mega man

review

the first mega man falls into a similar category as sonic 1 for me: a game with the vibes and “feel” down, with some absolutely atrocious level design.

except mega man’s level design is consistently unfun, instead of sonic 1, which at least has green hill and star light zones. enemy placement is awful, the general platforming doesn’t fit mega man’s physics model, and the obstacles are far too tight, but not in a fun way. the bosses are great, at least!

it’s clear that this was a first go at things, a test run of sorts, for mega man to build off of. they got the most important thing - the bosses - down pat early, and while the level design definitely needed some tweaking, there’s something really good underneath the surface here.

there’s some positives here, but it just feels a little undercooked. admittedly, i used the legacy collection savestates pretty often, just so i wouldn’t lose all my progress so easily. the levels were challenging, but more in the annoying way, not in the fun way, yknow?

score

3/10

notes

• developed by Capcom
• published by Capcom
• released in 1987
• played legacy collection version
• played on switch
• crossposted to backloggd