First Mega Man, straight outta 1987. Mega Man is as videogam-y as a videogame can get: all of those little stereotypes about videogames are probably the fault of the little blue bomber and his long (like, really long) series of platforms. Ehi, I'm not complaining, these games are really good.
The first chapter in this saga has already most of what makes the series good: it's a run-and-shoot platformer where the level design is intelligently built upon the back of a simple yet effective learning technique - an enemy gets introduced, you fight it, and then you get to experience the same obstacle in a different environment, or in greater quantity, or combined with a previously introduced hazard, and you have to use your ability with the controller to come out victorious of progressively harder, but alway fair, situations.
The other thing that makes this series good (the weapon system) is here too: you get one weapon out of the six bosses, and you can use them to defeat the stages more easily. At the time, this probably screamed infinite possibilities. Nowadays, it's schematic, but not without its charm.
Unfortunately, there are also a plethora of things that have... Aged less gracefully. First of all, at least four out of the ten bosses are quite unfair to fight without having any weapon, and sometimes, even when you have the right one (oh boy, Fire Man is a pain). The whole game, actually, has these incredibly stupid moments where the difficulty rumps up way too much way too quickly, and while it never becomes trial and error, these moments still feel wrongly placed in the level design.
Mega Man's first outing found its charm in the weapon system and in the design of the bosses (which remain good even though they're pixelated), but it could only go uphill from there. 7/10
VideoGame The first one has the charm
First Mega Man, straight outta 1987. Mega Man is as videogam-y as a videogame can get: all of those little stereotypes about videogames are probably the fault of the little blue bomber and his long (like, really long) series of platforms. Ehi, I'm not complaining, these games are really good.
The first chapter in this saga has already most of what makes the series good: it's a run-and-shoot platformer where the level design is intelligently built upon the back of a simple yet effective learning technique - an enemy gets introduced, you fight it, and then you get to experience the same obstacle in a different environment, or in greater quantity, or combined with a previously introduced hazard, and you have to use your ability with the controller to come out victorious of progressively harder, but alway fair, situations.
The other thing that makes this series good (the weapon system) is here too: you get one weapon out of the six bosses, and you can use them to defeat the stages more easily. At the time, this probably screamed infinite possibilities. Nowadays, it's schematic, but not without its charm.
Unfortunately, there are also a plethora of things that have... Aged less gracefully. First of all, at least four out of the ten bosses are quite unfair to fight without having any weapon, and sometimes, even when you have the right one (oh boy, Fire Man is a pain). The whole game, actually, has these incredibly stupid moments where the difficulty rumps up way too much way too quickly, and while it never becomes trial and error, these moments still feel wrongly placed in the level design.
Mega Man's first outing found its charm in the weapon system and in the design of the bosses (which remain good even though they're pixelated), but it could only go uphill from there. 7/10