Megaman games. Sure, a fourth was on the way, but the fledgling franchise was still finding

its way in the newly rejuvenated video game industry. These three games were very well-received,

and folks were clamoring for more of the Blue Bomber. But before he’d get to tangle with

Pharaoh Man, Bright Man and the rest of Dr. Cossack’s creations... Wily had something

to say. In four-shade monochrome.

Dr. Wily’s Revenge, as the first portable Mega Man was subtitled, hit the Game Boy back

in ‘91. Fire Man, Ice Man, Elec Man, and Cut Man made return appearances, leaving Guts

Man and Bomb Man in the dust. Too bad for them. In classic Mega Man style, you get to

pick your poison with regards to boss order, though be warned: The difficulty has taken

a spike since the original outing. Sure, the music is similar, including the Journey ripoff

that is Elec Man’s theme, but the level designs are entirely original... and exceedingly

brutal. It doesn’t help that, relative to the screen size, Mega Man’s sprite is HUGE...

setting off a trend that I mentioned in my review of Mega Man and Bass for the GBA. The

pixel-perfect platforming that typified the series up in the 8-bit era is in full force,

the stages themselves are long and grueling, and the enemies are alarmingly resilient.

So once you’ve managed to clear out the first four bosses (or, if you’re finding

yourself hamstrung by having to play with your 3DS flat on a table and use a password),

you find yourself challenging Wily’s Castle, itself another non-trivial megaslog through

sniper joes, big eyes, Octopus batteries, and a new Mega Man Killer robot called Enker.

And in the middle of this onslaught, a classic teleport room directs you to battles with

four of Mega Man 2’s bosses; Bubble Man, Quick Man, Flash Man, and Heat Man. You might

notice that these are the four bosses that don’t appear in the Game Boy version of

Mega Man 2, which also includes four bosses from the NES Mega Man 3, and so on and so

on until the Game Boy V decided to give them all a miss and create all-new robots themed

after the planets. It can get confusing to hear me talk about them, but if you’re seeing

them in print, just remember that the NES games have numbers, while the Game Boy versions

have Roman Numerals. Unless you’re looking at the title screens of the NES games, which

all use Roman Numerals anyway, despite the numerals on the box and oh god I’ve gone

cross-eyed.

I could go on and on about the difficulty in classifying these weird line-straddling

Mega Man titles, but the fact of the matter is that the game’s just **** fun. Back when

there were only three games in the series, the emergence of a portable power - with a

maniacal difficulty level and two games’ worth of bosses. Well, half of two games.

Rather, 66% of one. And then Enker, who’s another 12.5%? My eyes are crossing again.

Anyway. This is the kind of awesomeness that has a welcome place on the 3DS Virtual Console.

Hopefully now, folks might get to learn about Quint, Punk, Ballade, and all the other Mega

Man Killers that sulk in obscurity until they’re mentioned in Battle Network or Mega Man Soccer

and everyone just goes, “Huh?”