Mega Man: The Wily Wars is a compilation of the first three NES games remade for Sega's 16-bit system. All three games have been rebalanced, everything looks more detailed than its NES counterparts, and re-arranged music to have that Genesis feel. For a while, North Americans had to result to reproduction cartridges and emulation because it was only released on Sega of America's discontinued service, the Sega Channel. This service allowed you to play Genesis games online while also bringing over three Genesis games exclusive to the Sega Channel, and The Wily Wars was one of them. Thankfully that has now been fixed with its re-release on the Sega Genesis Mini (which I played for this review) and more recently in 2022 to the Genesis Nintendo Switch Online service. Now more people than ever can experience this lost classic on modern devices and see how Mega Man was translated on a non-Nintendo console. For this review, I want to talk about my experience with these three games, so I'll try to keep it brief
Mega Man:
I like this one surprisingly enough, coming from a guy whose second least favorite Mega Man game is the first one. I was competent enough into beating the game without using save states, and as someone who has replayed 1-5 this year, I feel proud of myself for this one
Mega Man 2:
I found this to be the hard one out of the three. Robot masters can take many more hits even with their weaknesses. I did struggle near the end of Wily Castle and unfortunately had to use save states to get through Stage 5. Other than that, I had no such issue with the rest
Mega Man 3:
This was another surprise to me because I found this to be the best out of the Genesis trilogy. Out of all three, I found this to have the most changes in its difficulty balance, making the game much smoother for me to play through, unlike its NES counterpart. It's funny how I came from disliking it in the NES version to liking it in the Genesis version
As you can see, I found myself having a solid experience with these three games overall. Though I did find myself having to make some tighter jumps with enemy projectiles like Guts Man's boulder in Mega Man 1, and Wood Man's Leaf Shield in Mega Man 2; don't know what that was all about. I found the music to receive mixed receptions from those who played the game; some people liked it, and some people hate it. As a fan of video game music, I enjoyed listening to the 16-bit renditions of classic songs, and was pleasant to the ears
Each game now has a save feature to mark your progress, which is great for MM1 because there was none in the NES original, so I appreciate that addition. One new addition that they added to The Wily Wars is Wily Tower. After completing the three Mega Man games in the collection, you will unlock a brand-new scenario featuring brand-new levels and three new robot masters to defeat. What's exciting is that we can mix and match weapon and support abilities from Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 to take with us into battle and can be swapped out between stages, allowing a great deal of fun experimentation within these original stages. While I was a bit bummed that this mode was brief and only took about half an hour for me to beat; I can't deny that I had fun while playing this mode and this will be the biggest draw for those who played The Wily Wars before
Mega Man: The Wily Wars is what I consider the Super Mario All-Stars of Mega Man. These are solid remakes, and while by no means replaceable of their respective counterparts, this is more centered for the curious who wants to experience Mega Man's outings on Sega consoles. I recommend this to any Mega Man fan who wants to give this compilation a shot
Mega Man:
I like this one surprisingly enough, coming from a guy whose second least favorite Mega Man game is the first one. I was competent enough into beating the game without using save states, and as someone who has replayed 1-5 this year, I feel proud of myself for this one
Mega Man 2:
I found this to be the hard one out of the three. Robot masters can take many more hits even with their weaknesses. I did struggle near the end of Wily Castle and unfortunately had to use save states to get through Stage 5. Other than that, I had no such issue with the rest
Mega Man 3:
This was another surprise to me because I found this to be the best out of the Genesis trilogy. Out of all three, I found this to have the most changes in its difficulty balance, making the game much smoother for me to play through, unlike its NES counterpart. It's funny how I came from disliking it in the NES version to liking it in the Genesis version
As you can see, I found myself having a solid experience with these three games overall. Though I did find myself having to make some tighter jumps with enemy projectiles like Guts Man's boulder in Mega Man 1, and Wood Man's Leaf Shield in Mega Man 2; don't know what that was all about. I found the music to receive mixed receptions from those who played the game; some people liked it, and some people hate it. As a fan of video game music, I enjoyed listening to the 16-bit renditions of classic songs, and was pleasant to the ears
Each game now has a save feature to mark your progress, which is great for MM1 because there was none in the NES original, so I appreciate that addition. One new addition that they added to The Wily Wars is Wily Tower. After completing the three Mega Man games in the collection, you will unlock a brand-new scenario featuring brand-new levels and three new robot masters to defeat. What's exciting is that we can mix and match weapon and support abilities from Mega Man 1, 2, and 3 to take with us into battle and can be swapped out between stages, allowing a great deal of fun experimentation within these original stages. While I was a bit bummed that this mode was brief and only took about half an hour for me to beat; I can't deny that I had fun while playing this mode and this will be the biggest draw for those who played The Wily Wars before
Mega Man: The Wily Wars is what I consider the Super Mario All-Stars of Mega Man. These are solid remakes, and while by no means replaceable of their respective counterparts, this is more centered for the curious who wants to experience Mega Man's outings on Sega consoles. I recommend this to any Mega Man fan who wants to give this compilation a shot