Mega Man: The Wily Wars

[+jeremiahjt]

I got a chance to take a look a my new copy of Mega Man: The Wily Wars Collector's Edition by Retro-Bit. And play it. As far as the package goes I like it. I think the price was well worth it for the game and all the extras.

 

On to the game play. As someone who lived in the US and did not have the Sega Channel, this is my first time playing the game. Although I have played through the NES versions many times, especially the first one. I started playing the first Mega Man and swept through the boss stages. I beat every stage including bosses without losing a life except for Guts Man's stage. Now I do not think I could do this on the NES version right now, so I think the difficulty in the boss stages has been toned down.

 

I did die a couple of times in Dr. Wily's first stage thanks to the floating and shooting platforms. I think the Yellow Devil is harder than the NES version. In the second stage of Dr. Wily's castle I hit a wall. The Elec Man fight gave me some trouble and killed me more than once. The big difficulty increase came with the Copy Robot. I could not beat him. In the NES version I choose Fire Man's Firestorm and use the shield anytime the Copy Robot gets close. That no longer works as the Copy Robot now just keeps coming. I had him down to two bars with the Elec Beam once, but I ran out of weapon energy and could not finish it off.

 

Anybody else play their copy yet? Or any reproduction copy they have had for a while and want to chime in.  I am curious if anybody played the original Sega Channel release and noticed any differences. I know Retro-Bit says they fixed some of the slow-down problems.

[+jeremiahjt]

Made another attempt at Dr. Wily's castle. I do like the save feature so that I can start on Dr. Wily's castle instead of having to beat all the stage bosses again.  I lost a bunch more lives on the moving platforms in stage one, but no where else in the first stage.  The second stage again ended my game.  I never even made it past Elec Man.  Capcom really ramped up the difficulty on the Dr. Wily stages for this game.  Assuming the difficulty increase is not due to anything Retro-Bit did.

[Austin]

I've played this on and off over the years. It's a fun package and it's neat seeing the visual and sound upgrades. Gameplay overall took a hit IMO and some parts are more challenging because of the significantly nerfed fire rate.

 

I need to do another run soon as I haven't been to the Wily Tower in quite a while. That's a pretty cool bonus feature.

 

Regarding Elec Man, Cutman is his weakness. I still just use my standard cannon on the copy robot. Some other weapons do more damage, but it's easiest to avoid his shots with the standard cannon. Any weapon you switch to, he switches to as well. Something like Elec Man's weapon is hard to avoid as the projectile is huge.

[+jeremiahjt]

Finally finished off the first Mega Man.  Elec Man seems so much more difficult in this version.  When I finally defeated the Copy Robot I used the normal shot and had one bar on my life meter remaining.  The third Dr. Wily stage is a breeze.  I finished it on the first attempt without dying.  The last Dr. Wily stage killed me twice. The first time I tried to make the jump onto the moving platform after jumping on the block and missed.  So next time I just used the Magnet Beam.

 

The first time I got to Dr. Wily I only had three bars left so the first hit killed me.  The second time I finished him using only the Thunder Beam (or whatever Elec Man's weapon is called).  I do not recall ever defeating Dr. Wily on the NES version without using both the Thunder Beam and Fire Storm, but maybe I have.

 

Overall a nice rendition of Mega Man, but not as good as the NES original.  On to Mega Man II.

[+jeremiahjt]

I started Mega Man 2 and finished all the robot master stages. I always start with Air Man and I had to use two continues to make it through. That was actually the most trouble I had with any of the stages.

 

The fights with Flash Man and Quick Man were much more difficult due to the slower rate of fire you have. The disappearing blocks at the end of Heat Man's stage took me quite a while to get past also (yes I know you can use Item 2, but I do not like doing that).

 

Time to tackle Dr. Wily's castle.

[+jeremiahjt]

A couple of things I forgot to mention first.  There is no difficulty selection on Mega Man 2 now, you can only play on the difficult setting which is fine.  I have seen some reproductions of Mega Man: The Wily Wars advertise the slide can be used in both Mega Man and Mega Man 2.  I am glad Retro-Bit did not add that into those games.  The slide has no business being in the first two Mega Man games.

 

I did finish Dr. Wily's castle with some difficulty.  I breezed through the first two levels without a death.  The Mecha Dragon seemed a little bit easier.  The third stage gave me some trouble thanks to shorting two jumps underwater and landing on instant kill spikes.  I also died the first time I went down the vertical instant kill spike tunnel.  The fourth stage was not bad, but like always I had to use an Energy Tank to get through the Boobeam Trap.

 

The boss rush gave me some problems.  Quick Man and Wood Man both killed me multiple times.  I think I even used two Energy Tanks to get through them.  I used another on the Wily Machine and I ran out of Metal Blades and Atomic Fire.  I was already out of Crash Bomber.  I died and had to continue when I realized I had made a mistake.  I thought with the cartridge save I would start with the three Energy Tanks I already had, but I realized too late that it would not give those back to me since I continued after using them all.  I now had no Energy Tanks to tackle the boss rush and beyond.

 

So I started Dr. Wily's Castle over.  I got the first two Energy Tanks and suicided myself to start the Castle back over.  This time I made it through to the boss rush with three tanks.  I killed myself so I could continue and get fully recharged weapons.  At this point it was pretty easy.  I took out Quickman first since he gives me the most trouble and then Wood Man.  I went ahead and killed Wood Man with two fully charged Atomic Fire shots since it seems more difficult in this version to dodge his Leaf Shield.

 

I used two Energy Tanks, the last of my Atomic Fire, and a bunch of Metal Blades to finish off the Wily Machine.  The Alien went down quickly.  The pattern seemed a little bit easier than the NES version.

 

Just like Mega Man, Mega Man 2 is quite fun but not as good as the NES original.  I think the slowdown and gimped rate of fire affect Mega Man 2 more than Mega Man though.

 

On to the game I know least well of the three, Mega Man 3.

[Asaki]

On 2/5/2022 at 5:27 PM, Austin said:

Gameplay overall took a hit IMO and some parts are more challenging because of the significantly nerfed fire rate.

That's why I always play it with ROM hacks that fix all of those things.
...when I do play it, anyway. It's definitely an interesting package.

[+jeremiahjt]

For lunch one day this week I decided to start Mega Man 3.  I could not remember who is a good starting robot master, so I randomly chose Hard Man.  Wrong choice.  I could not beat Hard Man with the normal buster and got a game over.  I chose Top Man this time and was able to defeat him.  I thought I remembered Shadow Man being weak to the Top Spin so I went after him next and defeated him with the Top Spin.  Needle Man and Spark Man were next.  I believe Needle Man I weakened him up with the Shadow Blade before finishing with the arm cannon and Spark Man was defeated with only the arm cannon.

 

At this point I was like I need to stop at the next game over.  Then on to Magnet Man where I was pretty sure the Spark Shock was his weakness.  After defeating Magnet Man I remembered the Magnet Missile was Hard Man's weakness.  I could not remember Snake Man's weakness, but I remembered Gemini Man was weak to the Search Snake.  So I defeated Snake Man and then used the Search Snakes to take out Gemini Man.  By this time I was really hoping for a game over, but I was rolling through.  I chose Spark Man's stage for the next round of enemies.  I did not remember what Mega Man 2 robot masters were in what stage, but I remembered Metal Man being weak to the Magnet Missile and Quick Man being weak to the Gemini Laser.

 

After that level I was completely out of my lunch time so I had to turn it off.  Hopefully I can finish it this weekend.  Mega Man 3 does not seem as affected by the changes as Mega Man 2, but I have not tried Dr. Wily's castle yet.  It is nice not to have that weird line on the robot master select screen.

[+jeremiahjt]

I finished Mega Man 3. I really could not remember any of the rest of the Mega Man 2 robot master weaknesses, so I ended up spamming a lot of Needle Cannon. Wood Man killed me once and almost a second time. His Leaf Shield seems so much harder to jump over than the NES ones. I used Shadow Blade on Bubble Man and maybe one more. Air Man I took out with the normal arm cannon and I think I used the Magnet Missile on Crash Man.

 

I did remember the Hard Knuckle works against the new Yellow Devil and the Top Spin works against the clone. There are some problems with the game advancing from one Dr. Wily stage to the next. Some weapons get fully refilled, like Top Spin, while others keep their levels. I highly doubt they meant to have the weapon energy refill since they kept all the refill capsules at the beginning of the stages.

 

I got to the boss rush with 9 energy tanks. I had to use one on Hard Man and one more on somebody else. I remembered to use the Hard Knuckle and the Shadow Blade to take out the Wily Machine also. For Gamma I knew what to do too. Shadow Blade and then Search Snake (I never use the Rush Jet trick). Unfortunately using the Search Snake is now much more difficult. Once Mega Man jumps high enough at the top he can no longer fire his weapon. This makes getting the Search Snakes off very hard, but doable.

 

The slow down really showed up in the Dr. Wily castle stages. It probably affects Mega Man 3 as much as it does Mega Man 2. Still a fun game, but like the previous two not as good as the NES original.

 

On to Wily Tower.

[derFunkenstein]

All the versions of this game that I've played (hacks that add SRAM support, mostly) have tons of slowdown and as such I preferred the NES versions. Did Retro-Bit manage to fix that on the official release?

[+jeremiahjt]

4 hours ago, derFunkenstein said:

All the versions of this game that I've played (hacks that add SRAM support, mostly) have tons of slowdown and as such I preferred the NES versions. Did Retro-Bit manage to fix that on the official release?

They said they fixed some of the slowdown.  I have never played another version, so I cannot say for sure what all they fixed.  In the manual I think they specifically mention improving the slowdown in the boss battles from the first Mega Man game by getting rid of the score.  I do not know if that is all they fixed or not.

[+jeremiahjt]

I finished the three robot master levels of Wily Tower.  I decided to take on Buster Rod G first.  As I am a fan of the first Mega Man most, I took all 6 of the first Mega Man game's weapons and the Magnet Beam.  I then added Bubble Lead, Quick Boomerang, Item-1, and Item-2.  Buster Rod G's level is pretty fun and not too difficult.  I did come to a Crash Bomber breakable wall, but no Crash Bomber to break it.  I did watch a video of someone breaking it and it contains an energy tank.

 

Buster Rod G himself is pretty difficult.  I was attacking him with the arm cannon and doing well, but it was slow going as he blocks so many attacks.  I decided to try the Rolling Cutter and the Thunder Beam and got myself in trouble as he blocked them and starting damaging pretty good as I tried to get into position to attack him.  For something different I switched to the Bubble Lead.  Which worked.  I do not think the Bubble Lead is one of his weaknesses, it is just the way the Bubble Lead works it hits him often without him blocking it.  I was able to defeat him on the first try.  I did look up some videos of people fighting him and it looks like the Hyper Bomb is his weakness which is pretty cool since it is not used much.

 

I next tried Mega Water S next.  I dropped the Bubble Lead and Quick Boomerang and added the Crash Bomber and Hard Knuckle so I do not miss anymore secrets.  I dropped Item-1 and added Rush Marine since it is a water level.  I tried to make it through without using Rush Marine, but there is one jump I could not make no mater what so I had to use the Rush Marine once.  Another breakable wall, this time with the Hard Knuckle netted me my first Wily Tower energy Tank.  The boss was not too bad.  I stayed in the left corner and kept jumping and firing with the arm cannon.  I was down to about a fifth of my life left, but he went down.

 

For Hyper Storm H I dropped the Rush Marine and went the Rush Jet.  Another fun stage with not much difficulty.  Although at one point I did not think I could make a jump and used Item-2.  I actually could have made it because I thought the background was the ceiling when it was not.  The boss battle was the easiest yet.  Hyper Storm H gets two full bars.  I used my arm cannon only and still had 80% of my life left when I defeated him.

 

On to Wily's Castle.

[+jeremiahjt]

I finished Dr. Wily's castle in Wily Tower and all I can say is holy branching paths Mega Man.  There are a ton of different routes you can use.  I will probably try to play through Dr. Wily's castle again soon just to see some of the other stuff there.  None of Dr. Wily's castle is too difficult, except for the stuff I do not like to skip through.  I do not use anything to skip through the disappearing blocks or floating platforms until I have made it through legitimately a couple of times.  The hardest section may have been the floating and shooting platforms with a lower path at the end that leads to an extra man guarded by a Guts block.  Making it back to the top after getting the extra stuff was difficult to do.  I believe that was the only Guts block I saw in the whole game.  I with they would have made it more useful since the Thunder Beam can be used to destroy Guts blocks also.

 

The bosses were not too hard.  I killed Fire Snakey first try with only the arm cannon with quite a bit of health left.  I defeated Iron Ball first time with only the arm cannon also, but I had a lot less energy left.  Surprisingly there was no boss rush.  Buster Rod G made a return though.  I figured I would make quick work of him and used the Hyper Bombs only to find out they cannot hurt him this time.  The arm cannon did not do much so I tried the Rolling Cutter and that worked pretty good.  I beat him on the first try, although I did get low on the screen a couple of times which I assume would kill me.

 

As for Dr. Wily, I quite liked his giant robot first form.  I mostly used the regular arm cannon on the first form, although I did try Ice Slasher and Thunder Beam.  On the second form I tried Hard Knuckle and that seemed to work well.  For the last form, I figured the Thunder Beam would work well since he was above and it did the trick quite nicely.  It has a decent ending, but I wonder is Mega Man really slow or was Dr. Wily a former Olympic level track star.  The guy has got to be in his 70s and Mega Man cannot gain any ground on him.

 

Overall quite a fun game.  While none of the three remade games can match the NES originals, all are well done and it is nice having them together with a story reason why they are together.  The Wily Tower was also quite enjoyable.  One problem I seemed to have was accidental sliding.  I know it happens sometimes in the NES games, but it seemed to happen a lot here.  I wonder if it is the Genesis controller making it easy for me to accidentally hit down.

[+jgkspsx]

On 2/23/2022 at 12:47 PM, jeremiahjt said:

It has a decent ending, but I wonder is Mega Man really slow or was Dr. Wily a former Olympic level track star.  The guy has got to be in his 70s and Mega Man cannot gain any ground on him.

See also: Sonic 2 (and others?)