Mega Man (1987 video game)

This article is about the Nintendo Entertainment System game. For other uses, see Mega Man; for the DOS game, see Mega Man (1990 video game).

Mega Man
File:MegamanBox.jpg The box art for the North American localization of Mega Man.
Developer(s)	Capcom
Publisher(s)	Capcom
Designer(s)	Tokuro Fujiwara (game) Keiji Inafune (character) Manami Matsumae and Yoshihiro Sakaguchi (music composer)
Series	Mega Man
Platform(s)	NES, VC
Release	NES/Famicom Virtual Console
Genre(s)	Action/Platformer,Science Fiction
Mode(s)	Single-player

Mega Man, known as Rockman (ロックマン, Rokkuman) in Japan, is a video game developed and published by Capcom in 1987 for the NES/Famicom. It is the first game to star Mega Man and is the first of the original Mega Man series. It established many of the conventions that would define the original series as well as several other Mega Man series. Most notably, Mega Man established the setup of a number of stages, each with a Robot Master at the end that, when defeated, would pass on its unique power to Mega Man.

Later, it would be added to Mega Man: The Wily Wars for Sega Genesis (1994), as well as the Japanese collection game, Rockman Complete Works in 1999 for the PlayStation. In 2004, it was re-released in the anthology game, Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. There is also a remake called Mega Man Powered Up for the PlayStation Portable.

Characters

• Mega Man — Tool assistant, originally known as Rock (or Mega in the remake), created and modified by Dr. Light to combat Wily.
• Dr. Albert W. Wily — The antagonist of the game, his goal is world domination. He appears as the final boss in a hovering ship (at first a tank-like machine in the remake).
• Dr. Thomas Light — Creator of Mega Man, aids Mega Man on his adventure to stop Dr. Wily.
• Roll — Mega Man's sister, she makes her debut in this game, though in the NES version her name is not mentioned. She is only seen at the ending of the credits in the NES version, but she can be downloaded in the PSP remake as a playable character.
• Robot Masters — The various industrial robots built by Dr. Light, reprogrammed by Dr. Wily to do his bidding. They become playable characters in the PSP remake. There were six in the original game, but there are eight in the remake.

Plot

Dr. Wily, Dr. Light's assistant, who is angry that his contributions have not been acknowledged by the world, reprograms the six Robot Masters that they had designed for industrial purposes and uses them in an attempt at world domination. He also attempts to reprogram Rock, the robot they had designed as a lab assistant, but Rock resists the reprogramming. In order to stop Wily's evil plan, Dr. Light upgrades Rock into a battle robot called Mega Man. Mega Man fights and destroys each of the Robot Masters before journeying to Wily's fortress to defeat him once and for all. Mega Man eventually wins the battle, but Wily bows down and begs for forgiveness, which Mega Man grants. Mega Man then walks home to meet Dr. Light and his "sister", Roll.

Gameplay

Mega Man is made up of six stages, with a Robot Master at the end guarding a weapon. The stage select screen allows the player to choose from these six stages, which can be replayed if they were cleared. When they are all completed, the seventh and last stage appears in the middle of the menu, replacing the text "Stage Select, Press Start". This last stage, known as the Wily Fortress, is in fact more like four regular stages linked together, some a bit shorter than average, but with bosses that are considered harder than usual. During the two final stages, the six Robot Masters must also be fought again as well in a predetermined order, before the final confrontation against Dr. Wily.

Screenshot of Cut Man's stage in Mega Man

The stages in Mega Man are designed in the "platformer" genre. In each stage, Mega Man fights his way through various enemies and obstacles before facing a Robot Master at the level's end. Upon defeating a Robot Master, Mega Man is able to assimilate the Robot Master's signature attack into his arsenal for the rest of the game.

Unlike his standard blaster, however, the Robot Master powers have limited ammunition which must be replenished by collecting ammo cells randomly dropped by defeated enemies. While the player is free to proceed through the game in any order, each Robot Master is designed to be especially vulnerable to a specific weapon, encouraging the player to complete certain stages before others. Some vulnerabilities can be determined by observation (e.g., Fire Man is vulnerable to Ice Slasher) and others only by experimentation. Aside from the weapons taken from the Robot Masters, Mega Man is also able to get a platform generator item known as Magnet Beam, which is mandatory in order to advance through the last stage.

Development and localization

Character designer Keiji Inafune stated in a G4 interview that the concept of the game was inspired by Rock, Paper, Scissors; every weapon and Robot Master has a strength and a weakness.

Due to Nintendo of America's strict rules concerning religious references at the time, the Yellow Devil boss was instead named the "Rock Monster" for the original NES version. Also, when released in America, Capcom was forced to change the title of the game from Rock Man to Mega Man because Scholz Research & Development, Inc. had copyrighted the name for their Rockman amplifier.

In the original U.S. Instruction manual, "Dr. Light" is referred to as "Dr. Wright". In Mega Man 2, he is called "Dr. Light". The in-game text of Mega Man 3 refers to him as "Dr. Right". However, "Dr. Light" remains his official romanized name.

In the original Japanese version of the story, Dr. Wily was not Dr. Light's partner. Instead, he is simply a mad scientist who gets revenge on the world for not recognizing his scientific work.

Reception

Mega Man was rated the 61st best game made on a Nintendo System in Nintendo Power's Top 200 Games list.

The picture on the game's American box has been criticized as it contains virtually nothing that can be found in the game. Mega Man himself resembles a middle-aged man rather than a boy, and he is holding a handgun instead of his Arm Cannon. The game's cover is commonly ridiculed because of its inaccuracy; GameSpy placed it in first place of its Top Ten Worst Covers list. The European box cover, however, features Mega Man looking more like his video game counterpart.

Remakes and re-releases

Mega Man: The Wily Wars

Main article: Mega Man: The Wily Wars

Mega Man was released alongside Mega Man 2 and 3 in the Sega Mega Drive compilation Mega Man: The Wily Wars. It is largely the same game as the NES version, though it now features enhanced graphics, arranged music and the possibility to save game via battery back-up. On the other hand, some of the glitches that appear in the NES game have been fixed.

File:MegaManPoweredUp.jpg

The Mega Man Powered Up box art.

Mega Man Powered Up

Mega Man Powered Up (ロックマンロックマン, Rokkuman Rokkuman) is a 2006 PlayStation Portable remake of the original Mega Man game released in 1987. It features two new Robot Masters, Time Man and Oil Man, in addition to a new super deformed art style. Keiji Inafune said in an interview that he originally planned to make Mega Man look this way, but could not, due to the hardware constraints of the NES. Also, like in Mega Man 7, Mega Man 8, Mega Man & Bass, and the Mega Man X series, there is also a new introductory level that comes before the main level selection screen, complete with a new boss at the end. The game offers two ways to play each level. "New Style" takes advantage of the wide PSP screen and features altered level design with brand-new remixed music. There are actually 468 New Style stages in this mode, 13 for each difficulty (Easy, Normal, and Hard), and 39 for each character (see list of playable characters below). "Old Style" recreates the original aspect ratio and level design of the original Mega Man for NES, and features the original NES game music, but still retains the 3D graphics and super-deformed art style. The game also contains a challenge mode, a level editor, and an online infrastructure mode to distribute fan-made levels online.

Deviation from the original Storyline

Mega Man is called "Mega," but only due to a localization error which compromises the "rock and roll" reference. It was stated in the U.S. release of Mega Man 4 that his original name was "Rock" (which is also mentioned in Mega Man for Game Gear). In addition, the intro states the game takes place in the year 20XX rather than 200X to be more modern, but it is a largely negligible change as it is a variable.

The English version of the original story portrayed Dr. Wily as originally being Dr. Light's partner. However, this part of the storyline was an invention of the NES localization team, as Dr. Wily always saw himself as Dr. Light's rival. In the American manual, Dr. Wily actually attempted to reprogram Mega Man (or Rock / Mega), but failed when Mega Man resisted it (though it's unknown if it was his internal programming or putting up a physical resistance that did the trick), and Roll was unaccounted for. This aspect of the plot wasn't completely lost, as at first it looked as though Wily actually succeeded in reprogramming Mega in the boss stories, but upon confronting him, he turned out to be a completely different character.

In order to capture and reprogram a boss, Mega Man needs to defeat the boss with only the Mega Buster. Attempting to use another weapon will destroy the robot. In the original NES version, capturing the bosses is not possible, any weapon including the Mega Buster destroys the bosses. The rescued bosses' storylines portray each Robot Master as not being reprogrammed, but rather being "rejected" by Dr. Wily, while he captures Mega instead.

In New Style, two more of Light's robots are included to bring the robot master count up to the series' standard eight. They are Timeman and Oilman (the former is said to be experimental or incomplete). While the inclusion of more robot masters would theoretically skew the robot master line, DLN numbers were not designated to these two, so it technically does not disrupt the flow for subsequent games.

In the ending of the original game, it is said that the battle wouldn't end until all opposing forces are brought to justice. This is kept in Old Style, but New Style takes a different approach. Instead, it states that Dr. Wily seemingly changed his ways.

While there are some differences from the original game, the storyline is not truly altered to the point of rendering it incompatible with its sequels unlike its companion PSP remake, Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X. Rather, this storyline is closer to its original intention and helps clarify potential inconsistencies.

Gameplay

The gameplay is essentially that of the original Mega Man game and its successors. However, new unlockables and the ability to play as the Robot Master characters the player fights against attempt to give the game a long-term replay value, as well as fan service. The player can also use the PSP's ability to download data, such as custom levels from other players and costumes for Roll (who must also be downloaded into the game to become playable).

A mode called Challenge mode has various challenges to complete. They vary from collecting items to timed challenges. Mega Man's challenges are the first ones available, with the ones for the Robot Masters available after unlocking them as playable characters. After beating New Style Mode in any difficulty, boss survival challenges are accessed. The first four boss survivals involve the Robot Masters, in Old Style, Easy, Normal, and Hard modes. The next four survivals involve the bosses in Dr. Wily's fortress, in the same modes as the Robot Master survivals. The last two survivals feature every boss in the game (except, suspiciously, the Proto Eye from the opening stage) in only the Normal and Hard modes. Any playable character can be played as in the New Style boss survivals. Once all 100 challenges have been completed, the player will be able to use Proto Man in the game. However if you have already downloaded Proto Man from the "Final Data" download, you will get nothing for beating all 100 challenges.

Other releases

A mobile game version is now available from CapcomMobile and Movaya. In celebration of the ninth title's release in September 2008, Capcom Japan released the game on the Japanese Virtual Console on July 29, 2008. It has also been released on the Virtual Console in Europe and North America

Adaptation in other media

The Captain N: The Game Master episode, "Mega Trouble for Megaland" was based on Mega Man and Kid Icarus.

Mega Man in popular culture

The band The Megas play rock covers of songs from the Mega Man soundtracks, with lyrics that attribute personality quirks to each of the robot masters.

The band The Protomen have a CD composed of a rock opera telling the story of Megaman and Protoman.

External links

• Capcom official site, developers and publishers of Mega Man
• Complete video from Mega Man on archive.org
• Classic/Original Mega Man - Facebook Group on facebook.com
• [http://www.gameolosophy.com/Games/Action/NES-Classics-Mega-Man.30303