Mega Man V

Platform Played On: NES



ABOUT


Mega Man V is the fifth installment to the Mega Man franchise on the NES. It features 8 new robot masters, levels, mechanics etc.


STORY


The Story of Mega Man V is quite interesting. Basically, Proto Man is potrayed as the main villain here as he got 8 other Robot Masters to come along with him and cause chaos to the world once again. Dr.Light gets kidnapped by Proto Man and Rock (Mega Man) finds out by a scarf that Protoman left behind. But of course, you learn later that apparently the Proto Man that you were going after was a Fake Proto Man created by Dr. Wily to try and blame crimes onto Proto Man. By the end of it, You managed to find Dr. Light after Dr. Wily surrenders, However, The place is about to collapsed and Rock actually straight up with his bare strength hold the entire place up from crushing Dr. Light as one last effort to Destory Mega Man for good. Then suddenly, Proto Man sang his song and helped Rock escape out of the place with Dr. Light unharmed. The final scene shows Dr. Light and Rock looking at the collapsed place as in the corner of the screen you can see Proto Man watching as he slowly walks away from the screen. Overall, The story is interesting, Not nearly as hard hitting as Mega Man IV's story but it's pretty good, I consider it a Second Best so far compared to all the other games I've played.


GAMEPLAY


The gameplay has been a straight up upgrade as there's been some fixes to the HP system being back to normal, The Menu from the previous game returns which is a nice menu in my opinion and of course there's been some new stuff. Mega Man can unlock a bird companion called "Beat" in which is very useful to various fights when you reach Protoman's castle (though it's best to use for the very last boss). Basically Imagine if Mega Man was a summoner that had a second character fly and attack enemies while being able to shoot his normal Mega Blaster. It's a really cool addition. The Stages and bosses in this game is some of the best that the series has to offer and it's overall a straight upgrade. Each stage actually has noticable gimmicks in the mix like for example, Gravity Man's Stage is just so fun. You swap gravities time to time and even the boss fight has this (Though it was a bit tricky to do, but once you get it, it's easy peasy). Every Boss felt so unique and so great to fight as they may come off as easy at some point but still challenging enough to where it's not a cake walk. Rush only has 2 abilities as they removed Rush Marine as it didn't seem all that useful. However they actually changed Rush Coil after all these games later to where you jump on him, he jumps up and as soon as you reach your heigh you can jump again. There's also a new item called "Super Arrow" in which you can use to make like arrows in a wall to jump on, it's really neat. Proto Man's Castle and Dr. Wily's Castle is really difficult to get through, However they are also well designed with their own gimmicks. Yeah they may kinda suck to do, but it's more of skill issue than bullshit enemy placement which there really wasn't much of surprisingly. But the Wily boss fights and Proto Man boss fights were all really solid and challenging fight that are deemed fair (You will be fighting the stage more than the bosses trust me on that LOL). Overall, Mega Man V's gameplay is the best that series has up to this point (Yeah Yeah, Mega Man X and all that later on but i'm referring up to this point from Mega Man 1)


MUSIC


The music in this is really good, Again this didn't feel all that weird like last time. The sound design is also really good as they brought back some sound effects from the earlier Mega Man games into this one mainly for the Menu stuff. But yeah, Intro, Character select, Stage music, boss music all really solid tracks.


FINAL THOUGHTS


Man... It took 3 games but this game for me took over Mega Man II, This game is challenging but really good. It's just well designed overall and a High recommendation. I'm glad that this game was a bit more Protoman focused as he seems like a really rad character. Overall, This game is just great.


SCORE 8.5/10