Topic: Mega Man thread

@StewdaMegaManNerd
So you've never experienced them with the actual carts or discs on real hardware for NES, SNES & PS1?
Also, the official pro controller has abnormally high input lag, 12ms more than the joy-cons. The MM games in the Legacy collections(Except 9 & 10) are already laggy enough as it is, the Pro controller will just pile on almost another frame. BUT, the joy-cons, ergonomically are awful. Pick your poison. lol

I did a comparison with latency and colour between my cartridge for MM2(Using the Nintendo AVS on my OLED TV), and with MM2 on the Legacy Collection for Switch, and the difference in terms of button response/delay and colours are night and day. You can't even compare it. lol Those who are experiencing the classic MM games on that crappy legacy collection are getting a much lousier experience. NES games, typically emulate poorly in terms of colour. Same thing happened with the Wii, Wii U & 3DS Virtual consoles. I had to jack up the colour to 100 on my CRT back in the Wii days to compensate.

@StewdaMegaManNerd Oh gotcha, the first Battle Network is a bit rough around the edges, but I'd say it's worth playing through at least once, if only to see how the series began. Most of the later games are great.

Man, it's been years since I've played any of the Mega Man Battle Network series. last one I've played was Battle Network 4 Blue Moon back in 2004. i did play Battle Network Transmission on GC back in the day.

@NeonPizza It's safe to say that they never experienced them on original hardware if they did they wouldn't have as much negative to say about them.

That's the problem with playing these old NES games on newer systems. Wether it's through services like the Switch Online, Virtual Console, or compilations packs. There's so many variables now that work against the enjoyment of the game like lag, colors being washed out, music not sounding right etc. etc. Then there is the variable that these kids nowadays are comparing the older games to what they know of video games. The scene in Back to the Future II comes to mind, "You gotta use your hands, that's a baby toy".

Which is why I don't take anyone's opinion on older games to seriously unless they played it on an original system with the original cartridge, on a CRT TV which let's be honest is going to be rare.
In a way I do feel sorry for them that they didn't experience these games like they were meant to be but what can you do.

@Tasuki
And even putting aside the darker washed out ugly colours with MM 1-6 on the Legacy Collection and horrendous ball & chain-sticking input delay, Capcom's CRT TV filter option looks totally half baked. Heck, not even 1/4 baked. lol So chances are, most newcomers will just turn it off, but then you have to experience these games in HD with the sprites looking like razor sharp, Artificial and butt-ugly in 1080p on an OLED TV. If i were forced to, I'd just use the Monitor setting.

NES, including every other 8-16 bit & 32 bit sprite based title were never designed to look this way. Standard def and the magic of CRT analogue interlaced goodness blends those sprites into art and makes everything look softer and cartoon-ified on a CRT TV using RF for NES, and composite for Genesis & SNES(Etc)

Another thing that I loved about the Wii era, was that it was an SD console. And Sony's final line up of WEGA Trinitron CRT's were still being sold brand new in 2005/2006. I snatched a 32" FullScreen WEGA from my local BestBuy, brand new, and used official Wii component cables on it, and that's how I played Wii's Virutal Console. Sure, VC NES games had the exact same washed out colours, but i jacked the colour on my CRT to 100 to compensate, as you can with OLED obviously. But what was SO great about playing them on the WEGA CRT, was that Wii VC games only had around 1 frame/16ms of lag/delay, and my CRT had zero. OLED's have 10ms by comparison(16+10 = 26ms, and that's too much imo) Plus, the CRT was of course standard def so NES games looked just as soft, cartoony & organic as they did like on an original NES if you used composite. Component gives you richer vibrant colours, a brighter picture, deeper blacks, zero colour blood and better clarity mind you.

Either way, ya. There's probably less people that i can count on my hand that grew up gaming with NES on a CRT in this forum. lol

As a secondary set up for retro gaming, next to a 27-32" Sony Wega Trinitron SD CRT. If I had to, I'd get a 42" QD-OLED(Although, they don't exist yet in that size, so WOLED it tis'), and pair it with a RetroTINk4K scaler($1000+ CAD later) which gives you access to CRT filter/mask/shaders that can give you a near identical look to CRT.

Except, OLED motion clarity suffers from blur which is why i kind of hate the technology. Motion blur never existed with CRT's in the 80's, 90's and up until the 2000's until the technology bit the dust. Motion clarity for CRT is still King, OLED can't compete unless you're using TINK4K 'black frame insertion, or running games at 120fps, which cuts the blur down by 50% and yadah yadah.

@NeonPizza You'd win that bet. Most people here seem to be PS3/Wii gen and maybe a bit of Gamecube/PS2. We are a dying lot my friend lol. Most of them more then likely played the classic NES games on a service, Greatest Hit Disc or through Roms and emulators.

@Tasuki
lol Which is why I always feel somewhat sad posting here, because it's not even remotely close to being as awesome as it once was in the later 2000's and very early 2010's. Basically, when Wii + Virtual Console, Retro, DSLite & 3DS were all the rage, yet many of the NL users at that time were born in the late 70's and early 80's so we could all relate to one another and talk about late 80's/early 90's pop culture be it cartoons, action figures, board games, video games, etc etc. I had a lot of fun posting in NL's retro forum at that time, where we all posted our recent retro buys, in the 'latest & Greatest retro purchase' thread.

Those were my favourite forum times ever. And all those dudes vanished. Most likely because the newer generations were hopping on board, they moved on from forums, maybe they didn't like the changes happening with the site or new staff, or they lost interest in gaming all together, or have families to take care of and just don't have the time, or possibly just use YouTube instead when they wanna talk retro or modern video games to whomever they're subscribed to.

What sucks about being 40 for many, is that the 'big f*** this switch' has most likely already gone off, and that excitability, passion, that fire and wonderment that you once felt at such a level, in your early to mid 20's even, has most likely faded at about 30. Add another 10 years and then you've been spanked with the awareness of your own mortality realizing that we're half way through our lives now, IF we're lucky. lol

On a more positive note, the big Switch 2 full unveil is coming this April 2nd(20 more days!). Super exicted for that! And whenever Capcom finally suprise-launches the next big Resident Evil mainline entry unveil trailer.

But back to Mega Man. I've always been itching to buy a repro of the Super Nintendo version of Rock Man & Forte/Mega Man & Bass. Since it's rocking a full english translation and obviously works for SNES. Might have to hop on eBay, because the official website it used to be sold doesn't seem to exist anymore.

@NeonPizza LOL yeah we have been over a dozen times about the forums 10 years ago lol yeah it was easily my favorite time. Speaking of old crew I happened to pop on my PS4 a few weeks ago to check some things and I saw Ryno was on his PS5. I didn't get a chance to say hello but it's good to see he's still gaming

As for Megaman I need to get a copy of that as well if anything you can hit up Aliexpress lol. I never played that one to be honest I watched people on YouTube play it but I was never able to play it myself. It doesn't help that it only came out on GBA in the states and I am not a big handheld gamer.

Speaking of handheld have you tried the Megaman games on Gameboy on the Switch? How do they run? I have been wanting to complete Megaman V, I started it on my 3DS but never finished it before it was stolen. I guess if they play like crap on the Switch I could look for a cartridge and play it on my Super NT with my Super Gameboy adapter.

Let me know how that hunt goes for Megaman and Bass.

@Tasuki From my experience, the Game Boy Mega Man games run well on NSO. I didn't notice any emulation issues or anything. I finished the first one a while back.

@Tasuki I only really made progress in the first GB game, but it ran fine for me.

@Tasuki
haha. Didn't Ryno drop out with the forum-thing like a decade ago? He probably figures what's the point of chatting it up with people in video game forums, aka, social media cyber land, when he's got his own family & kids to take care of, which really restricts the time you have, or he's just moved on and doesn't care anymore. I get it.

As for MM&Bass. I actually beat that one about 13 years ago, the GBA version/cart that is on my DSLite. The problem with that port, is that Capcom had to zoom in or enlarge mega man, while cropping down the environments to accomadate the tiny GBA screen, so MM's(etc) sprites wouldn't be too small. The SNES & GBA versions have different sounding music too because of the different sound chips.

I think the SNES score sounds mostly better based on what I've heard, with the exception of Kings Stage. GBA's rendition just lands harder >

Shooting for the SNES version on a 27-32" CRT TV or small OLED, with an FPGA console(Super Nt or whatever), or actual SNES with that repro cart(+ English Translation) would be the way to go.

As for the Game Boy MM games on Switch Online, can't say. I actually beat the first 4 on the 3DS's hand held Virtual Console during the first year or so when the 3DS launched back in 2011. MM1: Wily's Revenge is so nostalgic to me. Takes me back to 1991, and trying it out for the first time on my best friends GB. I would stay Clear of MMII though, it's awful. While 3 & 4, if i remember correctly were just practically remixed hybrid versions of Mega Man 3-5. They were fine, but forgettable.

Meanwhile, MMV is it's own thing obviously, but even then i found it too easy and the soundtrack sounded very samey with some of the robot masters. I'd still check it out of if I were you, but i definitely wouldn't nail it as being one of the greats in the classic series. it's actually one of my least favourites, but I'm probably in the minority. As for NSO input lag. Here's the low down.

• NSO emulated game - 16ms/1 frame of lag, at least, best case scenario.
• 10ms of lag from a modern day OLED/QD-OLED TV's Game mode.
• Then you're getting high input lag with the Switch pro controller(it has 12ms more than the joy-cons), and even a bit higher using a NSO NES, SNES, Genesis or N64 controller. They have exactly 16ms.

So putting aside the controller latency. 10+16 = 26ms total, at least. With a Pro controller you're landing in the higher 30ms range. Which isn't good. But you might be fine with it. Plus if you want to shave off 12ms of lag, you could pair the joy-cons with that dog paddle styled joy-con grip shell attachment thing, but then you wont have a d-pad and you'll have to deal with cheap tiny rinky dinky buttons.

Yet, if you got the MMV cart, and plunked it in a Super GameBoy with your Super Nt, there wouldn't be any lag coming from the game, and an OEM wired SNES controller is essentially lag-free. So you'd just have to deal with 10ms coming from your TV which is as good as it gets for 4K TV's. That's what I'd do no question.

And my NSO/or Virtual Console days are long over. Emulation lag + HDTV lag just doesn't do it for me in most cases unless I'm unfamiliar with the game and have zero reference. The Wii's VC was great, because I played those games on a big lag free Sony WEGA CRT, but that was in the later 2000's when the Wii was the final SD Console, and now we've all mostly moved on to larger 4K OLED TV's. But ya, these days, I have better ways to play retro games than NSO.

I mean, the MiSTer covers everything before Dreamcast, and emulates everything perfectly, except Sega Saturn but it's 95% there i was told, and will hit 100% sooner than later. And with zero latency since it's FPGA-based, as long as you use it with a CRT. With an HDTV, you'll be hitting about 1 frame i think, with it's HDMI connection, and another 10ms coming from the HDTV. So 26ms or less, with another 1-2ms coming from the USB SNAC adapter port, which are designed to be used with any original retro game controller. I wouldn't bother with the latter personally, I'd want my MiSTer with a good CRT and that's that.

I've gotta say. As much as I loved Mega Man 2 back in 89/90', it doesn't hold up nearly as well as it's sequels in a few key areas. Sure, MM2's soundtrack, robot masters and stage themes are all wonderful, including the giant Bosses(be it the dragoon, Guts Man Tank & Alien Dr.Wily) in Wily's castle. BUT, Wily's castle stages themselves are kind of disappointing. Once I make it to the castle, I'm like, "Nope, I'm out!"

Mega Man 1 has the better castle stages, based on what I remember when I revisted the Wii virtual console version, which i also beat during Christmas of 2010. Can't believe it's been almost 15 years. Eek! But I couldn't beat it back when I was around 5-6 obviously in 1989/90. None of us could! But ya, I love that one too. Nostalgia-wise, it takes 2nd spot in the classic series.

Also, MM2's ladder climbing is slow, the controls aren't as fine tuned, quick & zippity as they are in 3 - 6, or 9 & 10 and some of the boss battles don't feel quite as refined and polished as they should. The battle against Quick & Air man feel a bit cheap and messy.

Back in 88-90'. MM2 was an easy 10/10. It felt like one big magical adventure that built upon the foundation and ground work laid down by MM1, and 1-up'd it ten fold. It's one of my favourite games of all time, but i just don't enjoy playing it that much anymore.

It would be neat if Capcom upgraded Mega Man 1-6, by getting rid of all the slow down, sprite flicker and even applying HD Rumble, with no additional emulation lag(if possible) or weird dark diluted colours, while including multiple CRT filters.. This is why i love MM9 so much. Aside from being one of the greatest in the series, it doesn't have sprite flicker or any slow down. It's super polished and plays better than 2. Heck i think it's the best MM in the classic series if i were to rank them all in 2025. It's the closest thing to feeling like a spiritual successor to Mega Man 2, and it has my favourite Robot Master of all time > Splash Woman.

However, I despise MM10. It has such a sad depressing gloomy darker vibe to it, and the soundtrack is mostly a misfire. Even if most of the stages are well crafted in terms of platforming, the games overall vibe and presentation is my least favourite in the series.

Meanwhile, 4 is a mixed bag with a grating Tinny soundtrack. But hey, It's got Skull man. Where as 5 is bland through and through, yet stays consistently decent, but too easy just like MM6.

@NeonPizza This is my ranking of the main Classic games from worst to best:
11. MM8
10. MM3 (I’m going by what I remember during my first playthrough for this one, but I’m replaying it so I may end up changing its rank)
9. MM2
8. MM
7. MM6
6. MM10
5. MM4
4. MM7
3. MM5
2. MM9
1. MM11
Edit: Just beat MM3. I’d put it at number 7.
Edit (again): Beat MM10. I’m putting that crap below MM3. Can’t decide if I should put it below MM6, though. 10 is half-baked, but 6 is incredibly boring.

@NeonPizza Yeah I dont actually have a Megaman V cart, it was one of the few Megaman Games I didnt own when I was a kid. I remember playing Wily's Revenge at my friends house and loving that game to me it was just as solid as the NES entries. Then I remember playing 2 on Gameboy and just being disappointed after that so I kinda wrote the Gameboy Mega Man games off, I honestly thought they were just watered downed versions of the NES games after Wily's Revenge. When I got older I found out that Mega Man V on Gameboy was its own game but by then it got uber expensive. I remember waiting for Capcom to release an Anniversary Collection for the Gameboy games like the one they did for the NES games on the Gamecube. They said they were going to even some places like Amazon had place holders for it but then I guess Capcom said that they lost the files or something for the Gameboy games and they couldnt rerelease them. I didnt actually get to play Mega Man V till the 3DS VC but unfortunately, I never beat due to my 3DS getting stolen. I might poke around online to see how much a cart is going for Mega Man V.

I actually play all my SNES games on the Super NT. If I want to play Super Mario World I just pop that in since I have my original cartridge, I cant deal with the lag on the NSO version Mario just feels so unresponsive its horrible. I do feel sorry for the kiddos that this is their first time experience that game. But yeah any SNES game I want to play its on the Super NT. I even once every couple of months go and check out my local flea markets for deals on SNES games. I did manage to get a few that way. I was able to score a copy of Sim City, Mega Man X, Smash TV, TMNT Fall of the Foot Clan (Before the Cowabunga Collection was announced) Ducktales on Gameboy, and Demon's Crest for less then $20 each. I just cant deal with the lag on NSO. I need to at some point hook my Mega SG up as well so I can play my Genesis library.

@StewdaMegaManNerd
Wait a minute...Did you experience all 10 classic Mega Man games in the Legacy 1 & 2 Switch collections? At least with 9 & 10 they look and play properly. No additional lag, and no colour desaturation. They're Identical to the WiiWare releases from around 2010. But 1-6? Awful lifeless colours, high input lag, topped with a terrible CRT filter. And then 7 & 8 suffer with obvious latency as well.

I don't know how anybody can actually put up with them. I know how the original games feel and play, compared to how heavy and unresponsive they nearly all feel in the legacy collection. Anybody jumping into MM with these collections are doing themselves a major disservice, compared to the cartridges(or DIsc with MM8), but with the exception of 9&10 since they're straight WiiWare digital ports and aren't emulated. They're the real deal.

These days, If I'm going jump in to some classic Mega, it's gotta be MM9, playing as Proto man, which grants you the slide and mega Buster. But what sucks about it is that he takes 2x the damage. And then MM3. Plus 1&2 solely because of nostalgia. As for the rest? Eh. I'm totally over 4, 5, 6, 8, and I've just never really liked 10.

But purely based on nostalgia, and how these games faired when they originally debuted.
2, 1 & 9 are easily my favourites. 3 didn't land with me the way 2 and even 1 did but i love it for introducing the slide, Rush, faster on the dime controls, quicker ladder climbing, Snake Man, and those four Dr. Wily Robot Master return stages. But yeesh, the slow down gets a bit crazy at times. 4 was when the series started to feel a bit stale. 5 & 6 felt like they were outsourced to an entirely different developer, with mediocre soundtracks and mostly uninspired enemy and stage designs. 7, based on what I've played has 16-bits, SNES Audio and overall feels substantial enough to make me never want to touch 4-6 again. But the larger sprites, and sloppier controls hold it back.

8's in-game mega man voice is irritating, and some of the music is questionable. Japanese techno-Spa elevator tunes. lol But it looks beuatiful and the environments and characters are more lively and animated than ever. The Sega Saturn version they say is the definitive way to play it since it has the edge in evironmental effects/visuals, plus there's you can fight against Wood & Cut man from MM1, and Tengue Man's new Saturn theme sounds more energetic and bad a**, although i like his original stage theme in the PS1 version for being whimsical, plus it does a better job at capturing the atmosphere too.

@StewdaMegaManNerd Yeah I agree with @NeonPizza you can't really judge these games fairly unless you play them on original hardware (Original console, cartridge, CRT TV) they way they are meant to be played. Playing on stuff that it was never intended to run on causes to many negative variables, like lag or colors being off etc. So of course Mega Man 11 is going to rank higher for you on Switch then say 1 or 2 because it was made for Switch.

It's like say a movie from the 50s is bad because you can see all the flaws in the sets and the strings holding stuff up when you watch it on a 4K TV.

So yeah I suggest go back and play 1 through 5 on the NES with a CRT TV. Then let us know what you think.

@Tasuki
For sure! But even then, it's 2025. If he was there in the late 80's/early 90's, he would of experienced them in the now back when those consoles and games were hot off the shelves and cutting edge. It's been over 3 decades. Even with a good Sony CRT, the original hardware and carts, these games look prehistoric sided next to a Switch and especialy PS5.

Back in 1988, MM2 captured our imaginations, that wonderment and it looked awesome for it's time. We haden't even experienced the Genesis yet until Q4 of 89, let alone the SNES which launched later in 91, which took gaming to whole new heights. This guy I'm guessing grew up playing the Wii in the later 2000's, so right off the bat the visuals for something like MM2 will not impress, at all. Regardless of it's charm and masterclass chip tune sound track. Heck, CD quality video game music, at least for me, wasn't a thing until 1995 with the launch of Sega Saturn and PS1, Aside from messing with a few Sega CD games prior to that. So that's another lost key component. He started out with CD-tier video game music, and never experienced the chip tune to CD audio transition.

8-bit games look especially gross on HDTV's without any legit CRT filters to soften those squarey pixely sprites and blend them into art. They look cartoon-ified on a CRT with an RF connection that's for sure. lol
With Legacy 1(MM1-6) > Gross colours, heavy input lag and sharp ugly squarey' artificial sprites. 3 big downgrades compared to the real thing, including OLED/LED motion blur(CRT's have perfect motion clarity. Night and day) and him not playing these games around the time they originally came out, and not being there to experience the chip tune(8-bit, then 16-bit) and straight into the CD audio jump, from lets say SNES to PS1, will tarnish these experiences hard. it's never the same, these younger gamers will never know what it was like to play Late 80's/90's Arcade games, NES, Genesis, TGFX(Bonk made a pretty big impression on me in 89. lol),SNES, Sega CD, Saturn, PS1, and maybe even N64 along with the Dreamcast back when they all launched.

I think it's pretty safe to say that this forum mostly consists of dudes who grew up gaming during the XBOX360/Wii/PS3 generation during the mid to late 2000's. Or GameCube/PS2 at best. Or best case scenario, growing up with PS1 & N64.

@NeonPizza Even though they didnt play it in the 80s when they were hot and fresh doesnt mean they cant appreciate them. Take records for example alot of people who appreciate them now didnt grow up with them at all when they were younger there was CDs and maybe cassette tapes. Yet records are appreciated by the younger generation.

I understand where you are coming from some dont appreciate the older stuff cause like you said they werent around. However though you got to play it as it was originally intended on original hardware.

@Tasuki
Totally. Better to play some of them now than never. Newcomers to the series can still have a blast with them obviously, but the experience will not land anywhere near as hard, even with an authentic set up and original hardware like it did for those that were accustomed to 8-bit & Arcades back in the late 80's, right before the Genesis came out.

Once you experience the next big generational leap, or multiple pushing past 2 decades for a lot of younger gamers, going back to the classics will most likely have zero wow factor in the graphics department, and an old SNES controller for ex, which was super unique and bizarre back in 91', which basically introduced the shoulder buttons and diamond 4 button face lay out will feel like nothing in 2025. Once you see what lies ahead, going back to even timeless retro classics, especially when pop culture was vastly different, will never be the same. But it doesn't have to I guess. As long as you're having fun that's what truly matters in the end.

I mean, I wasn't around when the Atari 2700 came out. People back then were blown away by the fact that they were controlling square and rectangles on their Tube TV's. Going back to those games now can be rough, and i hate the fact that there isn't any music. Commodore 64 is more my speed. They were still making games for it past 85 i think, so i wasn't exactly too out of bounds.

And take Mario 64 for example. For those of us who grew up in the 8-16 bit generation, who also played some Saturn & PS1, were gob smacked when we first tried Mario 64 for the first time, and got our hands on the N64 controller. You just had to be there to fully appreciate it, to 100% appreciate it and get the legit effect. Especially with first wave 3D polygons, a lot of which haven't stood the test of time at all, compared to Sprite based classics on SNES for ex.

Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter, Resident Evil 1, Jumping Flash!, ESPN Extreme Games, Ridge Racer, Battle Arena Toshinden, Playing Tomb Raider 1 and jumping into a pool of water, the waves in WaceRace 64 etc, all pretty much had my jaw hitting the floor back in 95&96. The younger gamers jumping into those now even with a legit authentic set up will probably think they look disgusting compared to what they grew up with. lol We've come so far, as charming as they still may be, for many including myself they can be pretty hard on the eys 90% of the time.

@NeonPizza Well Atari was rough but the point is you played it on original hardware not some 30 year newer TV and console with lag input and washed out colors and then say well the Gameboy version of Donkey Kong is better then the Atari version because the music was better.

But like I said unfortunately these kiddos aren't going to be able to experience these games like we did in the 80s unless they have a Doc Brown time machine and if that's the case why didn't anyone say anything lol. Seriously though before passing judgement on a game at least play it how it was intended. You can't compare a game built for the NES and play it on a Switch to a game that's built natively for the Switch. That's like comparing apples to oranges.