Iíve often heard people say that Mega Man belongs in the 8-bit world, that his jump
and shoot gameplay is best enjoyed on the NES.
I donít completely agree with that.
Iím a fan of a fresh coat of paint; though I understand that the gameplay must change
with such an evolution in graphics.
And thatís where this game enters the argument; a 16-bit MegaMan with 8-bit gameplay.
This is MegaMan: The Wily Wars on the Sega MegaDrive.
In the mid-90ís, Sega started a service called the Sega Channel, where players could pay
for a monthly service to download games, much like a premium TV Channel like Showtime.
Thatís right, downloading games in the mid-90s, only they needed to be re-downloaded when
the system was shut off.
If this sounds familiar, you may know about the Satellaview from Nintendo in Japan.
MegaMan The Wily Wars was once such downloadable game, billed as a Sega Channel Exclusive.
Thankfully though, the game wasnít lost with the cancellation of the Sega Channel; the
Europeanís got this game for their MegaDriveís and through some headaches and cashing in
on a few favors, Iíve scored a real cartridge copy from Europe on loan from a friend.
The Wily Wars is both a port of the first 3 Mega Man games and a new MegaMan experience
at the same time.
You can pick from the start what title youíd like to play, and you can even save your game
at the end of each level.
Thatís the first drawback, no password system.
Which is great for MegaMan 1, but not for anyone wanting to skip right to Wilyís Fortress
in the second or third game.
The Wily Wars does remake the first three NES titles and gives them this fresh look
with cool colors, decent backgrounds, and a few extra frames of animation, but itís
not all as nice as it looks.
The controls are not as responsive as they were in the NES days.
When you move the Blue Bomber, he takes a quarter second too long to actually start
runningÖ.and as a result, your timing is completely messed up.
Completely off; youíll need to rethink everything and, in some sick way, relearn your strategies
on how to play.
The jump button seems to stick a little too, so stages like Air Man and Shadow Man become
incredibly difficult.
Also, shooting your weapons suffered as well.
In the NES game, you can fire your weapon really quickly.
In Wily Wars, youíre limited to every few frames to shoot, and even standing close to
an enemy on shooting them doesnít get you to shoot faster like it did on the NES.
Itís frustrating, but you get used to it.
Some would say a 16-bit rendition of the great music from the games would be welcome.
But this is a Genesis game, and I was never a fan of the music on the consoleÖ.But if
I want awesome Mega Man music, Iíll throw on The Megas or even the One-Ups.
Itís not a big complaint, but someone will probably mention that the music is slower
in this version, which bugs a lot of people.
Once you defeat every robot master from all 3 games, destroy Wily in all 3 fortesses,
defeat Protoman, Gamma, Doc Robot, all that, you are met with one final game; the unlockable
Wily Tower, also known as the main reason to play this game.
Wilyís upset you defeated his robots again, and has 3 new robots called the Genesis Unit.
Get it?
Cuz the games on the GenesisÖ?
Anyway, thatís 3 new robot masters, and 3 all new stages.
You can also pick 8 weapons from ANY of the 3 games, and 3 transport items as well.
With a save feature, new music and new graphics, The Wily Wars seems like a good addition to
the Mega Man family.
However, sticky controls get in the way of completely enjoying it, and even though the
game play only has a few MINOR differences between the NES versions, Iím not sure every
fan would jump at the chance to play this.
But if youíre as big a fan of the Blue Bomber as we are at CGR, you may want to find a way
to get your hands on this game.