5/23/2009 - Real-life Mega Man

The guys at Mega 64 are great, but I don't think they could top this cosplayer from Japan dressed as none other than Mega Man. I think he truly understands the character and how he would behave in our world. Free from Dr. Light and missing his friends Rush and Roll, Mega Man would have a difficult time adjusting to a life devoid of enemies and boss fights. It seems like only E-Tanks can drown his sorrows:

4/25/2009 - Mega Man 2.5D

One of the neatest concept games for the Wii was Super Paper Mario. Even though Super Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy perfected 3-D platforming, Mario's roots were in 2-D sidescrolling. It would be hard to come out with a game these days that was strictly 2-D sidescrolling and have it not be considered outdated or merely a nostalgia game. For example, Mega Man 9 was a wildly successful game, but it was geared almost exclusively to nostalgic gamers. Super Paper Mario, on the other hand, added the third dimension to it's 2-D gameplay in a very clever way. It merely allowed you to switch your perspective to the back of Mario so that you could see what was previously behind or in front of him as now being to the left and right of him. It's hard to describe with words, but if you watch any gameplay video of it, you'd understand.

While not all classic 2-D sidescrollers could benefit from such an enhancement, I think the makeover would be ideal for the Mega Man franchise. As shown by Mega Man 9, the Blue Bomber belongs in the 8-bit world. But for future installments, I would hope that Capcom could think a little out of the box and adapt some of the Super Paper Mario innovations. A game modder has done just that with a Mega Man 2 stage and it looks absolutely terrific:

1/11/2008 - More Mega Man Madness (2 videos)

I'm sure you've seen some kung-fu movies and thought, "Why can't all the bad guys just gang up on the hero at once?" Well, if that happened, that would probably be a very short movie. The same kind of logic can apply to video games. You go through the various levels and encounter some kind of boss character at the end of each level. It's a staple, in fact, for all the Mega Man games. In Mega Man games, however, you do encounter them all again right before Dr. Wily himself. But you still only face them one at a time. Certainly the NES couldn't handle all the boss characters on one screen, but no such limitations apply to a hacked ROM:



Then of course there's Met, sometimes called Hard Hat for a very obvious reason. He is perhaps the most annoying Mega Man enemy and has been part of the series since the first game. Met is only vulnerable when he peeks out of the hard hat, only at that time he fires a spread shot at you. If you don't time your shot right, he just goes back to hiding under the hard hat. Of all the boss weapons in the Mega Man games, what is most effective in dealing with Met? This video attempts to find out:

11/22/2008 - Mario vs. Air Man

Having a working Super Mario Bros./Mega Man 2 mashup is impressive enough, but there are a couple of things that makes this one so impressive. First, the play mechanics did not change from Super Mario Bros. The programmers could have easily just put a Mario sprite in place of Mega Man and people wouldn't think the less of them. But Mario is all about stomping, and unless you have the Fire Flower, that's the only way to kill the enemies; thus making this game particularly difficult compared to a Mega Man game where you have an arm cannon. But what tickles my fancy about this video is that it has an 8-bit rendition of the song from one of my previous Mega Man favorite videos (http://youtubeaddict.blogspot.com/2007/07/7152007.html), the one where Air Man is supposedly impossible to beat. I hope the programmers continue to make more levels, or maybe even other mashups.

11/1/2008 - Mega Man 9 Time Attack (2 Videos)

One of my favorite features of Mega Man 9 is the Time Attack mode. I wish they could build this feature into every Mega Man game re-released for the Virtual Console or on a compilation disc. Mega Man games are famous for inspiring speed-runs of the game: completing the game in the shortest amount of time possible. While some people are content on just finishing a game, speed-runners are in a class of their own and are in constant competition against themselves. For example, not too long ago, Andrew Gardikis submitted a 5-minute time for completing the original Super Mario Bros. If you watch the video of the run, it looks impossible to go any faster, and yet I'm sure speed-runners are trying everyday to beat that time.

But what is brilliant about the Time Attack mode in Mega Man 9 is that is officially posts your completion time to Capcom's servers so that you can compare your time against others in the Leaderboard. You no longer have to tape yourself playing and submitting that to the Speed Demos Archive site, and unless there are glitches (I haven't heard of any), it's considered legit. It's pretty intense not just to compete against others, but yourself as you try to improve your own time. I am quite proud to be on the front page of Leaderboard for Dr. Wily Stage 1, but I'm constantly trying to improve my time.

What's also great about the Time Attack Mode is that it encourages others to become speed-runners and you can see a lot of speed-runs posted on YouTube. These videos show the techniques you can use to improve your own time and are awesome displays of skill from the most hardcore of gamers. For example, the last and hardest stage of the game (if you have no E-Tanks) is so difficult that there are only a few pages of the Leaderboard. The gamer in these videos taped himself so that he could watch his own performance to see what he could do better and to compare against past speed-runs. It's really cool to see two speed-runs side by side and even though the differences are small, they make a big difference when every second counts. Beware hardcore gamer language, however:

10/18/2008 - Mega Man 9 Death Gameplay

When I first heard that Capcom was making a Mega Man 9 game based in the old 8-bit style, I thought it was some kind of April Fool's joke. But when it turned out to be real, I couldn't contain my joy. My favorite 8-bit game happens to be Mega Man 2 for the NES... it was a simple platforming sidescroller whose greatest innovation was taken from the original Mega Man: your character would gain the weapon of the enemy boss you defeat. That weapon would help you in clearing other levels and defeating other bosses. As I've said before, Mega Man 2 perfected the design with its colorful and creative environments, refined control, and the best video game soundtrack of all time (in my opinion).

Mega Man would have 5 sequels on the NES that relied on the same basic design, and 2 sequels on other systems. There were a myriad of spin-offs, however, each straying away more and more from the original (I still don't know what Battle Network is all about). The original Mega Man would have a remake on the PSP with 3-D graphics, and while it was a nice nostalgic tribute, something didn't seem right about it. Capcom was definitely on the right track, however... and old school gamers like me really rejoiced when Mega Man 9 came out last month.

Mega Man really belongs in the 8-bit world. The graphics, the sound... nothing was enhanced in Mega Man 9 and it's just as well. Everything was made in the same way, even the difficulty. Now, a lot of current-generation gamers may say Mega Man 9 is a hard game, and some of them may get too frustrated with it and not finish the game. I say they are spoiled by the current games that have multiple difficulty settings and mid-level save points. Mega Man 9 is undoubtedly difficult and will require you to go through stages multiple times, dying a lot in the process. But that's what old-school gaming is all about. Because the control scheme is so simple (move, jump, shoot), the way to make it difficult is to test your reflexes, your memory, and your patience. Except for one part of the game which I think has the hardest jump in any Mega Man game (Jewel Man stage, you'll know it well), no death is ever cheap, and most of the time it's your fault. When you first start the game, however, you wll see this a lot:

7/23/2008 - 3D Okkusenman

As much as I am in worship of Capcom right now for making an old-school 8-bit Mega Man game for current gen systems, I would still like to see them remake Mega Man 2 like they did the original Mega Man for the PSP. Just to reiterate one more time, Mega Man is my favorite NES game and I think it has the greatest videogame soundtrack with the greatest single music track included. The first Mega Man is great too and definitely deserves the tribute of a remake, but Mega Man 2 is that much better and is widely considered to be the best game in the series. Given Capcom's current respect for retromania, I have no doubt they will eventually remake Mega Man 2, but in the meantime we have this fan-created 3-D CGI of the game which is really an awesome tribute to the game:



This little video might also serve as a template for a CG Mega Man movie, too.

6/30/2008 - Mega Man 2 Megamix

I apologize if I'm repetitive about my professed love for the Mega Man 2 soundtrack, my absolute favorite video game soundtrack of all time. The Street Fighter II soundtrack is fantastic too, but it's because I just don't like the Dhalsim and Sagat stage music that puts it a close second. If you don't count Dr. Wily Stage 3 and 4 as having music (it's not music by my stretch of the imagination anyway), then EVERY stage of Mega Man 2 has good if not great music. I can easily say that Dr. Wily Stage 1 and 2 is my favorite video game music track of all time, and not just that, it's one of my favorite pieces of music in general. I play the soundtrack on a loop at work and if someone comes in my office and wonders what that music is, I just say that it's pure 8-bit goodness. I recently found one of the best remixes of the soundtrack on YouTube and it's a shame that the creator disabled embedding on the video... here's the link, though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-k4XZZjrM8

5/21/2008 - Megaman 3 with vocal audio

While I think Mega Man 2 had the best soundtrack of the series (and perhaps the best videogame soundtrack in general), Mega Man 3 has a pretty awesome soundtrack as well. As with many great videogame soundtracks, you often find yourself humming a particular theme or two... maybe in the shower or while driving. Well, what if you could replace the music in a videogame with vocal humming and vocal sound effects? You get something that's kind of weird, but totally awesome:



I appreciate the fact that they used my favorite track from Mega Man 3, the Snake Man stage.

Update to yesterday's post: The Angry Video Game Nerd has been reinstated to YouTube! Hooray! Now if they can just get PlayItBogart and Armake21 back.

2/10/2008 - Mega Man Music Video

The last Mega Man music video I featured dealt with what I consider to be the best Mega Man game and the best 8-bit game in general, Mega Man 2. Interestingly enough, I didn't have the original Mega Man before buying its sequel. Mega Man was not a very popular game and with its horrible box art, it's no wonder why.



It wasn't until Mega Man 2 became popular that the original Mega Man became a sought-after item. In fact, I didn't find my copy at a toy shop or an electronics store. I found mine at a Walgreen's in the bargain bin! As far as the game itself, it's a great game and definitely the first of its kind. It really got out-shined by it sequel, though, which improved on the original in every respect. What struck me about Mega Man was how difficult it was compared to Part 2. And that is precisely the subject of this music video:



Poor Mega Man, he has to relive every frustrating aspect of that game: the drop-away platforms in the Gutsman stage, those annoying Roomba-like machines on Elecman's stage, and the dreaded Yellow Devil in Dr. Wily's stage. I didn't even know it was called the Yellow Devil until recently. But the name certainly fits. To this day, I can't beat that thing without the famous pause-unpause glitch.

7/15/2007 - エアーマンが倒せない

A lot of people don't think of it this way, but video games are a true art form in and of themselves. It takes true artists with tremendous imagination to come up with the designs for the characters and environments in these games. A lot of games these days with "good graphics" aren't necessarily ones that have the most number of polygons. Rather, they have talented graphic artists who complement the 3-D digital world with beautifully rendered bitmaps pasted on top of the polygons. For example, God of War and Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess don't compare to games on the next-gen systems in terms of polygon count, but the rich art contained in the game makes them look as good or better than those next-gen games.

Back in the 8-bit era, the game designers had a limited number of pixels to work with. Because of this, game sprites had to be relatively simple, but have enough detail in them to be recognizable as to what they represent. One of the best examples of great 8-bit "art" was the Mega Man games. They had this kind of cartoon art-style that gave the games a whimsical yet post-modern feeling to them. The imagery of the Mega Man games is so iconic, that it is often used in mashups or in music videos like this one:



This music video incorporates some very cool aspects of Mega Man II, my favorite Mega Man game, and my favorite 8-bit game of all time. Also, look for the clever Terminator 2 reference!

Past Favorites - Hare Hare Yukai (2 Videos)

Yeah, I remember the good old days when American cartoons didn't suck. Anime has taken over the States and with good reason. With few exceptions, their animators are top-notch, dedicated, and show consistent quality. Take this next video, for example. This is the ending of an episode of Suzumiya Haruhi. The song (and now the dance) is called Hare Hare Yukai:



You just don't get such choreography in American animation. The fact that this was storyboarded and not rotoscoped makes it all the more amazing. The video has become quite the hit on the YouTube stage and has led to a couple of great parodies (actually, they're more like dedications). Here we have Mega Man (Rockman) doing the Hare Hare Yukai:



Now isn't that just awesome? It just astounds me the way they were able to manipulate the Mega Man sprites to match the actions of the anime characters. It doesn't look unnatural at all. I also like the way they incorporated an 8-bit musical rendition into it. Nice touch!

Past Favorite - Mega Man 2 Dr. Wily's Stage 1 Theme on Mario Paint

This is perhaps my favorite music track of any video game and many agree as to its awesomeness (look at how many remixes there are on YouTube and VGMusic). One of the Retronauts on 1up.com even pointed out that it was in his iTunes library.

Anyway, I saw that TomBob was doing these remixes of video game music using Mario Paint. So I requested this track and he actually obliged and composed it in less than a day! I've never played with Mario Paint myself, but I can imagine the amount of work it takes to input each little note and then experimenting with the instruments to make it sound good. Thanks, TomBob, it ROCKS!