The Mega Man / Rockman Thread

[pierrot]

What's hilarious is how the voices for X4 in Japanese are deeper and more masculine than the English dub.

It's the same for Rockman 8. Rock is still clearly voiced by a woman (as is typical), but the Japanese voice actors are all pretty good.

Anyways yeah, the voices are goofy but none of that ever bothers me THAT much in any of these games.

I always find them to just be really funny. Feels a little like a time capsule for the era, to me.

[pook99]

The voices in MM8 are amazing, Dr. Lights voice is so ridiculous and it cracks me up every time he talks about Dr. Whywee, games today sound so much better but there is really something to be said for so bad its good voice acting.

[Ziggy]

Sorry to hear that your first impressions of MM8 aren't great, Ziggy, but are you playing the PS1 version, or the Saturn version?

I'm playing the PS1 version. Are there any noteworthy differences? I have a chipped Saturn (because I see the eBay prices are ridiculous) so I could switch. I've only beat one stage so far, so I wouldn't mind starting over.

I understand the whole young boy being voiced by an adult women thing. For example, I had no idea that the male Rug Rats were voiced by women for the longest time. Especially Phil. But in MM8, he only sounds like a girl.

And what's up with the squeak toy sound effects that MM has? In X4, for example, you hear a metallic ::clank:: when X or Zero land and the Mega Buster sounds legit. In MM8, he seriously sounds like a squeak toy when he jumps and lands, and the Mega Buster sounds so wimpy.

Overall though, I rather like the aesthetics of MM8. I like how bright and vivid all the colors are. And Mega Man really pops on the screen. By comparison, I felt that X in X4 didn't pop enough and I would lose track of him when there was a lot happening on the screen. It just surprises me the level of cute they went with for MM8. It's like they had the X series, which is more serious, so they decided to go the opposite direction with the classic series.

The voices in MM8 are amazing, Dr. Lights voice is so ridiculous and it cracks me up every time he talks about Dr. Whywee, games today sound so much better but there is really something to be said for so bad its good voice acting.

Yeah, from the few cut scenes I've seen so far, it's pretty cringe-tastic.

[pook99]

I think the squeak toy sound is paying homage to the old games. I don't know if you have played the old nes games but when he jumps and lands it makes that squeak toy sound, I never actually thought of it as a squeak toy but now that you mention it I definitely hear it, pretty funny stuff.

I'm guessing the sound was changed in the x series since the consoles were more powerful and capable of creating the more metallic sounds you hear in the x series.

[Ziggy]

I've played the NES games, I just haven't beat any of them (yet). I get what you're saying, but the jumping sound in the NES games makes sense because of the way everything sounds on the NES.

Mega Man 7 doesn't sound like a squeak toy.

[Xeogred]

Mega Man & Bass re-uses sprites from Mega Man 8, which is awesome to me and a reason why I like it way more than 7. Just looks and plays way better.

If you really want the "darkest" Mega Man can get, that would be the Zero quadrilogy. The DS collection is incredible and lets you remap the buttons around a bit compared to the original GBA versions. I always had the buster set to L and the saber set to Y. You can even hold a buster shot charge while doing melee attacks with the sword.

[Ziggy]

I'm not saying I need a dark MM game, per se. I'm fine with 1-6. Even 7 got a lot more cheerful, but it's still not bad. 8 just takes it to Care Bears level with the cuteness factor!

Speaking of remapping the controls, I played through X1 and X2 with the standard layout.

Y - Weapon
B - Jump
A - Dash

I was never comfortable with that, so I decided to switch A to R for my play through of X3. The trade off is no shoulder buttons to cycle weapons, but to be honest I never use that anyway. I'm not familiar enough with the games to use the weapon cycling, I need to read the names in the menu. Using R to dash is way more comfortable since you still have your thumb free to hold a Mega Buster charge and jump. I remapped it the same way with the equivalent PS1 buttons when I played through X4.

[theclaw]

MM games commonly feel as if the stages were assigned to different teams.
It's a particular detriment to 8. Some places turned out relatively 'serious', others are riddled with pastel colors.

[pierrot]

I'm playing the PS1 version. Are there any noteworthy differences?

Much better controller, for one thing. There are two extra legacy boss battles in the Saturn version, that are pretty cool. I'm fairly certain it was developed with the Saturn in mind, and I find it just looks and plays a bit better on the Saturn, with the exception of the cutscenes. There's a bunch of extra artwork on the Saturn version, too, if you care about that. Also, Tengu Man's stage theme is different on the Saturn, and it's much, much better. I think that's about it, though.

I decided to switch A to R for my play through of X3.

I usually map the buster shot to R in the X games. I find it works really well to have my thumbs handling all the mobility buttons, and firing away with the index finger.

[Xeogred]

Or put dashing to a shoulder button.

I usually played X1-X3 with "The Claw", default controls on the SNES gamepad putting my pointer finger down on A and it somehow worked for years and years, haha. I saw it was dubbed "The Claw" more recently from a speedrunner.

Sadly this is not comfortable at all on the PS4 gamepad, so I just ended up remapping dash to L1 while I replayed all the X games on the Legacy Collection.

What I absolutely love about MM8, is how the special weapons can be equipped and dedicated to its own button, while you still have access to the normal buster as well with another button.