January celebrates two notable dates in science-fiction history, “National Science Fiction Day” on January 2 and Arthur C. Clarke’s HAL 9000’s birthday on January 12. Accordingly, I’m dedicating January to celebrating sci-fi with an event I call “Sci-Fanuary”.
Released: 7 June 2024
Originally Released: 22 July 1994
Developer: Minakuchi Engineering
Also Available For: Game Boy and Nintendo 3DS
A Brief Background:
Notorious for its high level of difficulty, Mega Man (Capcom, 1987) represented Capcom’s shift away from the arcade scene and into the burgeoning home console market, eventually establishing a franchise that expanded to the Game Boy in 1991. Capcom outsourced development to Minakuchi Engineering, whom they reunited with for the Blue Bomber’s subsequent handheld ventures after a brief collaboration with Thinking Rabbit left series artist Keiji Inafune allegedly disappointed by their efforts. Mega Man V was the last of these efforts, and was said to have taken the longest to develop of the Game Boy titles. Furthermore, Infaune struggled to create new designs for the game, particularly the debuting “Stardroids” and Mega Man’s newest robotic companion, Tango. Mega Man V was also one of the first games developed specifically to connect with the Super Game Boy peripheral, allowing players to experience the game in full colour on their televisions. Seen as one of the system’s most ambitious titles, Mega Man V is largely regarded as one of the best in the franchise’s handheld library, demonstrating better graphics, mechanics, and narrative elements. Although this didn’t lead to a collection of the portable Mega Man games, these were all eventually ported to Nintendo’s online shops and services.
The Review:
Mega Man V retains the core gameplay mechanics of its predecessors and main console titles, charging players with battling through four initial stages and powering the fighting robot Mega Man up before heading into space to take on four additional stages and Robot Masters. Consequently, the controls remain unchanged (with one exception): B or X fires the Mega Buster, which can be charged to unleash a stronger shot. This time, Mega Man flings out his fist thanks to his creator, Doctor Thomas Light, upgrading his abilities since his usual charged shot won’t work against the game’s new Stardroids. However, the “Mega Arm” is functionally the same as the old charged shot except it deals additional when it flies back to Mega Man and it can be upgraded to snag items and pass through walls. B is for jumping, with Mega Man jumping higher when underwater or in outer space, and down and B performs a slide that’s useful for avoiding hazards and attacks. There’s no longer a recoil to the charged shot, which is a bit of a shame, but you’ll still collect P-Chips to trade in for upgrades at Dr. Light’s lab between stages. These allow you to buy those upgrades for the Mega Arm, refill some or all your weapon energy, replenish your health, or purchase a 1-up or E- and S-Tanks to refill your health and energy on the go. Enemies drop most of these items upon defeat, though your chances of getting them are again more restricted since they also drop P-Chips (which are mostly useless with the Switch’s rewind and save state features). These goodies may also be found in stages by taking alternative paths and destroying certain walls, and Mega Man’s little friend Eddie and mysterious brother Proto Man occasionally gift items. Mega Man’s robotic bird companion Beat is absent, so you won’t have to worry about collecting any letters, though four crystals are hidden in the later stages that will grant you the Power Generator, which halves the usage cost of your Special Weapons. Finally, if you exhaust all your lives and use a continue, you’ll gain the Turbo Accelerator for your Mega Arm to help you out.
Brace yourself for a shock but…Mega Man V features all-new Robot Masters and Special Weapons! Yes, for the first time in Mega Man’s handheld career, the stages and bosses are all new (save for some inspirations from previous games). Like previous Robot Masters, Terra’s Stardroids are weak to specific Special Weapons, making the game more difficult depending on the order you challenge them. They’re all fought in enclosed arenas, as usual (though Mega Man V gives you more room to manoeuvre than the previous Game Boy games) and all fought again during the endgame. I started with Mercury, a Stardroid with liquid metal properties who transforms into blobs but who you can put down with the regular Mega Arm (or, later, Salt Water). Mercury grants you the Grab Buster, which leeches health from your target, though the Mega Arm alone was enough to take down Neptune, who simply hops about like a frog. Weak to Photon Missile and Electric Shock, Neptune bestows you with the Salt Water shot which, while slow, damages enemies with splash damage (a common mechanic in this game). Salt Water also gives you the edge over Mars, who fires the slow but very powerful Photon Missiles and even lays mines across the floor. Like the Crash Bomber, you must time Photon Missile shots to defeat Venus, who mostly just stomps about but gets some serious airtime when he’s filling the screen with explosive bubbles. The Bubble Bomb is one of the more useful Special Weapons thanks to it travelling upwards, making it perfect against Pluto when he pounces to the ceiling, and Jupiter since he’s always hovering overhead. Jupiter fires a concentrated beam of electricity and is invulnerable in this state, a weapon you can use to fry enemies up close. Saturn was next; a big target, he tosses a ring, slides at you, and sucks you in with his Black Hole attack, which Mega Man uses with explosive effect. Defeating Pluto nets you the Break Dash, which sees you charging across the screen to barge through enemies and walls. It’s also great against Uranus, who you fight in close quarters. Defeating him grants you the Deep Digger which, like the Super Arms, lets you toss certain blocks.
You’ll also obtain an additional Special Weapon by defeating Terra; the Spark Chaser is like the Gemini Laser in that it ricochets about and is best saved for the game’s true final boss. Beat may be gone but Rush is still here; unfortunately, you get Rush Coil and Rush Jet quite late in the game and they’re nowhere near as useful as before. Mega Man V finally addresses Rush’s potential by having you fly about in a sidescrolling shooter to approach and then blast into Doctor Albert Wily’s newest space station. Mega Man also gets a new robotic companion right from the start of the game. Tango is summoned with a charge attack and will spin about the screen to attack anything in range, though I honestly had little use for this and kept longing for the Rush Coil to reach out of reach goodies. While you’ll find many familiar hazards in this game, such as bottomless or spike-ladened pits, insta-kill spikes, moving and disappearing platforms, and rising tides, there are a fair few different obstacles to overcome. Mega Man spends some time either out in space or dealing with gravity mechanics inside, not unlike his encounter with Gravity Man. The floor threatens to crush you rather than the ceiling coming down, and you’ll do your fair share of tricky platforming up in the clouds. Water rushes at you and pipes vent steam, rocket-powered blocks drive you towards ceiling spikes, snow and ice make platforms slippery, and rocks and girders drop from above. Except for Metall’s new annoying shield and sniper variants, all the enemies in Mega Man V are new. There are robotic apes that hop up and down and toss bananas, bubble-shooting crabs that push you to your doom, fan-like owls, walking bombs, spiked turtles, and armoured foes who are invulnerable when charging. Many attacks feature splash damage, which is an additional hazard, though Mega Man V handles slowdown and screen tearing much better than its predecessors. Mega Man will also battle some bigger mini bosses, including an attack helicopter, a giant cannon, and a Sphinx-like wall that constantly threatens to drop you onto insta-kill spikes.
Battling past the first four Stardroids sees you confront Terra in a strangely deserted base. Here, he sics an upgraded Yellow Devil, the “Dark Moon”, on you. While his body parts are still tricky to avoid, the battle is the same as in Mega Man in that you must time shots of the Photon Missile to hit his eye and the hardest thing about this fight is all the waiting around to land hits. Defeating the second set of Stardroids sees Terra finally face you in battle for “[mettling]” with his plans. Terra teleports about, fires his Spark Chase, and can briefly freeze you but, for all his hype, he’s easily defeated with the Deep Digger. Mega Man and Rush then blast at the exterior of Dr. Wily’s space station (something that’s tricky to do as you can only attack its laser-firing mouth) before Mega Man battles through a gruelling torture chamber within and encounters the four previous “Mega Man Killers”. While each is weak to one of Mega Man’s new Special Weapons, the fights are unchanged: you still fire at Enker when he holds his sword aloft, still target Punk’s head as he pogos about, still jump over or slide under Punk’s buzzsaw-like attack, and must still avoid Ballade’s Ballade Cracker. Still, it was nice to face them again and I liked the added touch of seeing copies of each held captive in the stage. With them defeated, you’ll take on Dr. Wily’s newest, biggest mech in a four-stage battle. The first two see you avoiding giant robotic fists, blasting its wrist eyes with the Grab Buster and avoiding its homing missiles. Next, you’ll find the Brain Crusher impervious to all your attacks. Instead, you must avoid its missiles and destroy the Pikashus before their gravity attacks drive you into the ceiling spikes, then fire at the walking bombs it spits out to deal damage. You’re then forced into a tight, spiked corridor and must hop over Dr. Wily’s ground shots and pummel his glass dome to finally put him down. However, in desperation he awakens the ultimate Stardroid doomsday weapon, Sunstar, who frequently destroys the ground and forces you to drop to lower areas. Weak to the Spark Chaser, Sunstar boasts a particularly devesting arm cannon, fires scattered shots and tiny sparks, and spins at you like a buzzsaw.
The Summary:
Well, it took five games, but the developers finally gave Game Boy players something unique to get their teeth into. Mega Man V is the first of the handheld titles not to shamelessly recycle and reuses bosses, stages, and weapons from the previous games. Instead, it presents an all-new (if familiar) narrative pitting Mega Man against the planet-themed Stardroids and giving you new Special Weapons to play with. Unfortunately, as ever, I had little use for these outside of boss battles; you can use them to make stages easier, but I got along just fine with the Mega Arm. Similarly, it’s a shame Tango wasn’t used more; like, he could’ve let you climb certain walls and perhaps fulfilled the Grab Buster mechanic. However, I was glad to finally see a sidescrolling shooting stage implemented with Rush (including a boss battle, no less) and Dr. Light’s items were much more useful, giving me an incentive to collect at least some P-Chips. There’s a greater emphasis on story in Mega Man V, with many sprite-based cutscenes and dialogue boxes, which are bolstered by the best pixel art in the portable series. Unfortunately, while stages are more detailed than ever, there wasn’t much variety or logic to them. Like, Mercury could’ve been any other underwater base stage, Saturn had an Aztec theme, and Jupiter went with electricity instead of raging storms. Venus and Mars mixed things up with their weird, tumour-like enemies and spinning gears, respectively, but I feel the developers could’ve done a lot more with the space theme. Still, I really enjoyed Mega Man V, particularly the rematches with the Mega Man Killers and the new antagonists. Terra and Sunstar were a nice change of pace and even Dr. Wily’s presented a bit differently in his boss battles. Mega Man V is what we should’ve seen from some of the Blue Bomber’s previous handheld titles; familiar elements in a new setting. This, it feels less like you’re playing a downgraded version of the home console games and more like a unique experienced tailored to the Game Boy.
My Rating:
Great Stuff
Did you own Mega Man V back in the day? Were to happy to finally see some original content for the Game Boy? What did you think to Terra and the Stardroids? Were you disappointed that the developers didn’t do more with the planet theming? Which of the new Special Weapons was your favourite? How would you rank Mega Man’s portable adventures? What are your plans for celebrating the science-fiction genre this month? Whatever opinions on Mega Man V you have, leave them below and be sure to check out my other Mega Man reviews!
Dr. K's Waiting Room 