(thanks to megaStryke for the suggestion to re post it fresh)

Ok well i admit it, Before this I had never played a Mega Man game. I was a lone gamer back in grade school, but on the bright side I had no idea what I would be getting into. TechTV's X-Play had, at the time, aired something to do with this game,I forget exactly what it was, but it piqued my interest.



For those who don't know what this game is, they took the original mega-man style game, and applied the card based strategy of the battle network games to it. Needless to say it was one word. HARD! Yes in caps even. The game's 1st level stands out in my mind as one of the most difficult gaming experiences i've ever encountered. Fireman.exe was the worst started boss in history. his attacks were ridiculously cheap, and not to mention if u died there u had to go back through the rest of the level. which felt designed to frustrate and piss off. with cheap spike traps and enemy placement i can't remember the number of rages i went into over it.


Watch as the evil that is Fireman.exe rapes Megaman.exe. This is a typical playthrough I might add.

All that level design i would learn was classic Mega man but that can't forgive the card based items. They made that game into not just a chore but a slavedriver. The random card drops for weapons made it a pain in the ass to use them, because if you used a card up it was gone and it was probably needed for the boss fight( which i'll get to) and once you got into the habit of conserving your cards, you began to dread the boss fight at the end. It was similar to the way Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories used the card based fighting system, except a whole lot less forgiving.



Each boss you managed to make it to was an accomplishment on it's own. Defeating him was another story.
The first boss, Fireman.exe as i mentioned was near impossible, especially for a first boss of a game. His attacks were over the top and fatal with the low health you nearly always ended up going into the fight with. I recall after Fireman.exe, there was either Electman.exe or Iceman.exe, Electman stands out as being more frustrating in the long run, because i wasn't able to get card to help to my advantage.

It is probably forgotten because of the unconventional approach and poor gameplay in comparison to the Battle Network and Zero games which were also fresh around the time of release. This was pre-Mega Man 9, so forgive the lack of mention for more recent entries as comparison. Mega man games are designed to be difficult now i know, and somewhat invite you to become learned in memorizing patterns and trial and error style of playing, while also making you think carefully about your next move on your feet. The battle networks I never played myself, but it was a vast departure from the old formula.This game proved to be a link, bonding the two styles of Mega man games up to that point, as an effort to reinvigorate the side scrolling megaman in 2.5D. Though i gotta say I enjoyed way the game was stylized, made me feel like i was traversing the series of tubes, with Internet Explorer 6,

I never beat the game, but it is worth checking out if you happen to find it somewhere. It's challenging, and an interesting experiment with the Mega Man formula, and it's also Forgotten.