Went on a Nes rom rampage last night, and was stunned to come across Mega Man VI. I say stunned because I had no recollection they ever made anything past V; on closer inspection, it came out in 1993, when the 16 bit generation was upon us. I imagine Mega Man VI was a bone tossed to those unable to upgrade to a Super Nintendo.

Anyway, if you’ve never played, Mega Man, the gist of every game is this: you’re n robot (a mega one, I guess). You dress in blue and have a gun for an arm that shoots pellets. There’s a mad scientist named Dr. Wiley who’s got an army of six to eight robots, each representing a different ability (Bomb Man throws bombs, Elec Man shoots electricity, etc). You have to go through eight stages and beat the robots, then defeat Dr. Wiley. Sounds like a million other games, right? Well, it would be except for two things:

1. You could beat the eight bosses in any order you choose. If you wanted to start with Cut Man, you could, or you could fight Guts Man first. This was revolutionary stuff 15 years ago.
2. You took on the power of the boss you beat. If you beat Bomb Man, you could throw bombs. If you beat Elec Man, you could shoot electricity. And you could switch back and forth between powers. Brilliant concept. Whoever came up with that deserves a statue.

Every game in the series is like this. Every one. Sure, they tweak some concepts here and there (Mega Man got a robotic dog in MM3, for example), but you know you’re fighting eight robots and getting their powers and beating Dr. Wiley.

Unfortunately, the producers were running out of ideas for robots when MMVI rolled around:

Wind Man (rip-off of Air Man from MM2)
Flame Man (rip off of both Fire Man and Heat Man from MM and MM2, respectively)
Blizzard Man (rip-off of Ice Man from MM)
Plant Man (rip-off of Wood Man from MM2, a dumb idea to begin with)
Tomahawk Man (huh?)
Yamato Man (huh?????)
Knight Man (pretty decent, I guess)
Centaur Man (yes, a half-man half-horse robot)

Not the best roster, but it doesn’t matter. Playing MM is like wearing your favorite pair of jeans—may have gotten a little ragged over the years, but they still feel damn good. I have no doubt I will shun human contact until I finally beat Yamato Man

(Besides, none of the above was worse than Bubble Man from MM2)