Da Mega Mans!

I love the Mega Man series. My obsession started with Mega Man 4. That's the game my friend had at his place and we would both play it and try to beat it. He eventually got Mega Man 2 and 3 and we were hooked. I eventually obtained 1, 5, and 6 so we had the entire series on NES between the two of us. I think the first one I finished was 5 because I found that one easier than some of the others but over time I have eventually beaten all 6 and I can still pick one up and beat it to this day... though the original may take me a little longer because I think it's the hardest of them all and sometimes the controls can be unforgiving. In general, as it is with any hard game, play it enough and you will learn the patters to get past the stages and the bosses.

I eventually played 7 on the SNES, though I never owned the cartridge - just rented. I really fell in love with the X series, mainly X-X3 which were the ones released on SNES. I owned the original X game but only played the other two through rentals. The original carts were hard to find for purchase after a while.

I have both the Mega Man Anniversary Collection and the Mega Man X Collection for the Game Cube. Through this I have played 8 (not completed but I have made it to the final boss fight) and I also completed X4-X6, though I didn't go back and replay them as much because they were SO different than the original 3 X games. I prefer the original trilogy over X4-X6 any day.

I almost forgot to mention this. I do own Mega Man 9 and 10 as well on my Wii. I have played and beaten both of those. I love how they went old school with the difficulty on these two. Some stages are pushovers, but there are one or two really challenging stages in each game and I really appreciate what they did to make these two games worthy of being part of the original series... especially 9 which I think is way harder than 10.

Mega Man 4 was the first Mega Man game I'd ever played. The only other games I had at the time were Super Mario Bros + Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros 3, and I think Tetris, so Mega Man 4 was pretty much unlike every other game I'd played. Mega Man and Bass is pretty damn spectacular, too. After Mega Man 8, I'm not sure why the title was released for the SNES, but it is absolutely gorgeous. I don't know that I've ever finished the game with Bass. I should fix that.
As black-sheep as they may be, though, I absoutely loved the Legends series. I really think that concept deserves to be revisited again, either with the ressurection of Legends 3, or something entirely new. A Mega Man adventure game has so much potential, and it's only barely been explored!

First impressions of Mega Man 1:

ARRRRRRGH!!!!!!

erm2003 wrote:... though the original may take me a little longer because I think it's the hardest of them all and sometimes the controls can be unforgiving...

You're god damn right they can!!!

Those platforms that dump you require some pretty precise platforming and those grinning helicopter things are trolls. They don't coming down at you in a little to the side like a sensible enemy. They come down right on top of you! Still I am hooked.

I've been playing the classic MM (1-6) on the 3DS VC lately. I finished 1 and am getting ready to start on 2.

I have to say that the only classic MM game I've owned was 5 (got it for my b-day) while the others I rented repeatedly/played via emulation over the years (beating them all with a keyboard since I lacked a pc compatible controller was a challenge in itself) and I have to say that I liked 3-5 the most of the original NES 6. I have played 7 but never completed it. Not sure why. Never played 8 (didn't have a ps1 until the ps2 came out) but did play Rockman & Forte/ Mega Man and Bass. I loved that game. Played it via emulation with a translation patch and just loved it (I can't get enough of Burner Man's stage music for some reason).

Of the X games, I've played them all except X4 and X8. I've finished X1-3 and X5-7. I liked the first 3 the most and X5-6 a bit too (but mostly for their boss music for Dynamo and High Max's battles)

I've played all the EXE games, but only finished the first 2 games and Team Colonel (EXE5), minus the post-game content on TC. Also played Battlechip Challenge (emu again) and actually liked the multiple Net Battler stories (I played as Ring's mostly) but kinda wish they expanded on the exclusive navis (Turboman and Ring) in the main games

I tried to play game that came after EXE (can't remember the title except for the anime, Ryusei so I'll call it that) and couldn't get into the battle system (mostly cause my emulator sucked and didn't display everything) and it felt off compared to EXE's and haven't played it since.
I've played MM Zero 1-4, having only completed the first 3. I can't get over how the villain in 3-4 reminds me of Wily (Wile...a descendent maybe?as he looks like Wily's head in a jar to me. Also, I like Omega's giant sword. It just looks awesome.

I've tried to play ZX and its ilk, but haven't ever really made any progress (cause emulation doesn't like me as far as DS games are concerned)

And to backtrack, I've played both versions of Legends 1 and 100% them both. I haven't played any others in the Legends series, but would like to some day in case L3 ever gets a release *gives Capcom the evil eye*

I didn't really have much experience with Mega Man until I was an adult. Never owned any of the games as a kid, but I did have a friend who had Mega Man 2. As a kid, the thing I remember most was finding it strange that Mega Man couldn't crouch. I was so used to ducking due to games like Mario and Castlevania that it was second nature to me, but Mega Man always threw me off. Even in my adult years, I haven't really played too many of them, though. I've mostly played 1, 2, 3, and X. 2 is by far my absolute favorite of the series, even if I still haven't beaten it (that damn dragon, I swear! Actually, once or twice, I've beaten the dragon, but not made it much farther than that, so I always see the dragon as the obstacle I can't overcome). Come to think of it, I don't even know why the dragon gives me such trouble - maybe it's because I panic when I get to it. Anyway, a big reason I haven't played too many of the other games is because I haven't beaten 2 yet. I keep getting hung up on that - I can't really focus on another game until I beat that one, because I've come so close. X, incidentally, is one of the more interesting takes on the series - adding all those fancy moves and controls and whatnot. It almost kinda feels like cheating to play X, because you can do so much more. Hasn't helped me beat it, but I do like the added options like the wall-climbing and whatnot.

Mega Man III was the first one I played seriously. This was way back when, and I remember it being a rental so I had to beat it before it was due. I must of played that 8-10 hours a day. I also borrowed I, II, and IV about that same time. Man I got pretty good at the first one actually--that one was so brutal you had to be good at it in order to beat it thoroughly. Fun times.

Mega Man 3 on the NES was my first game I ever played of the series, followed shortly after by 4 and 5. I then moved onwards to X1-X3 which remain my favorite to this day. It was only through emulation that I was able to find and beat 1, 2, 6 and 7. It was through the anniversary collection that I played 8. I played MM&Bass on a real Gameboy Advance. I also downloaded MM9 and 10 and play X4-X6 on the X collection for Gamecube. Lastly, I played MMZ1-4 on a Advance and loved all of them. And somewhere in there I've played Network Transmission and Command Missions, both good games in their own rights.
As far as my love for MM goes, I am almost done with a Megaman fan game called: Megaman: Revenge of the Fallen. JMan2050 is working with me on this since 2009. We are almost done and we should be expecting a release July or at latest August.

DarkFlameWolf wrote:As far as my love for MM goes, I am almost done with a Megaman fan game called: Megaman: Revenge of the Fallen. JMan2050 is working with me on this since 2009. We are almost done and we should be expecting a release July or at latest August.

This is awesome! I look forward to the release! That is definitely something I want to try!

Gleeok wrote:This was way back when, and I remember it being a rental so I had to beat it before it was due.

I don't know why some of you have said that Mega Man & Bass was a good game. It's not. The level design and enemy placement are terrible, and it's hard for all the wrong reasons. Maybe I need to play it on SNES rather than GBA. That one and Mega Man 8 just don't feel like real Mega Man games to me. It's not that the gameplay made any changes, they just feel kind of lazy, like the developers were working on other things and just released these two as an afterthought. Keiji Inafune put Mega Man and Bass (Rockman and Forte) on the SNES because he wanted players who didn't have a Playstation to be able to play a new Mega Man game. Enough ripping on that game. Opinions are like buttholes, right?

My favorite game on the NES is Mega Man 2. I'm pretty sure my first Mega Man game was the original Mega Man, but Mega Man 2 blew me away. I played that game a ton as a kid and I'll always have fond memories of sharing strategies with neighbor kids. We all kind of raced to finish the game. I don't remember who won, but it probably wasn't me. Mega Man 3 is freaking awesome as well. The introduction of the sliding mechanic was genius. I think I remember being just as excited for Mega Man 3 as I was for Super Mario Bros 3.

I didn't even know that Mega Man 4 had been released when I saw it at the rental store. I beat this as a kind when renting it. I didn't own it until I was a teenager. I'm pretty sure I ended up selling it pre-army days. It's a good game, but I can't stand the charging noise in this game. It seems to loud, and it drowns out some fantastic music. The game design really relied on the charge shot as well, so you pretty much always had to have a blast ready to go.

Mega Man 5 didn't really add anything new to the series, but it's still a solid game. I had the fact that you lose your charge shot when you get hit. I guess it was an attempt at balancing the difficulty out. I owned this one when it came out, but again, I sold it during my pre-army days. That sucks too, because this game is the most expensive Mega Man game on the NES right now. I have fond memories of this game, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. It just didn't add anything new.

I owned Mega Man 6 as well, but I no longer have it. I never liked this one nearly as much as the rest of the games in the series. I still don't. It's not a bad game, it's just not Mega Man 2 or 3. The Rush adapters were pretty cool, though. I think my indifference toward this was was because I already had Mega Man X when I got 6, and Mega Man X kicks a lot ass.

Mega Man 7 was a game that I was always trying to buy, but it was expensive even back when it came out. It's over $120 right now, and when it came out, I'm pretty sure it was $70. I never had the cash to buy it. It's a good game, but definitely not my favorite. The original Mega Man games just didn't feel the same after the NES days. Fun fact: Mega Man's charge shot always did an equivalent to 3 normal shots of damage up until Mega Man 7. In Mega Man 7, it only does 2 normal shots of damage. During the levels, it's just easier and faster to use normal shots.

I owned Mega Man X and X2, but never X3. Mega Man X is a freaking amazing game. I still love the armor mechanic and the dash jump. The charge shot sound in this game isn't nearly as intrusive as it was in the NES Mega Man games. Mega Man X2 was really cool. At times, I kind of like it more than Mega Man X. It seems a bit more polished, I think, and it's just a bit more challenging. Mega Man X3 came out and I had the same problem with it that I did with 7. It was just too expensive for me to buy at the time. I really liked the mega armor suit things in this game, but the rest of it just isn't as good as Mega Man X or Mega Man X2.

Mega Man X4 was one of the first games I owned on the Playstation along with Mega Man 8 and Final Fantasy VII. X4 was cool at the time, but I went back and played it again recently, and it just doesn't feel the same. It's not a bad game, I just don't have the same memories of this one as I do for other games in the series.

I have the Mega Man X collection for my PS2, but surprisingly, I had never played X5 or X6 until a few days ago. I decided to finally give them a shot...and I wasn't impressed. I'll go back and finish them someday, but not today.

I really want to try out Mega Man X7 and X8. I head X7 isn't great, but X8 is a lot better. I think I rented Command Mission once, but it wasn't great.

I liked the first Mega Man Zero game, and I think I still own it. I beat it, but I never really had any interest in playing any of the others in the series.

Mega Man 9 was awesome. I play through it every once in awhile. Mega Man 10 was good, but not as good as 9.

Oh wow. Sorry guys, I really like Mega Man games. Has anyone played Street Fighter X Mega Man? It was okay. I haven't beaten it yet.

[MENTION=39587]Anthony[/MENTION] I agree with you on your take regarding Mega Man and Bass and Mega Man 8. I thought it felt cheap in various areas, especially the stages that auto-scrolled and you just had to memorize the timing or you would die instantly. I hated those. I also disliked the fact that the first 8 stages weren't all accessible from the beginning. I know the same thing was done in Mega Man 7, but that just felt like more of a complete game when compared to the other two. Maybe it was just because I spent more time playing it and never really connected to the other two. Sometimes though I think MM and B and MM 8 were hard just for the sake of being hard and that took some of the fun out of it for me.

Mega Man Unlimited and Mega Man Rock Force are some good fan games made last year that are worth a shot. Especially to any avid Mega Man fan!

rock_nog wrote:Oh wow, this statement for some reason just sent me on a massive flashback to the days of renting NES games. Two things that immediately came to mind were (a) renting a game multiple times and hoping against hope that your save game from the last time you rented it was still on there, and (b) renting a game where someone else had already made it super far, and so you got to play their saved game as sort of a cheat ("Oh sweet, this dude got the magic sword AND the blue ring for me!"😉

Actually, now that I think more about it... I remember I had a school notebook with diagrams of Mega Man pass-codes (and codes from other games for that matter) scattered around in it. LOL, I just remembered that.

Yep. Those were the good old days of NES carts, video stores that rented out VHS tapes, and a time when people would think a blue-ray is a type of aquatic fish. A time where if you wanted to play a game you had to get off your lazy ass, head down to the recycling center and turn in some cans for CRV so you could afford to rent it for the weekend. Imagine that, children forced to go outside every now and again.

With a little help from Save States I beat Mega Man *wipes forehead*. I really liked that game. It was definitely very unforgiving. Without save states it may have taken me twice as long. From this point on I am playing on Mega Man Anniversary Collection and Mega Man X Collection so no more save states! It also means no more emulation woes. Though, I think they are still emulated but they are done very well from what I can see playing X2. X2 and 3 I have played before(X3 only on emulators) but it has been a while. Wire Sponge took me a good amount of tries to beat but I was also getting used to the GC controls. Starting up Mega Man 2 now.

I can't remember which mega man games I played as a kid. This was my first time ever playing Mega Man 1. I think I have played MM2 before but I am not sure.

[MENTION=39587]Anthony[/MENTION] , Wasn't Rockman and Forte made by different people? I played some of that on emulators back in the day. I heard about StreetFighter X Mega Man. I haven't tried that

DarkFlameWolf wrote:
As far as my love for MM goes, I am almost done with a Megaman fan game called: Megaman: Revenge of the Fallen. JMan2050 is working with me on this since 2009. We are almost done and we should be expecting a release July or at latest August.

This is some news! I can't wait to play it. How are you guys developing it?

AS far as other Mega Man games I don't think I have played any. I messed with the Battle Network games awhile back (I think it was a semi translated Jap Rom because it was titled Mega Man EXE). I never played much of it.
[MENTION=42714]Gleeok[/MENTION] , They used to say kids would never get out of the house in the 90s because of Video Games, before the internet took over! I remember writing down codes in school notebooks, graphs of the match game in Mario 3, and other stuff like that. Good times. Codes were nice because you could take them to your friends house and start playing there without bringing your game.

Argh, the Mega Man Anniversary Collection's button configuration is weird. But I did get MM9 and 10 on my Wii so I can play through the whole series. I may Play Rockman 7 Famicom instead of Mega Man 7 since I already beat that one. I can only play up to MMX6 though unless I can emulate MMX7. Wish I could play X8 though since I hear it was actually pretty damn good.

Anyway I am going in pairs. Mega Man and Mega Man X are done. On Mega Man 2 and Mega Man X2. Actually beat Quick Man's Stage without using Flash Man's Weapon.

SUCCESSOR wrote:Argh, the Mega Man Anniversary Collection's button configuration is weird.

This. I couldn't believe they didn't have the thought to either keep the buttons in the same order or at least give players an option to change the button configuration. It is the single most disappointing thing in the Anniversary Collection, though truthfully you will get used to it after a while. I was able to finish all but 8 on that disc. At least the X collection didn't make that mistake.

[MENTION=38528]SUCCESSOR[/MENTION] I could probably look it up if another team handled Rockman and Forte, but I'm too lazy. I know that Keiji Inafune was involved though. Street Fighter X Mega Man is worth checking out, but if you can't find the download, I'd just watch a couple minutes of a longplay instead. It isn't mind blowing or anything, just kind of neat.

There is a game store near me that still has Mega Man X8 sealed, brand new copies. They're only about $30, so I've thought about picking one up. They have a bunch of cool stuff that people just never bought, like Final Fantasy Anthology, Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasy IX.

I played and beat almost every Megaman game I have heard of, with exceptions of Battle Networks and Command Mission.
Got so good at the X series that I could beat the whole game without even using any of the sequencing battles to always have the weaknesses utilized to win, could do it almost just as easily with just the X buster.

I am only replying to this thread to point out that I agree completely with the analysis of Megaman and Bass.. Something about that game was very different than the rest of the series. As soon as I picked it up, and I don't know if this is true or not because I never did a direct comparison, so my brain might have just been on hyperdrive that day, but Forte was moving slow. So slow, in fact, that the first time I picked up the game to play it to put another title under my belt of winning another Megaman game that I immediately quit before I even got past the first level because the guy was moving so slow.

I adore me some classic Megaman, I've played the entire classic series and X and X2. The X games are alright, but they don't hold the same charm for me as the classic series, but someday I'll get around to finishing the X series. But the classic series, that's some good stuff. Well the 8-bit ones. 7 and 8 are... alright. I actually kind of enjoyed Megaman & Bass but I do remember it being quite difficult and I only played it once. But the 8-bit stuff is usually gold. 3 and 4 are easily my favorites, while I find 2 and 5 to be the worst. 2 just has too many cheap segments and questionable design choices, as well as like... no weapon balancing whatsoever. Its only redeeming factor is its pretty glorious soundtrack, though I find the Wily Stage theme to be a bit overrated. As for 5... I just remember pure hatred. I'm going to play it again to see if my feelings still apply, but I didn't like it. It felt bland and the music was mostly not very good and I hated Wave Man's stage. Admittedly it kind of had my favorite moment in the series, the confrontation between the real and fake Protomen.

But yeah, the rest are solid. I feel like 4 is maybe the best designed of the NES games, but I love 3 a little more. 4's soundtrack is also somewhat lackluster though it has its good tunes, while 3's soundtrack is absolutely godly. 4 did have a good plot twist though. ... that was subsequently recycled in the next two games and by 6 the double-fortress gimmick just got stale, even if 6 was a good game as well. Ah well. Still a fun series.

To answer an earlier post, we are making it in Game Maker 8.01 and the core gameplay is basically complete. All we're doing is adding the finishing touches, fixing a crapton of bugs and inserting a few extra features we've been wanting to include for years now.
You can find more information plus screenshots and videos here:
rpgmaker'dot'net/games/2406/
Enjoy.

I see everyone showing their endless love for Mega Man 2 and as I am playing it it is royally pissing me off. I like hard games, but I don't like games that punish you. Mega Man 2, especially at the Wily stages, punishes you. I don't really mind the split second reaction level design all that much even though a lot of them were dick moves. I do mind cheap deaths. When I say cheap death I mean where unless you know exactly what is coming you will almost certainly die. There were quite a few more of those than I was expecting. What has gotten to me most is the grinding for weapon energy. I had twenty something lives by the time i got to the Wily stages because I had to grind so much for weapon energy. It peaked at Wily 4(i think) where you have to fight the wall shooter. These things are awful. Not only do you have to use the unweildy items 1 and 3 but they are only weak to the most limited weapon in the game. That means if you fail to defeat it in one go(assuredly, you will!) you have to grind for weapon energy in the level where they have made it purposely, aggravatingly hard to grind.

I also dislike the fact that passwords do not save your lives or Wily Stages. I have resigned to leaving my Wii on 24/7 to avoid it. I think this game would be 100x better if weapon energy refilled when you die. Drop rates can make grinding for what you need a potentially hour long task and "1-ups" seem to drop more often than large weapon energy. It just seem like a cheap attempt at difficulty(as if the game needs it). Also whoever told me to start off with Air Man, fuck you! and fuck Air Man.

Yeah, that wall shooter boss is a pain in the ass if you don't know exactly what order to kill him in. If you haven't already figured out, the best place to grind in that stage is one of those areas with the moving platforms and the spinny eye guys. Stand at a safe spot and turn on Leaf Shield. It'll destroy all the enemies that float towards you and you can pick up everything they leave behind. That's what I used to do.

The oddly named Megaman IV, for Gameboy. It's called Rockman World IV in Japan, which makes more sense in telling it apart from the NES Megaman 4. Like the other Rockman World games, this one takes four robots from its NES counterpart and then four more robots from the next game, all while generally using the gameplay engine of that latter game. So, Megaman: Doctor Wily's Revenge is really more like Megaman 2, Megaman II is more like Megaman 3, etc.

Story is, Ring Man, Toad Man, Pharaoh Man, and Bright Man are all attacking the city during a robot convention and Megaman sets out to stop them. While the game does not start off particularly interesting plotwise, the second half of the game takes place almost entirely inside of Wily's massive tank (which is about the size of a city itself). Here you face off against Napalm Man, Charge Man, Crystal Man, Stone Man, and finally the new Megaman killer, Ballade. What's interesting about this is that the latter robot masters all have their stages modified so they are clearly inside of the tank somewhere (Napalm Man's stage is just completely different aside from jumping tigers and big spike crusher things.) It's also one of the few Megaman games that ends on a particularly bittersweet note, as Ballade makes the ultimate sacrifice for you.

The game is available on virtual console now, and well worth the money.

Anthony wrote:Yeah, that wall shooter boss is a pain in the ass if you don't know exactly what order to kill him in. If you haven't already figured out, the best place to grind in that stage is one of those areas with the moving platforms and the spinny eye guys. Stand at a safe spot and turn on Leaf Shield. It'll destroy all the enemies that float towards you and you can pick up everything they leave behind. That's what I used to do.

Knowing the order isn't that helpful. Using those items is still a pain and those damn things get off 2 practically undodgeable shots off before you can take out 2 of them. Which is like half your life(which those sniper joes made sure to leave you with as little as possible). I almost got them with the help of a E Tank but ran out of item energy because I kept messing up the jump to the highest one. I am relunctant to use another one because I know the Wily machines deal a heavy chunk of damage.

I did do that to grind. The problem is you have to stand in exactly the right spot or else the drop items fall or are unreachable and you have to wait for large weapon energy or else you quickly run out of Leaf Shield. Unfortunately the large weapon energy seems to be the rarest drop in the game. I keep getting plenty of 1-ups though.

SUCCESSOR wrote: Also whoever told me to start off with Air Man, fuck you! and fuck Air Man.

LOL. I agree there. Metal Blade->Leaf Shield-> then you can rape Air Man in his propeller-hole with your wood weapons. 😊 I can see why that advice would be helpful for repeats: You could quickly get the Crash Bombs for the remaining 6 levels. That would be pretty useful actually.

Unless for some weird reason I'm planning on trying to do a speed run (Never bothered to do a MM game before though--too much memorizing) of Mega Man, I would, as a general rule, go after the most overall bad-ass and useful weapons first: Probably Metal Man or Quick Man--those weapons use up very little energy and can make tough spots in levels much easier and it's hard to run uot of energy using them.

Also are you talking about those shooter things that open up from the wall? IIRC Bubble Shot and Metal Blade is very effective and doesn't require much energy to win.

[EDIT] I may have to play through this game now for old-times-sake. :P

Gleeok wrote:LOL. I agree there. Metal Blade->Leaf Shield-> then you can rape Air Man in his propeller-hole with your wood weapons. 😊 I can see why that advice would be helpful for repeats: You could quickly get the Crash Bombs for the remaining 6 levels. That would be pretty useful actually.

Unless for some weird reason I'm planning on trying to do a speed run (Never bothered to do a MM game before though--too much memorizing) of Mega Man, I would, as a general rule, go after the most overall bad-ass and useful weapons first: Probably Metal Man or Quick Man--those weapons use up very little energy and can make tough spots in levels much easier and it's hard to run uot of energy using them.

Also are you talking about those shooter things that open up from the wall? IIRC Bubble Shot and Metal Blade is very effective and doesn't require much energy to win.

[EDIT] I may have to play through this game now for old-times-sake. :P

I used Heat Man's weapon against Wood Man. It was a pain in the ass to use but it takes him out with 2 hits. Metal Blade does pretty good on just about anything but Wood Man's Leaf Shield was pissing me off because it is pretty tough to time the just and it only takes like 4 hits to take you out. Without Leaf Shield I doubt I would have been able to take out Air Man. I am no good at dodging his Tornadoes and too often he throws some that can't be dodged or the opening is just way to small for my skills.

Not not the boss where the squares come out of the wall and join together then attack. That thing was tough but only because there is no indication of where they are coming from. So unless you learned the pattern already or know that they never come from the middle two blocks then you pretty much die a few times to learn how it works.

I am talking about these blue orb things that stay on the wall and all shoot at once every second or so directly at you. They can only be damaged by crash bombs and are behind walls that need crash bombs to get through. You have 7 shots and you need every one the first try. If you fail the walls you blew up will stay gone until you game over or continue. My problem now is I can't seem to get there with enough health and those damn Items 1 and 3 are just difficult to use in the crowded space they provide you.

You mean the Boobeam trap? Something about it seems too perfect to be an oversight. Its like they deliberately wanted you to solve a puzzle. It can be done in one shot, you just have to know exactly how to use the Crash Bombs.

King Aquamentus wrote:You mean the Boobeam trap? Something about it seems too perfect to be an oversight. Its like they deliberately wanted you to solve a puzzle. It can be done in one shot, you just have to know exactly how to use the Crash Bombs.

It's not hard to figure out if you know how many shots you get. I know it can be done in one turn but it doesn't make it simple. The biggest problem I have is getting there without being half dead and using the damn items.

Someone said to start with Air Man? No way, start with Metal Man. Easiest robot master and also gives you the most overpowered weapon. But you're definitely outlying some of the big problems I had with Megaman 2, and why I can't understand how it's loved more than any other game in the series. I actually wrote up a big rant about it, outlining nearly all (if not all) of my reasons for disliking it.

If you're disliking Megaman 2 this much, you'll probably be like me and enjoy 3 a lot for the sheer reason that it's not 2. 3 isn't perfect and it has some areas where an eyebrow or two can be raised, but it's definitely a lot more well-done (though if you ask me, 4 is the most polished of the NES series, even if it's somewhat lackluster in the music department). Top Man or Magnet Man are my recommendation for starting with, I'd say Top Man is the easiest to buster-only, but Magnet Man is pretty simple too.