This was perhaps around half through the N64/PS generation. Every week or so, I would be
driven down to Blockbuster, that magical place where at any one point there would be five
whole games to choose from! Now the way it went, was if they had something awesome,
that would be your pick. But if not you would wander around scanning uninteresting box art
after uninteresting box art until your pestering parents forced you to do eenie meenie minie
moe (catch a tiger by its toe). One of these uninterested picks was a small game called
MegaMan 64. For the uninitiated, a game called Mega Man legends was released for the
Playstation. It was Later released under the monicker MegaMan 64 with added content.
Mega Man 64 (and legends) was a game that I had never heard of, and I had no idea what
to expect. I remember having MegaMan 6 for the NES in my earlier years, so I was sort of
expecting a game I would suck at. But it was anything but!

This really isn't a MegaMan game per say; but a game that uses a derivative blue robot boy
with the MegaMan name. The story goes that you live with Roll and Barrell Casket, a young
girl and robot old man, and you travel the world "Digging", IE, you wander under ground
catacombs filled with evil robots (?!) and collect spare parts and money. The legend of the
"Mother Lode" is what motivates the story, the legendary treasure the Roll's parents
disappeared searching for. Now keep in mind. I was a N64 kid. I never had a Playstation.
So imagine how amazed I was, at like, 10, that this game featured full voice acting!
Granted, it was terrible, but it was fucking impressive! The game play is essentially what I
imagined what a 3D MegaMan would look like. You run around in 3rd person and fightrobots
with a lock-on mechanism. Instead of Robot Masters implementing new and stronger
weapons, you instead build them out of spare found parts.

The graphics where good, featuring full very expansive 3D environments. The art direction
was very pop anime cutesy, but still contained a certain amount of badass-ery in enemy
design.

What keeps me coming back to the series (and made me find MegaMan legends 2) is the
sense of exploration and curiosity. You travel into these dark mechanic labyrinths filled with
all sorts of treasures and items, and even a sense of danger. Its a shame the series only
had 2 installments, and I doubt a third will ever even be in the pipeline.

But srsly. Its badass.