Soooooo what'cha playing?

[Lyn]

Stardew Valley. Built a coop on the beach farm. I'm now collecting materials for a barn. 

[vanguard333]

I recently bought "SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated" because it was on sale and I remembered liking it on the GameCube when I rented it once over a decade ago. It's far from the most polished 3D collectathon platformer ever made, but it was a fair bit of fun, and I was enjoying it; then I encountered a very major bug...

There's a bug that will randomly make your progress unable to be manually saved. That would seem like not too much of a problem as the game seemingly has autosave, but the autosave only records where SpongeBob currently is for if you run out of HP or fall off a ledge; despite being called an autosave by the game, it does not save the game. As a result of this bug combined with the misleading autosave, I lost a lot of progress, and I'm not exactly eager to keep playing a game that at any moment can decide it won't let me save my progress. 

Naturally, I looked online and found that I was far from the only person to encounter this bug, with there even having been some who encountered it the day the game released and expected a day-one patch to fix it. I do not know how a major bug like this one has gone unfixed for as long as it has. I can understand wanting to preserve the kinds of glitches that don't break the game and that speedrunners love, but this is not that kind of glitch at all. I honestly think this kind of bug is worse than a game crashing; at least a crash happens immediately and tells you right away where the game abruptly decided to just give up working.

I think it's safe to say that, if I hadn't bought the game when it was on sale, I'd be demanding my money back.

Edited August 10, 2021 by vanguard333

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I recently finished a replay of Castle in the Darkness. It's one of my favorite indie games, with numerous references to various NES games to go along with its retro aesthetic. Finding chicken in a wall, fighting enemies that look suspiciously like Double Dragon's Abobo or Ghosts n Goblins' Firebrand. Even one of the levels opens with the classic Final Fantasy 1-6 base riff. The game is particularly challenging, with the level design relying on instant kill spikes much more as it goes on. I've heard some people refer to this game as a metroidvania, but I'd say it's more like I Wanna be the Guy, or Cave Story. Unlike those games, the levels are technically interconnected, but your relationship to them does not evolve as you gain more abilities. Backtracking to previous levels is purely just for the player to hunt for secrets, and never necessary for progression beyond one instance that I can recall. Imagine if Zelda 2's final dungeon was accessed from within the very first dungeon. Would the game suddenly be a Metroidvania? 

Anyway this game is wonderful. I replayed it for the purposes of 100%ing the game, however I hit a rather common bug preventing that from happening. My game file is stuck at 99%, despite having collected all the items and beating all the bosses. The game even tracks everything, so I know I haven't misjudged my progress. I checked online for solutions to the problem. Once upon a time, somebody made a mod that fixes the issue, but it no longer seems to be distributed and my only recourse is to download somebody else's 100% save file. Pass. I'll just watch the true ending on youtube instead. Despite this mishap, I still love the game and eagerly await news of the sequel that was announced two years ago.

I also picked Grand Theft Auto Vice City out of the backlog. Like the rest of the PS2 trilogy, I grew up with the game but this is the only one I never finished. I think I can see why. Eventually the game stops giving you main missions. To unlock the ending, you need to buy various businesses (called "assets) across the game world and do their associated side missions. The game never spells out that these aren't optional and you must complete almost all of them to access the final mission. I can see myself having missed this when I was younger. Purchasing the assets is itself kind of annoying (you need to physically explore every street corner to see what you can buy in the first place, since they aren't marked on your map) And the only way to get money from your assets is pay a large up front fee, do their mission, and only then can you passively earn money from owning that property. The money has to be collected physically from the job site, you can't just claim it automatically or conveniently from your safehouse. As a result of these mechanics, the player is in great need of all the money they can get midway through the game, and eventually has more money then they could feasibly spend by the end because of how late your investments pay off. 

Vice City is a firmly okay game. I played the Steam version, and its PC controls are far more convenient than what I was treated to on PS2. You can manually aim all weapons, rather than rely on a clunky auto aim and almost non existent camera control. At least on foot. While in a car, the control felt severely lacking without the ability to turn the camera. I've seen gameplay online of people able to do this, but I couldn't figure out what settings I needed to switch in order to gain this ability. The PC version has several missing songs, due to expired licensing contracts no doubt. I looked at lists online, but I know they must be partially false on account of me still hearing Michael Jackson when I was playing. Among PS2 era GTA, I'd say Vice City has the most half baked ideas in terms of gameplay, but probably the best sense of style by relying on timeless 70s/80s aesthetics and references. The game's main mission have you reenacting the finale of Scarface not once but twice. But the game designers opted not to include any songs from that film's legendary soundtrack. Puzzling. Doing some more research, I found it was actually GTA 3 where they dumped all of those songs, and I guess they didn't want any repeats no matter how appropriate they may be.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Glennstavos

[vanguard333]

Well, I decided to go back to Monster Hunter Stories 2.

Right away, there is a ton to love about the game; I love how the player character can actually ride the monsters to navigate the game's overworld, I like how the game rewards not just experience points but also monster parts whenever you win against a wild monster, and I really enjoy the depth to the combat. That said, I do have a few smaller issues:

I like retrieving and hatching eggs to get more monsties. However, one result of this is that every new monstie starts at level 1. In Pokémon for example, since you're catching the wild Pokémon, they are (ideally) at around your team's level when you catch them, so it will not take too long for them to catch up to the rest of your team. If you hatch an egg late-game but want to use it on your story team, it will take a long time for it to get near the team's level. The game tries to mitigate this through exp-multipliers for monsties that are behind the player-character's level, and it does help, but it is still an issue.

Another small issue I have is that it is really easy to end up over-leveled. I am not going out of my way to grind; the closest I've come to level-grinding is that I try to complete all the sidequests and everdens (and for the first part of the game, I didn't notice the "retreat" option at the very bottom of the combat screen), but I still found myself quickly ending up over-leveled. Nargacuga's stealth was great for mitigating this to some extent as it meant avoiding battles more easily, but I have so many powerful monsties that use speed attacks that I ended up removing it from my team for a while, bringing me right back to square one.

As I've proceeded further into the game, I've begun to wonder if experience points and levels are really necessary for this game. Incentive to take part in the combat already exists through monster parts and getting monsters to retreat to their dens so you can obtain an egg, the experience system means that royal monsters like Tigrex and Monoblos become less threatening after just two areas and already need more powerful variations, it increases the hassle in adding new monsties to your team, etc. I don't see much value in the exp system being in this game; I honestly think that it (and a number of other RPGs as well) could easily be just as good (and possibly even better) without it.

[Reality]

Command and Conquer 3 : Tiberium Wars

Me and a friend both claimed that it was our favorite game in the series and my revisit is going okay, except for one thing... the Zoom-Out distance feels AWFUL compared to C&C 1 or Red Alert. I'm probbaly going to have to look into mods to deal with it if I want to keep on (forcing the spectator camera into singleplayer etc). Problem affecting both story missions and skirmish mode.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

This week I sat down to play Axiom Verge 2, my third most anticipated game of the year behind No More Heroes 3 and Metroid Dread.

Spoiler

The sound mixing is definitely off. I recommend toning down sound effects before starting the game. Their loud 8-bit-ness tends to clash with the vibrant arranged music of the overworld areas. For the first hour or two, I wasn't feeling the game. It wasn't introducing any cool ideas off the bat beyond the drone stuff we had already seen before in the previous game. But then something happens to your character, and your moveset starts getting fleshed out with more tools for traversal. I was definitely stuck on where to go, but I was scanning the map for unexplored corners, getting from there to elsewhere in a flash due to incredibly lenient fast travel and dimension hopping, and I was just having a blast exploring the game world. I eventually looked up where I was supposed to go, and the answer was to use a particular power in the room where I got it. That sounds like pretty standard stuff for a metroidvania, but this particular power's description gives you no indication that you should use it right then and there. It simply allows you to exit the breach from anywhere. But you won't know until you use it that it takes you to a corresponding part of the Overworld - and that this is going to be your newest method of accessing closed off areas. I didn't use the power immediately for the simple reason that there was still unexplored rooms nearby and I wanted to be thorough before leaving. Once I used that ability in the precise location the game wanted me to, I didn't get stuck ever again, and it was a fairly straight shot to the end. You could probably beat this game in just a few hours on your first playthrough if you manage to not get stuck and resist the allure of exploring the world. It took me over nine hours, by the way.

When Axiom Verge 2 was getting more trailers this year, it was seemingly shaped to be more of a castlevania than a metroid game - unlike its predecessor due to the shift from guns to melee combat and taking place in a less alien-seeming setting. I'm happy to report this isn't a SOTN clone. The game does not feature experience or farming of any kind. Enemies are best avoided, but they'll chase you quite far and possibly outrun you if you just beeline for the exit. It's up to the player to judge if the enemies need to be dealt with in order to cross the area or hunt for secrets unscathed. That to me is very Metroid. It also seems to once again hide it's fullest ending behind map and item completion, as well as your play time. Suffice to say I got the map threshold, but not the other two, so I only got a part of the true ending. Beyond the more dangerous enemies, there's not a whole lot of focus on fights. The game doesn't even have traditional bosses. There are two "boss" fights I encountered on the main story path, but both of them had no penalty for death, you just pick up right where you left off in the middle of the fight. Within the game world however there are some giant creatures that feel more appropriate to be called Bosses. They are entirely optional, and just reward you skill points - the same thing you're primarily rewarded with when exploring. The skill tree is loaded with great stuff for combat, but when you realize combat is not the focus of the game you start turning to hacking related skills. I even managed to do a small sequence break by improving my hacking range enough to open a door from the opposite side.

In a lot of ways Axiom Verge 2 surprised me. Despite the 2 in the name, there isn't a lot of connection to the first game,. Just a name drop here or there, and some common themes (like a snarky protagonist with an iffy moral past). I sense the creator wanted to make more than an iterative sequel. However I often felt this lingering void where your typical boss encounters would go. Boss fights aren't just fun for the sake it, they're an important tool to pace the player's exploration. A set piece to cap off a particular area. I'm sure most fans of this genre would tell you that combat is an integral element of the experience. The current poster boy for Metroidvanias is still Hollow Knight, and there is a game that champions combat almost to the exclusion of its other elements. To forego a focus on combat feels kind of blasphemous for this genre, so I can see why reactions to the game have been pretty divisive. Even I don't expect to lock down what I do and don't like in this game any time soon. All I know is that the game really picked up for me after a few hours in. Believe me, I'm annoyed by people saying games "get better" when they in fact have the same gameplay at hour 30 that they do at hour 3, but Axiom Verge 2 really does evolve as it goes on.

 

Another game I recently picked up was Blaster Master Zero 3, however I decided instead to cap off a game I've been playing on and off for over a month now. Nexomon: Extinction.

Spoiler

 

It's a pokemon clone, and it's pretty damned good. To begin with, it's completely open map. There is only one major region of the world that I believe the player cannot access after the opening tutorial. Invisible plot walls do exist, but typically only for individual rooms that become plot important later in the game. I spent many hours hanging around areas I had no business being in. My recommendation though is to advance the story enough that you unlock fast travel, before doing a full tour of the world. The way the game facilitates its openness is through level scaling. Wild Nexomon and trainer battles scale entirely based on story progress (and maybe also your team's average level? Nobody seems to know). Since wild nexomon scale with you so consistently, you can freely swap new additions in and out of your team if that suits your playstyle. However, I imagine most Pokemon players are used to catching pokemon they like and sticking with them for the whole game. If that's you, then I recommend picking out just 3 or 4 guys you like the most for most of the game in order to cut down on grinding them up individually to a reasonable level. Then have recently captured meat shields for your other party slots. Have them take a beating while you distribute items to the rest of your team. Experience is not plentiful, even with experience boosting cores, so maintaining a full party of 6 is very time consuming to be doing throughout the game. As for me I kept it to five party members and one meat shield.

Even with a good strategy, this game kicked my ass whenever I try to blast away with my strongest moves like in a Pokemon game. You aren't rewarded with a free switch opportunity after every KO, so choosing when to swap or use an item is crucial. Against individual Tyrants, I was forced to potion up every turn until they ran out of stamina and I could safely fight back. Eventually one of my guys obtained not only a recovery move but a stamina leeching move that made the process more efficient. This strategy worked wonders until the Final Boss who was immune to it. This would be pretty exhilarating stuff if this were a Hard mode, or one of the many Pokemon fangames/ROM hacks that attempt to deliver a challenging experience, but this game has no difficulty settings. The level scaling is so intense that I imagine it would turn away most casual players, or guys like me that just detest grinding.

And that's a shame because there's good ideas in here. Moves not only have base power, but also base speed and crit rates to consider. You can feed wild Nexomon to improve their catch rate. There are several, optional key items that improve parameters like Experience gain, the rate at which rare Nexomon appear, or guarantee your ability to run from battle. I like that status inflicting or buffing/debuffing moves are saved for the mid to late game. No generic Tail Whips or Sand Attacks wasting your time in the early game, instead it's an all out slug fest. I like that every trainer can be rematched once a bit of time has passed. I like that every trainer's eye sight can be carefully avoided, so if you want to do a world tour at the start of your playthrough you can skip the battling entirely. I think it's smart to openly display what type every Nexomon is so that the player can start deciding immediately if they should switch to a better matchup. I also notice there's extremely few moves in a Nexomon's moveset that aren't correlating with its type, and the enemy AI will also switch after spending at least one turn in a losing matchup.

As for the plot, it's really good. Great set ups and payoffs. The world's lore is dense and the characters are believable. The dialogue breaks the fourth wall a ton, but almost always in a way that's extremely clever or relatable. Seriously, this is not my style of humor and I laughed hard at some of these dialogue exchanges. I also loved how the Tyrants (this game's version of Legendaries) play active roles in the story as antagonists, but you can't catch them until the post game. I do have some gameplay nitpicks beyond the level scaling and lack of difficulty selection. Experience is earned after battle, rather than after a KO, so you need to make sure your guys are revived by the end to collect their experience. The status inflicting moves are also pretty terrible on average. A move that does no damage, has a 35% chance to inflict a status that only lasts 3 or 4 turns and doesn't guarantee that the opponent won't hit you? Pass. It's also annoying that catching nexomon doesn't award you with experience like the later pokemon games do. That's unfortunate, since obviously catching is more difficult than KOing, and I didn't feel particularly rewarded for filling out my pokedex. I also really miss the pokedex feature that tells you where you can catch nexomon that you've seen. This game's pokedex does tell you when a nexomon evolves, but that's pretty much the one feature it has over the usual pokedex and it's not a great trade. And since all the enemies scale to be at least as tough as you, you're always retreating back to the previous free heal and I just wish your pokemon would be fully healed after a fight just so we wouldn't have that extra step.

 

 

[Fabulously Olivier]

Guild Wars 2 has taken up most of my time lately. I've returned for the upcoming expansion after a multi year break. It remains my most played game of all time at over 6.2k hours.

[Samz707]

Desperados III

A pretty good Western Real-Time Tactics (So Stealth RTS essentially) game.

It improves a good bit on the original Desperados Games which were inspired by the Commandos series.

For anyone unaware of the Genre, you control around 3-6 (Depending on the game and level) characters with their own abilities and use them to sneak around, such as placing distractions (Such as the Sniper Character, Doc Mccoy placing down a Doctor's bag with a gas trap inside or a character in the Original Desperados placing down a Flask of Tequilla.) and tools to deal with enemies. (Such as Gas Bombs or Dynamite.) and sometimes outright combat with weapons. 

Desperados 3 has a "Showdown" mode that lets you pause the action to select a bunch of actions that you can then have carried out with a single input. (such as two characters knocking out two enemies next to each other simultaneously, this existed in prior games but only III and the last game, Helldorado actually had it pause time.) 

Surprisingly Celica's VA, Erica Lindbeck actually voices the Spy-ish character, Kate O'Hara, so flirty Irish Celica wasn't exactly something I was expecting.

[henrymidfields]

So I just finished playing CF (and my first run in Three Houses) and it was worth the 120 hours I ended up spending.

Spoiler

 

I so loved the finishing cutscene where Byleth and Edelgard finished Rhea. The whole journey in general and this cutscene in particular felt so personal in their convictions and camaraderie, it is as if Edelgard finally found her long lost sister at the light of the end of her tunnel away from her past tragedy. And this is where Byleth finally becomes fully human too - I know her ending card depicts it as a bad thing, yet I can't help think it is a curse that has been unwound from her.

And the proposal scene after that is truly a celebration of their time together. Of two strong women who got their hands dirty fighting systematic injustice and revolutionize the country for deomcracy, and even took pride in their convictions. If that doesn't make them two of my favorite protagonists, I don't know what would.

The only downside now is...I'm not looking forward to oppose her in my inevitable next playthroughs of VW and AM. (I'm skipping SS.)

 

 

[vanguard333]

Well, I just 100% completed SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated. It's not the most refined or polished 3D platformer ever made, but it is a fun 3D platformer overall, and I quite enjoyed all the different references to various episodes of SpongeBob.

…Oh, and I completed the story mode for Monster Hunter Stories 2 before doing this; I forgot to mention that earlier. Now, I'm just trying to decide: should I do some of the postgame for Stories 2, or should I go back to Three Houses and finish the routes that I haven't finished yet?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

No More Heroes 3 is probably the most divisive game to have come out this year. Both in terms of critical response and fan response, I've seen reactions all over the map, and I don't think it's a proper Suda game unless it's prompting that full range of reactions. Spoilered for length, not because of spoilers.

Spoiler

Suffice to say I landed in the Love It category. Of course it's not that I don't see issues with the game, I see plenty. As I do with any game that gets me invested enough to notice. If you compare NMH3 to other high-class action games like Bayonetta or DMC5, the blemishes start to appear. Occasionally enemies will attack you when they're not currently on screen (in particular the sword wielding ones with the jump attack). and Travis' death glove abilities run on a cooldown with no way to speed it up through skillful play. I have pointed out both of these issues as "action game sins" before in other games. Furthermore there are so many particle effects when cleaving through enemies that you can legitimately lose sight of your character and the enemies. And there's also no I frames when taking a hit, so if you're unlucky you can be killed in mere moments if the enemies randomly coordinate a dangerous salvo of attacks. The game's pretty challenging in its own right, or tries to be. Enemy design is much bulkier and more threatening than the fodder of the first two games, and you need to respect them in order to get through unscathed. I died probably twenty times across my Bitter (Normal) difficulty playthrough, but 100% of those deaths are because I was too stubborn to use health items. Probably because they felt kind of cheap. There's no animation of Travis eating the sushi to restore his health, nor any restriction on where or how often you can eat. Sushi is cheap, and you have plenty of opportunities to stock up. And as long as you do, you're carrying more than enough to tank your way through a fight with minimal skill. 

So the battle system isn't rock solidly perfect, but still above average for the genre, and definitely the best we've been treated to in this series. It's varied, it looks and feels good, and despite how sushi works you could argue it's exactly as challenging as the player wants it to be. I miss the hand to hand combat from 2, but intentionally inflicting stuns is still very possible in this game, and there's more reason to use wrestling moves since it recharges your battery. Really though it's the enemy variety that keeps combat from feeling samey. One change I'm still not sure of is the removal of proper levels. In this game, you have to do Designated fights around the game world in non descript rooms in order to unlock the next boss battle. But most of the time there's no level associated with that boss. I didn't really feel the loss while playing, but one could argue it makes the antagonists less developed when we don't see more of what their world looks like. On the other hand though, I'm happy the game doesn't adhere to a rigid, predictable structure. Especially in the latter half when you're starting to get used to the flow of the game, the game will expertly time a curveball at you. Sometimes spelling out exactly what the player expects will happen next before subverting that expectation. 

Side Jobs return, and they're very fun minigames to break up the pace of battles. But even though you have to pay to unlock the next ranked fight like in the first game, I never found myself having to grind. I got all the money I needed from the mandatory designated fights. Maybe I was just doing too well in them. Getting an S rank at the end of a fight depends mostly on how much damage you took, and while you can't replay these fights, the bonus in money and exp for a high rank seemed significant. Speaking of, I love that character upgrades are tied to experience, which is rewarded for every activity, not just fighting. In the first game, you had to spend the same money on upgrades that you did on progressing the game, resulting in a ton of grinding that padded out the play time. Having experience as a separate currency cuts the grinding down to near zero, letting the player go at their own pace.

My favorite part of No More Heroes 3 are these recurring cutscenes. You'll have two characters (Heroes or villains) sitting around, eating, drinking, talking about fond memories, or just things they like. A lot of it is inconsequential dialogue, but it's where the heart of the game is at. It's what connects you to these characters. It reminds you that beyond the zaniness and incoherent power levels, these are still people at the end of the day. I wasn't expecting that from a game in this series. I wish I could say I wholly enjoyed the time spent with our good guy characters, almost all of whom are returning from previous games. See, No More Heroes was never big on continuity, and ret cons have always been frequent. But even so, when a character shows up with a new voice, appearance, or personality, it can be very distracting. And I would prefer to soak in this game's story without such distractions. It's actually the core reason why I recommend those new to the series just jump straight ahead to this game. Having played previous entries will only raise more questions than answers, trust me.

Wow, I can just go on and on about this game huh? NMH3 is great. It's currently my GOTY no question. Will Metroid topple it? I'm excited to find out. God the ending is the hardest I've laughed at anything in a long time. This game is a work of art. It's a small miracle that something like this can get made without compromises from a major publisher. Travis Strikes Again was the game that first made me feel that maybe Suda's got some brilliant ideas in that head of his, but this is the game that made me a fan.

[Anathaco]

My younger brother and I went halves on LEGO Marvel Superheroes 2, and it’s been… an experience. Probably one of the most outright flawed games I’ve experienced in a while, but at the same time there’s a kind of cheesy fun to it, as with most LEGO games. It’s been good to do something that reminds me so heavily of my childhood, at least.

I’m also replaying Blue Lions on a fresh Maddening run and. Well. It’s been a typical Maddening experience.

[Reality]

Custom Robo Battle Revolution (The Gamecube one)

Playing online only for tournament practice.... my full thoughts on the state of Custom Robo Netplay are complicated by A: being on the balance council, and B: Hating the community patch that has become the new standard C : there being no counter argument to how broken and imbalanced the vanilla game is. Availabiity of players is a bit of an issue, because it is hard to get worthwhile practice against people other than other members of the top 10 to be blunt.

Wizardpunk (Indie game based on Custom Robo)

Should have been labeled more clearly as an early Alpha / Early Access for its Steam launch. Compared to Ionaxxia it's barely a demo. I also think that the "endurance gauntlent" setup of the game is one negative that will never go away - on the one hand it prevents me from binging, but I think Custom robo is interesting because of mix of playstyles, while with the health carryover for ALL battles Wizardpunk encourages campyiness above all else for preserving your HP. Has many other problems but most of them will probbably be removed, but the gauntlent thing is intentional so I can't really be that positive with my long term prospect.

[vanguard333]

After hearing a lot of good things about it, I decided to purchase the Megaman Legacy Collection.

I have never really played classic Megaman before; it was before my time and I was a lot more interested in the Battle Network series. The closest I came to playing classic Megaman was by playing a spin-off called Megaman & Bass on the Gameboy Advance. That game was rather fun, though it was extremely difficult (and often in very unfair ways), so I can say that I have wanted to try classic Megaman for a while, if only just to see if Megaman & Bass' difficulty was the exception rather than the rule.

I figured that it only made sense to play the games in order, so I started with Megaman 1. If it's anything to go by, then Megaman & Bass' difficulty was the rule rather than the exception. If it weren't for the collection including a rewind feature, it would've been a gimmicky and frustrating nightmare of saving every five seconds and repeatedly loading the previous save until I got it correct. You really can tell that it's the first game in the series.

That said, I kept playing, so either there's something about it that makes it really enjoyable in spite of its unfairness, or there's something wrong with me. …Hopefully it's the former. (This is just a joke). There is definitely a lot to like about the game.

I also like how the collection includes a database listing all the enemies and their weaknesses; normally for an old game, I'd have to look up that stuff online. Having it right there in the collection is quite useful. The concept art is also neat, though as a newcomer, I'm probably not as interested in that stuff as a longtime fan would be. I also probably won't be trying the challenge modes either, as that stuff is probably also more meant for the longtime fans. 

Overall, even from first impressions, I can clearly see why this collection is so highly regarded. Personally, I'd love to see a Megaman Battle Network Legacy Collection or Star Force Legacy Collection that has this much content and extra features.

[Lord_Brand]

Ah yes, I played through the Classic Collection myself a while back. Beat all ten games, then went on to play through 11 again on top of that.

Some of the challenges can be fun, while others can be frustrating. I don't mind the Robot Master boss rush challenges myself, at least the ones that let you use Special Weapons (the buster-only challenges can be a chore; I've yet to beat the MM8 buster-only rush, in fact).

One thing to be aware of: Many of the challenges in Part 1 use this full-screen "slow flashing" effect that is painful to the eyes. Seriously, if you or anyone in your household is prone to epileptic seizure, do NOT play those challenges, especially at night. Same goes for most of the fortress stages. The NES Mega Man games really liked full-screen flashing, almost as if the developers wanted to cause seizures or something. The least they could have done is include ample warnings, or to give us a means of turning the damn flashing off. Thankfully, Part 2 uses a much less abusive transition effect in the form of a tiling animation, which I really wish they'd used for both Parts.

I'll tell you what: Anyone who says Mega Man 7 is too easy hasn't tried taking on the Robot Masters, the Fortress bosses, or especially Wily without E-Tanks. Those bosses were designed with the idea that you'd have a ton of tanks to burn through, allowing you to damage race the bosses. No such luck in the challenges. Wily Machine & Capsule is downright infuriating, since it takes a full 30 seconds for the match to start each time (and there will be a lot of resets). And you have to go through the Wily Machine and Capsule in one go. The Machine takes up a stupid amount of time and the Capsule requires near-perfect reflexes and timing to dodge those projectiles. I haven't even completed it yet, and instead went on to tackle the X and Zero/ZX collections. It's that frustrating.

Also, I'm gonna go on the record here and say that MM2 and MM3 are severely overrated. Are they iconic and significant to the series? Yes. Are they riddled with frustrating design flaws and, in 3's case, useless padding? Also yes. Truth be told, I count them in the lower half of the mainline series, just above 1. Here's my rating for the 11 core entries, in case anyone's curious:

Spoiler

1. Mega Man 9 - Gave us Splash Woman and the best selection of Special Weapons in the series hands down. Not to mention this brought the shop and item systems back to a sensible place after 8 ruined them. I also love the ending, showing the Robot Masters being rebuilt and reverted to their benevolent programming. Proto Man being playable via DLC is neat, but he doesn't get any cutscenes, he for some reason gets to use the slide and charge shot while Mega Man doesn't, and his shield only works while he is jumping which I think is really stupid. I'm frustrated by the fact we got Hornet Man instead of Honey Woman, as that would have meant a second female Robot Master. For that matter I probably would have made the Jewel Robot Master female as well, bringing the number up to three. (Check out these Jewel Woman fan designs for an idea of what that could have looked like. I personally think they look better than Jewel Man himself.)
2. Mega Man 11 - Modernized the series after 9 and 10's step backwards into 8-bit, and gave Mega the charge shot and slide back. The shop system is improved, and even does upgrade parts right. The Double Gear System is ridiculously cool, and I hope it becomes a staple of the series going forward. I also like having another ending that shows the Robot Masters being rebuilt and celebrating with the heroes. The only real flaws here are the lack of Proto Man and Bass, though the former at least gets a mention in one of the enemy bios. I also wish 11 had introduced some new female Robot Masters. Quite frankly, though the weapons are pretty good overall, the Robot Master designs in this game don't impress me much.
3. Mega Man 4 - Ironed out the weirdness going on with 2 and 3's weakness cycles, and gave us a solid selection of Special Weapons overall, not to mention some of the coolest-looking Robot Masters. There's even an animated intro cutscene! The only feature really missing from this game is the shop system, and that can be excused by the fact the games that introduced the shop system came out later.
4. Mega Man 7 - One of the cooler entries between the Robot Masters, the Super Adapter, and Bass' introduction. Even the intro has extra punch. The introduction of the shop system is a godsend.
5. Mega Man 10 - The intro has a good feeling of urgency to it, and the music overall isn't bad. The fact that Proto Man is now playable from the get-go and Bass returns as DLC, with all of the above getting their own story scenes, is also a plus, though I hate the fact that Proto Man still gets the slide and charge shot while Mega doesn't, Proto Man's shield still only works while jumping, and Bass is stuck with multi-directional rapid fire like he had in MM&B which I feel would work better for Proto Man if it has to be used at all. Like 11 above, I hate that 10 went back to an all-male cast of Robot Masters after 9 gave us Splash Woman.
6. Mega Man 6 - The "around the world" premise is a really cool theme, and Knight Man is one of my all-time favorite Robot Masters. The Power Adapter and Jet Adapter are novel replacements for Rush Coil and Rush Jet, though having to pause to use them feels tedious.
7. Mega Man 5 - Mostly just a meh entry, though the Robot Masters are cool, especially Stone Man and Napalm Man. Sadly, the majority of the Special Weapons aren't half as cool, indeed 5 has one of the worst selections in the series overall, tying with 1 and 3. They made Rush Coil look and play far worse here, and I'm glad they never brought 5's version back.
8. Mega Man 8 - The game looks great, and the Special Weapons are a functional mix, but dear gods does this game frustrate me with its awful shop and item systems. The Rush Coil is removed in order to give Mega Ball and Tornado Hold a purpose, Rush Jet is restricted to two shmup sequences while we're stuck with the crappy Rush Cycle (why wasn't that used in place of the snowboard?), E-Tanks and W-Tanks are nowhere to be seen (forcing us to rely on Rush Question and Rush Charger for midbattle refills), Eddie and Beat are reduced to powerups for the shmup segments, there aren't enough Bolts to purchase all the upgrade parts, you can't change parts out...honestly, bad voice acting is the least of this game's problems. This game was a terrible way to celebrate the series' 10th Anniversary. Also, I think it sucks they never brought back the Super Adapter for Mega Man, even though Bass gets to use his for his boss fight in 8 and as a powerup in Bass and 10.
9. Mega Man 2 - Boobeam Trap and Alien Wily require Crash Bomber and Bubble Lead to defeat with no way to refill the latter except to get a game over, and the endgame is plagued by screen flashing whenever you damage Mecha Dragon, Guts Tank, or Alien Wily, not to mention whenever you see the Fortress screen transition.
10. Mega Man 3 - Take Mega Man 2's problems and add a bisected Robot Master weakness cycle with a 5-3 split, a weak selection of Special Weapons with two that prevent you from pausing the game, and needless padding in the form of the Doc Robots. Honestly, the first game must be crap in order for 2 and 3 to be considered improvements.
11. Mega Man 1 - It's the first game and was made on a very strict budget, so naturally it's the most barebones and unimpressive of the lot. The game's biggest flaw is the fact you need Magnet Beam to advance through the Factory, and getting that requires either the Super Arm or Thunder Beam to break the blocks in Elec Man's stage (don't ask me why the Hyper Bomb can't do the job, I don't know why the devs didn't think of that either). This game also has the most lopsided Special Weapon selection of the series, with one really good weapon (Thunder Beam), three okay weapons (Rolling Cutter, Ice Slasher, Fire Storm) and two crappy weapons (Super Arm and Hyper Bomb). Even though this game is on the bottom of my list, I'm still more lenient towards it since it's the first game, and truth be told it doesn't frustrate me as much as 2, 3, and 8. The fact I consider it the worst by default means its flaws aren't as ostentatious to me as those of 2, 3, and 8.

I'd really like to see a Legacy Collection for Dr. Wily's Revenge, II-V, Bass, and Xtreme 1 and 2. It's kinda surprising they didn't put those on the Classic or X Legacy Collections. But maybe they plan on remastering or remaking those eventually?

Edited September 8, 2021 by Lord_Brand

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Over a month ago Blaster Master Zero 3 released, but I unceremoniously kicked it down the road in favor of the surprise release of Axiom Verge 2, and later No More Heroes 3, among some other spur of the moment backlog dives. I was similarly surprised to hear that Psychonauts 2 was released to extremely high critical acclaim. And with Metroid Dread coming out in a month, I figured it was time to finally play the finale to this trilogy before I've forgotten about it entirely. Spoilered for length, not because of plot spoilers.

Spoiler

Blaster Master Zero has been good to me after all. The first one was the first game I played on my switch since my copy of Breath of the Wild arrived a day late - And I enjoy playing it more than Breath of the Wild too. These games also represent some serious pedigree. Sunsoft, the creators of the NES original, go down as some of the most genuinely talented designers of this type of game in the 80s, and the Blaster Master IP was later bought by Inti Creates, some of the most genuinely talented designers of this type of game in the present. That's a rare match made in heaven.

Like any metroidvania, I got stuck a lot, but rarely the hopeless sort of stuck to warrant a google search. Once you nab the area map, it will highlight some rooms which are suddenly passable with a new ability, and the room you need to reach contains a red marker. And in true Blaster Master fashion, dialogue often clues the player in when it's time to leave the current area and backtrack to a previous one in order to progress. The thing that did get me was acquiring a new traversal-based ability, but not understanding what it does based on the in-game description. I don't think an example of what the ability can do was provided in the immediate vicinity where I got it, which definitely seems like a level design oversight. In particular I'm talking about being able to "swim" in a substance that earlier in the game would have killed you instantly if you touched it. I didn't know that's what the game was referring too, and I obviously wasn't about to touch it for the sake of experimentation because it represented an instant kill zone. So that was definitely a necessary google search. Another annoyance was that the game's checkpoints won't update status until you've activated a different checkpoint and then came back. Checkpoints will remember how many shield hit points you had, but say you left to go get more, you can't just update that checkpoint by reactivating the same one. That got pretty annoying during the true ending sequence.

The game's difficulty felt very all over the place. Particularly the fights when you're in the tank. Some of them gave me some trouble, but several others barely put up a fight as I identified a safe spot in the room to shred their health from. Further leading to this inconsistency is the dungeon design. I'm not sure from my one playthrough exactly to what degree it is, but a lot of the room layouts are randomly generated. Not only does this make the level design and enemy placements seem less curated, I would occasionally find the same room I've been in before, then take a nervous glance at my map to confirm that I didn't already explore this dungeon. And then there are the disposable shield items scattered throughout the game. These are the most common collectible you'll be rewarded with when exploring, and if you can avoid damage diligently, you'll come into boss fights with essentially 2+ times the amount of health, that's a pretty big difference. And most of the permanent health and weapon additions are all unmissable as far as I can tell. Exploration mainly rewards you with boosts to your maximum energy or ammo, which isn't totally compelling when your base amount feels like it's more than enough.

Getting the game's true ending is very different than the previous two. But when you do, the finale is excellent. I like the game a lot despite disagreeing with a lot of its new design decisions. The overworld level design is as stellar is ever. Even if you're not glancing at your map regularly, it was easy to "feel out" the correct direction to go. The new abilities in the game are very unique, the on foot combat still has a high skill ceiling to master, and while the plot takes a while to get going, the way it ties up the entire trilogy, on top of the Famicom original takes some serious love and craftsmanship. I like that your vehicle kind of looks like it's about to fall apart throughout the game since it doesn't have its mechanic. There's a fourth wall-ish joke about the first game that got me to laugh out loud, and this game's "replacement" for Eve was definitely entertaining. I'm not sure what the future holds for this series, but I'm excited nonetheless.

 

On 9/5/2021 at 9:36 PM, vanguard333 said:

I also like how the collection includes a database listing all the enemies and their weaknesses; normally for an old game, I'd have to look up that stuff online. Having it right there in the collection is quite useful. The concept art is also neat, though as a newcomer, I'm probably not as interested in that stuff as a longtime fan would be. I also probably won't be trying the challenge modes either, as that stuff is probably also more meant for the longtime fans. 

Overall, even from first impressions, I can clearly see why this collection is so highly regarded. Personally, I'd love to see a Megaman Battle Network Legacy Collection or Star Force Legacy Collection that has this much content and extra features.

Unlike the X and Zero collections, which were developed in-house at Capcom, the Classic series collections were made by Digital Eclipse. A group that have been publishing retro collections of video games since the mid 2000s (they were called Backbone entertainment in the PS2 era). In recent years they go as far as they can in acquiring old artwork scans to pack into their release. And if you've ever seen their SNK 40th anniversary collection, some games even have multiple different versions you can try out, not just the "best" one or most well known release. They are serious game preservations over there, and are closely affiliated with the Video Game History Foundation, so that should explain the extras you're seeing.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Zapp Branniglenn

[vanguard333]

50 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Unlike the X and Zero collections, which were developed in-house at Capcom, the Classic series collections were made by Digital Eclipse. A group that have been publishing retro collections of video games since the mid 2000s (they were called Backbone entertainment in the PS2 era). In recent years they go as far as they can in acquiring old artwork scans to pack into their release. And if you've ever seen their SNK 40th anniversary collection, some games even have multiple different versions you can try out, not just the "best" one or most well known release. They are serious game preservations over there, and are closely affiliated with the Video Game History Foundation, so that should explain the extras you're seeing.

Oh, yeah; I've heard a bit about them; I once saw a video of a GDC lecture by someone from Digital Eclipse. In it, he was mainly taking about preserving video game history and the need for game companies to embrace emulation instead of fighting it, but he did also talk about his time working on the Mega Man Legacy Collection. It was a very interesting lecture, and I say that as someone who knows almost nothing about emulators or any of that stuff.

Yeah; it definitely explains all the extras that I've been seeing. By the way, do those X and Zero Collections that you mentioned have that amount of content? I ask because, as I said before, I'd love to see a Battle Network Legacy Collection, and I was wondering what the odds were of something like that having the quality and content that this collection has.

 

2 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Ah yes, I played through the Classic Collection myself a while back. Beat all ten games, then went on to play through 11 again on top of that.

One thing to be aware of: Many of the challenges in Part 1 use this full-screen "slow flashing" effect that is painful to the eyes. Seriously, if you or anyone in your household is prone to epileptic seizure, do NOT play those challenges, especially at night. Same goes for most of the fortress stages. The NES Mega Man games really liked full-screen flashing, almost as if the developers wanted to cause seizures or something. The least they could have done is include ample warnings, or to give us a means of turning the damn flashing off. Thankfully, Part 2 uses a much less abusive transition effect in the form of a tiling animation, which I really wish they'd used for both Parts.

Thanks for letting me know. Yeah; no one in my family has that issue thankfully, but yeah; those flashing effects are a pain.

 

Anyway, I have now also completed Mega Man 2. I have to say, it was a lot easier than the first game, and overall just better in almost every way if not literally every way. My main criticisms would be (spoilers)

Spoiler

1. The final boss fight against the fake-alien hologram because I'm having to use the bubble attack against a flying opponent.

2. The flash ability not having an off switch, resulting in it continuing to run until it runs out. Combine this with several obstacles that all but require the flash ability if you're inexperienced, and let's just say that I found myself using rewind a lot in those sections.

But anyway, now I'm moving on to Mega Man 3, where I finally have the slide move. I rather missed the slide move in 1 and 2, as it was very useful in Mega Man & Bass (and in Smash Bros.), though those games rarely had areas wide enough for it to have been useful. One issue I've been running into in 3 is that the slide move is both necessary for dodging certain attacks and very hard to use for dodging attacks; it feels a bit... off, if that makes sense. Plus, I'm having some trouble figuring out which boss is the "easy" boss that you can more easily beat with just the standard buster attack. In 1, it was Cut Man. In 2, I can't remember who they were since I ended up beating 2 bosses with the standard buster attack, but I think one of them was Air Man. For 3, I'm having trouble figuring out which it is. Then there's the fact that there's a lot of flashing light in the electric stage. The flashing lights were semi-tolerable in the previous two games, but the amount of it in this level made me really dislike it.

Overall, I have to say that I was never really one for 2D side-scrolling games; not because I don't like them or anything like that, but simply because I didn't really grow up on them. The only ones I had were Mega Man & Bass (on the Gameboy Advance) and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and while I did play the former a fair bit as a kid, I only really played the latter around the time the Wii U already existed. And I can say, as someone who really isn't used to side-scrollers, that these classic Mega Man games are a lot of fun so far; I'm just having a lot more trouble getting used to them than someone who has played a lot of these kinds of games would have.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Yeah; it definitely explains all the extras that I've been seeing. By the way, do those X and Zero Collections that you mentioned have that amount of content? I ask because, as I said before, I'd love to see a Battle Network Legacy Collection, and I was wondering what the odds were of something like that having the quality and content that this collection has.

Most of it made it in. The challenge modes have different gimmicks and progression just to shake things up. That database where you see enemy stats, bios, and weaknesses is not in either of those two. The Zero collection may have benefited more from that, since elemental weaknesses are largely unknown from my experience looking up guides of those games. X's gallery is the only one that includes trailers, as well as that Day of Sigma short film. It's also got screenshots of physical paraphernalia associated with the games, but you can't zoom in on those pictures like you can on concept art images. I wouldn't be surprised if the pictures in question were lifted off old magazine scans or from the Wayback Machine. If all you have is a low resolution photo, then zooming into it is going to look very ugly very quickly. Still I doubt all of them had that particular issue.

Zero has a unique feature where the game awards you bonus cards for completing achievements across all six games. These bonus cards can be turned on and off to change a lot in Zero 3, from cosmetic changes to adding NPCs to powering up your weapons. They represent the E-reader content that was published post launch for that game, and it was really cool of them to incorporate such obscure stuff into the game, while also turning it into unlockable content. They similarly incorporated the Link battle bonus content in ZX that you would have unlocked by having Zero 3 or 4 in your DS's GBA slot. 

Edited September 8, 2021 by Zapp Branniglenn

[vanguard333]

@Zapp Branniglenn I see. Thanks for the info.

[Lord_Brand]

On 9/7/2021 at 10:36 PM, vanguard333 said:

But anyway, now I'm moving on to Mega Man 3, where I finally have the slide move. I rather missed the slide move in 1 and 2, as it was very useful in Mega Man & Bass (and in Smash Bros.), though those games rarely had areas wide enough for it to have been useful. One issue I've been running into in 3 is that the slide move is both necessary for dodging certain attacks and very hard to use for dodging attacks; it feels a bit... off, if that makes sense. Plus, I'm having some trouble figuring out which boss is the "easy" boss that you can more easily beat with just the standard buster attack. In 1, it was Cut Man. In 2, I can't remember who they were since I ended up beating 2 bosses with the standard buster attack, but I think one of them was Air Man. For 3, I'm having trouble figuring out which it is. Then there's the fact that there's a lot of flashing light in the electric stage. The flashing lights were semi-tolerable in the previous two games, but the amount of it in this level made me really dislike it.

Overall, I have to say that I was never really one for 2D side-scrolling games; not because I don't like them or anything like that, but simply because I didn't really grow up on them. The only ones I had were Mega Man & Bass (on the Gameboy Advance) and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and while I did play the former a fair bit as a kid, I only really played the latter around the time the Wii U already existed. And I can say, as someone who really isn't used to side-scrollers, that these classic Mega Man games are a lot of fun so far; I'm just having a lot more trouble getting used to them than someone who has played a lot of these kinds of games would have.

I believe Top Man is generally considered the easiest to start with in MM3. His pattern is fairly simple: he tosses three tops, dashes across the room while spinning, then repeats.

If it's any help, here are the orders in which I beat the Robot Masters during my most recent playthroughs:

Spoiler

1. Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, Fire Man
2. Metal Man, Bubble Man, Wood Man, Air Man, Heat Man, Crash Man, Flash Man, Quick Man
3. Spark Man, Magnet Man, Hard Man, Top Man, Snake Man, Gemini Man, Needle Man, Shadow Man
4. Dive Man, Drill Man, Toad Man, Bright Man, Pharaoh Man, Ring Man, Dust Man, Skull Man
5. Gravity Man, Gyro Man, Crystal Man, Napalm Man, Stone Man, Charge Man, Wave Man, Star Man
6. Wind Man, Flame Man, Blizzard Man, Plant Man, Tomahawk Man, Yamato Man, Knight Man, Centaur Man
7. Burst Man, Cloud Man, Junk Man, Freeze Man, Slash Man, Spring Man, Shade Man, Turbo Man
8. Grenade Man, Frost Man, Tengu Man, Clown Man, Aqua Man, Sword Man, Search Man, Astro Man
9. Concrete Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, Plug Man, Tornado Man, Magma Man, Hornet Man, Splash Woman
10. Sheep Man, Pump Man, Solar Man, Chill Man, Nitro Man, Commando Man, Blade Man, Strike Man
11. Block Man, Acid Man, Impact Man, Bounce Man, Fuse Man, Tundra Man, Torch Man, Blast Man

You might be interested to know that I'm planning 3D remakes of the Mega Man X series, which I hope I can someday make a reality. The 3D series expands the plot and characters far beyond what the 2D games did, and expands each mainline entry into a three-Act story to boot. Being that they're 3D, there's greater emphasis on exploration and NPC interaction. Think Breath of the Wild meets Ratchet & Clank; you get to explore massive futuristic cities and other locales, interact with key NPCs, upgrade your health and weapon energy, accumulate armor parts with various effects, and even get to play other characters in bonus missions. All with HD 3D visuals and a rocking soundtrack to tie the whole package together.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Lord_Brand

[BrightBow]

No More Heroes 3

No More Heroes is a franchise I often drew upon when pointing out why Awakening having a cast of psychopathic murderers just doesn't work, since it still pretends they are all good natured drinking buddies. So it's nice to see the series back.
I was a bit worried that the premise of alien attacking would get in the way of the franchise's over-the-top amounts of violence and gore but... at least in terms of bosses it actually works out quite well. However the grunts are most certainly not as fun to kill as the human mooks from the previous games with their spleens.
In terns of actual combat prowess, they put up a much better fight, though. Mooks definitely prefer quality over quantity, this time.
Makes the combat more intense, but there is something to be said of dropping bodies by the dozen and bisecting several enemies in a single slash. So it's a bit of a give and take here.
In any case, it's more insane then ever. And it doesn't really have anything holding it back, like NMH1's crappy overworld or NMH2's really rushed feeling levels and overpowered slots.
It's just a good time all the way through.

On a side note, people said the game had a bad framerate, but it just kinda doesn't?
Action areas seem to be consistent 60 fps. And I suppose the overworld is 30 fps? Though either way, I noticed no frame drops, no matter how crazy it gets.
So the framerate is actually kinda great.

Edited September 8, 2021 by BrightBow

[vanguard333]

3 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

I believe Top Man is generally considered the easiest to start with in MM3. His pattern is fairly simple: he tosses three tops, dashes across the room while spinning, then repeats.

If it's any help, here are the orders in which I beat the Robot Masters during my most recent playthroughs:

  Hide contents

1. Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, Fire Man
2. Metal Man, Bubble Man, Wood Man, Air Man, Heat Man, Crash Man, Flash Man, Quick Man
3. Spark Man, Magnet Man, Hard Man, Top Man, Snake Man, Gemini Man, Needle Man, Shadow Man
4. Dive Man, Drill Man, Toad Man, Bright Man, Pharaoh Man, Ring Man, Dust Man, Skull Man
5. Gravity Man, Gyro Man, Crystal Man, Napalm Man, Stone Man, Charge Man, Wave Man, Star Man
6. Wind Man, Flame Man, Blizzard Man, Plant Man, Tomahawk Man, Yamato Man, Knight Man, Centaur Man
7. Burst Man, Cloud Man, Junk Man, Freeze Man, Slash Man, Spring Man, Shade Man, Turbo Man
8. Grenade Man, Frost Man, Tengu Man, Clown Man, Sword Man, Search Man, Astro Man, Aqua Man
9. Concrete Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, Plug Man, Tornado Man, Magma Man, Hornet Man, Splash Woman
10. Sheep Man, Pump Man, Solar Man, Chill Man, Nitro Man, Commando Man, Blade Man, Strike Man
11. Block Man, Acid Man, Impact Man, Bounce Man, Fuse Man, Tundra Man, Torch Man, Blast Man

You might be interested to know that I'm planning 3D remakes of the Mega Man X series, which I hope I can someday make a reality. The 3D series expands the plot and characters far beyond what the 2D games did, and expands each mainline entry into a three-Act story to boot. Being that they're 3D, there's greater emphasis on exploration and NPC interaction. Think Breath of the Wild meets Ratchet & Clank; you get to explore massive futuristic cities and other locales, interact with key NPCs, upgrade your health and weapon energy, accumulate armor parts with various effects, and even get to play other characters in bonus missions. All with HD 3D visuals and a rocking soundtrack to tie the whole package together.

I see. Thanks.

I'm not really interested in the Mega Man X series, but you making 3D remakes does sound interesting. I hope you are able to make them.

[Lord_Brand]

Another tip from when I played the MM3 challenges: When fighting Yellow Devil Mk II, try using Rush Jet to fly over its parts when it's disassembling and reassembling. Some of its attack patterns are practically impossible to dodge on the ground.

Will you be putting up a topic sharing your experiences with the Collection by chance? I'd be happy to see how you progress and to offer advice if need be.

[vanguard333]

On 9/8/2021 at 6:35 PM, Lord_Brand said:

Another tip from when I played the MM3 challenges: When fighting Yellow Devil Mk II, try using Rush Jet to fly over its parts when it's disassembling and reassembling. Some of its attack patterns are practically impossible to dodge on the ground.

Will you be putting up a topic sharing your experiences with the Collection by chance? I'd be happy to see how you progress and to offer advice if need be.

Thanks for the info. The Yellow Devil in Mega Man 1 was a real pain until I learned about the damage-multiple-times-by-repeated-pausing trick.

Hm... I'm not sure; maybe. I'm not sure how much I can really say, as a confessed outsider to both classic Mega Man and 2D side-scrollers in general, that hasn't already been said about these games or the collection for that matter.

 

EDIT: I have now beaten four of the bosses in Mega Man 3. I have to say that, with both this and 2, I tend to gravitate towards the items that let me attack at multiple angles. That might be from me having played Mega Man & Bass, where Bass could fire in seven different directions, but I suspect that's it's more because of the simple convenience. No matter what I do, I cannot find a button configuration that enables me to jump & fire while still being comfortable for my hand. I can still jump & fire (which I end up having to do a lot), but it is not comfortable.

Going back to items, I criticized the bubble item in 2 for only being an effective attack on the ground and having pathetic range if firing while jumping (which you have to do to hit the final boss in 2), but the Top Spin is far worse, and I honestly think it is by far the worst item I have encountered so far. It only works if you jump first; something the game doesn't tell you because it doesn't tell you anything (I find myself missing how Mega Man & Bass did little animations that showed you how the item worked), and I already stated how uncomfortable attacking while jumping is for me in this series. It's a melee attack with pathetic range in a game where even the slightest physical contact with an enemy will result in you taking damage, and if you take damage while using Top Spin, the item meter for it gets completely depleted. I had to rewind my fight against Shadow Man multiple times just because it kept ending up empty while he was at more than 2/3 of his HP, and even then I couldn't beat him with the top spin and had to take out the last quarter of his HP using the mega buster, and it was a very narrow victory. It's even worse than the worst items in 1; as situational as the bomb and the guts throw were, when the time came for them to be used, they were useful and intuitive. Top Spin is pathetic.

Outside of items, one thing I can say is that it is very clear with these games that they expected the player to know the story context from the instruction booklet and/or the back of the box that the game came in. I know about Proto Man from Mega Man & Bass, and seeing him as a recurring mini-boss in 3 without any context was very confusing. I can very quickly guess as to what his story is supposed to be, but there is still that bit of dissonance.

In gameplay though, Proto Man is a very easy fight. He always jumps before firing, so I just use the mega buster without moving, then dive when he gets too close. The one time where I encountered some difficulty against him was Hard Man's stage (which I didn't finish simply because I stopped playing and moved on to do something else), simply because the terrain was uneven and I couldn't avoid him through sliding. But then I had a new problem: how are you supposed to avoid him then? You can't jump over him, and you can't slide under his jump.

 

EDIT: So, I've beaten all eight robot masters in Mega Man 3. Normally, this would mean that I've gained access to Wily's Castle. Instead, four identical boss faces have appeared in previous boss stages. At first I thought, "Okay; maybe the game's making the rematches happen in a staggered way instead of all at once in a particular section of Wily's Castle; that way, Wily's Castle isn't nearly as long". But then I checked online: Wily's Castle has six stages; that's more than in the previous games. Are these revisits of previous areas just blatant padding or something?

At least the stages are somewhat remixed and the boss fights are recreations of the boss fights from Mega Man 2.

 

EDIT: So, I've beaten Mega Man 3. I liked the bosses for Wily's Castle in this game a bit more than I did for the previous two games. Proto Man (I mean "Break Man") was as easy as ever but still an okay fight, the second version of the yellow devil was better than the original, and I thought I wouldn't like the hologram Mega Mans, but there's a trick to them: while the magnet item will do no damage to them, it will go for the real one, so I used it to find the real one, then swapped to the snake item and quickly destroyed it before it swapped places with one of the fakes. The Wily Machines have never really been fun boss fights for me because they always take up most of the space, and this one's first phase was no exception, but the second phase where it's recommended to use the rush jet was great. I also liked the fake-out with the fake-Wily robot that grovels before the reveal. Gamma was a semi-interesting final boss, and I think a much better way to have a giant boss fight conceptually as most of the boss is in the background and doesn't impair your mobility. I dislike that the final blow is best achieved through top spin, but that's just a minor issue.

I like how Proto Man saves Mega Man at the end, though I don't really understand the story in this game because I'm missing vital context. Could someone please tell me the parts of the story that evidently must've only been in the instruction booklet?

Edited September 14, 2021 by vanguard333

[Lord_Brand]

On 9/9/2021 at 11:05 AM, vanguard333 said:

Spoiler

EDIT: I have now beaten four of the bosses in Mega Man 3. I have to say that, with both this and 2, I tend to gravitate towards the items that let me attack at multiple angles. That might be from me having played Mega Man & Bass, where Bass could fire in seven different directions, but I suspect that's it's more because of the simple convenience. No matter what I do, I cannot find a button configuration that enables me to jump & fire while still being comfortable for my hand. I can still jump & fire (which I end up having to do a lot), but it is not comfortable.

Going back to items, I criticized the bubble item in 2 for only being an effective attack on the ground and having pathetic range if firing while jumping (which you have to do to hit the final boss in 2), but the Top Spin is far worse, and I honestly think it is by far the worst item I have encountered so far. It only works if you jump first; something the game doesn't tell you because it doesn't tell you anything (I find myself missing how Mega Man & Bass did little animations that showed you how the item worked), and I already stated how uncomfortable attacking while jumping is for me in this series. It's a melee attack with pathetic range in a game where even the slightest physical contact with an enemy will result in you taking damage, and if you take damage while using Top Spin, the item meter for it gets completely depleted. I had to rewind my fight against Shadow Man multiple times just because it kept ending up empty while he was at more than 2/3 of his HP, and even then I couldn't beat him with the top spin and had to take out the last quarter of his HP using the mega buster, and it was a very narrow victory. It's even worse than the worst items in 1; as situational as the bomb and the guts throw were, when the time came for them to be used, they were useful and intuitive. Top Spin is pathetic.

Outside of items, one thing I can say is that it is very clear with these games that they expected the player to know the story context from the instruction booklet and/or the back of the box that the game came in. I know about Proto Man from Mega Man & Bass, and seeing him as a recurring mini-boss in 3 without any context was very confusing. I can very quickly guess as to what his story is supposed to be, but there is still that bit of dissonance.

In gameplay though, Proto Man is a very easy fight. He always jumps before firing, so I just use the mega buster without moving, then dive when he gets too close. The one time where I encountered some difficulty against him was Hard Man's stage (which I didn't finish simply because I stopped playing and moved on to do something else), simply because the terrain was uneven and I couldn't avoid him through sliding. But then I had a new problem: how are you supposed to avoid him then? You can't jump over him, and you can't slide under his jump.

 

After playing Mega Man 2, 3's weapon selection feels very restrictive in comparison. In 2, you had Leaf Shield to deal with Pipis; in 3, no such weapon exists for the Su Bees.

The deal with Top Spin is that its hit box is barely bigger than Mega's hurtbox, so it's tricky to hit enemies without taking damage yourself. The reason the energy drains so quickly is because Top Spin hits every frame it's active, causing its energy to drop fast. But if you try it out on Gamma phase 3, you'll find that it can knock his health down astonishingly fast as well due to the aforementioned hit-per-frame.

I'm afraid I don't have much advice about fighting Proto Man, other than that he's weak to Hard Knuckle (which is ironic, considering that's where he's been giving you trouble).

On 9/9/2021 at 11:05 AM, vanguard333 said:

EDIT: So, I've beaten all eight robot masters in Mega Man 3. Normally, this would mean that I've gained access to Wily's Castle. Instead, four identical boss faces have appeared in previous boss stages. At first I thought, "Okay; maybe the game's making the rematches happen in a staggered way instead of all at once in a particular section of Wily's Castle; that way, Wily's Castle isn't nearly as long". But then I checked online: Wily's Castle has six stages; that's more than in the previous games. Are these revisits of previous areas just blatant padding or something?

At least the stages are somewhat remixed and the boss fights are recreations of the boss fights from Mega Man 2.

That's pretty much the case, yes. I read that Mega Man 3 was intended to be far bigger and more epic than MM1 and MM2, however they were unable to realize all their ideas. I suspect the Doc Robots were originally going to be rematches against the MM2 bosses proper, but due to time constraints they created this bulky, janky Frankenbot to stand in for them. They were planning nostalgic throwbacks to MM2's levels, hence why some of the Robot Master and stage themes are so mismatched.

Incidentally, Doc Robot's name in Japan is actually "Dokurobotto", a portmanteau of "dokuro" meaning "skull" and "robotto" obviously being "robot", hence "skull robot". As so often happened back in the day, the pun was lost in translation.

On 9/9/2021 at 11:05 AM, vanguard333 said:

EDIT: So, I've beaten Mega Man 3. I liked the bosses for Wily's Castle in this game a bit more than I did for the previous two games. Proto Man (I mean "Break Man") was as easy as ever but still an okay fight, the second version of the yellow devil was better than the original, and I thought I wouldn't like the hologram Mega Mans, but there's a trick to them: while the magnet item will do no damage to them, it will go for the real one, so I used it to find the real one, then swapped to the snake item and quickly destroyed it before it swapped places with one of the fakes. The Wily Machines have never really been fun boss fights for me because they always take up most of the space, and this one's first phase was no exception, but the second phase where it's recommended to use the rush jet was great. I also liked the fake-out with the fake-Wily robot that grovels before the reveal. Gamma was a semi-interesting final boss, and I think a much better way to have a giant boss fight conceptually as most of the boss is in the background and doesn't impair your mobility. I dislike that the final blow is best achieved through top spin, but that's just a minor issue.

I like how Proto Man saves Mega Man at the end, though I don't really understand the story in this game because I'm missing vital context. Could someone please tell me the parts of the story that evidently must've only been in the instruction booklet?

That's a clever way of using Magnet Missile! I don't have any patience for repeat weapon/item swapping mid-battle, so I just guess and shoot. ^^;

Here's the basic plot:

Spoiler

After swearing he's reformed his evil ways (yeah right), Dr. Wily works together with Light to build a "peacekeeping" robot named Gamma. However, eight of their Robot Masters (Light and Wily worked together on the third set) have gone haywire, stolen the "energy elements" needed to power Gamma, and taken them to mining worlds (different planets. Yes, those stages are supposed to be different planets from where the energy elements have been mined).

Mega Man sets out to defeat the Robot Masters and reclaim the elements. During his mission, Mega Man encounters the mysterious "Break Man" who challenges him to battle (allegedly to test him, though some speculate that he was working for Wily at this time due to dialogue in a later game). Mega Man defeats the eight Robot Masters (and the Doc Robots) and returns to Light's Lab only to discover that Wily has stolen the elements along with Gamma (surprise, surprise).

Mega Man then sets out to stop Wily once again and succeeds in destroying Gamma, but this time it appears he and the Doc are both done for. Proto Man either had a change of heart or was secretly on Mega Man's side all along, and shows up to rescue his brother and Wily, however it seems he's too late to save the latter. Is this The End of Dr. Wily!? Has peace finally returned to the world? Or is it merely a matter of time before Mega Man must contend with A New Evil Ambition!?

As for Proto Man's backstory:

Spoiler

He was built by Dr. Light as the first robot with advanced AI. Not true free will (that would come later) but self-awareness and a certain degree of independence. However, Proto Man (or Blues) was at the time the only robot with such advanced AI, causing him to feel lonely. Worse, he'd been built with a flawed nuclear core which Light wanted to fix, however doing so could cause Proto Man's personality to be erased (don't ask me why, that's just how the story goes). Due to his loneliness and independence, Proto Man ended up running away from Light, and wandered the world until he shut down. Light was grieved by the loss of his first "son" and built two new "children" with the intention of avoiding the mistakes he'd made when building Proto Man. He chose to build two so they wouldn't feel lonely, and he built them with solar-powered cores which proved far more stable than the nuclear core he'd built into Proto Man. He named the children "Rock" and "Roll" after his love for music (the same reason he named Proto Man "Blues", at least in Japan).

Who should find Proto Man but Dr. Albert Wily, Light's old colleague from Robot University who had long since fallen out with him due to a disagreement about an old project of Wily's which was dropped in favor of Light's research on advanced AI. Wily reactivated Proto Man, gaining knowledge of how Robot Masters work in the process, and plotted to steal and reprogram Light's six Robot Masters in a bid to take over the world, leading to the events of Mega Man 1 (in Japan, Light created the first six Robot Masters by himself. Wily's involvement in their creation was added in the Western version). Wily gave Proto Man his helmet and shield to help protect him. Presumably he gave him his buster as well, thereby turning him into a fighting robot just as Light had done Mega Man. Proto Man served Wily out of a sense of debt, but he began to question Wily's motives, leading to his eventual reformation into Mega Man's ally.

Mega Man 4 is a lot more clear about its plot; it even begins with an animated intro! The gameplay is also much smoother, and the weapon selection closer to MM2 in quality. They also add the charge shot! I think you'll enjoy 4 a lot more. 4, 5, and 6 are all generally easier than the first three barring a few egregious exceptions, and their Robot Master cycles are finally ironed out properly, with none of the wackiness 2 and 3 pulled (for better or for worse). 2 and 3 may get the most recognition, but 4 is where they really started refining the formula.

Mega Man & Bass wasn't really the ideal jumping-on point for the series, as it's notoriously difficult with level design that favors Bass, and along with MM8 abandoned a lot of the conventions that had become series staples by that point. By the time you get to 8, you'll see what I mean.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Lord_Brand