Played as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the nintendendo blah blah blah

On the last episode of Mega Man, Mega finally defeated the evil Dr. Wily. However, Wily's wicked offspring, Dr. X, has entered the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai...

Wait, no, that's not right. Fuck, I'm sorry. I've been on a NOS energy drink bender and I think it's doing something to my brain chemistry. Uhh, anyway this is the sixth Mega Man game released for the NES, which originally launched in 1993 for the Japanese market. Wow! Why? Capcom decided to forgo publishing Mega Man 6 outside of Japan, which actually caused it to release a bit later in the United States as Nintendo didn't release it stateside until early 1994. Not only is that fairly deep into the SNES' lifespan, it came out alongside (and I believe a few months after) Mega Man X, which is kind of surreal.

Much like the preceding game, Mega Man 6 has little to offer in terms of innovation. The biggest change is that Rush can now transform into pieces of armor that Mega Man can wear, allowing him the ability to fly for extremely short periods of time or break apart barriers with his bare fists. In terms of purpose, this isn't all that different from how Rush has traditionally operated, allowing you to gain access to new and hidden areas, but in terms of function it feels very distinct. The way Mega Man 6 incorporates these powers into its level design is good and it encourages exploration, although I think Inafune's seemingly hitting his limits with Rush's design is also funny. To quote him: "If you think about it, they shouldn't be able to combine like this. It would be awkward if parts of Rush like his neck were left over after they combined, so what was I supposed to do?"

Tons of respect for Inafune's process, which I assume involves a lot of shrugging and looking around the room for affirmation.

Mega Man 6 might be the byproduct of a team that's still stretched thin, but by designing 6 to be a send-off to the original series on the NES, there's character and passion here that was missing from the last game. Levels are very thought out with multiple routes and boss gates, and weapon powers once again feel good to use. It's been a bit since I was low on ALL my weapon energy before the last boss, but in the case of Mega Man 6, you have so many clear (sometimes necessary) counters to even basic enemies that you'll find yourself swapping powers frequently. Boss designs are overall good and are once again the result of a design contest where fans were able to make their own submissions, and man, imagine a time where you could mail in your own Robot Master and have it be entered into the Mega Man canon. I feel like now days popular Twitter artists would be able to leverage their large follower counts and cut the little guys out, but back in the 90s you could be some nobody kid and get your goofy looking robot centaur in a real Mega Man game.

That's it for the NES Mega Mans, which means I have to play Mega Man 7 for the SNES next (gross gross gross.) But, hey, alls well that ends well. Dr. X is finally defeated and the world now knows true peace... Wait hold on... This mask comes right off!

Oh GOD DAMNIT, it's Dr. Wily AGAIN!? what The FUCK

i am going to buy a gun

It may have been yet another generic entry in this franchise for some, but as to be expected, Mega Man 5 managed to satisfy all my needs and wants when it came to a mainline Mega Man game. It maintained the base gameplay, it was still as fast and fun as ever, the new additions like hidden collectibles and Beat the Bird were nice to see, the stages were fun to traverse through, and the weapons were a joy to experiment with… most of the time. So, naturally, because Capcom just couldn’t stop milking that cow, a sixth title was inevitable, and naturally, you would think that this entry would be released for the SNES, right? After all, it was on the market for a little bit now, and all the hottest, best selling games were on that system, so they would want to continue the mainline series there, right? Nope, that would only make too much sense, so instead, they kept this title on the NES, and just one year after the previous game, it would then be released as Mega Man 6.

As we reach the end of the “Meh” trilogy of Mega Man games on the NES, it was great to revisit this entry in the series once again. When it comes to Mega Man games on the NES, I tend to stick to the earlier stuff like Mega Man 1-3, as those are the games I am most familiar with of the 6, but I do tend to run through the latter half of the set every now and then, as there are still qualities of these games that I do admire over the others. Mega Man 6 in particular is the one I have played the least out of the original six, so I was happy to finally revisit it after a while, and thankfully, it is still a pretty great entry in the series. Yes, it is your standard Mega Man experience through and through, but there are some neat changes and additions that are unique to this title, and the gameplay still remains some of the best I have ever played on this system.

The story has a somewhat interesting setup, with there being a robot tournament that has all the victors reprogrammed by “Mr. X” to cause chaos all over the world, so naturally, Mega Man has to go stop them all, but of course, it all ends up being yet another Dr. Wily plot, so it is just another day at the office at this point, the graphics are exactly the same as the previous titles, but certain aspects about the game are improved and generally just look better, such as certain structures and animations being improved, in addition to the graphical style still holding up all the way to this day, the music is still pretty great, having plenty of kick-ass tunes to listen to while running and jumping through these stages, the control is the exact same as the previous Mega Man games, and it still works pretty well for the most part, although sometimes I have had trouble controlling the Jet Adaptor, but these were the only problems that I had with the controls, and the gameplay is exactly what you would expect from a classic Mega Man game, but of course, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Mega Man, go through a set of stages in whatever order you want, followed by taking on Dr. Wily in his fortresses, run, jump, and shoot your way through plenty of enemies using whatever tools you have at your disposal, gather plenty of health items, ammo items, and extra lives to assist you throughout the game in plenty of challenging situations, take on the set of Robot Masters and bosses that the game has to throw at you, and gain new weapons from them to use to your advantage. I wouldn’t blame you for a second if you are starting to get sick of this same gameplay formula used over and over again, or if you have been sick of it for a while, as fundamentally, it is yet another Mega Man game with not much change to the core gameplay. But of course, I still love it all the same, and to give credit to Mega Man 6, just like other entries in the series, it does have several changes to the formula that hasn’t been seen in any other title.

Instead of having the typical Rush Coil or Rush Jet items that you had in previous games, you now have a selection of several Rush Adaptors to use instead, such as the Jet Adaptor, which will allow you to fly upwards for a brief moment to get to harder to reach areas, and the Power Adaptor, which gives you a charged punching shot that can break various objects like large blocks to reveal hidden goodies. I probably wouldn’t take them over the alternatives seen in other games, but for what they are worth, the Rush Adaptors are pretty great additions to the series, and they can be extremely helpful when the time comes. I especially love using the Jet Adaptor, because despite the control for it being a little wonky at points, it really does come in handy when I need to get to a certain area, get a pickup, or even save myself from death. Trust me, if you aren’t used to these games, that can happen more often than you think.

Alongside this, Mega Man 6 also introduces branching paths that you can find in normal levels, which can not only grant you new challenges and items, but it can also lead to additional exits that you can use to fight the robot master of the stage. Not only that, but finding these additional pathways can also get you several items to unlock Beat the Bird once again, so that is always nice to see. And finally, the last new inclusion in this game is the Energy Balancer, a new item you can get from Proto Man whenever you locate him in Tomahawk Man’s stage. When you have this, grabbing any ammo item will refill the weapon with the least amount of energy, even if you don’t have that weapon equipped at that point. It isn’t really that useful or necessary of a tool, but hey, it is more convenient, and I am completely fine with more convenience.

Despite all of these changes, there are some problems that Mega Man 6 has. Just like with the previous two games, it has the issue of unnecessary padding by including, you guessed it, ANOTHER hidden castle to take on after you clear through the initial Mr. X castle. Sure, again, the castle is fun to play through, but it doesn’t change the fact that it still doesn’t need to be there. In addition to this, some of the weapons you get from the bosses aren’t all that good, but that is to be expected. There are great ones in there, like the Flame Blast, Silver Tomahawk, and the Yamato Spear, but then you have stuff like the Blizzard Attack and the Plant Barrier, which I never use unless I am facing the specific boss that is weak to it. And speaking of which, there is also Plant Man. Nothing more I need to say about that, just……… Plant Man.

Overall, despite having the usual hiccups to be found in one of these games, as well as sticking to a gameplay formula that, at the time, fears the thought of change, Mega Man 6 is still yet another great entry in this fantastic franchise, and one that is a great send off to the NES era of Mega Man games. I would definitely recommend it for those who are Mega Man fans, as well those who are fans of old-school platformers in general, because like most of the other Mega Man games on this system, it is just pure fun through and through. And hey, look at that, they finally managed to make a good cover art for one of these games, finally! It only took them like, what……… 10 games or so to get it right. Let’s just hope none of the bad box-art makes any kind of comeback in the future, whether part of a Mega Man game or otherwise…………….

Game #396

In a way I appreciate what Mega Man 6 was trying to do here. It’s got a lot in common with 3, where it sees the need to shake some things up, but the danger is so much more severe after 5 of these than two, and unfortunately, also like 3, I think it’s almost entirely unsuccessful.

Where 3 radically changed the entire structure of Mega Man to essentially double the length of every game, 6’s Big Innovation is a relatively more reserved thing: another iteration on the series’ constant tinkering with the Rush powers, albeit the most extreme one so far. Instead of temporary single use weapons, they’re now equippable power armors with EXTREMELY useful gifts of either extremely powerful close range attacks or the ability to literally fly for a few seconds with OUTRAGEOUSLY generous recharge times, at the relatively minor tradeoff of not being able to slide or use the charge beam while they’re equipped. Immediately, these are fun to use; they look goofy (complimentary), they feel good, they’re powerful…maybe…TOO powerful? Oh nooooooooooooooooooooo

So these two upgrades impact the gameplay in two ways: the ways the levels are designed around them and the ways they’re not, both of which I think affect the experience really negatively.

Previous Mega Mans have squirrelled a fair number of little secrets, usually in the form of extra lives and similar but in later games also little bonus stuff that leads to powerful secret weapons. It’ll be things like false walls, hidden paths, typical NES game stuff. Now though, with the additions of these armors, all of that is gone. It’s been replaced with either a large conspicuous block that needs to be punched by the punch armor or a large conspicuous ladder that needs to be reached with the jetpack. They’re always right there, it’s never hard to reach, it’s never hard to notice, it always leads to full health recharges, etanks, extra lives, power refills, and shortcuts through huge swathes of the level. What’s the point of this? It’s a reward for nothing, AND I get to play less game. Weird choice! So that’s how levels have changed to incorporate the armors.

The way the haven’t is equally baffling. Once you have the jetpack there are very few scenarios where you can’t just use it to completely bypass any enemy or platforming challenge almost completely unscathed. It’s technically limited in use, but you get maybe four or five seconds of flight and it takes maybe one or two to recharge once you’ve touched the ground, and both of these are more than ample to overcome every single challenge in the game.

I want to be clear that I’m not a git gud games have to be hard kind of person, and I love accessibility options in general and I think games that let you just power the fuck up and mow through them rule and having that option should be the norm in every game, but here that doesn’t seem to be the intent. It just feels like bad level design, like they had an idea to expand and flesh out part of the play experience that’s super undercooked and only made it in for the sake of having something different in Mega Man 6 because shit dude the SNES is already out and Mega Man X already came out and you want us to make another Mega Man? How the fuck are we supposed to do this we need SOMETHING. And the something was this and it sucks lol

Otherwise everything else is like, aggressively middling. The premise to this one is a cute riff on the Astro Boy strongest robot in the world story arc, an appropriate story to adapt to a series that owes basically everything it has to Tezuka’s OG sweet little killer, and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, this game manages to somehow be even more racist than your average Tezuka book (everyone likes to laugh about Tomohawk Man but he is really only the most obvious tip of this iceberg). The music is par for the series which is to say generally very good. The graphics are fine, they’re what you’d expect for a late NES game at this point, although the only level that even comes close to anything in 5 is Centaur Man’s and HEY can we TALK about CENTAUR MAN for a second

What the fuck is up with that guy??? He’s a centaur okay cool. He’s in the Greece level I think, this tracks. This is also the water level. Okay, you’re losing me a bit. He turns invisible. Weird! He ALSO stops time?? What is this guy’s deal! Centaur man wearing too many hats. Fucked up.

Anyway Mega Man 6 sucks I didn’t like it very much.

Upon starting Mega Man 6: The International Blowout, I was worried that my complaints about 5's terrible weapons and simple robot master fights would require me to make excuses for 6 in anticipation of similar problems. Fortunately not only does this game mostly avoid it, but it adds more than enough to keep me from being focused on such things.

The plot of the game is absolutely absurd. A guy named "Mr. X" who totally isn't Dr. Wily (and not related to X from MMX or the guy from Streets of Rage) takes control of a bunch of robots entered into a world tournament and uses them for his own ends toward world domination. I love it. Giving the robot masters a bit of an international feel to them was a great touch which helps shake things up a bit thematically, and Dr. Wily not even trying with his disguise is just the cherry on top. I absolutely adore the useless stats that are displayed when you select a robot master to go after.

The new gameplay gimmick for this game are the Rush adapters. Jet adapter might break the platforming sections, but there's two things I argue against that being bad, and that's that it's fun to use and you can just not use it if you wish to challenge yourself more. Sure, you could try and argue against me that my complaints about the charged mega buster in the last game were unfound, because I could've done something similar and not use it, but I need to reiterate that the weapons in that game were fucking terrible. The weapons in this game? While not quite the heights of 4's arsenal are still a massive improvement to some of the junk we had in the last game, and this game also actually bothers to provide threats to make you actually want to use them, which helps take the spotlight off the mega buster in this game despite it getting some small nerfs.

The game is on the easy side, but the fact that it's devoid of literally everything that I hated about past games in the series is what makes me enjoy it a ton more every time I come back to it. No Yellow Devils, no Boobeam Traps, no Mecha Dragons blasting my fucking eyes out every time I shoot it, no badly implemented Doc Robot fights, no paying attention to Bright Man's HP bar to avoid inescapable attacks, no boring-ass Dark Man bosses, etc, etc.

It manages to feel like a climax to this era of Mega Man games with the somber sounding music that you hear throughout Wily's last castle and his final boss fight. It's like one last dance before we gotta go 16-bit. It helps put some emotion into an otherwise pretty easy final boss fight. Perhaps that's just me making up excuses? Who cares. I always loved/hated the stupid boss in Wily's Castle that was just a gun on wheels. It really hammers it home that after six games Wily has managed to finally run out of ideas, and all he has left before the robot master refights is just a dumb gun on wheels that basically acts like the gorilla mini-bosses from Plant Man's stage. It makes sense considering in the last game he apparently had to resort to stealing giant robot Pez Dispensers from a fucking amusement park.

Overall, I like 6 a lot. After playing through all six of the NES era games again I think my final opinion is that 3, 4 and 6 are all the best with their own strengths and weaknesses. I'm probably chickening out by not saying that either 4 or 6 are the best of the NES hexalogy, but honestly? Opinions are so mixed on these games due to tastes and whatnot that it really shows off how fun it is to talk about them. A series is a lot more interesting when one game doesn't crush everything else, ignoring the popularity of MM2 (baffles me to no end). Playing these games really brought me back to when I hung out in chats with other Mega Man nerds who would actually argue about shit like timelines and whatnot, it's been way too long.

Maybe I'll get to 7 at some point, but for now I'm gonna take a break from revisiting these games for a while. It probably doesn't help that I don't have much enthusiasm for 7, but hey I'll get there sometime this year ... maybe.

Favorite Enemy Name: Hotchkiss'n, Dr. Wily apparently made it by accident after stapling his finger. Though I also think "Power Slam" is incredibly badass.

Favorite Music: God, 6 is probably the only game to compete with 3 for best ost out of the NES games. I'll go with Tomahawk Man because it led to some pretty awesome remixes, but I really do like the Wily stage music in this one.

Although all the flaws this game has, I can say that it has an identity for sure. The last 8-bit entry (for now) brings everything we liked on the formula without changing too much, that's also a usually bad point reported by many, as the franchise became a bit stale at this point.
I really like the bosses here, the country-themed robots and the tournament thing bring a nice fresh to the game, shame that Plant Man boss battle is extremely underwhelming, glad the Power Fighters brought him some justice.
The graphics are the most beautiful from the NES era, and the music is again great as always but does not top 2 and 3.
The new power and flying upgrades are good additions and would pave the way for the ones we have on the next entry.
The Mr. X plot is a little bit dumb but it works somehow..
The charge is satisfying here but it's too powerful, and in addition, the game is too easy, with just rare sections of real challenge.
But, why in the hell they've removed the slide-jump mechanic here? It annoyed me a lot since I was trying to do it several times due to my muscle memory and ended up killing myself, that's a downgrade for me.
It's a nice goodbye to the NES era and a good way to introduce new people to the series without having too much frustration by the difficulty.

Meu Mega Man menos favorito do NES. O audiovisual é ok, nada no nível do 5, mas tá nos tiers superiores do NES. Por outro lado, achei os chefões bem sem sal e os addons do Rush uma ideia mal executada (tornando alguns estágios triviais com eles e impossíveis sem).

Mas o que mais pesou pra mim foram os controles. Deram uns ajustes no dash e pulo do Mega Man completamente desnecessários. Tive até que rodar o MM5 de novo logo depois pra ter certeza que eu não estava louco. Basicamente, ao finalizar um dash o Mega Man agora dá uma pequena parada de meio segundo, em vez de continuar correndo para a direção que estava. Se você costuma emendar outro dash ou pulo logo depois vai logo perceber o momentum do personagem fica completamente zoado. Nem sempre é perceptível, mas todas as vezes que é dá raiva.

Uau, eu definitivamente não esperava que fosse virar meu Mega Man clássico favorito. E esperava menos ainda que fosse ser o SEIS, de todos os candidatos do Nintendinho.

Mas é, tenho um apego enorme por Mega Man 2, é um jogo da minha infância e eu consigo botar ele pra jogar do inicio ao fim qualquer dia que tu quiser. Mas, Mega Man 2 tem um problema: apesar das fases serem sim muito boas e os chefes icônicos, a fortaleza do Willy da uma caída na qualidade (e isso meio que é padrão pra Mega Man)

E pois bem, aqui estou dizendo que: Mega Man 6 tem a melhor soundtrack de MM do nintendinho (depois de Mega Man 2, claro), tem os melhores Robot Masters, tem a melhor iteração do Rush na franquia e tem a única fortaleza boa do Willy. É um jogo extremamente sólido e bem feito do inicio ao fim, realmente demonstra ser do final da geração do Nintendinho, os ambientes são lindos e o uso de cores agrada muito os olhos.

O jogo tem uma estrutura pseudo-proto-megaman x, onde algumas fases tem armaduras que mudam a gameplay, e por causa delas você consegue acessar segredos dentro dos níveis da maioria do robot masters (que são as letras do Beat). Obviamente você não pode revisitar fases, mas se você souber que a fase do fogo e a da floresta dão as armaduras do Rush, o resto do jogo tem um loop bem gostoso de explorar pegando os caminhos alternativos pros chefes. Eu não usei o Beat nenhuma vez, e mesmo assim fiquei feliz de ter feito 100%, porque me deu um senso de exploração divertido.

Também amo o conceito do jogo ser um torneio mundial de robôs, e cada um representar uma cultura diferente. É um detalhe que muda totalmente a caracterização dos chefes e tira eles de serem só "conceito aleatorio + man no fim do nome". No mais, é um jogo extremamente polido, com sistemas bem pensados. Demonstra mesmo a maturidade de um time que já tinha feito 5 jogos nessa estrutura, é a experiência mais cristalina e rebuscada de Mega Man no Nintendinho.

Finished playing Mega man 6
When people ask what is the best NES game many names come up like Super mario bros 3, Punch out or Mega man 2 but my answer would be Mega man 6. Obviously you play as Mega man and you can play the first few stages in any order that you want. Whenever you defeat one of the first few bosses you gain a new unique weapon.
Silver tomahawk: you shoot a tomahawk that goes upwards and it is gained by beating tomahawk man
Flame blast:you shoot a flame that creates a barrier when it hits the floor or a wall and it is gained by beating flame man.
Plant barrier:you shoot a bunch of petals that protect you and it is gained by beating plant man.
Blizzard attack:you shoot a bunch of snowflakes that go in different directions and it is gained by beating blizzard man.
Wind storm:you shoot a tiny tornado and it is gained by beating wind man.
Yamato spear:you shoot tiny blades and it is gained by beating Yamato man.
Centaur flash:idk what this does i never used it but it is gained by beating centaur man.
Knight crush:you shoot a spiked ball and it is gained by beating knight man.
Plant barrier fucking sucks and i never used centaur flash but other than those 2 i found the rest of the weapons to be pretty fun and speaking of fun you now have a flipping jet adaptor and a power adaptor and both of these are fun as fuck and they are easily my favourite addition in this game. Other than one specific level there wasn't really a bad or even alright level i personally liked all of them and this time they added different paths that you can take so that was pretty dope. The enemy variety is pretty good and i personally didn't find any enemy annoying unlike in a certain game called ninja gaiden. The bosses were honestly not bad, each one felt unique and fun other than a select few and none of them were bullshit which is rare for an NES game. The graphics and music are some of the best i've seen and heard in an NES game and it is up there with Super Mario Bros 3. I didn't find many problems with Mega man 6 other than that boss rush near the end that capcom is so obsessed with and the unnecessary hidden mr. X castle.
Overall Mega man 6 has become my favourite NES game, i had a really great time with it and hey look the box art finally isn't horrible. 8/10

With each passing NES Mega Man game, it just becomes that little bit harder to feel excited about the prospects of playing it, and for a while, I thought that it had to do with the extreme dedication to an unchanging formula, but in reality, I've realised that the issue actually runs a bit deeper than that. Basically every Mega Man game has tried something a bit different in one way or another, feeling as if gradual improvements and layers of complexity to the core mechanics are being made, but the reason why a lot of these feel largely unnoticed/insignificant is because it feels as if they're never implemented in a way that truly shakes up the experience in any meaningful way for the better. In the case of this game, it's how Rush powerups are handled, giving the player basically unlimited access to certain powerups that recharge quickly rather than being a larger, yet finite resource that you're slowly draining.

While theoretically, this way in which these mobility options are utilised could lead to a far different take on the game's level design compared to previous entries, having the player need to balance between their more powerful, slow options, and the ability to make higher jumps, but instead all of this feels almost exclusively relegated to little pickups for extra lives and the like, making it feel like a bit of an afterthought. This actually manages to negatively affect the whole explorational aspect of the game to a degree as well, with the robot master weapons being used far less for interacting with elements of the stage, as the rush abilities that the player has gotten end up being far more prominent gates now, without feeling as if any real thought has been put into crafting any interactions beyond the most surface level, simplistic stuff such as "the big cracked block can be broken with the punch ability". The world as a result not only feels more artificial, but the reward from each successful boss fight has subsequently been lessened.

Despite this, these abilities often feel as if they trivialise the stages in the process, especially the jet pack, which essentially lets you bypass the majority of platforming challenges thanks to how long you get to fly with it and how quickly it charges up afterwards. All of this stems from the simple fact that the stage and boss design in these games feel as if they never truly evolve with each new addition and refined implementation of an idea. It still feels like I'm trawling through Mega Man 2 stages but with a couple of very basic and ultimately meaningless tweaks that do nothing to shift the experience in any direction, beyond gradually feeling as if the life has been deflating over time, it's just that in this case, the new additions don't merely feel meaningless, but actively detrimental to the game as a whole. It's not terrible but it's a game that makes me feel absolutely nothing, it just feels like going through the motions yet again, and at this point it's all a bit tiresome.

Here I am, at the end of my NES MM journey. I was hoping this game would be a great conclusion to the hexalogy, but sadly, it wasn't. With this being my 2nd least favorite, I still found enough to enjoy here, but nothing really stood out. Yep, it's just more of the same. You get your classic MM gameplay with the ocassional annoying stage antics and boss shenanigans. Also, this time, the story takes a bit of a turn as the mysterious Mr.X informs you that he was the one pulling the strings the whole time and that Dr. Wily was just a pawn... But in a shocking twist that literally everyone saw coming, Mr.X was just Wily in disguise. Honestly, Wily should have retired long ago. This is just embarassing.

One cool update in this game is that Rush powers are no longer tied to a depletable meter that you need to refill. Now, Rush can fuse with Mega Man like armor. You only get 2, one of which lets you smash blocks or enemies, and a jetpack which you can use for a couple of seconds, followed by a negligeable cooldown.

Oh yeah, Beat is in this game again. He got nerfed, though. The letters, or plates as they are called here, that you need to collect to spell out BEAT and unlock him are also harder to obtain here than in the previous game, if you're playing blind, as they are tied to progressing through alternate routes in certain stages. I went out of my way to get them just to realize he got nerfed to the point where he doesn't even attack bosses now. I guess he's there if you wanna breeze through stages, but for the most part, I feel like levels in this game are easy enough as is. Kinda makes me wish he wasn't even on the cover. Thankfully, unlike MM5, the final boss is piss easy. Just keep chucking that Silver Tomahawk at Wily, and you're golden.

sharing none of the highest highs or lowest lows of its predecessors, releasing late in the platform's life, destined to sit just outside the lens of mainstream popularity, Mega Man 6 is hiding one of the most well-designed, timeless adventures on the NES. everything about the formula of these games was finally polished to a shine and somehow given more depth even after so many opportunities preceding it.
solid level designs, thoughtful enemy encounters, stunning presentation (especially the music!). the genius that the armor upgrade mechanic brings to the player expression that is paramount to Mega Man's identity. it's hard to find anything to dislike about this game that wasn't already shared with a few of the previous titles.
if something like Kirby's Adventure, a similarly well-crafted late-era NES game, can be revered in today's gaming spaces, then I hope eventually we can look back and talk about how fuckin' cool this game is as well. it deserves it!

Mega Man 6 is the last evolution of the franchise in its original hardware, before moving onto different consoles and having many revivals of the sort. It shows how they practically have already reached a point of the series where they didn't knew what else to do, after subsequently having done a bit of everything, my guess is they tried to make the idea simpler by making the game have a constant thematic, a seemingly "fresh" ""plotline"" and a lot of quality of life adjustments that would've been really welcome in years prior.

While this game practically took its platforming to another level making you able to take the form of the abilities Rush had in previous games (making for a whole new array of potential mechanics with it that I think they used well enough, these being the alternate paths you can reveal with the Power Suit and the higher ground you can find with the Jet Suit.) it does fall short in what would be the next big innovation of the franchise so far. Mega Man 5 was impressive and actually pretty damn good, but Mega Man 6 while also good, it's a tad bit unremarkable as yeah, it came out at the dying years of the NES, that meant that developers knew their hardware and developer tools by heart practically, but at least after the whole idea with the mysterious Mr. X, the Grand Tournament and the Robot Masters being based on different locations of the world, they just didn't seem to do that much new compared to previous entries, which is kind of a let down. But it isn't a bad game by any means.