When I was a kid a friend this friend named Anthony. He lived a few blocks from my dad's house and was a couple years older than me. We only met because his dad knew my dad. We didn't go to the same elementary school or anything. But we hit it off because we were both really into video games. And we actually remained friends until high school. He graduated when I was a junior and he went off to the military. I remember that sometime when I was in college he came to visit. He was living out on the west coast at the time and I don't know. We just lost touch after that. That's what happens. Kids get older and go their separate ways. No malice. Just life.
I bring this up because it was Anthony who introduced me to Mega Man. This would have been in the fall of 1988. Or maybe it was 1989? But I remember this well because Anthony called me up one Sunday afternoon and told me he was bringing over this cool new game called Mega Man. And when he got to my house, my dad took the NES cart from Anthony and told us we could play games after we went out and helped raked the yard first. Looking back, getting some fresh air and exercise was a small price to pay. But at the time it was excruciating. I just wanted to try this game. Mega Man is of course an icon now. In America, he's surely surpassed his obvious inspiration, Astro Boy. But back then, this was just a new platforming shooter game. It was nothing special, so to speak. But it was a heck of a lot of fun. While the series wouldn't hit its stride nor start its dominance until Mega Man 2, that first game is certainly impressive. It was a young developer at Capcom named Keiji Inafune who would craft this first game, sparking a hugely successful and long-running series. And honestly, the blueprint for brilliance was laid out here right from the start. Mega Man's goal is to fight through six stages. At the end of each stage he fights a boss robot and upon defeat, can take their weapon. Since stages can be completed in any order you wish, the puzzle is in figuring out which boss weapon should be used on which other boss. It was definitely a novel premise for the time. Now let's do that thing where I play through each stage and talk about them as I remind myself what I like and dislike about each all these thirty-something years later. GUTS MAN - Okay, so let's start with the worst stage first. Or rather the worst opening of a stage. Right at the beginning there's these moving platforms that you must ride and they keep flipping which would drop you to instant death. As a kid, I dreaded this level. As an adult, it's just mostly annoying and kind of a too brutal way to start a level. But that's just my opinion and this was 1987 after all. Oddly, once you make it up to Guts Man you find out that he's kind of a huge pushover. His attack is to (A) jump up and then cause and earthquake upon hitting the ground and then (B) throw a huge boulder at you. The trick is that the earthquake is no big deal. It stuns you briefly, but never enough to stop you from jumping over the boulder if you keep some distance. So the fight is basically just mashing the fire button while jumping over boulders. CUT MAN - After Guts Man's stage, Cut Man's feels like a cakewalk. It's actually a pretty slow and methodical stage that offers very few reflex-heavy moments. I made it up to Cut Man with about two-thirds of my health and figured I'd probably beef it and then take him out with Guts Man's weapon on my second attempt. But honestly, I just dodged Cut Man's boomerang-scissor things and took him out with my default blaster on my first try. Either he's easier than I remembered, or I've done this battle so many times over three decades that the muscle memory took over and led me to victory. ELEC MAN - This stage was annoying. So many ladders. So many disappearing platforms. That second point is one of the weaker design elements of early Mega Man games, unfortunately. But the cool thing is that if you have Guts Man's weapon, you can unlock the Magnet Beam, which is a handy weapon/tool that can make you a new platform. Elec Man himself was a total breeze and was dead in three hits of Cut Man's weapon. Well two actually, since the scissor blade actually comes back like a boomerang allowing for multiple hits from a single shot. ICE MAN - This stage is way more annoying than Elec Man's. It really doubles down on the disappearing platforms. Honestly, this has to be my least favorite mechanic in these NES Mega Man games. The sections are total bull that I suffered through as a kid, but can only now stomach thanks to the inclusion of a rewind feature in the Mega Man Legacy Collection. What can I say? I'm in my 40s. I have less patience and less dexterity now. That said, Ice Man himself is kind of a pushover. Three quick hits from Elec Man's weapon put him down before he could even really introduce himself. FIRE MAN - This stage is a bit of a cakewalk after the previous two. There's honestly not much to really make it notable outside of the lake of one-hit-kill fire. But y'know, just take your time and it's not much of a problem. The boss battle against Fire Man is actually a more interesting and exciting one, though. Even against his weakness (Ice Man's weapon) he still takes more than a few hits to kill. BOMB MAN - Here's another easy stage to wrap things up. And Bomb Man himself is also a pretty easy boss, though he moves around a lot making him a bit of a decent adversary. And then you're off to Wily's castle, which is where I tend to nope out on Mega Man games in the modern era. Again, when I was a kid I'd tend to push as hard as I could against these games and spend days, weeks, months trying to get good. But nowadays, these old Mega Man entries are mostly nostalgic comfort food for me. Really, I just want to fire them up and spend a night or two reminiscing. Which is exactly what I did this week. I've always considered the first Mega Man to be one of the hardest in the series. And my opinion on that hasn't really changed, but I have played it enough that it feels really manageable now. The only really difficult part of the game to me is the floating platforms that flip in Guts Man's stage. And then the frustrating parts are the disappearing platforms in Elec Man and Ice Man's stages. Beyond that, the game is really not that much of a challenge until you hit Wily's castle. Which is honestly how I'd describe the bulk of the 8-bit Mega Man games anyway. But the original Mega Man is surely a fine game. It's obviously not as refined as its sequels. And of course, Mega Man 2 and 3 are both absolute classics. But it's impressive how much of the winning formula was already perfected right from the start.
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