I like Mega Man a lot. I remember spending entire weekends locked inside trying to beat Launch Octopus, or spending Sunday mornings watching "SUPERFIGHTINGROBOT! MEGA MAN" and actually enjoying it. I'm actually looking at my two Mega Man figures across the room from me right now. But there are some things I feel isolate me from my mega fanboy brethren; I like the X series more than the classic, I think Proto Man is stupid, and I don't see what the big freakin' deal is with Mega Man 2.

Don't get me wrong, it's a solid game, and Wood Man's name still makes me giggle to this day (how do leaves beat wind anyways?!) but the series has evolved since then (to the vastly superior X and Zero series). Even the NES games slowly evolved with each iteration, save for the phoned in MM5. I'm here today to tell you all that your silly MM2 and MM3 arguments are in vain: Mega Man 6 is the best NES Mega Man, and I'll tell you why until my face turns blue and you all start agreeing with my obviously correct and unbiased way of thinking.


Awesome.

A Mega Man is only as good as it's platforming. A common misconception is that it's only as good as it's bosses, but this is simply not true; Mega Man X is awesome, and that game invented an animal, "Kwuanger", just for fuck's sake. Google it, that shit's a myth.


The first result on google for "kuwanger".

Anyways, I'm veering off course. The bosses might have given you the sweet weapons, but the robot masters took hits like a bitch when you had the right weapon. One shot to kill Wood Man? No, most of the game is spent running, jumping, and shooting, and if any game did it best, it's Mega Man 6.


There's no way Mr. X is Wily in disguise.

Level structure is sooo good

Holy shit, these levels have branching paths. It seems silly now, but the fact that you can go in multiple directions on a NES game is pretty crazy. Some paths were harder to reach than others, but reaching them had its own rewards, like E Tanks and an alternate boss room where you can unlock B-E-A-T letters. This made replaying cleared stages pretty fun.

Further more, Mega Man's two alternate suits come into play heavily in exploration. The Power Suit let's Mega Man punch, and a charged shot can break bricks or glass. So now you have branching paths AND hidden paths. Now throw in the second alternate suit, the Jet Suit, which allows limited flight. This suit had a faux-physics engine where how fast Mega Man is moving will affect his flight (fall too fast, and he hovers to slow down. Jump and hover at your peak, and you'll start flying high. This took things to a whole other level, because there were ledges you couldn't reach by jumping, or segments you could skip over should you feel so inclined.

Besides, it's a motherfucking jet suit. I would kill any one of you for a jet suit and feel no remorse.


Holy shiiiiiiit

Another thing that made the game interesting were little different ideas sprinkled around: one stage has water on the ceiling that rises and falls, and you need to time jumps to take advantage of the water physics to make longer jumps. Flame Man stage even had small pools of oil that slowed you down. If an enemy shot them, they were set ablaze and would kill you instantly, so you had to either be careful, or take the enemies out quickly.


See Capcom, you can innovate without forcing me to play retarded snowboarding game or a lowsy SHMUP. No, this screenshot doesn't make sense, but the execution of the concept was pretty rad.

The alternate suits are awesome

Well fuck, I already covered this. Moving on.

Come on, the bosses aren't THAT lame



Okay, so Flame Man is just Heat Man, Blizzard Man is just Ice Man, Wind Man is just Air Man, and Wood Man blossomed into a beautiful Plant Man, but Knight Man? That's pretty rad, and the Nintendo Power reader who designed him deserves a high five.

Centaur Man gets no free pass; once Capcom decided "Horseman Man" was a good idea, the series should have stopped. Likewise, I have no idea what the fuck a Yamato is, nor do I know what a Yamato would be weak to. Tomahawk Man is also stupid, but his music is so boss that I'll let him slide.

The weapons are actually useful this time

So in this game, you've got weapons that weren't just fancy bullets, but actually had different uses similar to how Mega Man 2 had varied weapons. Flame Blast sticks to the floor (or walls!) and creates a fire pillar on contact, useful for keeping enemies behind a certain point. Blizzard Attack creates four bullets that shoot out to cover a wide range, and the rest are basically Mega Man 2 weapon clones. But something I learned from my web design professor is that if you're not going to do something original, you might as well do something well.

The great part about the weapons, though, is that the levels would sometimes be designed around the weapons. Devious enemies may get in cheap shots in areas you can't reach, but if you shoot a Silver Tomahawk, it's beautiful upward arc will decimate any would-be sniper. The other games had useful weapons, but this is the first time where you felt like the weapons had more use.


Totally not the Leaf Shield

The villian totally isn't Wily this time


"Faild" indeed

It doesn't have some stupid store

So I have to actually PURCHASE sliding and charging in Mega Man 9? Fuck that shit. Nobody likes stores in their Mega Man. brb grinding respawning goombas for coins. Gotta buy that dash button in Super Mario!


If you had told me in 1990 that sliding would be a privilege in 2008, I'd slap you silly

6>2 anyways

It's math, people.

So if Mega Man VI is so great, why is Mega Man 2 still the fan favorite?

Some might sum it up to nostalgia; it was the first Mega Man for many. Others think it's the best because it's "classic", and therefore better. Others can't wrap their heads around the lame bosses. But most people just never played the game, laughed at the bosses, dismissed it as crap, and moved on.

But in terms of gameplay, Mega Man VI has aged far more gracefully. There's nothing wrong with Mega Man 2, or liking it more, but if you take off the nostalgia goggles, you'll start to see that the franchise has evolved, and that Mega Man VI's gameplay is the pinnacle of the NES Mega Man games.

Images courtesy of VGMusem.com, Boomer Kwuanger courtesy of the awesome ToastyFrog.com. Fuck VGMuseum for making me download the images myself and hosting them on photobucket.