Today, Nintendo releases five Mega Man games on their Nintendo Switch Online Game Boy app. Let’s have a look at them!
Here’s what I thought of each of these games:
Game Boy App
| Game | Genre | # of Players | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge | Action-Platformer | 1 | C |
tl;drThis Game Boy game recycles elements from Mega Man and Mega Man 2, and while the presentation is surprisingly good despite the limitations of the original black-and-white Game Boy, and the series’ great core gameplay is largely intact, the challenge level is so absurdly high that even series fans may be discouraged from enjoying this game. | |||
| Mega Man II | Action-Platformer | 1 | B |
tl;drMega Man II on Game Boy is an amalgamation of elements from the Nintendo Entertainment System games Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3, two of the best games in the franchise. What’s more, its challenge level is far more manageable than the first Game Boy game. You’d still never choose this game over playing either of the NES games it’s derived from, but it’s an enjoyable bite-size reinterpretation of those games, regardless. | |||
| Mega Man III | Action-Platformer | 1 | C+ |
tl;drMega Man III on Game Boy is an amalgamation of elements from the Nintendo Entertainment System games Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 4, two of the best games in the franchise. Unfortunately, this game suffers from some absolutely atrocious slowdown that affects the gameplay so severely it’s hard to recommend this game. | |||
| Mega Man IV | Action-Platformer | 1 | C+ |
tl;drMega Man IV on Game Boy is an amalgamation of elements from the Nintendo Entertainment System games Mega Man 4 and Mega Man 5. Like Mega Man III, this game suffers from some pretty nasty slowdown, but thankfully it doesn’t interfere quite as much with the gameplay this time. | |||
| Mega Man V | Action-Platformer | 1 | C+ |
tl;drThis is the only completely original Mega Man game on the original Game Boy, not directly derived from any other games in the series. Unfortunately, it still suffers from bad slowdown problems, and Mega Man’s “upgraded” Mega Arm ability is frustratingly much worse than the Mega Buster it replaces, forcing players to wait for Mega Man’s hand to slowly return before they can fire again. While this game should be applauded for being an original entry in the series, it is unfortunately not a particularly good one. | |||
I previously reviewed all three of these games last year on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console, and the only significant difference I noticed was that these releases have less input lag than those versions did. There’s still lots of nasty slowdown to go around though.
With the exception of Mega Man V, all of these games are scaled-down amalgamations of two of the Nintendo Entertainment System releases in the series, and it’s genuinely impressive to see what Capcom was able to accomplish with the extremely limited power of the original Game Boy’s hardware. However, with that having been said, if you’ve gotten Mega Man Legacy Collection, these games will seem somewhat superfluous, odd remixes of much better games.
The sole exception here is Mega Man V, whose Game Boy release is completely original and not directly related to any other games in the series. It’s just a shame that this sole original game is also, well, pretty terrible, with the “Mega Arm” being an “upgrade” that feels like anything but.
Overall, this is a solid selection of games to add to Nintendo Switch Online, though if you’re a Mega Man fan, you probably already have countless better games in the series to play on Nintendo Switch.
tl;dr – The Game Boy app gets five Mega Man games this month, and while they’re mostly decent, they’re also a pale shadow of their Nintendo Entertainment System counterparts. Well, except Mega Man V, which is completely original, and also not very good. Still, this is an appreciated addition to the Game Boy app, all the same.
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