2:50 – 3:25
My quest starts at the obvious Mega Man 1. It’s the game that spun the platform genre on its head and did such innovative things for gaming. What an amazing trip it is, to look back upon it.
In December of 1987 gaming was still quite in its infancy. We had Super Mario Bros., sure, which defined the genre but that deserves a whole other post.
Mega Man was special, it took the Super Mario
Level design was tight and Mega Man himself controlled with top high-precision, if you died it was because of your lack of skill, not because the game lacked anything.
Another unique feature is that the Bosses (from here on out called, Robot Masters) had weaknesses that only other Robot Masters weapons could deal. When you beat an RM you obtain their weapon. So if you beat Ice Man, you would receive a gun that shot out ice bullets. Fire Man’s fire weapon might be weak against Ice, while Ice Man might be weakened against Elec Man’s electricity. It has a very Rock, Paper, Paper feel to it.
After you defeat all of the Robot Masters you go after the main enemy himself, Doctor Wily! I love how he snickers his eyebrows as he jumps in his little ship and jets toward his main base. That’s another four to five levels of game play with each stage having its own unique boss. After that it’s the big Dr. W himself.
You will need all the weapons and knowledge on how to use them to make it through Dr. Wily’s stronghold as it is designed around them.
Dr. Wily’s stages weren’t that tough in Mega Man 1, there wasn’t even an overall world map like later entries added. The what would be a Mega Man boss main stay, the Yellow Devil makes his debut here as well, alongside having to face each robot master again. I personally love the doppleganger boss with the 1970’s style background.
The music was incredible starting from part one. Not a single track was bad, every damn stage had a wickedly catchy song, this too is a Mega Man mainstay.
Mega Man 1 set the tone, and blueprint that all other Mega Man’s would follow to this very day in 2018 with Mega Man 11. It still works great and I hope after 30 years that Capcom doesn’t give up on this ‘Mascot’.
Moço has held a controller ever since the Atari 2600 days, to the current PlayStation 5 and XBOX Series X. Ever since I was little I loved to write, practicing on an old Casio portable printing machine. So, here I am doing what I love most. Only second to actually playing them, I’m writing about Video Games. So stay awhile and listen, you might just like what you read.