Comments on: The Anatomy of Mega Man | 3 | Color my world

By: Leliel

Leliel — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 14:47:59 +0000

I always thought the flickering Magnet Beam were exploiting the system’s limitations for an intentional effect; is it NOT meant to appear as though it could give way at any moment? And sure enough, it will 😛

I am not a big fan of the weapon selection in 1 due to the supreme nicheyness of some of the choices and the general lack of variety compared to subsequent games. I particularly miss having anything more efficient than one bar per shot, but of course that will be pioneered soon enough. The weapons in this mostly serve as a means of completely outclassing the right Robot Master — three shots usually does it whereas very few future bosses withstand less than seven hits from their weakness.

By: Warlock

Warlock — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 01:49:32 +0000

Ha, that desire to get the Magnet Beam first only holds true if you know what the hell it is. First time I played MM1 it was a rental without a manual (because the game was impossible to find in stores – eventually bought it from a pawn shop). Though I suppose the shear mystery of the item was enough enticement to get it as soon as possible 😛

That being said, played through it again this weekend. MY GOD the stupid platforms in Ice Man’s stage. That’s some serious bull crap right there. Wanted to be all good and do it without Magnet Beam but it’s so buggy that it’s impossible.

By: tailchaser

tailchaser — Sun, 06 Apr 2014 05:02:12 +0000

The weapons in the first Mega Man are actually designed pretty differently from the rest of the series. In the later games, it even starts to seem like every game has the same weapons in it:

– The one that destroys breakable walls (Crash Bomber, Hard Knuckle, Drill Bomb, Flame Blast)

– The one that creates a barrier around you (Leaf Shield, Skull Barrier, Star Crash, Plant Barrier)

– The one that hits the entire screen and can only be used 7 times on a full meter (Rain Flush, Gravity Hold, Centaur Flash)

– The weird novelty move that you never use (Top Spin, Charge Kick) (I’m a Top Spin apologist, though. I maintain that it’s the best thing to use against the dragonfly and walking eyeball enemies. Both of which, amazingly enough, appear in Shadow Man’s stage. It’s really true that the game is its own strategy guide.)

– And 4 more weapons that just shoot a projectile of some sort, and their defining feature is the trajectory of same.

But rather than following that formula, the original Mega Man seems preoccupied with weapons that more or less shoot straight forward, but have some sort of AOE aspect. Out of 6 secondary weapons, you’ve got 4 of them that are designed to hit a wide area of the screen. 5, if you count the barrier around you when you use Fire Storm. It makes sense in a way, what’s better than shooting one guy? Shooting a whole bunch of guys, obviously. But I think the weapon selection in the later games made for more varied and interesting gameplay.

The Magnet Beam definitely could have stood to make some more appearances, though. Maybe they got bad feedback about it from people that were mad about getting stuck in that room in Dr. Wily’s castle, but all that would really need to be done to fix that is to make it inevitable that the player will pick it up before any rooms that require it. Like, for instance, the forced use of Item-1 in the first stage of Dr. Wily’s castle in Mega Man 2. Or, hell, like the first stage of Sigma’s fortress in Mega Man X, where Zero gives you the arm upgrade if you don’t already have it, even though it would be possible to finish the game without it.