 Last month, we looked at Mega Man 4, so now it's time to take a look at the next game in the series Mega Man 5, released in 1992, still a year before Mega Man X for the Super Nintendo came out, and it's got a lot in common with the 4th Mega Man game. The charged shot is still here, flip top is back, rush jet is back, but they did away with Rush Marine, and Rush Coil got kind of a makeover, as it's able to kinda jump with you? It's pretty goofy. There's also the Super Arrow, which allows you to create your own platforms and scale walls. It can also damage enemies, so it's kinda like the Arrow Power-Up from another Capcom game at around the same time, Darkwing Duck. You can also ride it in mid-air, which is a nice touch. Also new are these M-Tanks, which not only replenish health, but all of your weapon energy. The catch here, however, is that you can only carry one M-Tank at a time. Another new twist is collecting a letter in each Robot Master level that eventually spells out Mega Man 5, or Mega Man V. Did they get confused with the Game Boy game or something? Anyway, that unlocks a new character named Beat, who's a bird that flies around hunting enemies and pecks away at them. It seems silly and pointless, but the game rewards you for unlocking Beat by making it really effective against the final boss. So yeah, that's all the new stuff in Mega Man 5. So what about the Robot Masters and their levels? Well, just like the 4th game, they're hit and miss. Overall the levels themselves seem a little more polished and a bit more creative, especially Gravity Man Stage, where you get flipped upside down, Wave Man Stage, where you commandeer a vehicle for a while, Star Man Stage has you jumping around in low G, and Stone Man Stage has a lot of hidden areas you can discover. The backgrounds of Mega Man 5 especially seem lively and colorful, and a big upgrade over the last game, which sometimes settled for just plain black backgrounds. Now before I start to criticize Mega Man 5, I have to remind everyone that yes, any Mega Man NES game is going to be considered a high quality action platformer by objective standards. Comparing it to the best games in the series, not the stuff like Carnoff or Totally Rad, where Mega Man 5 falls short of the best NES Mega Man games is with some of the Robot Master weapons. Some of them are pretty crappy, but see, the problem with reviewing these games in order is that now I feel stupid for slagging the boss weapons in Mega Man 4, because they're not that bad compared to some of the stuff here. Stone Man's weapon is just three rocks that just fly wherever, and it's impossible to aim. Stone Man's weapon just drops small bombs like you'd drop change into a homeless guy's coffee cup, and the charge kick might be the worst weapon in any Mega Man game. It doesn't even fire a projectile, it's only used while sliding. It's awful. On the bright side though, I do think Mega Man 5 does a better job of handling the charge shot than Mega Man 4 did. It just feels like the developers had a better feel for its capabilities, and as a result many of the enemies are much tougher to contend with, like this big dude in Gravity Man stage, or these tigers in Nape Paul Man stage. However, despite this, Mega Man 5 still feels easier overall if you're going by Mega Man NES standards. Some people might see that as the game being more accessible and a friendlier stepping stone to getting into the series, while other people may see it as a disappointment since a big part of Mega Man is the challenge. But anyway, considering the burnout and overexposure the Mega Man NES series was beginning to face at the time, Mega Man 5 is an admirable effort. They really tried their damnedest to expand the series while keeping the core gameplay intact, even working some story elements into it, like this time around Proto Man is the villain, or is he? Gee, I wonder. This is of course another great action platformer, however it falls just a bit short of the better Mega Man NES titles, that's not a bad thing, those are some insanely high standards to live up to. But yeah, despite some really lame boss weapons, I think I'd give a slight nod to Mega Man 5 over Mega Man 4 at the very least.