The more I practice speedrunning this game, the more confidently I can call it my favourite in the original Mega Man series.

The simple and humble nature of this entry makes for a fantastic purity that (while perhaps not always intentionally) feels quite free and allows for tremendous player expression. Due to the lack of E-tanks, not to mention I-frames not serving as a crutch mechanic against spikes, everything must be approached with skill and tactics alone. Take for example the Copy Robot fight. Should players slowly pelt it with bombs for a safe strategy, swap between the buster and Guts Man's weapon to render it helpless, or go all out with the fire to quickly kill it?

What of the pillars in Fire Man's stage? Should they be skipped with the Magnet Beam, frozen with ice, or patiently jumped past? Or the platforms in Guts Man's stage? Should the player learn how to leap across them, or fight Elec Man twice to destroy the guts blocks with his beam? The concept of revisiting stages for items would not be revisited until Mega Man 4, and boy did I have fond memories of experimenting with every weapon so heavily with this game.

In fact, I still have so much fun experimenting with different ways to tackle enemies. Maybe I'll freeze the Big Eyes and rapid blast them with the Buster, or maybe I'll use the magnet beam to lure them into the pits in Elec Man's stage. Every weapon in the game feels overpowered in the right circumstances. While later MM games feature more weapons, the limited amount of robot masters meant the limited amount of weapons here needed to have more than one purpose, thus the shield bundled with Fire Man's shot or the multi-directional nature of the Elec Beam. It's something I greatly prefer to only a couple weapons being worthwhile, such is the case with the metal blade mostly making the other weapons in MM2 redundant.

Of course, I can't forget the atmosphere either. The almost cheerful nature of Bomb Man's theme mixed with an underlying melancholy is permanently engraved in my mind, heavily mirroring my feelings of excitement to explore such a colourful futuristic world despite it being in the back of my mind I was unfortunately forced to face my own robot brothers. The battle against Yellow Devil also sounds like a descent into hell as I do my best over countless attempts to finally learn its pattern.

Sure, the game isn't perfect; I really wish Ice Man's level had water physics from later entries and the RNG platforms didn't suck, but something about reaching my destination always makes me feel complete. Seeing the hero I played as the entire time was a kid with his own family to return to, it truly awoke feelings of motivation in my silly child self.

FIGHT, MEGAMAN!
FOR EVERLASTING PEACE!

This game was over-hated all thanks to the GBA version.

If you're familiar with the Mega Man series PLEASE play the Aeon Genesis Fan Translation for Super Famicom. Don't bother with the GBA|Wii U release.

My biggest issue with the game though lies in the length of one of King's Stages. It had no right to be as long as it was.

take out a dictionary and flip to the page that says "mid", odds are the first definition says "Castlevania Legends"

this is truly the Castlevania of all time. honestly I have no opinion of this game whatsoever. it's not good, yet it's not bad, it just exists. the music's cool I guess and the level design is pretty boring outside of Stage 3 that actually attempted to do something, bosses are pathetic and the game is embarrassing easy if you abuse the power-ups (I tried not to outside of the healing one and screen clear when the enemy placement got annoying). story is just another "Belmont defeat Dracula haha" featuring Alucard during a time when he was down bad. there's really not much else to talk about, the game's a whole bunch of nothing. I guess it's the most beginner friendly Castlevania but you're probably better off playing a more interesting game than this one.

the baby is no longer canon

Straddles the line between being a legitimately great beat ‘em up and a Kusoge: You’re overequipped to fight enemies that can already be easily corralled offscreen with your most basic moves, you can skip half the game and avoid fighting the toughest bosses by destroying some background elements to change what route you’ll take, and you can stunlock the final boss by tossing him into the right side of the screen (turns out wake-up attacks are important). Needless to say, I had a blast with this.

Really like the way the Final Fight games let you toss enemies at the end of a combo, so there’s always a feeling that there’s a decision to make, even as you’re tossing out your most simplistic attacks. With *3 specifically, movement feels great, with Guy and Lucia able to dash into an extended combo- always fun to catch a cluster of enemies with it. This isn’t even mentioning the backdash, the special moves, and each character's super (which always seems to be available), meaning you have a ton of options for how you approach each fight- while the overall design of the game can be lacking, it nails that innate satisfaction of trying to get the most value out of your full moveset.

Most of the shortcomings I can handle, though: dumb bosses and the undercooked structure ended up adding to the busted charm of the experience. No, what really bothered me was the lack of atmosphere during the whole thing. Don’t know if it's a technical limitation or a matter of implementation- but most of the bosses don’t have their own theme, so you're in what should be these big climatic fights, only to have them set to the pleasant stage music. Sounds minor, but there’s not much heat in these encounters as a result, none of the drama that something like the Abadede fight in Streets of Rage 2* has. If there isn’t already, there’s probably a paper to be written about how psychologically disarming the effect is, not sure if you’re fighting a miniboss or actually at the end of the stage.

It’s a weird one, to be sure. All my metrics for gauging a game are screaming at me that this a complete wreck, a title with a great moveset and a complete absence of design- whatever, this a game where throws have the same visceral impact of what would be a screen clear in any other game. Play it.

I don't have too much to say here that wasn't already covered in my reviews for the first two Final Fights. I still don't care much for any of these games, but Final Fight 3 is easily the best of the bunch and does make some key improvements over Final Fight 2

More characters allows for more variety and moveset versatility, which is somewhat wasted on enemies that are too dumb to live. Still, it feels like you can do more here than you could in the last two games, one major innovation being the inclusion of dash attacks that add some much needed pep to Final Fight's otherwise sluggish gameplay. You can also perform supers like you would in a fighting game with its own dedicated meter, which is fun but I am also just terrible at executing them. That is, at least, a skill issue.

There are multiple routes to take through the game's six levels, which results in different boss fights and endings. This gives the game some good replay value and encourages you to try out other characters on subsequent playthroughs. More linear beat-em-ups can sometimes be hard for me to come back to, as a character with a different moveset can be fun enough to mess around with, but progression remains mostly the same. So hey, nice job, Final Fight! You finally have something good going for you other than Mike Haggar!

All that said, the improvements Final Fight 3 makes to the formula never quite feel fully baked, not even by 1995 standards, but it is nice that Capcom decided that they should make some attempt to innovate on these games. It could have just done with a little more polish, but perhaps I'm also just being a bit too harsh consider how much the first two games sold me off of Final Fight.

A big disappointment. Everything that made special the first entry of the mega Man franchise in the game boy was now discarded in order to prioritize making a more NES resembling stage. The screen doesn't helps sometimes, most gimmicks are broken due to the rush abilities, and the soundtrack is not pleasant to listen.
Fortunately: there's fixes. The boss rush was made in a far more interesting way by virtue of making the stages playable on a second half run, without sharing a stage with the final boss (why did this happen before lmao) and the bosses no longer destroy your life energy in three attacks.
Sadly, that's not enough to make this a pleasant experience, is far weaker than its predecessor and way less charming.
Also Mega Man killing Wily in the ending is funny

I wish that the Ys games were a little bit more available because every time I play one I fall in love with the series.

This was such a good game. I think the world they built using this island was a perfect idea. It gives such a rewarding gameplay loop that isn't overwhelming in the slightest. You want to do everything you can possibly do to build your village up so you look for more castaways, while you do that you find materials that you can use to upgrade things, then when you have done that you will be strong enough to participate in a raid or hunt. And it just keeps going.

It's such a strong loop that you can get stuck in it for hours at a time! The story is interesting but for me the main draw was the gameplay.

The combat is quick and breezy. The exploration is the same. Everything is such a joy to do that you will happy do it.

The one area where I can't say this is the solo Dana sections. These sometimes made me roll my eyes when I saw one coming up. They just kill the pace and it doesn't really work with the deserted island feel.

But apart from that. This was amazing.

This game is much more than just a simple demake.

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge aims to combine elements from Mega Man 1 and 2 to create a unique handheld experience, and it could have been a lot worse.

It takes some strange design choices from both games, such as reeaaaallly spaced out checkpoints, lengthy lengthy Yoku Block platforming over spikes (no Item 2 to help you this time!), as well as the NOTORIOUS issue that plagues Mega Man 2!
Said issue being one boss ONLY being damageable with one specific weapon, and if you run out of that weapon you are just screwed! This time it's Phase 2 of the final boss! Incredible!

beating this game without save states would have been much easier if I didn't keep accidentally hitting the Stage Select button instead of the Continue button, leading me to replay BOTH Wily Stages constantly instead of just playing the second one after each game over (which there were a lot of)