Postgame Wrap-up: Mega Man – The Wily Wars

Back in the 1990’s, I heard about a Mega Man game for the Sega Genesis system. As I didn’t have a Sega Genesis and was an avid Mega Man fan, I was quite jealous. It would be some years later that I investigated this game further and discovered that it was never physically released in the US. I then spent about a decade checking in on its availability with no luck (including trying to find a handheld loaded with Sega games that inexplicably included Wily Wars). I had nearly given up when it was announced as part of the lineup on Sega’s answer to the NES Classic Edition, the Sega Genesis Mini. Recently, after having played parts of it since getting the Mini, I finally sat down and played it through to the end. (If you’re interested in reading more about the development and release of Mega Man: The Wily Wars, feel free to check out my Retrospection post on this game.)

The Set-up:

You are Mega Man. Former lab assistant to Dr. Light, now converted to a super fighting robot tasked with stopping the nefarious Dr. Wily. Gifted with the ability to use the weapons of your defeated foes, you set out to…um….stop the nefarious Dr. Wily. Technically speaking, Wily Wars is a sequel to the original three games, not actually a remake. Dr. Wily has traveled to the past in an attempt to once again defeat Mega Man, putting him through the exact same fights again because that’s certainly not the definition of insanity.

He never learns.

The Story:

This is a Mega Man game, and while there are stories to them, some interesting, this one just adapts the stories from the initial three games (which is a little puzzling as this game is supposed to be a time traveling sequel). In Mega Man, Dr. Wily has hijacked Dr. Light’s industrial robots in an effort to conquer the world. In Mega Man 2, Dr. Wily is back with his own creations going up against Mega Man. In Mega Man 3, a reformed Dr. Wily is working with Dr. Light to create a peace keeping robot (Gamma). No way that backfires. I will note here that once the three games are completed, a new section called Wily Tower opens up. More on that later.

I make jokes here, but I do love these games. These are action platformers originally on the NES, so story was somewhat secondary. The bread and butter of the Mega Man series has always been the design and gameplay.

The Gameplay:

On the off chance that you’re reading this and are unfamiliar with Mega Man, I’ll break this down quickly. The original Mega Man games are side-scrolling platformers in which you guide Mega Man through various stages. Mega Man can run, jump, shoot, and (starting with Mega Man 3) slide. The quirk that differentiates Mega Man from other games is two fold. Firstly, you can attack the stages in any order you like, not including the final Wily levels. Secondly, after defeating the boss of each stage, you gain the weapon of the boss. This weapon will then be the weakness of another boss and so on and so forth. Finding the weakness order is the key to the game, though you are capable of taking down bosses using only Mega Man’s Mega Buster.

In addition to gaining weapons, Dr. Light offers support with various items. Mega Man gives you the Magnet Beam, a blue platform that you can fire out and then jump on. Mega Man 2 replaces that with Items 1, 2, and 3, each designed to aid in platforming. Finally, Mega Man 3 introduces Rush, Mega Man’s robotic canine pal. Rush offers a high jump (Rush Coil), flight (Rush Jet), and a submarine (Rush Marine). Other than the Rush Coil, your support items are earned by beating bosses (though the Magnet Beam is an item found in Elec Man’s stage).

So, given that Wily Wars is a 16-bit remake, how do these mechanics translate? The answer is great, with a few reservations. The great is that the games are recreated wonderfully. The level layout and enemy placement are identical to the original games, but with an obvious upgrade to the sprites, levels, and backgrounds. The menus for each game are also faithfully recreated, which is a minor detail, but appreciated by those of us that grew up with the NES originals. All in all, the games just look fantastic in 16-bit glory.

Now, the reservations. While the games are perfectly recreated, the controls don’t feel quite as tight as the NES games. Mega Man feels a little loose when you move him. For example, I needed to pick up some energy on a small platform. I pushed left on the d-pad and Mega Man hesitated, then nearly ran off the platform suddenly. My blood pressure spiked for a moment. There’s just a slight dip in responsiveness in Wily Wars that may bite you from time to time. It’s not that bad, but it is noticeable. The second element that jumped out at me almost immediately was the recreation of the music. The Mega Man series is well known for having great soundtracks, and while the music is the same, it too is just a little off. This is most noticeable in Mega Man 3, in which it sounds like the bass has been turned down a little too much. Again, not terrible, but noticeable.

Now, as noted above, once you’ve completed the original three games, the Wily Tower opens up. This is a completely new section exclusive to Wily Wars. Right off, I’ll say that I greatly enjoyed this section. The tower section opens with three new robot masters. While you don’t get their weapons upon defeating them, before you enter each stage you are allowed to pick eight of the weapons from the original games along with three support items. I didn’t know that you got to customize this prior to each stage, so that was a happy surprise. The robot master stages are a mix of previous stage designs and enemies, so using a weapon from Mega Man 3 against enemies from Mega Man was oddly satisfying.

Once you’ve beaten the three new robot masters, you go to Wily’s Tower, which consists of three levels and a Wily level. In a very clever design idea, the first three levels utilize assets solely from one each of the first three Mega Man games (level 1 from Mega Man, level 2 from Mega Man 2, etc…). I thought this was ingenious because each level felt like a lost level from one of the original games. Also included in these levels (as well as the robot master levels) are hidden rooms and alternate paths only accessible if you’ve brought certain weapons into the stage with you (such as Crash Bombs to destroy certain doors). This was another fun surprise and adds an element of replay value to this section of the game.

Pictured: Wily Tower

Conclusions:

As I noted right at the beginning, I was and am an avid Mega Man fan. I play through at least a couple of the games every year or two. I don’t get tired of them. While I did note some issues with Wily Wars above, I did find far more good in this game than bad. I don’t mean to repeat myself, but these games have truly be recreated with great care and look just fantastic (aside from Dr. Light’s sprite, which is rather rough). No, Mega Man doesn’t control as tightly as I would have liked, and that takes some getting used to, but you do get used to it and adjust accordingly. It’s also worth pointing out that this game could have easily been released as a remake collection in the vein of Super Mario All-Stars, but Capcom went beyond that and added in six new stages/bosses as well as a creative three phase boss fight with Dr. Wily. I have to applaud them for that.

I started this post off by noting how long I had chased this game. It’s now become available via a physical re-release, via the Sega Genesis Mini, and as part of the Nintendo Switch Online library. This makes me extremely happy as I think this is a game that deserves to be widely experienced. As for me, I will say that after all the time I spent trying to acquire it, it was definitely worth the wait.