that's not fucking fair mannnnnnnnnnnn........ fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck okay ive tied up all the loose ends, seen the conclusions to some of the social links i didnt finish in time.. and i fully beat the game and started a Little of the new game plus for the first time ever...

I THINK i can type my thoughts in good conscience now

warning this review in particular in your eyes will have me getting sappy and sentimental, but ive never played this game before:

This was the first persona game i had ever even Seen or heard about. When I was a kid watching mat and pat from two best friends play this, i retained almost Nothing about it aside from the two being at each other's throats and Mat may or may not actually deleting Pat's 300 plus hour save file
In sophomore year of highschool i had a really good friend that'd show me the openings for both persona 4 golden and persona 3 portable alike, this was almost comically insane timing because it wasnt often id even have the opportunity to get a new game.. hell i didnt even have a ps4 still, my crappy laptop, wii u and my 3ds for the bulk of the 2010s were what i relied on for video games. It was about 2017 when Persona 5 dropped, and Id actually be able to TRY one of these.. id get it for ps3(while just the Existence of this version of this game being released for such an old console was laughed at.. to Me it was another very lucky moment)
and id love it, id be talking about it so often.. and then thatd kinda just! be it! for a bit atleast
id listen to the music when i was alone, id listen to the other games ost's
it was far from my first JRPG but it felt like a lightning in a bottle moment because id never touched anything SMT before and id hold these thoughts and memories and theyd peter(heheh) out as time marched... i wound up playing persona 1 and having my fun trolling my friends into thinking that id play 3 or 4 next, and i enjoyed my time with that too but in a Different way.
It's been 7 years since i played persona 5
and since then i think i can totally call myself an "smt Fan" instead of just someone with passing interest, ive played about 10 games now at this point and im levelling with you..

I think Persona 4 has the worst gameplay of these 'modern era' type persona games,

No, really!
I think this Process of going through persona 4 dungeons sucks! There's some exceptions here though... the GaMEr dungeon is neat.. the laboratory one.. the two before the endgame one that i wont say the names of..
but in general I think while the aesthetics are a step above persona 3's tartarus blocks... i do wish they took more advantage of sending you back to previous floors or even having mid bosses thatre more interesting, some of them are so utterly stupidly hamfisted in one way or another that just makes them not stand out to me AT ALL compared to persona 3 mid bosses
The closest thing to a smooth dancer or sleepy table moment was the big fuck you jarhead mech asshole that has an ungodly amount of defense
But even in spite of this there's so much variety that goes in with your party and having party members remember shit from doing side activities.. ultimate personas getting a THIRD tier.. its incredible
HAFHAHF INFACT LIKE EVEN THE MOMENTS WHERE A BENCHED PARTY MEMBER CAN JUMP IN AND DO A FUNNY ATTACK ON THE ENEMY WITH THEIR MOTORCYCLES, THE TEAM ATTACKS THAT CAN SOMETIMES JUST H A P P E N, ALL THAT I love that
I love how involved everyone is to the point of even showing up in some random blocks of the dungeons just for idle interactions, persona 3 had some moments like this too! but nowhere Near at this extent even in FES
And thats really why this whole game works for me in general

Yeah you could say the plot technically doesnt kick into gear until the latter quarter of the game, yes there's absolutely disgusting momentary segments of for lack of a better term

'atlus moments' where theres punching down at being queer or even having whole actual just predator/pedo characters in this shit while at the same time having arguably the fruitiest fucking cast in this entire series with yosuke, naoto, kanji and even teddie and the others getting glimmering moments of acceptance and self affirming perspective about them. This is where the game comes into a sort of cognitive dissonance that makes it so conflicting to talk about and I think to wrap my head around in general while playing and even after playing ....
This game WAS written in the 00s after all, and the bulk of the cast that this game centers on.. are kids! freshmen and sophomores just trying to do the right thing out here and it shows. Yosuke MAY be goonerer supreme in some moments of the narrative, and then be one of the most realistic characters in self doubt and isolation and wanting to Be something and have a grip on who he is.. in his social link!.. but bits of that Do trickle into the narrative too.. so you have this guy thats just so gross but it gets brushed off so quick as if the game itself knows its just a stupid silly thing that he had bought girls swimsuits in advance for his friends in a creepy manner...?????????

Yea
This game has some moments like that. and I never like it but I think it speaks volumes on it all when there can be fuckshit in this game and I primarily remember and Felt at the forefront what was going on when it mattered.
Shopping for groceries, getting drivers licenses for the motorcycles, the silly shit at the beach, the camping, the ski trip, going to the movies, yosuke needing help at junes', the fuckup with halloweeennn all of it.. i loved All of that more than the actual boss fights, more than the personas more than any of that more than anything that shit stuck with me

ESPECIALLY when it came down to Nanako and Dojima whichre two of my favorite characters in this franchise now too because in some ways I think it feels like somewhat of a peek into what itd be like if i could be there for a little version of myself going through shit alone with her dad when her mom's passed, what itd be like if there was someone to make things right and close the rift between my dad and i instead of it rolling harder and harder in contempt for one another. This is a lot of projecting im aware, but honestly this is the meat of why this game is even a 4/5 at All because if none of this landed to me, idve probably gave this game a 3/5 at most.
Which still isnt bad, but there's so much here that i think is Objectively hampering whats going on.. but theres so much soul fighting through to the point where itd feel like i was Lying through my teeth telling you this game as a whole sucks
because i loved it so much
I didnt wanna say I did
because everybody and their fuckin mama's goldfish meatsuckle this shit to hell and back
and i think i was afraid of being biased like that too
I even had some contempt for how id been spoiled on this years ago on instagram... but Im so glad i didnt play this as a teenager because it felt like the most brisk wave of nostalgia i didnt think a game i never played could ever give me.. a piece of media ive never experienced evoking so much out of me so different from what made persona 3 so special to me. I grew up in a town where jackshit happened apart from hanging with friends to talk and play games, there wasnt much going on for being one of the most boring towns in the entire state of florida at that too. But it was always PEOPLE that got me through my first time being homeless, it was always people that got me through the passing of loved ones, the decay of my enjoyment of school, first car, venting, movies, all of it bitch
im talking all of it
This made me think about all of that to the point where I think it was around december or january, these stupid asses teddie and yosuke were at the door of your place and i started to cook yosuke for being dumb as all fuck and how karma always shines and repays in full with every stupid ass little thing he says and thinks to do during the game.. but tears kept flowing cause he felt like a friend or atleast someone id know from back in those days and his growth was absolutely felt(until atlus thinks to do stupid shit for a joke)

It's that shit that matters, its that shit that makes the whole journey worth it, its that shit that makes even the several BAD endings that much cooler, its that shit that makes pressing through the social stats feel so much more Earned, its that shit that makes you wanna actually talk to everyone and get to know everyone because the group chemistry is so knit together well. I love S.E.E.S but the Inaba investigation group is so specifically bumbling and sweet and dumb all at the same time that I think they give the vibes of a cast that can literally have conversations about Anything and keep going and going without a writer being pressed for how to handle a situation.
Having been spoiled on shit in this game prior also made following along the killer really interesting too, it even got me keeping an eye open for them at all times and catching onto how their alibis would form and all that
which honestly just made the mystery that much more fun.

So yeah, i only got one more set of Persona(s) to play through
I was gonna make this one the last one and keep my weird play-pattern for this series rolling till my last breath but I really needed something to make me feel Good lately with how heavy life's been. I think this game has and probably still will continue to be there for people like that with how many characters can resonate with you regardless of age and regardless of identity. I think it's beautiful in it's own.. sometimes ugly little way. I cant let some shit slide though so its capped at 4/5 on here because like, THERES TOTALLY SOME THINGS THAT PISS ME OFF

which brings us to this lightning round of things i like and dont like since this is already probably my longest backloggd review

-margaret's social link is a farcry from what elizabeth's was that shit is so depressing and only is nice for some momentary nods about the past i GUESS.

-if you played persona 3 and loved persona 3, and its your favorite one like me, this shit will meatsuckle you like crazy for a little bit and i think thats kindof cool

-shuffle time i THOUGHT was completely fucked up at first, but I think that sweep bonuses and everything pertaining to it are good I just miss the mystery guessing aspect of shit now

-The final boss funnily enough aint even the hardest fuckin fight in this game LMAO

-I think its fucking disgusting that atlus went out of their way to have two bath house scenes that suck ass in this game

-THE PINK ALLIGATOR GOT PUBLISHED!!!!!!!!! AND SLEEPY TABLE HAD A COMEBACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

-This is now my most played steam game at 230 something hours...

-Marie is rly cool

-Kamui Miracle is the best additional skiill in the whole franchise and we should always make it mandatory to have a way to gamble when you fight in a persona game thank u

so yeah this game sucks and i hate atlus, loved it, bye

CW: Discussions of Transmisogyny

The common response to vulnerable niche play experiences like Video Game Feminization Hypnosis (2019), Cave Story Sex RPG 2007 (2021), and He Fucked The Girl Out of Me (2022), is mockery both for the boldness of name and of content. Video Game Feminization Hypnosis is a psychic-design-manifesto with lines like "i dont care about the "puzzles" i just wanna explore weird islands & mess with the machines" and "ive half-joked about my games being laced with estrogen but i wonder how powerful they could be. what if we could use video games to forcefem ppl all over the world" nested as hyperlinks throughout her vent towards a better girly gameworld. Written in lowercase text and using internet acronyms like 'ppl', she speaks with a casual concern for unfettered femme exploration games as a way to potentially rewrite the social code.

It has not been product tested for review, nor has either of the other 2 games mentioned. The problem here is that the culture of 'gaming' itself is unable to step beyond the bounds of product review. Franz inquires into this problem around Cave Story Sex RPG 2007

"Why do we seek to quantify something clearly very personal based on how much it resonates with us?

I think my problem is that I think people are looking at this game as they would a product. Like it needs to have some value to me, otherwise it's not "worth playing".

Nadia, Fewprime, Blood Machine, npckc, communistsister, bagenzo, and [pourpetine] (https://xrafstar.monster/games/). These are in my mind the most notable transfemme gamedevs and their relevant store pages for their work¹. It's obviously not a comprehensive list, but this is my notation for who is the most publicly notable and prolific within the scene. Notice that all of the games on these pages are free as are the 3 games I opened with at the start. That's because transfemme gamedevs more often have to make their corpus free just to get eyes. So what are gaming spaces assessing the 'worth' of a completely no strings attached free simulated experiences? I think its the fact we dare to make people uncomfortable and borrowing a modicum of their time (across all the devs I've mentioned I cant think of 1 that takes more than 3 hours to finish, usually only being around 20 minutes in length at most). My sisters have to cheapen themselves to 0 just to get your ear and its still just met with mockery, harassment, and belittlement².

Even when a transfemme game dev gets the chance of any success at all she is thrown down again. In pourpetine's Hot Allostatic Load (2015) she notes among a litany of pained observations that

"One of my abusers was sent a list of the nominees for the upcoming games festival Indiecade. Unfortunately, I was on the list. I ended up winning an award, ostensibly to recognize my feminine labor in the areas of marginalized game design—years of creating access for other people, publicizing their games, giving technical support, not to mention the games I had designed myself. Instead of solidarity from other marginalized people in my field, I was attacked."

Video Game Feminization Hypnosis beats to a much more Utopian drum. A belief that we can mesmerize people into a more pure goo out of this vindictive rut, create a games made out of love, show people feminine Exits.

I believe in all that. I also believe that my words and those of my sisters are constantly being cast a sidelong jeer of disposability. That I and my sisters are then to blame for when a mobbing happens and not the world's own biases and outrage. This world has made this all quite non-negotiable, no more playing along with the democratic cesspits and hateful comedy routines. Here's to reflecting on the play experience others treat as compost as if its the most meaningful urtexts in the world because to quote pourpetine again "Build the shittiest thing possible. Build out of trash because all i have is trash. Trash materials, trash bodies, trash brain syndrome. Build in the gaps between storms of chronic pain." trash art is my queendom.

I hope it suffocates society before it can flee to their patriarch Arks. As princess put it here 'flood the world and dilute the sludge'.

-------------------------------------------------------

1. 2 notable exceptions I know of with pay to play games by transfemme is princess/Girl Software's other games, and the cowriting of Aevee Bee on Worst Girl Games. Also key in on the fact here I'm making no judgements on individual pricing of games as a moral decision.

2. Does not remotely just happen On Backloggd³ if you think this is just a grievance I have with this site you're gravely misreading me and I urge you to slow down your social media outrage use for a bit qt~

3. Although I should not lie, social media sites are remarkably more unreliable habitats for trans people than they initially appear, this place has been a great learning experience of that in my case

One last turf war before the plug is pulled on my favourite era of videogames since the PS1.

Well, a few games, and several games which disconnected due to server instability. An all time classic. Memories of hot summer evenings in 2015 playing Squid Jump while waiting in the lobby. The lobby music sending me right back to the time.

My friend actually bought me this. I got home from work to find a parcel with my name changed to an ink related pun. I couldn't believe my luck. Iffy servers be damned, I spent hours upon hours on this game, and for a while it was never bettered. It took a lot of updates for the sequel to rival this one.

It may have been superseded and eventually bettered, but this will always be my favourite.

Stay fresh 🥲

I had a minor operation on my back and got seven stitches, and afterward the doctor told me not to do anything too strenuous. I decided to just game the rest of the day thinking that would be preferable to like working out or biking, but while I was finishing this game up I apparently leaned back in my desk chair so hard it made a bunch of blood squeeze out of my stitches and ruined the special disappearing bandages the doctor put on before. There was a huge stain on the back of my chair and I thought the stitches had straight up popped. I found out they were thankfully still intact when I went to urgent care but they had to do the special dressing all over again. I give this game four out of five stars.

To me, Jet Set Radio is like Star Fox 64. A short but sweet game that is easy to pick up, but hard to master, which allows me to replay this treasure over and over again without ever getting bored.

I'm glad I FINALLY got to this game as it's been in my to-play list since I was like 10 years old. Who knew it would be one of my new favorites.

JSR is pretty much Tony Hawk with skates and style. And when I say style I really don't mean that lightly. This is probably one of the first games to really bring the STYLE to videogames that inspired the style you see in Persona and later Sakurai games.

While the artsyle is obviously responsible for bringing the style to the looks of the game, the style is really boosted by it's soundtrack. Probably one of my favorite videogame soundtracks of all time. There is nothing but really catchy sample funk here and ALL the songs are so good. And I can't wait to play the Sequel and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk just to hear the other tracks.

The stages are full of life and soul. Everything feels so detailed and cluttered in this iteration of Tokyo. Everything exudes a certain vibrancy that just invokes a feeling of happiness.

As for the gameplay, rather than chasing score like the Tony Hawk games, there are objectives in each level you need to complete in order to be successful, rather than just pass a score threshold. I prefer this so much more.

The controls are so simple, you will only ever push 2 buttons in this game. Jump and Tag. But the fact that this game has so many mechanics using just these 2 buttons shows how deep it can get. The skill ceiling is high here as you can either sumble your way completing levels just in time, or gracefully grind your way getting the high score while completing objectives.

It really takes a playthrough or two really master this game, but once you do it becomes an addicting itch that you want to revisit over and over again. As mentioned before, only one other game has done this for me which is Star Fox 64.

(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

(Part 1 of 4)

For a good while in my life as a player of video games, I was very close-minded when it came to what I did play. Most of the time, I wanna say between ages 7-13 or 14, I was primarily interested in a few franchises, those being Mario, Kirby, Sonic, Pokemon, and Halo, with a few others sprinkled in here or there, but when it came to everything else out there, I wanted nothing to do with any of them. That is, until I got my hands on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a game that I would end up growing to love, and as such, gave me the mindset of checking out what other great series of games I had been missing out on up to that point. Eventually, I stumbled onto a certain game series that I had no clue about before, and I just decided to download the first game in the series on my Wii U to try it out.

I booted up, got into the first stage, and I got absolutely DESTROYED as a result. I was getting killed by the first enemies I saw, with no proper way of counteracting them, unable to get away, with seemingly no solution in sight. Usually, at that point, I would probably have just given up and moved onto something else, but at that point, there was… something in me that kept me from giving up, kind of like a spark of determination. I went back to it, figured out what was going on, got past that challenge, and then proceeded to beat the entire stage, which would then lead me to conquering the other challenges in the game, getting rewards, and eventually beating the entire game. It was such an invigorating feeling, one that I hadn’t felt that strongly in such a long time. I had felt like I had truly conquered a harrowing challenge, which then led me to playing many of the other games in the series, and as a result, I would go on to considering this franchise to be my favorite of all time. That game that started all of this was, obviously, the original Mega Man.

Now, ever since that point, I have become an expert of old-school video games, a connoisseur of nostalgia, an addict to 8-bit bullshit, and I have played many other games as well, to the point where I can see that, as a game all on its own… Mega Man 1 isn't really that good. There is plenty wrong with it, not only as a starting point to a big franchise, but also a game in general, and I can definitely see now why most people wouldn’t be able to get into it. However, from my own personal experience, I can’t say I hate this game for even a fraction of a second, as I have so much history with it, and after having played through it over a dozen times, I can say that I still love it now. It definitely doesn’t even come close to the quality of the future titles in the series, but it laid the foundation for what would become the series that I would fawn over for years to come, and even then, I still manage to have a great time with what is given to me here all these years later. But hey, you have probably already heard me say plenty about that in my original review of the game I made a year ago, but that review also kinda fucking sucks, so we are gonna pull a Mario All-Stars and re-review the original trilogy, because I just can’t live with my own shame.

The story is simple on the surface, yet somewhat complex for a video game at the time, where a brilliant scientist by the name of Dr. Light helps usher a new age of robots that help to assist mankind in many endeavors, all thanks to his line of Robot Masters, as well as his own two helpers known as Rock and Roll (........ oh, I get it!). However, one day, all of them start to go haywire and cause destruction all over the world, due to the villainous acts of Dr. Wily, Dr. Light’s old partner, now-turned rival who reprogrammed them to do his bidding. Seeing all of the destruction take place, Rock requests for Dr. Light to convert him into a fighting robot, one that would be able to stop the senseless destruction and to end the villainous reign of Dr. Wily once and for all, and after initially hesitating on the idea, Dr. Light agrees to this, turning Rock into the super fighting robot known as Mega Man, and sending him out to do just that. It isn’t too complicated of a story, but for a game that was released in an era of games where most of their storylines were just “go save this girl” or “go kill this big scary monster”, it is nice seeing something a little bit different and way more interesting, despite how the story itself isn’t told to us in the game.

The graphics are pretty great, having a distinct style that makes it stand out from many other games released on the NES beforehand and since, even if the future games would go onto refining this art style to make it look better, the music is also pretty great, not being as rocking or iconic as later OSTs in the series, but there are still plenty of tunes that does get me nodding along to them and smiling whenever I hear them, even if there are some admittedly basic and boring tracks, the control is pretty good, with the jumping, shooting, and running all feeling great to handle throughout the whole thing, although Mega Man’s traction could’ve definitely been worked on, seeing as he is pretty slippery in this game, and the gameplay is very basic, being your typical jump ‘n shoot platformer of the late 80’s, but, if you ask me, this series manages to take this type of gameplay and perfect it to where it becomes incredibly fun and addicting, and that is all one can really ask for.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Mega Man, go through a set ten different levels, most of which you can do in any order that you want, run, jump, and shoot your way through many different enemies of various shapes and sizes, gather plenty of health items, weapon ammunition, and additional upgrades to help you out along the way against whatever dangers you may encounter, take on plenty of bosses, including the six Robot Masters, who will push your skills to the limit if you aren’t prepared for them, and gain plenty of new weapons to use to fight against new foes with, including a fire blast, a bomb you can throw, and an electric shot that is better than any of the other weapons, so you should go stick with that. Most of it is pretty typical for an NES game of that era, but not only does it introduce new elements that weren’t commonplace at the time, such as gaining new weapons from bosses and the ability to choose whatever stage you want to go through first, but it also manages to be fun and challenging in all the right ways… for me, anyway.

I have mentioned before in my review of Wild Guns that simplicity, in many cases, is one of the best approaches one could take to making a game, especially from this era. All you really need is a clear objective, a simple gameplay scheme to get a grasp of, and some great obstacles to overcome to make you feel like you really accomplished something by the end of your journey. That is exactly what the original Mega Man manages to pull off, as well as most of the other classic games in this series. They aren’t complicated games by any means, nor are they the hardest games out there, but they manage to provide gameplay that is simple, satisfying, and addicting as you keep playing, along with plenty of challenges that, while not being the hardest challenges one can find from an NES game, will definitely give any newcomer a hard time, but when you actually do manage to overcome these obstacles, it feels SO REWARDING.

One such instance that always comes to mind for me would have to be the boss fight against the Yellow Devil. Anyone who has played this game can tell you this is easily the hardest boss in the game, and naturally, it took me plenty of attempts to beat him back in the day, due to how erratic he is with his attacks, and how you only have a few short moments to attack him yourself before he goes back to attacking you. Of course, I could’ve just used the pause exploit in order to beat him immediately, but since I’m not a pussy-ass BITCH, I pressed on without said exploit, and now, I can manage to beat him in one shot without taking a single hit. Again, stuff like this feels immensely satisfying whenever you get it right, and this is just one of the many challenges that you will encounter in this game, which are also really fun to go up against and clear through.

With all of that said though, despite how I will defend this game until the day I die, I can’t act like it is perfect by any means, because GOOD LORD, it has plenty of issues. I won’t go through all of them in too much detail, but I will do a lightning round of all of the issues that do hold this game back: there is a point system that has no meaning whatsoever, there is a mandatory item you need to get that you can completely miss if you don’t know what you are doing, there are obnoxious enemies placed everywhere, especially with those big hopping guys located at the end of nearly every stage, the level design is pretty poor in places, which can lead to a lot of frustrating deaths, most of the special weapons aren’t too useful outside of boss fights, the boss fights can either be a pain in the ass or a complete joke, and to top it all off, the original box art for this game is one of the most beautiful pieces of shit that I have ever seen. Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to tell how wonderfully bad it is from that image up there, but if you just take a look at it here, you can see exactly what I mean. All of this does drag the game down quite a bit, and while I myself am not too bothered by most of these issues, I can definitely see why many others do, and needless to say, if you are looking to get into this series, do NOT play this one first. Play Mega Man 11 first, and then go back to this one to see how far we have come ever since then.

Overall, despite the many, MANY flaws this game has, and how almost every game in the series after this makes it look like garbage, I will still always love the original Mega Man not just because of what it did for me, but just for being a fun time in general, having wonderful platforming, fun challenges to take on, and being immensely satisfying to play through even after all this time. I would recommend it for those of you who are big Mega Man fans, as well as those who love old-school 2D platformers in general, because while this one is far from the best of the bunch, it is one that I will always hold a special place for in my heart, and I’m sure plenty of others could find themselves liking it enough as well. But hey, even if you don’t end up liking it when you go through it, that’s ok, because you could always just play the sequel instead, where shit starts to get REALLY good. Speaking of…

Remake #8