she had to leave the project due to being pregnant. While I don't think it reaches the iconic levels of Mega Man 2's soundtrack (and I don't think many, if any, game in the franchise will), I do enjoy this soundtrack more than Mega Man 2's! It's also interesting to hear Harumi Fujita's tracks because they do stand out: Yasuaki's tracks are sharp and snappy, while Harumi's are more flowy and melodic. To be honest, I'd be super curious to have heard what Harumi's full soundtrack would've been like, because her tracks are my favorites. As for Yasuaki's, I really enjoy Wily Stage 1, and am fond of Magnet Man and Top Man's themes. I like all of the tracks once again, though!

Robot Master Order: Needle Man (fail) > Top Man > Hard Man > Gemini Man (fail) > Spark Man > Magnet Man > Gemini Man > Needle Man > Shadow Man > Snake Man 

MEGA MAN 4

 Console: NES

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: January 1, 1992

Mega Man 4 showcases a clear step up in presentation, with a more detailed intro and story when first booting it up. It's still nothing special, but it's a noticeable improvement, which could likely be attributed to now being released on the NES after the SNES came out in North America. In terms of gameplay, the biggest difference is the addition of the Charge Shot. By holding the fire button, you can charge your Buster shots now, with a 1 second charge resulting in a larger projectile, and a 2 second charge triples your Buster damage on top of having a larger projectile; both charge types also keep going past defeated enemies instead of disappearing on contact. It's a great addition to the game's mechanics, but I did find myself often forgetting it was an option, preferring to mash the fire button instead. Something else that's new is Eddie, a cute little robot shaped like a bucket container that appears in some rooms to give you a random item.

I'll admit, I find myself having a hard time giving a lot of analysis of Mega Man 4 because it's simply a really solid game the entire way through. There's cool gimmicks everywhere, whether it's Bright Man's stage having enemies that interact with the level's visibility, Toad Man's stage having water or rain that affects your momentum, or quicksand in Pharaoh Man's stage, and it just made the game a blast to play through. 

One of the final pushes before Skull Man's boss room, set on a red sunset with skeleton enemies surrounding Mega Man.

The boss battles are noticeably tougher in this entry, and I found myself regularly struggling against the Robot Masters. To counteract this, I did notice that the game has a lot of E-Tanks just scattered about that aren't really hard to find or get, and I got a lot of random 1-up drops from enemies. The game also introduces a very welcome new recovery item: the W-Tank, which recovers weapon ammo. Mega Man 4 also has a twist villain, first positioning Dr. Cossack as a villain with his own fortress, only to reveal Dr. Wily is the real villain and having even MORE final levels. It was nice to have a cutscene after defeating a boss, even if it's nothing special. The big disappointment for me was the final boss, the Wily Capsule, which is an extremely gimmicky fight that's wholly unsatisfying. It also took me a good amount of time to even figure out how to damage it, as most weapons are ineffective or simply can't reach it most of the time. 

The music, this time by Minae Fujii, is my favorite in the series so far, with a great energy to it and all the stage themes are instantly catchy and recognisable, to the point I'd say this is about the same level as Mega Man 2's soundtrack. Most noteworthy to me is Fujii's occasional use of slide notes to give the tracks a really cool feel that isn't in any other game so far. My three standouts were Pharaoh Man and Bright Man's themes, as well as Cossack Stage 1, but again, I love the whole soundtrack.

Robot Master Order: Pharaoh Man > Skull Man (fail) > Toad Man > Ring Man > Skull Man > Bright Man > Dive Man > Dust Man > Drill Man

MEGA MAN 5 

Console: NES

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: December 15, 1992

Mega Man 5 does not add any new central mechanic to the series, but does upgrade the Charge Shot to be even stronger, to the point of being borderline overpowered. This is namely because the fully charged shot is not only made even larger, but the charge time is halved, making it really easy to spam. It still does triple the damage of a normal shot, but being so much easier to spam made me prioritise it over rapid-firing for a large majority of the game to great effect. It's so efficient that I rarely felt incentivized to use the boss weapons, even against bosses.

Something the game adds but I didn't get is Beat, a new robot companion for Mega Man. Beat is a little bird that acts as a summon, but to acquire him, you must find the letters in "MEGAMANV" scattered across the 8 Robot Master stages in a way almost reminiscent of the Donkey Kong Country games, though each stage only has one letter. What I really noticed in this game was the lower difficulty, not only thanks to the new Charge Shot, but also the ridiculous amount of 1-ups I found, to the point that I ended up with 9 extra lives at some point.

One of the letters to unlock Beat in Star Man's stage, right next to some instakill spikes.

Mega Man 5 felt like the most uninspired game in the series so far to me, everything being good but not great, fun but not memorable. The presentation is fantastic and another step up, obviously, but in terms of gameplay, I found things to be quite dull. The Robot Masters also felt noticeably easier than before, not just because of the Charge Shot. Overall, the game felt more like a "business as usual" affair rather than a genuine step forward in the series like every other game felt (even 2). The boss weapons are fine, but the Charge Shot is so good that they're mostly unnecessary, though I'll say that the Charge Kick affecting your slide rather than being fired is pretty cool.

This time, there's another twist villain, as the main antagonist is shockingly shown to be Proto Man. Upon defeating the 8 Robot Masters and going through his Fortress, fighting new bosses called Dark Man, you discover that Proto Man was actually Dark Man 4 disguised as Proto Man, with the real one revealing his identity. Another cool, brief cutscene moment near the end of the game which I enjoyed. Naturally, the real villain is Dr. Wily again, and there's a few more final stages after the reveal.

The music for Mega Man 5 was handled by Mari Yamaguchi, and I unfortunately thought it was the weakest of the series so far. It's hard for me to put into words, so forgive me if it sounds vague, but Yamaguchi's music sounds very flat and lifeless, on top of being rather slow-paced. I can't tell what's making me feel that way, whether it's the bass being less detailed, the percussion being thin, or whatever, but something about it feels bland and dull. Nonetheless, my three favorite tracks were Wave Man's theme, as well as both the Proto Man/Dark Man Stage and Wily Stage themes. 

Robot Master Order: Charge Man > Stone Man > Crystal Man > Star Man > Wave Man > Gyro Man > Gravity Man
 

MEGA MAN 6 

Console: NES

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: March 15, 1994

Mega Man 6 is the final NES game in the series, which is apt because by now, Mega Man X, the first game in the pseudo "sequel" series was out! There's another pretty big bump in presentation quality, including the weapon acquisition cutscene now showing a cool animation as well as a weapon demonstration. This game introduces a new mechanic, or rather modifies an existing one: instead of having the traditional Rush Coil and Rush Jet transport items, Mega Man now can fuse with Rush using one of two adapters, the Power and Jet Adapters. These are unlocked, once again, through arbitrary, specific Robot Masters, but allow Mega Man to either have a powerful punch attack or be able to hover and fly for a limited time. This is also the only game where two Robot Masters were designed by non-Japanese contest winners: Knight Man and Wind Man.

These Adapters play into the game's new level design trick that I absolutely love: branching paths. On top of having these branching paths, the Robot Masters are now some of the most fun battles in the series, with fun weapons to boot. Naturally, the Jet Adapter also helps with tough platforming segments, since unlike weapons and transport items, the Adapters are infinite use, but need to briefly recharge after each of their specific abilities. Knockback is also introduced to pair with the Power Adapter, gaining the ability to knock back certain enemies and bosses to get some breathing room. The trade-off to the Adapters is that you can't slide or use the Charge Shot, the latter of which has been toned down from Mega Man 5 to a better middle ground.

Mr. X, the game's villain who totally isn't Dr. Wily in a costume, during the game's intro.

The game features yet another twist villain, though this one is the comically unsubtle "Mr. X" actually turning out to be Dr. Wily. Outside of this, this is just a super solid Mega Man game with great stages, cool enemies, and great bosses with one exception: the Power Piston in Mr. X Stage 2 is simply too chaotic to properly dodge and attack at the same time, not to mention it's often out of reach of normal Mega Man. One of the strengths of the series, at least to me, is that almost every boss and enemy can be defeated with the Mega Buster, so whenever a boss is designed to specifically not allow that, it irks me. But its attacks are also too frantic to fight with any semblance of control, which felt strange. Either way, even though I loved Mega Man 6, by this point it's clear that unless something big happens, the Classic Mega Man series is falling into a repetitive formula.

Yuko Takehara did the soundtrack for Mega Man 6, and it's closer to Mega Man 5's more lackluster soundtrack than the other four games, but it doesn't feel as flat. The tracks are generally slower and more vibey than big energetic bangers, but these are more palatable and feel more suited to the gameplay. Again, it's hard for me to properly express what's "wrong" with Mega Man 5's soundtrack compared to the others. My three standouts were Knight Man's theme, as well as the Mr. X Stage and Wily Stage themes. Not my favorite soundtrack, but a good enough one.

Robot Master Order: Blizzard Man > Flame Man > Plant Man > Wind Man > Yamato Man > Tomahawk Man > Knight Man > Centaur Man 

MEGA MAN 7 

Console: SNES

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: September 1, 1995

I said something big needed to happen to the series to stay afloat, and it happened immediately with Mega Man 7, finally landing the Classic series on SNES. The jump in hardware is obviously really noticeable, with much higher resolution sprites across the board with way more detail in the backgrounds. It's to the point that it's almost jarring, especially since movement seems kind of the same, so you have larger sprites moving at slow speeds to compensate. I got used to it, but it's still a bit weird. Either way, the game is gorgeous, and very refreshing after six straight games of similar artstyles. I'll admit that I came in expecting to dislike this game due to the rather jarring changes, but wound up enjoying it a lot in spite of its weaknesses.

There's numerous changes in Mega Man 7, some are better and some are worse. First, there's now a Shop that can be visited between levels, where you can spend Screws for E-Tanks, 1-ups, and some new items like the Beat Whistle to prevent one fall in a pit, or the Exit to let you leave a defeated Robot Master's stage anywhere. I'll admit, I completely missed the store for most of the game, not having noticed when it was unlocked and there being no UI indication for how to access it on the stage select screen. There's also an extra collectible I missed that unlocks more items in the Shop, which is a cool addition! You can also find the letters for RUSH in specific stages (similar to how you could find BEAT in Mega Man 6 and MEGAMANV in Mega Man 5) to unlock the Super Adapter, essentially combining the previous game's Power and Jet Adapters. I unfortunately didn't acquire this, but it's cool to keep having these optional collectibles. Bass is also a new key character introduced that I really enjoyed.

A major change is in the game's structure: instead of having 8 Robot Masters to pick and choose from, you instead get an Opening Stage (reminiscent of what Mega Man X was doing) and then you only have access to 4 Robot Masters; only once these are defeated do you get access to the next 4 following a mid-game stage. Though it makes sense narratively, I don't know why it's not something that happens after beating half the Robot Masters instead. It also creates more compact weakness wheels, with each group of four only being weak to each other instead of having a wider roster. The later stages also barely take advantage of this fact by integrating the first four weapons into their stage gimmicks and instead integrate their own group's weapons into them, which makes it more puzzling to me. Something really notable is that, for some reason, you can't see the Robot Master's name without picking them, which makes it harder to guess who is weak to what without prior knowledge. Not a fan of that.

An example of how the larger sprites and the camera can make some things tricky due to lack of visibility.

The game's levels are clearly trying to inject some new life into the perhaps tired-at-the-time formula of Classic Mega Man with more unique gimmicks, to varying levels of success. Some are annoying, like Spring Man's spring sections and Burst Man's bubble lifts, but they're generally fine enough. Some issues prop up when the game gets more vertical, namely because Mega Man is allowed to get too close to the top of the screen, meaning ceilings and spikes are basically unreactable unless you know they're there already. The stages also feel fairly long, but still manageably short. Once I got past the shock of the visual upgrade, I quite enjoyed Mega Man 7, even though I found it noticeably more difficult than previous games. The added mechanics and collectibles on top of still having branching paths just made it really enjoyable.

The boss battles are a bit of a mixed bag for me, though, mostly because this time around, Robot Master weaknesses are really pronounced for the most part and will actively change the boss's pattern to be a repetitive, easier to manage one. Slash Man is still difficult even with his weakness, but other than that, it's kind of a cakewalk for all of them. Cloud Man in particular is completely debilitated by his weakness to the point that he won't even attack. Testing out weaknesses on a boss blindly is also made much less tedious because Mega Man 7 allows you to switch weapons using L and R, which is a fantastic change that indirectly encouraged me to use my weapons more. It also made me remember the colors for each weapon too. The final boss is notoriously hugely difficult, easily the hardest in the series so far, and I only beat him by brute forcing him with E-Tanks and the like. This game also introduces attacks that stun Mega Man and require you to mash/wiggle to break free, but the lack of feedback for those actions meant it took me a while to realise that I could even break out.

Mega Man 7 is the only older Mega Man game with more than one main composer as well as a lack of clarity as to who composed what. Mega Man 6's Yuko Takehara returns alongside Toshihiko Horiyama and Makoto Tomozawa. The game's soundtrack has a pretty soft sound thanks to the soundfont chosen, which is really not my favorite, but it's still a solid soundtrack all things considered. It just doesn't have the vibe I prefer for a Mega Man soundtrack at this point. My three standouts were Shade Man's stage as well as Wily Stages 2 and 3. Wily Stage 2 is almost reminiscent of something like a Michael Jackson beat, while Wily Stage 3 is just excellent and exciting. There's also a really cool easter egg on Shade Man's stage where the music can be replaced with a cover of Ayako Mori's Ghosts 'n Goblins music, which the stage has some references to.

Robot Master Order: Burst Man > Cloud Man > Junk Man > Freeze Man > Spring Man > Turbo Man > Slash Man > Shade Man

MEGA MAN 8 

Console: PSX, Sega Saturn

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: February 28, 1997

I won't beat around the bush this time: I didn't like Mega Man 8 at all. Well, that's not entirely true, since I actually love the presentation and visuals, but the game makes fundamental and detrimental changes to the formula in a misguided attempt to expand. First, a positive: the game is absolutely gorgeous with incredible pixel art and animation that you'd expect from Capcom in this era, and there are fully voiced anime cutscenes that feel straight out of a real anime. The English dub for these is terrible in a charming way (as a reference point, this is about the time the first Resident Evil game released), with unfitting casting and direction, as well as clear mistakes like pronouncing Bass like the fish and not the sound or instrument (his dog is called Treble, it should be obvious!). However, I still found myself really looking forward to getting these cutscenes as I progressed. I just love both the cutscenes and the way this game looks. There's also some short voice clips from Mega Man while playing, which are cute, and the Robot Masters have voices as well, which are hilarious. Frost Man's intro line in particular made me laugh pretty hard. It's also worth noting that this is the first time since Mega Man 2 that some Robot Masters weren't designed by fans, with Astro Man and Tengu Man being Capcom originals.

Mega Man 8 unfortunately keeps Mega Man 7's split Robot Master structure, which I'm still not a fan of, but this time it feels more integrated into the level design, with some of the later four stages having built-in interactions with the earlier four weapons that are needed to progress. It's just not as fun as having access to all 8 and being able to use some weapons for optional goodies. This time, stages are longer, being split in two by Continue Points; even if you Game Over, you'll be able to respawn at the Continue Point. I'm of two minds about this: while on one hand I do think that's necessary if you're going to have longer levels, I also think that the simple joy of the more compact levels in the series is damaged. It's also implemented in a clumsy way, harshly cutting from the midpoint of the game (usually a miniboss) to a new completely unrelated section.

The biggest issue with the stages, though, is the level design. This time around, all the stages are really gimmicky, and I swear there's around 12 autoscroller sections of varying quality and difficulty that I just really hated. Horizontal, vertical, fast, slow, turning the game into a shmup... I just had very little fun playing through these stages, and Wily Stage 1 has a notoriously difficult autoscroller right at the start. It feels distinctly un-Mega Man, and it's a shame because some of the gimmicks are enjoyable, like Clown Man's boxes, or at least interesting like Astro Man's looping maze.

A look at Clown Man's stage, where blocks with X's and O's make up the platforms. Once the robot in the background hits the bell, standing on an X block triggers a trap.

This is also the first game in the series where ammo refills upon death... which also means that sometimes, the best strategy for a boss is to let yourself die to get all your ammo back. While I found it annoying in the earlier games, I wound up enjoying that you have to be careful with your ammo when things aren't designed like Mega Man 2. This change was cool in theory, but in practice it also removed a lot of the tension in boss battles since dying means you can just retry with their weakness again instead of being stuck with the Buster. There's also something I'm really not a fan of: there is now a weapon button, meaning you can equip whatever weapon you want and still use your Buster. This fundamentally changes how the game's challenges are approached and the value of weapons, as well as just makes the game feel different in a bad way. There's just something that felt lost with the addition of this button, since managing which weapon is active is actually a really cool part of the older games: not being able to use your Buster is the trade-off to using a weapon. Mega Man 8 just disposes that entirely which rubs me the wrong way.

It's a big shame that so little of this game was fun to me, because there's some clear effort on display as well as some really interesting additional mechanics, namely in the Shop. This time around, there's modifiers for Mega Man's Buster that can be purchased, things like allowing five bullets to be on screen instead of three, or changing your Charge Shot into a laser. This is a legitimately really cool idea that ends up falling flat because the game's levels are so unengaging. The boss battles and Robot Masters are solid, but again follow the Mega Man 7 formula of altering or completely disabling a boss's pattern. The weapons are a lot of fun too, with some having multiple uses like the Tornado Hold allowing you to float upwards. Despite all this, the removal of recovery items like the E-Tanks is a questionable choice, as is removing Rush Coil and Rush Jet (the latter becoming a stage gimmick for shmup autoscrollers).

I'm also not a big fan of the music here, by Shusaku Uchiyama. It feels even softer and more passive than Mega Man 7's, but this time in higher quality and with some unfitting choices, such as making Sword Man's stage sound like it'd fit a mysterious space alien level when it takes place in an old temple in Central Asia. It's entirely unmemorable and disposable, and made the game feel even duller. The boss themes are also pretty annoying this time around. Just a big miss all around. Nonetheless, my three standouts were Frost Man and Grenade Man's stages, as well as Wily Stage 2. I also enjoy the Stage Select theme a lot, and it's fittingly used for the Legacy Collection 2's main menus.

Robot Master Order: Grenade Man > Clown Man > Frost Man > Tengu Man > Astro Man > Sword Man > Search Man > Aqua Man

MEGA MAN 9

 Console: WiiWare, XBLA, PSN

Developer: Inti Creates, Capcom

Release Date: September 22, 2008

I don't know if Mega Man 8 was a flop, or Mega Man X took off, or Capcom didn't know what to do with Classic Mega Man anymore, but Mega Man 9 is handled by Inti Creates this time around, and returns to the NES style of gameplay! It's an interesting choice to say the least, seemingly made to cater to nostalgia on a budget since this was a digital-only game. What's even more interesting is that this is Mega Man 2 era Mega Man: no Sliding and no Charge Shot! It's a peculiar choice for sure, essentially a step backwards in the name of a return to basics. The NES-style graphics are pitch-perfect and while I'm pretty sure they're more detailed than what an NES can actually display, I wager most people wouldn't be able to notice. It's super well done. This is also the first game since Mega Man 1 to have no Robot Masters designed by fans.

Due to the flattening of mechanics, Mega Man 9 is a far more simple game that has to focus on good level design and enemy placement to succeed. The structure of the game returns to the standard 8 Robot Masters, which is much more preferable. It also means there's not much to talk about in terms of gameplay that hasn't been mentioned before, as outside of the Shop being retained with some additional temporary buffs that will definitely help out in a pinch, all there really is to do is jump, run and shoot. Being a more modern game, though, there's NES style cutscenes with gorgeous pixel art and it just feels like a more "complete" game.

There's a bit of a focus on minibosses and gimmicks in this game even though the stages are shortened back to standard length with no Continue Points, with a stage having either minibosses or a central gimmick. For example, Concrete Man's stage has a miniboss gauntlet (as well as some extremely underused special blocks) while Tornado Man has magnetic, spinning platforms, rain, and ice. Every stage is very fun, but I noticed that the level design tends to have some weirdly tight jumps at times that Mega Man can barely make, as well as some flat-out prankish design with traps. The game is also very stingy with items, with almost every stage having a 1-up and only one having a single E-Tank. This means that to get recovery items, gathering screws and using the Shop is paramount. The Wily Stages are really tough and maybe I just didn't notice in previous games, but leaving (to restock on healing at the Shop, namely) means you have to do the whole thing again from the start. 

Part of Galaxy Man's stage with suspiciously Yellow Devil-shaped enemies, but green-flavored.

The Robot Master fights are pretty great, being some of my favorite in the series since they're all essentially a pattern that you have to figure out. It doesn't make for the most dynamic battles out there, but it works within the game's more simplistic design and the limited options you have. I think this game has some of my favorite weapons in the series, and I found uses for all of them. There's even some special uses for them, such as Hornet Chaser allowing you to grab items from far away, even behind walls. Not being able to switch weapons with L and R like Mega Man 8, however, is puzzling since the buttons exist on modern platforms, even on Wii.

The game also has DLC that thankfully was added as unlockable content in Legacy Collection 2, including Proto Man as a playable character, two additional harder difficulties, an endless stage and a special stage. The game also has time attack and in-game achievements, which is really neat. I didn't bother with most of this since it didn't interest me, but I did sample all of it and thought it was a bunch of cool additions. Proto Man in particular is really cool, being a new playable character that has Slide and Charge Shot, but with a game not designed with these things in mind, it's actually not that fun, especially since the Charge Shot is the rather weak Mega Man 4 version. Proto Man also takes double damage and recoil, which in a game without easy access to E-Tanks outside of the Shop, which Proto Man inconveniently doesn't have access to, made me drop his playthrough. I loved the game in spite of its mean difficulty and limited mechanics, even if I lacked interest in the bonus content. I found myself wishing I could do the special stage as a normal stage, rather than a time attack no-checkpoint run.

Since this is an Inti Creates game, the soundtrack was handled by III, a collective of their composers: Yu Shimoda, Ippo Yamada, Hiroki Isogai, and Ryo Kawakami. The game also reuses some jingles by Takeshi Tateishi. All four composers have great contributions, making this one of my favorite soundtracks in the series and a return to form compared to Mega Man 7 and 8. This soundtrack, similar to the game's visuals, pings as faithfully NES at a glance, but is likely more detailed and complex than what an NES could realistically output. My three standouts, though the entire soundtrack is excellent, were Magma Man, Concrete Man and Jewel Man's stages.

Robot Master Order: Splash Woman > Magma Man > Concrete Man > Tornado Man > Galaxy Man > Hornet Man > Jewel Man > Plug Man

MEGA MAN 10 

Console: WiiWare, XBLA, PSN

Developer: Inti Creates, Capcom

Release Date: March 1, 2010

Mega Man 10 follows what Mega Man 9 started, being another Inti Creates downloadable game with an NES style and similar ideas. The gameplay is very similar to Mega Man 9, with Mega Man still being in his Mega Man 2 incarnation, unable to Slide or Charge Shot. This time the game includes an Easy mode and a Hard mode from the start (I stuck to Normal), which is very welcome. This time, you can also select Proto Man from the start, with the same quirks as in the previous game. The story is again quite present, and very charming.

This game has a different feel than Mega Man 9, however, as the level design eases up on the pranks and cheap moments, instead having solid levels with interesting gimmicks and theming. I found the levels to be some of the most fun and memorable ones, with Sheep Man's being my favorite. They once again follow the Mega Man 9 philosophy of either being focused on minibosses or having a key gimmick for the most part, but some do have both. The stages did feel a bit shorter, though it could be a perception thing, but they're more outright difficult and tricky through more "honest" means than Mega Man 9. 

Robot Masters are once again just pretty simple patterns, but they feel very difficult this time around without their weaknesses, which I'm of two minds about since even though they're cool and they are doable, it feels uncharacteristic of the series by this point. Where there's a clear downgrade from Mega Man 9 to me is with the boss weapons, which I almost all found either unfun to use or bad. Some of the weaknesses for bosses are also pretty specific, with only a projectile part of a weapon counting as a weakness; for example, the Thunder Wool sends a cloud flying up until it emits a lightning strike: only the lightning strike counts as a "weakness."

Something I noticed is that Mega Man 10 feels a bit like an anniversary game, with the intro celebrating the fact it's the 10th game in the Classic series and multiple stages having references to previous games. Namely, Pump Man's stage having a bubble elevator section almost identical to the one in Mega Man 7's Burst Man's stage, or the final Wily Stage reusing enemies from Mega Man 2. The most noticeable bit of fanservice is in the first Wily Stage, where three minibosses use three former Robot Masters' moves, each with their own adapted weaknesses. Even cooler, it's one from each game, with the first miniboss has the Mega Man 1, 2 and 3 Robot Masters, the second one has Mega Man 4, 5 and 6, and the third one has Mega Man 7, 8 and 9, showing new pixel art for the Mega Man 7 and 8 Robot Masters as well since they never were in this style. Overall, I think this is one of the hardest games in both collections, at least on Normal.

The Mega Man 10 title screen once you've finished the game once with either Mega Man or Proto Man, updated to now have Bass displayed.

Once again, there was DLC that is now unlockable. This time, it's three special stages, an endless stage, and Bass as a playable character. Once more, I didn't really bother with the special stages and endless mode, but I did do a full playthrough as Bass (as well as Proto Man, which I hated even though he gets access to the Shop now). Bass has an interesting playstyle, being able to have four bullets on screen and lacking a Charge Shot, instead having rapid fire built in at the cost of halving the damage of his shots. He can fire in 7 directions as well (just not straight down) and cannot shoot through walls, but instead of a Slide he does have a Mega Man X style Dash that lets him jump further than Mega Man and Proto Man. Finally, instead of Rush/Proto Coil and Jet, he gets Treble Boost, letting him fly around freely while taking no knockback when damaged and firing a three-bullet shot. He feels completely different, with simple sections for Mega Man and Proto Man becoming difficult with him and vice-versa.

There's also in-game achievements again, but far fewer. Instead, there's a ton of Challenges that are designed around a singular goal, such as climbing ladders, playing in a water level or fighting a boss. I didn't bother with these very much, like with the previous game, but their presence is very much appreciated and adds a lot of replayability to the game. Like with the previous game, I wish I could've played the special stages as normal stages with checkpoints instead of as a one run, one life time attack, especially since these have unique bosses that give unique weapons.

While the III collective returns for the soundtrack, the main appeal of Mega Man 10's soundtrack is the return of the main composers from Mega Man 1-8, each getting to score a stage's theme. Each composer knocks it out of the park, but my favorites were Magma Man's stage by Mega Man 3 composer Yasuaki Fujita, Nitro Man's stage by Mega Man 1 composer Manami Matsumae, and Strike Man's stage by Mega Man 5 composer Mari Yamaguchi. I loved all 8 Robot Master stage themes, however, even if I did clock that Mega Man 8 composer Shusuke Uchiyama did Chill Man's theme because I didn't vibe with it as much as the others. The whole soundtrack is just excellent.

Robot Master Order: Solar Man (fail) > Chill Man > Pump Man > Solar Man > Blade Man (fail) > Strike Man (fail) > Commando Man > Strike Man > Blade Man > Sheep Man > Nitro Man

LEGACY COLLECTION FEATURES

A look at the Database in Legacy Collection 1, showing an enemy's stats, flavor text, and weakness.

Since Mega Man Legacy Collection and Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 were made by different companies, it's interesting to see the discrepancies between them. I'm obviously not familiar with the games outside of the collection, so while I know that Digital Eclipse tends to have some input delay in their releases, I didn't notice anything other than sometimes my jumps seemingly not registering in tight platforming moments, but that also happened in Legacy Collection 2. All I know is that I didn't have many issues with either collection in terms of gameplay.

However, it's pretty obvious that Legacy Collection 2 wasn't made by Digital Eclipse, who are known for the amount of detail and love they put into each collection in spite of their flaws. While Legacy Collection has a Database to see every enemy in the game as well as concept art, Legacy Collection 2 does not. Legacy Collection also features more options, having a Turbo CPU option to overclock the emulated NES's CPU to prevent lag, especially in Mega Man 3, with the only noticeable thing being flickering sprites. It's a really welcome addition and likely why I enjoyed some of the games so much. You can also choose to play the Japanese versions of each game. But most strikingly, Legacy Collection allows you to seamlessly reverse gameplay as well as have access to a save state. Legacy Collection 2, meanwhile, has no such thing and only has a "checkpoint save" that lets you reload a checkpoint with whatever you had when you saved. It's worth noting both collections also allow autofire, which is nice. I also would like to point out that I refrained from using these features outside of the Proto Man playthroughs in 9 and 10 and the Bass playthrough in 10, though I didn't have to use them much with Bass.

Legacy Collection just feels like a more polished collection outside of the games themselves than Legacy Collection 2, made with more love and attention to detail, down to having little icons showing if you've beat the game once. It also includes Challenges for its games, included in each game's individual menu instead of relegated to a general Challenge menu, and just is more appealing and easy to navigate overall. There's also the fact that there's a game missing from Legacy Collection 2, Mega Man & Bass which seemingly is a sort of Mega Man 8.5. There's also the fact that Mega Man 8 only has the PSX version available in Legacy Collection 2, while I have zero doubt Digital Eclipse would've found a way to include the Sega Saturn version, which has some noticeable changes including two secret bosses. Legacy Collection 2 also boots up games on the title screen, so if you want to see the opening cinematics, you need to idle on the title screen for a bit.

PROS AND CONS

PROS

• The reverse, save state and autofire features in Legacy Collection make the first six games very approachable.

• The extra challenges for all 10 games are a cool addition.

• Turbo CPU option in Legacy Collection make the games a lot more enjoyable, especially Mega Man 3.

• Having access to Mega Man 9 and 10 easily with their DLC is especially great.

• As a series, it's very consistent overall, with only one or two titles truly diverging.

• Every game plays great as a newcomer with no real issues to speak of; if there's input delay issues, I didn't notice any consistent ones at the very least.

• Seeing the evolution of the series is really cool, especially as key mechanics are added.

 

CONS

• Legacy Collection 2 lacks some cool features that Legacy Collection 1 has, with Checkpoint Save in particular being pretty wack.

• Mega Man & Bass is missing, as is the Saturn version of Mega Man 8.

 

WORTH PLAYING?

Unless you're interested in the extra challenges/bells and whistles or want to have official access to these 10 games, there's admittedly not much reason to get these collections (except maybe for easier access to Mega Man 9 and 10 along with their DLCs?) since basically every game on here is easily emulated. However, assuming you do want official access to these games and are a newcomer, I think these two collections are pretty fantastic, especially the first one since it has rewind and save state features.

As for my quick thoughts on the wider series, I think I'd consider myself a Classic Mega Man fan now! I had a blast playing through all of these games (not you, Mega Man 8) and I'm completely willing to play all of them again at the drop of a hat (again, except Mega Man 8 and maybe Mega Man 2). Every game is short enough to be digestible and played in one day even with multiple frustrating deaths, and it's really cool feeling your skills tangibly improve as you keep playing. After finishing this marathon, I booted Mega Man 1 back up and made it back to Elec Man in a flash without any struggle, which is a far cry from how my experience with the series started. I've grown very fond of Mega Man as a character, as well as Bass and especially Dr. Wily.

My thoughts on each game in one sentence:

Mega Man 1: Solid enough especially as a first game, and difficult in a mean way, but still fun.

Mega Man 2: Legendary, but strongly flawed in an unenjoyable way overall.

Mega Man 3: A worthy sequel that hits almost every mark, but is lacking in the technical department.

Mega Man 4: An upgrade over 3 at the cost of being more difficult. 

Mega Man 5: Business as usual, but still solid.

Mega Man 6: The best of the NES hexalogy hands down, and perhaps the best game in the series.

Mega Man 7: A really good experience once you get used to the changes, but not perfect and pretty tough.

Mega Man 8: Good ideas completely overshadowed by lackluster and repetitive level design, and very odd and poorly thought out changes to the gameplay. 

Mega Man 9: A return to form that's maybe a bit TOO basic with excellent weapons and level design that's a bit too mean.

Mega Man 10: An evolution of 9 with better levels, but worse weapons.