• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

madhair60

Video games
7 has... Rush Search, which turns a lot of the cool bonuses into "hope you looked up where this is" because I haven't seen any indications where the special items are.

X marks the spot a lot of the time. Otherwise it's usually just places that look unusual or "stand out", like the Dr Wily portrait in Shade Man's level.

I think criticism of Rush Search is valid enough, but I still like it. I like MM7 in general. It's full of weird, interesting, quirky little secrets.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
I think 7's got a lot neat about it, though I think being a bit less cryptic would do it some good for some of the secrets it at least gives you an out by letting you buy half of them. I think it feels like it's on the right track for an interesting change-up to how they designed the stages and like a follow-up with the same design philosophy could have really shined but I recall 8 being less interested in that. Then again I haven't played 8 since whenever the Anniversary Collection came out so maybe that's still there.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
MMIII GB definitely has the Minakuchi Engineering thumbprint, wasn't huge on it but I was never more incensed by it than in this room

PjyjvgH.png


As far as I can tell you can't have RJ by this point (you get it from the level this is in) so you either have to take damage from the enemy I killed before taking this picture and run across the spikes or you have to carefully position Rush Coil in mid spikes to bounce off of. I think that's the intended solution but it doesn't feel right it feels like an exploit. Otherwise it's a pretty by the numbers MM game.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
I spent like a minute there just waiting for them to appear. Part of me still wondering if they weren't supposed to be there somehow.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
Yeah that's a fair assessment, for whatever reason Dust Man's stage is way harder than most of the rest of what's already a tough game.
 

RT-55J

space hero for hire
(He/Him + RT/artee)
MM1GB is a game that, while quite tough, is fair enough and short enough that every so often I decide to try 1CCing it on a lark (sometimes I succeed).

Dust Man's stage in MM3GB is bad enough that I just don't touch the game anymore.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Who made that dumpster fire Mega Man game for the Genesis? Was that Minakuchi or Opera House? I can't help but be a little resentful that the game wound up worse on a 16-bit system. Sure, you get mix and match power ups and three new stages with Son Gokuu robots, but you lose too much in the trade-off.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
MMIII has several contenders for the worst platforming sections in the entire series, but I still recommend it in terms of playability over Dr Wilys Revenge in a heartbeat.
 

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
Who made that dumpster fire Mega Man game for the Genesis? Was that Minakuchi or Opera House? I can't help but be a little resentful that the game wound up worse on a 16-bit system. Sure, you get mix and match power ups and three new stages with Son Gokuu robots, but you lose too much in the trade-off.

Minakuchi Engineering. Also, while the games aren't as good as their originals, "dumpster fire" is, I think, a bridge too far. It's not the DOS games.
 

Sarge

hardcore retro gamin'
I think they feel pretty terrible to play, but yeah, they aren't complete trash fires. If you'd never played the NES games, you'd probably think they were really good. If you have, though, you can't help but keep being constantly reminded that you could be playing the superior versions. That's what always kills me every time I try to put significant time into them.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
I think they feel pretty terrible to play, but yeah, they aren't complete trash fires. If you'd never played the NES games, you'd probably think they were really good. If you have, though, you can't help but keep being constantly reminded that you could be playing the superior versions. That's what always kills me every time I try to put significant time into them.
Yeah, I'd say this is fair. I can't stand them, but it's because I'm so intimately familiar with the originals.
 

LBD_Nytetrayn

..and his little cat, too
(He/him)
It's due to that intimate familiarity that I find the WW versions so interesting.

Sort of like playing those remakes of classic stages in New Super Mario Bros. 2, as one example.
 

madhair60

Video games
I'm really fond of the Game Boy Mega Man games, even the lesser ones. They're almost like flick-screen takes on Mega Man, with rooms that are so small that design has to be airtight. They remind me of Spectrum games, haha.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
I should clarify that by inferior versions I mean The Wily Wars. The Game Boy games are their own thing.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I decided to give Mega Man: The Wily Wars another chance, as I do after all have the game on the Genesis Mini. I thought I might have judged it a little too harshly at first, but then the crappiness set in. It's hard to give the game a pass when Wily Wars doesn't provide what people expect from the early Mega Man games... tight control and fast action. Mega Man feels kind of lethargic, which isn't such a problem when you're running down a long stretch of terra firma blasting enemies, but becomes a problem when you're trying to navigate through a difficult platforming section. You know, like the impossibly wide bottomless pit in Ice Man's stage, or the elevators that love to shaft you at the start of Guts Man's stage.

You need responsive control to make it through these hazards, and it feels like Mega Man has gained fifteen pounds in the migration to a 16-bit system. The fighting robot is not in peak fighting condition here, and although it's not immediately obvious, you start to realize it from the unsteady way he does things that came so naturally to him on the NES. His standard issue blaster is slower, switching from one special weapon to the next is arduous, and his accuracy has taken a hit, going from the bullseye every time to the outer rings of the target. It's like someone slapped a car boot on Robocop.

Like I said, it's tolerable during the game's easier sections, but by Wily's Castle you'll be spitting invective at your television set when Mega Man wastes most of his weapon energy on taking down a Big Eye that just won't die, or learning the lengthy pattern of the blocks shifting from one side of the screen to the other while fighting the Yellow Devil (no select button and no way to pause when a special weapon is onscreen means no easy way out of this pain in the ass!), or getting dusted by Evil Clone Mega Man because you can't quite fire as quickly or reliably as he does. And the Magnet Beam! What the hell did they do to the Magnet Beam? It's too slow to extend, meaning that by the time it's reached its full length, it's about to vanish, and you'll be lying in that bed of spikes you were trying to avoid rather than standing safely over them.

I remain of the opinion that Wily Wars is crap... the first three Mega Man games with a new coat of toxic lead paint. I'll concede that the ability to mix and match weapons and the new stages are brilliant ideas, but I would have given all that up to get a game that nails the basics. This doesn't, and in a Mega Man game, that's a death sentence.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
Played the first half of Mega Man 8 last night and I liked it a lot, the finite amount of bolts for going above and beyond in platforming sections are an interesting way to try to incorporate the kinds of secrets in 7's level design and the shop. The game's gorgeous too.
 

ShakeWell

Slam Master
(he, etc.)
And the Magnet Beam! What the hell did they do to the Magnet Beam? It's too slow to extend, meaning that by the time it's reached its full length, it's about to vanish, and you'll be lying in that bed of spikes you were trying to avoid rather than standing safely over them.

I'll give you that one, for sure. I had a TON of trouble in the one room of Dr. Wily's castle where you need it to get through on the Wily Wars version. Still, I played 1 and 3 back-to-back with their NES counterparts for videos, and I thought they were... fine. Not Super Mario All-Stars or anything, but serviceable. I ordered the official cart release from Castlemania, but that's mostly for the tchotchkes.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
Mega Man 8 down. I actually really liked it. Cute art, deeply amusingly bad voice acting, fun level gimmicks for the most part, decent weapon slate, some nice quality of life changes. Now to kiss all the quality of life changes goodbye to go play Mega Man and Bass.
 

MCBanjoMike

Sudden chomper
(He/him)
Oh yeah, Mega Man 8 is one of my favorites. It's got a couple rough spots, notably the screen-wrap mazes in Astro Man's stage, and it's a bit slow until you get the dash speed booster. But overall, I find it creative and colorful, with some of the best sprite work in pretty much any game. The soundtrack is nice, too, despite being really different from your usual MM fare.
 

fanboymaster

(He/Him)
Mega Man and Bass down, perhaps because it's so infamous for being hard I was mentally prepared for it and honestly liked it quite a bit. I played as Bass which probably helped a lot. It's a mean mean game but the level design's pretty fun and the bosses are tough but fairly learnable.
 

RT-55J

space hero for hire
(He/Him + RT/artee)
My opinion of MM9 has gradually moved from "this game is hard" to "this game might be even meaner than Mega Man and Bass". Wily 4 in that game might just be my least favorite final level in the entire series. It really sours what would otherwise be a pretty good game for me.
 

Mogri

Round and round I go
(he)
Staff member
Moderator
Still waiting for the Internet majority opinion to come around to "Mega Man 10 is one of the best games in the series (with some of the worst weapons in the series)."
 

Purple

(She/Her)
Still waiting for the Internet majority opinion to come around to "Mega Man 10 is one of the best games in the series (with some of the worst weapons in the series)."
The latter makes the former pretty damn hard, to be fair.
 
Top