Retro Game Invasion - Mega Man Part 1/5

Mega Man on Gameboy.

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge, known as Rockman World in Japan, is a video game developed by Capcom for the Nintendo Game Boy. It is the first game in the handheld subseries of the Mega Man franchise. The game follows the adventures of Mega Man as he confronts the evil Dr. Wily and his newly revived Robot Masters and the first of the "Mega Man Killers", Enker. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge is an action and platform game that borrows many elements from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Mega Man games. Both this game and the original DOS Mega Man game share the same box art; instead of being an all new drawing, the artwork is a simple touch-up of Mega Man 3's boxart. However, the surrounding landscape and robot masters have been cropped out of the picture.

Plot

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge tells the story of Dr. Wily returning and sending old Robot Masters to contend with the hero Mega Man. After defeating four of them, Mega Man heads to Wily's fortress and deals with the remaining four more Robot Masters. The protagonist then battles a new robot designed to destroy him, the "Mega Man Killer" Enker and gets the Mirror Buster weapon after beating him. Mega Man then travels to Dr. Wily's "Space Node" to put a stop to the scientist once again.

Gameplay

The game borrows many elements from both Mega Man and Mega Man 2.Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge is an action platformer that shares many similarites with its NES counterparts. The player, as Mega Man, is able to choose among four stages to complete in whatever order desired. Each stage contains various enemies and obstacles to overcome. Mega Man's primary weapon is an arm cannon that has unlimited ammunition. Fallen enemies typically drop items that replenish Mega Man's health or special power ammunition, but may also drop extra lives. At the end of each stage is a boss battle with a Robot Master, and defeating it earns the player its special weapon. The game reuses Robot Masters from the NES versions of the Mega Man series. The initial four stages and bosses (Cut Man, Ice Man, Fire Man, and Elec Man) come from the original Mega Man. Once the player completes these stages and travels through Wily's Fortress, four more Robot Masters (Quick Man, Bubble Man, Flash Man, and Heat Man), each taken from Mega Man 2, must be fought in order to progress. Although they do not have their own stages, Mega Man earns their special weapons as well. A password system allows the player to return to the game after any or all of the first four stages are complete.

Reception and legacy

The readers of GamePro voted Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge the best handheld game of 1991. Bob Strauss of Entertainment Weekly gave the game a positive review, noting similar qualities as past games in the series. He proclaimed, "What makes this game especially attractive to adults is that you can begin your quest on any one of four stages, thus avoiding that linear, start-over-again-from-scratch quality that only 12-year-olds find hypnotic." Jeremy Parrish of 1UP.com found the game acceptable for its 1991 release, but that it "hasn't really held up".

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge was released under the North American Nintendo Player's Choice best-seller label in 1996. In Japan, the game was made available on the Nintendo Power cartridge service on March 13, 2001. The game was followed by four sequels on the Game Boy, of which the first three similarly recycle content from the NES games. Capcom had planned to release a full-color compilation of these five games with additional content on the Game Boy Advance in 2004, but it was cancelled. The character Enker, who debuted in Dr. Wily's Revenge, would later appear as a boss in Mega Man V and as a playable character in the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Mega Man Soccer. Enker's Dr. Wily's Revenge level is available as a downloadable stage in Mega Man 10, with Enker making an appearance as the level's boss.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• Retro Game Invasion
• Mega Man
• Gameboy