In this review, we look for some refractors in the N64 game Mega Man 64. We find out how well this action adventure game plays.
This game was released in 2000. It was earlier released on the Playstation as Mega Man Legends.
We know quite a bit about the franchise at this point. We first played the classic NES series (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6). That series, for us, became great at the second game, but gradually dropped in quality after. After that, we tried the Game Boy series (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). That series got interesting at 3, but things faded on the quality front after that for us. So, we thought we’d go out on a limb and try this game next.
You play as Mega Man Volnutt. The story is set in a world covered almost completely by water. Residents in this world eke out a living on the few patches of land that exists. They take pieces of technology from deep inside ancient ruins to power the technology that helps sustain their lives. The people who retrieve these pieces of technology are known as “Diggers”. Mega Man, along with her partners Roll (his spotter) and Barrel (an engineer and researcher) dig for artifacts and refractors to make a living.
During one of their digs, their ship suddenly runs into mechanical problems. They are forced to make an emergency landing on Kattelox Island. Ultimately, they make it to the island in a crash landing. With the Flutter (the ship) unable to fly any more without replacement parts, the three find themselves stranded. Local police see their downed ship and meet up with them. Upon realizing everyone is alright, Barrel agrees to fill out paperwork so the others can move around the island. Unfortunately, locals do not have replacement parts for the Flutter on-hand. This forces Mega Man and Roll to start digging for the parts themselves. In the process, they encounter pirates known as the Bonn’s. This initiates the main adventure in the game.
This game, along with the Legend’s port from earlier, represents a significant departure for the franchise. It represents the franchises main leap from 2D action to 3D action. In addition, it finally breaks with the long standing formula of 8 robot masters and a face-off with Dr. Wiley and his technological castle. In fact, so much is changing, there is even a very involved storyline all throughout the game which is also a significant departure from the traditional NES, Game Boy, and “X” series on the SNES.
There are, of course, a few things that remain true to the previous series. The big thing is the fact that you have your buster weapon. This main weapon is used for a large amount of your fights throughout the game. Another returning feature is your secondary weapons (an improvement is the fact that you can have both your buster weapon and secondary weapon equipped at the same time). This secondary weapon, like previous games, uses a special power meter, so you’ll have to conserve the energy for each dig. Note that you don’t have a charge shot like before, but this is replaced by something else.
In addition to this is your life meter. You have dots denoting how much health you have left. Like later instalments in earlier series, you can improve on your overall health capacity. Additionally, you can by extra health through a single container (this is actually much more versatile than this sounds).
While the franchise has toyed around lightly with the idea of money from time to time, this game pretty pushes the game into having a full blown monetary system that applies to so many things. In this game, the money is known as Zenny. You can obtain zenny by destroying enemies and getting refractor shards, looting chests and holes in walls, or winning it. After that, the zenny can be used for a variety of things. You can buy items and upgrades or donate the money for charitable causes. It can be a grind at times to get the required zenny for some upgrades, but it is definitely worth it.
One thing zenny can buy are new buster parts (a few parts can be obtained through other means). You can equip two of these at once (later on in the game, this can be upgraded to three). These parts generally improve the performance of your main buster gun. There are four ways you can improve your buster gun: Attack, Energy, Range, and Rapid.
Attack is how powerful each shot is. As your buster weapon becomes more powerful, your shots will also change colour and size. The better your attack, the more damage each shot does. A capped out attack gives you large gold shots.
Energy, meanwhile, dictates how many shots you can perform per volley. By default, you have a standard 3 shot volley before you have to wait a moment to perform the next. Improving this increases the number of shots you can perform in a volley. A maxed out energy stat means a constant rate of fire with no downtime.
Range is pretty self-explanatory. This dictates how far your shots can go before dissipating. A very long range can mean that you can attack and even destroy some enemies without them even knowing your whereabouts.
Rapid indicates how quickly each shot is let out within a volley. The higher the rapid, the faster each volley is let out.
When you get Roll to fix the spotter car, she can fix various items you find on digs. A few of this items are general upgrades, but a large number of them are secondary weapons and their respective upgrades. A number of these secondary weapons requires multiple parts to for that next weapon. You can only equip a special weapon one at a time, so you need to figure out which weapon will help you the most overall. Note that not all weapons are for destroying enemies. Once you have a special weapon, you can upgrade them in the same way buster parts improve the aspects or your buster weapon. It costs money, but for weapons you use, it is very much worth it.
Another way to spend your zenny is in the junk store. This operates as the main store throughout the entire game. You can buy a number of buster parts as well as other useful items. An example is the shield repair which repairs a damaged shield. Armour increases your overall defence. You can also purchase health capacity bonuses. While there is a limited number of them, it is, overall, a very useful buy in the long run. Finally, you can purchase a canteen. This serves as your extra tank. It gets expensive after a while, but each upgrade increases the number of health points you can store in this. So, buying these throughout the game winds up being an extremely useful thing to do.
In the process, you’ll encounter a number of enemies in the game. Like a few other games in the franchise, there are multiple factions you can face off with. In this game, there are two factions you can encounter: Bonn pirates and Reaverbots. You encounter Reaverbots in the introductory stage of the game. They exist primarily in various ruin environments.
The other faction you face off against are Bonn pirates. These enemies appear fairly early on in the game as well, but have a much more involved story behind them. Their motivation is to go after the main treasure behind the Main Gate and try. As a result of this motivation, they try and stop Mega Man at various intervals, often acting as a set of boss fights.
While there are plenty of things to do to move the storyline, this game also features a number of side missions and optional objectives. Like most games, these side missions can net some very useful items in the game. They can range from mundane tasks like obtaining lipstick to beating the various mini-games at the TV station. The variety you encounter is pretty impressive and can be worth it just for the storyline alone.
While there are many enemies in the ruins, there are also things you can find as well. This includes treasure chests, and holes in the wall. Most contain zenny while some contain items. Some of the locations require special items to get to, so you’ll find yourself backtracking through these levels every once in a while to explore the new locations.
Probably the most famous aspect about the ruins in this game is the fact that all of these ruins seem like separate levels at first. By the time you get to the end, it’s possible to discover that you are actually exploring a giant mega-dungeon the whole time. With the right part, you’ll be able to unlock the ability to simply walk from one level to another without even surfacing. This generally ends up being an impressive discovery for those actively exploring every part of the ruins. Very few games employ this style of design which helps make this game stand out from the rest.
For me, this is where I’d like to start talking about the game. At first, this game seems pretty bare bones. Only a few paths are open up. I see the odd passage here and there that I can’t access, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot dungeon-wise. As I explored, however, the game seems to just keep opening up in more and more impressive ways. This gets to the point where I actually start getting a little lost in the dungeons from time to time. I think this is impressive especially for a system like the N64. This aspect actually gets a thumbs up from me.
The next thing about this game is the fact that this game represents a very big technological leap. This leap to the third dimension can be something various 2D games struggle to accomplish. Super Mario did a fantastic job with this with Super Mario 64. In my opinion, Final Fantasy failed hard with Final Fantasy 7. The Worms franchise was more or less mixed in this effort with Worms 3D. So, when I play the NES series or the Game Boy series, it’s actually difficult to see this being a game that would do well in the leap from 2D to 3D. It’s very easy to see this turning into a simple third person shooter with a Mega Man twist to it.
For me, this represents the biggest pleasant surprise when the franchise went from 2D to 3D. We now have a full blown action adventure game with an in-depth story and a complete reworking of the formulaic structure. Not only does this game represent how a franchise can transition spectacularly well to the third dimension, but do so while breathing new life into a seemingly tired and worn franchise in the process. It’s as if someone said during a developers meeting that we can’t keep punching out the same formula any more and we need something completely new. On so many levels, this game gets things right.
The story, for me, is the biggest surprise. This franchise was very simple and almost completely unchanged from the general formula. 8 robot masters need to be stopped, then you need to take down Dr. Wiley. It felt like there was zero creativity left waiting in the wings for this franchise. Playing this game, I find myself asking why something like this couldn’t happen sooner. The concept, the dialogue, and the overarching aspects of the plot works incredibly well here.
This leads me to the next aspect: balancing video game and movie-like elements. There are plenty of games that either don’t get this balance right or completely let this go by the wayside. Some games are just mind-numbingly simple while others are just movies with a few buttons to press. If developers want an example of a game that gets the balance right, this is a prime example. The cut scenes are downright entertaining especially with Bonn scenes. The pirates represent this game being featured in a non-serious manner and can be, at times, downright hilarious. I think the sense of humour portrayed in this game is absolutely bang on and adds such a great amount of variety to the overall plot.
What’s more is that it balances out the game nicely. The cut scenes pop in at certain parts of the game, but isn’t overly obtrusive either. At the end of the day, it still feels like I’m playing a game through and through. At the same time, it felt like I was also partly experiencing a TV show at the same time – and a well written one at that.
Another aspect to this game that might get less attention is the fact that this game nicely adds RPG elements while at the same time not being an overly RPG kind of game. Weapons get upgraded and statistics of your weapons can be beefed up. At the same time, you’re not hit with a pile of numbers and statstics, just bars. Life gauge’s and extra health can be bought, but you’re not holding healing potions or levelling up. What this game does is take elements of RPG games and builds them into an action adventure game. As a result, I think people who aren’t really in to the whole RPG game scene can find this game very approachable while at the same time, attracting those who like the idea of building up your character.
Finally, I think the controls are very well done. It’s actually difficult to tell with video’s, but the controls are very tight and responsive. It’s easy to see the sideways running as cringe-worthy in video’s, but what you are actually doing is strafing in that regard – something not that indifferent to FPS games at the time.
As with 99.9% of other games out there, this game is by no means perfect. Probably the most annoying aspect is that it can be a bit annoying to find the trigger to the next plot point. This happens in a very small portion of the game where you are trying to get the boat. You can easily find yourself confused as to what to do with the yellow refractor because it’s not entirely clear who you need to talk to to trigger the next plot event. It’s a minor complaint of mine, but it is an issue in the game in my view.
Another minor complaint is the fact that some things require a ridiculous amount of grinding. Luckily, the worst offenders are left for the latest part of the game, but there are a few things that make your game less difficult that require a bit of extra grind work. Again, this is a minor issue in my view, but an issue nevertheless.
Generally speaking, this game has an incredible amount going for it. It offers a fresh take on a stale formula and breathes new life into the franchise. It offers great writing, excellent controls, and an overall great experience all the way through. Some of the grinding can be a bit annoying later on and a few of the plot triggers can be annoying to look for, but those are minor issues. Honestly, this is an excellent game to play through and was a joy to finally get a chance to play for the purpose of reviewing.
Graphically speaking, I have to keep reminding myself that this is an N64 game. A lot of N64 games, at best, use the models by moving them around to look like they are interacting with each other. A few N64 titles have some minor changes to the textures on the characters to give them some personality. The characters faces are actually very well animated and really gives this game an anime style feel to them. The animation sequences are nicely done and the environments are surprisingly well varied considering you mostly play on a single island the whole time. There could have been better lighting effects and some of the textures in minor areas like the library do leave a lot to be desired, but overall, this is a great game in this regard.
The audio is also very well done. The amount of variety that went into this is actually quite impressive. You have the sense of desperation while defending city hall, the relaxation music of city hall itself, the high energy rock music of the racing game, and the intimidating feeling of taking on the ruins with some great variety in the ambience similar to that of a Silent Hill game. Then there is the voice acting which is impressively squeezed in to the tiny size of the N64 cartridge. Overall, I call this a great effort on this front.
Overall, this is definitely a highly recommended game. It shows that not only can Mega Man handle a 3D environment well, but also offer a thriving and great game to boot in the process. There’s a great dungeon layout, the writing is top notch, and the way the game gradually opens up as you go is very well done. Some plot triggers might be a bit annoying to get and there is a bit of grinding involved in this game, but otherwise, it’s hard to find negatives with this one. The graphics are great and the audio is also very well done. An overall great and recommended game in my view.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Beat the game and played both the easy and hard modes it unlocks.
General gameplay: 22/25
Replay value: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Audio: 4/5
Overall rating: 86%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
