The game that started it all for the Blue Bomber known as Mega Man aka Rockman in Japan. Unlike its sequels to come, you start off fighting against six robots before going to face off against Dr. Wily who had reprogrammed them to wreak havoc on Monstertropolis so he can take over the world but we ain't having any of that are we?

 

The game's six bosses are (in order of creation): Cut Man – quick robot with clippers on his head that he tosses, Guts Man – big strong looking robot who tosses rocks and shakes the ground which momentarily stuns you, Ice Man – looks like an Eskimo who throws ice wedges in threes, Bomb Man – has a Mohawk and jumps around tossing bombs that only hurt if you're an inch away, Fire Man – has a torch on his head and sends walls of fireballs, and Elec Man – looks like a rip off of Flash but throws deadly bolts.

 
Graphics - A-

 

I really liked the graphics in the game though I honestly thought the color usage what a little bit too bland for some levels. Almost like some one took the colors and put a washed out filter on them. It was a good idea to have Mega Man change colors to match the weapon that he is currently using such as red & yellow for Fire Storm (from Fire Man) and blue & white for Ice Slasher (from Ice Man). 

 
Controls - A

 
The controls are very simple. What is good is if you think you jumped to far, you have time to steer yourself back in time in most situations. There's also that oh so famous select button cheat where if you fire a weapon each time you hit select to pause as the weapon hits then unpausing it will cause the same weapon to hit again as it passes through the enemy every time the game is unpause. I beat the game easily with this method. 

 

Gameplay - A-

 

Each robot is weak to another's weapon. This rock-paper-scissors concept would be another of the series niches.  In this first game, the boss weaknesses made sense. Guts Man > Cut Man (rock > scissors) - two hits, Cut Man > Elec Man (cut the wire) - three hits, Elec Man > Ice Man (electricity running through water) - three hits, Ice Man > Fire Man (ice melts into water and puts out fire) - seven hits, Fire Man > Bomb Man (fire lights fuse and bomb goes boom) - seven hits, and Bomb Man > Guts Man (dynamite blows up rocks or in this case construction worker) - three hits. The fat lady hasn't sung yet for Wily just yet. Now you got to fight through four more stages to get to him and one of those bosses you have to face is none other than the Yellow Devil who will be several more appearances within the franchise. Ironically, this version is the toughest of them all due to the lack of features to come and dodging the blob parts were a little bit tougher. 

 

Difficulty - 4

 

The game was in opinion the 2nd most difficult game in the series due to the lack of a password feature that would be introduced in Mega Man 2. The game also had what would eventually become useless features: points and score balls. Both of them would be taken out of the series after this game. You also lack the slide (introduced in Mega Man 3) and the charge shot (introduced in Mega Man 4). Both features would've made this game very easy. Also in this first game, if Mega Man's footing is taken from under him, he will plummet rapidly instead of fall down. This lead to easy deaths via pitfall or spikes. Speaking of spikes, you had no immunity against them even when you had just taken damage which normally rendered you temporarily immune to anything else until you recovered. The Guts Man fight was hell as he knocked you flat on your ass if you are on the ground when he lands from a jump. Capping off the difficulty is that you had to fight four of the six bosses in a row before taking on Wily. Luckily, if you died fighting Wily, you didn't have to fight those four again.

 
Sound/Music - B+

 
The soundtrack in my opinion is a little so-so. The only theme that really wasn't good in my opinion was Guts Man's. It was too redundant and too short, it gets extended when Mega Man: Power Fighters comes out. The rest of the robot bosses on the other hand were awesome. Fire Man and Ice Man's fit their stages to a T. Elec Man's theme sounds inspired by a number of radio songs like "All the Right Friends" by REM & "Faithfully" by Journey, Cut Man's sounds Latino-influenced and Bomb Man's has a little bit of Rome-based influence.

 
Replay Value - A+
 

No doubt about it, this game is addictive as they come. First time players will be addicted to it because they will be experimenting how well the bosses' weapons have an effect on other enemies including bosses and get a chance to use them for other purposes. Ice Slasher for example can be used to freeze flames in place to use as platforms and it can also be used to freeze enemies for you to switch to another weapon to kill them. It don't work on bosses though.

 
Overall - A

 
Here's a fun fact: Did you know that Capcom had only planned to make one Mega Man game and that was it? It would have been that way until Keiji Inafune started drawing up concepts for a sequel called Mega Man 2 and the people of Capcom decided to give the game the green light under the condition that Inafune helped produced some of Capcom's other games. With that being said, I myself had a great time playing this game and it was fortunate that although this game did not warrant a sequel, one was made and guess what? It was that game that marked the beginning of Mega Man craze just like how Street Fighter 2 would do the same for it's franchise. Fight on, Mega Man. Fight for everlasting peace.