The Classic Mega Man marathon continues on with Mega Man 5, and this game sure is a Classic Mega Man game. What do I mean by that? Well, if I could describe it in a short, snappy video:

We've been through a lot in the Classic series since we began this marathon. We've had stories of Mega Man 1's failure, Mega Man 2's grand comeback, Mega Man 3's unfortunately rushed status mixed with overambition to make something bigger than previous games, and ultimately, Mega Man 4's achievement of accomplishing what Mega Man 3 wanted to do.

However, with Mega Man 5, there's really...nothing. If it came to it, I could probably tell you something interesting or unique with every other Mega Man game in the mainline classic series (and probably will, given that we're actually nearing the point of moving out of the NES era of games). It's been well-known that when it comes to classic Mega Man, it took a freakish amount of time for it to finally jump from the 8-Bit era to the 16-Bit era, and to me, Mega Man 5 is really the game that really makes it clear that the series, at least on the NES - was running out of steam by this point.

So what's the story this time? Well...to be blunt, it might as well be a carbon-copy of Mega Man 4's storyline. Mega Man's redeemed brother, Proto Man has suddenly gone bad and unleashed a legion of eight robot masters to cause havoc around the world, with the only real change being that he opts to take Dr. Light out of the picture immediately by kidnapping him. It's now up to Mega Man to stop Proto Man, defeat the robot masters, and let's face it, reveal it's actually Dr. Wily and bring him to justice yet again.

That's pretty much it. If you played Mega Man 4, you've played 5's story. Swap Cossack with Proto Man, and batta bing, there's your new story. It plays out how you expect. You go through a 'Proto Man' castle, you get to the end, Proto Man (the real one) shows up to reveal the fake Proto Man is actually a robot called Dark Man, and Wily exposes his role in the whole scheme so we can stop him via a Wily Castle.

There's nothing really wrong with Mega Man 5. There's still some good visuals, some good level designs, some good music, but I don't know, it really is just the most basic game to me that has really nothing memorable to it. It's not offensive by any means, but whereas the other games to this point felt like it wanted to refine and evolve the series with new mechanics, story ideas, and levels, Mega Man 5 really just doesn't feel like it's trying. I also believe it introduces some bad things to the series as well. I'd argue it's the point where robot master damage got really stupid, with a single tap of a robot master being enough to dish out half of Mega Man's health, and in particular, it doesn't even really feel like Mega Man's weapons are particularly worth a damn. They're just situational gimmicks for the robot masters and nothing else, compared to previous games usually having at least one weapon worth using every now and again for it's utility. 

I mean, at least we do get one new addition with Beat being added to the game, a overpowered and broken power-up that you gain by collecting letters spelling out M-E-G-A-M-A-N-V. Not necessary for completion, but I always go for him in every single run because Beat utterly destroys Wily when you get to him. Other than that, that's about the one actually memorable thing that the game introduces.

I really wish I had more to say about the game, but genuinely, it may just be the most meh experience I've had with the mainline series. It's not like, inoffensively bad or anger inducing as some of the other games in the series, but it also just doesn't do anything particularly impressive or interesting either. Even the line-up of robot masters feel kind of forgettable, outside of a few exceptions. It's just a Mega Man game that exists to me. Maybe if I ever get the want to play it without doing the previous 4 games before it, I might grow a new appreciation for it, but this time, as with previous times, my stance is firmly on the 'eh' side.

Least we're getting closer on the box art being decent. We still aren't there, but we're slowly making progress.