![]() ![]() As one grows older and faces the hardships of life, they accumulate layers of defense mechanisms, habits, emotional callouses, and other useful tools in the name of strength and productivity. Something about witnessing this robot child I’d, attempt after attempt, watched slowly transform into a perfect killing machine, go “home” with their hair flowing freely in the wind, struck me as inexplicably moving. Upon beating Mega Man on the nintendo wii’s virtual console (look it up, children of today, and despair at how good we had it, and when you’re finished despairing, cancel your nintendo switch online plan (unless you’re on someone else’s family plan, ideally a strangers’)), I was treated to a beautiful, humanizing cutscene, showing our hero’s armorless (he still has a t-shirt and pants underneath) return journey. He also made sure to yell at me whenever my health neared 25%, so I would remember to use my E-Tanks. He was a great coach despite not having played the game, I assume, because being good at Mega Man requires so many skills expected of a businessman (patience, willpower, and most importantly, keeping your cool under immense pressure). I did, however, love playing Mega Man 9 with him (watching). He would also sometimes say “ancient Chinese proverb” in a voice I assume he learned from television, so I never quite trusted him. As my father would say “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”. Similarly, one of the hardest parts of pursuing neaely any real-life goal is summoning the willpower to go from “doing nothing” to “gaining experience” to “actually making progress”. The initial 6 stages go from hard to easy as you accumulate weapons. ![]() Within it’s “dated” and “backwards” game design are meaninful life lessons. Mega Man is basically a tool for preparing children for adulthood, however. MEGAMAN BATTLE NETWORK 7 DARKNESS RISING SOFTWAREThey tried too hard to turn something with the cute-yet cool appeal of the yet-to-revolutionize-marketing Pokémon into some GI Joe manliness measurement software (as though the title alone wasn’t “for boys” enough already). Yeah, what story was here got kind of mangled by the localization team. While those games have an addictive sense of instant-feedback and game feel, so does any well-crafted digital slot machine, the majority of which fail to tell any story worth experiencing firsthand. ![]() Though limited life systems are often lambasted for punishing players by making them replay content in order to win, I find that the experience of working up to not only beating a checkpoint’s-worth of stage, but the whole thing as one well-practiced run (with good performance early on leading to more opportunity to learn the boss, and poor performance early on increasing tension toward the end, punctuated with righteous fist-pumping moments of 1-up collection), lends the game a distinct sense of pacing that many modern “hardcore” platformers in the vein of Super Meat Boy trade for a constant flow. For all it’s fidgety awkwardness, largely blank backgrounds, and brutal level design, I found the process of mastering each stage to be incredibly rage-conqueringly satisfying. More on point, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this game. The emulation quality is simply off, and modifications seem to have been made (to the sound effects most notably) which, in my opinion, completely spits in the face of the concept of a classic games collection. I do not recommend the playstation 2 anniversary collection. I may be a gamer, but I am also a flesh and blood human with limited time. ![]() I increasingly used it as I proceeded through the series, given its usefulness in “just getting through” the sections I’ve successfully proven to myself that I am above having to clear without taking damage yet again. Those unconcerned with the possibility of such an injury should at least try to play the games without the use of said button at first, as it does change their general feeling. It also features a “turbo-button” which removes the need to mash for anyone worried about carpal tunnel or some similar injury. It allows for a single save state per game, decent CRT filter options, and the ability to replicate the NES’s lag (or not). A: The Mega Man Legacy Collection by Digital Eclipse (available on switch, ps4, and whatever you guys are calling Microsoft’s current generation game console), is the best legal option. ![]()
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