Review
Release Date: 06.22.2004
Platform:
GameCubeDeveloper:
Capcom Co., Ltd.Publisher:
Capcom USA, Inc.Reviewed by
Ash Paulsen on 7.26.2004
| Review Rating: 8/10 | User Rating: 8.5/10 |
It could be argued that there is no mascot more deserving of a compliation of his classic games than Mega Man. After all, his original titles – the ones that we all played in our younger years before X, Trigger, or .EXE ever graced our lives – remain some of the most fun, respected and enduring titles even when compared to today’s high-tech, contemporary stuff. Generally, even the people who have become jaded and unexcited about the various series’ current offerings will always show a glimmer of excitement in their eyes when you bring up the Mega Man “Classic” series.
Is it because of the games’ superbly responsive, simple controls? The irresistibly addictive “rock-paper-scissors” style of semi-linear gameplay? The intense and sweaty-palm inducing white-knuckle platforming? The consistently awesome music and attractive, charming visuals? Or maybe it’s just the simple appeal of the timeless battle between good and evil, perfectly personified in Mega Man and Dr. Wily?
Whatever the reason people remember (most of) the games in the Classic series so fondly,
Mega Man Anniversary Collection has all of those reasons and more… times eight.
That’s right, it’s just as you’ve heard and it’s just as wonderful as it sounds: this 15th anniversary compilation brings together
Mega Man 1 through
Mega Man 8 - the original eight wonderful chapters of this series running the gamut from the NES, Super NES, and PS1 – and stuffs them, kicking and screaming, onto one single disc. That’s a whole lot of platforming goodness from the character many feel did it best back in the day, and it’s all available for you right from the start.
Developer Atomic Planet has done a superb job of keeping the games true to the originals yet still cleaning them up enough to where you’ll notice some welcomed improvements. Every one of the games is visually faithful to their originals right down to the last sprite, and loading times are absolutely nonexistent once you choose your game and load it up.
The
Mega Man games, especially the Classic series, have always been known for their superbly catchy soundtracks, which is why it could be considered essential for a compliation like this to get the audio transitions in all of the ports right on. Well, I’m happy to say that, for the most part, the games sound just fine and will engross you with their soundtracks just as much as they did back when you were playing them in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Not everything is peachy, though:
Mega Man 7 and
Mega Man 8 in particular suffer from some really prevalent and obvious track-looping errors, and one of the games in general -
Mega Man 4 - sounds rather washed out when compared to the original NES cart. Also, starting from
Mega Man 6, the recording level of some songs is drastically loud or quiet when compared to the others in the same game, making it difficult to find a nice volume level on your TV that will satisfy all of the songs in one game (all too often, a stage theme will at a pleasing volume level only to have your eardrums bust when you reach the Robot Master and the boss theme begins playing). And – it’s a minor quibble, but it must be mentioned – the already-bad voice “acting” in
Mega Man 8 has been made worse in that the characters’ voices during gameplay – mainly the Robot Masters’ – have been inexplicably sped up, sometimes to the point of incomprehension. It’s not a big deal, but come on – what happened, Atomic Planet?
I wish I were able to say that was the worst of things, but it isn’t. In a completely mind-numbingly stupid and, frankly, sacreligious move by the developers, the controls – an always positive staple of
Mega Man games – have been “reversed” for every game in this collection. That is, A is set to fire and B is set to jump.
What the hell is that? You can’t change them, either – you’re stuck with them like that, so your only option is to get used to them and cope. And cope you will, eventually, but veterans who have mastered the games on their original systems (such as myself) will find that the games remain artificially hard and frustrating because of this, and it’s really unfortunate. Worse (or better, depending on how you look at it) is that this is not a problem that plagues the PS2 version too – Atomic Planet threw sand in the GameCube kids’ faces and went to play with the PS2 kids where the control is concerned.
Regardless of the last two paragraphs sounding mostly negative, however, the entire collection as a whole manages to remain resoundingly good, simply because of just
how good every game in this series is (aside from the two unlockables, which I’ll get to later). The audio hiccups never get bad enough to warrant turning the sound off (and pretty much only exist in two of the games anyway), and while the reversed controls make finesse nearly impossible in these ports, you get used to them and they do become playable.
Mega Man Anniversary Collection does a good job of catering to both people who want to play the games unaltered from their original forms and those who might like to see some stuff remixed. Both options are available in this collection; you can play the games the way they appeared and played originally, or you can turn on Navi Mode, which remixes the experiences for
Mega Man 1-6 a little (
Mega Man 7 and 8 remain unchanged). In Navi Mode, the games themselves remain generally unchanged, but all the onscreen energy bars get a facelift to look more like the spiffy ones in
Mega Man 8, and the selection menus in
Mega Man 1-3 also get completely revamped and cleaned up. Additionally, onscreen directions (usually courtesy of Mega Man’s buddies Eddie and Beat) appear occasionally to point the player in the right direction where the safest or most beneficial path (or the path period) through a stage may not be made entirely clear. Finally, Navi Mode also provides you with frequent, numerous in-game hints that can be accessed by pausing the game when an exclamation point appears at the bottom of the screen, kind of like Alia’s optional hints in
Mega Man X6. The problem is, these “hints” are usually all too obvious or, even worse, horrendously translated; again, hearkening back to those “hints” X got from Alia in
X6. No, really, they’re that bad, and they go beyond the purpose of giving the player hints to amusing him/her with the awful Engrish they’re translated into. Either way, I guess that could be a good thing depending on how you look at it; but again, it shows Capcom’s unfortunate and typical translation laziness.
But, bad news again for GameCube players: citing “lack of space” as the reason, Atomic Planet has stripped this version of every single remixed musical track that accompanies the games in the PS2 version’s Navi Mode, meaning that if you were looking forward to hearing Capcom’s promised contemporary takes on everyone’s favorite classic songs, you’re out of luck unless you buy the PS2 version. Personally I don’t buy the lack of space thing for a
second and can’t help but wonder if Sony struck some behind-closed-doors deal with Capcom to make the PS2 version a little more tantalizing than the GCN one. That’s just speculation on my part, but whatever the case, it’s just a second reason why the PS2 version is more attractive than this one.
But there is hope for you prospective GameCube buyers yet! Every good classic game collection needs a hefty amount of nice, unlockable bonus content, and
Mega Man Anniversary Collection does not disappoint here. Not only is there a bevy of concept artwork, remixed music, and other miscellaneous cool stuff to unlock, but GameCube players get the real exclusive treat: a 20-minute long interview with The Man himself, Keiji Inafune (to those of you who don’t know, the creator of everything
Mega Man)! And the interview itself certainly does not disappoint: I can tell you that it’s a really good watch and really does a lot to give GameCube players something very tantalizing that PS2 players don’t get.
There are two “secret” unlockable games in the collection too, and they are the rarely-seen (the latter’s never been released here)
Mega Man arcacde games,
Mega Man: The Power Battle and
Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters. These games serve as little more than mildly fun diversions once you unlock them – they’re simply
Mega Man made up entirely of battles with classic Robot Masters, no stages here – but it was nice of Capcom to include them for us American folks. It’s always nice to see what it would have been like to play as Proto Man and/or Duo, and for the more hardcore of us,
The Power Fighters offers up some interesting story tidbits that help bridge the ever-foggy arc between the Classic and X series.
In the end, I do have to come out and say it: though
Mega Man Anniversary Collection is an outstanding purchase no matter how you look at it, the PS2 version is simply the superior of the two and if you have the choice between them, it’s with a heavy heart that I have to recommend that one. The GameCube’s exclusive Inafune interview will be enough to sway only the most hardcore fans of the Blue Bomber; everyone else (and the hardcore types as well) will simply enjoy the PS2 version’s faithful controls and option to hear some really nice remixed music.
But
do not get me wrong:
Mega Man Anniversary Collection is an incredible compilation on the GameCube as well, and no matter how you look at it, this is a collection of eight of the most entertaining and well-made platformers ever made, starring one of the most timeless heroes ever. Whether you’re a contemporary Blue Bomber fan who’s interested in the blue boy’s roots or an old-school gamer looking to relive his or her past, you absolutely cannot go wrong with this anniversary compilation. Some of the chapters may be better than others, but every one of these gems stands on its own as an awesome game and every one of them are just as much fun to play today as they were back when they were released.
The only reason this score isn’t a 10 is because of the porting problems and sloppy translation I talked about previously, as well as the fact that the GameCube version – the one this review is written for – got the short end of the stick for the reasons I mentioned above.
Mega Man 1-8, as a collective whole, certainly merit a score of 10 (and that’s without all the extras) and you can rest assured that the lowered score stems only from the Anniversary Collection trappings; the meat – the games - are all alarmingly amazing and fun as all hell. So go on – get out there and relive the past. As
Mega Man Anniversary Collection shows us, it can be a beautiful thing.
(Author’s note: if you want a numerical comparison, consider the PS2 version to have a score of 9. Same wonderful games, same small but existent porting issues, same awful translation, but spot-on controls and the option to play with remixed music. ‘Nuff said.)
