Mega Man 64

"This is simply a port of Mega Man Legends from the Playstation, but they fixed the controls."

I must say that the N64 simply got the short end of Sony's marketing muscle. Game series like Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and Mega Man jumped Nintendo's ship and went to develop for the Playstation. Of course, a lot of this is Nintendo's fault, but it was still sad to see. Luckily Nintendo has finally gained some of these franchises back with the Gamecube. Still, it was strange to see a Nintendo system without these franchises. However, late in the N64's lifespan, a new Mega Man game was announced. Of course "new" wasn't quite right. It was basically a port of the Playstation version of Mega Man Legends. It was a good port, and Nintendo even fixed the terrible controls from the Playstation version. In all, Mega Man 64 is a good game, and it's a better Mega Man Legends version than Mega Man Legends itself.

The control was the worst thing about this game when it came out on the Playstation. It was so bad that Capcom made sure that they fixed it when they made Mega Man Legends 2. Basically the analog stick wasn't used, and in order to turn Mega Man, you had to use the shoulder buttons. Thankfully, Nintendo fixed this problem with Mega Man 64. The control stick was actually used in this game, and that made it much easier to control Mega Man. Now the lock on system was easy to use. Of course this made an already easy game even easier.

Unlike past Mega Man games, you don't pick a stage and blast threw it until you defeat the boss. You also don't steal a boss's weapon when you beat him. Instead Mega Man is a treasure hunter with his sister Roll, his grandfather, and his pet monkey Data. They are looking for the legendary Mother Load treasure, as are the Bonnes, another group of treasure hunters. As Mega Man, you will enter into digging sites in order to look for Refractor Shards in order to repair your ship, the Flutter. Outside of digging sites, Mega Man Legends turns into a kind of Zelda-like adventure.

The graphics are much like the Playstation version, which isn't a great thing. Even worse, they have the customary N64 trademark blurriness to them. When this game came out, the graphics were okay, but today they are very blurry. While the backgrounds have nice color, the graphics are not very impressive. The music is also not the catchy type that we are used to in a Mega Man game. Mega Man 2 & 3 had some of the catchiest music ever in a video game, as did most Mega Man games, but Legends is the exception. When you are on the surface, there is almost no music at all. The digging sites have some music, but it is repetitive and not very exciting.

After five successful spin-offs, Mega Man is by far Capcom's most successful franchise. Let's face it, the original series, the X series, the Zero series, the Battle Network series, and of course the Legends series are all reasons why Mega Man is so popular. They are all fun games to play. With that said, the game is a tad on the short side. Yes, there are some things to do like finding every shard, and doing stuff at the T.V. station, but overall there really isn't much replay value in this game. Honestly, this game is a good game, but I actually wish that they had made this game a bit more like the NES ones. Still, you can probably find this game used for a very cheap price. I'm just glad that N64 owners got to experience Mega Man 64, since the Mega Man series did originate on the NES, and that would have left some Mega Man starved N64 owners very angry.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/05