“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

As the resident Mega Man fan here, you… oh wait, I guess Jesse is here too. As the resident other Mega Man fan here, you might think I love the series all over and I think it can do no wrong. I mean, I do maintain a Mega Man fansite and try to shill for it at every opportunity I get. But the truth is I’m pretty discerning in what I see as quality in games, and Mega Man 5 is an interesting case. While it was the first Mega Man game I ever owned and I do have fond memories of playing it, I’ve come to determine it’s one of the weakest games in the series.

It’s by no means a terrible game; it was derived from a tried and true formula and had the benefit of a few years of experience and fine tuning. It’s probably still one of the better NES games out there. But Mega Man 5 is also where the series really starts to run out of steam. If Mega Man 2 was lightning in a bottle, Mega Man 5 was a bottle opener. Had I not been 10 when I played this game, my perspective of the whole franchise might be wildly skewed from what it is today.

So let’s get to the details. In Mega Man 5, Dr. Wily creates a shape-shifting robot to impersonate Proto Man and kidnap Dr. Light, making Proto Man appear to be the villain. Oops, did I spoil it? Truth be told, this is actually a fairly interesting story. Proto Man is a very mysterious figure introduced in Mega Man 3, where you only find out at the end that he’s Mega Man’s long lost robrother. Proto Man only makes a brief appearance in 4, so a Proto Man-centric story seems like an interesting place to explore. Though, since this is one of my first Mega Man games, I probably figured this Proto Man guy was just around all the time and the significance was lost on me.

Mega Man 5′s new features are pretty underwhelming. He’s now equipped with the Super Mega Buster, which allows him to charge up an energy blast the size of his body, any time he wants, with no real cost. This effectively negates any challenge the majority of enemies might wield. The game also introduces a robotic bird that follows Mega Man around and attacks enemies by crashing into them, although you have to find plates that spell MEGAMANV to unlock him. Beat is pretty useful against certain bosses, but otherwise isn’t all that amazing. And is it really any fun to just run around and let Beat do all the work?

Finally, they changed how Rush Coil works, which is just ridiculous. Now instead of launching you into the air, Rush launches himself up with you on top. As newbish as it sounds, there are so many times I’ve slipped off this and made Rush leap up without me. Fortunately, there are fewer places than ever that you’ll need to actually use Rush Coil. This style of Rush Coil was never revisited in another Mega Man game.

But the real meat and potatoes of any Mega Man game is the bosses; the Robot Masters, and their weapons. And this is where Mega Man 5 really begins to falter. I do have to praise the Robot Masters for being on the unique side, and there are a handful which use themes previously not seen in a Mega Man title. But at the same time, they kind of come off as… un-MegaManish. And I can’t really put my finger on why that is. Perhaps it’s because they started getting too detailed looking, eschewing the simple but effective designs of the previous games. And honestly, there’s nothing especially cool about a Robot Master modeled after a steam engine, or a Robot Master made of bricks. Sure, every Mega Man game has at least a couple of oddballs, and the likes of Napalm Man and Gravity Man are pretty cool. The Mega Man 5 crew ultimately accomplishes being one of the more unique sets of bosses, yet at the same time it’s almost entirely uninteresting.

What’s much worse than the Robot Masters are their stages. They are largely devoid of any interesting features. Something is definitely wrong when you introduce new stage types such as a train, a space station, and a Vietnam War-esque jungle military base, and yet none of them make a strong impression. Wave Man’s stage doesn’t even have enemies during the entire first half of it. Only Gravity Man’s stage comes off as particularly interesting, where the gravity is constantly being flipped and you spend stretches walking on the ceiling. I would have much rather had this concept revisited in Dr. Wily’s castle instead of the ceiling presses from Dust Man’s stage in Mega Man 4.

Speaking of the castles, I will concede those stages are better designed and provide a real challenge. It’s a nice treat if you’ve invested yourself this far into the game. Also, I love that Dark Man’s castle is shaped like Proto Man’s head, as if Dr. Wily thought he had to try that hard to make sure Proto Man appeared to be the villain.

Then there are the weapons. The only nice thing I can really say of them is they’re better than the weapons you get in Mega Man 6. I would suppose Crystal Eye is the best weapon for its low energy consumption and ability to split into smaller crystals that ricochet off walls. Gravity Hold is interesting, but uses too much energy to be used effectively. Gyro Attack is a take off of Magnet Missile, except slower and you have to prompt which direction it goes. Charge Kick only activates while sliding, and joins Napalm Bomb and Water Wave as weapons that only work on the ground’s surface. Power Stone isn’t awful but you’d be lucky to hit anything that isn’t right next to you. Star Crash at least has a wide area for a barrier, and you can throw it which makes it entirely better than the previous title’s Skull Barrier. You also get the Super Rod with Star Crash, which is an interesting but not highly useful device. It’d be fun to use the arrows to ride through stages if not for the fact doing this immediately drains the power. Ultimately there is no weapon better than your ridiculously powerful charged shot, which you start the game with.

Other than that, it’s pretty typical Mega Man fare. A lot of the game’s little enemies come off as weird shapes and don’t have much character, though they did use this game to really diversify the types of Metalls and Joes. The game’s music is good and well composed, and fun to listen to as a soundtrack. But as game music, it comes off as more environmental and doesn’t really push you as hard. A lot of the songs are long and overly technical as opposed to just relying on a strong, catchy melody and a good beat. And why is there only one theme for the respective castle stages? This just seems entirely lazy. At least they’re some of the game’s stronger themes (if you haven’t realized, Mega Man 5 only starts getting good after you beat the eight Robot Masters).

All in all, you just get the feeling the developers really stopped caring with Mega Man 5. When you look at the first three games in the series, each one builds off the last and adds more content and ideas. But following Mega Man 4, it’s like Capcom decided, “This is enough for a Mega Man game. We don’t have to do anything more.” Evolution of the series became centered around adding useless features and using plot contrivances to make you believe Dr. Wily isn’t the real villain. Again, it’s not an awful game, but Mega Man 5 wastes a lot of its potential just being phoned in and cookie cutter, and that’s a major warning sign for any series.

Why did I pick this game?

I have a friend who swears up and down that this is his favorite classic Mega Man game of all time, and I really just can’t grasp why that is. Granted, it’s not like I’m discontent to let him sit with his opinion, but I’ve lately felt the urge to go back and analyze it to see if there’s something I’m really missing.

Besides that, as I mentioned, this was my first Mega Man game and I have fond experiences with it as a kid. I can even remember when I thought the game was pretty hard! It’s fascinating to me that a game that holds such strong nostalgic value really turns out to be one of the laziest Mega Man games ever made.

How does it hold up over time?

Honestly… pretty well. I mean yeah, it was a lazy, dumbed down Mega Man game, but it was always that. While I may be old enough now to realize how hollow so much of the game’s content is, it’s not like it’s any worse to play now. It’s still Mega Man. It still has tight, well-defined controls. It just doesn’t offer up much of an adventure to go with it. Unless you disliked this game back in 1992, it still holds up well now. It hasn’t aged any more than any other NES game in comparison to today’s high definition, throbbing polygon games.

Tags: 2d, action, capcom, Friday Old Games, Mega Man, Mega Man 5, NES, Nintendo, platformer

This entry was posted on Friday, December 31st, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.