What made this game such a masterpiece?

>>3724346
Variety

>>3724346
The slowdown.

You

>>3724346
>The Bullshit Doc Robot Stages
>The sub par Robot Masters (Snake, shadow, needle, and magnet were ok but the others were ass)
>The Boring weapons
>The fucked up weaknesses, now split into two circles instead of one
Take your pick.

I liked the additions of rush and protoman though.

File: 1469417874323.jpg (2KB, 125x67px) Image search: [Google]

2KB, 125x67px

>>3724390
>beat game
>watch credits
>thanks devs
>thanks friends and family
>special thanks to you, the player

Y-you too

>>3724429
I would agree but you frog memed.

File: 1406807165706.jpg (16KB, 231x244px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 231x244px

>>3724434

>>3724397
Come on, no MM has a cast of 8 great robot masters.

>>3724451
I think all of 2 was pretty solid, maybe flash man was a bit "meh" but still.

>>3724451
>8 great robot masters
Powered Up

>>3724454
Yeah, flash man. Fucking WOOD man. Bubble man it kinda lame too.

>>3724465
Wood was ok, I actually like the concept, and bubble's design looked nice.
>>3724460
I forgot about this

>>3724465
Bubble Man would've been good if he was immune to metal blade. as he is, he's nerfed.

that little flickering line above shadowman.

>>3724429

>I'm Mega Man, and you are too...

>>3724465
What's not to get?
He gets wood. Morning wood.

The back half of MM3 is very inconsistent, the game has leftover debug code in it, and it didn't have an intro like 2 or the NES MM games that came after it.

It was a very rushed job.

>>3724429
Just picked up the game, thanks for the spoiler alert asswhipe

File: okay.png (22KB, 275x200px) Image search: [Google]

22KB, 275x200px

>life energy capsules before final boss

>no intro
>huge slowdowns in almost every single level
>that debug mode
>those glitches, even the stage select menu looks glitched
>rehash of 4 of the levels
>rehash of the previous games robot masters except made ten times worse, with slowdowns, attack patterns so random sometimes they're really impossible to dodge. Instead of challenging but fair fights you get stupid shit that pretty much demands you to spam the weakness weapons

It's a great game, better than 2 in many ways, and better than 4 in SOME ways, but it's far from a masterpiece. MM3 has more frantic, fast paced, action and level design, better willy stages than 2, but too many flaws... 4 is overall the most fair and balanced, and the one which keeps great quality throughout rather than completely losing it half way through like 3 does.

>>3724736
>>3724991
>MM3 has no intro
Wow, should have returned the game immediately

I love MM3, but how can anybody think these Robot Masters are better than MM2? It's not even close.

File: he hath cometh.jpg (100KB, 640x720px) Image search: [Google]

100KB, 640x720px

MM3 is probably my favorite NES Megaman. It's drastically different from 2 though.

I guess Kitamura was a fan of basic flat level design, as he took it to Cocoron. But MM3 is vastly more refined, detailed and imaginative in this regard, IMO. I think all those platforms add a new dimension to the gameplay. When I replay MM3, it's for levels (well, for slide too).

And in 4 and 5, the level design went to total shit, it's like Capcom put their scrub staff to put up something in a level designer real quick. The plot and robot masters became a joke too, the games felt like incredibly lazy. And no, the formula didn't "get stale" like some suggest—MM9 and 10 showed that it NEVER gets stale if you get the things right. It's just that 4 and 5 were so low effort.

So, the usual choice for MM games on NES is 2 or 3. I go with 3 because 2 can be a bit unfair and I prefer a more nuanced level design with more variety.

>>3725252
I'm with you 100% on this one!

Mega Man 3 was my favorite in the series.

File: image.jpg (26KB, 228x236px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 228x236px

I think I was 8 or so when this came out. I was glued to the tv for about three months, continuously playing this game over and over. I still remember quite a bit about this game compared to the hundreds of other games I have played since. I have no clue why it was so great, it just was.

It wasn't the DOS version.

>>3725252
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with 4 and 5 level design, the games could be a bit harder, but that's it.

>>3724451
You're right, because the first one only has 6.

>>3724397
>>3724451
Inafune said once that some Robot Masters being "lame" (like Charge Man or Plug Man) is intentional.
I think it's kinda like Dragon Quest, not all the monsters are badass creatures, there's a bunch of weird or funny ones, but it adds variety and distinct reactions the end.

>>3725221
It's a sign that not enough care and polish was put into the game. Besides, intro on NES games are cool as fuck.
Coming from 2, when you start 3 you have no intro, a visual glitch on the goddamn stage select screen, and worse title screen and menu musics. That's a little too much and you haven't even started the game yet.

But I like for me the real show killer in 3 are the 2nd set of Robot Masters. The fact that some of their hits are literaly impossible to dodge and that they were pretty much designed with weaknesses in mind.

>>3725252
I know what you mean about 4, it has SOME cases of simple level design but honestly not even that much.It's not like 5 which is all straight lines. If we take 1 to 6, 4 is right in between of them all in every aspect, for me it's the most solid as it doesn't have some of the issues 2 and 3 have.

File: MegaManIV-SkullMan.png (88KB, 4640x1472px) Image search: [Google]

88KB, 4640x1472px

>>3725279
Really? There's a little bit autistic but detailed "critical look at Megaman stages" available online for every NES installment. You might want to check it out, I found it quite elaborate, factual and ultimately true. It often underlines the biggest problem with MM4: just how flat and bland the level design was in it compared to 3.

Check picrelated—Skull Man stage has nice "skull" flair to it, but the level itself is just so straight and dull compared to any 8 main levels in 3. And no, I'm not cherrypicking—the whole game is like this. You go in a straight line, you shoot some lethargic enemies, you go forward. There's not much variety, and where MM3 was tightly packed with interesting parts that kept you on the edge of your seat, MM4 offers them lazily and rarely. Now, to be honest though, I did actually enjoy it to some extent because of the difficulty drop. But it came at a price of duller, less interesting enemies, and that's a tradeoff I'm not sure worked out in the game's favor.

And 5? Don't even get me started. The graphics got vastly better, but they did THE worst thing they could possibly do: they filled the game with gimmicks. That's already enough for me to drop it, because Little Samson or Cocoron feel more like Megaman games than MM5. But they also dumbed down jump 'n' shoot parts even further. Heck, I'll go ahead and say it—MM5 feels like an indie game. Great graphical assets, garbage tier everything else, and little relation to MM whatsoever.

Still, these games were enjoyable for what they were. But they were different tier. MM4 was fun for several runs or so. But MM5 was literally beat once and forget. Or don't even beat.

You know how some music bands can be cool in their prime, but then 30 years later they shit out an album of sad rehashes, trying to copy current "trendy" music and barely sounding like themselves? That's the way I feel about MM5. MM4 was the middle ground, but still it just lost "it", what made MM3 timeless.

File: OVA2_166.jpg (238KB, 720x540px) Image search: [Google]

238KB, 720x540px

>>3724384
Play the Complete Works version for PS1

On topic

>Unique set of weapons with variety of usage (magnet missiles on those enemies across those ladders in the Wily stages, snake to climb up walls and hit well place enemies who launched shit at you, gemini laser to reflect, shadow blade for omnidirectional attacks which thankfully wasn't as gamebreaking as the metal blade, hard fist to break walls as well as one-shot big enemies, top spin to kill hard to hit little buggers, needle if you didn't own a turbo controller, only one that sucked was the spark shot)
>Introduced Rush who was vastly better than items #1-3, his rush jet mode in this game was by far the best in the series, and coil and marine were also fine to use, I enjoyed flopping like a fish in Gemini Man's stage
>Player 2 could join in the fun to exploit cheats, so it was actually fun to fuck around with a friend
>Masterpieceful songs like Proto Man's iconic whistle concert, Shadow Man's groovy tune, Magnet Man's upbeat stage theme, perhaps the most intense boss battle themes in the classic series, Snake Man's epic theme to pump you up, a title screen theme that lets you know you're in for a good time, etc
>Introducing best boi Proto Man, the Racer X-inspired older brother of Mega Man who trains his little bro
>More length than the rest of the classic series barring spin-offs due to the awesome nostalgic doc robot stages that let you tackle robot masters from the inferior previous game as well as a stage to fight Break Man
>Can be completed in one long sitting like the rest of the series
>DAT SLIDE

Only Mega Man 9 can compare as far as classic Mega Man games go

>>3725348
>they filled the game with gimmicks

Don't give me the "gimmicks" line. MM2 is full of gimmicks, and yet everyone says it's the best.

The issue is how you use the "gimmicks". 5 and 6 didn't use them well.

And there is more to MM4's level design than the straight lines you might see. 4 is not 5.

File: Shadowman.png (546KB, 667x932px) Image search: [Google]

546KB, 667x932px

>>3725234
Apparently Shadow Man, Snake Man, and Gemini Man aren't better than Bubble Man, Flash Man, Wood Man, and Heat Man

>People are pretending Mega Man 2 didn't have bugs of its own and ran fluidly 100% of the time

Hell I recently ran into game breaking bugs trying to play it on the NES mini (no judge pls)

>>3725351
Actually X is usually considered the best MM game

>>3725351
>>3725348
also desu you sound like you're just parotting whatever you read somewhere without putting much on your own thoughts onto it.
Even if I read your article I'm not going to agree with every word I read, it's called critical reading.

>>3725365
Nobody said that. 3 is just worse, the worst, in that regard. Besides personally I also put 2 behind 4.

>>3725351
>MM2 is full of gimmicks
???
MM2 is one of the least gimmicky games I know. Do you count vanishing blocks as "gimmicks"? Then yeah, it's very "gimmicky" by your definition. I call them game design elements.

>>3725348
Why are purists retro gamers so against gimmicks?
70% of the time the reason why purists dislike newer sequels of old games is because they try something a bit more different.
Gimmicks are fun and makes things more unique, MM5 has a pretty bad weapon selection, yeah, but none of the gimmicks in the stages interrupts the classic jump'n shooting with platforming, excluding Wave Man maybe.

>>3725368
>>3725328
Is it a new meme now that MM3 is buggy? What the actual fuck. It's sounds like a nitpicking and blowing things out of proportion in a raging attempt to prove MM2 was the best and thus everything else was shit.

I beat thew whole game and I don't remember any bugs at all, at least anything affecting gameplay in any way. This "rushed" game has better and more elaborate level design than most of NES library.

File: 1466439160102 (1).jpg (19KB, 311x291px) Image search: [Google]

19KB, 311x291px

>>3725380
This. It was rough around the edges due to being rushed but I remember nothing that broke the game, and the slowdown (which was only in a couple places like Gemini Man's stage) was due to it pushing the limits of the console far moreso than Mega Man 2 did, and is fixed in the Complete Works version anyways. 3 is the superior game to 2 and 4, but the X and Zero series' shit on classic anyways so

>>3725373
Nice strawman bro. Bet you like Earthworm Jim 2 too.

No one goes for retro purism. I liked plenty MM installments made after MM3. The problem with MM5 was that it had overly simplified level design, poorly hidden behind gimmicky enemies, letter collecting and such, which pretended to be interesting but simply weren't.

>>3725369
Yeah I was expecting that. I can also call the springs in MM6 "game design elements" and not "gimmicks".

This just shows how wrong you perception of all this is. First of all, you think "gimmick" is bad by definition, while it all depends on how you use them and what they are. Secondly you've got your very own definition of what is or isn't a gimmick, right.

The disappearing giant heads in airman stage are a 'gimmick'. So are the lasers in quick man. The moving platforms in Crash Man and Willy 4. etc etc

I'm not saying MM2 is bad because of it. Just showing how wrong your whole argument is.

>>3725348
Whoa what happened to the pits?

>>3725539
OK. I guess I better rephrase my point.

MM5 had too many enemies and design elements which tried to be interesting and engaging, but ultimately failed and thus only really provided more varied looks.

In MM2, almost every "flashy" element served a purpose: it was like all of those things around you were carefully placed to fuck you over, and almost none of them were there just for looks. You couldn't simply run past them, or take them out one by one, or shoot them down before they presented any threat. Almost always, they presented an obstacle, and ultimately served game purpose.

> The disappearing giant heads in airman stage are a 'gimmick'. So are the lasers in quick man. The moving platforms in Crash Man and Willy 4. etc etc
Well this just depends on how you define "gimmick" I guess. I'm no Oxford dictionary. I understand your point, I agree with it to an extent. Still, all of the things you mention provided a challenge. The disappearing heads had the horns which cost me some lives, and I don't even mention the lasers. All of them served a purpose; yeah, they were also graphically flashy, but they weren't pointless, quite the opposite.

File: 79d92bed-7617-492a-968d-f42dc4f0b891.png (521KB, 650x469px) Image search: [Google]

521KB, 650x469px

Reminder 4 is best NES mega man.

>>3725558
>Still, all of the things you mention provided a challenge.

That's what I was saying, and that's beside the point of whether or not it's a 'gimmick'

I know 5 is the worst of the NES ones. I'm not the guy who said it was one of his favourites. But putting 4 in the same category is exagerating, 4 is still has a very dynamic design.

>>3725574
>Reminder 4^(1/2) is best NES mega man
FIFY

>>3725596
I said
> MM4 was the middle ground

I never put it in the same tier as 5, I specifically said 5 was worse:
> MM4 was fun for several runs or so. But MM5 was literally beat once and forget. Or don't even beat.

4 is not bad for sure. It really is a very uneven game, except for the bosses which are all mostly meh. I love me the platforming parts of Ring Man, and I do like Dive Man stage a lot actually. I'm still sure it's worthy of playing, but at the same time it just feels a little bit forced, with a lot of enemies just falling short of providing the challenge, and ultimately it's not on the same level as 3 or 2.

>>3725574
3 > 4 >= 2 > 1 > 6 > 5

>>3726036
At least give your reasoning for why 3 is better than 4. 4 managed to be the first game where every weapon was worth using.