The very first game in the Mega Man series, and as most would say, probably the dated of the series. Infamous for it's difficulty back in the 80s, with such moments like the platforms on Gut Man's stage, or the Yellow Devil's ridiculous hit pattern. Still, personally even for how old and how much the series was involved in the sequels, I still think Mega Man 1 is a really great start for the series. 

So despite being the first of it's series, it's honestly surprising just how much Mega Man 1 actually established for the wider franchise as a whole. The core gameplay is more or less pitch perfect here, with the running and shooting you expect from Mega Man. You have the weapons system that gave Mega Man such a unique edge back in the day. The non-linear order of levels which allow you to tackle the game in whatever way you want from the very start. It really says a lot for a first entry to be able to just nail the gameplay and the structure of everything for the full series, and even beyond when you get to Mega Man X and so on. Mega Man introduced such a fantastic sense of semi-openness to the linear structure of games back then, and it deserves to be praised now, as much as it was back then. The gameplay and stage layout is all still pretty strong overall, with each stage having it's own identity that makes all of them unique, and interesting, and gives them all a lot of personality.

There's a lot of bizarre early stuff with Mega Man 1. From this being the only game in the series to have scores as something to actually aim for, the much smaller number of robot masters compared to the rest of the series, the strange items that's used for replenishing Mega Man's health and all weapon energy. Even a lot of staples that we would see expanded upon in later games made a absolutely bizarre start here. For example, the game is mostly straight forward in terms of items and weapons - with one exception - the Magnet Beam that's found on Elec Man's stage, and requires Gut Man's Super Arm in order to get it. Even the boss rush exists in this game like it does in the other games, but rather than the typical teleporter room, which leads to a break with Wily, each stage features one or two fights with the robot masters, then Wily takes you on immediately after three robot masters.

Boss design could be better in my opinion. A lot of fights feel like they really need the boss weapons in order to really be able to do much damage, and I don't need to talk about the infamous king of horrible Mega Man fights - Yellow Devil, and the godawful pattern required to avoid all of his shots to the point where most people just commonly agree it's better to use the Elec-Man glitch to dish out damage and take him down in one shot. 

Still, in spite of all of that, I think Mega Man remains a strong entry in it's series. The robot master line-up remains one of the most memorable and iconic. The level design is still pretty fun, even with 10 other games under it's belt, and the platforming and running and gunning still feels close enough to the rest of the other games that you can still easily play it and enjoy it as much as other games, although frankly I would say that this is a game best played with either save states or rewind. 

Although I think it would be remiss of me not to mention this infamous moment. This was nearly responsible for outright killing the series. The original Mega Man was not meant to be released worldwide, and especially not localised. It was a last moment decision by Capcom to do so, and the story famously goes that the job of creating this wonderful piece of art above was instructed to get this done within a matter of hours, and here we are. Mega Man with his trusty pistol running through the palm tree world surrounded by golden domes, and a manual that tells us Mega Man fights to save the world of Monsteropolis. To say it's nothing short of a miracle that we even got a second game, let alone the franchise this blew up into is a understatement.

I'll leave it off saying that I recommend anyone to give this video a watch, from G4's Icons series. Really gives a lot of interesting history about the series.