Mega Man Legacy Collection review for PS4, Xbox One

Capcom has not given us a new Mega Man title since the release of Mega Man 10 on Xbox Live and PSN, for the XBox 360 and PS3 respectively. There have been multiple proposed sequels and even remakes announced, but sadly a new adventure with the Blue Bomber has never materialized. While Mega Man Legacy Collection is a new title, it does not contain a new adventure, but rather a collection of classic Mega Man?s 1 through 6, untouched and unfiltered. Is this collection worth your time and money, read on.

Basically, there really isn?t much to rave about in this collection. It contains the first 6 Mega Man titles that appeared on the Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom from 1987 to 1993. All of the games have slightly different stories but ultimately follow the same basic formula. In the story behind the original series, Mega Man is an artificial robot called Rock, created as a lab assistant by the scientist Dr. Light. Following treachery by the evil Dr. Wily (who would sometimes go by some strange aliases), Rock was converted into a battle robot to defend the world from violent robotic threats. Thus he becomes Mega Man to save the world!

In some later titles Mega Man was given a robot dog companion named Rush that would be used to help in certain situations. The player would navigate a series of stages to make it to an end boss robot. Once a Boss robot is defeated, Mega Man can acquire their special powers for use in other stages. All of the games in this collection offer a different level of challenge while keeping the same presentation through each title. One strange omission from this collection is that Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8 are nowhere to be found here. Digital Eclipse focused on only including the original 8-bit titles with no touch ups or filters (with the exception of widescreen and some scanline screen filters.)

These games in the collection retain all of the original glitches and pixel flickering found in the originals, but all of the ?game breaking? issues (mostly caused by hardware limitations) have been removed. Along with the original 6 games, each game has a separate museum of sorts where you can view artwork and flyers, as well as concept art for the characters and boss enemies. The bare bones approach to a collection like this seems a little lackluster, especially with a name like ?Legacy Collection?, you would expect more flair. Sadly, a collection of ROMS with some artwork is all that is offered here.

Controlling Mega Man is quite simple, since the original NES only had 2 action buttons. You will be jumping on platforms and shooting everything that moves with ease. You can set which buttons will do what for the control scheme that fits you. One new option you have is an ?Auto Fire? which the original games never contained. However, even though it looks like Mega Man is firing a succession of three shots, only the first shot is counted as an actual hit making it relatively useless. I found that using this auto fire feature was a hindrance as it caused unnecessary damage and sometimes did not connect with an enemy correctly.

Digital Eclipse did a remarkable job porting the original look and feel of the games included. All of the games look just like they did originally with all of the sprite flicker and glitches, as mentioned before. You can play them in their original and full screen formats, as well as a wide screen format that completely fills the screen and stretching out the picture. Scanline and CRT TV filters are also present but do not really add anything to the presentation. Sound and music are preserved perfectly and sound just like the original games. Also included is a Jukebox option with every music track from every game available for your listening pleasure. While this seems cool, I hope that the upcoming physical release (announced for 2016) will feature a separate soundtrack CD for audio devices. Still, it?s a rather nice feature and I am glad it?s included.

So, is Mega Man Legacy Collection worth the $14.99 price tag? Well, if you are a die-hard Mega Man fan, then the answer is a resounding yes. Even though 2 of the greatest original titles didn?t make the cut, it?s still a fantastic collection of a great classic series. If you are not a Mega Man fan, then this will certainly not change your mind as it offers nothing new outside of a few tweaks. This is a basic presentation with original ROM files included with no flair or added extras other than some digital artwork. I would have liked it more if it offered more titles, but that?s not to say the collection is bad by any means. It?s just very basic and lackluster with its extras. Mega Man Legacy Collection is not the best compilation of classics released, but it?s definitely not the worst. Worth a download if you are a fan.