I decided to rank all the Mega Man NES games from “worst” to the absolute best. I tried my hardest to be informative and offer up as many spoilers as humanly possible because the 6 NES games are all nearing 30 years of age. If you haven’t played them yet, I strongly encourage you do so. I put “worst” in quotations because they’re each great in their own ways. Read on and be utterly shocked at how I ordered these.
[All videos were performed by PinkKittyRose, because I find it baffling that a human could play these games and take no damage.]
6. Mega Man (1987)
Rounding out the bottom rung of the list almost by default (for reasons) is the original Mega Man. Notably overlooked during its initial run as a small time game with one of the most infamously bad box art covers, the game didn’t receive a positive appraisal until some time later. The Blue Bomber’s first adventure pits him against 6 Robot Masters en route to the conclusive battle at Dr. Wily’s Fortress (not yet a Skull Castle). Everything that was frustrating about the later games is dialed up to about an 11 here. Virtually everything about the game is worse than its successors. It controls pretty poorly, it lags a lot, the familiar-for-the-time Capcom trademark instant respawning enemies, and it offers little in the way of assistance in navigating the levels. In addition to the Robot Master power-ups obtained along the way after defeating them, you’re later awarded the Magnet Beam, a special power-up used to generate your own platforms. This is an optional item that you will need to find however. Larger things lie ahead for the series in subsequent releases, while it was the first and very primitive by comparison, Mega Man provided a very challenging and enjoyable experience.
5. Mega Man VI
It was 1993, the word was the Nintendo Entertainment System was slated to be retired, and along with it came an announcement for Mega Man VI. It was almost something of a joke that it was destined to exist at all, with the Super Nintendo’s Mega Man X actually beating it to market and ushering in a new advanced series. With the growing length of Mega Man IV and Mega Man V with the sub-boss fortresses (Dr. Cossack and Proto Man respectively) it was questionable how VI could follow those up. Enter a new character: Mr. X, leader of the X Foundation, and host of a tournament to determine the world’s strongest peacekeeping robot. Naturally Mr. X turns the robots to evil and these are the 8 Robot Masters that Mega Man must fight to restore world peace. A battle through Mr. X’s Castle reveals (spoilers!) that he was actually Dr. Wily all along, and you must then embark to Dr. Wily’s Castle. VI unlike previous entries does away with Rush in his dog form and uses him as “Rush Adaptors” enabling Mega Man to take on the forms of Jet Mega Man (a rechargeable jetpack) or Power Mega Man (demolition fist attack). The game offers non-linear paths for the Robot Master levels and Castles, the alternate paths usually accessed with the Rush Adaptors that lead Mega Man to power-ups or shortcuts. Credit to Capcom for trying to freshen up the aging NES series for one last run before moving on to newer platforms. Interesting trivia: the game was published by Nintendo of America for the North American market, not Capcom USA.
4. Mega Man IV
The Mega Man series was no stranger to innovation. While it had simply grown in 2 and 3 offered up the more versatile Rush and slide move, IV ushers in the Mega Buster. The Mega Buster grants Mega Man a charge attack to fire larger and more powerful shots proving useful against smaller enemies and Robot Masters. This added another dimension to the gameplay and strategy of the game, and made the unfortunate ones that didn’t have mighty turbo controllers like the NES Advantage’s lives a lot easier. On the surface the game involves a new character named Dr. Cossack, creator of the next batch of 8 Robot Masters for Mega Man to face. As the plot progresses it’s revealed Cossack’s daughter was kidnapped and he was forced to build the evil robots for familiar foe Dr. Wily. Mega Man takes the battle to Dr. Wily’s Castle where the outcome ends in Wily escaping to provide another entry in the series. Mega Man’s canine companion Rush returns in all his 3 forms (Coil, Jet, and Marine) and a new character named Flip Top was introduced to provide Mega Man with a random item in the middle of levels ranging from health, weapon energy, or E-Tanks. In all IV probably serves as an over-ambitious effort serving as the precursor to ever-lengthening adventures in future games.
3. Mega Man V
The fifth installment in the NES Mega Man series builds upon its predecessor Mega Man IV with an even more powerful arsenal than ever before. V offers up a revamped Mega Buster with a larger and stronger long charged shot. In this installment it appears that Mega Man’s brother Proto Man is responsible for a new army of 8 Robot Masters carrying out attacks around the world. In an effort to demonstrate his evil intent he kidnaps Dr. Light, leaving Mega Man to choose on his own to fight for justice. After the 8 Robot Masters are defeated Mega Man proceeds to Proto Man’s Fortress. In the fight with “Proto Man”, the real Proto Man emerges and reveals the impostor Proto Man to be a Dr. Wily creation named Dark Man. After another bout in Dr. Wily’s Castle, Dr. Light is rescued but Wily escapes again as the castle collapses. Mega Man saves Dr. Light and himself from being crushed, and Proto Man saves the day blasting part of the wreckage away for them to evade the falling ceiling. Rush returns with just the Coil and Jet forms; Wave Man’s stage has its own water craft for navigating in the water replacing the Marine. Special letter items exist in the 8 stages that spell MEGAMANV, enabling Mega Man a special helper robot gift from Dr. Cossack named Beat. When all letters are collected Beat can be summoned to attack all on-screen enemies which can prove useful on levels littered with various death traps. The game’s reduced difficulty from previous entries made it more casually appealing, but it was starting to appear just about everything had been achieved in the NES series as it was beginning to show signs of retreading familiar territory.
2. Mega Man 2
I know, it’s sacrilege putting one of the most iconic games on the NES ever, and easily one of the best Mega Man games ever, in the #2 spot. Part of what’s made Mega Man such a lasting franchise was its innovation, and Mega Man 2 was far from that peak still. Conceived as a sequel to what was otherwise a resounding commercial failure in the original game, the development team had to produce it in their free time with other titles taking top priority. The result is a vastly more polished effort from its predecessor. More Robot Masters, the first sight of Dr. Wily’s Skull Castle, an improved cast of weapons, and the introduction of Items 1, 2, and 3. The bigger and bolder effort chugs along with a memorable soundtrack and more lavish themed landscapes. The Items are special power-ups for creating up to 3 levitating platforms to jump on (1), a jet that flies until energy is expelled (2), and a platform that sticks to walls going up and down (3). A somewhat controversial feature is the inclusion of a Difficulty option for the world abroad. Japan exclusively got Difficult mode, while a substantially easier Normal difficulty exists in North American and European releases. Having played through both difficulties I found the game incredibly annoying on Difficult, as although the game carries a reputation for being the easiest in the series, the amount of death traps to avoid are probably even worse here than the other games. Beyond all that, this is a pretty straightforward effort like the original with Mega Man thwarting 8 Robot Masters (2 more than before) and continuing to Dr. Wily’s Skull Castle. Unlike the original, the 8 Robot Masters are accessed in a single Teleporter Room as opposed to being scattered skirmishes throughout the Dr. Wily stages. A unique element of Mega Man 2 is the final boss is an Alien, who can only be attacked with Bubble Man’s Bubble Lead (so don’t run out!) who upon defeat reveals Dr. Wily to have been operating some type of hologram machine, emitting one of the coolest sounds the NES has ever produced. Now that I’ve successfully buried the king of Mega Man games, now it’s onto #1…
1. Mega Man 3
There’s word that your favorite Mega Man game is the first one you’ve ever played. For me I actually played 1, 2, and 3 in order, but 3 was the first one bought for me and I could play it an infinite amount of times. That was 30 years ago as of this writing that I played this through start to finish almost every single day after school. While I may hold a certain bias in favor of the Blue Bomber’s 3rd outing, I can make a pretty rational case for why it actually eclipses Mega Man 2.
Mega Man 3 takes on a very different story arc, one that finds Dr. Light (oddly stylized in the game as Dr. Right) and Dr. Wily becoming allies and producing a peace-keeping robot named Gamma. (Their unity is depicted in the game with Rw symbols adorning some locations.) However the parts for Gamma are stolen by 8 new Robot Masters, and it’s up to Mega Man to get them back. Throughout the game, a new robot emerges named Break Man, where defeating him will open up passageways to proceed through the stages. After defeating the 8 Robot Masters and prior to visiting Skull Castle Mega Man must traverse through repeats of 4 of the stages to fight Doc Robot. Doc Robot is a body that can assume different attacks by reprogramming, pitting Mega Man against two of Mega Man 2’s Robot Masters per the four stages. A final battle with Break Man a cutscene with Dr. Light states that upon retrieving the 8 power crystals, Dr. Wily took off with Gamma and flies to a new Skull Castle. A new evasive/accessibility tactic is added for Mega Man 3 with the Slide move. The Slide provides Mega Man ways to access narrow tunnels in stages or avoid attacks from enemy robots. Replacing Mega Man 2’s Item power-ups is a new dog character named Rush. You begin the game with the Coil, a spring mechanism where jumping on the back of Rush propels Mega Man high in the air. The other forms Jet (a free-flying sled unlike Item 2’s straight horizontal flight) and Marine (used for travelling underwater with similar control to the Jet) are obtained after defeating Needle Man and Shadow Man respectively. Mega Man 3 is thus a much more refined and expanded Mega Man 2, offering more depth with the inclusion of the Doc Robot stages but without getting overlong and tiring like IV-VI.