#also it’s the “my favorite mm series is ZX” in me lol

[no1ryomafan]

I swear I’m probably a huge outliners in a lot of groups because I’m going through the mega man to mecha to toku pipeline which is a normal pipeline to go through but the way I got finally invested into each of them was utterly bizarre like:

<I got into mega man only because I had a brief sonic phase and found the crossover comic it had which was good despite how Archie is (mainly for sonics half, mm Archie p good)

<after getting through basically the majority of the mega man series my friend-now bf-recommended getter to me but started me off with arma despite how the fandom collectively agrees that’s the worse starting place (I disagree strongly but I somewhat understand I just don’t think we should gatekeep someone’s way of getting into something)

<after I tried like 3 other mechas and was only super into one of them next to getter which didn’t have a fandom-Jeeg-I low key realized “yeah mechs are cool but I prefer robots with sentience” and my second getter induced brain rot moot recommends me kikaider which I finally got back too and it just feels so mega man core (I picked a obscure toku made by the guy who made KAMEN RIDER over KAMEN RIDER bc I’m okay with live action but have trouble doing live action shows)

This literally saids so much about me lmao.

[scottathann]

The YouTubers don't want you know that MM&B is actually one of the best classic series games and is the better of the 2 snes games between it and 7. It's not really that hard of a hard game either. People who act like it's one of the most unforgiving games in the franchise are just bad at Mega Man games.

Each character has their pros and cons (although Bass is definitely easy mode overall), and you can buy upgrades over time to decrease the difficulty. Even a game over doesn't mean all is lost since you can spend the bolts you got in the level you died in to get upgrades. Playing as Mega Man makes bosses easier to defeat because his shots do more damage and the slide is a great and quick way to dodge attacks, but levels are more difficult because he can't double jump or skip entire sections with giant leaps. Bass can, which is why levels are piss easy when you play as him, but bosses are initially tough because his buster does shit damage until you get an upgrade for it. Bass also has Treble boost which lets him fly over entire screens. And people say this game is brutal?

The level design is actually pretty good I think, more fun than half the games in the classic series and far more stimulating than most X series levels. Bosses actually force you to use your brain, even when you have their weaknesses (excluding a few). For the longest time I thought Astro Man was unreasonable for a starter boss but now that I don't totally suck at Mega Man games it was actually possible for me to beat him buster-only within a few tries, and it was satisfying to learn how.

There's no e-tanks, but you do have:

-An ability to increase how much you gain from health and ammo pickups

-An ability to receive less damage

-An ability to increase damage output when you're low on health (very good against bosses)

-Rush search which digs up ammo and health

Which is quite frankly way more forgiving than Mega Man 1, while still not giving you the ability to bypass challenge with a stock of health refills. I think this is great.

The biggest problem with the game is that the King Mechs are very tedious, and sometimes enemy placement is cheap (which is not unique to this game at all lol).

The soundtrack is one of my favorite game osts, the graphics are in mm8's arstyle which is great cause I love how 8 looks, the special weapons are all pretty useful and fun to mess around with, and the robot master designs are totally sick.

I don't give a fuck about the gba version btw as there's literally no reason to play that version. If you use that port as a complaint against this game then you're stupid.

Anyway nobody gives a shit probably but I feel like this game has always been kinda overhated, and its difficulty is way overblown. I would choose this game over 1-3, 5-8, 10, all of the gameboy titles including V, X3, and X5-8. I haven't beaten 11 yet and I don't think it's fair to compare the ZX or Legends games here.

[owlixx]

Mega Man Entire Series Thoughts

In the end, I am very glad I did this

I beat roughly 30 games (half of X6, half of MM9)

11.5 classic Mega Man Games (including MM and Bass)

5 Gameboy games

5.5 Mega Man X Games

4 Zero Games

2 ZX Games

2 Power Fighters games

That still leaves the 2 Sega exclusive Mega Man games

Soccer and the racing game

The couple wonderswan games

the japan-only oddities like the rail shooter and the digital board games

X7/8 and Command Mission

Powered Up and Maverick Hunter

The street fighter fangame officially blessed by Capcom

All 3 Legends games

Both GBC X games

Mega Man DOS and DOS 3 (lol)

The entire Battle Network and Star Forces subseries

Of what I played, Id probably rank them as such:

Mega Man Classic

Mega Man ZX

Mega Man Zero

Mega Man X

Mega Man Gameboy

I know that is probably a controversial opinion. I think really the biggest takeaway from all of this for me is that I just don't really click with the X sub series as much as everyone else seems to.

Now, in terms of my favorite and least favorite from each subseries:

Classic - best is hard to determine here. I knew 2 was good, but 3, 7, 8, 10, 11 all genuinely impressed me. Even 4-6 each had really cool parts like the inventive robot masters and weapons. 7 suffers from being rushed, 8 suffers from auto scrolling. I think I am going to have to champion myself here as a MM3 defender for the sheer reason that I had always written it off before but was so impressed by it, but 11 was probably the most sheer fun I had due to the accessibility and instant nostalgia baiting. Worst is probably 4 or 5 for being forgettable, at least 6 had the jet pack that I loved.

Gameboy - Easily the best was V and the worst was III just in terms of completely forgetting III and V having all original masters, but I and II get points from I being more novel and II being easier.

X - Easily X5 is the best and X6 is the worst of what I played, but booting up X7 didn't inspire much confidence. X5 feels like a genuine step up from previous games and justifies being a different series from Classic Mega Man more than just having 16 bit graphics, animal bosses, and annoying hidden upgrades. X5 high on my replay-list for having multiple playable characters and branching paths, even if the branching paths are dumb. X6 is so low because of its horrible, soft-lock based level design, annoying bosses, and mandatory collectibles without a password system to bypass them.

Zero: Best is easily 3, worst is probably 1. 4 felt like it was getting a little long in the tooth, but the finale was so cool that I was left with a good taste in my mouth. 1 Just had the least going on, while also suffering from me going through adjustment pains and not being as good at the Zero games yet, which is a little unfair to it.

ZX: Now this one is a little unfair to call either of 2 "best" or "worst", but I think ZX is the better game just for being a bit more focused in its approach to transformations and story. I don't love the map or the plot itself really, but ZX Advent feels incomprehensible plot-wise and a lot of the transformations feel more like tedium than fun. ZX Advent is higher on my replay list though just because the protagonists have more gameplay differences.

So, my replay list is basically just:

Mega Man 10 as proto or bass

Mega Man 11 on a higher difficulty

Mega Man 7/8 just because I like them

Mega Man X5 as Zero

Mega Man ZX Advent as Grey

Mega Man ZX as Vent

Mega Man 1-6 with checkpoints but without rewind (low priority)

And my remaining play list is basically just:

Legends

Battle Network/Star Force

The 2 remakes

X6/7/8/Command Missions (Low Priority)

MAYBE the wonderswan games

Wily Wars and Mega Man Game Gear

Fangames

Although also on my todo list next time I catch the fever is:

Azure Strike Gunvolt

Shovel Knight (never beat the final boss or did the other campaigns)

Gunman Clive

Might Number Nine

20/30XX

Shantae

In the end, I am really glad I did all this and I had a lot of fun. It never really became a slog for me, since I just adjusted the goalpost the second I started to get frustrated (which was when I booted up Mega Man Xtreme for the GBC lol). The main point was to develop a thorough understanding of this series after starting an 8 hour lore video of the entire mega man timeline, which is why battle network was never part of the initial plan. It's funny, by now that video has largely left my memory despite watching all of it obsessivelly over the course of a few days about a month ago.

In fact, I started this journey on November 27 and finished on December 26. 30 games in under a month. I averaged almost exactly one a day.

Anyways, I feel like I achieved my goal. Mega Man is no longer a mystery to me. When I beat every Metroid, every Sonic, all the handheld Castlevanias, that too was a driving goal there: to be able claim understanding of an entire gaming series.

And part of the point as well is to be able to appreciate the gradual differences from game to game, similar to when I watched every James Bond movie back to back over a month. It is hard to appreciate what makes Mega Man 4 unique (charge shot), or IV GB (shop) or even the little things like having a unique icon for each weapon in the weapon select screen, or weapon hotswapping, without playing them all in the exact order they came out. What makes Zero 3 the best Zero game? What is the difference between ZX and Advent? How do all these different subseries look and play differently? You can read about all that, but you can't appreciate it without playing them, even if my appreciation was obscured by playing these games on the easiest difficulties or with outright cheats enabled.

And part of it too was just to meet all 88 robot masters, 64 mavericks, etc. and get to know the weird ones and the dumb ones and the fan favorites and everything in between. Again, you can access that information online, but you can't intuitively detect how charming Gravity Man's level is or how useful Metal Blade is or a 1000 little unique things you can pick up on, most of them really not even on a first playthrough, especially not one like most of mine, but I know a heck of a lot more about Mega Man than I did a month ago.

Already it has been amazing to watch speedruns of 7, 8, Zero 1-4. I am looking forward to seeing ZX run at AGDQ 2023 in just a couple weeks. There is now no music from the series that I haven't heard before.

I am aware that my status as a Mega Man fan is kind of...second class. Playing the games now versus back in the day kind of mandates that. I don't think emulation is inherently "dirty" or even necessarily too "different" from the way these games were originally played, but I can't recreate the context. I can't rent Mega Man 2 from blockbuster and scramble to beat it over a weekend, taking turns with a friend or family member. I can't restrict my knowledge to what gets printed in the issue of Nintendo Power I begged my mom to pick up at the store. Most of all, I can't willingly recreate the patience and tenacity of getting one of these games for Christmas and having to make due with it for months and months at a time, inviting over neighborhood kids to help make progress. I didn't play every single NES game that came out before it, and then every Atari 2600 game before that, and then arcade games of the time as well for all the extra context. And obviously I cheated the hell out of these games so that I could get through them quickly on my first time through.

But I am much more of a Mega Man fan than I used to be, and I'll be right there cheering every time the little blue guy gets a new game announced. I'll scream my lungs out when they announce Mega Man 12, or X9, or Legends 3, or ZX3, or Zero 5, or Battle Network 7, or Star Force 4, or god forbid Mega Man VI in the style of the original GamebBoy (or even Xtreme 3 in the style of the gameboy color LOL). I'll carry along the history of the canceled Legends 3, Maverick Hunter, and Universe games. They're running out of old games to remaster after Battle Network next year, so hopefully that turns into new momentum for Mega Man.

I've kind of shot myself in the foot once again, just like I did with Metroid and Castlevania, getting excited for dead series, or just painfully slow in the case of Metroid. Sonic was kind of in a coma as well when I played those games, although he's since woken back up this year.

I think the big question is: what is the next step for me? The answer is definitely nothing even related to Mega Man for a while. My next retro binge could be anything: Mario and Donkey Kong Country as classic platforming series. I am suddenly remembering that I played almost every Pokemon game as one of my retro binges, and put a good dent in the Final Fantasy series more recently. Kirby is a contender for sure. Modern Fire Emblem isn't crazy. I did most of the MGS series as another binge within the last year or so. I also beat every Kingdom Hearts game not so long ago. So in a nutshell, plus some other stray thoughts, including some more modern game series I have been meaning to play/finish/replay:

Mario

Donkey Kong Country

Kirby

Fire Emblem

Tomb Raider

Splinter Cell

God of War

Crash Bandicoot

Spyro the Dragon

Ratchet and Clank

Sly Cooper

(Paper) Mario (RPG) (and Luigi)

Resident Evil?

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

More modern:

Bioshock 1-2 + Infinite

Fallout 3 -> NV -> 4

Phoenix Wright

Yakuza 0-6

Dragon Age O -> 2 -> Inquisition

Persona 3-5

And finally assorted visual novels:

Ghost Trick

Hotel Dusk 1-2

AI the Somnium files

Danganronpa

Disco Elysium (kinda)

But here is what I am actually going to play next:

Sonic Frontiers - Loved Sonic Prime and Im halfway through but just been busy with Mega Man

Hades - gf is playing for first time so I have itch to replay, its already my number one favorite video game of all time with a bullet

Fortnite - I wanna get doom slayer this season

Whatever my best friend plays - Could be Danganronpa, Crisis Core, Death Stranding, Phoenix Wright, Dragon Age

Vampire Survivors - been meaning to get the DLC as soon as I finish Mega Man

Anyways, this ended up being way too rambling, but I needed to get all this off my chest. Bottom line, I love Mega Man now.

[no1ryomafan]

megan’s 3am megaman hot take

I do not give a fuck if we don’t get X9/ZX3/L3/SF4/anything BN related, I am happy over whatever we get and I like literally most of those series lmao. It’s fine to be mad about those cliffhangers but people need to remember capcom has multiple fucking ips to juggle and can’t focus on mega man due to the series not guaranteed to sell if it’s not classic. The 2000s sales are a example of that. Yes, capcom put themselves in this situation by releasing two mm series at once which side line X, Legends and Classic-the 3 series before the Zero/ZX and BN/SF series took off-however people not bothering to invest in them is also a cruel factor of them not considering them. Z/ZX Lc has been out for a year but it STILL hasn’t reached 1 mil units, unlike the XLC. If the same repeats for a potential BNLC or any LC capcom is not gonna wanna invest in those projects unless they suddenly jump. I am disappointed Z/ZX didn’t sell well due to it being a solid LC and XLC not so much but I recognize what people prefer in MM series. Asking for capcom to invest in ZX3 when the ZX series is horrible finically and they MAY not have inti with them-idk wtf going on with inti and capcom but they aren’t working together and inti was not apart of the LC, logo was removed for god sake-ZX3 would be a risky move just as a example. So don’t go crying that they re-releases the Zx games when it’s a fucking miracle they did bc they could’ve just made crappy ports of the Zero games. But also I can list off reasons why I can live without them.

X9: X continuity is a fucking mess and MMX fandom is a cesspool, X9 will just be ruined for me by fans even if it turns out to be a actual solid X game bc someone will nitpick over whatever they may do with Axl or it just not being X4 again. (And unfortunately this is the cliffhanger game with the most likely chance to happen) 

ZX3: it’s my most wanted but honestly I’m coping with the fact the ZX games are fun to play and I’m literally making my own au. I just hope I don’t get disappointed if it ever happens bc I know capcom won’t follow my au at all but I’ll probably like it at least gameplay wise. But I more so want Thomas cliffhanger to be resolved cause that was a huge middle finger.

Legends 3: it’s a canceled project. It will be a miracle to come back. I want volnutt off the moon as much as you do but legends hasn’t even been re-released, so capcom can’t really see yet if it’ll do well. (I can see it being revived in 30+ years but the fact L3 is the only thing talked about with legends fucking sucks and makes me not wanna talk about it despite legends might be my third favorite series)

SF4: as much as we were robbed of this but need to stop acting like SF3 wasn’t good lol. It’s literally the best SF game and it wrapped up geo’s arc nicely. We really don’t need a fourth game even if I dig the time skip idea, they should just make a whole new series out of it but capcom isn’t smart enough to do that. Really SF just needs more appreciation over it cause holy fuck it’s slept on.

Anything BN related: referring to BN7 and BNLC cause people need to stfu about it lol. Why do people want a 7th BN game so badly? 6 was literally a good ending point, BN was the only other series that wasn’t OG or early X to not do horrible even after anything pre BN4 dipped. Like you people are more petty then the fuckers asking for Z5-bc that’s not happening, ZX is LITERALLY confirmed to intended to be Z5 but was changed to a new series-like god. As for the Lc literally the beginning of my rant sums it up but I see people going ““I want BNLC and only BNLC” over new game news and actually shut the fuck up lmao. I don’t wanna use the grateful excuse at all in this rant bc I understand fan frustration and it’s okay to want these and a new game won’t exactly fix it but BN fans actually should be grateful capcom bothering to slightly acknowledge their series and only COVID been pushing it back. (And I’m someone who wants a LC bc I can’t play the BN games besides 5 which I didn’t like of what I played but holy fuck y’all are making me despise BN even if you aren’t as much of a cesspool as X or even classic sometimes) 

TLDR: mega man fans shut up challenge. (Bad tldr but idk how else to end this or sum it up lol)