Mega Man Legacy Collection 2

Genre: Compilation / Action-Platformer

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

(Note: This collection is included in the physical collection Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 + 2, along with Mega Man Legacy Collection.)

Mega Man Legacy Collection is a collection of four Mega Man games late in the main series, Mega Man 7, 8, 9, and 10, with 7 and 8 originally released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sony PlayStation, respectively, and 9 and 10 more recent releases designed to be throwback titles reminiscent of the old 8-bit games. These games are all Action-Platformers with the same basic premise – you are a peacekeeping robot out to take on eight various enemy robots (selecting from four at a time in Mega Man 7 and 8), each with their own elemental theme and thematically-appropriate stage to traverse before you can reach them. Upon defeating one of them, you’ll get a version of their weapon that you can swap to, with a large part of the strategy of these games being learning which order to play the game’s stages, since each robot is weak to one of the others’ weapons. Upon defeating them, you’ll challenge a final gauntlet of difficult stages and bosses before taking on the mastermind behind the threat (usually the nefarious Dr. Wily).

While some of the NES games in the Mega Man series, once the series moved to 16-bit and beyond, the series started to be overshadowed by the Mega Man X series, and a look at these games kinda’ makes it clear why… but I’ll get to that in a moment. When Mega Man 9 and 10 took the series more or less back to its roots, this was seen as a welcome change, but one that didn’t quite reach the heights of those earlier games. Still, as for how each of these games far in their own right, here’s what I thought:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
Mega Man 7	Action-Platformer	1	B-
tl;dr Changing the series formula to restrict players to choosing half of the bosses at a time, and blowing up the size of the sprites (and in turn, shrinking the size of the stages) resulted in a game that feels claustrophobic, slow, and far too easy, although on the bright side, the graphics got a huge boost by the jump in platforms and a great deal of attention paid to expressive animation.. It’s not terrible, but it’s a far cry from the high gameplay quality of the earlier games.
Mega Man 8	Action-Platformer	1	B
tl;dr Another jump in platforms, and another boost in graphical quality, and thankfully the higher resolution means they can bring the stages back to a more reasonable size while keeping the detailed sprites. However, they’re still doing the 4-and-4 boss split, and the game is still a bit on the easy side. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this game’s hilariously bad voice acting, although it’s a matter of personal preference whether this adds or detracts from the game’s charm. Overall this is a solid game, but still not up to the quality of the earlier games.
Mega Man 9	Action-Platformer	1	B+
tl;dr This game takes the series in a very retro direction, stripping Mega Man of most of his moveset he’s gained over the years – no slide, no Mega Buster, but you do still have Rush, making this game play like it was released in between Mega Man 2 and 3. And like those games, this game has visuals designed to look like an NES game, and one of the best soundtracks since those classics, as well as a high challenge level much like those games. It’s still not quite as memorable as those earlier games, but overall the gameplay quality is still pretty good here.
Mega Man 10	Action-Platformer	1	B+
tl;dr Much like Mega Man 9, this game goes for a retro look and game design. This time you can now play Proto Man, who has a charge shot and slide, as well as a shield to protect from projectiles while jumping, but this comes with a trade-off of fewer shots. It’s a nice addition, although the challenge level in this game is a bit too high for my tastes. Still well worth playing.

Overall, these are all solid games, with no real stinkers in the group, but there are also no truly spectacular games here either. It also bears mention that this collection only includes 4 games compared to the six games in the first collection, and with a price tag that’s $5 more, too. The really disappointing thing here is that Capcom could have easily fleshed out this collection some more by including Mega Man and Bass, the two Mega Man Power Fighters games, and even Mega Man Soccer (yes, it’s bizarre that this exists, but since it does exist, it would be nice to have it). Conversely, they could have included the early handheld games in the series, some of which were completely original titles. You know, something to make this game not look so much like a clearly inferior product compared to its predecessor.

Thankfully, there’s far, far more to this collection than just the games themselves, although not quite as much as the first Legacy Collection had. Firstly, players have multiple display settings. Also, every game in this collection supports a rewind feature and a limited form of save states – you can only save from the last checkpoint reached this time.

Beyond this, the game offers a wealth of support content in the game’s menus, including a Challenge mode with a selection of remixed sections from multiple stages for players to compete for the best times on leaderboards (with more challenge levels unlockable with Amiibo), a full music select menu, and a huge museum of production art and concept art (but no box art or manual art this time), and a “database” detailing every character in each game, their background, and weaknesses.

I should also mention that if you’re looking to buy the physical version of Mega Man Legacy Collection 1+2, be warned that playing Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 requires a digital download, so bear that in mind when deciding which version of the game to get.

It’s hard not to look at Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 and see how it’s inferior to its predecessor in just about every way. For $5 more, there are fewer games, that are generally lower in quality, with fewer features, and less in the way of supplemental content. However, while this collection is inferior to the first one, it’s still a fine collection of solid Action-Platformers that comes with a healthy amount of options and bonus content, and at least in and of itself, this is a superb collection, well worth getting for anyone who enjoys the genre.

tl;dr – Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is a collection of the seventh through the tenth numbered games in this series of Action-Platformers. These games are all pretty good, but none reach the heights of the earlier games in the series, there’s less bonus content than in the first collection, and it’s $5 more. However, it’s still a solid collection of great Action-Platformers with a good amount of bonus content, and fans of the genre would still do well to give it a look.

Grade: B+

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