Mega Man (Genesis) Playthrough
275A playthrough of Mega Man as it appears in Capcom's 1994 compilation title for the Sega Genesis, Mega Man: The Wily Wars.
You can find my video of the NES game here: https://youtu.be/PxyLui5LdCc
The Wily Wars was a compilation of the first three Megaman NES games, each with a new 16-bit facelift. It was released exclusively on the Sega Channel in the US, though it got a cartridge release in Japan and in Europe.
The Sega Channel shut down back in 1998, and since the cartridges didn't retain any downloaded data once the console was turned off, a game had to be downloaded over dial-up every time you wanted to play it. (In 1994, a then-standard 28.8k modem took an excruciatingly long time to retrieve two megabytes of data - nearly twenty minutes on a clean connection that could maintain a brisk 2K/sec transfer rate uninterrupted.)
This being the case, the US version of The Wily Wars became inaccessible back in 1998, but RetroBit issued a cartridge re-release of the game a few years back, and that's what I'm using here. My original playthrough of The Wily Wars was done with the PAL version sped up to run at 60Hz which introduced a few unanticipated quirks that aren't present in this recording.
The new 16-bit graphics look great. There is a lot more detail in the backgrounds and the parallax effects give the visuals a nice sense of depth, and the sprites feature better shading thanks to the improved color depth. The upgraded music is good, too. The chords, harmonies, and drum lines have been fleshed out without losing the character of the original tracks, though I still prefer the way they sound on the harsher PSG tones of the NES hardware. The new tracks composed for the Wily Tower section sound absolutely fantastic, though, and they benefit from being written specifically with the Genesis's FM synth in mind.
The controls are a bit awkward, however. The arm cannon's fire rate is slower, bosses have more invincibility frames after taking hits, and Mega Man's movement feels a little sluggish, making some of the trickier jumps harder to reliably pull off. It's quite good, overall, but it'll feel a bit off to anyone that's familiar with the NES versions. That being said, it is something you grow used to with a bit of practice.
I'd recommend The Wily Wars. It puts a fun new spin on some truly classic games, and the exclusive extra content the cart offers makes it worth a look.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Other Videos By NintendoComplete
Other Statistics
Mega Man Statistics For NintendoComplete
At present, NintendoComplete has 439,521 views spread across 8 videos for Mega Man, with the game making up 4 hours of published video on his channel. This makes up less than 0.12% of the total overall content for Mega Man on NintendoComplete's YouTube channel.