Nice Collection
Mega Man 1 has a nice idea, you are to enter the worlds of 6 different robotic bosses and defeat them. For each boss you beat, you get his weapon which may prove powerful against another boss. Once you've beaten all the robotic bosses, you have a faceoff with Dr. Willy, the man who created the 6 robots. World peace can only be restored when Dr. Willy is captured. You are free to choose the order in which you defeat the 6 robots, after that, the game play is determined. Be prepared for punishing jumps and stingy powerups. This game is not friendly to the unskilled. To get an idea of what I mean, you have to re-encounter 4 of the 6 head bosses and you must beat Dr. Willy 2 times all without the aid of a single health power up. I felt Mega Man 1 was void of the elements that make games fun. After beating it, (3 times in a row, but that is another story) I don't see myself playing it again. I guess I prefer a different kind of game or maybe I've seen too many old NES games because I found the game to be more punishing than rewarding. All in all, it was a lot of what I expected but not much of what I hoped for. If you are the kind of gammer that likes things fast and frantic, this is the game for you.
Mega Man 2 builds upon MegaMan 1 but this time there are 8 robotic bosses, the game does seem a little bigger, the graphics a little nicer and I think they lessened the difficulty. I also enjoyed re-encountering the 8 robotic bosses at the end where this time you get a decent health power up after beating each one. However, it continued with some of the gruelling difficulty and rather shallow areas. Instead of packing it full of non-stop miseray, they spaced it out with some rather hollow areas; Heat Man has an awful lot of painful jumps that aren't fun and other areas you kill one simple guy and climb ladders. Definitely the game could have been better designed, but all in all, it was still more enjoyable than MegaMan 1 and I might actually play this game again in the future. Beware, it might actually be that this game isn't easier, I may be getting my MegaMan thumbs.
Mega Man 3 from what I remember continues with punishing skill drills and mostly resembles 1 and 2 and you again encounter the 8 robots at the end before facing off with Dr. Willy, again. At times I found the controls to be unresponsive which isn't acceptable given the difficulty of Mega Man.
From what I can tell, Mega Man 4, 5 and 6 are pretty much like its predicessors. I remember Mega Man 5 being especially rotten when encountering the Dr. Willy for the nth time, I defintley hated it. I stocked up on all my energy tanks just for Dr. Willy's last encarnation and even still had a time at beating him. Luckily, Mega Man 6 was pretty easy for all instances of Dr. Willy.
Mega Man 7 seems plain horrible, I haven't beat it yet and I'm not sure I want to.
Truth be told, I haven't enjoyed beating any of these Mega Man games (except maybe Mega Man 2), I find them to be nothing short of skill drills. I can't classify Mega Man as great or successful a series as Super Mario or Zelda. Those games are litterally fun to play. You find yourself enjoying the time you spend playing those games. I would say at least 80% of the time I spent playing any of the Mega Man games, I was hating it. Most of the people I've asked about Mega Man said they weren't interested because it was nothing but skill drills. Even worse, some of the last bosses don't follow patterns well and you may require luck to beat them.