MMSF2: Beat Plesio Surf.
Fun fight. This fight actually showed me why I really prefer Starforce fights to Battle Networks. See, yes, Plesio Surf does hug the back wall...he even shoves obstacles in front of him to make him harder to hit. The difference? You can still use all your nice short range moves on him. They're a bit tougher due to the obstacles blocking your line of sight, etc, but you can actually hit them.
Compared to Battle Networks where bosses like King Man where you CANNOT HIT THEM WITH MELEE EVER, even with Area Grab and such...just obnoxious. Also, the Buster is a lot less effective in BNs than in SFs (SFs, you can usually fire off and get plenty of hits in, and charging's faster and easier. Battle Networks, you might get a shot in and then the guy moves, so bustering anything is glacial.)
Anyway, the dungeon could have really failed, but then Starforce 2 decided to remind me its not a Battle Network, and its Dungeon was only 2 rooms long, with the second room having the boss, so the dungeon quirk was more intimidating at first glance than it really was overall.
Mega Man: Wily Wars: Yep, decided to play this for no apparent reason! Got through MM1 and MM2.
...both, graphics aside, are inferior to the originals. Ok, lets go over what I can remember my beefs were!
-Change in physics for the worse. Game feels clunkier. For example, the Mech Dragon jumping part in Wily 1 of MM2? That was trivial and easy. Now? They fucked up the timing of the scrolling (you can ACTUALLY OUTRUN THE DRAGON! instead of him constantly keeping up with you regardless), and you can screw the jumps up if you aren't precise now.
-Changes in Boss Mechanics in general. By this I mean they...pretty much force you to go after one specific boss as bustering them all doesn't work; they're assuming you're going to go after one boss and then weakness the rest. Lets go over each of the 14 Robot masters one at a time!
--Cutman: Takes 1 damage from the Buster now. He still sucks, but...well, fuck. 1 damage from the Buster is just insulting when he took 3 which felt like pity cause you can't hit his true weakness on the refight. THANKFULLY, you can do 3 damage with Fire Storm.
--Elecman: Can't be realistically bustered. He's too fast, flinch time is too long, he still 3HKOs, and he has no actual pattern. Also way too randomized. You'd THINK a slower, smaller Thunder Beam would make up for this but NOPE!
--Iceman: The jumping between shots is screwed up in taht you basically have to jump over BOTH low shots at the same time. Yes, the physics are that messed up.
--Fireman: Only shoots one Fire Storm at a time at you, and it moves slowly, its so triival to dodge. You can perfect him in your sleep if you have any sliver of Projectile Dodging capabilities.
--Bombman: Actually corners you now and throws bombs at you there. You can only get out of said corner by taking damage and using this flinch time to leave. By corner you, I mean, he'll jump over to you in SMALL JUMPS ONLY, instead of doing primarily large ones.
--Gutsman: Virtually unchanged! ...except his Guts Blocks have such unintuitive dodging methods compared to the original.
--Metal Man: For a boss that's trivial to Buster...um, yeah, they managed to make his Metal Blades near impossible to dodge at times. Complete and total whore somehow.
--Wood Man: For a boss that use to be "Murder dead with Metal Blade or Air Shooter even though they're not his main weakness"...what the fuck? He was basically Doc Woodman from MM3 now. Ok, Air Shooter works, but its so easy to screw up.
--Air Man: They made his Air Shooters a lot easier to dodge. You won't ever be caught in one of those "You aren't dodging this ever" patterns.
--Crash Man: He throws his bombs in such a way they're likely to hit you unless you jump at the right time. Yes, that's right; THEY MADE CRASH MAN HARDER. Cause apparently improving Elecman wasn't enough.
--Flash Man: Fires in such a way that he will almost ALWAYS hit you with Time Stopper. You basically have to anticipate his Time Stoppers, jump at the exact right moment, pray you're high enough to dodge...oh, requires proximity to him. They also decided he should take 1 from the Buster now! Granted, Metal Blade > him still.
--Quick Man: Takes 1 from the buster, you also aren't dodging his boomerangs given the pattern they're tossed in...uh, yeah, not happening. He's also much slower for some reason. The improved Flinch makes 2HKOing him with Crash Bomb not realistically happening though. Oh, his stage layout? Well, in the original, you could fire a Crash Bomb and it'd hit the next stair up I believe. Now? It's going all the way to the wall, UNLESS you fire it from the bottom, then it'll hit the top stair.
--Bubble Man: Seems unchanged! Yeah, I said fuck it at this point and just Metal Bladed his ass.
--Heat man: Unchanged! Apparently they wanted you to fight him first cause CLEARLY people will be in so much desire for ATOMIC FIRE of all the Mega Man 2 weapons. Screw Metal Blade, GIVE ME THE LONG ASS CHARGE TIME, EXPENSIVE AS HELL PREDECESSOR TO THE CHARGING MEGA BUSTER!
Yeah, they...didnt' really balance any of these bosses to be potentially bustered I felt. That or they just really fucked up the physics (read: Improved FLinch times WHY?) to the point where it does. Wood Man is noteworthy for this.
-Yellow Devil can now be hit 3 TIMES PER PASS in a single eye. He also never pulls the High Eye stunt and dodging his blocks are a lot easier since they're slower and you can actually avoid 2 blocks at once. Wouldn't shock me (no pun intended) if you can hit him with 2 Thunder Beams.
-Wily Machine 1 of MM2 is not trivial. He can nearly corner you and fire a beam at the same time, which can provoke you into jumping directly into him. Yes, its retarded.
-Alien Wily you can't really hit him more than once per pass without eating that hellishly high impact regularly. This is not only a physics thing but also...
-FUCKING LAG. This game lags a lot anytime they decide to put sprites on the screen. Most notable is woodman (lots of leaves), Yellow Devil (shifting...yeah, see, he shifts continuous stream instead of one a time), Alien Wily (Stars apparently count as sprites...), Mech Dragon (FIREBALLS OH GOD), among other things...
-Speaking of Mech Dragon, you know the stand on the top block and don't die in the pit strategy? It really fails now. Mega Man takes barely any recoil, distance wise, with flinching, so getting knocked off the platform down to the lower one (which also seems to be a larger distance) is pretty easy way to die. You could argue this is an improvement since it promotes jumping from block to block, I guess...
-But they decided to, again, UP HIS DURABILITY FOR NO FUCKING REASON. Both Quick Boomerang and the Buster do 1 damage to him. Argh! The physics I can understand; converting 8 Bit to 16 bit is likely to going to have some physics changes to mesh with the graphics; this is annoying but understandable. BUT DON'T FUCK WITH THE GAME MECHANICS. There's no reason to a boss that use to take 2 damage now takes 1.
-The Buster's firing rate is slower. See, go play any MMC or MMX game. You'll notice that if Mega Man/X fires at close range, he'll be able to keep firing like a mad man. This is cause the shots close are not considered existent anymore, so the 3 shot limit is gone! This was an incentive to actually fire at close range, I felt; close range attacks let you fire faster, but you're giving a bigger risk to be hit with something. This game though? They took away that; you basically fire 3 shots, then you have a minor cool down THEN you can stop firing again. Trivial Slug fests with Sniper Joes were suddenly immense nuisances for this reason, for example.
-Gutsman's stage. I know you're thinking "That stage is always a whore!" or "Pfft, its easy! You just suck!" Well, no, neither of those apply to this. See, in the original, the platforms were in sync with each other. When you came to one, the other was the right distance so that you can make an easy jump. That wasn't too bad; the hard part was dodging the dips, which felt intended. HOWEVER, that second platform to the third one? Yeah, see, the way it looked timed, you'd have to stay on the second platform at least *3* passes back and forth til you finally got the timing you wanted. Noticing this, I said fuck it and Magnet Beamed the rest of the way.
-Oh, yeah, Platforming weapons got nerfed too for that matter. How so? Magnet Beam expands so much slower its not even funny. Yes, when standing on ground, its not a bad thing...but when you're standing on a Magnet Beam over a death pit in iceman's stage, you tend to get a little...yeah. Item 3 also wastes energy much faster. To give you an idea, I was nearly out of it after the second of that big obstacle in Wily 1.
-On the plus side, most weapons remained fundamentally the same! Thunder Beam's slightly worse since it hits a smaller area, and doesn't move as fast, though, its still pretty dominating, just a bit harder to aim vertically.
-On the plus side #2, glitches removed! Iceman's stage no longer pulls a "YOU FALL THROUGH THE ENEMY!" stunt if you take damage, ditto Wily 1. YOu can actual walk on spikes if you are flinched in MM1 now; I actually abused this in Wily 1 at one point where I got hit and fell into them <.<
-Flipside, they took away respawning items in MM1. Now, you could argue this is a good thing since it means you can't cheese the fuck out of them...but then, some areas felt balanced AROUND them. Case in point, Wily 1 again. Remember that one room with lots of Magnet Beam cheese? Well, if you don't have enough, you can't simply drop down, grab the two Weapon Energy tanks over and over again til you have enough...you can do it once. Then if you still don't have enough, you either die, then GRIND FOR ENERGY FROM BULLET BILLS! Or you just game over, and start back from the beginning.
If it weren't for that Wily Tower gimmick, I wouldn't even bother with MM3, but...well, yeah. Wily Tower sounds kind of neat! but as it stands, it really feels like a halfassed remake.
Those who've played MM1/2 (and probably 3; 3 sounds like its even more butchered)? Stick with the original versions, be it NES or Anniversary Collections. Worse graphics, but superior in most other ways. For the few who haven't played these games, yet are intending too...well, you probably never heard of this game! Pretend you STILL haven't! Pretend the NES versions are your only option (be it emulator or the Anniversary Collections!)
anyway, expect an MM3 rant when I play it <_<
