Mega Man Game Boy Quintology | Forgotten Worlds

[00:00:00] Fine Time is about to blow your mind! Hello, Nintendo people. Hello, Switch people. Hello, online people. It's your boy, Dre, and I am here with TheSteve. You are TheSteve. Once again, you have earned back your title.

[00:00:28] You know, I was thinking this time we could just break out the Raspberry Pi and just emulate this shit. I'm just kidding. No, we can't. That's stupid. That's stupid, Andre. Why would we do that? Who would ever do such a thing? Raspberry Pi, please. Go through a listless, well, a very long list of things that might not even be accurate. That's dumb.

[00:00:48] Why would you do that? Why would you do that when you have Nintendo Switch Online, baby? Please. Look at the menus. Have you seen the menus? You can arrange them yourself. They're beautiful. They even tell you when there's something new to play. Oh, man. Oh, man. Just excellent stuff, this Nintendo Switch Online. And our journey continues through the games. I make it... I said that as if it sounds like we're going to play every single game on the Nintendo Switch Online, which we are not going to do.

[00:01:16] Guys, I can't believe we're going to play RC Pro-Am again. Woo! Steve, have you ever heard of this thing called Mario Kart 64? I'm not sure. I mean, it's rather obscure, but... You know what? One of these days, I'm finally going to get around to playing it. One of these times. I know you got it in you. Have you played other Mario Karts or no? You know, I used to play Super Mario Kart a lot when I was a kid. It's pretty good.

[00:01:44] Wow. We should maybe talk about it sometime. To a microphone. All right, we'll shut the fuck up. We're here to talk about... Well, we won't shut the fuck up. We're going to talk about Mega Man. The Game Boy Quintology? Is that the right term? There's definitely a quintet of them. Oh, quintet. Didn't... Wasn't that a subsect of Enix Quintet? Right? Yes, they made the Illusion of Gaia games and...

[00:02:13] Oh, the Soul Blazer trilogy. Soul Blazer. Did they make Evo? They might have. Because I know Ancient was ActRaiser because that was the Yuzo studio. Yep. Right. Okay. This is not what we're here to talk about. We're here to talk about the Mega Man Game Boy Quintology. And to that effect, I have never played these Game Boy games before at all.

[00:02:42] I've actually never even laid eyes on them. I just knew they existed. I knew they reused bosses from the NES games because I saw the Nintendo Power. And that's it. And I know the fifth game is praised a lot. That's all I knew about these Game Boy games, Steve. Okay. I have a bit more experience than you. Well, I guess considerably more experience compared to what you just said. Because, guys, I have four and five on real Game Boy cards. They are around my archive somewhere.

[00:03:12] And then looking on eBay, I can get some considerable beer money for those. But that's another story. It's just beer? Well, I could like a lot of beer at once. Lots of beer. Lots of beer up with for those. But a decade ago now, they all came out on Virtual Console 3DS. And I'm like, holy shit. I guess I could play all these again and give them a fresh look. Okay.

[00:03:41] So you have played all of them before then. I guess it was so long ago that this is more of a complete refresh. It's just not like you remembered everything. No, they came out like 2014 or so. I think they put Mega Man, the first one out, like fairly early in the 3DS life cycle. Then one day it was like, hey, guys, it's Mega May or some shit like that. Here's the rest. That's weird.

[00:04:07] And they just threw everything out there, including the extreme games. Really? Okay. Like one after the other, like two or three at a time. Like, okay, I guess I'm playing these now. You know those are coming next. You know those are coming to NSO. They have to. But not yet. We'll just talk about these OGs today. Yeah. But, well, I'm saying it out loud. By the time this airs, we might manifest it. It might happen.

[00:04:38] Since these are here, it's almost a guarantee the extremes are next. Of course. And I talk about something I don't know anything about. But, yeah, we played these five last June, June 2024. They just put all five of them at once up on NSO. And we're like, yo, what? Cool. Cool. So we played all five over the last, I don't know, few weeks here. And we're here to talk about them in our usual fashion. I, you know, you may think I'm a snob now.

[00:05:05] But, like, even back then as a kid, I hated Canned Hill ports of stuff. Like, oh, you can play Mortal Kombat on Game Boy. And, you know, a lot of kids and stuff were okay with it my age. And I was like, this sucks. Like, what are we doing out here? So Mega Man was kind of the same thing. I'm like, why would I ever buy these when I could just play the NES ones? That's kind of how I felt back then. Andre says that, but he's also a grown-ass man that says,

[00:05:34] Castlevania Adventure is pretty good, you guys. It's not only pretty good, it's hella good. Actually, four and five, I think, were the first ones I played all the way through. So I'm a bit biased that way. I was that kid. I played the console versions of these at, you know, other people's houses and things. But these were the four and five were the first ones that were mine. So I had considerably more time with them. Four and five Game Boy. Four and five Game Boy, yes. Right. Okay.

[00:06:02] I mean, honestly, I mean, spoiler alert, those are the two best ones anyway. So, I mean, you kind of lucked out there. But, yeah. Before we get started with the first Mega Man here, excuse me, Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge. Don't forget that subtitle. Before we get started, can I just say, I really hate the term Robot Masters. I've never liked it. I think it sounds weird and childish.

[00:06:30] I don't know if that's ever become official Capcom nomenclature, but I know it's something everybody says. I try my best not to. You're a grown ass man. You can say whatever the hell you want. I'm just going to call them bosses like I always have. I kind of like it. I mean, it's probably something in the manual. I'm sure if we look deep into a game, they might say it in there somewhere. But, you know, it's kind of like how Mega Man X has the Mavericks.

[00:06:59] You know, it's got its own lore that it tries to do. It's fine. They're the Robot Masters. Do you remember what Mavericks are called in Japanese? I don't. Oh, the Irregulars. Irregulars. Yep. So a couple of days ago, me and Steve were talking about the remake of the first Mega Man X on PSP. So in Japan, it's Irregular Hunter X, not Maverick Hunter X. Of course it is. Yeah.

[00:07:29] So I can't get used to that. It's really weird. Oh, man. Okay. I think we've had enough preamble. Let's get started with our first game.

[00:07:57] First game in the series, Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge, was released in December 1991 here in North America. Fun fact, this was the first Capcom game to ever be outsourced, which is, I mean, I guess you can tell. I know that's always like a rude thing to say, but not necessarily in a bad way. I think, you know, for a deal, more supervision. Well, he was in a supervisory role. Like he popped his head.

[00:08:26] He was like, how's this going? You guys. Yeah, this looks like Mega Man. Sure does. Oh, you took the sprite. Exactly. Huh? From the NES. Okay. Perfect. We're on the right path here. Received pretty well at the time, from what I understand. And what, from what I remember reading at the time as well. I do find it funny that when I saw the box art on Nintendo Switch Online, I was like, this looks weirdly familiar.

[00:08:51] It turns out it's just a crop and like a re-edit of our Mega Man 3 NES box art is the box art for Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge on Game Boy. That is weirdly lazy, but also considering the cut and paste nature of the game, I guess also appropriate. We've never really lucked out with the Mega Man art. I mean, it's not good. I mean, objectively, you know, we all kind of point and laugh at the Mega Man art. I mean, look at Mega Man 2. Everyone loves that game.

[00:09:21] But do we really like the art with his actual handgun and quick man holding Dr. Light hostage? Not really. I mean, like, it's not a great art. I mean, I remember it just because I had it, but, you know. Okay. The bosses we have here are four, only four here on Game Boy. Cut Man, Ice Man, Alec Man, and Fire Man. Those are the four bosses we have to contend with before we go to Dr. Wily's Castle.

[00:09:49] I guess it's just kind of a kind of handheld thing to do, right? Less stuff, smaller system, right? I mean, like, if you could take this all the way to, like, Minish Cap. Oh, there's only, like, four dungeons or something. This was a fairly early Game Boy game. Well, that's super early. This was two years in, but I don't know how long Capcom was working on this, but they're feeling their way a bit here. They don't know what a Mega Man game is going to look like on the Game Boy.

[00:10:14] You got to consider how long a kid's going to really sit there and, you know, fling themselves at the robot masters again and again before getting frustrated and turning this off. I mean, they're not going to throw themselves at six or eight at a time. I suppose not. And that's definitely because this game cranks up the difficulty dial, Steve. Holy shit. This game is pretty hard.

[00:10:42] It's definitely harder than the original Mega Man. People think the original Mega Man is, like, really difficult, and it is hard. But I actually think this might be harder. There's a lot more sticky parts to it. It definitely is. There's a bit of a learning curve that comes with Mega Man being the same size he always is, but everything else is smaller. Like, you know how Mario 3 has the big world? Mega Man 1 Wily's Revenge is the small world.

[00:11:11] Like, Mega Man's bigger than everything that he's supposed to be. Even the boss arenas are smaller than usual. And like I brought up slightly earlier, the game isn't long enough for you to completely hate it for that. Like, I would have put up with this in a car ride in 1991 or two. But when you're in a small corridor with Sniper Joes or the big eyes, holy shit, you're feeling it. Yeah, it's tough.

[00:11:38] It feels like the reaction time is cut down severely because you literally do not have the screen space to deal with a Sniper Joe that way. You know? Like you could in a Flashman stage or whatever. I don't know why. When I think Sniper Joe hell, I always think Flashman. Is that weird? No, that's where most of them live. But Flashman doesn't. They just live there. I like it.

[00:12:08] He's got the tunes. And the AC. It looks very cold in there. Yeah. But, I mean, eventually you just power your way through it, right? You get the powers. Dr. Wily just shows the fuck up, right? Time to finish the game. I'm here, bitch. You know, I think that is fun.

[00:12:31] I think, like, the powers you do get in this game are generally very useful, which is not something I can say as this Game Boy series goes on. I think they're actually the most useful in this first game. Which is weird because about most of the way through the Wily Fortress or Wily Summer Home, really, you end up fighting four more bosses from Mega Man 2.

[00:12:59] It's weird because you think you're going to fight the four guys from Mega Man 1 again, but it's four more bosses from Mega Man 2. Oh, my God. That is strange. So, like, yeah, but it fooled me. It got me because when I got to the teleporter room and it says Dr. Wily's teleporter room, literally the text in the room. It's wild. And it's like, okay, I was expecting to play Cut Man, Ice Man, etc. And again, I was like, okay, the quick man. All right.

[00:13:29] Whatever. But okay, here's the thing, Steve. You fight those four guys from almost like Metal Gear 2 from Mega Man 2 NES. And then you get their powers, you get the quick boomerang and stuff. And it's like, it feels redundant. I don't think I used any of those four powers you get from the Mega Man 2 bosses, especially it feels like there's some overlap. Like Cut Man's thing is already a boomerang. And then they're giving you quick man's boomerang. It's like, okay, I guess. I don't know. It felt very strange.

[00:13:58] Not completely thought out. Not only do they give you the powers, they give you the powers. Like, you know how the boss rematch things are usually, you know, snappy. Like, okay, we just beat the boss. Go back to the thing. Fight the next one. No, here you fight the boss. Everything just stops because we got to play the you got the quick boomerang thing all over again and waste another 10 seconds to do that. And like for all four of the next Mega Man 2 powers you get, I'm like, oh God, we are.

[00:14:29] This is rough. Well, like, you know, I think they meant them to have eight stages and they didn't have the time. I think they just put them in the teleporter rooms and gave you the powers because that's what they planned on doing. That's probably why Cut Man and Quick Man are both here. I'm like, they're both boomerangs. We're already halfway there. Yeah, it's something. I guess it's not altogether bad that they did that. It's just weird.

[00:14:57] I think I should say at this point that this game is not a conversion or a port of Mega Man. These are original stages. They do use the themes from those stages like Cut Man, Iceman, etc. They do use the music from the NES game, obviously converted to Game Boy. But the stages are pretty fucking original. Oh, yeah. They're crunched out and incredibly tight to get through. There's a handful of original enemies.

[00:15:25] There's those weird spinny guys that look like the Gordos from Kirby's Dream Land. Yeah, I guess they do. Sakurai obviously took some notes and was like, yes, this is clearly what I need to block everybody in Kirby games for the next 20 years. Yes, maybe that was his first job. He put Gordo and Megan in there before he got to hell.

[00:15:49] I should say that the original music in this game, though, not I mean, the music is converted from the NES version like pretty faithfully, and there's not really much to say there. The original music, the stuff in the Whitey's Castle, bangers, really good shit. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't go the original route completely. They have the chops, clearly. I think that, you know, come on, Andre, it's Mega Man. We're going to reuse as many assets as we can. Of course.

[00:16:19] And we're on the Game Boy. It's Wiley's Revenge, not Wiley's. We're going to try some new shit. So, you know, we'll reuse the music that we can and have a handful of new tunes. I think that's the trend across all these games. I think it's weird that they give you that new weapon of sorts, that energy shield that deflects stuff. And then that's how you beat Wiley as well, because of course you do.

[00:16:44] Well, you get that from the one new robot, and that's from a series of robots these games invent called the Mega Man Killers, because it's the 90s, and we've got to be edgy like that. I think this one's called Anchor. He has a sword. And he's, yeah, he gets it the way the weapon works, the way you end up using it. He's supposed to, you know, absorb your attacks and reflect it back at you. But, you know, if you don't really shoot at him, it happens to all guys, right, Andre?

[00:17:14] Yeah, you know, sometimes you just can't perform. You know, it's okay. No big deal. There's other things to do. There's other things to, there's other ways to beat Anchor. No, I mean, you just shoot him the one time, and then he just goes. Yeah, it's pretty sad. But yeah, that is, yeah, every game does have an original robot. I didn't know they're called Mega Man Killers, though. It's crazy.

[00:17:42] I forget whether it's nine or ten, but they make a reappearance there as time trial boss guys. Oh, I think it's ten. I'm pretty sure it's ten. Steve, what do you rate this game? I'm going to give it a B, this Mega Man Dr. Wiler's Revenge. Okay. I have my games completed thread thing, and on that I gave it a C-.

[00:18:06] And before Andre tries to browbeat me into giving it a better rating, after playing our next game, I already retroactively am giving it a C+. Instead. Okay. Well, let's get to that next game right now.

[00:18:39] Mega Man 2, the Game Boy version, obviously, was released in February 1992. It was outsourced to a different company than the one that did the first Game Boy game. Keiji Unifune noted that the different feel was because this new developer had almost no knowledge of the series. Because of this, they decided to return to the developer for a third Mega Man game. Yeah, the developer of the first game, they went back to him.

[00:19:03] So this second Mega Man Game Boy game is done by a completely different team, and you can tell this time in a bad way. But, oh boy. Of all the Mega Man games that have been outsourced, well, there actually have been more that have been more outsourced. But of this quintet, this is the most outsourced. It's very outsourced. It's outsourced as hell.

[00:19:30] But anyway, being unapportable, we get four Robot Masters to deal with at first. Woodman, Metal Man, everyone's favorite. Clashman and Airman. As I alluded to 30 seconds ago, this game, the level designs are not as good as the first Game Boy game. They borrow too much from their NES counterparts, I think. Whereas, again, the first game borrowed and had the same motifs, but they were pretty original levels.

[00:19:58] This just feels like weird facsimiles, like weird imitations of Mega Man 2. Whereas the first Game Boy game did a lot more original stuff with it. And Steve, that thing you were talking about where Mega Man feels big and the enemies feel smaller, like he's a big man and a small pot. I feel that proportional weirdness much more in Mega Man 2. I understand what you mean about the first one, but this one, I really feel it. I don't know. Nothing about this game really feels right to me.

[00:20:28] I mean, sliding and rush are in this game, and I'm just like, every slide brings me slightly closer to the end of the game. Hooray! Hooray! You do go faster when you slide. It's a speedrunner's paradise. No, I do like sliding. I am glad that's here. No charging Mega Buster yet. I think we'd have to wait till 3. When did that come in an NES? Was it 4? 4. Yeah.

[00:20:56] But yeah, Rush the Doggy Dog is here as well. So I think we just get Coil and Jet, right? Yeah, and we weren't going to need Marine yet. I don't even think Marine's in any of the Game Boy games at all. No, but we do have space later on. Oh, boy.

[00:21:19] Anyway, so anyway, after those 4 levels, you chase Dr. Wily, who trapdoors you into a teleporter room with 4 new levels that include Hard Man, Top Man, Magnet Man, and Needle Man as bosses. So yeah, they have 3 guys from Mega Man 3. Are we starting to see a pattern here, folks? But their weapons, again, much like the first game, are impactless on the rest of the game. Like, they just don't matter at all.

[00:21:49] Especially when they already gave you a fan favorite Metal Blade. I mean, who gives a shit after that? Yeah, Metal Blade that breaks the game in half, which is the reason why people like Mega Man 2. That's a different discussion. So, Mega Man 2 does do something that I wanted from the first game in which all the music here is original, but it's not as good. Like, we're talking about Mega Man 2 here.

[00:22:13] Even though I just talk shit, I do have to admit the music in Mega Man 2 is pretty legendary, and it's kind of impossible not to compare. So when you're playing something that is a facsimile of Metal Man's stage, and you're not having that music, you have something that's good, but not nearly as good. It's impossible not to compare, Steve. Andre, I think you're giving them too much credit here. Why?

[00:22:43] By calling it good, but okay. I mean, I think they could have just borrowed the music and made it for Game Boy. Anyway, there's a reason they went back to their other developer after this. Well, yeah, because they didn't know the music for Mega Man 2 are bangers. Like, whoever did the first game, they knew, like, you know, Cut Man is a jam, right? Or whatever. Like, these guys did not know that. It's like, I guess we're just making some music now.

[00:23:09] Same goes for the stages based off the Mega Man 3 NES bosses. Like, they try to match that jazzy, nervous energy of Mega Man 3 music, but it just doesn't really get there. So it's, like I said, it's okay. It's Mega Man music. I'm not kicking it out of bed for eating crackers at the same time. Like... I think the game is just trying to make sure you get there as soon as possible. It doesn't stop the screen for power-ups anymore.

[00:23:39] Yeah, when you get, like, a health power-up or whatever, you just keep walking. That's weird. There's extra lives coming out of your ass. I mean, the game just wants it to be over as soon as possible. What Steve is trying to get at is that this game is pathetically easy. Not just for Mega Man, but just in general. You don't even fall off of ladders anymore when you get hit. You can just keep trucking. Just keep going. They did not care. However... Again, I feel like... Inafune's right.

[00:24:09] They had no knowledge of the series. Because why would you design Mega Man that way? I brought up the Mega Man killers with the last game. And that was a guy with a sword. You know who he is this time? It's Mega Man from the future with a pogo stick. I know they solicited designs from children, but... Come on. I know. And they even give you the pogo stick when you beat him. It's useless.

[00:24:37] It doesn't do anything. You definitely don't... It doesn't even do the thing from the first game where you get the reflector from Encur and then you use it on Wily at the end. Because all three forms of Wily are easily downed with the buster. It's so pathetic. You know how sloppy this game is? I think this is at the very end. It does the sloppiest thing it can do. Once you beat Wily, it does the... You gotta power. Because you know, like in every Mega Man game, you beat the boss. He jumps up in the air.

[00:25:07] And then all the power... You know, Mega Man is getting their power. It does that at the end with Dr. Wily. You don't get powers from Dr. Wily. Why did they do that? Andre, there is only one other game that does that. Do you know what that is? Mega Man for the Game Gear. You know who made that? U.S. Gold. I don't remember this game at all. I've never... I should look this up after. I've never seen the game.

[00:25:33] I played this for like a few minutes somewhere, but it's not very good. But it's... At that rate, you would think it's just... It would just be a version of Wily Wars or something, but that probably came after that. I think that was the other half of the... Hey, guys, we got Mega Man on Sega now. Wow. There was Wily Wars and then there was that. Yeah. But anyway...

[00:25:56] Anyway, Steve, I need you to describe to the people what happens at the end of this game because it is wild. I stood there with my jaw open. Tell the people. Yeah, I forgot about this too, so me too, actually. You jump up and get the power that you don't use.

[00:26:14] And then Mega Man chases Wily out of the fortress into fucking space, opens fire, lets Wily's spacecraft crash into a nearby moon or whatever, and he just fucking dies. Anyways, the exhaust explodes into a fucking skull shape to drive that point home.

[00:26:36] But, you know, I guess Wily gets better later, obviously, because we got three more of these games to talk about and however many other Mega Mans. But, you know... He straight up kills Dr. Wily. He kills him. It's incredible. I could not believe it. Also, do you like how the rush jet just shits a missile and it just shoots at the Dr. Wily? It's like, where did that missile come from?

[00:27:06] Oh. Oh. It's like, what in the world? Anyway, okay, you know me. Even if games aren't that good, if they're really short, it's very hard for me to be offended by them. So, it took like an hour for me to beat Mega Man 2 Game Boy, so I'm going to give it a C. If it were any longer than that, I probably would have given it a D or a D-. But it gets a C because it didn't stick around long enough to piss me off. C-.

[00:27:34] The minus is for the pogo stick you can't use. You know, the thing you grab onto. That's what the minus is. Okay. Let's move on.

[00:28:00] We're moving on to Mega Man 3, which was released in December 1992. I think this is a good time to note this. In Japan, these Game Boy games are known as the Rockman World series. So, it's Rockman World 1 through 5. Why didn't we just call it Mega Man World then? I figured that would be a good name. This is just me guessing, but I'm just imagining them having to do with a Super Mario World existing in America.

[00:28:30] Really? And that impressing onto people a sort of bigness here. And even if it didn't, calling it Mega Man World would have just indicated to people that these were wildly different games from the NES when the real truth is, you know, slightly more complicated. And no one's having that conversation in a 1992 without internet.

[00:28:54] I mean, maybe, but like, I think by virtue of the fact that it's on Game Boy means that it's not going to be the same thing. But it's not completely different. It's not completely original stuff either. I mean, sure, but like, when you see a game called Mega Man 3 on the shelf, though, you might actually think, oh, that's like the game I played on Nintendo called Mega Man 3. I think.

[00:29:22] Yeah, no one really thought any of this through the right way. Yeah. Well, you know, they gave these Roman numerals and they gave the NES ones numbers. So that's the differentiating factor there. That's so weird. Well, when you're speaking out loud, you're still saying Mega Man 3 or Mega Man 3, right? So it's a thing. Anyway. What do you mean? You're not wearing a toga right now to discuss the Game Boy games? No, I am not.

[00:29:53] I'm fresh out of togas. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I would definitely, man, toga show? You want to do a toga show sometime? Man, what would we even talk about? Okay. If they remake Kid Icarus Uprising, we got to do that in togas. Does Chuck Rock wear a toga? Maybe that. I think he just has a loincloth. Oh, just a loincloth. Because he's got that big gut. Oh, that's right. You got to show off the gut. Can't be wearing a toga.

[00:30:22] Not with that. That's its defining feature. Anyway, the bosses in Mega Man 3 Game Boy are Spark Man, Gemini Man, Snake Man, Shadow Man. Then, after a mini-boss intermission, they give you Dive Man, Skull Man, Drill Man, and Dust Man. So, they just give you the three from Mega Man 3 and the three from Mega Man 4 NES straight off the bat. You don't have to do any widely. Oh, God.

[00:30:49] Wily stashed away these guys in this castle this time. No, there's four and then there's four. Just like Mega Man 7 or something, I guess. Yeah, it's kind of weird how 7 and 8 did four than four. But anyway. Anyway. Well, I mean, you've played Mega Man and Bass. That does like the skill tree of like... Oh! You remember that? That was weird. Anyway. Mega Man can now charge the buster, as we alluded to earlier.

[00:31:17] But it feels kind of weak or weird. Feels weak and weird, Steve. Weak and weird. I know you're not as big of a three advocate as I am, but I do like three. It felt like cheating in a way when going into the three levels and seeing how that played with stuff, especially mowing down the Gemini egg things. But... Oh, yeah. Andre, the slowdown. I forgot about the slowdown.

[00:31:46] It... Look, I've... It's a legit problem. I'll agree with you. I always come on these... Especially Nintendo Switch Online shows where we talk about this stuff, especially when it comes to Super Nintendo games. Slowdown is not typically a thing that bothers me. Super Ghouls and Ghosts is my favorite Super Nintendo game, and it's Slowdown City because it's an early SNES game. Man, the slowdown in Mega Man 3 Game Boy is rough, dude. Wow. It's not just there either. It's all over the damn place.

[00:32:16] You just hold down the buster in the wrong place. It's like, oh, better slow down the process. Oh, man. It is... It's tough. Also, it wasn't until this game where I realized that the Game Boy games don't do the ready warning on the screen where it says ready, flash, flash, flash. Mega Man just warps it. He just appears. Look, if you really needed more time to prepare, these don't have time limits. Just press pause and go take a pee. What do you want? It's the Game Boy, man.

[00:32:46] I'm going to run out of batteries by the time. Well, look, you can take that in the bathroom. That's the whole point of the Game Boy, right? Yeah. I'm not seeing the problem. We got to snap this shit together. You're bad. Those four double A's aren't going to hold out forever. All right. I'm going to talk about music again briefly, even though there's not much to say. It's an exact replica of the Mega Man 3 and 4 music the best they can on Game Boy. It's impressive, honestly, but there's just not much to say.

[00:33:14] I think that after two being dragged through the mud after it was, they kind of like, look, this is the three music. Just make it happen on Game Boy. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, and that's fine. Again, I called it jazzy, nervous energy earlier with Mega Man 3. Kind of funky, kind of strange. I love the music. I mean, you always make me out to be a Mega Man 3 hater, of which I am not completely. Those are bangers. I think that music's better than Mega Man 2.

[00:33:42] I was going to say, if you're going to bad melt the Sparkman theme on air, I don't think I could do a podcast with you anymore. I think the real reason why this game is my least favorite one is because the level design is so inconsistent. Like, there's wildly varying lengths, of which, like, I understand you don't want every stage to be the exact same length. But, like, some are really short and easy.

[00:34:10] Some are these long slogs that I could not stand. Drill Man stage was so, oh my god. That's, like, one of the worst Mega Man stages I've ever played. See, I don't remember it being that bad when I first played it because I was playing on 3DS. You know, I'm snapping it shut in between doing other things. Okay, who cares? I'm having a great time. I'm doing it for this thing, and I'm playing all these in one sitting. I'm like, oh my god, was it like this before? So, yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying.

[00:34:41] Drill Man Game Boy might be the worst Mega Man stage there is. We'll see. Maybe. But after you beat all the eight bosses, you select the Dr. Wily stage, you go through a couple of rooms, and he's just, like, standing there right in front of you. Hey, man, didn't I literally kill you last game? You exploded into a skull cloud and everything, but you're right here. Well, he's just back for some reason, and he does the eyebrow wiggle at you. He, he, he.

[00:35:09] He shuffles off screen, and then for some reason, an earthquake happens. This robot, presumably the Mega Man killer, burrows up through the floor, and then he goes back into the floor. So Mega Man looks to the right, looks to the left, as if to say, okay, should I go after Dr. Wily, or should I go after this random robot that just appeared? Guess what Mega Man does? He jumps down the hole after the robot. You dumb bitch! Dr. Wily's right there, three feet off screen.

[00:35:38] You can just kill him like you thought you did last game, and the game could be over. But no, you're gonna jump down this hole and go after this robot that you don't know anything about, and you could die. Well, okay, Mega Man, there, no wonder there's so many Mega Man games. He's so inefficient at killing Dr. Wily. Okay, before people like Vin yell at us through the screen, the Mega Man killer's name is Punk this time. Punk, please do not add us.

[00:36:07] Secondly, it does kind of end at this point, because you fight Punk in a room that's way too small to fight him in, in my opinion. But you do that, you get his weapon, you do one very short Wily stage, and then the boss, and you shoot hoops with his weapon, and then the game's over. Right? That's what it is. Yeah, you kind of toss it. You shoot free throws, and then the game's over. I mean, for a portable outing, it's fine.

[00:36:37] It's fine, but like, man. They don't even make you fight the bosses again. I mean, it's fine. Yeah, they don't even make you do that. Yeah, there's no teleporter room, which is, I mean, I can't think of a Mega Man game that doesn't have that. Other than the ones we've been playing. Yeah, even Mega Man 11, as weird as it is with stuff, even that has it, I think. It does. Yeah. Even though that's like the strangest Wily Castle of all time.

[00:37:06] But not even in a bad way. I think it's cool, but it's... It's got to show off the gears! Sure does. Anyway, yeah, this is definitely my least favorite so far. But Mega Man 3 Game Boy feels completely made of the rough, sticky parts. And that's just not very fun, ultimately. It was unnecessarily sloggy. I'm just glad there was only one Wily level, so it was like over and done. One Wily level, shoot free throws, over.

[00:37:35] Like I said earlier, I remember this liking more of the first time I played it. And I was not a kid when I first played it. But, you know, it's very hard to ignore the slowdowns. And it was very inconsistent. But as a 3 enthusiast, I did enjoy the 3 stuff. So even if it didn't work out super well, I was having a good time. Where would you write this, Andre? I'm giving this a B. I'm still giving this a B. This is definitely my lowest rating. I'm giving it a C-.

[00:38:03] Yeah, I'm rating it below Mega Man 2. It's definitely my least favorite one. A B, huh? Huh? Yeah, I'm going to be a grown man and not try and make you increase the rating. How's that? Well, I'm not going to be a grown man. I'm going to be an asshole and browbeat you into higher... Well, it never works. I always try. You never do change your mind. So I don't know how... It's very ineffective, but I do try. Yeah, you sure do. But you know what really tried?

[00:38:33] The next game on our list. The next game on our list. Mega Man 4. Released in December 1993 for Game Boy. Why do I keep saying that? Well, anyway... It's a habit of ours.

[00:39:02] Also, wow, they took a whole year in between games. That's a long time. I think it shows, but we'll get there. They start you off with Mega Man 4 bosses. Pharaoh Man, Ring Man, Toe Man, and Bright Man. And after a very badass Dr. Wily cutscene and intermission bid boss battle thing, you get to fight Crystal Man, Napalm Man, Charge Man, and Stone Man from Mega Man 5. Yes, indeed.

[00:39:30] My favorite classic series Mega Man game is Mega Man 5. So I am glad to see these guys here. That badass Wily cutscene, man. Is that to imply? Because it's like a cutscene. It's so cool. It shows Wily's Technodrome or whatever and Mega Man in the foreground. And Mega Man shooting at him in the background. And there's bombs shooting at him in the foreground. It's like a very kind of elaborate sprite art.

[00:39:58] It's legit something you might see in an older TurboGrafx CD game. I'm not joking. It actually is that quality. It was very high production for Game Boy, let alone just in general, really. I don't even think there was anything that elaborate on the NES 4 certainly wasn't that elaborate with anything. Definitely not. Because they were kicking those out real fast, I guess even probably just as fast as these. But I guess it's different when you outsource, right?

[00:40:26] You can do some wild shit. The reason why I mentioned that cutscene right off the bat is that I want to talk about the presentation first, if you don't mind. Because all the presentation here is stepped way up. I love the weapon get sequence especially. Mega Man has that grimace. He's like grrr. He's pointing the buster and it's like grrr. Grrr. And then you get the power. But then I love the vertically aligned boss intro sequences. You know how they are in the NES. It's like that vertical stripe.

[00:40:55] The boss hops in the middle and it says their name. It has the space background. Now imagine that vertical with the anime laser background too. That shit is so cool. I loved it. I think it was just more Game Boy friendly to be honest. But it does look nice. Yeah, for sure. I love the zap of lightning they come in with too. This is very cool. And I already described the cutscene.

[00:41:20] There's also a cutscene near the end where like, you know, like before you fight the last boss, it shows that isometric overhead of Mega Man running up to the thing. That's so cool. I'm surprised how put together the cinematics are in this. Anyway, I know that's a weird place to start. But at first I thought this game was very, very strange because the enemies are mad stingy with health power ups and weapon refills.

[00:41:49] Is this your experience too? I think they were not stingy, but less frequent. But that's also because, you know, this was the first time we were getting screws. I'm sorry. P-chips. P-chips. Yeah, P-chips. You know, later these would turn into screws, but there's a whole lab store. Well, it's Dr. Light's lab.

[00:42:13] It's not a random lab that you go to and you collect the P-chips and you go to the lab and he just fucking stands there until you push a button to talk to him. You could even nope out of there without talking to him at all. That's so weird. If you really wanted to. So you just go there, stand there, stare at him for a bit. He's clacking away at the computer. It's like, okay, bye, bitch. And when you do talk to him, he just suddenly flips around like a desperate addict. Big man, did you get the P-chips?

[00:42:46] Did you get them? Did you get them? Yeah. It is weird that it's an in-game shop. Is this really the first? Because like, okay, I feel like we didn't get an in-game shop in the classic series until eight, right? Seven had the screws. Seven had the screws. And then eight and then Mega Man and Bass also had, okay, yeah. I guess this game in quote unquote invented it. That is weird.

[00:43:12] The other weird thing about this game that I found not off-putting, but just strange is that there's a small little pushback when you do a charge buster shot, which is, it's so small. It's just a couple of pixels, but I don't know. It's weird. I wonder if that was in a prototype or something that they had when they were being handed files. And they're like, oh, this is clearly how it works. And they just went with it. Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. It doesn't make too much difference.

[00:43:41] Unless you're on the very, very edge of a platform and you do it, you're not going to fall off of something. It's really not that big a deal. It's just a weird addition. I think this is the... Man. No. I know they've done this in other games, but this is the first Game Boy game anyway to have stuff you collect along the way that are optional. So in the first four stages, you can get B-E-A-T to spell beat. So you get the beat the bird.

[00:44:09] I think everyone knows that from any game that he's hella busted in, such as Mega Man 5. Well, he's required to beat Mega Man 5, isn't he? I don't think so. I don't think you have to get beat. He fucks up the last boss, though. Like, he makes it trivialized, but you don't have to have them. Well, here you do need the W-I-L-Y machines to open that last door. You're not getting in. Yeah. You have to have those.

[00:44:35] I found them all on my first tries to the level, so they're really not hard to find. You don't really have to go searching around or anything. Oh, so do you like how after you beat the stage, it says A button, stage select. B button, right lab. Not light lab, right lab. Well, you know, it wouldn't do to go to the wrong lab. Like I said, you're going to, I made a mistake at the top four. You're going to a lab. Who knows what lab you're going to? Maybe you're going to Cossack's lab.

[00:45:05] Maybe you're going to Wiley lab. You don't want to go to the wrong lab to go shopping with your pee chips. I don't think Cossack's going to be taken. I don't know. Maybe Cossack would actually. Never mind. He'd take your pee chips. He's too busy building Axel, that useless piece of shit. Wait, what? Who said that? Maybe I feel my headcanon is that Cossack also built King for Mega Man and Bass. Yeah, he is kind of ruining everything for everybody in the present, isn't he? Sure is.

[00:45:34] Again, nothing really to say about the audio here. It follows the tradition of the previous games and does the approximations of the NES music. So nothing really to say there. Although, you know, Mega Man 5 is my favorite NES Mega Man music. So obviously I'm happy to hear it, but there's just nothing new to report there. So Mega Man 4 here isn't nearly as pathetic as Mega Man 2 in the difficulty department.

[00:46:00] However, every boss is pretty pathetic and you can destroy them all of the buster. In these last two games, which are actually my favorite of these Quintology, they do both have the problem of the power-ups you get from the bosses. You just basically don't have to use them at all. I barely did in Mega Man 4 and 5 Game Boy. As someone who actually did play this on Game Boy, I think this really does go back to making these more portable friendly.

[00:46:30] Because if you insist on using weaknesses, the first four are neatly arranged. That if you want to use weaknesses, that you could start with Toad Man and then hit right for the next three without even thinking about it. Really? Wow. And as for a kid with a Game Boy in limited time, this is neat. As an adult with, you know, who knows all this shit already, this is kind of sad.

[00:46:53] For an additional memory unlocked, if you die a bunch of times in a row, Dr. Light calls you back to the lab to, you know, upgrade the buster even further. Really? Really? Yeah. This won't save with passwords. Like, you just suddenly appear in the lab, no music's playing. He starts pushing things with the computer. He just turns to you like, look, I guess it's a little harder out there than we thought. We're going to have to upgrade your buster. Pushes some more buttons.

[00:47:24] Just bear in mind that this will turn off when you, that you will lose this when you turn off the Game Boy. What? I legit didn't know about this. Holy shit. Again, this happens in 5 too. There's like a similar upgrade system, quote unquote. But this is neat when you're dumb kids in a car trading games and Game Boys on a car ride.

[00:47:48] But, you know, today you're not even going to see this if you're somewhat adept like we are. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, yeah. I mean, probably back in the day I would have saw such a screen. Because, like, I always think of, you know, like the first Devil May Cry does this. Like, if you die a bunch of times, it's like, hey, you've unlocked easy mode. Do you want to turn on easy mode right now? You know, and this is like 2001. So maybe Capcom has always had that in them.

[00:48:18] Oh, they don't give you a choice here. He's like, we're just going to crank up your buster. Oh, so it's like fucking. Okay, so it's not even a choice like in Super Mario 3D World if you die a bunch. And it's like, here's the win button right here if you want to use it. Okay. Yeah. It's not going to save with the password screen. But here it is now. That's pretty wild. I almost want to give it another shot just to see it. That's pretty good.

[00:48:46] But yeah, the game is so pathetically easy before that. So, I mean, look, we're experienced people at this now. So maybe your mileage may vary out there, listener. But yeah, if you are used to playing Mega Man games, this game ain't shit. Mega Man 4 Game Boy. I love the part that after you beat the eight bosses, Dr. Wily motherfucker just takes off into space into a Wily spaceship fortress. What the hell is going on?

[00:49:14] He's had some kind of spaceship bullshit in all of these Game Boy games. Maybe that's why they were called Mega Man World. I'm sorry, Rock Man World in Japan. But I got to say, of all the Mega Man killers, I think Ballad's the winner. I mean, did you listen to his song? Killer. Did you look at his character design? Did you look at his fucking weapon blow up in your face? It's so good. Yeah, he's the best.

[00:49:43] Out of these five, it's not even close. I'm glad we agree on that because... He's even got the shades for the second fight. He doesn't even need them, but he's like... Yeah, it's great stuff. Ballad is great. The level design here, I guess it goes without saying, much more fun than Mega Man 3 Game Boy. Not nearly as sloggy. Like I said, there are a couple of parts like that, but that's okay in the scope of a whole Mega Man game. Just not every level feeling 100% that way.

[00:50:12] That's what I objected to in 3. Much better in 4 here. This is also especially notable to me because, like I said, Mega Man 4 NES is like my least favorite. So I wasn't really looking forward to playing like Mega Man 4 type levels again. But I don't know, Mega Man 4 Game Boy made that good for me. I think these are legit way better than what's actually on the NES. This is like the only time where I can say that.

[00:50:37] I don't know if I need to blaspheme Mega Man 4 to say that it's just good level design. They're just fun. Maybe it's because that was my first exposure to those levels, but I don't know. I just like them. Okay. I mean, fine. I'm just not a fan of 4. That's all. Weird cut and paste design of the last stage, though. It felt like I was playing the same part over and over with some different enemies, which was a bit lazy.

[00:51:06] It doesn't necessarily make it bad. It was just kind of like, okay, I'm falling down the hole again. And Mega Man would never reuse an asset or be lazy with a level design or nothing. I mean, okay, but they don't usually like in the same level make you be like, hey, didn't I just play that part? Oh, wait, I just played that part again. And, you know, it's kind of weird. But look, just eat your ballad crackers.

[00:51:38] I forgot that that's what they were called. There's a Celine Dion joke here somewhere. I can't find it, but it's here. I promise. How did you like that sequence where you had to work your way through those bombs after fighting them? I did like that. That was fun. But I do think it's funny that they let you continue at the last boss, like right there. Like if you run out of lives, it's like you can just try again.

[00:52:08] Well, look, the battery is almost dead. You only have so many more chances and well, infinite chances because it's a Mega Man game. I'm like, wouldn't it just suck if the battery died because they made you play the Wily stage over again before running, making that gauntlet? Yeah. I mean, it is a great last boss, though. I love that. That is probably my favorite boss in the game with the fists. You got to jump on the fist and jump up and shoot the thing. The jewel. I love that. That's great.

[00:52:37] It's hard, and you got to really have some reflexes on that one. Really fun stuff. You got to fist some ballad crackers. Yes. Is that all the material you got left? Ballad crackers? Is that all you got left of me? We got a whole other game to talk about. Are you sure? Okay, fine. Let's end this one by one more thing, though. Why did Proto Man appear? It felt kind of random.

[00:53:06] Why was he there? Proto Man appears where he pleases. Now you're going to question him showing up? Yeah. It was strange. He's going to give you a refill of everything, and you're going to be like, oh, why is he here? I like Eddie better. I do like Eddie better, actually. Eddie does appear quite a bit in these games as well. I don't like when the flute plays and Proto Man appears. That's not fun. Okay, okay.

[00:53:36] I didn't say that. I didn't say I hate Proto Man or anything. It was just weird. It was like, okay. I guess he's here. When he appears in Mega Man 3, they make a whole thing out of it. He appears several times, and he's like, is he friend or foe? Here he just kind of appears, and he's always friend. He's never foe. So, I don't know. This game gets a B. I'm kind of vacillating between this and a B+. I feel like it deserves a B, though. I'm letting past experiences influence me a bit.

[00:54:06] I'm still giving this a B+. B+, okay. That's fair. It's just a lot of fun. I still like it. It's a great game. Now, let's move on to the final one.

[00:54:33] Our last one is Mega Man 5 for Game Boy. Released in September 1994 for Game Boy. How about that? Was that good? Yeah, that was pretty good. But, Andre, before we go any further, we did this for none of the other ones. We got to tell everyone the story of this one. We do? Okay. Because it is done. Okay. Let's do it cinematic platformer paradise style. Okay? I'm going to drop some music behind you. Okay? Let's make this official.

[00:55:03] All right. Tell us the story of Mega Man 5. One day, Mega Man and Roll are out on a stroll being smug as hell thinking, man, oh man, there's no fucking way Dr. Wily is going to cause his problems in space on the Game Boy a fifth time. When suddenly, a robot named Terror arrives and says he and his star droids are going to take over the planet.

[00:55:32] Obviously, Mega Man fights back, but is quickly overpowered by the extraterrestrial machine, allowing his compatriots to attack the Earth. Later, Mega Man awakes in Dr. Light's lab, where he suggests punching them in the face with his new mega arm. Also, bring this cat Tango along. We don't know what else to do with him. Can we? Okay. I'm sorry. Even before we say the names of the bosses, can we start there? What the hell is Tango doing here?

[00:56:01] I feel like that was a complete nothing. No one knows what Tango is doing here. He... I remember years later, playing a bit of the Proto Man campaign in Mega Man 10 and going to his shop and looking at the guy's desk, like, is that fucking Tango just sleeping on this guy's counter like a fucking bodega cat? Like, he's not even living at the Dr. Light lab anymore.

[00:56:31] Does he know where he is? No. Tango, I mean, it is a robot cat. It's going to live forever, right? So, you know, it's just going to hang out wherever it pleases and do cat things. And apparently not Mega Man 5, because I have no idea what the hell is happening there, especially since they completely undermine Tango because you just get rush jet and rush coil and shit like usual. So it's like, why even bother?

[00:56:55] He has a handful of uses before you get your weapons, but, uh, oh my God. Weird. What a nothing. What a complete nothing. Okay. So here are the eight bosses in Mega Man 5. They are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Wait a second. Those aren't robots from before. Those aren't from other Mega Man games.

[00:57:25] Those are just planets, Steve. Nope. Nope. If you were thinking you were going to fight the other half of five and then some smattering from six or one or whatever kind of math that you thought they were going to do there. Nope. You're fighting the star droids. They're all OCs from this game. Do not steal and nowhere else. Did they steal these from children too? Or they probably did. Probably. I don't know.

[00:57:54] Um, so yeah, this is the most original Game Boy Mega Man game, which is, I think it's the reason why a lot of people like it the most. And I understand that. And it's a really good game overall. Yeah. Everything's original here. The music. Finally, we have original music. Bangers, huh? And it's good. Yeah. I think all the tunes are pretty good. I don't think I heard a clunker anywhere. In my opinion, I don't think I turned on anything and go, ah, no, we got to turn this shit off.

[00:58:22] No, it was good all the way. And I got to say, even the enemies in the game are all mostly original. They really almost hide that Wiley's out behind everything for the quintillionth time. Almost. Almost. I mean, there's Dark Moon, which is the yellow devil. And there's something else that you could stretch your imagination says like the Mets fifth cousin twice removed or whatever. But, you know, Andre could correct me if he recognizes something that they stole from somewhere else.

[00:58:52] But I think they like. I don't think so. I mean, I can't even remember if this is in four or five, but you know, the thing you have to do a charge buster shot to to flip up its like shield and then shoot it some more. Maybe that's from another game. Maybe something like that's from another game. But this particular version of it, it feels like it's just from here. Yeah. I'm glad to see the yellow devil, though. Finally, I was I was kind of disappointed it wasn't in the first one.

[00:59:20] OK, given the other problems that one had, do you think one was going to do the yellow devil? I feel like it's pretty iconic by that point. I was kind of expecting it to appear. Yellow devil would have just been like a bunch of squares within. Well, I guess that would have been fine. I guess it just wouldn't have been it would have been like the yellow box. Yeah. As long as it's better than like, see, because I don't like the one in three. I don't think that's one. I don't think that one's very good. I think it's definitely three in the ass.

[00:59:48] I mean, I don't I think this one's better than than that. Well, one's a pair in the ass because you can't slide. So I'm already going to like I'm already going to like three better than that just for that. But this doesn't have the zip to it anyway. Yeah, I was glad I am a yellow devil enjoyer. So I was glad to see that you didn't mention punching people in the face in this game. You literally do do do that. You don't charge buster shots anymore.

[01:00:13] You charge your mega arm and shoot your fucking fist at the guys now, which is something. Yeah, I know. Mega Man six introduced the rush suit adapter upgrade that sort of gives you a well, it does give you a variant of the mega arm. But this one is very overpowered by comparison. Yeah, it shoots further and there's even an upgrade that grabs onto enemies again as an handheld game.

[01:00:43] I think it kind of needs to be so you can breeze through it. But but between this and different weapons you pick up from bosses, I think it's kind of meant for you to kind of breeze through. I think they finally not finally, but, you know, we're finally seeing the stride that what a Mega Man Game Boy game can be, even though this is the last one of these. Yeah, I felt like they knew it was the last one of these two, because, like, think about the end. You fight all the all the Mega Man killers, right? Yep. You fight.

[01:01:10] Yeah, because, like, I feel like they knew this was like the end of whatever this series was, because by by now we had like Mega Man X and stuff. I felt like we were just kind of not ditching the classic series, but definitely downplaying the hell out of it. Capcom's running on. It's quick. This last one. Good. But didn't didn't Mega Man Extreme didn't come out to like 2000? Those were for Game Boy Color. And I think the second one came out after the Game Boy Advance did in America. Don't quote me on that.

[01:01:39] That makes perfect sense. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, I think the level design here, obviously, Mega Man always falls back on level design. I actually do think these are the best level designs. I don't think it's so far ahead of four where it's like I would say five is much better. But definitely these are the best eight stages for sure. And the presentational aspects they started in four with like the vertical like presentation of the bosses and everything. All that shit is amped up even more in five presentationally.

[01:02:08] This is definitely the best one. We're finally this is the promise of Mega Man where we're in fucking space while we're not in space. But, you know, we got these alien robots and they're doing things sort of related to space. Here's these alien things we're shooting. We're fighting with supercomputers and they're fucking with the ocean water and all this other nonsense. I'm like, this is cool when you're eight years old. Not cool, but cool that we're doing that.

[01:02:34] But like, yeah, this all makes sense enough more than well, here's a smattering of robots from the Mega Man four game along with another five that we picked for from four that we picked from the five game. And yeah, which like I guess it works if you if like I don't know, I guess if you haven't played the NES games, it totally works for you as just having a Game Boy and being a kid.

[01:02:59] But like I said, even I haven't played all the Mega Man games up to that point. And even just reading about them, I knew they were just robots from other games. I knew that. So it's not like I don't know. I feel like if you're enough in the know at the time, you just be like, it's kind of the same thing. But yeah, I guess if you know absolutely nothing. But of course, five is completely original in that respect. So the bosses were fun. But again, it still has the same problem as Mega Man four where it's just you can just kill them with the buster. They're really easy.

[01:03:31] Yeah, I do like using the weapons more here, though. They give you some really fun ones. There's the saltwater one where you shoot the blob of water and it bounces off into other ones off the wall. Yep. And the photon missiles that starts off with the one and it shoots off into the other one. And even the Pluto charge, for lack of a better one, where you charge and you do a fucking body slam instead of shooting off the arm. They came up with some fun ones to do here. They did.

[01:03:58] And they have good utility in the stages, too, to break some bricks or like do some other hidden stuff. Right. And take some different paths. So that's cool. But if you don't want to do that, yes, the Mega Arm is still super overpowered. And if you still die too many times, he will call you back to the lab and make the arm more powerful. And, yes, you can upgrade the arm, like I said, to do.

[01:04:22] There's two arm upgrades, one to grab items like a boomerang and another one to just grab onto enemies, which as a kid, I always called the tickle upgrade because, you know, as a young kid, it kind of looked like you were almost like molesting him. Like on. I did tickle the yellow devil's eyeball for sure. Right. So, but yeah, the fun, fun upgrades. But again, doesn't really.

[01:04:49] Oh, wait, there is that one weapon where it's like you shoot them and you get a life up. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I think it's just fun for the sake of being. It's not difficult, especially difficult. It's I don't think it's really supposed to be. No. I mean, let's I mean, let's look at the end. You beat the star droids. You fight, you punch terror in the fucking face. And then Wily's behind everything and he's all the way up there. We finally get the promise of rush for space travel.

[01:05:19] He's firing busters out of his mouth. Like that's like the funniest visual in the world. That is weird. That is weird as hell. It's not especially difficult, but it's just, it's just fun to do. It's just fun. You do the one Wily level. Like you said, you fight the Mega Man killers again. You do an interesting finale with more robot fists and the thing where you got to push bombs into them. And then you fight. Oh yeah, that's fun. And then you don't even fight Wily at the end.

[01:05:46] You fight Sunstar, the robot enemy from space. And he's good. And he's so edgy. He kills Wily for you. And he's like, I must fight you, Mega Man. It's such fucking Shonen Jump ass bullshit. Like what, what the hell is good? I mean, that is what Mega Man is, but like, come on, man. I have screen wipe abilities that will be very easy for you to memorize after you lose a few lives. And he's wrecking the level and knocking you.

[01:06:15] It's just fun. It is fun. It is fun. And that I didn't, I don't, I didn't mean Shonen Jump as a negative, by the way. I think anyone who listens to the show should know that. But, you know, I, I love Shonen bullshit. I love Battle Network after all. So please. Yeah, no, all of it was great. Sunstar. I don't know. I don't think he's as cool as anchor or Balad, Balad the cracker or any, I don't know.

[01:06:45] I think it's okay, but it's also just kind of like, I'm Mega Man with a different helmet. But it's, it's fine though. I don't think any of the Mega Man killers are bad. I just thought it was weird that he's like, look, I just beat the shit out of you, but you want to come back to the lab? Wiley, Wiley, Wiley, like, Dr. Light could fix you, even though you're from space. Probably he could probably fix you. No, my, my reactor core is already too damaged. Goodbye. Goodbye. It's like, okay, bye, bitch.

[01:07:14] Karma's a bitch. But, oh, I'm glad you said Light Lab because they actually fixed that typo. It does, it does not say right lab anymore. Now says light lab. And all the problems we've had with this entire Game Boy Mega Man endeavor have been corrected. Uh, I, what did you think of that shmup level? That was weird and annoying. Well, with rush, I thought it was fine. I don't know. It was, it wasn't hard. It was just, it was dumb.

[01:07:43] It was funny to just watch him, like, spit out the, the, the, the buster weapons. It was fine. I guess. Um, again, Proto Man is here. Again, he is only friend and not foe. We already, we already know he's mostly friend at this point. Yeah, I guess this is post Mega Man 5 where you, I guess you know a lot more that he's friend. It's not Mega Man 7 where he's like, hey, did you know that clouds are up in the sky?

[01:08:18] What a weirdo. Just what a, what a weirdo. Um, I, I thought it was funny that they saved Dr. Wily's groveling for the roll call at the end. The very, very end before thank you for playing presented by Capcom. Yeah, maybe that was their way of signaling that, hey, this is it. No, no more Mega Mans for Game Boy from us at this point. You know, when, when something's over, you know, like Mega Man 04, we knew.

[01:08:46] We absolutely knew. You know, and I felt, I felt like Mega Man 5 Game Boy here. Absolutely. I was like, even if I never, if I didn't know there was just five, I'd be like, this is it. This feels, this feels final somehow. Yeah. And it was a great way to send it off. Um, I guess ultimately all like, oh, we need a, we need a grade. Sorry. What would you grade this? I think I would also get, I'm going to give this a B just like I gave Mega Man 4,

[01:09:16] even though I do like Mega Man 4 slightly better, but I will also give it a B. I'm giving this an A minus. Okay. That's fair. Again, childhood's influencing things a bit, but there's just a lot of fun stuff. It's just fun. Yeah. But do you think I'm insane for liking four more? Cause I really, I mean, it's not by much, but I feel like the common answer is obviously five and for a reason. I think we'd have words to say if you said two was your favorite.

[01:09:46] Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. Because I already was giving you the weird eye that, that I'm sure you felt when you typed that out in our private talks on discord, when you said it was better than three. It is better than three. Three is definitely the worst. Three, three. Like I said, if something's so short that it doesn't annoy me, I literally beat that Mega Man 2 in an hour. It can't possibly piss me off. What hour long game could possibly be that bad?

[01:10:16] Oh, I've played a few, but that's not what this podcast is. I mean, you know, so, I mean, I was going to have us rank them, but I think we just already kind of did. We just talked about our. Play the episode in reverse to find out our. Find out our ranking for those part, except for three, which we highly disagree on. I, I think that's it. Yeah. I mean, I Mega Man games can only be so good on Game Boy because like we talked about

[01:10:43] the screen space, they're all outsourced and made by B teams. And of course the quote unquote real games exist on NES. So it's like you can't help but compare. But for what these are and the time period they came out in and the small time period that they had to like work on them, they came out mostly pretty good. Four out of five ain't bad, huh? Yeah, that's a very good record. There's no top of that, really.

[01:11:11] So see you back here for Mega Man Extreme and next year or something like that on Switch 2. Yeah, but we'll probably just staple that in with some other games because I don't foresee us making an entire episode about that. Yeah, I don't see them being that interesting for to really to really talk about them that in depth. But I don't know. You never know. Yeah, we'll we'll tack them on to something else, I guess. OK, thanks for joining us for our Mega Man Game Boy edition of Nintendo Switch Online

[01:11:40] Mini Reviews. We'll be back next time with, I'm sure, just some other basic bit shit on NSO. So until then, check the description of this podcast to find our links to social media and we'll see you next time. Bye. We'll catch you next time. This has been.