After having this game since release and never really beating it, I came back to this game as an adult to check it off my mental backlog for good. It was worth the initial hit of nostalgia, but ultimately was a slog to play through and finish.
The Battle Network era of Mega Man is pretty good aesthetically. The concept of having an AI partner you can use as an avatar to explore a physical internet space is a stellar Saturday Morning cartoon idea that I think the tv series & Battle Network games pulled off better than it's done here but still cool.
With that in mind, this game's 2D world exploration is underwhelming and wholly underutilized here. You'll spend the beginning portion of the game exploring medium-sized worlds sprinkled with hidden collectibles, with some collectibles requiring abilities obtained later to access, giving reason to do backtracking. Otherwise you're mostly progressing one direction to another without much platforming as there are no real platforming challenges in this game. A huge blemish for a Mega Man game like this.
At the midway point, the game gives up sometimes having levels at all, opting for hallway cutscenes that lead directly to a boss battle. In some areas, you feel really boxed in and unable to fight enemies in any meaningful capacity.
The lack of interesting traversal may have something to do with how somewhat stiff Megaman is to control in this game. His jump isn't very high and his slide move is hard to use as a dodge because it always feels like he comes up from the slide a little too early when dodging traps & wide attacks, leaving one prone to sustaining attacks.
Megaman isn't really equipped to handle enemies below his waist unless you happen to have an ability card that you can use, which often means waiting up to 60 seconds for your ability meter to recharge so you can refresh your abilities to deal with an otherwise minor nuisance.
The bosses of this game go one of two ways: 1) You will get steam rolled because you don't have the right ability cards and will have to learn obnoxious attack patterns that require more luck than skill to dodge to due to previously mentioned mobility issues or 2) You have the right ability cards to counter the boss and the fight is over within 15 seconds.
It is somewhat frantic and tense in a fun way fighting a boss and dodging everything it's throwing at you, waiting for your ability meter to recharge so you can re-up on precious abilities to turn the tide of the battle, but due to relatively small boss arenas and mobility issues -- these kinds of scenarios are more so irritating than fun.
I like the concept of this game, but it's execution was bad. The vibes of this iteration of Mega Man are so nice though, with it's contemporaries Phantasy Star Online and the .hack series painting futuristic tech as wonderful and mysteriously terrifying being right up my alley. Maybe check of the Battle Network games instead if you need a nostalgic hit of Mega Man from this era.
The Battle Network era of Mega Man is pretty good aesthetically. The concept of having an AI partner you can use as an avatar to explore a physical internet space is a stellar Saturday Morning cartoon idea that I think the tv series & Battle Network games pulled off better than it's done here but still cool.
With that in mind, this game's 2D world exploration is underwhelming and wholly underutilized here. You'll spend the beginning portion of the game exploring medium-sized worlds sprinkled with hidden collectibles, with some collectibles requiring abilities obtained later to access, giving reason to do backtracking. Otherwise you're mostly progressing one direction to another without much platforming as there are no real platforming challenges in this game. A huge blemish for a Mega Man game like this.
At the midway point, the game gives up sometimes having levels at all, opting for hallway cutscenes that lead directly to a boss battle. In some areas, you feel really boxed in and unable to fight enemies in any meaningful capacity.
The lack of interesting traversal may have something to do with how somewhat stiff Megaman is to control in this game. His jump isn't very high and his slide move is hard to use as a dodge because it always feels like he comes up from the slide a little too early when dodging traps & wide attacks, leaving one prone to sustaining attacks.
Megaman isn't really equipped to handle enemies below his waist unless you happen to have an ability card that you can use, which often means waiting up to 60 seconds for your ability meter to recharge so you can refresh your abilities to deal with an otherwise minor nuisance.
The bosses of this game go one of two ways: 1) You will get steam rolled because you don't have the right ability cards and will have to learn obnoxious attack patterns that require more luck than skill to dodge to due to previously mentioned mobility issues or 2) You have the right ability cards to counter the boss and the fight is over within 15 seconds.
It is somewhat frantic and tense in a fun way fighting a boss and dodging everything it's throwing at you, waiting for your ability meter to recharge so you can re-up on precious abilities to turn the tide of the battle, but due to relatively small boss arenas and mobility issues -- these kinds of scenarios are more so irritating than fun.
I like the concept of this game, but it's execution was bad. The vibes of this iteration of Mega Man are so nice though, with it's contemporaries Phantasy Star Online and the .hack series painting futuristic tech as wonderful and mysteriously terrifying being right up my alley. Maybe check of the Battle Network games instead if you need a nostalgic hit of Mega Man from this era.