Mega Man 1



Mega Man was the first game in the eponymous series of the same name, as well as its many spinoffs.

The story: Dr. Wily, assistant of famous inventor Dr. Light, has stolen and reprogrammed six of his robots, and is now attempting to Take Over the World. Assistant robot Rock, having a strong sense of justice, volunteered to be converted into a "fighting robot" in order to right Wily's wrongs. He thus became known as Mega Man.

At the time, Mega Man was a revolutionary title in the NES library; first, you could choose to tackle any stage you wished in any order you desired, second, to add a layer of strategy, the game allowed you to not only keep the weapon of whatever boss you killed, but also allow you to use the weapon in question against another boss that was particularly weak to it. The games cartoony graphics and catchy music, not to mention its grueling difficulty, established many hallmarks that we've grown to love about the series.

All in all, the game was a modest hit in sales and reviews, but it wasn't quite the mega-hit killer game Capcom needed. Then came the sequel...

The game would later receive a 16-bit upgrade in the Europe and Japan exclusive Mega Man: The Wily Wars / Rockman Megaworld cartridge for the Sega Genesis. It would later be ported to the PS 1 as Rockman: Complete Works, and then to the PlayStation 2, Game Cube and Xbox as part of Anniversary Collection. It has also seen a release on Virtual Console. This game also received a remake for the PSP, called Mega Man Powered Up.

This game would later receive a companion title for the Game Boy, called Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge.


 * All There in the Manual: The game's story, as per the standards at the time. However, the US version is notoriously inaccurate ("robot-like humanoids"?).
 * American Kirby Is Hardcore: One of the most infamous examples, due to the artist being given only a couple of hours to come up with something. Believing the anime-style artwork wouldn't get much attention, the North American version instead got a middle-aged looking man in a blue and yellow jumpsuit holding a pistol, against a rather bizarre background. The European box art got a similar badass-looking overhaul, but in a way that's a lot more faithful to the game.
 * An Ice Person: Ice Man.
 * Ascended Glitch: The "Pause Trick" is so well known that in the Anniversary Collection port, the glitch was deliberately left intact!
 * Awesome but Impractical: The Hyper Bomb. It's extremely powerful, but there's such a long delay between the time you throw it and when it actually goes off, that it's very easy for the enemy to move out of range before that happens. Also, you can only throw one bomb at a time, so you're left wide open if you miss.
 * Blob Monster: The Yellow Devil.
 * Boss Rush: Played quite differently than the later games. Instead of all the bosses being fought in a contained room, more than half of them are fought in separate levels.
 * Cartoon Bomb: Bomb Man throws these.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Guts Man can summon as many Super Arm blocks as he needs to take you down. You, on the other hand, are not so lucky: if there isn't a conveniently placed block for you to grab, it's basically useless.
 * Cyclops: The Yellow Devil is the first of many large, one-eyed blob monsters in the Mega Man series.
 * Dishing Out Dirt: Guts Man, whose fighting style revolves around hurling massive boulders around. Defeat him, and you'll copy this ability.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: Plenty of it. Let's see--there's a point system, only six robot masters, small and sparse stages, the corridors before bosses are longer and contain enemies, weapon and energy items that look different from the later ones, no e-tanks, no password function, mercy invincibility won't protect you from spikes, Wily's lair isn't called Skull Castle, and no Rush items. Also, the Wily Fortress doesn't have a map screen, the Robot Master rematches are sprinkled throughout the fortress stages instead of being collected in a teleporter room; Fire Man's weakness was the ice weapon (later games usually had the ice boss weak to the fire weapon instead of the other way around); three of the weapons were thrown rather than being shot out of your gun. Also, Mega Man's standard weapon is called the Plasma Buster, rather than the Mega Buster.
 * Eternal Engine: Elec Man's stage.
 * Excuse Plot: Dr. Light's assistant Dr. Wily has turned evil, and is using six of Light's most powerful robots to take over the world! Are you a bad enough dude to stop him?
 * Fire, Ice, Lightning: This dynamic is present with Fire Man, Ice Man, and Elec Man. Reverse the order, and you have a solid weakness loop going down the line.
 * It's All Upstairs From Here: Elec Man's stage, and part of Cut Man and Bomb Man's stages.
 * Kaizo Trap: Just about any boss in the game can cause this. Unlike other games in the series, the boss's projectiles do not disappear when they're defeated, and can still hit you. This is especially problematic due to the fact that Mega Man is frozen briefly when the boss explodes. It is entirely possible as a result to die after beating the boss, which of course results in having to fight them all over again.
 * Lethal Lava Land: Fire Man's stage.
 * Logical Weakness: The weaknesses of the Robot Masters.
 * Elec Man: The Rolling Cutter, a pair of powerful shears, can easily cut any wires or important components needed to power him up. Plus, there's a bit of wordplay with cutting the power.
 * Cut Man: Good luck cutting up a massive boulder with scissors.
 * Guts Man: Dynamite and other explosives will blow even the biggest boulders to smithereens.
 * Bomb Man: Fire can trigger explosives far earlier than intended, and with disastrous results.
 * Fire Man: Not immediately obvious, but ice is frozen water, and when its fired directly at an open flame, it melts and can douse it before evaporating.
 * Ice Man: Again, ice is frozen water, and electricity is a major hazard around water.
 * Luck-Based Mission: A very minor example given that the boss in question is really easy, but beating CWU-01P without taking damage all boils down to hoping it doesn't spawn in inconvenient spots when its on its last legs. Because when it's near death, it moves so fast that it's legitimately impossible to dodge if it spawns with you right in its immediate path.
 * Nintendo Hard: One of the hardest of the original games, for the following reasons:
 * No password or save function--the game must be completed in one sitting (except on Virtual Console, which lets you quit with the home button and come back right where you left off, and Anniversary Collection gives an auto-save). The game is generous enough to at least give you infinite continues.
 * Mercy Invincibility does not protect you when you fall onto spikes.
 * Tricky platforming segments, most notably in Guts Man and Ice Man's stages.
 * Very cheap placement of powerful enemies, particularly in Wily Fortress 1.
 * Some of the bosses have much more erratic patterns, not to mention much more damaging, "take you down in one or two hits" attacks-- Elec Man is most notable for this. Their attacks are often difficult, or, in the case of Fire Man, literally impossible to dodge.
 * The aforementioned kaizo traps that can sometimes occur just when you have defeated a boss.
 * The infamous Yellow Devil boss fight, which many people have not been able to defeat without exploiting the "Pause Trick" glitch.
 * You can't slide or use charged shots.
 * Oh, and no E-tanks.
 * No Plot, No Problem: Just press start and get straight to playing!
 * No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: All of the stages.
 * Palette Swap: In some levels, you'll fight differently colored versions of enemies. They're the exact same enemy with no differences aside from the color swap, they just look different due to graphical limitations with the NES.
 * Playing with Fire: Fire Man.
 * Precision-Guided Boomerang: The Rolling Cutter.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Ice Man's stage.
 * Spikes of Doom: Wily's Fortress is full of these.
 * Super Not-Drowning Skills: Justified by that Mega Man is a robot.
 * Violation of Common Sense: Fire Man becomes a lot easier if you get on his ass and stay close, because he'll only use his Fire Storm if you're far away from him. He's pretty much the only enemy this applies to since every other enemy acts erratically, unpredictably, and has attacks that you can't possibly hope to dodge if you're too close to them. So if you don't want to tear your hair out while fighting him, you'll have to defy the logic this game is built around momentarily.
 * Walk, Don't Swim: Mega Man can't swim, but whereas in the sequels he can jump ludicrously high in water, in this game it slows him down and weakens his jump. The Wily Wars port, curiously, ignored that and kept the water physics the same as the sequels.
 * Warmup Boss: Cut Man is universally considered to be the best Robot Master to start with. Not only is his stage easy, but he moves slow and the Rolling Cutters he throws are easily dodged.