Looking Back: Mega Man
As part of our celebration of the Mega Man series hitting its 25th anniversary, we are featuring a look back at many of the games of the Classic series. This time, I’m looking at the original Mega Man game and what makes it a notable and fun game so many years later.
As I look back on the ten numbered installments of the Classic series, I will attempt to focus on what aspects of that particular installment brought innovation to the series while also touching on the negative elements as well as the downright strange. Most of all, this series will hopefully remind fans why they fell in love with the series to begin with, as we count down the days to the 25th anniversary of the original Mega Man game’s release.
Longtime fans of the Mega Man series already know that Mega Man 2 was the game that tends to get the most credit for giving the series its staying power and fine-tuning the unmolded clay that is the original Mega Man game. If sales figures and review scores are anything to go by, Mega Man 2 is superior to the original in every way, but of course without the original Mega Man there would have never been a sequel. Beyond that simple fact, there are a number of strengths and oddities from the original that tend to be overlooked.
Just about everybody knows that the original Mega Man only has six Robot Masters, that you die instantly when you hit spikes, that it has a score counter, and that it has a Yashichi. But one of the underlooked aspects of the game that was not carried over was how the end of each Robot Master level was fairly unique. Not only did this game have the only instance of long entry chambers (a holdover from its development history as a Famicom Disk System game), but Mega Man drops down on Bomb Man, climbs up to Elec Man, slips and slides while fighting Ice Man and can throw boulders that sit in Cut Man and Guts Man’s lair.
Mega Man also has unique pacing in terms of how the game ends. In contrast to just about all later games in the series, the game does not pad its length with near-empty levels during the wind-down of Wily’s fortress. Each level, even the last one, keeps up the pressure on the player. In fact, the finale features a gauntlet of fighting four Robot Masters, fighting through enemies, dealing with the roller coaster platforms from Guts Man’s stage (with, of course, bottomless pits and spikes everywhere), and then at the end, fighting both forms of the Wily Machine. In short, the end of the game is a marathon that creates a real challenge to conclude the game.
Beyond the level design and pacing, the art direction and graphic design (limited as they were) is also fairly unique for the series. While there are no shortages of comparisons between Mega Man and Astro Boy, one of the underreported influences that old 1960s manga and anime had on Mega Man was in the world he inhabited. In these early games especially, the details of Mega Man’s world were either non-existent or poorly translated (Monsteropolis, anybody?), leaving the gamer to interpret Mega Man’s world as based on the limited detail of the levels.
This first installment had some absolutely wild architecture both in the background with Bomb Man’s wild orb… tower… things, Ice Man’s weird iced-over palm trees, and all absolutely bizarre water tunnel in the third level of Wily’s fortress. Though Capcom was only working with 8-bits in 1987, they sure made all the processing power work for them crafting a world of a 1960s-style future.
Nearly 25 years and dozens of games later, it is remarkable that such a simple game could spawn such an expansive series. But despite laying down the foundations for all that followed, the original Mega Man is scarcely remembered as the game that was the quintessential Classic series game. In a rarity for the video gaming world, it was the sequel that truly launched what has become one of the most storied franchises in gaming.
Screenshot Credits: VGMuseum
James is TMMN’s Features Contributor and world traveler. He is currently in a faraway land, but he occasionally sends messages in a bottle. If you require more of his love, he left behind a sentient Tumblr account that updates all on its own.
The views expressed here reflect the views of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mega Man Network.
Tags: 25th anniversary, editorial, Mega Man, Mega Man Classic
Filed under: Editorials
“In these early games especially, the details of Mega Man’s world were either non-existent or poorly translated (Monsteropolis, anybody?), leaving the gamer to interpret Mega Man’s world as based on the limited detail of the levels.”
Exactly why I want a reboot. Most of the gaming population don’t know much about Mega Man’s lore. Hell, I wouldn’t if it weren’t for wiki’s, comics, manga, etc…
Something else it had, was the fact that you could revisit the stages AND fight the robot masters again, at least I think you could fight them again. I don’t recall that ever being in another mega man game since, except technically Mega Man 6, though you could only fight 4 of the robot masters twice.
And the game established the series most iconic baddies. mets, joes, and the freakin’ yellow devil!
Mega man 2 had the engine down, but it didn’t have very creative nor iconic enemies. The dragon is just a mega man 2 thing, and guts man themed bosses aren’t too common.
Also, the first game had a collectable weapon! that wouldn’t return until MM4! Though, you could miss the item, then end up royally screwed in the wily stages.
Another thing about the game, the weapons’ usefulness was fairly proportional to the difficulty of the boss. bomb man and cut man were pretty easy, and guts man isn’t too much of a challenge. Elec man and fire man though, they were beasts, and their weapons were amazing! Ice man is fairly tough, but his weapon is very VERY useful! the fight against him is very easy to slip up during.
Though, honestly, I don’t find this game all to endearing… I cringe a bit at the thought of replaying it.
I honestly prefer the first MM over MM2. There’s just something very enjoyable about the challenge to MM1 to me. It’s simplistic compared to others, sure and there may be no e-tanks, but I always considered it a fair challenge. Maybe unpolished, but I never felt as victorious beating any other MM game than MM1.
I know alot of people don’t seem to like it, but I never understood why.
Playing this on 3Ds and loving it like the first day. Even if it’s not the best MM game, I always come back when I feel like playing MM, there is something about it, maybe it’s because it’s not only the “purest” MM game but the pure definition of what I want from games.
Mega Man Forever!
I agree with both the comments above– cringe-worthy, yet rewarding.
I always thought this game felt more like a war zone than future games– where others had cute little animal enemies and things with eyes that shouldn’t have eyes, this one was pretty cold and emotionless with its killer scissors, multiple types of cannons, mad pickaxe throwers, fire and electric traps, exploding bullets, etc.
Charge Man: That is strange. Well, I love the game, and powered up was good too, but I wish they had simply kept it in 8-bit with the oil man and time man in it. I always found it strange how there was 6 robot masters, but yeah, it was pretty good. Then again, I love all of them for various reasons. They are never long enough on their own, so it’s a good thing that there is ten of them.
Another important fact which is often overlooked is that Rockman was Capcom’s first original franchise to hit a console.
It’s saying something to have come up with such a fun (if unpolished) title on the Famicom, after a four year history of lacklustre Arcade ports on the system.
“This first installment had some absolutely wild architecture both in the background with Bomb Man’s wild orb… tower… things”
Dragon Ball inspired maybe?
Am I only one who thinks 1 was much easier than 2?
yeah, you are
RM1 vs RM2:
Foot Holders, Elec Man, Yellow Devil
vs
Heat Man Trench, Quick Man lasers, Air Man, Wily Stage 4, Boobeam Trap
RM2 has more frustrating parts.
If I remember well RM1 had NO continue making it the most frustrating.
I can’t believe this video was in the commentary yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFtkDEAhWC8
@NP
Kind of a toss up to me. MM was shorter but harder. MM2 was longer but only hard. That’s why it’s a toss up to me bc of the length. If MM2 was as short as MM i’d say MM was harder. MM2 wily was harder to me also.
@splashman
heat man trench weak against item 2
quick man lasers weak vs time stopper
Air man weak vs E-Tank or just shoot him, you’ll take damage, but as long as you avoid his body, he should go down first.
Wily stage 4 isn’t all too hard, you have item 1,2 and 3 and leaf shield.
boobeam trap is just bad game design comparable to needing the magnet beam in the wily stage in MM1, except it’s made a lot easier. every wall you destroy stays destroyed when you die, and you return to the start of the level to refill your crash bombs. so long as you have more than 1 life, or if you continue, you’re golden! (actually, you’re not golden until X3)
@CnCBoy, the game DOES have continues, and they’re unlimited, as far as I can tell.
The first game of the series was good, but not great. What impressed me about the series was that every game added something new to the pot, whether it was upgraded abilities, interesting weapons, or hilarious voice acting.
I was extremely disappointed with Megaman 9 and 10 because they’re just cheap, mediocre cash-ins on nostalgia. If I want to play an 8-bit Megaman, I’ll play Megaman 1-6 — I didn’t buy a 200 dollar console to play something that looks as though it could have been coded in Flash in under an afternoon.
Mega Man 9:
Very innovative weapons with multiple functions
allowed you to play as protoman
first NES style mega man game with a shop
brought over the challenges from MMPU over to the NES style games.
Various leaderboard related options
Cutscene heavy NES style game
introduced Endless mode
Mega Man 10:
-first NES style game to allow you to play as Bass
-Introduced a wide variety of interactive weapons
-carried difficulty levels over from Powered up, even including helper blocks for easy mode!
-As opposed to MM9, it had story content for the DLC character
-carried boss super attacks from MMPU that appear on hard mode
These two games added some good stuff, but mostly, they introduced Mega man powered up features in a format that people would actually give a chance to. A shame they didn’t include Mega Man C and Mega Man S characters, but 9 and 10 had some fair contributions to the series.
I still find this game challenging (that’s not the case with 2 trough 6) where there is more margin for errors. People saying this game is easy are cheating with the pause glitch for sure. Shame on you !
The difficulty of MM1 was among the most notorious of the original series, but one thing that was pretty unique and not often replicated to the rest of the games was the weapon strength. Ice Man, for example, is killed in 3 hits by Elec Man’s weapon. RM weakness to weapons was far more effective in MM1 than it was in any of the subsequent games.