Bringing you the best and worst of Mega Man, with a Top 10 and a Top 5 respectively.

The best!

Wily Wars isn't in the top ten, but it must get an honorable mention for its Wily Tower if nothing else. I mean hell, a bonus game where you can pick any assortment of weapons and items you like from the first three Mega Man games and use them to tackle a whole new bonus game? AWE-SOME.

10. Mega Man X8

After three crappy outings on the Playstation consoles (including two which I deem some of the worst mega man games ever), X8 redeemed the series. Ditching a lot of the crap that ruined the previous games (the duck, awful stage design, crappy game balance, obnoxious reploid rescuing and the god-awful 3D) this game kept it simple - just pure fun, sidescrolling 2D action.

There are a couple of breaks from the norm, though - most items in the game must now be purchased through shops, with an in-game currency ("chips"); fortunately, these are easy to come by, and building them up quickly is also relatively simple due to a couple of included mini-games. They also kept the tag-team mechanic from X7, though it's much better here. The game doesn't end if one person dies; the other will automatically jump in and take their place (unless you fall on spikes or into a pit); while out of the action, the other character will slowly recover some of their lost health (or recover from death). There's also a new team-up attack, where both characters jump onscreen and attack every enemy at once (and do serious damage to bosses).

But perhaps most notable, Axl's no longer the worthless shmuck he was in X7. Rather than being a watered-down X, he now has his own weapons (based primarily on rapid-fire attacks), and his hover jump is no longer as awkward to control. His DNA copy ability still isn't that great, but eh, can't have it all I guess.

So while it defy series convention in many ways, they're at least ways that add to the experience rather than detract from it, and there's enough of the core gameplay there to keep it fun. Pity it will most likely be the last X game.

9. Mega Man 4

It's Syd's favorite, and he'd probably maim me if I didn't include it. Not that I didn't want to because it's actually a very good title. While the previous two games were relatively easy (especially compared to the first), this game brought in a fair amount of challenge, with enemies jumping out of pits, stages going dark when certain enemies are destroyed, and grasshopper robots which must be ridden across beds of spikes, among others. Add in the chargable Mega Buster and some keen graphical detail and you've got a fine, if often overlooked, title.

8. Mega Man Legends

Not a true Mega Man game in the strictest sense; it's more of a 3D Zelda game with a few Mega Man elements thrown in. But whatever it is, this is one of my all-time favorite Playstation 1 games. Based primarily on exploring ruins to find treasures, you'll also fight off a plethora of Reaverbots, and get into the occasional shootout with the game's major antagonists, the Bonne pirate family. Throughout the game you'll also find parts to upgrade your character, ranging from high-jump shoes to body armor to parts to improve your buster's firing range and power. Some found items also allow you to build secondary weapons with their own power supply, though unlike most Mega Man games, you can only carry one with you at a time.

So while it hardly resembles a Mega Man game at all, it is a great title. Definitely worth looking into if you enjoy the Zelda games.

7. Mega Man X2

Quite possibly my most played Mega Man X title, this one seemed a step above all the new things that the first game threw in. The game featured some clever stage obstacles; my favorite was one where a targeting reticle sweeps across the screen throughout a portion of the stage; the more times you get "locked on" to, the more powerful upcoming miniboss becomes. All of the armor parts had new features (air-dash boots, TWO charged buster shots, a secret-finding helmet, and an explosive attack that builds up as you take damage), and there were three tough new minibosses for you to fight; if you managed to fell all three, you could avoid a major boss battle near the end of the game. On top of all that, the game had some of the best background music and sound effects in the entire series. Subsequent games' addons would feel a bit excessive (and sometimes outright tacky, in X3's case). I'm a big fan of Mega Man X, but this one was definitely among its most memorable games.

6. Mega Man V (Game Boy)

While all of the previous Game Boy titles recycled bosses and stage elements from the NES titles, Mega Man V broke that trend and came up with something totally original. Pitting you against eight brand new bosses, the game also added in two features exclusive to this title - Tango, a summonable robotic cat that attacks all enemies onscreen, and the Mega Arm, a variant on the Mega Buster that actually fires Mega Man's fist at the enemy (and can be upgraded to grab items and score multiple hits on an enemy with one shot). Even the plot manages to add a few unseen twists to the Mega Man formula, and that's an accomplishment.

5. Mega Man: Powered Up!

Somehow this one sold only about 18,000 copies, which simply amazes me as this is my favorite PSP game. Take classic Mega Man, add in two new bosses, the ability to play as any of the bosses (and even a few extra unlockable characters), and a custom stage builder, and you have a game that's not only very fun, but has incredible replay value. All this for a cost of around $10. You're missing something incredible if you don't have this game.

4. Mega Man

The original, and debatably the hardest of the classic series not only because of its difficult bosses, but because passwords and energy tanks wouldn't be introduced until 2. Nevertheless, the game isdefinitely fun, and even showcases a few ideas that would be discarded in the sequels (such as freezing stage hazards with the Ice Slasher to walk across safely). Of course, if the bosses are giving you hell, there's always the infamous pause bug to bail you out.

3. Mega Man X

X2 is probably my favorite of the X series, but I have to give credit where it's due, and this game was a big surprise when it debuted on the SNES. Keeping everything that made its NES predecessors great, it also brought much more to the table - great graphics and music, armor upgrades, HUGE bosses, being able to charge every special weapon, and of course Zero, who would go on to outclass X in popularity ever since. This game was a major jump forward for the series that none since have managed to outshine.

2. Mega Man 3

Not only entertaining for its creative levels and enemies, but for the creative twist halfway through. Just when you think you're done with all eight bosses, four of the completed stages light up again, and you end up having to run through harder versions of them while fighting a boss who mimics all of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 2! Once you finish THOSE, only then do you find out that you'd been set up by Wily who hadn't mended his ways at all. Sure this plot device would be run into the ground in subsequent games (so much so that they finally just said "screw it" in 7 and set up Wily as the villain in the intro stage), but in an era where plot twists largely took a backseat to fun gameplay, this game was a surprise in that it managed to deliver both.

1. Mega Man 2

The original Mega Man was shunned by many for its steep challenge and fairly clunky mechanics. However, it must have gained a pretty significant following somewhere, because Capcom decided to follow up with a sequel that would not only surprise the first game's fans, but would introduce many new followers (myself included) to the series. Featuring some of the best visuals, audio and challenge yet seen in 1989, this game would be revered by almost everyone who owned an NES, and to this day is fondly remembered as one of the best platformers of all time.

The Worst

5. Mega Man's Soccer

I'll admit it was a novel concept to turn the Mega Man formula into a Soccer game with "super shots" themed around the characters' weapons, but crummy AI and a sloppy control setup bog this one down to the point of being almost unplayable. This is especially surprising since Capcom's games are usually spot-on for controls.

4. Mega Man Zero

Zero's always been more popular than X, so it was only natural he'd get his own series sooner or later. Too bad the end result was this monstrosity.

Now, maybe I'm odd here, but I rather liked Mega Man because it kept things fairly simple - eight bosses, eight acquired weapons, and a fortress stage is what they're all about. This one features mission-based gameplay where you can literally "fail" missions - die once and you have to spend one of your few extra lives to retry it. If you don't, that mission's considered "failed" and you cannot access it again for the rest of the game. So if there was a part you needed in that stage, too bad; it's gone forever.

There's also the clumsily-implemented "leveling" system for your weapons, which is a major hindrance - I shouldn't have to kill 400 enemies just to use charged shots when it came standard in so many of the games before it. The ranking system is also designed for maximum annoyance, requiring absolute perfection (ie no hits taken, no items used, and beating the stage in a ridiculously short time) to get a high score. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned here, but I don't buy games just to see if I can beat it without the use of every defining feature it has; I play games to use the good weapons and items I find. Ever try to beat Deus Ex with just the basic pistol and no biomods? I'm sure it's possible, but I don't care to waste my time trying it.

So all in all, this game just continues the trend that dragged down the X series, cramming in lots of features without giving thought to how they'll turn a fast-paced platformer into a tedious, frustrating mess. The other Zero games were considerably better than this one, but I still can't help but yearn for the earlier days of the series.

3. Mega Man 3 (PC)

You probably haven't played this one. Don't worry, you're not missing much. The game sports a bad engine, ugly graphics, poor level design, and some of the crummiest AI ever programmed; every boss' attack pattern is almost identical. Some of said bosses are even blatant graphic edits of bosses from the NES games.

The true mark of this game's quality, though is in its end boss; Hi-Tech Expressions actually recycled the boss' first form from the original game! Talk about lazy.

2. Mega Man X6

This game was rushed out less than a year after X5, and it definitely shows. The overall design is reminiscent of a bad "hard mode" ROM hack; every stage features spikes, lava and other instant death hazards lining nearly every single surface, projectiles coming every which way (including FIREBALLS raining randomly in an ICE stage), and almost every enemy in the game takes half a dozen hits or more to kill, rendering your Buster effectively useless. Some stages can even cause you to get stuck if you don't have the right armor or items equipped; you literally have to kill yourself off, exit back to the stage select menu and equip a different set of parts before you can proceed.

On top of all of this, there's scarcely a moment in the game where enemies aren't crashing straight into you, flurries of bullets are flooding the screen (which, due to your large sprites and the crummy stage design, are nigh impossible to dodge), or you're being shoved into a bed of spikes or right down a pit. Even the bosses don't give this crap a rest, flooding the screen with swarms of projectiles or just slamming straight into you at every opportunity while taking minimal damage themselves; some of the fortress bosses can take upwards of ten minutes to kill. That's just ridiculous for this type of game.

Oh, and brilliant job on mapping Zero's Up+Attack command to a DOWNWARD DIVE that sends you straight into any pit you're trying to leap over, Capcom.

1. Mega Man X7

Where do I even start with this mess? Well, how about with the fact that the title character isn't even available until you're 2/3rds of the way through the game. Yes, that's right, Mega Man X is not playable in a Mega Man X game until you jump through a bunch of ridiculous hoops. Instead you get Axl, who is basically X with a gimmick weapon called "DNA Copy" which lets him turn into enemy robots for a few seconds. It's even less useful than it sounds.

Now let's move on to the gameplay itself. They tried to make this one have some 3D sections, which you'd think wouldn't sound so bad, especially if you enjoyed Legends. However, they really boned it up. To even HIT enemies 99% of the time (even in the 2D sections), you need to use the clunky lockon feature. It works okay at mid-range, but at close range it's useless; you can't lock on to anything too close to you, so half the time you'll just be chewed to death by your enemies as you vainly try to even hit them. It's really frustrating when you lose a stage to a swarm of bats that you can't even hit because they keep darting behind you or into the background before you can hit them.

There's also the little matter of the collectable weapons. Maverick weapons are guaranteed to run out of energy before you kill anything, and all of them are nearly impossible to hit with since none use the lockon feature. "Explosion" in particular is a fucking waste. Picture this: The attack literally moves less than two feet away from your character before fizzling out, does about as much damage as a plain charged shot, and can be fired as little as twice on a full energy bar. Wow, suddenly the Top Spin doesn't look so crummy anymore.

I could go on and on about how bad this is. Rescuable mavericks frequently die before you even see them. The boss stages seem to be engineered for maximum annoyance, such as having to hop between tiny platforms in a 3D stage suspended over instant-death water with a boss who takes about 50 hits to kill. Snipe Anteator's horribly disorienting upside-down 3D stage. But really, there's little point; suffice to say that the game just feels half-finished and shoddily programmed in every aspect. I'd expect this sort of thing from the Sonic series, but definitely not from Mega Man. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if in the future this becomes the target of an international seek-and-destroy, much like the infamous Shaq Fu.

- Vinic <- 6:55:44 am, saturday, may 24th, 2008 pdt