With 10 great games and numerous features to boot, MegaMan Anniversary Collection is a definite must-buy for PS2 owners.
All of his NES games from Nos. 1 to 6 emulated very nicely in all of their 8-bit glory, the 7th game of the series for the SNES and the final game for the PS1. With the exception of the arcade games MegaMan: The Power Battle and Power Fighters, Capcom added a lot of credible features to this game that makes the gaming experience for this package worthwhile.
Navi Mode: Pretty much, the lifebar is altered to appear just like it does in MegaMan 8. Crossing certain areas with a "!" above your head indicates a clue as to how to pass that area plus Beat and Eddie appear to show you the right way to go without losing a life like an idiot. This feature is for beginners of course but it does open one element to the gameplay: remixes. Remix tracks from MegaMan 1 to 6 plays straight through as you go through the game. It's a neat way to experience playing and this feature gives the PS2 version a bit of an edge over the GameCube package that doesn't support the remixes, though old school fans would much rather prefer listening to the music in its 8-bit glory. Navi Mode is only available for the 8-bit titles though.
Autosaving: Face it, they were certain areas in MegaMan that you hated with a passion. Fear not. Simply beat a stage (or lose all of your lives in a stage, whichever comes first) and the game will automatically save your progress. It beats having to start all over again from scratch.
Difficulty/Life Altering: Swap between Easy and Normal mode for MegaMan 1 to 7 as well as starting the game with either 3 or 5 lives. MegaMan 8 is not affected in any way from this.
Passwords: The old passwords still work well on the PS2 compilation, with the exception of the MegaMan 7 passwords. That is the one fault I have found in this title thus far.
Original Music Tracks: Beating certain games or completing specific tasks unlocks new, original music composed from the artist of Capcom Co. Ltd.
Anime Episode: Well, not an "anime" anime episode, basically it's the pilot episode to the U.S. incarnation of Megaman from the 90s. Meh, the show was corny, cheesy and sucky at the same time though it is a pretty decent bonus for beating the 1st game.
Well, as a fan of this particular series, I instantly loved it and enjoyed reliving those days all over again. Sadly, the omission of Rockman and Forte (MegaMan 8.5 by today's standards) was a bit of a disappointment seeing as how that particular game deserves more recognition than the Game Boy Advance version in the U.S. Nevertheless that doesn't stop MegaMan Anniversary Collection from being one of the best compilation packages for the PlayStation 2 and is a definite must-buy for fans of the classic blue bomber MegaMan.