When Mega Man Legacy Collection was announced just prior to this year’s E3, it was
instantly divisive: some fans were ecstatic about the news, feeling that any new Mega
Man game announcement showed welcome signs of life for a beloved franchise that has
recently fallen on hard times. But other, more cynical fans pointed to the existence
of
2004’s Mega Man Anniversary Collection as an indication that Legacy Collection ­ which
contains fewer games ­ was just a cheap cash grab on Capcom’s part. So, which is it?
Well, let’s go over the basics first. Legacy Collection includes Mega Man 1 through 6,
which comprise the entirety of the Blue Bomber’s 8­bit adventures on the NES. In addition
to the six games, there is a WarioWare­esque Challenge Mode complete with online
leaderboards, a ton of behind­the­scenes concept and production artwork to pore
through, a comprehensive database of every character, enemy, and Robot Master in the
first six games, and a Music Player in which you can listen to each game’s soundtrack
to
your heart’s content. That’s quite a lot of stuff for 15 dollars, but that doesn’t
mean a
whole lot if the classic games all that content is built around aren’t faithful to the original
NES versions.
So let’s get this out of the way right now: Mega Man 1 through 6 have never looked as
good as they do here in Legacy Collection thanks to a pristine 1080p presentation, and
the gameplay, music, and controls are all wildly faithful to the NES originals. Each
game’s
little quirks, glitches, and slowdown are all recreated as well, down to the last pixel.
In the
weeks leading up to Legacy Collection’s release, developer Digital Eclipse has made
a
big fuss about their so­called “Eclipse Engine”, which has allowed them to actually
rebuild
these six classic games instead of simply emulating them.
As it turns out, that makes a huge difference; while the emulated games in Mega Man
Anniversary Collection were noticeably inferior to the original games in many ways,
Legacy Collection recreates Mega Man 1 through 6 so perfectly that you’re not going to
find a more authentic experience anywhere else except the original NES cartridges. That
alone is a big deal, especially because Legacy Collection is potentially many PS4 and
Xbox One owners’ first introduction to the Blue Bomber. These six games are celebrated
as some of the best action platformers of the 8­bit era for a reason, and it’s wonderful
to
see everything that makes these games great maintained so faithfully in Legacy
Collection.
And make no mistake, the games themselves certainly do stand the test of time. While
the first Mega Man game hasn’t aged quite as well as its five sequels, that merely means
Mega Man 1 is a little less great than the others and there simply isn’t a “weak
link” to be
found in this collection. While it’s true that all six of these games can be oppressively
difficult for gamers who aren’t used to the concept of “Nintendo hard,” the ability
to create
a save state for each game whenever you want ensures that anyone can make it to the
end with enough persistence.
The overall package is enhanced by a smattering of options and accoutrements. You can
choose to play each game in its original aspect ratio, or you can stretch the image in two
different ways to suit your liking. There are also three different visual filters to
play with,
including one that convincingly recreates the experience of playing on an old CRT
television, complete with scan lines and ghosting. Each game’s controls are also
completely customizable, and impressively, I experienced no input lag — Mega Man
controls just as precisely as he did back on the NES, which is a big deal for platformers
that demand pixel­perfect precision. Finally, Legacy Collection’s interface is clean,
simple,
and exceedingly snappy. Each game loads very quickly, and you can instantly quit out of
a game and dive into another one in a couple of seconds.
The new Challenge Mode is where Mega Man veterans will likely be spending most of
their time, and it’s really a lot of fun. This mode includes around 50 WarioWare­style
rapidfire challenges that task players with completing small chunks of the games in quick
succession. The basic challenges only focus on one game at a time, but the more
advanced ones blend all six games together in interesting ways. For example, you might
begin by fighting Proto Man in Mega Man 3 only to be whisked away to a portion of
Gravity Man’s stage in Mega Man 5 — only to then find yourself dropped into Quick Man’s
infamous sequence of instant­death lasers in Mega Man 2.
These challenges are compelling enough on their own, but each one also has its own
online leaderboard that ranks players by completion time, and I found it enormously fun to
try and shave just one more second off of my runs and compete for a top spot. Replays
are also supported, and downloading replays is painless and instantaneous, lending
Challenge Mode a real community vibe where players can both compete and learn from
one another.
Rounding out the extra content in Legacy Collection is each game’s Museum and
Database. The Museums feature a huge collection of production art, behind­the­scenes
concept art, scans of magazine advertisements, and more. The Databases reveal the
statistics and special weapon vulnerability of every single regular enemy, Robot Master,
and Wily Castle boss across all six games.
In a special treat for long­time Mega Man fans, the previously Japan­only character
and
enemy profiles in the Rockman Complete Works games for PS1 have at last been fully
localized into English for the Legacy Collection Databases. Only the most hardcore fans
will bother reading every single one, but it’s great that Capcom took this opportunity
to
bring this content to English­speaking fans for the first time.
Finally, there’s a music player that provides instant access to each game’s excellent
soundtrack, though Mega Man 6’s ending theme is mysteriously missing. The music
player is actually pretty bare­bones and it would have been nice if you could utilize
it while
browsing the Databases and Museums, but at least it’s there.
I did unfortunately encounter a couple of minor issues while putting Legacy Collection
through its paces. The most persistent one is the fact that the games themselves are
noticeably quieter than the interface surrounding them, which meant I had to constantly
adjust the volume on my sound system. I also found that a game’s audio would
occasionally sound scratchy and garbled upon starting it up, though the problem usually
corrected itself within a few seconds. Last but certainly not least, Legacy Collection
suddenly crashed on me once while I was playing Mega Man 3, causing me to lose quite
a bit of unsaved progress. This only happened one time and everything was fine when I
relaunched the game, so it seems to be a very rare issue. That said, it’s definitely worth
mentioning.
Ultimately, between the stellar presentation of the six included games and the wealth of
extra content surrounding those games, I really like Mega Man Legacy Collection and it’s
most certainly NOT a cheap cash­in. It is every bit the historically authentic tribute
to
Mega Man’s 8­bit era it was intended to be, and I can confidently say that whether
you’re
a newcomer or a Mega Man veteran, there is no better way to experience Mega Man 1
through 6. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned to GameXplain for more on Mega Man
Legacy Collection and all things gaming!