 Here's another arcade game I had no idea existed until recently. This one made by Capcom, and it's a Mega Man boss gauntlet. Man, where has this been all my life? It's called Mega Man Power Battle, featuring one-on-one fights with Robot Masters, with the art style, settings, and music done in the same style as Mega Man 7 for Super Nintendo, with Mega Man Power Battle being released only a few months after that game. The structure is of a one-on-one fighting game, and you can play as three different characters, Mega Man, Protoman, and Bass, and just like Monster Mahlers, this is another fighting game where you can play with two players, which is awesome. The game is divided up into three paths. The first path has you fight six Robot Masters from Mega Man 1 and 2, the second path features six robots from Mega Man 3, 4, 5, and 6, and the third path is six robots from Mega Man 7. You can select the first boss you want to fight in each, but after that the order is randomized. In the first two paths, after defeating all six Robot Masters, you unlock two more fights, the first being against the Yellow Devil, also known as the Rock Monster, before you fight two different forms of Dr. Wily. What's cool here is that the Rock Monster will take a different form depending on which path you take, and that thing is really tough to beat on both paths. In the Mega Man 7 path, you fight that goofy jack-o-lantern thing from Mega Man 7 instead, before fighting Wily. Now, on the surface, this game may look pretty easy. I mean, it's a fighting game where you shoot a projectile, and each character can charge their weapons as well, so you can keep your distance and focus on dodging it just blindly fire away. But man, oh man, this one gets really tough, especially the Mega Man 7 path. Even just the regular Robot Masters are brutal. Thankfully, this game includes one of the main mechanics that makes Mega Man fun, and that's the boss weapons. That's right, you still collect boss weapons in this game, and the same Rock Paper Scissors logic still applies here. For example, Ice Man is weak to Guts Man's weapon, Heat Man is weak to Ice Man's weapon, you get the idea, and that helps with the difficulty a little bit. And yeah, even playing with the second player, you both get the boss weapons, so that's pretty cool. Unfortunately, you can't charge the boss weapons, so keep that in mind. There are a few things I have to point out here that feel like missed opportunities. One is that there really isn't much difference between the three playable characters. Sure, base can jump slightly higher, and Proto Man is kinda sorta barely a little bit quicker, or maybe that's just my imagination. But yeah, it really doesn't matter who you pick the play as. You can press down and jump to do a slide or a dash, but while it may look like Proto Man has a shield, he doesn't, it's just cosmetic. Each character does feature a different ending, so that's a nice bonus. Another thing I should point out is that there are no platforming stages here at all. Don't get me wrong, I like the fighting game structure, but it does get a bit old after a while, and I start to miss what Mega Man does best. And that of course is the action platforming stuff, so if you're looking for that here, you won't find it. On the positive side, I mean just look at this game. It looks freaking awesome. It is so dang cool to see the older bosses like Cut Man and Gemini Man and the like, all get tweaked, not just with a more polished design, but with extra frames of animation too. The backgrounds also look great with all sorts of stuff going on. They even revamped the music for each Robot Master, but there are some instances where they just use someone else's music for some reason. Like for example, Ice Man's theme is actually Freeze Man's music? It still sounds cool, but it's just kind of a weird decision. But yeah, the overall point I'm trying to make is that this game is made for Mega Man fans, and if you love the series, you'll get a huge kick out of the look and sound of this game. Even better is that there is a sequel to this one, Mega Man 2 The Power Fighters, which came out a year later, and it's really just more of the same. You get Duo as a playable character in addition to the original three, and there's more Robot Masters to fight, and this one's a bit more story-driven, with Dr. Light showing up to give you hints about which boss weapons work against which Robot Masters. So how do you play these? Both games were ported to home consoles in North America in 2004 as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for PS2, GameCube, and Xbox, although they do have to be unlocked, but hey, that's better than nothing. So yeah, if you're a huge Mega Man fan and you haven't played this, well, what are you waiting for? Yeah, it's pretty limited, and there's no platforming action here, but both Mega Man Power Battle and Mega Man 2 Power Fighters are such a blast to play, especially if you're familiar with the source material and have played the older Mega Man's to death like I have. It's just fun seeing these old bosses reinvented with new sprites and new animation, and the music is awesome too. And of course, it's that much more fun with a second player. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day!