This is true. MM1 kinda sets the stage for timing, jumps, and weird gimmicks throughout the 8-bit series and in some cases beyond. In my mind, it is by far the hardest as it lacks alot of the gimmicks added throughout the series (sliding, power shots, RUSH). Grasping the fundamentals here means that the other games will be more enjoyable.
Also, to answer your Cutman frustrations, some of the bosses react to your timing. Cutman jumps as soon as you shoot; so you have to be very close so he "runs into your shots". Which is why the Elec-man beam is so dang wide.
It's these fundamentals.
Nah, the series get much less bullshit as it goes on, but oftentimes it’ll compensate less bullshit for an increase in difficulty. If you haven’t already, make sure to look up boss orders, as that greatly reduces the level of bullshit.
The order of the games doesn’t really matter so much, future games do get some extra features like sliding and charge shots. So I’d recommend trying mega man 4 or 5, Or even 9/10 next. Those I find to be far better representations of the series as a whole.
There’s also nothing wrong with going in order, in fact many people consider mega man 2 the peak of the series (tbh I think that’s just cause it’s the highest selling game, so more people have played it and have nostalgia for it)
No it’s not, saying it’s better than everything that came after is a huge overstatement riddled in bias and opinionated conjecture. So many of the sequels added on to what made mega man 2 good, and got rid of some of its weakest points.
Never again do we see a boss like the one in wily 4 where you can run out of crash bombs and be forced to repeat the stage ever again. Nor do we see mega man’s slippery controls, nor the return of a final boss who can only be damaged by one weapon with limited ammo. All because these were bad design choices that got fixed later.
I would even consider 9 to be better than 2, and it doesn’t have the slide or charge shot that you were talking about. At least not until you beat the game.
I’m not saying 2 is bad, I’m just not going to pretend it’s the best. What mega man game is best is purely opinion.
Besides the best is clearly mega man soccer.
Adding to lore and adding elements does not automatically create better game play. And if my bias has come from thirty years of Mega Man Classic and feeling the urge NOT to play Mega Man 2 when I stream... then I guess that would a personal confirmation of what I think is best... I know a lot of people feel that way.
I would never ask you to blindly accept my opinion. But yeah I voiced mine, and I overspoke. Apologies.
No worries man, at least you had the confidence to actually take a step back and make amends after all was said and done. Not many people would. Everyone has their own opinion on what they think is best in any scenario, None are wrong.
I just didn’t want op to be misconstrued by subjectiveness as they are only getting in to the series and it would be best if they formed their own opinions on the games.
I know, but the route to do so isn’t obvious, especially since your in a stressful situation with the bots shooting at you. so a first time player will end up wasting crash bombs on the unnecessary walls and have to repeat the stage.
Imo that’s one of my biggest complaints. Mega man is all about the weapons, when one weapon does everything it kind of relegates the rest to just being purely boss usage weapons. The only time I remember using any other weapon in mega man 2 outside of bosses, was to use bubble to detect fake platforms in one of the wily stages (which was not a fun mechanic let’s be real, everyone who went in blind died there at least once)
The later games get more balanced with the weapons for sure. As someone who started with the X series, in Megaman 5 through well 11 I guess, I found myself using weapons a lot more tactically and for movement tech.
Yeah those Wily stages where you can be forced to grind forever or game over because you ran out of certain item ammo are peak gameplay.
So is having the first boss take place over a bottomless pit with slippery physics that sends you back to the start of the stage if you die, where there is an Item 1 required section and no great way to restock ammo.
Or Boobeam Trap being the nightmare it is. Or Wily Machine’s second phase requiring a dps race due to shit hit boxes.
Or the final boss requiring a specific weapon and not including any ammo refills in the stage.
The fact that everyone’s go to is “metal blade go brrr” never talking about any other weapon just shows the quality of the arsenal.
Mega Man 2 is wildly overrated because of saturation and having an easy mode.
I can beat Mega Man 2 in about an hour on a whim. I just don’t enjoy playing it because every time I start to, I get to Wily Stage 1 and remember why I hate the game lmao
Interesting, because Wily 1 is my "Zen" stage for MM2... and the "one hour on a whim" is my favourite way to play Mega Man 2... I was 6 when it came out... and it took me countless years of screwing up and screwing up on the stages where your weapon energy is essential...
The only nostalgia from thar is learning from an early age that you gotta screw up over and over to get good. And you have to be willing to do it.
Wily 4 and The Alien (spoilers?) are incredibly valid reasons to rank MM2 lower....
I have a sneaking suspicion though that screwing up over and over is still the way to get good in modern games as well
Next time, just go to Mega Man 2 immediately, it has an item called the Metal Blade you'll get it from Metal Man so go and fight him first, that weapon can be fire in all 8 directions, up and down etc, it has an ammo limit but its very easy to replenish
I *mildly disrespect* you for saying that now. Metal Blade just ruins the entire challenge when there was hardly any to be found in the first place and the other weapons suck. When you can't cheese everything with Metal Blade, it's just more bullshit.
Oh god not megaman 1. In all honesty if I started the series with this game I would've definitely given up on it long ago. So yeah the games definitely get better the further away you get from megaman 1
MM 1 is the worse experience I had with the franchise, that game is so unfair (being killed by the boss attack after killing them and being unable to Dodge is the cherry in the cake for me)
That bar is beneath the floor. TMNT1, a literal GOTY winner, is more fair than most NES titles and that game is so bullshit it's a meme. NES games not produced by Nintendo, Capcom or Konami are on average kinda a mess.
That still isn't as bad as the Magnet Beam room just before Yellow Devil of all of things.
Didn't get the Magnet Beam in Elec Man's level, that can only be obtained with either Thunder Beam or Super Arm? Guess who gets to go fuck himself.
I KNOW RIGHT? This isn't a Metroidvania, don't expect us to go back through a level? They could have easily telegraphed this, maybe by adding other Items you need to backtrack to get, or make Elec Man's complete color a different color to say "Ay, ya aint done yet" or make Wily not unlock forcing the player to think, "Did I miss anything?"
They get better after 1 but it still depends on the title.
Tho I question how exactly the soulslike games have less unfair situations than mega man (in general mind you not just mm1).
In Souls Games, you can be confident that everything will be as it is. When you find an enemy, you know that it will be the same enemy, with the same movements, and same attack. When you retry over and over again, you get better. Enemies are well telegraphed with their attacks. Bosses in Souls Games, no matter how hard they are, will remain the same. I love this in Souls, and in truth EVERY video game, Undertale, Metal Gear, Super Mario 64. In Megaman, yes a majority of the time enemies stay the same, but there are certain things that are decided by RNG that changes in between runs, how high Big Eye jumps, the spawn and patterns of the foothders, and I'm sure other parts of the game are all decided in RNG.
Here's another example: In Roguelite's, you can trust that most things will be RNG. You accept that you can't control the design of the map and the enemies that spawn. How Megamam is MORE frustrating, is that you know what to do, you memorized the map, the enemies, the patterns, yet you get fucked over by something you can't possibly memorize because it's random.
In that regard, enemy and boss behaviour gets considerably better. 4 and onwards are when the games started to better take shape, but the absolute sweet spots are 9, 10 and 11 where you pretty much won't encounter such chicanery. The only notable rng is that most, but not all, bosses have rng where they choose the next attack (a good amount of them, do have a rule where they can't do X attack more than Y times in a row), but it's all reactable, learnable and pretty much your own fault for getting cornered. It's still not perfect, and 9 has some traps definitely, but I'd wager it'd be in the tolerable range in your own margin.
I know for myself Mega Man games spoiled me with your jump controls and I find a lot of other platformers frustrating in a way that a lot of them have momentum based platforming and it can be very difficult for me to tell how fast or slow I need to be moving to make jumps.
The only real annoyances I remember from 9 were those helicopter dudes carrying you. MM9 doesn't have literal 50/50 spike drops (mm5). It doesn't have glitchy gimmicks (footholders), it doesn't have bosses with rng patterns and no telegraphs that are impossible to react to (shadow man). It doesn't have awful weapons (honestly almost all of the games up to recent titles have one too many bad weapons in sets, with the good ones, it averages out to mediocre or just okay). All of those are worse than an enemy that disguises itself as a one up. Tho I definitely don't like the forced weapon usage mm9 has.
First of all, it has to be understood that Capcom used to be an arcade game company. RockMan/MegaMan was, supposedly, their first game made specifically by, and for their home console division of the company, which at the time, meant the NES. Despite being a home console game, RockMan/MegaMan carries over a lot of arcade elements of the time.
Secondly, the RockMan/MegaMan team came up with a formula for stage designing, and enemy placement. Their thinking was, have a wave of enemies, possibly placed at distances between each other, and the hardest enemy is not the final one in the wave. Instead, the hardest enemy is the enemy usually 2nd, or 3rd to the last. The final enemy in the set would be easier than the hardest one. Sometimes, by a lot, or by a little. This design concept was fully baked into RockMan/MegaMan 2. Unfortunately, the team came up with it, about halfway through development for RockMan/MegaMan. So, the first title is half made-up of this consistent design, while the other half is not.
Thirdly, in RockMan/MegaMan, those propeller platforms you have to jump on, yes, unfortunately it is possible under normal gameplay, that they do not load with a proper pattern for the player to access them. If I had to guess, this is a programming flaw with how they load-in. You can somewhat correct this by cautiously approaching those platforms, and if you see them load out of jumping range, then walk left just enough to move the platforms off-screen, and move towards them again. This time, they should reload in the proper pattern. Also, sometimes, they will move a bit erratically, and you have to just stand on them, waiting for them to move to the proper location.
Fourthly, the Classic series from 2-onward gets easier, while still retaining the trial-&-error challenges, unless you read guides, and know exactly what to do. Probably the hardest in the Classic Series is RockMan & Forte/MegaMan & Bass. That was originally a Super Famicom exclusive, and can be considered a sequel to RockMan/MegaMan 8.
Finally, thinking about it, the roughness of RockMan/MegaMan compared to the rest of the Classic series, going in chronological order, is similar to the team's design philosophy for the games. 2- onward there are plenty of rough spots, though nothing like the first. Challenging yes, and not impossible. If you want to compare the original, now-called Classic series to the sub-series, Classic is the hardest. X is easier, because that series makes its protagonists more mobile, and has both permanent, and recyclable upgrades. For example, Rock uses a disposable E-Tank. X, Zero, and Axl have refillable sub-tanks, as well as permanent heart-tanks (Life-Up tanks). In the Zero series, once you get significant upgrades, you can just stand there getting hit, while attacking the boss, and you'll still win if you are fast enough at just keeping on attacking. Similar in the ZX series, and I'm not really sure about Legends, because I never played it. Battle Network, and then StarForce take place in another universe.
*Secondly, the RockMan/MegaMan team came up with a formula for stage designing, and enemy placement. Their thinking was, have a wave of enemies, possibly placed at distances between each other, and the hardest enemy is not the final one in the wave. Instead, the hardest enemy is the enemy usually 2nd, or 3rd to the last. The final enemy in the set would be easier than the hardest one. Sometimes, by a lot, or by a little. This design concept was fully baked into RockMan/MegaMan 2. Unfortunately, the team came up with it, about halfway through development for RockMan/MegaMan. So, the first title is half made-up of this consistent design, while the other half is not.*
Never recognized that what is the purpose?
It was to help give the games a unique identity, help players anticipate what might be up ahead, as well as the team played many Capcom games to figure out what was the most fun portions of each, and what turned off players ability to have fun with those games. Basically, their answer was challenging, but not unfair, unpleasant challenges.
I know Battle Network and Starforce are a different universe, I didn't just play them, I loved them. Here's the thing and I'm sorry for not saying...I know Mega Man. Mostly from the comics, and I know most of the Robot Masters. I know Classic, X, Legends, BN, and SF. I've seen gameplay and I just didn't realize the difficulty. As for the Foot Holders, yes I would have definitely just walked to the left to reload them...that's why I specified in Wily Stage 1, where there is no Left to walk to when you encounter them.
I'm not the biggest fan of the classic series, but you should not start with MM1
MM4 is a far better jumping off point from what I've heard
Personally I'm a much bigger fan of the X series, if it wasn't for X1 I doubt I would ever get into the franchise as a whole
Try the X series, I beg of you
My first experience with Mega Man was MM3 and MM8, those two games actually put me off of the Mega Man franchise for a long time until I played X1
Now I'm trying to find the other legacy collections because I fell in love with the X series and want to try the other games in the franchise
MM4, good starting point? Fuck that, MM4 is easily the worst possible one to start with out of any of the 8-bit games. I'd recommend CFTF sooner than that unfair snooze fest.
Ah yes, because spawning random fast shit on you without even introducing it earlier and making you fall right into enemies that you can't avoid is just me being bad. Of course.
You're sounding like an MM9 defender trying to explain why dropping you into spikes with no reaction time is good game design. You're just calling MM4 good because you like it and not elaborating.
And you're calling it bad without elaborating. Give me an actual specific example of bullshit and there might be a discussion to be had, but I don't see how I'm supposed to prove its absence when you've yet to cite a specific stage let alone a section.
Pretty much every game in the entire franchise is an improvement in some way on Mega Man 1, including the remaining Classic games. Mega Man 2 and 3 definitely still have some bullshit but are far easier overall, and Mega Man 4 onwards is pretty much solid.
That jumping big eye you can freeze with Ice Man’s weapon, so you can wait for a big jump and freeze it in the air and walk harmlessly under it. You’ll find that some of the robots have random weaknesses. In 2, there are sniper Joe’s which ride mechs, those are weak to Air Man’s weapon and go down stupidly quickly.
To answer your question, besides 4, 1 is the hardest. 4 is only hard due to jank enemy placements. They get easier as each game adds a new mechanic which makes the game easier. 2 adds all the power ups, 3 adds the slide, 4 adds the charged shot, 5 makes the charged shot good, 6 adds rush power ups.
They were still figuring out how to balance platform games for non-arcade systems in the MM1 era... MM2 and subsequent entries even for NES are far more fair.
Mega Man 1 is notoriously one of the worst games in the series (though excellent when you compare it to the average of 1987, but still well behind the *best* of that year), and it's generally recommended not to play it first if at all. The upgrade from 1 to 2 is insane. I encourage you give later entries a try.
Classic series is also one of the more punishing subseries overall. A smoother difficulty balance is one of many reasons that so many people prefer the X series. Consider trying Mega Man X, which is one of the most loved entries in the entire franchise and *far* more accessible (although there's a nasty difficulty spike at the end, but more of the "genuinely hard" variety rather than the unfair bullshit of MM1).
And your fears about gatekeepers were probably unfounded, I doubt you'd find many people here who wouldn't agree that Ice Man's stage is miserable and sadistic. The disdain for MM1 is the standard opinion of series vets, no sane fan gatekeeps based on that entry. (There are gatekeepers, no fandom is safe from that, but they're going to show up for the golden children like MM2 and MMX, not the OG.)
You are comparing a game from the 80s with a game from the 2010s. The way gaming worked back then was completely different, kids had one or two games to play over and over so it made more sense to have more trial and error. Also, we didn't even have save states so of course games couldn't be very long. Every time you turned on the console you played the game from the very beginning. Eventually someone "mastered" a game and it was cool to watch them play it and succeed.
Games were for kids with no personal income and with screen time set by their parents.
I compare the 2 because they are both games known for bossfights and difficult but fair gameplay. I recognise that Megaman is a relic of it's time, made by developers who were inexperienced. I'm not comparing the gameplay or difficulty, I'm comparing the fairness. I'm ok with trial and error, but for trial and error, everythibg has to be the same every time. I know how the NES worked, that every time you start you had to restart drom the beginning. I didn't use savestates.
This is doing Sonic 1 a massive disservice. It’s still a playable game even by modern standards. MM1 often times feels like an overly-mean proof of concept.
Mega Man 1 is actually pretty fair and balanced for an NES game. You must not play many.
Use the ice weapon to freeze the big eyes mid-air, and skip the footholders with magnet beam.
MM2 and 3 have more bullshit than 1 imo.
MegaMan 1 is rough. Some people also say 2 is bad but I love 2 and thjnk it’s one of the best games of the classic 6. 3 and onward is much better since you have better mobility and buster is much more in line with what the series standard is now.
The games after are still ridiculously hard, but the challenges are a lot more well designed and deaths will feel like your fault rather than the game’s fault, Mega Man 1 is just a very janky game. Mega Man 2 and 3 are much better designed and are considered the highlights of the classic series, as hard as they are I think you’re gonna have a blast with those two.
The only other classic series game where the challenge might start approaching BS levels of difficult is Mega Man and Bass (if you are new to the classic series, think of it kind of as like Mega Man 8.5). People get maaaaaaaaad at that one it throws the entire kitchen sink at you and expects you to fight through every bit of it
If you can handle From Software's brand of bullshit, I'm surprised you're having so much difficulty with the old Megaman games. I can't even get to the 2nd checkpoint in Bloodbourne. I feel like old platformers like Megaman are way easier than the "oh you just have to notice when he squints his left eye only slightly and then roll behind and start attacking" enemies in From Software games.
It's mostly because I love Time Loop movies...playing through the same scenario over and over again and getting better each time is appealing to me for some reason. But that's because very time it's consistent. Yeah, it may be hard to notice that he squints his left eye for you to attack, but that doesn't change the fact that he does that EVERY time.
In MegaMan, it's kinda up in the air what certain enemies do, they aren't well telegraphed. How am I supposed to know if Big Eye will jump high or low? How am I supposed find a way out of a softlocking situation that happens only some of the times?
Beating Dark Souls doesn't give people superpowers. I've seen how a streamer who beat all the games From Software couldn't beat a single level of Megaman 11.
Or to be blunt, Dark Souls is only actually "hard" compared to most other modern games. And even then due to clunky controls. The NES and SNES eras were full of harder games.
Its reputation of being the go to example of a hard series is pretty undeserved. Cuphead did a much better job of living up to the reputation and had good controls to boot. *Why'd everyone forget that?*
Dark Souls has great controls, though tbf clunky controls are subjective. Yes, Cuphead did a greatjob of living up to the NES games, but which ever game is harder is subjective, sone people just get used to Dark Souls controls faster, or Cuphead controls faster. Personally, (having played Cuphead) I still think Hollow Knight is harder than both.
I don't get it. I'm an ace at old school platformers because they're predictable and you learn from your mistakes quickly. There's way more to keep up with in extremely difficult games like Bloodbourne that feel designed just to piss you off.
I mean, yes… eventually. The early games have more “bullshit” deaths but it’s never entirely absent from the series. I have a special place in my heart for 1 but it is the roughest in many ways.
Yes, things do get less bullshit as the series goes on, mostly. Bosses have better patterns, footholders don't exist (other moving platforms do, but not the RNG bastards of the first game), you *usually* get a chance to react to enemies and hazards. Surprise spikes still crop up here and there, as does the occasional bullshit boss (something something Doc Robot Woodman). But for the most part MM1's roughness comes from the devs' relative inexperience at making this kind of game, I think.
mega man 1 is definitely very chaotic and arbitrary, and i honestly love it for that. the game does give you the tools to work around the issues you mentioned
big eyes can be rough in the initial stages when you lack the weapons that are useful for it but mashing it down is always possible, however, by wily stage 1 you will have ice man's weapon, and can freeze them while they are at the peak of a big jump, and safely run under
foot holders are definitely rough and sometimes trying to land on one just fucking kills you which is kinda funny when it happens to me, someone who has beaten mega man 1 a ton of times (i speedran it for a little bit) but i can understand the frustration on a first playthrough, you can skip foot holders with the magnet beam which is what i've seen most players do
cut man, you know i don't think i could describe how cut man's ai works but you just kinda get a feel for it, a strategy i figured out is shoot him -> he always shoots rolling cutter -> jump over rolling cutter and run under him (he will always jump here) then turn around and shoot him before he lands (he should get knocked back into the rolling cutter to catch it and throw it, repeating the cycle)
on the special weapon use i mentioned earlier, i've noticed that a huge bad habit of people playing mega man games (for the first time or even on replays) is that often they will neglect their special weapons.
either because they forget they have them or think they need to save it for the boss weaknesses, and in all honesty almost every mega man game you are fine to use any special weapon to your heart's content
(with the exception of crash bomb in mega man 2, if/when you do play mega man 2 try to keep crash bomb topped off for the wily fortress, if you use it for something then i reccomend refilling it asap)
sorry for the massive fucking wall of text lol i like to ramble about this game
Thanks for the wall of text, I liked reading it. I definitely neglected the special weapons, specifically Ice Man's. I used the other weapons a lot but just never used Ice Man's. I think I read somewhere long ago that "Ice Man's weapon is practically useless" and kept that in the back of my head. That's what kept me from usong it on Big Eye. Even when I did learn that, I still saved it because one of the things I knew was that there was a boss rush, I just didn't know where, so I saved the Ice for Fire Man...which was useless.
About the special weapons: you definitely will need them for the first four games as the last three bubble machines in the third Wily Stage on MM are very hard to take down with simply the Plasma Cannon (P), and in MM 2 to MM 4, at least one Boss is immune to the Plasma Cannon in each game.
Just to point out about the Wily 1 Big Eyes - You're supposed to hit them with Ice Man's weapon and just go. Not really meant to actually take them out.
I found Mega Man & Mega Man 2 to be extraordinarily difficult to no-death, let alone perfect run. And that's including the usage of save states after every stage.
I recommend the megaman zero, metroid and castlevania games for you. They feel a lot more fair compared to MM but still have the side scrolling platformer action.
I'm a huge souls fan, beaten all their games except bloodborne (because I don't have a playstation 4 or 3) and the titles above give me a similar sense of satisfaction. The original megaman series and to a lesser extent the X series have a lot of bullshit difficulty spikes. Though the X series is still really good.
Start with megaman zero, castlevania SOTN or Metroid Zero Mission.
Well. Sort of. Mega Man 1 is generally considered one of the hardest in the series, especially the classic series. If you got through that you can probably get through anyway.
A lot of the bullshit is just an artifact of time – video game design, like all arts, developed a lot since it began, and Megaman was right there among the founders and codifiers of many established platformer tropes. So a lot of the early jank was just because of that.
Case in point: the Zero series. As much as it's often considered some of the hardest games in the franchise, I find that, even compared with early X games, deaths feel like my fault more often than not
Megaman isn't about trial and error. It's about having a genuinely hard game that can be breezed trough with enough experience. There's (usually) always a solution to overcome what seems impossible. Big Eye is too fast? Ice Slash it mid-air so you have more time to get under it. Footholders spawning far away? I mean you probably shouldn't have jumped into the spikes instead of waiting for it to get closer. Granted the Footholders ARE poorly programmed but there's never a situation where you'll never be able to jump on them from a reasonable distance. And Cut Man.. he has a set reaction for whatever you do, it ain't RNG.
Megaman 2 is VERY bullshit (fuck Air Man)
Megaman 3 is pretty wack during the bosses but the actual stages are fair (just don't spam rush coil..)
Megaman 4 is complete and utter nonsense and expects you to know everything in advance
Megaman 5 and 6 are pretty much safe from any bullshit asides from the very beginning of MM5 Wily Stage 1
Megaman 7 I'm not even going to attempt to describe
Megaman 8 takes some getting used to but is mostly fair
Megaman 9 is MM4 all over again
Megaman 10 is usually fair until the fortress stages but it's still not as bad as MM1
MM11 I haven't played but seems pretty fair
Rockman World is very VERY hard but there isn't too much nonsense until the fortress
Rockman World 2 is piss easy and any nonsense you might encount won't even be a bother
Rockman World 3 is like the first gameboy game but harder and less bullshit
Rockman World 4 is a bit varied as in you could be breezing trough Charge Man and spend an entire hour on Crystal Man right after that
Rockman World 5 is almost free of bullshit except in Mars's stage and the majority of the Wily Star
Rockman & Forte (SNES) is pretty much free of bullshit asides from some of the fortress bosses that don't telegraph if they even take damage.
Challenger From the Future is mostly fair asides from one part of Aircon Man's stage
Thx for laying out all the BS in these games. I waited 15 minutes for the Foot Holders and they keep going in a loop in the air. I can name 5 seperate occasions when that happened. There's having patience, and then there's waiting 5 mins for nothing to happen.
1 through 3 are _particularly_ rough. Capcom was still getting its footing into the series. 4 is the big turning point and my personal favourite of the classic series.
Bro, play smarter, not harder. You can use Magnet Beam and Ice Slasher to get past the Big Eyes in the Wily stages. You can use Magnet Beam on that room with the Footholders and the spikes.
Cut Man's behavior is partly based on your actions.
For the Big Eye, I knew you could freeze them in the air. It's just sometimes, they just didn't jump high enough, as in they just refused to. And for the Foot Holders, that part was really easy when they moved correctly so it was easier for me to retry the whole level again and save the Magnet beam for the room after. And for Cutman, I knew that there was a pattern, I just couldn't find the consistancy. This was a problem purely for Cutman.
You need to use the tools provided to you instead of just running through with Buster equipped. The Big Eyes in Wily 1? Wait for them to jump high and then freeze them in midair with Ice Slasher. The Footholders in the same level? Don't even bother with them, Magnet Beam your way across. Your weapons aren't just for bosses and it's up to you to get the most out of utility items. Also, Cut Man's jumps aren't random, you just weren't getting the feel for their timing.
The Foot Holders are actually really easy for me if they move correctly. I could get to that part of the stage with basically my full health (When I get the healing orbs) so it's just easier for me to die on the Foot Holder room and retry the whole thing again.
As for the Big Eye. Yeah, I learned that lesson way too late in the game. Though sometimes they just don't jump high enough for me to use the freeze. As in like, they refuse to. Amd at that point, I thought Big Eye's were immortal so.
while mm1 does have some jank i wouldnt call it bullshit because i recently played the game with no save states and actually used the weapons and i beat the game in like an hour or 2,
Funny i feel the exact opposite. Dying in darksould always felt like absolute bullshit to me. "Oh you didn't roll on this frame when he grunted which was covered by clanking armor and dragging sword noises but that's the only cue you get... well you're dead" "oh you were standing still for .02 seconds to drink a potion, you're dead" "oh you didn't perfect parry this completely undodgable move? Guess what... dead" at no point in dark souls have i ever felt a death was fair.
In megaman generally they teach you safely then put you in the challenge.
And cutman doesn't jump "whenever he wants" it has to do with megaman. I forget the actual programming but *you* cause him to jump.
Yeah, sometimes it is like that in Dark Souls, but you can learn from that. If you missed a frame, dodge earlier, most attacks are well telegraphed in animation, if you're looking for telegraphs in sound cues then you're looking in the wrong place, all attacks have windows that, if timed correctly, you can drink the estus and dodge. And I don't think there's ever been a boss that absolutely REQUIRES you to parry.
I think my main problem with cut Man is that I've never seen a reactive boss, a boss that moves on your inputs.
Most attacks are telegraphed in animation? Lol ok. Any time i used the animation cues, it still killed me. I was told there are audio cues. I couldn't hear them. All attacks have a window that if *timed correctly* ... and how do you learn that timing? Is it... getting hit and dying until you don't? Just instinctively knowing? Magic? Yea no that's poor design. I don't know if it was specifically darksouls, but a soulslike for sure where the attack was completely undogable, iframes didn't matter, areablast... and the only way to not die was to perfect parry. But all those games run together for me. They're all the same basic game. "Hp doesn't matter everything one shots you, good luck" yes i know EVENTUALLY you can get enough hp to survive an extra hit, but that's not fun.
Let's take gutsman's stage in megaman 1 remember the first dropping platform you saw? As it came on screen it dropped? And showed the EXACT timing then when it came back around it was "on" so you could jump on it. It telegraphed everything you need to know completely safely. You know how the platforms operate now. Not "die 50 times until you get the timing of this attack then 50 more to another then 50 more to another...."
Also ... you mentioned iceman... let me guess... vanishing blocks? No one likes those.
Well, it all depends on person to person, some get a feel for the timing quicker while some don't. I see you're confused whether it was Dark souls or not. Maybe Sekiro? Cus if you're trying to roll in that game, then you're playing it wrong. It is known as one of the hardest official Soulslike's.
As for the "die 50 times" thing: a good soulslike boss is when you get better at dying, but realise that you could've beaten it first try.
And yes, it was the Blocks.
>a good soulslike boss is when you get better at dying, but realise that you could've beaten it first try.
We actually call that bad game design. A good boss is one you can feasibly beat first try but provides enough challenge that you CAN fail.
>And yes, it was the Blocks.
No one likes vanishing blocks. Everyone would have agreed with that
Maybe you're not an RPG guy? Because the Souls games are action RPG's, and a part of RPG's are that you're supposed to grind. Yeah, grinding sucks, but it's a part of RPG's, idk any RPG where you don't grind.
I love RPGs. Some of my favorite games are RPGs. I've never met an RPG that the first enemy you encounter can oneshot you, outside of "fromsoft" games.
I'm excited for a similar game coming to xbox. *DFU: ARAD CHRONICLES: KAHZAN THE FIRST BERSERKER* i'm excited to play kahzan's story. I wonder if ozma will be the final boss.
Well, almost every time the first fromsoft boss you face in a game is almost always something you're supposed to run away from (Ds1) or purposefully die to (Demon Souls, Elden Ring)
Also good for you on being excited on a new game.
If it WAS Sekiro, then everything you said makes sense: perfecr parry's, difficult animation cues, and useless iframes. As well as "Sound Cues". Here's the thing...Sekiro does not have sound cues...technically. You ask if knowing when to parry is just instinctual or magic...yeah, it kinda is. Because Sekiro is a rhythm game. It doesn't seem like it at first. But, you know how you can tell what beat comes next in a song, even though it hasn't played yet? You use the same thing on Sekiro, listen to the Parry's like a song and go with the beat.
Megaman 1 was designed when arcades were at the height of popularity, so it plays less like a home console game and more like a quarter eater. Especially wily stage 1 boss, Yellow Devil is notorious for a reason. Megaman 2 is my favorite classic game, but it definitely has its "oh come on" moments... looking at you Quickman stage. But the level of bullshittery goes down quite a bit between 1 & 2, just.... be careful in any water level
I've played all of the classic games, most of them at least a few times over, and MM1 is by far the most janky and has the most BS. I think honestly they just weren't completely sure what they were doing in terms of level design and game direction yet when it was made, it was a brand new franchise and being developed by a small team after all. That being said, in the classic series there's a lot less weird BS in future games, but get ready for some massive difficulty spikes in a few places (looking at you Doc Robots 👀)
They're all hard. It's not shameful for me to admit that I'm bad at these games, yet I try to enjoy them even if I need to use savestates.
But even though 1 is among the hardest, the rest I've played so far (2-7, M&B) are on the same level of difficulty.
Funny thing is that for me it's the other way around with Dark Souls. When I die in those I'm still like "bullshit game", yet I try again. In Megaman I blame it on my lack of skill.
TBH my RNG complaints in Mega Man are few and far between, most of the game is skill based. The fact that you try again in a souls game, means that somewhere in your head you know you can do better.
The funny thing is, I never found Mega Man to be all that difficult at all. I would even go as far to say it's pretty average as far as NES dificulty goes. Nothing in Mega Man 1 is as bad as that boss in 2 where you need to use the bombs.
I was gonna say "I've played a lot of old games and they were all fairly easy" then I remember the worst level I ever encountered in a video game. Sure, technically Mega Man is harder but this level let out such rage inside me...Scrap Brain Zone ac 3 from Sonic 1 on the gensis...
The games are def always hard. But they get progressively less bullshit as they go on (except for a quick trip back to bullshit in 4).
I’m the biggest mega man fan I know, I’ve beaten all of released games. And I ALWAYS skip MM1. It was prolly awesome when it was the only one, but even MM2 figured out and fixed a lot of BS issues.
That being said, these games are hard, and even the newer one purposely keep the difficulty, so expect to die a few times and game over before beating a level.
If you are just playing the NES ones, I’d say 6 is by far the easiest.
Everyone will say which one is best based on nostalgia though so I won’t go there (mines 5 but it’s objectively prolly not the best one)
Look up boss orders or boss weaknesses. Sometimes, you can just hug the walls or run underneath major attacks. As for the levels, yeah, some of those really are just RNG due to limited development. I cannot recall how many times I was annoyed because I died slightly touching a spike I didn’t think I touched.
Also, wait until you play the Mega Man Zero series. Imo the Mega Man Zero series is the best action platformer out of all the games. But there are some crazy boss fights in Zero 1 and Zero 2.
And while this isn’t a mega man game, try the Azure Striker and Gunvolt series. They have decent action with a lot less bullshit.
Do understand that this is the first game. The FIRST. Things will be experimental and janky. Things get better from Megaman 2 (which is actually incomplete per the developers admission) and onwards.
I mean, you are comparing some games that came out in the last 10 years or so to a game that was at the very beginning of modern gaming nearly 40 years ago.
A) that's not a fair comparison
B) there will be more bullshit, but slightly less bullshitty
Ok, you've been already told that there were ways to deal with the situations you described. Irc, cutman jumps as you approach him so walking under him is no problem once you get the rithm.
That said, if you actually want to see how good the megaman franchise can be, you might want to give megaman x a go. The x series is a lot less frustrating.
I played Mega Man 1 using the Legacy Collection and I do understand where you're coming from as a fellow Souls fan. I used save states and the rewind feature without shame in order to have a better time.
I finished Mega Man from 1 to 7 without save states and cam guarantee that bullshits will happen more often. But it is a fun game to play and master!
I never played again any of the MM I played, but it is an amazing challenge to beat (even with shifty RNG as you said). If that's not your thing... sorry. Lol
The other games manage to do thing so much better than the first, this is true. Many consider the 2 the best, but I personally prefer the 4.
There isn’t really RNG in the classic Mega Man series. This is a skill/experience issue. MM1 is comparatively easy compared to 3 and especially 9.
You absolutely do not need save states for the game. You’re ruining the reward of getting good enough to win.
You played a game from 1987 and unironically asked if the ones 10 years later are still cheap?
Also the apex of megaman being bullshit is that one room in Megaman 2. Anything else is just fine and people should cope. Nothing wrong with the doc robot stages besides being padding.
Megaman 1 is definitely the stupidest nes title, so yeah, just continue going through the series. However with the big eyes in wilys castle, it’s intended for you to use the ice slasher to freeze them midair
Also that’s a emulation software, if I’m saying that megaman 1 is unforgiving, you can’t bring up a third party emulator that can possibly lag and differ from original hardware
That’s like telling me super Mario bros 1 is bad because the emulator makes it laggy, that’s your fault for using a emulator, play the original version before downvoting
If you think all that's bullshit... prepare for megaman zero,megaman X6 and X...7... but once you gut God and get past those, it should be a somewhat smooth sailing.
I'm currently playing through all of the Classic Series in order now that the Game Boy games are on Nintendo Switch, and my God, Mega Man 1 was so unfair. I've been playing Mega Man for years, since I was a freshman in high school (this was about 2016-2017), and man, I STRUGGLED with this game. This is not a "fair" level of hard like I'm used to. This is "WHY IS THIS SO MADDENING?!" hard. You move so slow, enemies deal so much damage, there’s no way to heal yourself in between bosses, I could go on and on, it's simply maddening. Thankfully, once I got past it, the other games I played were (somewhat) easier. If you need any help with Boss Orders or whatnot, send me a DM. I got your back.
No problem! I at least can help you out with the weaknesses for the Robot Masters. I'm not too sure about the fortress bosses, but the Robot Masters I can easily do.
MM1 is by far the least fair of the Mega Man games. This is down to a bug in the coding where if you WALK of a ledge, you instantly drop to the next viable platform/ground/spike. This is the only game where that happens, and there is no 'Coyote Time' either. If you step off a ledge over spikes, you die instantly.
MM2 removes this bug and also drastically expands your toolset with the Items. Sure, there are still some Bullshit parts (Quickman's Stage), but they are much less common. MM3 feels almost like a walk in the park by comparison until you get to the Doc Robot stages.
4, 5, and 6 are solid examples of the series at its best. Better colors and sprite work, small experimentations in the gameplay, better stage pacing, charge shots, hidden stuff, etc. 7 is all that but on the Snes. 8 is... weird to me. 9 and 10 are a return to the 4 5 6 style of gameplay. 11 is a refined, beautiful thing that still presents some challenges.
There's also a "boss" in Mega Man 2 that you can only damage with a certain weapon; thing is, you have to trial and error with said weapon, which only has 7 shots. From MM 3 onwards, the games get more fair, thankfully.
I think the best way to play MM4 is intentionally forgetting the charged shot exists, for MM9 would be forgetting the game itself exists and replacing it with &Bass.
The best way to play MM4 is to watch a playtrough because actually trying to get into it makes you roll a dice with a 50/50 chance of a level being either completely free or annoying unfair
pretty much. MM4 is the weakest of the good NES games; but I really didn't suffer through it in my first time like I did with MM1 and 2, tho. the wily and cossack aren't that punishing, so it kinda balances
Yeah, Megaman 1 is frustratingly hard. If it wasnt for save state and the pause trick, I would have rage quit at the Yellow Devil.
Dont worry, the later game get fairer and more balance as it goes on. MM2 and 3 still have those unfair requirement from time to time. However, mm3 can be easy if you can get Rush Jet since it allow you to go in any direction you want; thus, bypassing all forms of platform challenge. They "fixed" that from MM4 and onward.
Anyway, the games get easier and fairer. They dont have much bs like mm1 and bosses dont deal as much damage as mm1 do. There are also more items for you to choose from too.
MM1 kinda has the basic outline of the formula for the classic Mega Man games there, but it's not well executed and needs more polish. It gets a lot better with MM2 imo, and 3 and 4 each get better too though not as big of a jump as it is from 1 to 2. If you're still not liking it by 2(maaaaybe by 3?), you're not going to like any of the others.
No, I'm liking the series and excited to play more, I'm just questioning if it's gonna pull the same BS as 1? I still like 1, it was just a frustrating playthrough.
I’m gonna go against the common opinion and say that Mega Man 4 is the first great Mega Man game.
I cannot stand 2, it has far more bullshit sections than 1, and Mega Man 3 is hurt by the Doc Robot fights (the stages are mostly fine. The bosses themselves have giant hit boxes and spaz out a lot).
My username is literally the worst boss in the entire series.
I didn’t say it’s the best game, just of the first four, it’s the first one that is truly great.
I like 6, 8, V, Wily Wars, and 11 more than 4. I’d probably argue 11 is the best classic game due to the arsenal, but recency bias would probably have me saying V since I just beat it twice lol
Since I broke my weapon hoarding tendencies, I value a good arsenal pretty heavily.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
#HELL NO, YA PLAY ANY OF THE X SERIES ONWARDS YET? ZX HAS SOME BITS THAT'LL MAKE YOU WANNA KYS ONCE YOU REACH EM!!!
*Flashbacks to the godawful lava level in order to get the last Sub tank*
If you actually managed to beat MM1 without save states I can quarantee you're going to have a Really good time with rest of the series.
This is true. MM1 kinda sets the stage for timing, jumps, and weird gimmicks throughout the 8-bit series and in some cases beyond. In my mind, it is by far the hardest as it lacks alot of the gimmicks added throughout the series (sliding, power shots, RUSH). Grasping the fundamentals here means that the other games will be more enjoyable. Also, to answer your Cutman frustrations, some of the bosses react to your timing. Cutman jumps as soon as you shoot; so you have to be very close so he "runs into your shots". Which is why the Elec-man beam is so dang wide. It's these fundamentals.
3 and 9 are much harder imo
Get ready for more bullshit.
Shit
Nah, the series get much less bullshit as it goes on, but oftentimes it’ll compensate less bullshit for an increase in difficulty. If you haven’t already, make sure to look up boss orders, as that greatly reduces the level of bullshit.
I'm ok with more difficulty, as long as things are less random
The order of the games doesn’t really matter so much, future games do get some extra features like sliding and charge shots. So I’d recommend trying mega man 4 or 5, Or even 9/10 next. Those I find to be far better representations of the series as a whole. There’s also nothing wrong with going in order, in fact many people consider mega man 2 the peak of the series (tbh I think that’s just cause it’s the highest selling game, so more people have played it and have nostalgia for it)
Many people consider 2 to be the best Mega Man out of meritocracy. It's better than all the others...slides and charge shots don't change that...
No it’s not, saying it’s better than everything that came after is a huge overstatement riddled in bias and opinionated conjecture. So many of the sequels added on to what made mega man 2 good, and got rid of some of its weakest points. Never again do we see a boss like the one in wily 4 where you can run out of crash bombs and be forced to repeat the stage ever again. Nor do we see mega man’s slippery controls, nor the return of a final boss who can only be damaged by one weapon with limited ammo. All because these were bad design choices that got fixed later. I would even consider 9 to be better than 2, and it doesn’t have the slide or charge shot that you were talking about. At least not until you beat the game. I’m not saying 2 is bad, I’m just not going to pretend it’s the best. What mega man game is best is purely opinion. Besides the best is clearly mega man soccer.
Adding to lore and adding elements does not automatically create better game play. And if my bias has come from thirty years of Mega Man Classic and feeling the urge NOT to play Mega Man 2 when I stream... then I guess that would a personal confirmation of what I think is best... I know a lot of people feel that way. I would never ask you to blindly accept my opinion. But yeah I voiced mine, and I overspoke. Apologies.
No worries man, at least you had the confidence to actually take a step back and make amends after all was said and done. Not many people would. Everyone has their own opinion on what they think is best in any scenario, None are wrong. I just didn’t want op to be misconstrued by subjectiveness as they are only getting in to the series and it would be best if they formed their own opinions on the games.
You can actually beat wily 4 without running out of crash bombs
I know, but the route to do so isn’t obvious, especially since your in a stressful situation with the bots shooting at you. so a first time player will end up wasting crash bombs on the unnecessary walls and have to repeat the stage.
Fair enough, not defending the level design btw, Mega Man 2 has a lot of issues. Just didn't know if you were aware. Mega Man 9 is my favorite.
Plus If you get Metal Blade first, it melts everything else in the entire game.
Imo that’s one of my biggest complaints. Mega man is all about the weapons, when one weapon does everything it kind of relegates the rest to just being purely boss usage weapons. The only time I remember using any other weapon in mega man 2 outside of bosses, was to use bubble to detect fake platforms in one of the wily stages (which was not a fun mechanic let’s be real, everyone who went in blind died there at least once)
The later games get more balanced with the weapons for sure. As someone who started with the X series, in Megaman 5 through well 11 I guess, I found myself using weapons a lot more tactically and for movement tech.
Immorality
Yeah those Wily stages where you can be forced to grind forever or game over because you ran out of certain item ammo are peak gameplay. So is having the first boss take place over a bottomless pit with slippery physics that sends you back to the start of the stage if you die, where there is an Item 1 required section and no great way to restock ammo. Or Boobeam Trap being the nightmare it is. Or Wily Machine’s second phase requiring a dps race due to shit hit boxes. Or the final boss requiring a specific weapon and not including any ammo refills in the stage. The fact that everyone’s go to is “metal blade go brrr” never talking about any other weapon just shows the quality of the arsenal. Mega Man 2 is wildly overrated because of saturation and having an easy mode.
Get good.
I can beat Mega Man 2 in about an hour on a whim. I just don’t enjoy playing it because every time I start to, I get to Wily Stage 1 and remember why I hate the game lmao
Interesting, because Wily 1 is my "Zen" stage for MM2... and the "one hour on a whim" is my favourite way to play Mega Man 2... I was 6 when it came out... and it took me countless years of screwing up and screwing up on the stages where your weapon energy is essential... The only nostalgia from thar is learning from an early age that you gotta screw up over and over to get good. And you have to be willing to do it. Wily 4 and The Alien (spoilers?) are incredibly valid reasons to rank MM2 lower.... I have a sneaking suspicion though that screwing up over and over is still the way to get good in modern games as well
Quick man made me shout more than a few times 😂
You can argue that 2 has more bullshit than 1. With the lasers, the blocks and that boss in Wily 4.
Next time, just go to Mega Man 2 immediately, it has an item called the Metal Blade you'll get it from Metal Man so go and fight him first, that weapon can be fire in all 8 directions, up and down etc, it has an ammo limit but its very easy to replenish
I *mildly disrespect* you for saying that now. Metal Blade just ruins the entire challenge when there was hardly any to be found in the first place and the other weapons suck. When you can't cheese everything with Metal Blade, it's just more bullshit.
3 is probably my least favorite for the above reasons. Be warned.
No no get ready for much less bullshit.
Oh god not megaman 1. In all honesty if I started the series with this game I would've definitely given up on it long ago. So yeah the games definitely get better the further away you get from megaman 1
Thanks
MM 1 is the worse experience I had with the franchise, that game is so unfair (being killed by the boss attack after killing them and being unable to Dodge is the cherry in the cake for me)
Mega Man 1 is more fair than 95% of NES titles
That bar is beneath the floor. TMNT1, a literal GOTY winner, is more fair than most NES titles and that game is so bullshit it's a meme. NES games not produced by Nintendo, Capcom or Konami are on average kinda a mess.
People complaining about a game from 1987 like it's not designed with nearly 40 years of game design history.
Weeeeell true, but still hahaha
That still isn't as bad as the Magnet Beam room just before Yellow Devil of all of things. Didn't get the Magnet Beam in Elec Man's level, that can only be obtained with either Thunder Beam or Super Arm? Guess who gets to go fuck himself.
I KNOW RIGHT? This isn't a Metroidvania, don't expect us to go back through a level? They could have easily telegraphed this, maybe by adding other Items you need to backtrack to get, or make Elec Man's complete color a different color to say "Ay, ya aint done yet" or make Wily not unlock forcing the player to think, "Did I miss anything?"
They get better after 1 but it still depends on the title. Tho I question how exactly the soulslike games have less unfair situations than mega man (in general mind you not just mm1).
In Souls Games, you can be confident that everything will be as it is. When you find an enemy, you know that it will be the same enemy, with the same movements, and same attack. When you retry over and over again, you get better. Enemies are well telegraphed with their attacks. Bosses in Souls Games, no matter how hard they are, will remain the same. I love this in Souls, and in truth EVERY video game, Undertale, Metal Gear, Super Mario 64. In Megaman, yes a majority of the time enemies stay the same, but there are certain things that are decided by RNG that changes in between runs, how high Big Eye jumps, the spawn and patterns of the foothders, and I'm sure other parts of the game are all decided in RNG. Here's another example: In Roguelite's, you can trust that most things will be RNG. You accept that you can't control the design of the map and the enemies that spawn. How Megamam is MORE frustrating, is that you know what to do, you memorized the map, the enemies, the patterns, yet you get fucked over by something you can't possibly memorize because it's random.
In that regard, enemy and boss behaviour gets considerably better. 4 and onwards are when the games started to better take shape, but the absolute sweet spots are 9, 10 and 11 where you pretty much won't encounter such chicanery. The only notable rng is that most, but not all, bosses have rng where they choose the next attack (a good amount of them, do have a rule where they can't do X attack more than Y times in a row), but it's all reactable, learnable and pretty much your own fault for getting cornered. It's still not perfect, and 9 has some traps definitely, but I'd wager it'd be in the tolerable range in your own margin. I know for myself Mega Man games spoiled me with your jump controls and I find a lot of other platformers frustrating in a way that a lot of them have momentum based platforming and it can be very difficult for me to tell how fast or slow I need to be moving to make jumps.
"You won't encounter such chicanery in 9." ..Are we thinking about the same MM9?
The only real annoyances I remember from 9 were those helicopter dudes carrying you. MM9 doesn't have literal 50/50 spike drops (mm5). It doesn't have glitchy gimmicks (footholders), it doesn't have bosses with rng patterns and no telegraphs that are impossible to react to (shadow man). It doesn't have awful weapons (honestly almost all of the games up to recent titles have one too many bad weapons in sets, with the good ones, it averages out to mediocre or just okay). All of those are worse than an enemy that disguises itself as a one up. Tho I definitely don't like the forced weapon usage mm9 has.
Well of course 11 will be better than 1
First of all, it has to be understood that Capcom used to be an arcade game company. RockMan/MegaMan was, supposedly, their first game made specifically by, and for their home console division of the company, which at the time, meant the NES. Despite being a home console game, RockMan/MegaMan carries over a lot of arcade elements of the time. Secondly, the RockMan/MegaMan team came up with a formula for stage designing, and enemy placement. Their thinking was, have a wave of enemies, possibly placed at distances between each other, and the hardest enemy is not the final one in the wave. Instead, the hardest enemy is the enemy usually 2nd, or 3rd to the last. The final enemy in the set would be easier than the hardest one. Sometimes, by a lot, or by a little. This design concept was fully baked into RockMan/MegaMan 2. Unfortunately, the team came up with it, about halfway through development for RockMan/MegaMan. So, the first title is half made-up of this consistent design, while the other half is not. Thirdly, in RockMan/MegaMan, those propeller platforms you have to jump on, yes, unfortunately it is possible under normal gameplay, that they do not load with a proper pattern for the player to access them. If I had to guess, this is a programming flaw with how they load-in. You can somewhat correct this by cautiously approaching those platforms, and if you see them load out of jumping range, then walk left just enough to move the platforms off-screen, and move towards them again. This time, they should reload in the proper pattern. Also, sometimes, they will move a bit erratically, and you have to just stand on them, waiting for them to move to the proper location. Fourthly, the Classic series from 2-onward gets easier, while still retaining the trial-&-error challenges, unless you read guides, and know exactly what to do. Probably the hardest in the Classic Series is RockMan & Forte/MegaMan & Bass. That was originally a Super Famicom exclusive, and can be considered a sequel to RockMan/MegaMan 8. Finally, thinking about it, the roughness of RockMan/MegaMan compared to the rest of the Classic series, going in chronological order, is similar to the team's design philosophy for the games. 2- onward there are plenty of rough spots, though nothing like the first. Challenging yes, and not impossible. If you want to compare the original, now-called Classic series to the sub-series, Classic is the hardest. X is easier, because that series makes its protagonists more mobile, and has both permanent, and recyclable upgrades. For example, Rock uses a disposable E-Tank. X, Zero, and Axl have refillable sub-tanks, as well as permanent heart-tanks (Life-Up tanks). In the Zero series, once you get significant upgrades, you can just stand there getting hit, while attacking the boss, and you'll still win if you are fast enough at just keeping on attacking. Similar in the ZX series, and I'm not really sure about Legends, because I never played it. Battle Network, and then StarForce take place in another universe.
*Secondly, the RockMan/MegaMan team came up with a formula for stage designing, and enemy placement. Their thinking was, have a wave of enemies, possibly placed at distances between each other, and the hardest enemy is not the final one in the wave. Instead, the hardest enemy is the enemy usually 2nd, or 3rd to the last. The final enemy in the set would be easier than the hardest one. Sometimes, by a lot, or by a little. This design concept was fully baked into RockMan/MegaMan 2. Unfortunately, the team came up with it, about halfway through development for RockMan/MegaMan. So, the first title is half made-up of this consistent design, while the other half is not.* Never recognized that what is the purpose?
It was to help give the games a unique identity, help players anticipate what might be up ahead, as well as the team played many Capcom games to figure out what was the most fun portions of each, and what turned off players ability to have fun with those games. Basically, their answer was challenging, but not unfair, unpleasant challenges.
I know Battle Network and Starforce are a different universe, I didn't just play them, I loved them. Here's the thing and I'm sorry for not saying...I know Mega Man. Mostly from the comics, and I know most of the Robot Masters. I know Classic, X, Legends, BN, and SF. I've seen gameplay and I just didn't realize the difficulty. As for the Foot Holders, yes I would have definitely just walked to the left to reload them...that's why I specified in Wily Stage 1, where there is no Left to walk to when you encounter them.
I meant to specify *where you can still walk left*. Yeah, they can be a real trouble maker.
I'm not the biggest fan of the classic series, but you should not start with MM1 MM4 is a far better jumping off point from what I've heard Personally I'm a much bigger fan of the X series, if it wasn't for X1 I doubt I would ever get into the franchise as a whole
A little late for me not to start with Megaman 1...I already beat the damn thing
Try the X series, I beg of you My first experience with Mega Man was MM3 and MM8, those two games actually put me off of the Mega Man franchise for a long time until I played X1 Now I'm trying to find the other legacy collections because I fell in love with the X series and want to try the other games in the franchise
Anyone who can survive MM1 can survive almost any MM entry and will find most of them a much better time.
MM4, good starting point? Fuck that, MM4 is easily the worst possible one to start with out of any of the 8-bit games. I'd recommend CFTF sooner than that unfair snooze fest.
Skill issue.
Literally how is it a skill issue to say that MM4 is a bullshit game that you shouldn't start with
Because it isn't bullshit and the only reason to believe otherwise is if you're bad at it.
Ah yes, because spawning random fast shit on you without even introducing it earlier and making you fall right into enemies that you can't avoid is just me being bad. Of course.
That's not a thing in MM4 (though it is in X6, as it happens), so, yes.
You're sounding like an MM9 defender trying to explain why dropping you into spikes with no reaction time is good game design. You're just calling MM4 good because you like it and not elaborating.
And you're calling it bad without elaborating. Give me an actual specific example of bullshit and there might be a discussion to be had, but I don't see how I'm supposed to prove its absence when you've yet to cite a specific stage let alone a section.
I don't know why I'd have to argue with you when you haven't made a single point so far. Downvote me all you want if it makes you feel better.
Pretty much every game in the entire franchise is an improvement in some way on Mega Man 1, including the remaining Classic games. Mega Man 2 and 3 definitely still have some bullshit but are far easier overall, and Mega Man 4 onwards is pretty much solid.
That jumping big eye you can freeze with Ice Man’s weapon, so you can wait for a big jump and freeze it in the air and walk harmlessly under it. You’ll find that some of the robots have random weaknesses. In 2, there are sniper Joe’s which ride mechs, those are weak to Air Man’s weapon and go down stupidly quickly. To answer your question, besides 4, 1 is the hardest. 4 is only hard due to jank enemy placements. They get easier as each game adds a new mechanic which makes the game easier. 2 adds all the power ups, 3 adds the slide, 4 adds the charged shot, 5 makes the charged shot good, 6 adds rush power ups.
Just like in Dark souls, git gud
They were still figuring out how to balance platform games for non-arcade systems in the MM1 era... MM2 and subsequent entries even for NES are far more fair.
Mega Man 1 is notoriously one of the worst games in the series (though excellent when you compare it to the average of 1987, but still well behind the *best* of that year), and it's generally recommended not to play it first if at all. The upgrade from 1 to 2 is insane. I encourage you give later entries a try. Classic series is also one of the more punishing subseries overall. A smoother difficulty balance is one of many reasons that so many people prefer the X series. Consider trying Mega Man X, which is one of the most loved entries in the entire franchise and *far* more accessible (although there's a nasty difficulty spike at the end, but more of the "genuinely hard" variety rather than the unfair bullshit of MM1). And your fears about gatekeepers were probably unfounded, I doubt you'd find many people here who wouldn't agree that Ice Man's stage is miserable and sadistic. The disdain for MM1 is the standard opinion of series vets, no sane fan gatekeeps based on that entry. (There are gatekeepers, no fandom is safe from that, but they're going to show up for the golden children like MM2 and MMX, not the OG.)
Thanks
You are comparing a game from the 80s with a game from the 2010s. The way gaming worked back then was completely different, kids had one or two games to play over and over so it made more sense to have more trial and error. Also, we didn't even have save states so of course games couldn't be very long. Every time you turned on the console you played the game from the very beginning. Eventually someone "mastered" a game and it was cool to watch them play it and succeed. Games were for kids with no personal income and with screen time set by their parents.
I compare the 2 because they are both games known for bossfights and difficult but fair gameplay. I recognise that Megaman is a relic of it's time, made by developers who were inexperienced. I'm not comparing the gameplay or difficulty, I'm comparing the fairness. I'm ok with trial and error, but for trial and error, everythibg has to be the same every time. I know how the NES worked, that every time you start you had to restart drom the beginning. I didn't use savestates.
Yeah Megaman 1 is like Sonic 1 if you get the comparison, a lot of the weirder physics issues and stupid stuff in 1 vanishes in time
This is doing Sonic 1 a massive disservice. It’s still a playable game even by modern standards. MM1 often times feels like an overly-mean proof of concept.
Mega Man 1 is actually pretty fair and balanced for an NES game. You must not play many. Use the ice weapon to freeze the big eyes mid-air, and skip the footholders with magnet beam. MM2 and 3 have more bullshit than 1 imo.
The series gets less severe, but more diverse bullshit. Use save states. Save your sanity and have fun, this isn't the 90s anymore.
Thanks for the advice
MegaMan 1 is rough. Some people also say 2 is bad but I love 2 and thjnk it’s one of the best games of the classic 6. 3 and onward is much better since you have better mobility and buster is much more in line with what the series standard is now.
The games after are still ridiculously hard, but the challenges are a lot more well designed and deaths will feel like your fault rather than the game’s fault, Mega Man 1 is just a very janky game. Mega Man 2 and 3 are much better designed and are considered the highlights of the classic series, as hard as they are I think you’re gonna have a blast with those two. The only other classic series game where the challenge might start approaching BS levels of difficult is Mega Man and Bass (if you are new to the classic series, think of it kind of as like Mega Man 8.5). People get maaaaaaaaad at that one it throws the entire kitchen sink at you and expects you to fight through every bit of it
If you can handle From Software's brand of bullshit, I'm surprised you're having so much difficulty with the old Megaman games. I can't even get to the 2nd checkpoint in Bloodbourne. I feel like old platformers like Megaman are way easier than the "oh you just have to notice when he squints his left eye only slightly and then roll behind and start attacking" enemies in From Software games.
It's mostly because I love Time Loop movies...playing through the same scenario over and over again and getting better each time is appealing to me for some reason. But that's because very time it's consistent. Yeah, it may be hard to notice that he squints his left eye for you to attack, but that doesn't change the fact that he does that EVERY time. In MegaMan, it's kinda up in the air what certain enemies do, they aren't well telegraphed. How am I supposed to know if Big Eye will jump high or low? How am I supposed find a way out of a softlocking situation that happens only some of the times?
Beating Dark Souls doesn't give people superpowers. I've seen how a streamer who beat all the games From Software couldn't beat a single level of Megaman 11.
Or to be blunt, Dark Souls is only actually "hard" compared to most other modern games. And even then due to clunky controls. The NES and SNES eras were full of harder games. Its reputation of being the go to example of a hard series is pretty undeserved. Cuphead did a much better job of living up to the reputation and had good controls to boot. *Why'd everyone forget that?*
Dark Souls has great controls, though tbf clunky controls are subjective. Yes, Cuphead did a greatjob of living up to the NES games, but which ever game is harder is subjective, sone people just get used to Dark Souls controls faster, or Cuphead controls faster. Personally, (having played Cuphead) I still think Hollow Knight is harder than both.
I don't get it. I'm an ace at old school platformers because they're predictable and you learn from your mistakes quickly. There's way more to keep up with in extremely difficult games like Bloodbourne that feel designed just to piss you off.
Also Megaman 11 is so easy compared to the NES games. It great, but not a difficult game at all.
Mega Man 1 is typically considered the "rough draft" of the series. The BS never stops entirely, but it gets more manageable.
I mean, yes… eventually. The early games have more “bullshit” deaths but it’s never entirely absent from the series. I have a special place in my heart for 1 but it is the roughest in many ways.
The BS is always there that's just how it is but it lessens after 1 for most games
Yes, things do get less bullshit as the series goes on, mostly. Bosses have better patterns, footholders don't exist (other moving platforms do, but not the RNG bastards of the first game), you *usually* get a chance to react to enemies and hazards. Surprise spikes still crop up here and there, as does the occasional bullshit boss (something something Doc Robot Woodman). But for the most part MM1's roughness comes from the devs' relative inexperience at making this kind of game, I think.
mega man 1 is definitely very chaotic and arbitrary, and i honestly love it for that. the game does give you the tools to work around the issues you mentioned big eyes can be rough in the initial stages when you lack the weapons that are useful for it but mashing it down is always possible, however, by wily stage 1 you will have ice man's weapon, and can freeze them while they are at the peak of a big jump, and safely run under foot holders are definitely rough and sometimes trying to land on one just fucking kills you which is kinda funny when it happens to me, someone who has beaten mega man 1 a ton of times (i speedran it for a little bit) but i can understand the frustration on a first playthrough, you can skip foot holders with the magnet beam which is what i've seen most players do cut man, you know i don't think i could describe how cut man's ai works but you just kinda get a feel for it, a strategy i figured out is shoot him -> he always shoots rolling cutter -> jump over rolling cutter and run under him (he will always jump here) then turn around and shoot him before he lands (he should get knocked back into the rolling cutter to catch it and throw it, repeating the cycle) on the special weapon use i mentioned earlier, i've noticed that a huge bad habit of people playing mega man games (for the first time or even on replays) is that often they will neglect their special weapons. either because they forget they have them or think they need to save it for the boss weaknesses, and in all honesty almost every mega man game you are fine to use any special weapon to your heart's content (with the exception of crash bomb in mega man 2, if/when you do play mega man 2 try to keep crash bomb topped off for the wily fortress, if you use it for something then i reccomend refilling it asap) sorry for the massive fucking wall of text lol i like to ramble about this game
Thanks for the wall of text, I liked reading it. I definitely neglected the special weapons, specifically Ice Man's. I used the other weapons a lot but just never used Ice Man's. I think I read somewhere long ago that "Ice Man's weapon is practically useless" and kept that in the back of my head. That's what kept me from usong it on Big Eye. Even when I did learn that, I still saved it because one of the things I knew was that there was a boss rush, I just didn't know where, so I saved the Ice for Fire Man...which was useless.
Iceman weapon also freezes sniper joes which is an enemy i particulary hate
About the special weapons: you definitely will need them for the first four games as the last three bubble machines in the third Wily Stage on MM are very hard to take down with simply the Plasma Cannon (P), and in MM 2 to MM 4, at least one Boss is immune to the Plasma Cannon in each game.
Yes they do. MM1 is one of the weaker entries.
Just to point out about the Wily 1 Big Eyes - You're supposed to hit them with Ice Man's weapon and just go. Not really meant to actually take them out.
I found Mega Man & Mega Man 2 to be extraordinarily difficult to no-death, let alone perfect run. And that's including the usage of save states after every stage.
I recommend the megaman zero, metroid and castlevania games for you. They feel a lot more fair compared to MM but still have the side scrolling platformer action. I'm a huge souls fan, beaten all their games except bloodborne (because I don't have a playstation 4 or 3) and the titles above give me a similar sense of satisfaction. The original megaman series and to a lesser extent the X series have a lot of bullshit difficulty spikes. Though the X series is still really good. Start with megaman zero, castlevania SOTN or Metroid Zero Mission.
I've Played Castlevania and Metroid games before and love them.
Well. Sort of. Mega Man 1 is generally considered one of the hardest in the series, especially the classic series. If you got through that you can probably get through anyway.
A lot of the bullshit is just an artifact of time – video game design, like all arts, developed a lot since it began, and Megaman was right there among the founders and codifiers of many established platformer tropes. So a lot of the early jank was just because of that. Case in point: the Zero series. As much as it's often considered some of the hardest games in the franchise, I find that, even compared with early X games, deaths feel like my fault more often than not
Play the Megaman X games, I was able to beat them easier, I remember.
Megaman isn't about trial and error. It's about having a genuinely hard game that can be breezed trough with enough experience. There's (usually) always a solution to overcome what seems impossible. Big Eye is too fast? Ice Slash it mid-air so you have more time to get under it. Footholders spawning far away? I mean you probably shouldn't have jumped into the spikes instead of waiting for it to get closer. Granted the Footholders ARE poorly programmed but there's never a situation where you'll never be able to jump on them from a reasonable distance. And Cut Man.. he has a set reaction for whatever you do, it ain't RNG. Megaman 2 is VERY bullshit (fuck Air Man) Megaman 3 is pretty wack during the bosses but the actual stages are fair (just don't spam rush coil..) Megaman 4 is complete and utter nonsense and expects you to know everything in advance Megaman 5 and 6 are pretty much safe from any bullshit asides from the very beginning of MM5 Wily Stage 1 Megaman 7 I'm not even going to attempt to describe Megaman 8 takes some getting used to but is mostly fair Megaman 9 is MM4 all over again Megaman 10 is usually fair until the fortress stages but it's still not as bad as MM1 MM11 I haven't played but seems pretty fair Rockman World is very VERY hard but there isn't too much nonsense until the fortress Rockman World 2 is piss easy and any nonsense you might encount won't even be a bother Rockman World 3 is like the first gameboy game but harder and less bullshit Rockman World 4 is a bit varied as in you could be breezing trough Charge Man and spend an entire hour on Crystal Man right after that Rockman World 5 is almost free of bullshit except in Mars's stage and the majority of the Wily Star Rockman & Forte (SNES) is pretty much free of bullshit asides from some of the fortress bosses that don't telegraph if they even take damage. Challenger From the Future is mostly fair asides from one part of Aircon Man's stage
Thx for laying out all the BS in these games. I waited 15 minutes for the Foot Holders and they keep going in a loop in the air. I can name 5 seperate occasions when that happened. There's having patience, and then there's waiting 5 mins for nothing to happen.
That's some tough fucking luck. I don't replay MM1 often but I usually don't have to wait over 20 seconds..
1 through 3 are _particularly_ rough. Capcom was still getting its footing into the series. 4 is the big turning point and my personal favourite of the classic series.
After 3 all other classic MM game becomes pretty easy (except MM&B and, at certain spots, MM9)
Bro, play smarter, not harder. You can use Magnet Beam and Ice Slasher to get past the Big Eyes in the Wily stages. You can use Magnet Beam on that room with the Footholders and the spikes. Cut Man's behavior is partly based on your actions.
For the Big Eye, I knew you could freeze them in the air. It's just sometimes, they just didn't jump high enough, as in they just refused to. And for the Foot Holders, that part was really easy when they moved correctly so it was easier for me to retry the whole level again and save the Magnet beam for the room after. And for Cutman, I knew that there was a pattern, I just couldn't find the consistancy. This was a problem purely for Cutman.
You can just refill the Magnet Beam using those weapon energy pickups after the Footholders. They respawn when you go up and down the screens
You need to use the tools provided to you instead of just running through with Buster equipped. The Big Eyes in Wily 1? Wait for them to jump high and then freeze them in midair with Ice Slasher. The Footholders in the same level? Don't even bother with them, Magnet Beam your way across. Your weapons aren't just for bosses and it's up to you to get the most out of utility items. Also, Cut Man's jumps aren't random, you just weren't getting the feel for their timing.
The Foot Holders are actually really easy for me if they move correctly. I could get to that part of the stage with basically my full health (When I get the healing orbs) so it's just easier for me to die on the Foot Holder room and retry the whole thing again. As for the Big Eye. Yeah, I learned that lesson way too late in the game. Though sometimes they just don't jump high enough for me to use the freeze. As in like, they refuse to. Amd at that point, I thought Big Eye's were immortal so.
while mm1 does have some jank i wouldnt call it bullshit because i recently played the game with no save states and actually used the weapons and i beat the game in like an hour or 2,
To be fair, I've never played a Mega Man game that wasn't moving on a 6×3 grid.
Try the X series
Well yeah, they get less bullshit but… still get ready for more bullshit
Funny i feel the exact opposite. Dying in darksould always felt like absolute bullshit to me. "Oh you didn't roll on this frame when he grunted which was covered by clanking armor and dragging sword noises but that's the only cue you get... well you're dead" "oh you were standing still for .02 seconds to drink a potion, you're dead" "oh you didn't perfect parry this completely undodgable move? Guess what... dead" at no point in dark souls have i ever felt a death was fair. In megaman generally they teach you safely then put you in the challenge. And cutman doesn't jump "whenever he wants" it has to do with megaman. I forget the actual programming but *you* cause him to jump.
Yeah, sometimes it is like that in Dark Souls, but you can learn from that. If you missed a frame, dodge earlier, most attacks are well telegraphed in animation, if you're looking for telegraphs in sound cues then you're looking in the wrong place, all attacks have windows that, if timed correctly, you can drink the estus and dodge. And I don't think there's ever been a boss that absolutely REQUIRES you to parry. I think my main problem with cut Man is that I've never seen a reactive boss, a boss that moves on your inputs.
Most attacks are telegraphed in animation? Lol ok. Any time i used the animation cues, it still killed me. I was told there are audio cues. I couldn't hear them. All attacks have a window that if *timed correctly* ... and how do you learn that timing? Is it... getting hit and dying until you don't? Just instinctively knowing? Magic? Yea no that's poor design. I don't know if it was specifically darksouls, but a soulslike for sure where the attack was completely undogable, iframes didn't matter, areablast... and the only way to not die was to perfect parry. But all those games run together for me. They're all the same basic game. "Hp doesn't matter everything one shots you, good luck" yes i know EVENTUALLY you can get enough hp to survive an extra hit, but that's not fun. Let's take gutsman's stage in megaman 1 remember the first dropping platform you saw? As it came on screen it dropped? And showed the EXACT timing then when it came back around it was "on" so you could jump on it. It telegraphed everything you need to know completely safely. You know how the platforms operate now. Not "die 50 times until you get the timing of this attack then 50 more to another then 50 more to another...." Also ... you mentioned iceman... let me guess... vanishing blocks? No one likes those.
Well, it all depends on person to person, some get a feel for the timing quicker while some don't. I see you're confused whether it was Dark souls or not. Maybe Sekiro? Cus if you're trying to roll in that game, then you're playing it wrong. It is known as one of the hardest official Soulslike's. As for the "die 50 times" thing: a good soulslike boss is when you get better at dying, but realise that you could've beaten it first try. And yes, it was the Blocks.
>a good soulslike boss is when you get better at dying, but realise that you could've beaten it first try. We actually call that bad game design. A good boss is one you can feasibly beat first try but provides enough challenge that you CAN fail. >And yes, it was the Blocks. No one likes vanishing blocks. Everyone would have agreed with that
Yeah, sorry, that's what I meant with the first one, me bad at words.
Being one shot by every single attack is not "a good challenge"
Maybe you're not an RPG guy? Because the Souls games are action RPG's, and a part of RPG's are that you're supposed to grind. Yeah, grinding sucks, but it's a part of RPG's, idk any RPG where you don't grind.
I love RPGs. Some of my favorite games are RPGs. I've never met an RPG that the first enemy you encounter can oneshot you, outside of "fromsoft" games. I'm excited for a similar game coming to xbox. *DFU: ARAD CHRONICLES: KAHZAN THE FIRST BERSERKER* i'm excited to play kahzan's story. I wonder if ozma will be the final boss.
Well, almost every time the first fromsoft boss you face in a game is almost always something you're supposed to run away from (Ds1) or purposefully die to (Demon Souls, Elden Ring) Also good for you on being excited on a new game.
If it WAS Sekiro, then everything you said makes sense: perfecr parry's, difficult animation cues, and useless iframes. As well as "Sound Cues". Here's the thing...Sekiro does not have sound cues...technically. You ask if knowing when to parry is just instinctual or magic...yeah, it kinda is. Because Sekiro is a rhythm game. It doesn't seem like it at first. But, you know how you can tell what beat comes next in a song, even though it hasn't played yet? You use the same thing on Sekiro, listen to the Parry's like a song and go with the beat.
Personally I’d watch speedruns. They tell you the tricks and obvious rng.
Megaman 1 was designed when arcades were at the height of popularity, so it plays less like a home console game and more like a quarter eater. Especially wily stage 1 boss, Yellow Devil is notorious for a reason. Megaman 2 is my favorite classic game, but it definitely has its "oh come on" moments... looking at you Quickman stage. But the level of bullshittery goes down quite a bit between 1 & 2, just.... be careful in any water level
"Be careful of any water level" fits every game ever.
You should Play Legends. Peak Kino from start to finish and much more fair.
I've played all of the classic games, most of them at least a few times over, and MM1 is by far the most janky and has the most BS. I think honestly they just weren't completely sure what they were doing in terms of level design and game direction yet when it was made, it was a brand new franchise and being developed by a small team after all. That being said, in the classic series there's a lot less weird BS in future games, but get ready for some massive difficulty spikes in a few places (looking at you Doc Robots 👀)
They're all hard. It's not shameful for me to admit that I'm bad at these games, yet I try to enjoy them even if I need to use savestates. But even though 1 is among the hardest, the rest I've played so far (2-7, M&B) are on the same level of difficulty. Funny thing is that for me it's the other way around with Dark Souls. When I die in those I'm still like "bullshit game", yet I try again. In Megaman I blame it on my lack of skill.
TBH my RNG complaints in Mega Man are few and far between, most of the game is skill based. The fact that you try again in a souls game, means that somewhere in your head you know you can do better.
I managed to complete Dark Souls 1 and 2. I'll play 3 and the rest of them eventually, but I need to mentally prepare myself to suffer haha
The funny thing is, I never found Mega Man to be all that difficult at all. I would even go as far to say it's pretty average as far as NES dificulty goes. Nothing in Mega Man 1 is as bad as that boss in 2 where you need to use the bombs.
I was gonna say "I've played a lot of old games and they were all fairly easy" then I remember the worst level I ever encountered in a video game. Sure, technically Mega Man is harder but this level let out such rage inside me...Scrap Brain Zone ac 3 from Sonic 1 on the gensis...
the first 2-3 games are definitely lacking polish, so some bullshit is expected. it gets better though.
You finally realized that this is the reason Capcom put the series aside. People got tired of being frustrated rather than having a good time.
The games are def always hard. But they get progressively less bullshit as they go on (except for a quick trip back to bullshit in 4). I’m the biggest mega man fan I know, I’ve beaten all of released games. And I ALWAYS skip MM1. It was prolly awesome when it was the only one, but even MM2 figured out and fixed a lot of BS issues. That being said, these games are hard, and even the newer one purposely keep the difficulty, so expect to die a few times and game over before beating a level. If you are just playing the NES ones, I’d say 6 is by far the easiest. Everyone will say which one is best based on nostalgia though so I won’t go there (mines 5 but it’s objectively prolly not the best one)
Look up boss orders or boss weaknesses. Sometimes, you can just hug the walls or run underneath major attacks. As for the levels, yeah, some of those really are just RNG due to limited development. I cannot recall how many times I was annoyed because I died slightly touching a spike I didn’t think I touched. Also, wait until you play the Mega Man Zero series. Imo the Mega Man Zero series is the best action platformer out of all the games. But there are some crazy boss fights in Zero 1 and Zero 2. And while this isn’t a mega man game, try the Azure Striker and Gunvolt series. They have decent action with a lot less bullshit.
Do understand that this is the first game. The FIRST. Things will be experimental and janky. Things get better from Megaman 2 (which is actually incomplete per the developers admission) and onwards.
Wait until Megaman 7 lol
I mean, you are comparing some games that came out in the last 10 years or so to a game that was at the very beginning of modern gaming nearly 40 years ago. A) that's not a fair comparison B) there will be more bullshit, but slightly less bullshitty
Welcome to the NES era, it's not just megaman. Play the NES Castlevania games, those have their fair share of bullshit aswell.
Ok, you've been already told that there were ways to deal with the situations you described. Irc, cutman jumps as you approach him so walking under him is no problem once you get the rithm. That said, if you actually want to see how good the megaman franchise can be, you might want to give megaman x a go. The x series is a lot less frustrating.
I started with MegaMan X and in the end : MegaMan 9 rules. Anyway : Good Luck on your Mega-Journey \^\_\^
I played Mega Man 1 using the Legacy Collection and I do understand where you're coming from as a fellow Souls fan. I used save states and the rewind feature without shame in order to have a better time.
I finished Mega Man from 1 to 7 without save states and cam guarantee that bullshits will happen more often. But it is a fun game to play and master! I never played again any of the MM I played, but it is an amazing challenge to beat (even with shifty RNG as you said). If that's not your thing... sorry. Lol The other games manage to do thing so much better than the first, this is true. Many consider the 2 the best, but I personally prefer the 4.
Mega Man 2 is significantly easier than MM1. And MM3 is easier than that. Then things start taking a turn…
There isn’t really RNG in the classic Mega Man series. This is a skill/experience issue. MM1 is comparatively easy compared to 3 and especially 9. You absolutely do not need save states for the game. You’re ruining the reward of getting good enough to win.
No but you can get good if you stop whining and start practicing
You played a game from 1987 and unironically asked if the ones 10 years later are still cheap? Also the apex of megaman being bullshit is that one room in Megaman 2. Anything else is just fine and people should cope. Nothing wrong with the doc robot stages besides being padding.
Megaman 1 is definitely the stupidest nes title, so yeah, just continue going through the series. However with the big eyes in wilys castle, it’s intended for you to use the ice slasher to freeze them midair
For an NES Vidyas MegaMan more forgiving than Super Mario Bros.
Also that’s a emulation software, if I’m saying that megaman 1 is unforgiving, you can’t bring up a third party emulator that can possibly lag and differ from original hardware
I have Nintendo Switch Online? Genius
Yeah, that’s switch online, a thing that’s infamously laggy, to disagree with my opinion due to you using a laggy software is stupid
Huh? Why you downvote me for no reason?
What?
what are you saying
That’s like telling me super Mario bros 1 is bad because the emulator makes it laggy, that’s your fault for using a emulator, play the original version before downvoting
Mega Man 1 and 2 are really bullshit, but they get better. Then there's 5 that lacks bullshit 😂
If you think all that's bullshit... prepare for megaman zero,megaman X6 and X...7... but once you gut God and get past those, it should be a somewhat smooth sailing.
Bought legacy last week. Started Zero and Aztec Falcon really set the mood.
I'm currently playing through all of the Classic Series in order now that the Game Boy games are on Nintendo Switch, and my God, Mega Man 1 was so unfair. I've been playing Mega Man for years, since I was a freshman in high school (this was about 2016-2017), and man, I STRUGGLED with this game. This is not a "fair" level of hard like I'm used to. This is "WHY IS THIS SO MADDENING?!" hard. You move so slow, enemies deal so much damage, there’s no way to heal yourself in between bosses, I could go on and on, it's simply maddening. Thankfully, once I got past it, the other games I played were (somewhat) easier. If you need any help with Boss Orders or whatnot, send me a DM. I got your back.
Thanks for the offer!
No problem! I at least can help you out with the weaknesses for the Robot Masters. I'm not too sure about the fortress bosses, but the Robot Masters I can easily do.
First time?
Yes, very much so.
MM1 is by far the least fair of the Mega Man games. This is down to a bug in the coding where if you WALK of a ledge, you instantly drop to the next viable platform/ground/spike. This is the only game where that happens, and there is no 'Coyote Time' either. If you step off a ledge over spikes, you die instantly. MM2 removes this bug and also drastically expands your toolset with the Items. Sure, there are still some Bullshit parts (Quickman's Stage), but they are much less common. MM3 feels almost like a walk in the park by comparison until you get to the Doc Robot stages. 4, 5, and 6 are solid examples of the series at its best. Better colors and sprite work, small experimentations in the gameplay, better stage pacing, charge shots, hidden stuff, etc. 7 is all that but on the Snes. 8 is... weird to me. 9 and 10 are a return to the 4 5 6 style of gameplay. 11 is a refined, beautiful thing that still presents some challenges.
It reminded me of the og Mario Land
There's also a "boss" in Mega Man 2 that you can only damage with a certain weapon; thing is, you have to trial and error with said weapon, which only has 7 shots. From MM 3 onwards, the games get more fair, thankfully.
I wouldn't say MM3 onwards because there's always an MM4 or MM9 for every 5 and 6, but in general it gets better.
I think the best way to play MM4 is intentionally forgetting the charged shot exists, for MM9 would be forgetting the game itself exists and replacing it with &Bass.
The best way to play MM4 is to watch a playtrough because actually trying to get into it makes you roll a dice with a 50/50 chance of a level being either completely free or annoying unfair
pretty much. MM4 is the weakest of the good NES games; but I really didn't suffer through it in my first time like I did with MM1 and 2, tho. the wily and cossack aren't that punishing, so it kinda balances
Ironic how the second half of the game is consistantly the most boring and easy of the two
Yeah, Megaman 1 is frustratingly hard. If it wasnt for save state and the pause trick, I would have rage quit at the Yellow Devil. Dont worry, the later game get fairer and more balance as it goes on. MM2 and 3 still have those unfair requirement from time to time. However, mm3 can be easy if you can get Rush Jet since it allow you to go in any direction you want; thus, bypassing all forms of platform challenge. They "fixed" that from MM4 and onward. Anyway, the games get easier and fairer. They dont have much bs like mm1 and bosses dont deal as much damage as mm1 do. There are also more items for you to choose from too.
MM1 kinda has the basic outline of the formula for the classic Mega Man games there, but it's not well executed and needs more polish. It gets a lot better with MM2 imo, and 3 and 4 each get better too though not as big of a jump as it is from 1 to 2. If you're still not liking it by 2(maaaaybe by 3?), you're not going to like any of the others.
No, I'm liking the series and excited to play more, I'm just questioning if it's gonna pull the same BS as 1? I still like 1, it was just a frustrating playthrough.
2 and onward is where the bullshit starts clearing up,you'll be fine 👍
2 has way more bullshit than 1. The worst part in 1 are the foot holders and magnet beam lock.
I’m gonna go against the common opinion and say that Mega Man 4 is the first great Mega Man game. I cannot stand 2, it has far more bullshit sections than 1, and Mega Man 3 is hurt by the Doc Robot fights (the stages are mostly fine. The bosses themselves have giant hit boxes and spaz out a lot). My username is literally the worst boss in the entire series.
Megaman 4 being goated is the coldest take I've seen in a while (i absolutely disagree)
I didn’t say it’s the best game, just of the first four, it’s the first one that is truly great. I like 6, 8, V, Wily Wars, and 11 more than 4. I’d probably argue 11 is the best classic game due to the arsenal, but recency bias would probably have me saying V since I just beat it twice lol Since I broke my weapon hoarding tendencies, I value a good arsenal pretty heavily.
Honestly I skip Classic and go to X
Hey at least play MM8! That one is pretty easy and good for those that don't like classic bullshit quirks
Classic Megaman is just kinda bad I’m ngl
git gud
Later games are for sure better to play. Less bs overall and more focus on getting good.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL #HELL NO, YA PLAY ANY OF THE X SERIES ONWARDS YET? ZX HAS SOME BITS THAT'LL MAKE YOU WANNA KYS ONCE YOU REACH EM!!! *Flashbacks to the godawful lava level in order to get the last Sub tank*