Megaman — The games
Part of my nostalgia
Did any of you play the Megaman games? I sure did. It really seemed like 80% of the games on the NES (the original first Nintendo console, for you non-gamers) were platformers. I’d played some of the first Mario game and maybe one or two other NES platformers before I played Megaman, but Megaman is the one that made the biggest impact on me.
Gameplay is the same as a thousand games that have been developed since the early 80s. You move, jump, and shoot. The screen is centered around the protagonist and you shoot the enemies that come from all sides of the screen. There are stages and platforms to jump between and you’re progressing towards a boss in every level.
What I think really drew me in about the Megaman games is that bosses that you beat give you different weapons to shoot, and changed the color of the protagonist!! Megaman is called the Blue Bomber a lot. The main Megaman sprite is blue, but when you beat Fireman and equipped his weapon, you were a RED Megaman!!! Heck yeah. Every boss had a different weapon and color scheme. Early video games didn’t need to do much to make me super excited. lol.
Also, there are a lot of these games, at this point. I remember me and my cousin got super into Megaman 3. And, part of Megaman 3 includes fighting a facsimile of the bosses from Megaman 2. We got into the game so much that we were building models of Megaman and his brother Protoman. Also known as Breakman. Megaman 3 really started building the lore of the world, in a very simplistic way, compared to contemporary games.
- The game referenced the previous games
- The antagonist had a greater presence
- There was a robot dog companion character
- An anti-hero revealed to be Megaman’s brother (the aforementioned Protoman)
- And the music kept getting better and better
One of the biggest mechanics that drew me in was that each boss fight was difficult and potentially grueling, unless you had the weapon that the boss was weak against.
For example:
FireMan was a difficult fight in Megaman 1. Getting the timing down for dodging his attacks and attacking back was grueling. However, if you had already beaten IceMan, it was like 2 or 3 hits to kill FireMan. It was simple. The difficulty was bypassed and it didn’t feel like you were cheating. At least, not to me. I now do runs of the games without using weapons against the bosses, but it does take a significantly longer amount of time.
I feel like the above paragraphs were sufficient for an article just saying all the regular stuff. The stuff you’d read in a magazine or publication about someone’s love for old media.
Now, let’s see what happens when I free-write about it…
There were sections of Mega Man games that were very difficult to pass. Spots where one mistake in a sequence of 1 or two minutes of platforming would mean instant death and you would have to try the segment again. And the game only gave you 3 lives to start. So, if you failed 3 times, you had to start at the beginning.
And I think the fact that a “game over” (losing all your lives) did not mean that you had to start the GAME from the beginning. Just that you would have to restart the stage you were on from the beginning. So, repetition to understand the level was super possible. This, however, was NOT true with the endgame.
You would start the game with 6 or 8 Robot Masters that you had to defeat to reveal the final stage of the antagonist, Dr. Wily. If you got a game over after beating 7 of the Masters, you didn’t have to do all 7 again. You could just just keep grinding the 8th one until you beat ’em. However, once you got to Wily’s stage, it was like a continuous run of 4 or 5 stages. And several megaman games had you start at the beginning of Wily’s stage if you got a game over, even if you had passed 4 of the 5 stages associated with Wily’s castle. That could get annoying, but it was end game. Back then, you weren’t supposed to be able to beat every game you owned. Remember the Atari? Who actually ever beat an Atari game?
But, the fact that it wasn’t initially brutal, but became so in the endgame was enticing to me. It kept me grinding, trying to get better. It helped me learn how to do a tedious or monotonous task over and over again without getting frustrated or giving up. It certainly got me angry or frustrated at times, but over time, it taught me that the anger was at myself, and not the game. The game was just what it was. It was made long before I ever got to it and the requirements for beating it were established before I started. Which means that I’M just not doing it right and I need to do better or get better. Which, I usually did, over time. This also happened with Ninja Gaiden (the old NES original) and with Cobra Triangle, though that was very different gameplay.
MegaMan was certainly my beginning of platformer tenure. I’ve played many platformers and I’m pretty decent at them, all things considered. I need to try out the recent mainstays of platforming sometime soon, to see how I’m doing. Your Hollows Knight and your Celestes. Maybe play through a few Metroids, though also significantly different in gameplay, as well.
Sure, this article is about MegaMan,
a video game series that I’ve loved for approximately 35 years, give or take. But, it’s also a test. For me and for you, dear reader. I’ve got a bit where I try to emulate a tone necessary for a reader to understand what I’m saying. Trying to understand what bits of what I have to say are the most relatable and pertinent to the reader experience and only sharing those. This is the begining section. And I found it very dry and boring to write…
But, the freewriting segment, where I just wrote whatever came to my brain? That was just fun. I enjoyed writing it more than the first bit. However, I’ve now gone back and re-read both of them and there doesn’t seem to be much difference. At least, from what I can grasp of the reader perspective, it doesn’t seem much different at all. Do you agree or disagree, dear reader?
And, finally, I’m not requiring any of you to engage, if you read this. I hate that feeling that I sometimes get when I’m consuming media where I feel like I HAVE to interact cause the creator asked me to. Well, asked all of us to. And sometimes, no one reacts. And I feel super bad because I imagine that creator just staring at the lack of reaction and feeling super shitty about themselves. So, I do my best to conjure a reaction. And, usually, it’s just some nice words and maybe a detail or two that I noticed that I particularly liked. but it still feels fake. It’s not the same as when I feel compelled to respond.
But, I’m not responsible for the feelings of others. And YOU, dear reader, are not responsible for my feelings, either. You’re only responsible for your own. So, if you don’t feel compelled to clap or comment, don’t do so. Trust me, I’m doing just fine. I haven’t tied much of my self-worth to Medium, as of yet, so my traction here means very little to me, so far. Someday, I’ll probably be a lot more … involved with my time on Medium, but my mind is elsewhere for now.
Thanks for taking the time to read through some of my thoughts on one of my favorite video game franchises of all time. Heavily influenced by my nostalgia glasses, probably. :D
I hope you find smiles this day!! ❤
P.S. If I fucked up the image/caption at the beginning or you think I ruined copyright or that artist’s image or something, please help me and let me know. I don’t really care about penalties (yet), I just don’t want to make artists frown, you know?
