Mega Man Powered Up

""Manga Man" or "Mega Man"??????"

MegaMan Powered Up

The Blue Bomber is back, courtesy of Capcom. This is an remake of the original NES game, utilizing "chibi" (big-headed) sprites for the characters. This game packs a lot of value into one small UMD, and for the admission price of fifty bucks...you'd get a lot of fun!

For the uninitiated, Mega Man is a two-dimensional platformer in the style of Mario. The Blue Bomber can shoot his "mega buster", jump, and climb ladders. The challenge is contained within the level with timing puzzles, and figuring out how to blast apart the boss. But Mega Man has a special capacity - he can take the weapons of the defeated bosses. Mega Man can then use them to find extra areas in each level and exploit other Robot Masters' weaknesses with them!

Story - 3/10

It is a bleak future. Robots have human intelliegence, and the foremost creator of sentient robots is Dr. Light. His rival scientist steals his creations (robots who have special abilities) and uses them to conquer the world. Dr. Light then retrofits a housekeeping robot with weapons and uses the boy robot to bring all of his robots home!

Simple and succinct. It's not Shakespeare, but it will suffice. We aren't here to be entertained by storytelling, are we?

Graphics - 5/10

Slow-down city. When there is a little more action on-screen, the game lags, lags, lags. This makes the all-too frequent jumping puzzles feel a little cheap, and makes you feel like you are playing a really badly programmed computer game instead of a state of art handheld!

Sound - 5/10

Remixes of the original Mega Man soundtrack and music.....zzzzzz...

Control - 8/10

Nothing too different here. The triangle button fires, and the X button jumps. The shoulder buttons are used to scroll through the assorted weapons.

Gameplay - 7/10

Mega Man gameplay has never varied with age. There has never been a three-dimensional Mega Man game, or a board game with the Blue Bomber in it. All the traditional exploration based levels are there, along with two extra stages. These extra stages feature two "new" Robot Masters as the bosses. They are Oilman, and Timeman! (Both requiring new ideas of how to beat them...)

Levels are set out in a simple and intuitive way. There are two new play modes, "new style" and "old style". New style contains a tutorial stage in the beginning...where you see the cinematic story of how Mega becomes Mega Man, and he fights the Proto-eye. Old style is just a simple rehash of the NES game, albeit in a "chibi" style.

Levels follow form and function, keeping with the old play style of Mega Man. Some levels suffer from "cheap shots", making you fall to an painful death, or burning you until you can practically see Mega Man's paint job peeling.

Extras - 9/10

The extra modes really shine here. If you have an WiFi broadcast antenna at home or in the office, you can go online and download custom stages made by other Mega Man fans!

For people who always wanted to make their own levels, we have a simple "Construction" mode. This mode is similar to placing Lego bricks on a grid, and you can place enemies and death traps for Mega Man and company to challenge them. You can even collect extra "packs" for you to use in construction mode in the main game!

You can also play as the Robot Masters, after defeating them with the Mega Buster, and therefore returning them to Dr. Light for repair. You start the game over with each of the Robot Masters you play as. Each Robot Master has weaknesses and abilities, changing the way you play through each level.

Final Thoughts - 5/10

Not recommended for anyone but the most Mega Man fanatic. The difficulty level is very hard and jumping puzzles will frustrate any Mega Man novice. That said, some novices will enjoy this value-packed game, as this title contains so many extras that you will spend so much time on. Rent this game first, and take the time to really explore every avenue...then decide for yourself!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/07