29) Mega Man 7(PS4) 6/11-6/12
Boy what a mess. Yeah I totally get why this game isn't held in the same regard as Mega Man 1-6. For all the flack that Inafune gets nowadays for the Mighty No.9 debacle, and believe he, he earned it............the level design he put forth in the first 6 entries blows MM7 out of the water. MM7 tries to build off of some of what Mega Man 6 did with the alternative routes which, as I mentioned in the MM6 writeup, makes it fun to explore these otherwise linear stages to see the content put forth in a level. But with MM7, it just isn't as well done as it was in Mega Man 6. Having to make dash jumps which on this collection is sometimes not responsible where if you don't make the jump, you either don't grab the ladder that is necessary to move or fall to your death with instant spike deaths is ridiculous. Having regular enemies be bullet sponges where you have to wait around on some enemies to go out of a phase to bring forth their hitbox is time wasting, I can count on one hand the enemies that die in 1-2 shots from the almighty Mega Buster, a vast majority take 7-8 bullet shots and a full charged shot still requires more followup shots to take down a REGULAR ENEMY. Not a boss or a mini-boss, a regular enemy. Some levels have gimmicks that are pretty cool but they overstay their welcome rather easily like having a room made completely in the darkness with instant death spikes below that your line of vision is gone which makes jumps borderline YOLO unless you got the weapon necessary to light up the room(Which isn't the boss's weakness which I will get to in a second). Forcing the player to either know this room via trial and error or to have to have that weapon to progress seems ridiculous and unless you killed the mini-boss a certain way which triggers a side route(That avoids all of this), I kind of question that design choice. I will also get to that a little more in a second.
What this game does good is there are very small dialogue portions in the beginning that doesn't take too much of your time and the game having a instant vendor outside of the levels where you can stock up on extra lives & ETanks is amazing based off of bolt currency earned from pickups from downed enemies you encounter throughout. The side areas are cool in itself but it's sorta like with MM6, it's nothing groundbreaking but the concept in itself is dope. The sprites are pretty groundbreaking since this is the first non NES game with this being released a little bit after the far superior Mega Man X title.
This game does some questionable stuff though no doubt. Having robot masters weak to TWO special weapons is And defeats the purpose of Mega Man 1-6(Sans Metal Man of MM2 having a weapon that kills everything) incorporating the idea that you want to find THE weakness of a robot master with everything else minus the traditional mega buster being near worthless. I try and use the weapon originally meant to be the weakness of a robot master but I find something better that isn't meant to be the weakness and it does as much damage and equal the animation/tell that the boss was hurt by it. So like what gives?
The Wily Stage bosses, particular the final two take the cake. The 2nd to last boss(Well unless you count the routine robot master boss rush) is abysmal, in large part due to being required to land on these fast missiles that are much smaller than the Mega Man sprite which had me one second slower and getting hit by the missiles instead of landing on them and slashing or firing the lone hitbox on the enemy. The 2nd Dr Wily Fight is considered one of the toughest fights in the game and in large part due to a very tough to dodge 4 elemental shot that tracks you and freezes/burns you if caught which does stupid damage. Took all 4 ETanks(You are limited to 4 tanks instead of stockpiling up to 9 in say MM6) and a weapon refill to beat him, what makes the boss shitty IMO is you are limited on how to hit him and have 2 weapons, a fully charged wire powerup & a blizzard shot that is low percentage, all the other weapons either don't hit him specifically in the hitbox necessary or don't reach him at all when he's at a higher elevation. Just not fun.
The soundtrack really has nothing that stuck with me either which is saying something given this series has produced so many great tracks and all time great ones no less.
Overall, just not a great game and certainly not a good Mega Man game. The stage themes are cool, going from a Jurassic Park esque level to a Ghosts N Goblins inspired dark level is cool. Just sucks the game has so many fundamental flaws ranging from enemies who take too many hits to die which in turn makes the game slow to the late game bosses being ridiculous to even hit to having only 1-2 ways to play a level or boss to even progress despite having so many powerups and all.
At least the next Mega Man game, MM8 has the campiness attached to it and is a silly game to play for the cutscenes & boss warcries alone.
30) Mega Man 8(PS4) 6/14/-6/15
This is much better. Let me first get this off my chest.........the voice acting and cutscenes are so bad, they are great. We get to that very shortly.
(Astro Man, Grenade Man & Aqua Man make me laugh all the time. Clown Man and Tengu Man too. Frost Man is underrated)
See, this is not a brand new playthrough for me, I had played this at least twice as a elementary school kid when this game came out on the PS1. Even as a kid, these cutscenes and warcries from the Robot Masters made me laugh my ass off. 25 or so years later, these just hit home, to the point I still remember a lot of the shit they say 🤣 One of the few Mega Man games on this revisit I knew the weaknesses from start to finish and remember much of the content in the stages too. These should normally be condemned with how cheesy and lame all of this terribad voice acting is for the game but dear god, it adds so much charm to it, especially with how baron MM7 was for me, this was highly appreciated. Keep in mind, I grew up on 90's anime and terrible dubbing so this was right at home for me.
Most important is the gameplay, gotta be a redemption for the blue bomber after (IMO) a real meh effort in MM7. This game hits it on home, one of the better mega man experiences for me thus far in this revisit/new replay of MM 1-8. Yes the sprites look different being this game came out for both Sega Saturn & PS1 but unlike in MM7, I felt the obstacles and environment played up to the sprites properly, which I felt was a little weak in MM7 when it made the conversion from NES to SNES. Yes the hideous Mega Man slope obstacle course rears it's ugly head in this one, where I knew right off the bat, was a stuff full of nightmares. Especially with a legit half second delay via the Mega Man Collection 2 edition, I died on this stage about as much as I did the rest of the game. Your are riding pretty fast through a snow level and get prompts of JUMP or SLIDE and you better follow that prompt if you want to survive as both instant death pitfalls & spikes await if you don't take the advice. It wasn't terrible but man the 1st Wily Stage with this shit got a little annoying and what was the worst about this in IM FROSTMAN's stage is putting bolts in these which were tricky if you didn't know what your doing.
There are 40 bolts in this game and they serve as the currency in this game and buying powerups from Miss Roll(This might have been the 1st game she was in or at least had a prominent figure in) that are really good, things like quicker full charge for the mega buster shot, sliding quicker, energy converter which has been a staple for a few Mega Man's now among other goodies. What kinda sucks is there are only 40 bolts(Which I got em all btw because I just had to) but the powerups altogether will rack you up for a good 65 or so which means on one run alone, you just won't be able to get all the powerups. Kinda wish there was a way to get that near invincible Mega Man but I get it, replay it if you want to experience the other stuff.
Some of the gameplay highlights is Mega Man's 1st ever venture into Schmps genre with a really cool flying sequence on everyone's favorite Capcom doggo, Rush. In addition, powerups can lead you to get Uncle Eddy dropping bombs, Beat the robo-bird coming in as a minion and pecking enemies and Auto the vendor(Well in MM7 he was) who pops a bazooka that shoots out fireworks upon contact. Pure Mega Man Justice League if I ever saw one myself. Each level has two parts and the greatest thing is if you die or lose all your lives, you don't have to start all the way in the beginning. You reach a continue spot, you start from there, no questions asked. Unless you leave the stage entirely IIRC but why do that? Weaknesses really feel like weaknesses here which is what the older MM titles got right, feels really good to do your homework and exploit it as the robot masters are practically hopeless when you pop em with it. With the Mega Buster, you do get decent fights admittedly and you get to see their full dialogue(Which aforementioned is hilarious) and full moveset which you would not see otherwise. As always, the choice is yours if you want to cheese em or not.
Rush takes on a prominent role here, he has different abilities from RUSH BIKE which you (no lies) ride Rush as he turns into a red motorcycle around for a certain amount of time(Until his energy goes 0) or RUSH health which he flies around and drops both weapon refill and HP refill(So important) to an attack he can do where he just bombs the shit out of people while flying horizontally around which took down a later boss when I was experimenting this accidentally. If you like Rush the Robo-Dog, your gonna love this game.
Story is whatever, you have this good robot named Duo who seizes to exist in trying to protect the world from an evil force and you recover what is left of him and good ol' Dr Light revives him back and you see him pop in and out of the story and ultimately be the good guy of all good guys for what he does at the end to save Mega Man from peril. Protoman makes a brief cameo, Bass & Treble(Who debuted in MM7 and I forgot about their inclusion as they become fixtures in this series) also are appearing here. The same crew for the most part makes their appearance here.
Game runs about 5-6 hours if you go full completionist, a little more than a typical Mega Man game, I quite liked this game. Quite a bit actually. Still holds up decently, it's just silly fun and the over the top voice acting and shitty dubbing makes this such a fun experience. If there is one thing to take away from this, please look up the Mega Man 8 cutscenes and the Robot Masters English voice acting.
31) Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart(PS5) PLATNIUM TROPHY 6/17-6/20
Easily my 2021 GOTY thus far in. I would even say after the Astro's Playroom demo, this is the 2nd game you outta play if you are fortunate to get a PS5. Especially if you at all like the R&C series.
The Platinum itself is very generous and easy to get, it took me about 17-18 hours to get everything down to a tea and the tasks the game asks of isn't hard at all. The hardest part of this game were the battle arena waves in this game, particularly two of the challenges but really this game isn't so bad(I played this on the 2nd hardest difficulty, not sure how much harder Renegade makes this game).
Now lets get the negatives quick out of the way..........there were quite a few glitches I endured including a whole area not loading up after I finished it and needed to go back to my ship. There are also hilarious Ratchet(And Rivet) glitches where they get stuck and are in a falling motion while on a tight mountain creek. Nothing too severe however but you would either instant die while in a funny glitch when trying to platform or take damage on landings you would normally not take damage on. Very minor. What I do wish this game did a bit better was how they handled the dialogue. Not that the story stinks, because it doesn't(It's a very Pixar esque storytell which this series does and I have zero qualms with) but you can accidentally skip over minor dialogue that isn't in a cutscene because you accidentally die in the midst of chatter or by accident progress the story by hitting a switch that negates the dialogue. What I wish Insomniac did here was take a page out of Visual Novels and offer an option or prompt to open up previous dialogue in a box that you can see what was said so you aren't missing what is being said by each character because I did enjoy the chatter while exploring or roaming an area.
And I guess the final negative may be game length because without fully 100% the game, this game is probably 12-13 hours which is fine for a typical Ratchet and Clank game but not at 70+ bucks and as a full price game. Fortunately for me, I got the game on a discount at 61 bucks after taxes so I am paying for the game at an appropriate price(for me). I can see replayability on NG+ but given you can get all the weapons on a 1st run, I guess there is incentive to max out all the weapons? But yeah you really owe it to yourself and your purchase to go for everything possible because again the game isn't hard, unless you play this on the utmost hardest difficulty(Which even then how much harder is it?)
But now the positives.........
Gameplay is fantastic, I think the Haptic motion controls are a little overstated by people saying this game does it best for the system, I still think Astro's Playroom is by far the best game I have played that uses these controls the way that they did and I was hoping R&C would beat it the way people were hyping it up but alas. If you like R&C series, this game really hits the gameplay on home and the different type of weapons are nifty such as MR FUNGI(Get it, Mr. Fun....Guy) who is the Mr. Zurkon clone of the game(Will get to that in a second) or a Drillpuppy type of weapon that is a lunging drill that wipes out enemies it targets. A lot of the weapons are sorta rehashed or even brought back into the game but Insomniac..........HOW IS THERE NOT A SHEEP-O-MATIC or a weapon like it? Absolute staple of all the games, this weapon turns your enemies to SHEEP........or CHICKENS.........or PIGS. We were so lacking this in the game, that was the lone weapon that was truly omitted. Even the almighty Ryno VIII is awarded to you and baby it's as broken as you'd expect it, with it crashing down a shit ton of easter eggs to crash down on all that is unfortunate to be targeted by it. It sucks they put the god tier Bouncer weapon for a NG+ run, Insomniac even knows how studly that weapon is.
The presentation and graphics are beautiful, I can't get enough how well voiced all the characters are and the standout is ZURKON JR's run down of all the weapons before you buy them. The voice actress of Zim from Invader Zim and Billy from Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy(And tons of other stuff) is the MVP here, I can't do it justice but it's so much fun listening to Zurkon Jr yell out and hype out the weapons in such an overhyped and cheerful way. You have zero souls if you aren't laughing hard the first couple of times he does this. The Zurkon family are just so good, even Ms Zurkon is your vendor and is looking out for your best interests(And for Zurkon Jr's best interests, she even says she's taking these bolts to get him into college). Zurkon Sr was missing sadly and was MIA but 2/3 of the family killed it here. Ratchet and Clank are fantastic as always as characters and it was cool to see them take a seat to the newest characters both Rivet(Female Ratchet that is on the cover of the game) and KIT(Female Clank that is introduced in the story) and it's so cool how they are so alike to their counterparts. Without spoiling the story, this game has two different dimensions with two different Dr Nefarious(AKA the greatest villain in the series like ever), two different Captain Quarks(The bumbling, foolish character) & two different Skidd McMark(The hoverboard star who is also a fool often). Lots of cameos of characters from past games like Rusty Pete of R&C Future games like Tools of Destruction & Quest for Booty so I knew right away who he was. This game feels like such a love letter to past games, you really do yourself well to play the main games before tackling this one if you can but this game also introduces so much and has an original story that it isn't mandatory in doing so either.
The lightheartedness of this game and series is why I love it so much. It can get a little dark but nothing too cringe or edgy, game has a lot of light hearted humor, it can get a little clique sure but for a game intended for everybody, I can forgive this and the game hits it on home by the end. I cannot count the amounts of times I was laughing throughout the playthrough and cutscenes, the series isn't breaking 3rd wall or anything but it's the cutesy humor that is done just enough and doesn't overstay it's welcome.
Some of the boss fights in this game are insane and I can admit the very final boss, I cheesed with the RYNO VIII because why not? You have to get all of the Spybots(All 10) which are hidden well to even get this thing, might as well blast the main antagonist the hell out with it. In fact by getting all 25(Or was it 26?) golden bolts, you can unlock INFINITE AMMO & INFINITE HP which makes you invincible. Felt absolutely great to just be a tank during the end game, I breezed through the GOLD CUP with zero shits given. The new introduction to waypoint to the collectibles was so good, as long as your near a hidden collectable like a golden bolt or rareitanium, you will see it pop up on the map(before you get the item that has all hidden goodies appear on your map) and you can waypoint it and the game is fantastic in showing you where it is. Really saves you loads of frustration and time in trying to search the best route to get it.
This was such a fun game, you can tell by me just blowing by this 4 days and doing everything I can outside of maxing like 3-4 weapons(Or fully maxing em which requires Rareitanium grinding which isn't even necessary for all trophies or to make your weapon great). Insomniac can do no wrong with me, you owe it to yourself to play R&C: Rift Apart if you own a PS5.
