An actual progress report

Having survived my domestic crisis, I finally had the opportunity to make a bit of actual progress in Mega Man 5. Weirdest damn thing — I know I’ve finished this game before, but I don’t remember a bit of it. So this playthrough has been like experiencing an entirely new chapter of the series. Even so, it is thus far as unremarkable as my enfeebled memory tells me. Let’s discuss:

Crystal Man‘s stage — that is his name, right? I honestly have forgotten — was basically Dust Man’s level from Mega Man 4 given a makeover to look like Gemini Man’s stage from Mega Man 3. With the little skull dudes from Skull Man’s stage, who now form and fire crystals from thin air for no real reason besides the fact that, well, it’s Crystal Man’s stage. Good enough, I suppose, but ultimately sort of boring.

Next up: Star Man. Yes, I know that’s not the prescribed order. I don’t remember who’s weak to what, and half the fun of these games is sorting out the proper order of things on your own. (Besides, I’ve had no trouble polishing off all the robot masters with the Mega Buster anyway, so it’s not like I really need to exploit weaknesses anyway.) This stage was off to a good start with those satellite dishes in the background, but then it just turned out to be Bubble Man’s stage with a palette swap to indicate a new medium. Yeah, so I’m leaping high and slow in vacuum rather than water; same thing, especially when mines are everywhere. I also polished off Gyro Man, whose level was so unremarkable I didn’t even bother to take screens.

I’m determined to finish off the game before I go to E3. Maybe it will become more interesting! But if not, at least I can try and extract a promise that the upcoming game will be more creative when I interview Inafune. Speaking of which, a Mega Man 9 suspicion confirmed: Splash Woman is indeed the robot version of Daryl Hannah.

10 thoughts on “An actual progress report”

  1. I guess I’m not the only one who noticed that the robot masters in MM5 are ridiculously easy. Honestly, I think allowing Megaman to charge his shots pretty much renders any special weapon weaknesses obsolete. A charged shot generally does as much damage as the right weapon, and you don’t have to go digging through your inventory for it, so why even bother?

  3. “Splash Woman is indeed the robot version of Daryl Hannah”

    Does this mean that she has an eyepatch and a sword? No, wait, she’s fifty feet tall? No…is she Pris?

  5. Please please please tell Inafune to include sliding in MM9.
    I know he wants to recreate MM2 as much as possible, but no sliding is not a good thing. If Rush is there, the Mega Slide should be too.

  6. Yeah, that’s the only reason I’m not more excited about Mega Man 9… If it’s gonna be a total 8-bit throwback (which is a genius move, don’t get me wrong) I guess I might as well play MM5 or 6, because I never did, and even though I’m pretty sure I played 4 I don’t really remember it, except for the fact that there was a Pharaoh Man. In fact, I probably will play all those games, and then download Mega Man 9 anyway. I just hope the weapons aren’t too shitty.

  7. I’ve been having a similar experience, playing MM5 like it’s new, even though I think I’ve played most or all of it before (probably on an emulator in the Mac OS 9 days). I don’t remember anything except for the music, which I think is the best thing about the game so far. Way better than the awkward, squonky MM4 music.

    Worst thing so far is the dumbshit jet ski sequence in Wave Man’s stage. Ugh.

  8. I don’t really remember much about Megaman 5 except that Stoneman’s stage irritated me, and Chargeman’s stage had a disturbing amount of chicken-based robots.

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