 In a couple weeks, I'll be posting a Super Game Boy video about original Game Boy games that best utilize the Super Game Boy accessory. One game I discovered while doing that research was Mega Man V, or Mega Man 5 I guess. I'm gonna call it Mega Man 5, not to be confused with the NES Mega Man 5. Calling it Mega Man V is just awkward. Anyway, this game is such an impressive piece of work that I really felt I had to give it its own video. The best way I can describe this game is inspired. Sometimes it seems like the tendency with original Game Boy games is to just throw a new coat of paint on an old-water-down idea. For example, the previous Mega Man games were nice enough, but the flow of the game was just kind of blah, and the bosses and weapons were the same as the NES games. It was kind of like getting half of an NES Mega Man game. But Mega Man 5 has some really sharp level design, some original ideas, and that classic Mega Man difficulty, and the music is as great as ever. The arm cannon is a little different. Instead of just being able to charge and fire, the arm itself detaches to hit an enemy then it comes back to you. That's your default weapon, the Mega Arm, so that's pretty cool. Rush is there to help, of course, but you also get Tango, who turns into a buzzsaw and attacks enemies. The bosses have a planetary theme called Star Droids. I know that sounds kind of dorky, but I think it's cool as hell. Each boss in Mega Man 5 is based off of a planet in our solar system, although I'm still awaiting word from Capcom about whether or not Pluto has since been demoted to a, uh, dwarf planetoid? Poor Pluto. But yeah, eight original bosses and stages here. You start only being able to choose between four, but after defeating them, you unlock the next four. And those next four stages are where the game gets really good, in my opinion. Like I said earlier, the level design here is inspired. The game is pretty hard in that classic Mega Man method. Some of the boss weapons are pretty dang nice, like the Grab Buster and Break Dash, which are fun to use. And some of them not so much, like Saltwater and Bubble Bomb. Those can be frustrating. Also, just like the previous game in the Game Boy series, there's also a trading system to get e-tanks and other items, which was a pretty smart idea because there's only so much real estate on the screen to hide stuff within the levels. So instead, you collect P... things. Insert your own joke here. And use them as currency to buy e-tanks, upgrades for the Mega Arm, and other stuff. The flaws in this game are very few. There's some slowdown here and there. And there's a strange jump glitch that comes up every once in a while. But other than that, the game is surprisingly smooth. The original Game Boy cartridge is hard to find. And I mean that literally, not in that desperate eBay seller kind of a way. Rare! Vintage! God, I hate that. Anyway, the game goes for over $60. That's steep. But mercifully, the 3DS Virtual Console released this not too long ago, and I highly recommend checking it out even if you kind of like Mega Man. Of course, I'm a big Mega Man fanboy, so I'm conditioned to like this game. But in every objective sense I can muster, I can say this game is surprisingly awesome.