Mega Man V

"Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Pluto, Neptune, and of course Terra! Enker, Quint, Punk, and Ballade join the party as well."

All of the Game Boy games followed a simple pattern. The first four were all basically rehashes of the NES games. Give Capcom credit, they decided to create an all new Mega Man game for Mega Man 5. This was shocking because as I said before, all of the Game Boy games up to this point were all rehashes. The Mega Man games that were made for the original NES are some of the best ever created, with Mega Man 2 & 3 leading the pack. Of course we have the Mega Man X series, the Mega Man Zero series, and the Mega Man Battle Network series as well. All of these separate series all star a different Mega Man. There were also three 3D Mega Man games made for the Playstation. The fact is, Mega Man 5 is one of the best games of the original Mega Man games, and sadly the last one as well.

The gameplay in Mega Man games is pretty simple. After the title screen, you will come to the stage select screen. It is hear that you can pick any of the first 4 robot masters. After you make your selection, you will have to battle your way threw a stage until you get to the robot master. If you defeat him you clear the stage, and also take that robots weapon as well. This weapon is very affective against another specific robot master. If you use this weapon, it is sometimes easy to defeat another robot master in as little as three or four hits. That is something that Capcom pushed when it came to Mega Man, a sort of rock, paper, scissors type of gameplay. After you defeat the first 4 robot masters, you'll face off against the next 4.

Mega Man 5 has an awesome storyline. You can tell that Capcom put some serious thought into it. One day, while going for a peaceful stroll with Roll, Mega Man is confronted by a strange robot called Terra. As one of the Stardroids, Terra damages Mega Man and continues to invade cities around the world with his Stardroid companions. Unable to do anything to stop the evil robot's destructive plans, Mega Man finds that his Mega Buster has no effect on these robots of alien design. To solve this issue, Dr. Light has designed the new Mega Arm, a weapon which allows Mega Man to charge up energy in his fist before firing it. With no sign of Dr. Wily, it's unknown as to whether he's behind this or not, but it's up to Mega Man and Rush to stop the evil Stardroids and save the world! Dr. Light has also designed a new robotic cat called Tango, who's along for the ride to help Mega Man out in battle.

The graphics are interesting to look at. The sprites and backgrounds are basically the same as the NES versions. The jumping is decent, as is the play control. Another thing that really has improved is the fact that the sprites are normal size in this game, something that was an issue in the other four Game Boy Mega Man games. The music is fantastic and in all it sounds pretty good. The game has a nice balanced difficulty as well. Not too hard, not too easy. It's perfect.

All Mega Man games have lots of replay value. This game is no different. This game is much longer than the other Game Boy games. What makes this game so good is the fact that it is an original game, not a rehash. I still think that the NES games are better, but the Game Boy games are still very fun to play threw. This game is still a worthy addition to your game library. Sadly, this was the last great “original” Mega Man game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/05, Updated 01/02/07