Capcom was one of the early developers to pledge support for the Sega Genesis console. Unfortunately they didn’t really bring their A game. Sure, Sega’s console got a darn near arcade quality port of Strider but meanwhile they were still releasing games on the original Nintendo and ramping up their teams for Super Nintendo releases. Basically they kind of gave the Genesis the shaft. Most of their biggest games were, or at least started out, as Super Nintendo exclusives. This all changed when Street Fighter II finally made it’s way to the blast processing system. Around this time they also announced that they were developing a Sega Genesis exclusive Mega Man game which was pretty big news at the time. This turned out to be a compilation of remakes of the first three titles in the franchise. They made a big mistake by releasing it on cartridge in only Japan and Europe. Mega Man: The Wily Wars was available in North America only via the Sega Channel service. By and large we North Americans got the shaft. I was able to import a copy from Japan, and while names are changed in this version I will reference the English naming scheme. As a big fan of the Mega Man franchise (the first three games in particular) I was disappointed with this release.
The Wily Wars contains the first three Mega Man games in their entirety. The plot of each revolves around the nefarious Dr. Wily creating an army of robot masters to enslave the world. His kind hearted nemesis Dr. Light sends out his finest creation, Mega Man to deal with robotic uprising and set the world right. The story doesn’t change much between the three games (except in part 3 Wily begins by pretending to be a good guy but later reveals his true colors). The story is nonsensical but we’ve all come to expect this from every Mega Man game ever released so it’s no big surprise. What is cool however is the fact that this isn’t merely a compilation title. After beating all three Mega Man titles included here you unlock a fourth section of the game entitled Wily’s Tower. This contains three brand new robot masters called the ‘Genesis Unit’ (nice reference) and each has their own stage. These new bosses are based on characters from the Chinese novel Journey to the West which is really cool in my opinion. Buster Rod G is one of my favorite robot masters in the entire series and I like the direction the developers took here. This is a fantastic bonus to the compilation and fits in with the early Mega Man series designs well. The artists did great in this respect.
All content from the original three Mega Man games is perfectly intact with this release. You start each game with a screen allowing you to choose which robot master you want to target first. You play through their stage, face off against them, and gain their weapon to which another boss is weak against. It’s classic Mega Man at it’s finest, and all three titles are very challenging action side scrolling platformers. The first difference in this release you’ll notice is that you can now save your progress. The password system has been axed from Mega Man 2 & 3 replaced with a battery backup. This is a god send because at this point in time I was beyond done with inputting strings of characters to continue from where I left off. The original wasn’t left out of this either which makes all three games instantly more accessible if you don’t have the time to power all the way through in one sitting. Another alteration is that you can no longer choose an easier difficulty setting in Mega Man 2, but this isn’t a deal breaker for me because I prefer the challenge.
There have been a few other slight changes here and there, but most of these aren’t major. The attack patterns of some of the robot masters have been altered, and some of the weapons trajectories have small differences as well. In some cases it makes them more difficult, but the changes aren’t major. Unfortunately there are some problems with the gameplay engine in this release. Mega Man handles a little differently due to slight input lag. It’s tough to re-adjust yourself to this when you’re so used to the NES versions, but it can be done. Still, this is a major issue and considering the fact that the Genesis is much more powerful than the Nintendo it really should not be an issue. Also annoying is the fact that you cannot fire your weapons as rapidly, and the collision detection is a bit iffy. This causes almost as many problems as the control lag; standing right next to enemies and wailing on them with the mega buster weapon just doesn’t work as well as it once did. I was able to adjust my strategy, but this ruins a bit of the classic experience.
Fans of the original releases won’t be happy with the changes in Mega Man: The Wily Wars. They sound minor but they do affect gameplay in some pretty major ways. It makes the Wily Wars significantly more difficult because in many cases you can’t simply rely on your old strategies. You’re better of sticking to the original NES cartridges (or even the later released compilations) if you just want to play through the games. Wily Tower alone is almost enough to make this package worthwhile in my opinion. While Mega Man still suffers the aforementioned issues in this mode it’s still very much worth playing. The new mini-bosses and robot masters are some of the best we’ve ever seen in the series. My favorite aspect of this however is that you don’t gain new weapons from these new baddies, but you’re not stuck with just the mega buster either. Instead Capcom came up with a new system that allows you to choose any eight special weapons from all three Mega Man games to take with you and use in Wily Tower. This gives you a total of 22 different weapons to choose from. Being able to use powers from different games together is an awesome idea. I just wish Capcom had taken this idea and ran with it by making this a full-fledged original title instead of making it a mere bonus.
Capcom completely re-drew all of the sprites in an effort to take advantage of the more powerful hardware. Unfortunately I’m not a fan of the new style. While it’s still instantly recognizable as Mega Man it just doesn’t sit right with me. I would have preferred they stick closer to the original iconic look because now he just looks goofy. The Mega Man sprite doesn’t even look as good as that in part 7 on the Super Nintendo. Even the additional frames of animation don’t help out that much. On the other hand the robot masters are improved in my opinion and better represent the artwork for each of them. With that aside there are less technical issues than there were in the 8-bit releases. Slowdown is far less common than what you would see in the originals, and flickering is non-existent now. There are some improvements and some things I don’t like, but overall the graphics are decent. The soundtrack on the other hand is pretty disappointing. Mega Man is a franchise that is celebrated for its amazing music and many of the classic renditions feel a bit butchered in the hardware move. I’m sure it’s not the composers fault; the Sega Genesis has one of the worst sound chips of any console, but it’s still disappointing that they weren’t able to re-create the magic.
Let’s get one thing straight; this is not the best way to play the original Mega Man trilogy. Mega Man: The Wily Wars is a sloppy compilation. The developers did a bad job of re-creating these experiences because the whole affair is plagued with input lag, and the new aesthetics are not better than those of the original releases. It also doesn’t help that this game is expensive and a bit of a rarity. With that said Wily’s Tower is the high point, and it almost manages to single handedly save this release. I’m disappointed Capcom didn’t take the concept and run with it to be perfectly honest. This package is just slightly above average, but if you ask me it doesn’t warrant the high price tag.
