A Video Game Revolution: Mega Man

It was the mid 1980's and America was glued to their televisions playing their brand new Nintendo Entertainment Systems (NES). Mario and Zelda dominated everyone's time, and games like Top Gun and Tecmo Super Bowl were being played across the nation. Then in 1987 America was introduced to a little blue robot who many thought would never survive here in the states, but they were all wrong, the blue bomber, Mega Man, has stood the test of time and won himself a spot as one of the most recognizable and favorite gaming icons of all time.

In 1987 the first game in the Mega Man series was created and released in the United States. The game was met with a huge fan base, something Capcom, Mega Mans publisher, had not intended. The game play was unlike anything ever released or featured in the video game world and fans loved the options they were given in the game.

You could chose what level you were going to play first, and later as the game progressed you could chose from a variety of weapons that you collected form beating enemy bosses. This kind of ability of choice had never been presented to players before. In games like Mario and Top Gun you were assigned certain levels or missions to accomplish and that was that, you play through them with assigned weapons and you get done. But in Mega Man you could chose what levels to play in at any time, and chose from an array of different weapons to assist you through the levels. This feature alone was one reason so many fans were attracted to the Mega Man series.

The story of Mega Man was pretty simple. A mad scientist named Dr. Wily was out to take over the world using powerful robots he had taken control of. These robots were originally intended to take over mundane tasks that humans had to do before their creation, but Wily had other plans. Now the world is in danger and it's only hope is a small blue robot created by the famous Dr. Light, Mega Man.

Playing Mega Man is very simple, in most levels you run to the right and shoot anything that gets in your way with your Mega Buster. After clearing a level Mega Man will enter the boss arena and take on the levels master boss. Each boss is incredibly hard and will have just as much health as Mega Man and a variety of moves that the player will have to learn to avoid or counter. Each boss has a weakness that can be exploited by using a power up weapon obtained by defeating another boss. In the original Mega Man game By defeating Bomb Man Mega Man gets to shoot bombs from his mega buster. This weapon is the weakness of Guts Man and will defeat him in about 4 or 5 hits. This "Rock, Paper, Scissor" system is a reoccurring theme in the series.

When the First Meg Man game was released to the United States the box art was known as some of the worst of any game ever created, and still is. The translation of the box art is nothing like the game, in the United States the Mega Man game cover depicts a middle aged man in a blue and yellow suite holding a strangle looking handgun. The real Mega Man is actually a boy robot who is blue in color and uses an arm cannon built into his design to blast away enemies. The original Mega Man box art is laughable, and has received numerous votes and awards for being the worst box art of any game to date.

Mega Man is a very fun and enjoyable game that has really stood the test of time. Its difficulty is attractive in many ways to serious gamers and the free playing style is an amazing feature. Since the release of the original Mega Man there have been countless spin off games including the popular X series, Zero series, and Mega Man Battle Network proving how much this first simple game changed the video game genra. Mega Man is a true classic.