When life gives you lemons, well you shoot them out of the end of your Mega Buster. Which I guess technically isn't the name of his arm cannon in this game but any who. Years ago the boys over there at Capcom decided that they wanted to make their own version of Metroid (OK not really, but still) so they made the blue bomber known as Mega Man. And released the game on December 17, 1987 on the NES, you know, for them holiday sales! Since then, Mega Man himself has been in a million different games, Super Smash Bros, and so much more. I mean could you live in a world without Mega Man Battle Network??? Awful scary thoughts aside, is the first Mega Man still a game worth playing nowadays or is it best left on the dead console its on? Well put on your helmet and get a super cool opening with technobabble (that's not in this game!) And find out with me if Mega Man is a mega man in this game!

{Story/Difficulty}
I think this game has an 'OK' story, I guess it depends on if you go off the story in the instruction Manuel, or the 'real' story. Something about Monsteroplois aside, I'll tell the story of Mega Man 1, and not a lot with the back story of everything as those points get explored more later in the games, and some things I don't think ever get explained, I've just learned it from videos and what not. The very base minimum story is that you are Mega Man, and you must destroy all these Robot Masters and stop Dr. Wiley. But when you get into the original Japanese plot and the American plot you see that they are kinda different. Going off a mixture of the two that I think makes the most sense is: Dr. Light and Dr. Wiley was old lab partners who even went to school together who helped create Rock and the 6 other robots. Eventually Dr. Wiley was upset with Dr. Light getting more of the credit than him, so he reprograms the other 6 to go mad and attack everyone. In response Dr. Light sorta remakes Rock into Mega Man, A.K.A. arm cannon and helmet, and probably more changes. With that, Mega Man goes and takes on all 6 Robot Masters :Cut Man, the bit oddly named Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man Fire Man and Ice (Ice Baby) Man. And that's really about the full plot of Mega Man 1, once you beat all 6 Robot Masters you take on Dr. Wiley and then he just gets away and that's the end! For being the first game in the series....... It's pretty bland really, for sure with how some later Mega Man games like the X series can get with their stories. But I guess it's OK, for how the rest of the Mega Man main games are, this is pretty baseline, for sure for like the next like 6 games. I've never really been a big fan of Dr. Wiley himself as a villain, he's always been pretty flat to me. I've always been a bit more for the Robot Masters who are usually even flatter, but at least look cool, but later games will have other bosses that aren't Robot Masters like Proto Man, who are interesting. But for this game, they are just good robots gone bad, same I suppose with Dr. Wiley. The game itself is fairly short honestly and the way they get you to play it longer than a few hours is by how haaaaaaaard this game is. This game is super hard, I feel from the beginning the game is really really hard, from the moment you press go I feel the challenge is great, up until you get your first boss weapon. Once you do that, then you just jump from Robot Master to Robot Master, in a certain order of boss weakness to boss weapons. It's a pretty hard but doable journey at that point. Until you get to Dr. Wiley then it's back to being super hard again. From the unforgiving jumps, to falling to your quick death from hitting a floating enemy lemon pellet. Everything will kill you in this game, then you gotta do the level over again and God help you if you game over in the boss fights! But really its getting to that point is the challenge, and with enough health for the attempt to be worth it. I'm not usually thinking of trying again later on a boss cuz it's hard, I just don't want to do the 10 minutes before it! Sometimes the enemies respawn too fast to keep pressing forward, especially in front of a pit. And the fact that you can only shoot right in front of you for like ALL the games ever is a bit odd, but for sure in this game it makes the ariel enemies hard to fight. Luckily you get weapons like the Rolling Cutters to handle stuff like that a bit easier. If you don't know if who take out first its Bomb Man, who's weapon kinda sucks in my opinion. Easily the hardest stage is the final stage but in terms of the 6 Robot Masters stage the hardest is obviously Ice Man with those disappearing blocks! And I think Elec Man can be a bit annoying as well and the less I talk about Guts Man and his platform sections! In terms of all the hard bosses they are in the last stage, the Doppelganger fight and the ever so hated Yellow Devil, just use the pause trick on him.Wily also isn't easy but if you got to him then you can beat him! So for the difficulty I'll give it a 8 out of 10. and for the story I'll give it a 1 out for 10.

{Graphics/Sound}
Mega Man is a fairly good looking game Mega Man himself looks great and so does the 6 Robot Masters, all look unique as well. I feel the levels also look unique and fairly memorable and they all have backgrounds as well, take that Metroid 1! I just feel that every game from Mega Man 2 on wards looks way better than this game. This game suffers from sprite flickering, so do later games but I really don't like it in this game that's for sure. And while all the levels in this game look pretty good, I feel like later games do a lot more in them. Like nothing really moves in the background or anything and there isn't a whole lot of 'secrets' in this game, most things are just there in the open waiting for you. And the lack of a slide or charge shot also impacts not only the level design but also how cool they can look I feel as well. I also like most of the weapons shot design as well, I really like Thunder Beam and Firestorm design. And in terms of the boss designs I ironically think that the Yellow Devil looks cool and IS a cool boss design, it was just horribly executed was all! I also really like Cut Mans and Elec Mans look as well. And Guts Man looks cute with his big ol' head and goofy looking face! Ill real quickly mention the fairly simple health bar of yellow dashes that run out when you take damage. Weapon ammo also looks the same but is color coordinated by different weapons. That's about it for how I feel about the look of Mega Man 1, how does it sound? Pretty good honestly, a lot of levels have great background themes, even though they aren't long songs, most are great to listen to. Guts Man is easily the best song in this game and I also easily think of Fire Man when I think best Mega Man 1 themes. But I know all of you really like that Dr. Wily level theme don't you! The ending theme is also pretty decent as well. And the sounds of the game are pretty OK as well, thankfully no annoying Mega Buster charged sounds in this game. But a lot of sounds are pretty nice, like landing a hit on a boss will forever be in my mind, as will the sound of me exploding into a million pieces. I also like the sounds of most of the boss weapons as well. Thankfully there isn't a sound of you being low on health so I'm eternally grateful. So for the sounds I'll give it a comfy 7 out of 10 and the graphics will also get a 7 out for 10.

{Addictive/Depth}
I personally don't go back to play Mega Man 1 much myself but that's because I suck at it. But I get the appeal for this game, I feel people either go back to this or Mega Man 2 for really really old Mega Man. Once you get your first boss weapons then your probably not going to want to put this game down until its done. Once that's over you'll probably pick it up again one day again to try a different boss order. I feel the roughness of this game and the over all difficulty makes this one harder to pick up then the others, for sure if you are used to the Slide and Mega Buster. But if you can get into that mindset then it can be an enjoyable experience. But usually I'll just pick this game up and play a few bosses then go do something else. The later games really give a bigger replay value in this one so I feel it's a bit harder to justify playing this game again if you've gotten used to the newer games. That's all I really have for the addictiveness of this game. How deep this game is though, well its about the same really. Just done better by the later games. For one the later games have 8 Robot Master then just 6. And on top of that, you don't use the weapons for much in this game then fighting other bosses with. Weapons like Guts Mans Super Arm can be used to pick up blocks, which can be moved in Elec Mans stage to get the Magnet Beam, which is needed for end game, but its still kinda of a secret right? Really the biggest depth for this game is the (what feels like) millions of different ways to replay the bosses. If you can knock down any of the bosses then you have a straightforward way of progressing. You knock down a different boss each time, that's 6 very specific playthoughs. Try to be a different boss then the next one you should and if you win, then a slightly alternate path is kinda born. I wouldn't say the replayability is endless in that way, but it's a pretty unique Rock-Paper-Scissors concept. Also some weapons affect the levels, like Ice mans Ice Slasher freezing the lava in Fire Mans stage. So there's a bit of that to play around with as well. All in all I'll give the depth of this game a 6 out of 10, and a 6 out of 10 for the addictiveness.

So Mega Man 1 really set the blueprints for just about every mainline and spin off series in the franchise! Kinda like how Rocks blueprints was used in the creation of Mega Man. So really this game is Rock and the March 2nd, 2006 PSP remake called Mega Man: Powered Up is Mega Man! No really the original Mega Man is indeed Mega Man, but that version is pretty good from what I hear and it has a lot more to offer as well as being on a handheld. Probably about as not cheap to get as a original copy of the original game as well! But if you haven't, I for sure say to pick up at least the first 2 Mega Man games, and then skip head to the later NOT NES games, or you know, don't if you don't like them. Either way I personally feel like Mega Man 1 is still a 8.1 game out of 10....... game. But until we meet again in this franchise, Rock on you Mega Man!