The Mega Man Collection

To me, the Mega Man and Mega Man X series are about skill. When it comes to most forms of media, including video games, I am all in for two things: Character and Story. However, the medium of games is unique in that it undeniably has to cater to the development of skill, even if I, and many others, value narrative most highly. It is bound and defined by it. As a kid, I rented these games consistently, reveling in the colorful and characterful Robot Masters and Mavericks. I treated them as a collection of sampler platters. Indeed, it was not until I returned to the franchise as an adult that I came to appreciate Wily and Sigma’s abodes, finding the utmost joy in doing complete runs. Mega Man himself may be little more than an avatar to me, but that’s fitting, as it is through him that I am able to express my prowess at besting his foes.

Mega Man
Mega Man 2
Mega Man 3
Mega Man 4
Mega Man 5
Mega Man 6
Mega Man 7
Mega Man Powered Up

Mega Man X
Mega Man X2
Mega Man X3
Maverick Hunter X

Below the cut, I will be providing my thoughts on the structure of both the Anniversary and Mega Man X Collections.

Hey, I know he looks a little bit clip-art, but there's absolutely no reason to be terrified, Rush. Compared to the original boxes, this is a Rembrandt.

The Anniversary Collection is one of the best video game anthologies ever released. I was ready to shower nothing but praises upon it, but I just learned of something awful lurking inside it. It’s entirely avoidable, though, so no worries! We’ll get there in a minute.

The games included are 1-8, making this much more complete (at the time) than the X Collection. The scaffolding menus are structured as perfectly as can be expected. You navigate a series of doors that allow you to start or load games, as well as toggle several options. You use the model of Mega Man from 8 against a background that’s early-SNES in quality. It’s fine, even if I detest 8. Once in a game, you can hit select and choose to return to the title screen or the ‘game room,’ as the aforementioned menus are described. That new in-game select menu also displays your current time and password.

Your viable options include centering the screen, choosing to play on an easy mode, and giving yourself 5 lives per round, instead of 3. The one I never even knew existed until today is Navi Mode. This is a trainwreck. It has Roll, Proto Man, Dr. Light, Dr. Cossack, and Kalinka appearing on the select menus for 1-6. When you see an exclamation mark appear on screen, you can go into that menu for a tip. The problem, besides Kalinka being able to talk to you while in captivity, is that some of the text is lazily translated. Well, I guess it’s okay for her to be there, since Zelda does talk to you in Link to the Past while kidnapped…

Wait, but did Mega Man even know that she existed prior to Proto Man saving her? He assumed that Cossack was the villain until then. See, this is why Mega Man doesn't need a story.

Navi Mode tacks a sprite of Mega Man’s head from 8 onto your health bar and changes your normal menu into one also reminiscent of 8. Eww. The music of 1-6 becomes remixed when using this mode, to boot. It’s so incongruous to be hearing anything other than the original tracks. I hate it!

It’s all gross. The thought of Mega Man games having tutorials is completely anathema, to me. Just play the damn games. You don’t need to be told that pits will kill you. Fall in one and find that out yourself. Experiment with weapons to find each boss’s weakness. Learn through your failures; that’s the entire point of the franchise!

If you have a memory card, your progress will be saved automatically after every stage. However, it usually happens in the middle of being awarded a weapon. I recommend not having any inserted while playing. Mega Man was never about saving your progress. You use passwords! Eliminating delays from saving, by not using memory cards, makes the experience accurate to the original releases.

There’s a few extras to unlock like art, cartoon episodes, and an interview, but the big ones are the arcade games, Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters. They’re mindless fun and definitely worth checking out! You’ll obviously have to use a memory card in the process, to both unlock them and keep them that way.

The animation of Mega Man strutting away from Wily’s Castle in the credits of VII is gone, but given how expensive original carts of VII are, I can easily accept that as a price of admission.

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The X Collection has X through X6. Instead of added menus, soft resetting (L1+L2+R1+R2+Start+Select) will bring you back to the selection screen. Saving, compared to the Anniversary Collection, is 100% logical. After each stage, you’re taken to a screen where you can save or choose to forgo it. As such, I usually do it out of habit, even though I always play Mega Man games in one sitting. It’s so normal that it’s near impossible to say no.

Watching the credits of X-X3 roll, and creating a cleared save file for each of them, once they have, will unlock Mega Man: Battle & Chase, which was never released in NA. When I first booted it up, I was fan-girling like mad. I can play as Proto Man! Shadow Man's here, and Quick Man, too! Then I actually played it. The mechanics are serviceable. Hitting 10 Mets or traffic cones will get you an item. They aren't entirely dissimilar to those found in Mario Kart. Surprise, surprise~  Everyone has a special ability, and a few are amazing! Mega Man can shoot people to slow them down and if he hits mets and cones from a distance they count toward his item...count. Proto Man can deploy the hood of his car as a shield to block attacks from behind *SQUEE*  Some of them, however, are pure trollish hell. Ice Man can freeze you. JOY! The biggest problem is sadly a deal breaker for me: the graphics are rough enough that when they get to moving at a high speed, there's a black-hole of eye destruction right at the middle of the screen. It's pretty bad. I'm not a graphics whore, but here, they are completely ruinous.

The version of X3 included here is the one that appeared on Playstation 1 and Saturn. I.e, it has the cutscenes that were added to it, for those releases. They can easily be skipped.

Overall, the presentation is much more bare-boned as compared to the Anniversary Collection. Still, similarly to the classic series anthology, the price of X2 and X3 cartridges make it such that I simply cannot complain to any great degree.