Unpopular opinion, let's go!
My first beef is with the game collection, it only contains Mega Man 1 to 10. Anthology had Power Battles 1 and 2 as fun extras. And what about the original Mega Man 9, Mega Man and Bass? Why not include the silly Mega Man Soccer or the Genesis remake of the first three games? I dunno, I feel like they could've added more games. Also, what's up with the silly decision to divide the collection into two volumes? So that Capcom could make more money? On other consoles, the game has in two discs, but if you get the game on Switch, like I did, you are screwed, as volume 2 is a download code. This is absolutely ridiculous, both games could've easily fit in a single cart. The fact that half of the games are digital only, and only in the West, really soured me.
Another annoyance is that both collections have different features. Volume 1, which houses the six original NES games, have a Save Anywhere feature as well as the ability to rewind at any time by holding down the L button. Both are nice features, since these games are incredibly tough, and to be honest, I preferred the way Anthology did it, by adding a new, optional, easy difficulty setting. Volume 2 doesn't have the ability to save anywhere nor the rewind feature, but you can toggle on an option that basically doubles your health bar, which is nice, but not as nice as being able to save anywhere. Instead of that, you get 'checkpoints', and you can only reload these checkpoints, which was very annoying because A) A stage usually has only a single checkpoint and B) The other game made it so much more convenient.
Now here comes the controversial opinion... Mega Man has aged like milk. Level design is absolutely trial and error, with tons of obstacles you can't see coming until they hit you once. And in a game with limited lives... it's pure torture. Every game in the original six games has at least one bullshit moment. Minimum. And all of these games have at least three or four pixel-perfect jumps, and unless you jump at the last possible pixel you won't make it and lose an entire life. It's madness. I get it, some people get this weird sense of pride when they beat a difficult game, and that's fine, some people don't mind spending hours learning a game despite having to clear the same obstacles over and over again before they reach the one they couldn't beat before. I don't. Mega Man 1 requires you to find a sub-weapon in Gutsman stage, if you don't, you can't finish the final stages in the game. There's no other items like this one in the entire game. Mega Man 2 is considered the best by many, and I don't understand why, as it's the game with the highest amount of bullshit 'couldn't see coming' obstacles in the original NES games. Quick Man's stage is terrible.
I know Rock Man 3 was the one I grew up with, but even so I consider it probably the best one, it introduced sliding and the charge shot, which changed gameplay for the better, and had the least amount of bullshit in it, the worst offender being the fact that you need the Rush Submarine or Rush Jet to finish Gemini Man's stage, and there's no warning about it, so hopefully you leave that guy until later in the game. I feel like Mega Man 4-6 tried to be fairer than the previous games, stages became more lenient and Robot Masters became harder to compensate. Still, they still have their very own bullshit moments.
Thankfully, the Rewind and the Save Anywhere features help ease how frustratingly unfair these games are. People say that classic Mega Man is fair, they are absolutely clouded by nostalgia, these games are unfair because you will die to some obstacles because there's no way to see them coming. These also means that they are not well designed, despite how many other great things they have to going for them. From inventive character designs, to great ways of teaching the player how to play without telling them. This is also why I consider the X series(At least the first four) much superior to the original games, as they kept the challenge but making it much fairer.
Then comes Legacy Collection 2, which houses Mega Man 7 to 10. I swear, every time I start playing 7 I hate how chunky and large everything looks, but once you get used to it the game turns out quite fun. Mega Man 8 is super colorful, although the boss design is a bit lame and the voice acting is so-bad-it's-good. Still, I appreciate it not being as unfair as the classics.
And if you thought I was being controversial... I hated Mega Man 9. It's clamored by many to be the best one in the series, as it tried to be exactly like 2... and that's why I feel it's so bad. As far as bullshit goes, it's worse than the originals, I almost rage-quitted the game. Not having the ability to rewind or save anywhere was very frustrating. Sure, you can use checkpoint-reload as infinite lives, but it still means having to go through boring obstacles you already cleared before getting a new attempt at the ones you are failing. It was also a step backwards in many regards, removing sliding and the charge shot, while going back to 8-bit style graphics, albeit more colorful.
While Mega Man 9 was praised pretty much everywhere, it seems someone at Capcom realized 9's shortcomings. From adding an easy mode to cutting back on the bullshit... it's a much more playable game. It's much less bullshit to contend with, which made it much more palatable. I feel like Mega Man 10 is the game that deserved all the praise 9 got. Regardless, while it's not included here, I think it's still worth mentioning that Mega Man 11 would take the series forward, both in mechanics as well as in level design, so there's a happy ending to the series. Mega Man 9 and 10's DLC is included, but you either have to finish the game or input a code to access it which was a weird design choice.
If you care about quality of life changes, I think Mega Man Anthology was a better collection. Didn't divide itself into volumes just to get more money, removed flickering, let you swap powers on the fly with R1 and L1, added an easy difficulty setting and even had the fun Arcade games as bonuses. Sure, this new release is more accurate to how the games originally played, it looks sharper and it has more games, but truth be told, I didn't care about 9 or 10, 9 probably being my least liked entry in the series and the few extras it has(Image galleries for 1 to 6) pale in comparison to the Arcade games that Anthology had. So, for someone like me that would rather have a good time and don't care about bragging rights over beating a hard game.... Anthology did things much bettered and offered more value for my dollar. It was also fitted inside a single disc.
6.0
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