Mega Man makes his one and only appearance on the Genesis and it's... a little flawed. For the most part this is a fairly straightforward compilation of the first three NES games, with a unique set of stages that becomes available when you clear all three games. For some reason, Capcom turned to Minakuchi Engineering to develop the game, possibly due to their experience working on most of the Game Boy MM games. While they did a fairly decent job, it seems to lack the same kind of effort they showed on the last two GB games.

Mega Man and all of the Robot Masters have had their sprites redrawn, and they look pretty nice with plenty of extra detail. However, almost all of the regular enemies simply gained more colors and still look much the same as they did in the NES games. Bizarrely, Proto Man also got this treatment and as a result, he looks comically small compared to Mega Man. The same also happens with the Sniper Joes who are also supposed to be close in size to Mega Man. Sprite issues aside, the stages and their backgrounds received a huge glowup and are far more detailed than before. The music arrangements sound fine but I'm not exactly a fan of some of the instrument patches that were used.

What really keeps me from giving this a full four stars is how the game controls and feels. Mega Man has a bit of a delay running from a standstill and this can get you into trouble in some situations if you don't take this into account. This is in stark contrast to the NES originals which had very responsive and snappy controls. The way enemies take damage also feels off as they seem to soak up more hits than normal at times.

Overall, not a bad effort at all but I feel like it just needed more time to iron out some of those various kinks. It's also a little disappointing that Capcom never bothered bringing over the other three NES games, but that's thankfully being rectified by the fanmade Sequel Wars project, which corrects some of the weird flaws and adds a ton of extra features (they recently released the MM4 port, go play it!).

For what it's worth, it's not a bad remake of the first three Mega Man's. Slightly different in terms of feel, but accurate enough that I don't think you'll feel that something's off. Where I think Wily Wars falters is the necessity of its entire existence in today's age. Back in the 90's, if you didn't own an NES and wanted a way to play Mega Man on the Genesis? Sure, this'll more than fill that sweet spot.

But let's say it's 2023, and you now have access to the NES, Genesis, and all the other classic consoles at the same time. Is... Wily Wars worth playing at that point? And I personally don't think that it is, other than once for the sake of a fan's curiosity. Sure, Mega Man 1's difficulty has been slightly adjusted to be more fair, and there's a new campaign you can play, but none of this is enough to stop me from thinking that Wily Wars could've been a lot better than it turned out to be.

I mean, it's a generational leap. We've gone from 8-bit to 16-bit, and we are now more than 4 years into that period as of 1994. Yet, the remakes of Mega Man 1-3 feel like a 1990 launch title, seemingly content with doing the bare minimum of work to touch up the game. Mega Man himself looks good, but the environments still feel like something out of an NES title. Color choices feel washed out. None of this harms the game too hard admittingly, but then there's the converted music, which took the biggest hit of them all. I dunno how you feel about Genesis twang, but there's something about it here that lessens the energy of the music, losing what I thought made the 8-bit chiptunes special.

I get the feeling that the development team had only a year - maybe a few months less - to make this entire compilation. And that lack of time (and perhaps even experience with the system, seeing as they've been making Gameboy titles up until now) results in a remake that I can't help but feel could've been a lot more ambitious in order to show how far we've come since the older days.

As for the new unlockable campaign, it's... also just okay. I commend it for its unique idea of giving you every weapon from Mega Man 1-3, and letting you select your personal favorites for the stages you complete. This is a concept that needs to come back on a much larger scale. But, for now, it rests only within Wily Wars, a campaign with 3 levels and a Wily Fortress which I do not remember a single thing about, other than the fact it reuses assets and enemies from the remakes, alongside a strange and unfitting soundtrack that's too on the cheery side for what I'm used to with this series.

I come out of Wily Wars a plain person. With little of an impression to go on, only an imagination remains of what could've they done to make this remake better. It's not even about making it the "definitive version," because what's on offer plays just fine. It's about making it the unique one. Something that stands on its own ground. Right now, Wily Wars merely exists, neither better nor worse. The NES titles exist too. And those came first, which means that they get my dibs on what I'd rather play.

A good 16-bit remaster of the first 3 Mega Man games, which as far as I can tell provides an alternative way to play to the games rather than something which can replace them. I've never played a Mega Man game before this, but after really enjoying what I played, I can definitely say I'd like to play the other 8 Mega Man games as well as the NES versions of the first 3 games. Wily Tower was also a fun little addition, even if most of it was reused assets apart from the bosses which were decent, and at least adds some exclusivity to the game even though it's nothing amazing.

Overall, Mega Man: The Wily Wars is basically a Mario All-Stars type bundle which stands alone from the original versions, but can't replace the older experiences, and whilst Wily Wars has its problems compared to the originals at least I can say it's made me a fan of the Mega Man series.

It’s difficult to review a collection of 3 stellar NES games in a modern context where all three are readily available on every platform and hold up immensely in modern day context.

Most of the reviews I have read about this is how The Wily Wars fails to capture the original Mega Man trilogy faithfully, noting the lack of snappy tight controls and some compromises in the soundtrack. It’s a different system, so I would only expect discrepancies. In addition to being developed by Minakuchi Engineering who are responsible for the Mega Man games on Game Boy and X3 - they’re great IMO but aren’t the core Mega Man devs.

Visually the games have been updated with vibrant colours, a new sprite sheet and new backdrops. For some reason Dr Light and Protoman still have NES proportions, everything else has been resized to be bigger.

I found the game controlled fine, but I’m playing the game on an old HD tv that probably has lag I’m compensating for. I had a rare no-continues run of 1 and 3. Unfortunately I can’t beat the Wily stages in 2 without restarts. I felt the game was a little more lenient with the instant-kill spikes

The soundtrack is faithful to the original, but yes it is using the FM synthesis of the Mega Drive and not the typical 8-bit wavelengths of the NES.

What I did not know is The Wily Wars has a set of new stages, Wily Tower has 3 Boss stages followed by 3 Wily Stages which was a welcome surprise. The Bosses follow a mythical theme, there’s a Kappa, a mystical monkey and a giant pig guy.

These are fairly fun and they test your know how of the three games by giving you the choice of selecting your load out with a combination weapons from each Mega Man game. My only tip is to forget about Guts Man weapon like the devs did when making this game, Crash Man’s and Hard Knuckle are recommended to get into hidden areas with E-Tanks and Lives.

Unfortunately I found the Wily stages sorta easy and the Wily fight easiest of the three games. An element comes down to weapon selection, which I felt I got very very lucky with - or I got by with popular choices.

My recommendation is to play the originals available in the Mega Man Legacy Collection. Unless you’re some sort of completionist die-hard who needs to experience Wily Tower on the Mega Drive - I hear there is a rom hack that compiles these into one NES game.

I’m giving a 4/5 because I feel people bash this unreasonably, it’s a Super Mario All Stars but on Mega Drive and deserves to be acknowledged as such.

(Part 4 of 4)

Y’all ever heard of this weird-ass thing called the Sega Channel? It was apparently this service that was around in the mid-90s that allowed owners of the Sega Genesis to play games on an online service for a monthly fee, which eliminated the need to go out and get the game for yourself if you don’t want to pay a full $60 for a game that was complete trash. It was a neat little idea, and it did last for a good while before shutting down, but while it did have plenty of benefits for owners of a Genesis, it also had plenty of costs as well. On one hand, you do get access to plenty of new Sega Genesis games and demos to play to your heart's content, but on the other hand, there were certain games that were made for the Sega Genesis that were released EXCLUSIVELY for the Sega Channel… for us Americans, anyway. This made it so that, once the Sega Channel was ultimately shut down in 1998, you could never play these games anymore, unless you wanted to go out of your way to buy a foreign copy of the game along with a Mega Drive, but who has the time, patience, and money for that? This meant that plenty of people would miss out on some truly great Genesis titles for the longest time, including today’s subject, Mega Man: The Wily Wars.

Nowadays, there have been several re-releases of this game to where you can easily play the game if you have access to it, but for the longest time, fans in America wouldn’t be able to officially play this game for the longest time, and I remember that this KILLED me inside back in the day. Knowing what this game was, I desperately wanted to get my hands on it for the longest time back then, but I couldn’t, seeing how it was only available in a completely different part of the world. It was only around when I was 15-16, I wanna say, and I went to a video game convention happening in my town where I found someone was selling bootleg cartridges of The Wily Wars that I finally managed to snag a copy for myself, and all was right with the world. It was worth it too, because even after so many years, The Wily Wars is still a pretty great game, one that gives plenty for fans of the series to play through and appreciate, while also providing new content and ideas that were great to see in action.

For those of you who are unaware, this game is pretty much the Mega Man equivalent of Super Mario All-Stars, where it takes the original trilogy of Mega Man games from the NES and completely remakes them for the Sega Genesis, featuring a new coat of 16-bit graphics and music right alongside it, as well as save points, which are not only pretty helpful, but they also make those dumbass grid passwords obsolete (and the whole world cheered). All of the games present here work pretty much exactly like they did back on the NES: they are all still 2D platformers where you run, jump, and shoot your way through plenty of different foes, obstacles, and bosses, gather plenty of different special weapons and upgrades to assist you on your journey, and question how this super-powered fighting robot is somehow unable to stop this crotchety old man from doing evil things. So, needless to say, if you enjoyed your time with any of the original NES versions of these games, then you will most likely enjoy these versions as well.

Really though, there’s not much else I can say in terms of the improvements between these versions of these games and the originals. Unlike with Mario All-Stars, The Wily Wars doesn’t really change anything too drastic about the games themselves in terms of save points, win conditions, or the content that is present, which isn’t a bad thing at all, but for those that are looking for more stuff to mess around with in these three original games, they aren’t going to get that here. They are just 16-bit versions of those original games, which, in my opinion, is still pretty great, because not only can I still enjoy these games in the way that they are supposed to be, but now they look much nicer than before, and looking at all the different sprites for all the characters, enemies, and bosses is nice to day the least, even if some… aren’t quite as good as others (Rock should really put sunscreen on before going out in the sun for that long).

However, despite how much I still enjoyed these renditions of the classic games, I can’t say they are perfect, as there are several issues that do hold them back from being the definitive version of these games, such as the music. Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say that a lot of the music remixed in this game is bad, and there are some pretty great tracks to be heard in this game, but since they are on the Genesis, most of them are accompanied by that good ol’ Genesis twang, so if you aren’t a fan of that, then you will hate listening to this game. Secondly, there is the issue with slowdown, which has been a recurring issue ever since the original Mega Man, to be fair, but here I think is where it is the absolute worst. There are plenty of sections in these remakes where it will slow down where it was never meant to, and while in some instances like with the Yellow Devil fight, it makes things easier, most of the time it isn’t pleasant to look at. Not to mention, there are also some little things that bug me as well, such as there being no difficulty option for Mega Man 2, and whenever you beat any boss, after the jingle plays, Mega Man stands there like an idiot for a good 10 seconds before teleporting out of the stage, almost as if he is waiting for his cue card.

Of course though, for those of you who know The Wily Wars by heart, then you would know that these remakes aren't all that this collection has to offer. Right alongside the remakes of Mega Man 1-3, there is also a new game mode known as Wily Tower, which can only be accessed after you have beaten the main three games. Let me tell you right now, THIS right here is the main reason why anyone should play this version of these games, as Wily Tower is the best part of the entire package. It is essentially a smaller Mega Man title bundled in with the other three, as it features its own entirely new story (and by that, I mean Wily is a dick, and you gotta stop him again), new stages, new challenges, and new bosses that you won’t find in any other game in the series. All on its own, it is really fun, not only because of all the different challenges you take on and the gameplay still being as tight as ever, but seeing all the different enemies and hazards of the main three games clashed together in this mode is pretty neat to see. Not to mention, since this mode was specifically made for the Genesis, the music doesn’t suffer from the same issues that the main games suffer from… at least, not by much, anyway.

But none of that even comes close to what is the main draw of this mode, and that would be how weapons and special items are handled. From the beginning of the mode, you are given access to all of the weapons and special items from Mega Man 1-3, but of course, since there are so many, you aren’t given the ability to carry all of them at once. Instead, before each stage, you are given the option to customize your loadout, choosing which weapons and special items that you can take into a stage, while also being able to swap out your options for whatever stage comes next. This, in my opinion, is a GENIUS mechanic, because not only does it give the player plenty of opportunities to experiment with the items they have access to, seeing what loadout is best for them, but it also allows for plenty of replayability, just to see what works best in what stages. It really does suck that this kind of feature never returns for any of the other games in the series, because it is that good, and I would say that I hope they bring this feature back for a future game in the series… but that would imply that Capcom would make another game in the series at all.

Overall, despite some issues with the music, some instances of slowdown getting in the way, and how I wouldn’t say these are the definitive versions of the classic three games, this is a fantastic collection of remakes of the original trilogy, one that any Mega Man fanatic like myself would love to play not just because of how well these games still hold up, but also because of the equally fantastic Wily Tower mode, not only providing a fresh, new experience for fans of the series, but also by doing things that the series had never done before and since this game. I would absolutely recommend it for those who are fans of the Mega Man series, or even for those who couldn’t really get into the original versions of these classic games, because while the games themselves remain mostly unchanged, the new 16-bit coat of paint and the inclusion of saving may just be all you need to give these games another proper shot. It’s just a shame though that this was initially locked into a subscription service for us Americans for so long… but hey, they at least brought it back!.... and locked it behind another subscription service……. but hey, it’s on the Sega Genesis Mini!...... that is only available in limited quantities…………………. I hate video games.

Collection #2/Game #536

I love the Sega Genesis. It was my first console, and the Genesis version of The Pagemaster was my first ever game. Actually, I have no affinity whatsoever for the NES. I’ve never even owned one, and I’ve only played a handful of games for it. Because of my undeniable attachment to the Genesis, I was so excited to see what The Wily Wars would be like.

Turns out that The Wily Wars is like a Bluepoint remake of the first three Mega Man games. They give you the slide in all three games, and they’ve also clearly boosted weapon damage, jump height, run speed, and health across them—it’s to the point that the original Mega Man, one of the most difficult mainstream games I can think of, is reduced to something mind-numbingly simple and surprisingly inelegant. All of the music is slower and completely devoid of its former personality. Also, each game is layered in that trademark Genesis crust, and I could not stand how any of them looked. I didn’t even bother to finish this. I got to Yellow Devil in the first game and was so appalled to see that they give you zero gravity jumps for that fight that I just couldn’t go on. I’ll pick this back up sometime because I’d like to try the newly-added Wily Tower mode, but for now, I’m happily putting this one back in the attic where it belongs. I can’t think of a single good reason to play this over the NES originals.

(Aiight first, my thoughts on the individual games)
MM1: really basic, but still kinda fun. Can get hard tho, addmitedly less so here cuz of the control improvements. Good music.
MM2: better level design, just as good music, weapons are fun, etc. Game very gud.
MM3: if it wasn't for the Doc Robots I'd say this was better than MM2. Still great tho.
Wily Tower: best part of the package. The ability to use any weapon from the three games is cool as hell, and leads to more fun extermination. Also good music cuz it was made specifically for the Genesis.

As a whole, while I still think the NES versions are the most definitive, this is still a good way to play the first three Mega Man games. Thank god it's more widely available now.

An interesting way to replay the original trilogy of NES MegaMan games but not a replacement for them.

Not quite sure how to put it into words but this game has this sort of Genesis grit to it when it comes to its visuals that I don't really think fits with the original trilogy's art style/aesthetic (not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, just not fitting). Same goes for the music, it's good but like in a "oh this is a neat different take" on these tracks rather than an improvement due to the Genesis's sound. There's also issues with slow-down at certain points in the game.

All of that may sound bad but this is still a pretty cool collection and a neat way to replay all the games if you've played them all like 100 times before and need a way to spice it up. And its special edition of Wily Tower is one of the coolest features in a MegaMan game.

You know what? I really loved this compilation.

It does not only feature the very first three titles completely remade for the occasion, fixing a lot of bugs and visual glitches along the way; it also includes "The Wily Wars" which is an entire new game with three new robot masters and a new Wily Tower that is fantastic.

The music is beautiful too; of course, the NES one will always be the iconic one, but what Capcom did with the Yamaha YM2612 was nothing short of outstanding, and I especially like the new tunes in Wily Wars. The use of the synthetizer in them is simply exquisite—a chef's kiss.

Now, I do have some complaints.

First of all, the game features some really unexplainable slowdowns for the Mega Drive, considering this is the same console that runs Gunstar Heroes with no problems. Second, Megaman has this weird clippin effect when you land after a jump and forces you to tap the d-pad a second time to start moving again; you end up getting used to it, but the thing is, this shouldn't even be an issue.

Other than that, amazing compilation. I'd check it out if you are a fan of these games and have never experienced this remake.

Review pasted from GG

According to other reviews here people seem to believe this is a bad port but it was my first time fully playing through Mega Man 1-3 and I didn't really notice anything that I didn't remember being just as bad in the NES versions but I could be wrong

Actually finishing these games is a bit weird because I went a really long time thinking these games were all like this horribly unforgiving experience but honestly, they're really not all that hard at all if you just know what to do. Especially once you get access to E-Tanks the checkpoints are honestly much more forgiving than most NES era games :v

Most of the frustration comes with just certain particular game design choices rather than the actual difficulty of the game. Though, you can see that the criticism was taken by the developers as these games released because in these first three games alone it is certainly noticeable how certain problems from the first game are fixed in the second, then problems still in the second fixed in the third. Things like only being able to carry 4 E-Tanks in Mega Man 2 for example, just seems kind of counter-intuitive if the point is that you're supposed to save them.

Overall not bad though or anything I liked them and I think I understand why people seem to consider 2 one of the best of the three. It is definitely the most memorable I'd say. Even though there are some things in 3 that make it less frustrating it's also a bit more boring.