Finally, we've come to the last of the Mega Man Game Boy series. It's been a pretty surprising journey all around. From a unremarkable series, to a sudden ambitious hit in the span of one game. Mega Man V is possibly the most famous of all of these games, especially given how unremarkable it's NES numbered counterpart is. Whereas that game is more of the same, Mega Man V is regarded as one of the most ambitious Game Boy games. One that took everything this development team has learned over the Mega Man World series, brought up to it's extreme. As such, it is the best of the entire series.

Is that true? Is that how I feel?

Well...

Don't get me wrong. It is absolutely all of that. It is everything Mega Man IV tried to do taken to the logical extreme. It's the team's ambition in sheer overdrive, and for most of the game, it does indeed work, but there is aspects where I do think in their ambitious attempts to reinvent the wheel, they've tried to fix some things that just wasn't broken. But we'll get to all of that.

So, let's talk about this game's ambitious improvements out of the gate. The story this time around is even more ambitious than Mega Man IV's, and even more pronounced. During a peaceful day, Rock and Roll are walking along, when suddenly out of the blue, Rock is attacked by a mysterious green haired robot. Even more surprising, Mega Man's attacks effortlessly reflects off, allowing the mysterious robot to easily dispatch Rock, nearly destroying him.

Hours later, Mega Man awakes in Light Labs to the horrifying situation the Earth is facing - a mysterious band of alien robots named the Stardroids has invaded Earth, and have been completely impervious to all forms of attack, and intends to conquer the planet, with the Earth helplessly outmatched. Luckily, Dr. Light manages to invent the one means Mega Man use to fight back - the Mega Arm, a brand new weapon that will allow Mega Man to launch his fist at enemies as a weapon, and with that, Mega Man sets out to take down the invading Stardroids, and then take the fight back to their planet before they get the chance to launch a full-scale invasion.

As you can guess from that story, that should alert you to the first major talking point of this game. Rather than being a retrend of Mega Man 5 and 6 bosses, instead we have a fully original line-up of bosses this time, rather than simply one Mega Man killer. Spearheaded by a robot named Terra, who acts as the recurring villain who dispatches Mega Man in the intro, the Stardroids are eight fully original robot masters from space, and with that, it means that each and every single level in the game is fully unique. Each have their own enemies, their own themes, their own designs, and their own gimmicks. They are fully-fledged Mega Man levels in every single way as the NES titles.

If it was impressive that Mega Man IV had original levels and designs, this is damn impressive. This is the skills that the development team built up throughout the rest of the series coming back to pay themselves off by bringing us the best levels yet in this series, easily standing on par with the other games in the series. With fun gimmicks such as gravity shifting, moon jumping, waterfalls and more, whereas the other games were simply trying to convert parts of the NES titles to fit the game, V just makes levels that are on par with them and offer a full blown new experience for all Mega Man fans.

Really, so much of Mega Man V can just be explained as what Mega Man IV did, but better. The sprite art is just as good, if not better than IV. The cutscenes and story are more plentiful and even more engaging this time than Mega Man IV, hiding Wily as the villain and having such a dynamic intro by having Terra try to pre-empt Earth's defences by taking Mega Man down out of the gate. Each and every single boss weapon is unique and some of them are really damn good, especially the likes of Bubble Bomb, and Spark Chaser. 

It's somewhat ironic that I had so much to say about IV because all I can really say for most of V's attributes, the positive ones - is basically taking what I said about Mega Man IV, and imagining it as better in this game. The Mega Arm also makes for a interesting new change for a weapon, and again something that the series would take inspiration for again with Super Mega Man's charge attack in Mega Man 7. 

There's even some really nice mercy mechanics in IV and V. For example, in IV, game overing enough times would have Dr. Light upgrade your Mega Buster as a means to make the game easier. This game takes that up to ten by offering multiple upgrades if you game over enough times, to the point your weapon becomes outright broken.

The P-Chip system returns as well, with even more upgrades this time, such as two unique mechanics for the Mega Arm, one that will allow the Mega Arm to latch onto someone and damage them repeatedly, while the other can grab items that are stuck within walls.

The Stardroids really offer a lot of change for the game, and I'd argue that the squad actually does the twist of Wily being the villain much better than Mega Man 4-6. In those games, the format was so close to the regular games that it was pretty obvious Wily was the bad guy in all of them. However, between the intro, and how much they keep Wily's reveal close to their chest - all throughout the game, and having Terra act as the major villain stand-in, it actually does a pretty good job of making the Stardroids feel like a legitimate threat enough to mask Wily being the real threat in the end. The Stardroids also have some really unique fights and designs that it makes them really stand out amongst the robot masters.

That said, that is where I need to say some of the trickier aspects of the game comes in. Aspects where I can see the ambition they were trying to go for, yet ultimately I felt it didn't actually do it quite as well as IV in those aspects. It's much like how I talked about the Wily Battleship in the previous game. I appreciate what they're going for and why, but I do feel it doesn't quite hit the landing.

To begin with, the Stardroids completely break series tradition by having a boss order. What I mean by that is where past games, even the Game Boy titles would have each weakness tie into a loop for each robot master, instead the Stardroids' weaknesses are completely mixed up. Robot masters in the first set can have weaknesses from the second set and vice versa, meaning that the weaknesses don't really mean a damn until you do the rematches in the final level, making the game feel a lot less organised compared to the other games in the series.

Furthermore, the collectibles from IV return, but whereas there, the collectibles were in easy enough locations to find, the energy crystals for V are a lot more hidden, and in some instances, even require weapons from certain Stardroids in order to get, meaning backtracking is very possibly needed for them. 

There's also things that just kind of annoy me a little. For example, rather than using the initials of their weapon names as in other games, instead - the weapons of V use the initials of their Stardroid. Which means you need to try remember exactly which weapon belonged to which Stardroid, which also doesn't help when certain weapons such as Terra's weapon breaks this convention. Without the colour switching of the other games, and most weapons looking like the standard Mega Buster, it means it's hard to tell which weapon is which a lot of the time, at least on a first run. 

Furthermore, there's also the minor issue that weapon energy doesn't refill if you're going back to previous stages, meaning if you need to backtrack for the energy crystals, you either need to buy a refill at Light's Lab, or you need to grind it out, which is annoying since some of the crystals require certain weapons in order to get.

Still, with all that said, this is still easily the best playing game out of the whole lot, again, particularly impressive considering the hardware, and how far they went in order to make this match up to the NES games. There's also a definite sense of finality in this game. Like the team knew this would be the final World game, so they went all out to make it the best they could.

Nowhere else can this been as with the final level, which again is a gauntlet in a full blown Wily Death Star this time. Seriously, look at this:

So you're going through a full blown Death Star homage, and not only is it a gauntlet like the previous game, where you do it in one shot. Not only do you do the rematches with the Stardroids, but EVERY single Mega Man Killer is back for one final round, each and every one fighting Mega Man as he blitzes his way through the base.

Even then, the game isn't done with it's surprises yet, as Wily reveals his special weapon after being defeated - the most powerful Stardroid of all - a ancient Doomsday weapon named Sunstar, who proceeds to be too much for Wily to control, Sunstar turning his weapon onto him and blasting his UFO, before turning his weapon onto Mega Man, declaring he'll destroy all inferior lifeforms.

And if you recall back to the discussion on Mega Man's merciful ways, and his desperate want for peace, upon defeating Sunstar and damaging him, Mega Man immediately runs over to him, giving him kindness, and despite Sunstar's destructive purpose, Mega Man wants to take him home and have him repaired by Dr. Light, revealing he wants to live in a world where humans and robots can peacefully co-exist. With this, Mega Man causes Sunstar to realise the error of his ways. Unfortunately, his reactor is about to go critical and destroy everything, but he bids farewell to Mega Man on good terms, telling him to leave before he's destroyed, and ending the game on a rather somber note. 

When Mega Man returns to Earth after all of that, and witnessing Sunstar's death, Wily reveals he managed to survive the ordeal, attempting to pot-shot Mega Man when his guard is down, except his UFO ultimately gets destroyed, causing him to run in fear, as Mega Man chases after him. The threat of the Stardroids is gone, but Wily as ever is right back to business as usual, ending the Mega Man World series.

What an ending, honestly. While I have my issues with Mega Man V, and I'm honestly not sure if I'd put IV or V above one another, V is a damn fine game, and it is a wonderful conclusion to this side series. To see the series grow from Dr. Wily's Revenge all the way to V, and to see how the devs improved with each game, how they got more ambitious, and how they took the series continually to every new level they could? It's really impressive. This is the first time I've played through the World series, and even though I don't see myself playing I-III much again, IV and V I'll definitely see in the future again, and I'm happy to experience the entire series in order just to see how much of a monumental deal both games represent.

Definitely play Mega Man V. Do not sleep on it.