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.
 * An Ice Person: Ice Man.
 * Anticlimax Boss: Dr. Wily's machine.
 * 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, half of them are fought in separate levels.
 * Cartoon Bomb: Bomb Man throws these.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: Plenty of it. Let's see--there's a point system, only six robot masters, small, 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:
 * Mad scientist Dr. Wily is taking over the world with a batch of stolen robots, go stop him!
 * The Wily Wars port plot is centered on Dr. Wily stealing a time machine and trying to take down Mega Man in the past, prompting Dr. Light to send Mega Man back in time to fight him while reliving his first adventure. Of course, that plot point is exclusive to the manual... the in-game plot is as bare bones as ever.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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.