Mega Man 6 A Retrospection
Systems Available: NES
Number of Players: single player
Publisher:Nintendo of America
Developer:Capcom
Release Date: March 1994
Genre:Action Adventure
Rating: 5 out of 5 , expect the usual 8-Bit Mega Man goodness, steadily becoming my favorite in the series
This latest installment in the blue bomber’s adventures takes place right after the events of the Mega Man 5. A very mysterious dude, who look a lot like Dr. Wiley with sunglasses on, puts together a robot death match tournament to see which robot manufacturer is the best in the world. Towards the end of the competition, Mr. X takes control of the final 8 robot competitors so he can take over the world. Dr. Light deploys Mega Man to save the world for the sixth time.
Game play is your standard Mega Man deal; side-scrolling platforming with loads of perilous jumps and maneuvers. Let’s not forget ,all the unique, fun and at times very unforgiving enemies. The gimmick here is the rock,paper, scissors aspect of the boss battles, this means that the ability you gain from one boss is specifically powerful against another boss and so forth. Logically there is an easy way to beat the game by defeating bosses in a certain order, but seeing that this installment is one of the easier of the franchise (and the fact that I am pretty awesome at everything I do) there was no need to do this in a certain order. I beat most these weather themed robots with the mega buster alone. You also gain different suits for good ol’ Mega. There is a power suit which allows you to break ice and rocks. There is also the jet pack which give the blue bomber the ability to fly for a short time. While wearing the suits you lose the ability to dash and to charge up your mega buster. This gives the player more choices on methods to beat bosses and levels. The level select is a pretty awesome feature;you can pick what order you defeat bosses in and it give you the option of going back and playing your favorite levels with new weapons and suits. There are several hidden E-tanks and BEAT pieces to find in levels.
Overall , Mega Man 6 is nothing new. Capcom seemed to have really fine tuned and polished all the different game play mechanics for this last installment in the 8-bit Mega Man series. The addition of the different suits and the BEAT bird are very cool and add the extra bonus that makes part 6 my favorite in the series. In this retro-nerd’s opinion, it is the easiest to pick up and play; any dedicated gamer can beat it in one sitting. My only gripe is that the rush jet is missing but the jet suit makes up for it…well at least a bit.
Bonus Panda-fact: Capcom had no intention of publishing this in the west. Nintendo of America went through the motions to have this published in North America, so this is technically a Nintendo game but not really. This installment is has never been released in PAL territories.
