Mega Man 6 (NES) Playthrough
219A playthrough of Nintendo's 1994 platformer for the NES, Mega Man 6.
Mega Man 6 was one of the final games to be released in the twilight of the NES's official US production run and was not actually published by Capcom in America. Apparently Capcom didn't deem the cost of bringing the game to the United States worthwhile by 1994, but Nintendo, needing a few games to put on the shelf alongside the newly released top-loading NES, stepped in and handled it themselves. It was also the only game in the series to make use of character designs by Americans - while six of them were proposed by fans in a Japanese contest, two of the robot masters (Wind Man and Knight Man) were selected from entries made to a contest run by Nintendo Power.
The fundamental core of the game is the same as you'd find in the earlier games, but a few more additions have been made - Rush now fuses with Mega Man to give him extra powers (the jet pack is easily my favorite!), and some stages have alternate paths that provide access to the BEAT power-up. The graphics are also a huge step up in many ways from the older games - there's far more shading and detail in the backgrounds and in many of the enemy sprites, and the whole thing got a huge style overhaul - from the stat readouts during the stage introductions to the dramatic dimming of the lights when a robot master enters the room, the whole game has an edgier, "cooler" vibe to its presentation. The sound is a bit hit or miss, though. It never once matches the level of the first four games, but it's generally more memorable and more suiting than the soundtrack to the fifth game was.
Mega Man 6 is a good game that tries far more than 5 did to shake things up. It's better than 5, but I still can't get past just how much of a rehash it is. The robot masters are essentially reskinned versions of old bosses, and most of the weapons have been recycled as well. The standard projectiles, the circling shields, the time freeze - yawn. They were all cool the first time or two. By the sixth time, not so much. And the stage setups are a bit obnoxious this time around, too - the designers really seemed to go out of their way to make the enemy placements as annoying as possible. Things suddenly jumping out of pits in order to insta-kill you and enemies trapping you on a ladder as you enter a room aren't new ideas in the series, but they are really abused here.
So, your opinion on Mega Man 6 is likely to depend on how tolerant you are of playing the same game yet again. Some people love its innovations, while others bemoan the lack of them.
Which camp do you fall in?
For more Mega Man games, check out my Mega Man playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3gSj_kh1fHv_byjbzySGOUL9OBLnrQcP
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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