A Blast From The Past – Mega Man Legacy Collection Review

<p>The first <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> game I played was <em>Mega Man 2<&sol;em>&period; Released back in 1988&comma; it took everything that made the first game great and made it even better&period; It was the perfect gateway into the series&comma; and from the moment I shot my first enemy all the way up to when I beat Dr&period;Wily&comma; I was hooked&period; Since then I have played every single <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> game ever released in both the main series and the <em>Mega Man X<&sol;em> series&period; To me&comma; <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> is an unparalleled franchise that manages to captivate me over and over again no matter how repetitive it may seem&period; So&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s with a nostalgic memory of the series that I sit down to play the new <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> <em>Legacy Collection<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Mega Man Legacy Collection<&sol;em> contains the first six games of the <em>Mega Man <&sol;em>franchise originally released on NES&period; Nothing has been added or changed in the games themselves&comma; so the player is given a very pure experience that can be compared to playing these games on Nintendo&&num;8217&semi;s original 8-bit console&period; Every time I sit down with the old <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> games&comma; I am always surprised with how well the controls have aged&period; Even in the very first game I have no problems navigating the blue bomber through the hazardous stages &&num;8212&semi; This means that I seldom blame the controller when something goes awry&period; To compare&comma; <em>Super Mari<&sol;em>o <em>Bros&period;<&sol;em> <em>2 <&sol;em>and<em> 3<&sol;em> are from the same era&comma; yet their controls have aged a tad worse than that of <em>Mega Man&&num;8217&semi;s<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;93478" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-93478" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;10&sol;04123704&sol;Mega&lowbar;Man&lowbar;Legacy&lowbar;Collection&lowbar;BagoGames&lowbar;1&period;png"><img class&equals;"wp-image-93478 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;10&sol;04123704&sol;Mega&lowbar;Man&lowbar;Legacy&lowbar;Collection&lowbar;BagoGames&lowbar;1&period;png" alt&equals;"Mega&lowbar;Man&lowbar;Legacy&lowbar;Collection&lowbar;BagoGames&lowbar;1" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-93478" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Mega Man Legacy Collection&comma; Capcom&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The games in this collection are very faithful ports of their original counterparts&comma; but maybe a little to faithful&period; The original NES games had sprite flickering due to hardware limitations&semi; This is still present with every game in the collection&period; This flickering results in some slowdown regardless if you have a good computer or you&&num;8217&semi;re playing on consoles&period; This wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t be as bad if there was an option to turn the flickering off  like in <em>Mega Man 9<&sol;em> and <em>10<&sol;em> but alas&comma; there isn&&num;8217&semi;t&period; I understand that Capcom wanted to give gamers a feeling for what it was like to play these games back in the day&comma; but those of us who looked forward to seeing the game run without previous technical limitations will be disappointed&period; Other than this&comma; the game performed well for me with no other major problems&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Gameplay-wise&comma; all six titles still hold up very well&semi; Some of the best level design in 2D platformer history are present here&comma; and so is some of the worst&period; I personally think that <em>Mega Man 6<&sol;em> sports some of the dullest stages in gaming&comma; and that has still not changed&period; This doesn&&num;8217&semi;t necessarily make <em>Mega Man 6<&sol;em> a bad game&comma; but it just isn&&num;8217&semi;t as good as the others&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But what does the <em>Mega Man Legacy Collection<&sol;em> offer besides some beloved classics&quest; First&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s loads of old concept art in here that I had never seen before&period; Every game has an art gallery where you can view everything from finished concepts to unused robot masters&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s very satisfying to look through this art and imagine what could have been&period; You can also listen to each game&&num;8217&semi;s soundtrack&comma; and look through a database where you can read the history of various characters and robots in the <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> Universe&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;93479" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-93479" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;10&sol;04123637&sol;Mega&lowbar;Man&lowbar;Legacy&lowbar;Collection&lowbar;BagoGames&lowbar;2&period;png"><img class&equals;"wp-image-93479 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;10&sol;04123637&sol;Mega&lowbar;Man&lowbar;Legacy&lowbar;Collection&lowbar;BagoGames&lowbar;2&period;png" alt&equals;"Mega&lowbar;Man&lowbar;Legacy&lowbar;Collection&lowbar;BagoGames&lowbar;2" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><&sol;a><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-93479" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Mega Man Legacy Collection&comma; Capcom&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The biggest bonus for anyone who decides to pick this collection up&comma; however&comma; is the Challenge Mode&period; This mode lets you play remixed stages from all of the six <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> titles included&period; When you choose a challenge&comma; you start at a designated section in one of the games&period; After finishing that section&comma; you are teleported to the next one&semi; This can either be a section from a different stage in the same game or a completely different <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> game altogether&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>All challenges are made up of these different sections&comma; and a timer logs your best finish time and uploads it to an online leaderboard&period; Even if you are a veteran player&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s pretty challenging to go from one <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> stage directly to another one from a completely different game&period; This is especially true since <em>Mega Man <&sol;em>himself is limited to the abilities he has in the games that the level belongs to&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s mind boggling to ground slide in one section only to lose the ability after jumping into a new section from <em>Mega Man <&sol;em>1 or <em>2&period; <&sol;em>This gives the whole collection a better value&comma; allowing you to put a few extra hours into the game by trying to beat high scores&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Mega Man Legacy Collection<&sol;em> is great for anyone that hasn&&num;8217&semi;t played the six first <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> games for a while or even at all&period; <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> 7-10 are sorely missed in the package&comma; however&comma; and I really think that they should have been in here&period; But the games that are here still offer plenty of hours of <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> fun to be had&period; Personally&comma; I yearn for something completely new and fresh when it comes to the lovable blue robot&comma; but until Capcom decides to give us that&comma; I will gladly play through the old games a few more times&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A review code for Mega Man Legacy Collection was provided by Capcom for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;