Review #281: Mega Man Anniversary Collection

 Basically, what the upcoming Megaman Collection should've been...

 This game nets you the original Megaman games on the NES, which means 1 to 6, Megaman SNES(7) and Megaman PS1(8), plus, the bizarrely entertaining pseudo arcade fighters, for a total of 10 games.

 The games' premises are, basically, all the same and pretty simple to boot. Dr. Light is the good scientist who created Megaman, the robot who must stop Dr. Wily's evil Robot Masters. Even if it looks like it isn't Wily, it IS Wily. With that out of the way, all these games are 2D action-platform games, and tough as nails to boot. They require observation, patience for pattern recognition, as well as good reflexes to deal with the obnoxious enemy placement, deal with hazards that you'll only know about once you get hit or killed by them. As a matter of fact, all of the 8 main games have at least one obstacle that's unavoidable until you know about it. Whether it's the Dragon that pops up below you in Megaman 2, or the inverse-U mine-trap when the water rises in Megaman 7, somewhere, somehow, the games will get you. Cheaply. Oh, and a few of the games have sections that are just unbeatable without ammo, so if you run out of ammo,  you've got to either killing yourself until you can use a continue(And get your ammo refilled) or grinding enemies for minutes on end until you get the ammo. The latter is not always possible, like with the final Boss in Megaman 2 or one of Wily's stages in Megaman 3.

 All that said, the games are usually pretty fair, hard, but fair. Usually. Besides the issues mentioned above, Megaman 1 and 2 have a couple of spots where it's practically impossible to avoid getting damages, even if you know it's coming. These games are from another era, when games had to be tough in order to incite sales and not have the games returned after a quick rental.... luckily, if you don't have the skill, or the time, this collection lets you up the starting lives to 5 and choose an 'Easy' difficulty, which removes some obstacles, ups your damage and reduces the damage you receive on all 8 platformers. These options makes this collection the ideal way to experience these games, making it accessible for everyone, without sacrificing the oldschool challenge for purists.

 Another addition to this collection is letting you switch between powers with the shoulder buttons. On paper it sounds great, but in practice you'll find out that going into the menus can be faster and more useful(Since you have to remember what each color-swap corresponds to which weapon) which makes it more efficient than this new functionality. One thing that has been kept intact, for better or for worse, and I vie towards the latter, is sprite flickering. Basically, when the NES got taxed, graphically, sprites would flicker, which can make it hard to keep track of what's going on, luckily, it only applies to the NES games. Megaman 7 suffers from occasional slowdown, which I don't know if it was present in the SNES original. Oh! And from Megaman 1 to 7, picking up health restores pauses the action, which can really throw you off and ruin your platforming.

 All the games follow the same formula, pick a stage from any of the starting 8(6 for Megaman 1, and 7 and 8 are divided in two sets of four), beat the boss, obtain its weapon until you clear all 8, which then takes you onto 'Wily's Castle' which is made up of four(Later games add a second Castle, for a total of 8) new stages, in which you must use all the powers you've acquired to clear new obstacles, defeat new bosses, defeat all previous bosses and finally defeat the final boss. The game's main gimmick is that every boss is weak to another boss' weapon, which can turn their battles into a cakewalk.

 Megaman 1 was the first game in the series, and it's very rough around the edges. The difficulty is through the roof(I'd say even harder than Castlevania 1), for whatever odd reason Megaman slides when you stop moving, which can make you fall to your death. And it's the only game with only 6 robot masters.

 Megaman 2 is Megaman 1 times ten. There's 8 robot masters, new sub-weapons to facilitate going through stages, energy tanks to refill your health. The soundtrack is fantastic, but it still suffers from a few of Megaman 1 issues, like Megaman's slippery stops and some sections being downright unfair. Honestly, I'm pretty sure the reason most people consider it one of the best is due to nostalgia, since subsequent games would fix most of what this game did wrong. Not to say that the game is bad, just that the next games are even better. Except, maybe, 5.

 Megaman 3 is my favorite of the bunch. Now Megaman can slide by holding down and pressing jump, which adds a whole slew of new obstacles. But even better, when you stop moving, Megaman no longer slides, making movement a whole lot more precise. Rush, Megaman's robot dog is introduced, who serves as your 'sub-weapons' to traverse level, as a jet, a spring or a submarine.

 Megaman 4, another one of my favorites, second only to Megaman 3. Now you get the ability to charge your Mega Buster(Basic attack). This game has my favorite bosses in the series. It's hard to explain just why I like it so much, but in a few words, it's because it polishes everything the previous games did to a shine, and with the addition of the charge shot and the slide, the game just became so much more fun.

 Megaman 5 is... strangely one of the games I liked the least. It has to do with how forgettable it is, as a matter of fact, I finished the game today and I don't remember anything about it. Strange, because it's basically Megaman 4 but with new bosses... but stages aren't very remarkable. Again, it's not a bad game(I think the only game I would say is 'bad' is the first one), but the other games have more personality, more charm than this one. This is just filler.

 Megaman 6 now lets Megaman fuse with Rush intro Power mode or Jet mode. Power mode is fairly situational, the range is too short, even if, technically, it's stronger than your mega buster, so you'll probably just use it to open up secret areas. Jet mode is much more fun and useful, letting you hover for a short while. While it sounds gimmicky, it's fairly fun to use these new forms. The stages and bosses are fairly memorable, bosses in particular are particularly badass, as opposed to the cutesy look they were going for before. It's fairly fun, third spot on my favorites no doubt.

 Megaman 7 was the first, and only, classic Megaman on the SNES. Something that may throw you off at first is that Megaman now looks huge, and takes up more space on the screen, but you'll get used to it fairly quickly. This game has a ton of extras and secrets to find, which makes this game particularly fun to play. It also introduces a shop-system, so it's easier to stock on Energy Tanks.

 Megaman 8, the one on Playstation. Graphically it looks fantastic, even if it's a bit too colorful and cheery for my taste. It adds the ability to shoot your basic mega buster while using the other weapons. You can no longer carry Energy tanks, and the shop has been revised, so that there's a limited amount of 'money' to be found, but the upgrades you can buy are much more useful and actually affect the way you play. When it's at it's best, it's great, but it has a couple of stages that can be fairly frustrating... particularly the auto-scrolling skate stages, like Wily Castle's 1...

 Megaman The Power Battle and The Power Fighters are the two arcade games. They are basically boss rushes and can be played with another player. They are fairly fun distractions.

 Megaman games can be pretty inaccessible to some people, which makes the ability to adjust the difficulty on this collection a great way to ease new players into the franchise. You also get every Megaman game that was released up to the date of its release on one disc(Except 'Megaman and Bass', but at the time, it had only been release on Japan, for what its worth).... and you get more games than you would on the upcoming collection, which makes this a way better deal.
 8.0 out of 10.