Prior Retrospectives:
Mega Man - Platforms: NES, Nintendo Wii, PS1, PSN (US/JP), Legacy Collection, Anniversary Collection
Mega Man 2 & 3 - Platforms: NES, Nintendo Wii, PS1, PSN (US/JP), Legacy Collection, Anniversary Collection
Mega Man 4 - Platforms: NES, Nintendo Wii, PS1, PSN (US/JP), Legacy Collection, Anniversary Collection
Mega Man 5 - Platforms: NES, Nintendo Wii, PS1, PSN (JP), Legacy Collection, Anniversary Collection
Mega Man 6 - Platforms: NES, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PS1/PSN (JP), Legacy Collection, Anniversary Collection
This game in the Mega Man Classic Series continues our Mega Man Retrospective! We jump to the Super Nintendo this time out and join Rock on an adventure celebrating the series. More expansive levels, tons to see and collect, 8 more robot masters to take out and a new face called Bass (no, not a fish, Bass like the musical term). This was one of my earlier attempts to play the Classic series after Mega Man 2 and I enjoyed my time revisiting this one.
Development History:
Mega Man's big jump on the SNES should have gotten a lot of attention....but it already did get that; Mega Man X came out around the time Mega Man 7 released. So, this pushed Capcom to get the Classic Series game to come out faster then expected, with the Mega Man team completing Mega Man 7 in just three-four months. For such a short development time frame, they had some regrets about the finished product.
But they pushed through and the game came out in 1994. Some other information about the games development includes the following found on the games Wikipedia page:
"One of the development team's goals was to add locations where the Master Weapons can be used to interact with the environments of many stages. In addition, Inafune wanted to include a hidden boss battle mode and recommended the idea to Tsuda, who discussed the matter privately with the game's playtester. Just one week before the game went beta, the team decided to include this mode on the conditions that Mega Man and Bass be the only playable characters and that it would have no bugs. It was completed and included within two days. However, Capcom only made this mode accessible via a secret password. The team also intentionally made the game's final boss "insanely hard" and "something that cannot be defeated without the use of an Energy Tank". The beta for the original Japanese and overseas versions of Mega Man 7 occurred simultaneously. The translated localization's of the game contain less dialogue than their Japanese equivalent. When Mega Man gains a new weapon in the North American version, he speaks with Dr. Light; in the Japanese version, Mega Man may exchange banter with Roll or Auto as well as Dr. Light."
You can see the intention of having more interactive levels come through many times throughout the game, as your various robot master weapons have impact on the levels. One example is the fire weapon you get, as it can burn down trees and grass in another level.
Story:
Rock is riding in buggy with Roll and new character Auto, exploring the city to find the source of the most recent trouble. As they ride around town all the while four robot masters Wily built in case he was captured, released. They head to break out Dr. Wily and Rock sees Dr. Light on the floor, exhausted. He runs to help but its too late; Wily is free and Rock runs after him. Before he can catch up, he meets a robot named Bass and his robotic dog Treble. They fight each other, but Bass stops, acting friendly and telling Rock he is trying to take out Wily too.
Rock warps back to Light’s lab and he then sets out for the other robot masters. After taking them out, he heads to the Robot Museum and four more Robot Masters are released. Rock takes them out and runs into Bass, injured. Rock tells him to warp to Dr. Light’s lab to recover but when Rock comes back, he learns the truth; Bass is a creation of Dr. Wily and tricked Rock the entire time.
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[IMG]https://nintendookie.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/bass-and-treble.jpg[/IMG]This doesn’t bother Rock and he yet again goes to Wily’s Fortress to take out the evil man. After a smooth time getting through the tower, he fights a very hard Wily Machine 7 and after taking him out, Wily begs for forgiveness.
But this where things get interesting; Rock starts charging up his Mega Buster and is ready to take him out for good. Yes, outright KILL Wily. He tells Rock robots can’t kill their master and he stops in the JP version of the game. But for the EU and US version? He just says “I am more than a Robot” but the tower begins to fall apart and Wily escapes.
This story was interesting and it was nice seeing Mega Man X elements be introduced into the game story wise; a rival that Rock has being a central part of the gameplay, an intro stage and other such factors.
Gameplay:
This is what you expect after Mega Man 6; taking everything the series did up to this point and offering a heavily polished version of it. Mega Man can slide, charge his buster, shoot through walls and use Rush via Coil, Jet, and new ability Rush Search. He even has the returning Rush Adaptor Armors from Mega Man 6, this time being combined into one thing (the rocket punch and extra jump).
What makes Mega Man 7 different is how the visual upgrade and more power the SNES provides gives the developers room for very expansive levels and some fun little things to play around with. One major point is how exploration is heavily pushed this time out, with Mega Man having a ton of upgrades to collect.
You have four R-U-S-H letters to collect before you can use the Adaptor parts, a secret boss fight in Shade Man’s stage to fight Protoman and get his shield, upgrades to give homing properties to the rocket punch, and more; this gives levels the ability to expect more exploration out of Rock and thus, great levels are provided.
Cloud Man and Shade Man are personal favorites but Junk Man and Freeze Man are also fun to run through. The boss fights though are a bit of a down grade, as if you use the weaknesses, they have long stun periods, making using the weaknesses being the ‘win button’ for many encounters.
They are fun to fight with the mega buster though still. Some little things I enjoyed about the game is that some foes have two weak point and if you kill them at that spot, you can access a different part of the stage as you can do in Shade Man’s stage and the fact your rival with Bass matches Mega Man with core abilities (even having the ability to use a Treble Adaptor) makes his fight later in the game very fun.
The last part to cover is the robot master items and they are cool. You have the junk shield which can be very useful, a good melee attack with the Slash Claw and Spring Man's weapon is a good multi-directional attack. They can be used to interact with the stages more, as you can use the fire attack to burn leaves for example.
Second Thoughts:
Before going to the Wily Tower, Edson shares some more in-depth thoughts and information about the game. Thank you man for all this information!
"Megaman 7 came out in 1995 after Megaman X2. Bass doesn't act firendly if you lose to him in the Intro stage, only if you damage him enough does he praise you otherwise he thinks your weak.
Specifically Shade Mans stage is where you find Bass injured. He not only destroys lights lap but takes the original Adapter parts. Wily also breaks into the robot museum to steal a gutsman model to use remake as a boss in his castle later on. Before you can fight Protoman you have to find the two other locations where he gives you hints. Then you fight him and get his shield, which only works when standing still. Also only works when the shield is in front.
X doesn't really have a rival. Unless you mean Zero, which isn't really the same thing as Bass. One thing you skimmed over is that they brought the shops from Megaman IV and V(not 4 and 5) which allowed you to purchases items and powerups, like beat, and enhancements. Of course, there are more, but you have to find Auto's missing super bolt to get him working. Not only do you get more stuff, but you don't have to wait as long for the item to finish.
You mention interactivity with the environment but didn't expand. Some examples include using Freeze mans weapon in Junk mans stage to freeze the lava, or whatever it is, or freezing the fire canons in Turbo mans stage. Turbo Mans weapon can burn down trees in the forest, Cloud mans weapon can power up machinery, etc. Along with the RUSH adapter finding the 4 letter to activate it, you also have a few other Rush power ups like coil again, and search, which is used to find secret parts.
You can also charge a "few" weapons in this game.
One nice feature they brought back from V and X, is that you can go to other levels during like say stage 2 of wily castle, then go back and still be at stage 2 and not start over. Also the second time you fight Bass, he used the other adapter."
Wily Tower Stages:
Will just say this; they are fine and with the ability to buy E-Tanks and W-Tanks from the newly added shop feature in the game (where you can buy things, including items you collect across the game, using bolts you get from killing foes/exploring), it isn’t bad at all going through the stages.
But he fight with Wily needs to be noted; his Wily Machine encounter is one of the hardest fights in Mega Man due to his weakness not hitting him fast enough and hitting hard. Thanks to the shop, it is very easy to stock pile on E-Tanks and W-Tanks thankfully.
Presentation:
The game looks great on the SNES, with bright colors and great sprite work across the board. Each level has a lot of life imbedded in them, just like in the NES titles. The music of the game is solid too, with a number of enjoyable tracks that are quite catchy.
Intro Stage - Freeze Man - Junk Man - Shade Man - Wily Tower 3
One last thing about the music is two clever tracks; one being a Ghost and Goblins remix for Shade Man's stage and another being the Robot Museum. The former is a fantastic remix for the first level in that iconic series while the later is a fun remix of various Mega Man tracks across the series.
Overall:
I enjoyed my time with this one, as it does a lot right. MM7 feels like a celebration of the Mega Man Classic series as a whole, with so much from past titles coming back and being refreshed in some clever new ways. Overall, I had a great time going back to this SNES classic and recommend you play it if you have the chance. It can be bought on the Wii U E-Shop and likely will be on New 3DS in the distant future. It can also be found in the Anniversary Collection on the GameCube, PS2 and Xbox.
Next up on the Mega Man Retrospective is the 8th Classic game in the series; Mega Man 8. This brings the series to the PS1 Era and after a number of MMX titles releasing at this point, does those games influence MM8? Or is it like MM7 and a celebration of the series as a whole? Let’s find out soon.
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