Few franchises stay true to their roots, fewer are successful commercially by doing so. Mega Man for the most part has stayed true to its original ideals. Though the most recent games were lacking when it came to sales. The Mega Man Legacy Collection allows older fans of the franchise with the ability to play the first six games remastered for newer hardware. The bundle of remastered game also gives new gamers a chance to play the first several games in this classic franchise.
The original Mega Man, which released in 1987 on the NES, has never looked this great. What truly makes me happy as a huge Mega Man fan is the fact that the developers didn’t decide to add a 3D filter to the games’ art style. Instead the pix-elated graphics have been up scaled to look great on HD Tvs and 4k monitors. The game also allows for a 4:3 aspect ratio display setting which gives the game a truly arcade look. In summary the game looks stellar.
For those unaware, the Mega Man series are for the most part, side scrolling platform action games. The series has been praised for its difficulty in general and its outstanding boss fights. Different weapons and dozens of abilities are also trademark in this series that originally aired on the Nintendo Entertainment system. The games follow the same model for the most part. They are broken up into several stages, each one culminating in a boss fight that if beat, awards the player with a unique weapon/power/etc. The series was praised for its unique game & level design which was revolutionary at the time. The difficulty of the game and the relentless enemy/boss attacks also made the game stand apart from other games that came out in the late 1980’s. The Mega Man franchise & the Metroid franchise were simply the best at their time when it came to platforming games.
In the Mega Man Legacy Collection, all six original games that are included are worth playing. Mega Man II is my personal favorite but I found myself playing the games in order. This allowed me to further appreciate the progression the series followed. The stages are clean and crisp down to the very pixel. Noticing changes throughout the games in regards to several aspects of the games’ art style also proved to be fun to enjoy. Each game allows the player to save a a single specific point of the player’s choosing. I for one welcomed this since the games’ original password system was an absolute mess and truly doesn’t appear in many other current platformers. I felt Capcom did this in order to give new players a chance to enjoy these near perfect games. The restore points probably help veteran players as well who haven’t played this franchise in over two decades.
The Legacy Collection features an archival database that includes a bestiary much like the ones in past Witcher games. Fantastic pixel art depicts the common enemies and bosses that the player will encounter throughout the games. The database in incredibly helpful when it comes to planning strategies for specific enemy encounters. Different abilities and weapons are also in the database. In other words, if you want to be good at these difficult games, you should spend a lot of your time reading up on your foes.
New to the Legacy Collection are the challenge modes. These allow players to replay favorite boss fights and engagements. All of the fan favorites are back and remastered for the newer systems. Challenges such as beating bosses within a certain time period to speed runs of entire Mega Man games prove to be difficult but fun to play. The global leader boards allow players to compare their skills and best times to that of friends and complete strangers. I found some of the challenges to be absolutely ridiculous when it came to their extreme difficulty. Honestly, a player could spend countless hours just attempting to beat all of these challenges.
In summary, the Mega Man Legacy Collection fulfills in bringing nostalgia back to veterans of the series. The new restore point feature makes the franchise more accessible to newer gamers. On top of this, having the ability to play the first six games all on the same console with ease is an absolute plus. I wish more challenges were in the game but there still is a enormous amount of content in this game bundle.
Verdict: 9.2/10 if you have played the franchise before. This remastering absolutely gets in touch with a fan of the series’ nostalgia. Though I wish Mega Man 7-10 were in this as well.
8/10Â for those that have never played the games before. Some may be off put by its old school graphics and the difficulty of the games as a whole. Yet, these were some of the best games at their time.
