Classic gameplay, teeth-gnashing difficulty, and Mega Man's head - bigger and more bulbous than ever before.
At first glance, Mega Man seems like a simple and perhaps mundane, limited shooter. Your protagonist can only shoot left and right with his primary weapon. The poor clunker can't even crouch. But what made Mega Man such a unique undertaking in the first place was the ability to choose your own path through the game. This is brought back to life with Powered Up. Each of the game's opening levels can be selected at your whimsy, and as you complete a level and defeat its robot overlord, you gain their power. Each boss is weak against a specific power, so part of the fun is in tinkering around with levels and see which weapons work the best against which bosses.
Classic gameplay has trouble standing out on its own these days, unfortunately. So, Capcom scrapped the old stubby 2D sprites that defined the NES Mega Man and his adversaries, applied a splash of bright paint and a hint of polygon, and dumped the result in a huge vat of confectioner's sugar. The result? The absolute cutest Mega Man character models you've ever come across. Mega Man's head is perhaps the most bulbous anyone's ever seen it, taking up as much space as does his entire torso. The Shirley Temple makeover extends to the backdrops, with each stage looking like it's made up of very intricate Lego blocks. Overall, the visual presentation eschews the detailed pointillism of today's offerings in favor of broad, "My First Coloring Book" strokes (and an set of irresistible dimples).
The sound follows suit almost to the point of hair-pulling. Each enemy robot has a voiceover that is extremely over-acted and clearly meant for the Wednesday afternoon Sesame Street audience. The music for each stage is even presented in a major key - wherever the music presented any modicum of antagonism or foreboding in the original game, it's now all chipper - all the time. It's an interesting take on nearly two-decade-old tunes, but it's certainly not for everyone.
Despite the technical quality and clarity of the visuals and sound, some players would balk at such a fetal presentation. It's an incredible boon, then, that the original Mega Man gameplay remains intact and as difficult as ever. You'll find the comforts of Capcom's hypertension-inducing design in the "Old Style" mode, one of two available. This mode essentially drops you into the candy-coated makeover of the entire NES game, with each level and enemy placement being identical to the source material. Precarious jumps accompanied by enemies that see fit to leap out of said pits are the norm, and pattern-based boss characters - whose patterned attacks are easy to observe, but monstrously difficult to evade - may just cost you every one of your lives to get it right.
In the "New Style" mode, the stages are retooled to fit the skills of those less "ninja." New to the fold in this gameplay mode are numerous checkpoints, where the original material only had a halfway point. Also available are lower difficulty levels and bosses which take more damage per hit, and two new boss characters which were left out of the original. The downside to this mode is that, if you choose to exclusively play it, you really won't get the classic experience. The upside is that it's practically a new game. You can consider "New Style" on Normal or Easy as your training wheels, on Hard as your first bike, and "Old Style" as a unicycle. After all, if you're going to get the most out of this game, it's recommended that you step up to the plate and dig into the "Old Style" at some point.
Regardless of style, the entire package is still made accessible to all by including Save functionality. The password system of the older NES Mega Man games was implemented only in Mega Man 2 and on, leaving gamers to complete the original Mega Man in one sitting. Though this is an ultimate test of skill and not necessarily a negative, the option to Save is simply a feature of the changing times. Plus, it never hurts to have the option for those who want it.
Having the ability to save your game definitely helps in the effort to let players experience both of the games stuffed into this UMD, but the value continues in the way of Mega Man: Powered Up's construction set. As you traverse through the "New Style" levels, you'll encounter construction set pieces and themes that will let you design stages with certain items and stage design tiles. Giving you the ability to actually craft your own Mega Man levels, the construction set not only boosts the value of this game significantly but also gives fledgling would-be game developers a fighting chance at proving their mettle. Once you save a level to your memory stick, you can then upload them online - and similarly download new ones. As of this writing, several designs of classic stages from games like Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania have been replicated with the Mega Man: Powered Up construction set.
The value of this package is one of the biggest selling points, but the core gameplay is something that nostalgic Mega Man fans won't want to miss. Having all the old levels in addition to the remixed ones on the road should invoke that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Though the challenge and somewhat limited mechanics may be daunting to newcomers, the accessibility of "New Style" does a really good job of easing them into the series' classic characteristics. It's somewhat harder to recommend to those who would rather have sugar with their coffee and not vice versa, but unless you really can't stand not being able to shoot up or diagonally, mellowing out and and giving the intoxicating presentation a chance is strongly recommended. If you can stomach the will to do that, Mega Man: Powered Up is a keeper.