Mega Man 7

"Music and sound effects aside, Mega Man 7 is a work of art."

After six titles on the Nintendo, Mega Man finally upgrades himself and makes the leap onto the SNES. The game may feel a bit odd at first, but it does not take long at all to realize that because Mega Man is on a more powerful console, more things can be done with the game. This is nothing short of a godsend, because not only does the game provide the traditional features of the NEs titles, but it also adds a great deal of length to the game should you decide that you want to find everything.

Unlike Mega Man games of the past, Mega Man 7 begins with a setup stage -- a level in which you the player do little more than conquer a small stage and an easy boss in order to get accustomed to the controls. Considering that Mega Man finally makes the jump off of the SNES, this idea is a good one. What follows is the traditional Mega Man formula in which you see a screen and pick a boss, but with a catch. Instead of having eight bosses to choose from, the game is split into two halves and you pick between two sets of four bosses. The obvious downfall to this is that it makes it far too easy to figure out what the boss weaknesses are through trial and error, but thanks to the variety given to the bosses and their names, you can't simply look at the bosses and naturally know what their weaknesses are. It seems like a short list consisting of Ice Man, Burst Man, Junk Man, and Cloud Man would be easy to figure out, but you would be surprised as to how easily some of these bosses can kill you when you don't know what you're doing; of course, that's the fun part of any Mega Man title.

From a difficulty perspective, Mega Man 7 offers difficulty from a few different areas. For those who like difficult games as a whole, Mega Man 7 does not disappoint. One of the biggest strengths in any Mega Man title has always been level design, which is nothing short of brilliant in Mega Man 7. Not only are there a multitude of enemies, traps, and difficult jumps to make through the game, but there are things hidden in the game in places where you wouldn't even think to look. For those who like to find everything that a game has to offer, Mega Man 7 is definitely for you. You can literally spend hours searching every corner of the game with Rush Search alone, and that doesn't even factor in the secrets that involve using the special weapons or the occasional false wall that shows up. Mega Man 7's design doesn't just come off as thorough, but a work of art in and of itself. For those who simply want to go through the main game without worrying about getting every last item, then there is an alternative for you in Auto's Shop. Various enemies throughout the game drop Bolts, which is the currency in Mega Man 7. If there is an item or two that you don't feel like spending hours looking for, you can simply go to the shop, buy the item, and be on your way. In this regard, the items to be found in Mega Man 7 appeal to gamers of different tastes.

Another thing that I found brilliant about Mega Man 7 were the sprites. They are all large, which not only gives extra attention to the graphical details given to the game, but also makes the game more difficult for you in an indirect manner. Mega Man is bigger. The enemies are bigger. The bosses are colossal. But despite all of these improvements, you have the same amount of space given to you as before. This means that all of those enemies who were once small and distant in the NES Mega Man titles are now up close and personal from the start. It's amazing in a graphical sense, but it makes the game harder. If difficulty is your thing, then there is no reason why you shouldn't love the fact that everything has increased in size.

Finally, there are Mega Man's upgrades themselves. In far too many cases within Mega Man titles of the past, little variety was given to Mega Man's weapons. This is not the case in Mega Man 7. By the time Mega Man takes down the eight main bosses, he can have a fireball shield that flies at the enemies, a spring that fires in two directions, a short range claw that rips everything it touches to shreds, a bubble that traps enemies and sends them sky high, a lightning bolt that splits in two directions upon touching anything, a shield that is literally made out of junk, and above all, a sound wave. A sound wave. Blasting off a pulsating stream of energy is awe-inspiring in and of itself, but you can bounce the attacks off of a wall, let it hit you, then fire it again in an attack that kicks twice the ass that it did in the first place. And if that lineup of weapons isn't amazing enough, there are an absolute throng of other items and upgrades for you to spend hours looking for.

Mega Man 7 has everything a fan of the series would want from a Mega Man title and then some, but the game does not come without its drawbacks. The music in this game is very sub-par, and borders on being downright atrocious at times. The sound effects aren't much better, either. Mega Man firing a basic shot sounds horrible, and you have to listen to it through the entire game. Mega Man charging his buster isn't any better, and most of the other sounds in the game, from the enemy sound effects, to the sound of Mega Man jumping, to the sound of an attack hitting the enemy -- all of which are sounds that you listen to in large numbers through the entire game -- give little reason for you to have the volume on. And if that weren't bad enough, Mega Man 7 was the first Mega Man game in which Capcom told a story that involved more than just the intro and epilogue.

The game tries to tell a good story, but in the end the script comes off as something very out of place. In fact, most of the script is borderline corny. The game has it's moments, such as the interactions between Mega Man and Bass and the occasional Dr. Wily sighting, but overall, script writing is better left for RPGs.

Overall, Mega Man 7 is a good game that can keep you busy for hours given the right circumstances. It's a true shame that the music, sound, and script -- three things that are constantly fed to you in the most unpleasant of ways -- can take so much away from what would otherwise be a flawless gaming experience.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/30/04