REVIEW – Six NES games in one package for 15 dollars. Let’s throw a LUA script over it, a challenge mode, the soundtrack and a ton of images! We’re almost there, because this is what the Mega Man Legacy Collection is. In my opinion, it is anything BUT a legacy, and for several reasons…

1987

These games usually follow the same style. We control a blue „super fighting roboooot… Mega Man!”, navigating him through levels, defeating the bosses at the end of them and using their powers in a rock-paper-scissors system to defeat the others easier, followed by the Dr. Wily levels (or in later games, we confront the enemy first that originally seems to be behind that certain game’s bad guy plot, which always twists into Dr. Wily in the end). This already was the case for the first game, which was released in Japan in ’87 December. We’re talking about a classic collection here, which features only the six NES games released between 1987 and 1993.

1988

In my opinion, that is pathetic. Mega Man Anniversary Collection, which was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2004, contained eight games (talking just about the main ones!), because it had the SNES 7 and the PS1/Saturn 8 too. Now, calling this 2015 package a Legacy Collection is absolutely disgusting. Where the hell is 9 and 10? After all, Inti Creates developed them in the classic NES style! Probably Digital Eclipse was told by Capcom to only get the first six games together, but I can tell you: technically, it’s not a big work.

1989

Alright, the games might not be just lazily emulated, because there’s an engine that recreates everything – I realized this, when I wasn’t able to pull the game breaking glitches off in Mega Man 2 -, but pretty much all this is just a LUA script added into the mix. This is a nice programming language that can easily soup up NES games, making them technically superior – this is seen in the challenge mode, but I’ll talk about this later. Here’s a prime example of the LUA power. Take a look at 1986 classic Metroid, boosted with the LUA scripting:

1990

The base games are alright, but I still managed to find glitches here and there. In the second game, Airman’s levels have platforms that appear just before we get to them, which is then using its horns on the two edges to harm us – and eventually, knock us off the platform -, but somehow, four or five of them was visible by default, with each of them having its left horns out by default. This should not happen. There’s a video uploaded to YouTube, which features the final boss of the first game. This is a game breaking glitch in the challenge mode (and seeing that it was in challenge mode with the stopwatch in the corner, I can believe that it’s legit), where the player literally ended up in nihil. Congratulations. The glitch happens at 2:40:

I also found two weird glitches, both in challenges related to the third game. One of them features a Wily level with moving platforms that need to be used to get up to the next teleporter. There are spikes around. I accidentally dropped onto the spikes, died… or not, and suddenly I got teleported to the next segment in the challenge. Others pulled it off too, it happens at 12 seconds.

The other glitch had me with just enough health to live, one hit would kill me. (This would respawn me in 5-10 seconds in the beginning of that segment.) I got hit while climbing the ladder to the next teleporter. I ended up continuing with zero health. Bam, there’s the zombie glitch from the game, which can be pulled off on real hardware with using the second controller (Those weird things won’t happen here with the second controller, like jumping ridiculously high….) – I wasn’t able to die, I couldn’t use my regular plasma cannon, but I could use other weapons as long as they had power. Picking up health would stop this glitch. This happens at twelve seconds again.

Here’s the same glitch in the second game. Happens at 62 seconds.

But wait, I’m still not done talking about these bugs. I’m trying to show evidence why I gave this collection a low rating. This isn’t aimed towards the actual games, but instead this collection and the way it was made. So here’s another challenge mode glitch from the fifth game. On Charge Man’s level, the train you ride sometimes changes altitude of the level segment you are on. With a nicely timed slide, you can slide under/through the teleport. I think this is a completely miserable bug, which should have been noted before release – this doesn’t look like a hard bug to fix. I’d like to point out that the base games kept their bugs and the framerate also slows down – apparently it is because of trying to emulate the games as best as possible. The glitch happens at 6 minutes, 25 seconds.

1991

So let’s just say that Legacy Collection has problems. I find it respectable that the soundtrack is available separately for us to listen to, but it isn’t looping and at some tracks, the end is absolutely abrupt. The images are nice, because some of them are really great promotional artworks, concept sketches and other images originally seen in Japan only. Then, there’s the database of enemies, which lists their HP, how much they can damage and what their weaknesses are.

I don’t know who wrote the enemy descriptions, but I’d say a few words. „a weapon that plays on its/his weakness” – I saw this used in boss descriptions at least 15 times. How about using synonyms, like „make good use of his weakness”, or „defeat him with the weapon that can get rid of him quickly”, or „you can win easily, if you know his weak spot”. See? Not hard. There are also some typos here and there, but everyone makes mistakes, so I can pretty much forgive them that. So, this is a good idea overall, but the presentation is hurtful.

1992

I’d talk about the challenges too. Each one has three time levels (normal-silver-gold) and yes, there is a leaderboard for these. You can check the replays to analyze your mistakes and where you can shave some more time off. Most of the challenges throw some level segments one after one, or you can prepare for some boss rushes, but one thing is sure: expect nothing new. There is nothing new, and you can get the games separately on the 3DS for probably cheaper price. Most challenges were done with silver for the first shot for me, some bossfights cracked the gold on first tries, but it’s mainly because I grew up with these games. I had stupid luck most of the time.

1993

Graphically, you can run the game in the original aspect ratio with or without a frame (the six games have one frame each), or in widescreen. I see no technical difference between these in the gameplay, so pick whichever you like. I’m not going to bash the music of the originals, because they are kept untouched. The music however in the menus – they sound cheap and weak. Although they are using the original melodies, but the presentation of them are subpar. (I’d also point out that all six games’ American version was used, so MM2 has a Normal difficulty level – other games have no difficulty -, which is pretty much the easy mode of the game. They could have taken it out, as you can save and load your game at any time, except for challenges, obviously.)

But in final words: why does this collection get a 4 on a 1 to 10 scale? Because it’s not enough. It’s a lazy sh.t, a lazily thrown together, cheap cash-in by Capcom, who only made this to take attention away from Keiji Inafune’s Mighty No. 9, but they failed, as that game got delayed out to 2016. (Inafune took reign of Mega Man after being the designer in the first game – he left Capcom at 2010 and at Comcept, Mighty No. 9 is his non-Mega Man-but it is similar to Mega Man game.) They also failed, because it’s only going to be sold because of the name.

They could have easily made a Mega Man Maker, because I’m going to say this: Wii U’s Super Mario Maker is going to be one of the lead titles after the September launch. Legacy Collection lacks games, there isn’t many extras, the challenges aren’t making me play the game for a long time. This is not enough, there should have been more: if they included all ten titles and the five Game Boy ones, then it would be a great collection. But in this form, it’s a lazy sh.t. Nothing else.

-V-

Publisher: Capcom

Editor: Capcom

Genres: Action

Publication: August 24 2015