Mega Man 5: A Deep Dive

As I've said several times before, Mega Man 5 is one of my favorite Classic games in the series, a fairly uncommon take from what I can tell. It seems a lot of people consider MM5 to be the most forgettable and uninteresting game in the series, and I just can't fathom that at all. Mega Man 5 does have its issues and I'll certainly dig into them, but if there's one thing I absolutely can't call it, it's forgettable. MM5 focuses less on adding new mechanics and more on refining what's already been established, boasting some of the freshest level design and most solid boss design of the series so far.

Story

- Right off the bat, Mega Man 5 starts off with a vastly more interesting story hook than the previous game: Proto Man is evil?!

- Seriously though, the execution of this opening is great, really leaning into the shock factor of Proto Man potentially turning evil. The music is equal parts tense and energetic, and the title screen has an ominous shot of Proto Man's scarf lying on the ground. I'll talk more about the story later on, but just know that this is easily one of my favorite plots to a Classic Mega Man game.

- Before we start, I thought it was worth restating that I think Mega Man 5 has the best soundtrack out of the Classic games as well, and possibly the best on the entire NES. I went more in depth in my music review for the game, but I wanted to quickly get that out there for this deep dive.

Wave Man

- Starting off strong, Wave Man has one of the most unique and dynamic stages out of any Mega Man game.

- The first stretch of the stage has pretty much no enemies, focusing more on you dodging a variety of obstacles ranging from cracks in the piping that shoot out air, maces attached to the ground and ceiling, and pipes that suck you in.

- Soon after, you reach a section where you need to jump across bubbles floating up to the ceiling. It's a really fun and creative section, but I'll admit it's held back by a bit of a beginner's trap moment. If you don't realize you have to hop across bubbles to the other end of the screen mid-flight, you'll likely die to a spiked ceiling on the next screen that you won't see coming.

- The second half is where Wave Man's stage gets really good though, as Mega Man hops on a boat and takes it through the series' first vehicle section (Rush excluded). I love the boat section. I adds a fun dose of variety, even tossing in a miniboss, and really sums up why I love Mega Man 5 so much. This game goes places, each level bounces between these creative ideas at a frenetic pace.

- That being said, it's not a perfect section. For whatever reason, you can't pause the game on the boat which I'll admit is kind of stupid.

- During the boat section, you'll spot a collectible with the letter E on it. This is one of MM5's few additions, and a great one at that. Each Robot Master stage has a hidden letter to find. Some are on the easy side, some require some tight timing like this one, and others are hidden away in secret areas. Once you get all the letters, you'll unlock a new ability for the Fortress stages. As I said with MM4, I love it when Mega Man introduces collectibles, and the letters in MM5 are a great step in the right direction.

- This is also a good time to talk about MM5's new charge shot, which I generally think is a big improvement. The charge shot in this game is a bit more powerful than the one in the previous game, but in exchange, you lose it if you get hit while charging it up. I've heard some say the change makes the game too easy and deincentivizes the use of the weapons, but I think that's untrue. I vastly prefer the risk-reward system MM5's charge shot introduces, on top of it just looking way more powerful than the one in 4. 

- And with this better Charge Shot, and the slide still as perfectly tuned as ever, I think MM5 is the best Mega Man has felt to control out of any of the NES games. In general, I think this game is just really polished in terms of both control and visuals.

- That being said, I do agree that Mega Man 5's weapons often aren't worth using, but I think there's a different reason for that than just the Charge Shot being powerful. I'll get to that in a bit.

- Wave Man is a pretty solid boss. He has the more basic stand and hop pattern of the bosses from MM4, but his attacks try to mess you up a bit more between shooting his trident to force you to jump and bringing up waves from the ground that block your shots. However, the one thing holding this fight back for me is the fact that there's no tell for where the waves will pop up, I find they often show up right on top of me giving me zero time to react.

- Wave Man's weapon, the Water Wave, is fine. It's basically like the Search Snake/Bubble Lead in that it runs along the ground and can be used to easily hit enemies below Mega Man's line of fire. The only problem is that you can't use it from midair which limits its usage quite a bit. This is a common trend in Mega Man 5, many of the weapons have flaws that make them often not worth using. It's arguably the biggest issue with MM5, and honestly, if the weapons were better, this could probably have been my favorite game in the series.

Star Man

- Star Man continues the trend of creativity within the levels. The stage takes place entirely in space, so thus, Mega Man is now affected by low gravity and can jump higher. Sure, this is technically a reskin of the water physics, but the entire level being affected by water physics is still pretty unique and the setting carries the illusion very well.

- The stage starts with Mega Man having to dodge an asteroid shower, a fun setpiece to kick things off.

- I really like the enemy design in Star Man's stage, one notable enemy jumps between the floor and ceiling at a quick rate, forcing you to really take advantage of the low gravity to line up that perfect shot. I also like the astronaut Mets that fly towards you at an erratic pace for being both cute and tricky to take down.

- This stage also has one of my favorite letter placements in the game. The letter M is place right underneath a spiked ceiling, so you have to hold the button just long enough to reach the letter without hitting the spikes. 

- The final section in Star Man stage has you hop across moving platforms while dodging rockets that shoot out from under the ground beneath you. Sounds familiar? Yeah, Mega Man 5 got a reskinned version of those Dust Man enemies from 4, but they're placed a lot more generous in this game and don't interrupt your jump arc. They're more just there to make sure you don't mess up your jump.

- The fight against Star Man is once again pretty alright. He jumps around while spawning and shooting his shield at you, but the low gravity affecting both him and you make this a more interesting fight.

- Star Man's weapon is the game's shield weapon and it's basically the Skull Barrier but you can shoot it out this time, so it's automatically better. You also get the Super Arrow in this stage which you can either shoot out and ride on, or stick into walls to scale them. It's yet another attempt at consolidating the Items from previous games, but it works pretty well and is a really versatile and fun to use ability on its own.

Gravity Man

- Gravity Man might have my favorite stage in all of Classic Mega Man, and is the apex of Mega Man 5's creative level design.

- So yeah, this stage is all about gravity flipping mechanics, and if you know me, you should know that I love these kinds of mechanics. Comes with the territory of being a Super Mario Galaxy stan. This isn't even the first time an NES game implemented gravity flipping, both Shatterhand and Wagyan Land 3 also did similar things, but MM5's execution stands out quite a bit.

- Gravity Man's stage has this barriers that flip your gravity whenever you pass them, these barriers can be horizontal and stretch across the room, or vertical and force you to go a long stretch with reverse gravity. The best part is that many enemies are stuck with normal gravity, so you're force to fight enemies from a different perspective.

- Even the boss fight plays around with gravity to great effect. Gravity Man is always on a different plane from Mega Man, and he repeatedly flips gravity, often trying to hit you with contact damage. The only way to hit on him, more often than not, is to snipe him in mid-air while gravity is being flipped, which is a super fun and creative challenge. Like the stage, this is easily one of my favorite Robot Master fights for this reason.

- Unfortunately, his weapon isn't great. The Gravity Hold is a screen clear weapon like the Rain Flush before it. It's a lot funnier of a weapon, I like seeing enemies get gravity flipped off the screen, but it's still not an archetype I'm fond of.

Gyro Man

- Gyro Man has one of the less memorable stages, though even it's still a ton of fun. It's basically a sequel to Air Man's stage, taking place high up in the sky with clouds occassionally covering your view.

- Gyro Man once again tosses a bunch of neat gimmicks at the player. There's a few elevators that you get to ride, with one particularly memorable setpiece having you dodging spiked ceilings while riding up the elevator.

- Another memorable bit is when you have to dash across a bridge that falls apart behind you, all the while dodging enemies that try to slam down onto you from above. The letter placement here is once again great, forcing you to wait on a crumbling platform to get it from underneath.

- Gyro Man's stage also introduces these spinning platforms that move when you stand on them. They feel really satisfying to use, but later stages will utilize them a bit more thoroughly.

- As I've mentioned before, each Mega Man game has a dedicated damage sponge enemy that you have to avoid rather than take the time to fight, but MM5's is probably one of the trickier ones. The Power Muscler jumps and uses rocket thrusters to boost back down once you pass under them, which makes for a pretty aggressive threat.

- I also think this is a good stage to talk about Rush, who once again got pretty severely nerfed. The Rush Marine is pretty much gone, which honestly kinda makes sense considering Star Man's stage, and the Rush Coil has been change so that the spring is on his underside. This means that instead of Mega Man bouncing off of Rush, Rush bounces off the ground with Mega Man on him. In some ways, this change makes the Rush Coil a tad more versatile, but it doesn't feel quite as satisfying to use.

- Gyro Man has one of the best fights in the game, though sadly most players won't be able to properly experience it due to him being weak to the screen clear weapon. He flies up into the clouds where you can't see him and shoots out gyro blades that arc along the ground, before suddenly springing back down. It's a much more fast-paced fight akin to the ones in Mega Man 3, requiring you to constantly be moving. I actually think all of MM5's Robot Master fights are really fun Buster only, they're the perfect difficulty, well-telegraphed and satisfying to learn, but still requiring effort to execute.

- Gyro Man's weapon, the Gyro Attack, is often regarded as the best weapon in Mega Man 5, and yeah, I don't disagree. It's basically a manual Magnet Missile, as in you can choose to have it arc up and down, which works great for taking out enemies above and below you. It consumes little ammo, deals decent damage, but requires a bit of effort to time so it's not outright broken.

Crystal Man

- Crystal Man has a nice well-rounded stage with a decent variety of setpieces, a cool aesthetic, and most of all, it's a fantastic stage for encouraging weapon use, particularly for the Gyro Attack and Star Crush.

- For the Gyro Attack, there's several enemies like the Crystal Joe and Pukapucker that die to it in one hit, and are often placed on an uneven terrain compared to Mega Man.

- For the Star Crush, we have this stage's main gimmick, crystals that fall from the ceiling in a similar fashion to the rocks in Drill Man's stage. I've seen a lot of people have trouble dodging these things, do they not realize they can just use the Star Crush to bypass them all?

- Crystal Man's stage also has a pretty fun spike drop segment, which also houses arguably the toughest letter placement in the game since most players aren't going to realize it's there on their first go. I'm not complaining though, these things are optional for a reason.

- Crystal Man's fight is probably one of the tougher ones in the game. He jumps around pretty erratically, and pauses at times to shoot a projectile at you. Most of the time, it's just a standard buster shot which is pretty easy to dodge. Some times, however, he shots four crystal ball that bounce off the room and can be really tough to avoid. However, when I fought him, he only did this attack once at the start of the fight. I think I may have exploited his AI or something.

- Crystal Man's weapon is a frustrating one. It's basically the Gemini Laser in that you can choose to shoot it right at enemies, or shoot it at a wall which will cause it to split into three smaller orbs and bounce across the room. It has a similar issue to the aforementioned weapon in that you can't shoot again until those orbs despawn, but they despawn a lot faster than the Gemini Laser did. Unfortunately, the big issue here is that it deals the damage of an uncharged Buster Shot. The Gemini Laser was still worth using because it was a freaking powerhouse, but the Crystal Eye is kind of pitiful.

Napalm Man

- Ooo, Napalm Man's stage is... interesting. His entire stage is pretty much just based around the real-world Vietnam War, and primarily its depiction in Apocalypse Now, down to the iconic palm trees at the beginning. Divorced from the real world context, I do like the tropical vibe that this stage provides, but not in a vacuum, it is a bit weird. Reminds me of how strange it was that MM4 felt inspired by the Cold War, putting Mega Man in real world-adjacent situations just feels uncanny.

- From a game design perspective, Napalm Man's stage in this game is pretty all over the place, and it's probably the weakest of the Robot Master stages. The first two major obstacles are tigers that pounce on you and giant drills, but they can be easily dispatched with the Charge Shot the moment they show up on screen. 

- Actually, I think this is a good time to mention an issue a lot of people seem to have with Mega Man 5. This is one of the easier games in the series and for some, that's a massive mark against it. Personally, I don't really care? Like, it's not like this is Kirby's Epic Yarn or anything, it's still a Mega Man game. A game being easy by Mega Man standards still isn't easy by game standards, and MM5's creative level design more than makes up for the decrease in challenge. Not to mention that with how often Classic Mega Man games tend to employ bits of cheap design, I personally really like how much more forgiving Mega Man 5 is. Outside of two beginner's trap moments (one in Wave Man, one later on), deaths in MM5 never feel like the game's fault, only mine.

- The middle section is a solid improvement though. It introduces hidden walls to the series which hide an E-Tank behind them, and there's a fun section where you have to hop across trickling waterfalls while dealing with an aggressive helicopter enemy that serves as the perfect opportunity to use Gravity Hold.

- The final section is where the difficulty starts to spike, in ways both good and bad. I like the section where you have to dodge missiles that break apart into shrapnel if you shoot them, especially once the Power Muscler shows up to complicate things. However, right after, we see the return of those missiles from Star Man that pop out of the ground. This time, they follow in Dust Man's footsteps and actively try to interrupt your jump, but at least there aren't many other enemies around so you can focus on dealing with them.

- Napalm Man's fight is great, though, and legitimately tough too. He either shoots out bombs that blow up right in front of him, or shoots out three fast-moving missiles that you can either jump or slide under. His moves are unpredictable, he attacks fairly quickly, and it's easy to accidentally get yourself boxed into a corner if you're not careful.

- Sadly, his weapon is once again not amazing. The Napalm Bomb is a bomb weapon that bounces across the floor and detonates whenever it runs into an enemy. On one hand, I like that you don't have to wait for it to detonate, but on the other hand, it's basically just another Water Wave but you can do it in midair.

Stone Man

- Stone Man's stage is one of the less remarkable ones mostly due to being more focused around fighting enemies in tight corridors, rather than any crazy gimmicks or setpieces.

- The first half is pretty much just enemy encounters, which at least makes this a good lategame Robot Master stage since you have an almost full arsenal. One thing of note though is the letter which is actually hidden in a secret room you can access by shooting some wall blocks. They're pretty well-placed so that you'll often end up shooting them by accident.

- Once you go outside though, the second half of the stage is a lot more interesting, focusing mostly on hopping across those spinning platforms I mentioned in Gyro Man's stage. The addition of platforming makes this part of the stage a bit more fun to me, and there's even an E-Tank that you need the Super Arrow to access.

- Stone Man's fight is another pretty solid one. Despite his size, he jumps around at a fast and frenzied pace. When he leaps high, he'll shake the ground and collapse into bricks for a few seconds, during which you can't hit him. He'll also spawn some spinning stones at points to limit where you can go, though like with Crystal Man, he only used it once when I fought him.

- His weapon, on the other hand... Hoo, boy. The Power Stone is probably one of the worst and most ill-conceived weapons in the entire series, and when I think of MM5's weapon roster, this is usually the first one that comes to mind. This weapon spawns three stones that spin around while also spinning away from you, and landing a hit with that strange pattern without getting right up close to an enemy is incredibly difficult and unintuitive. Oh yeah, and it also deals the same amount of damage as an uncharged Buster Shot. Seriously, what the hell happened here, Capcom?!

Charge Man

- Thankfully, we're back to the really creative stuff with Charge Man's stage, a stage that takes place almost entirely on a train. And if there's one thing I know, train levels always rule.

- I love the way this stage starts. Mega Man spawns in the station with a big train in the background, and it's not until he climbs onto the train that it starts to move. Most of the stage has you hop between being on top of the train and inside the train, each area having their own scenery and enemy type to deal with. I like the exterior areas more though because you get to see the background whizzing by. 

- That being said, I will admit that it's mostly all for show. Charge Man's stage doesn't do much with the train setting, it's primarily the same normal running and shooting you're used to, but with some neat set-dressing. That being said, some set-dressing is still better than no set-dressing.

- Similarly to Stone Man's stage, Charge Man's stage is very combat-heavy, which some of the toughest enemy encounters in these Robot Master stages. A notable enemy are these rooster ones which hatch eggs that run across the screen. That being said, something I noticed about MM5 is that it's pretty light on minibosses. After MM4's awful showing though, I'm not complaining.

- Charge Man's fight is the only Robot Master fight in this game that I don't really like. He either follows you from right behind, charges at you, or gets angry and shoots out flames that drop from above. He is an aggressive boss, and spends a lot of time in invulnerability periods which can make him a real pain to deal with. And if you're trying to use the clumsy Power Stone on him, well that just makes the fight worse.

- I do like his weapon though. The Charge Kick aims to ask, what if Mega Man's slide actually did damage? It does have a similar issue to the Top Spin where you can accidentally over and undershot and take combat damage, but it's fun enough to use that I can overlook that. However, the biggest issue is that it's yet another ground-based weapon! Half the weapons in this game have the same function!

- Oh yeah, and now that I beat all the Robot Master stages, I got all the eight letters and unlocked the best upgrade in the game: Beat. Beat is Mega Man's newly introduced pet bird, who homes in onto pretty much any on-screen enemy. He's incredibly powerful and works great if you're in a pinch, but like many other weapons, he does require energy so you need to make sure to save him for the right times.

Proto Man Fortress

- So, once again, Mega Man 5 has a dual castle setup. I've already said my piece on this concept, but I will say that I think MM5's fortresses are a lot more fun and interesting than the ones in the previous game.

- Proto Man Fortress 1 starts on the exterior of the titular fortress, as usual, and it already does a good job of bring back enemies from previous stages in trickier arrangements. The first screen brings back the tigers from Napalm Man's stage, but this time, there's other enemies to deal with so you can't just focus on Charge Shotting them. Soon after, you see those drones from Stone Man's stage, but they're right above pits so you need to use a weapon like the Gyro Attack to deal with them.

- This stage also has a bunch of mandatory Super Arrow bits to make sure you know how to use them, followed shortly by some briefly disappearing block sections that are, as per the usual, almost entirely skippable.

- However, while I generally like the Proto Man Fortress stages, their bosses kinda suck. Each Proto Man Fortress stage ends with a boss against a Dark Man, who all look the same but have their own modification. This is one area where MM4 wins out over its sequel, its fortress bosses were generally a lot more varied and fun.

- Dark Man 1 has treads and starts moving around faster the lower its health is, but you can easily take it out by spamming Water Wave anyway.

- Proto Man Fortress 2 is probably the least interesting of the Proto Man Fortress stages, it's mostly just more tricky enemy encounters, though there is a fun platforming section in the middle involving conveyor belts.

- Dark Man 2, on the other hand, freaking sucks. He has a shield that circles around him, but all he does is walk back and forth so you just need to time your shots to win super easily.

- Proto Man Fortress 3 is a solid step-up, with a cool nighttime setting, a fun platforming section where you need to hop off the Stone Man platforms before they drag you into spikes, some tricky Power Muscler encounters in cramped environments, and a few memorable and fun snake block setpieces that are fast-paced enough to not drag like the autoscroller in Mega Man 4.

- Dark Man 3 is easily the best Dark Man fight. He comes equipped with a machine gun and the ability to shoot out rings that freeze Mega Man, making for a legitimately fun challenge.

- Proto Man Fortress 4 is pretty short but it has one of the most memorable setpieces in the game, a tower that collapses as you shoot its supports. As I said, it's not especially long, but it's a fun puzzle, especially the parts where you need to shoot a support block and quickly slide through it before the tower drops.

- Immediately after, you finally confront Proto Man in one of the coolest scenes in the game. Evil Proto Man blows his iconic whistle, but it sounds kind of off. Mega Man goes up to him only for Proto Man to shoot him down to low health, but then, you hear that whistle again, and this time, it's not out of tune. The real Proto Man then shows up, takes out the fake, and reveals him to be another Dark Man. It's such a fun moment that uses the simple Mega Man sprites in some really expressive ways.

- Sadly, it's immediately followed by the worst fight in the game. Dark Man 4 brings back the shield from Dark Man 2, but he also can shoot at you and jump around making him way tougher to hit. It's best to just save Beat for this guy.

Wily Fortress

- Mega Mans 3 & 4 suffered from the issue of the Wily Castle feeling underwhelming off the heels of the more interesting penultimate segment, but Mega Man 5 does not have this issue at all. Wily Castle in this game really feels like the final challenge this time, only bolstered by the incredible music. It also doesn't flood you with resources, but no boss requires any specific weapon and there are ways to recover if you're out.

- Wily Castle 1 starts with yet another spike drop, and look, you should know by now that I tend to really like these segments. However, this is where that second beginner's trap I mentioned comes in, as midway through the fall, you need to pick between two drop points. If you go to the right, you will fall into spikes placed right at the top of the next screen. It's a bizarrely uncharacteristic bit of cheap design in an otherwise thoughtfully put together game.

- Thankfully, the rest of this stage is pretty stellar. Most of it is focused around platforming across these spinning wheels in increasingly more precarious fashion. First, you have to just barely hop over them to dodge a spike ceiling, and then you have to hop across them above a pit while also dealing with invincible enemies that roll around them.

- Soon after, this stage brings back the crusher from Dust Man's stage, in a longer and harder segment than the one in Dust Man's stage for some reason.

- With Wily Fortress also comes proper fortress bosses again, and the Big Pets is a fun return to form. It's this totem robot where you need to knock each section off its body and climb up them to hit his head. Doing that while also dealing with his attacks can get pretty hectic, but never unfair.

- Wily Fortress 2 is a bit shorter and mostly expands further on the mechanics introduced in the first one. This time, you need to deal with those spinning wheels underwater. The stage also ends with yet another pretty tough Power Muscler section to finish off the last proper Mega Man stage of the game.

- The fortress boss for this stage is the Circling Q9, a weird circular robot who floats around and hides its weakspot with gates that occassionally open and close. It's a fine enough boss, but I appreciate that it goes down fast so its invulnerability periods don't waste too much time.

- As per the usual, Stage 3 is the boss rush, but there is one twist. Mega Man 5 introduced one new element to the series, the M Tank. It's basically the E-Tank but for weapon energy, and while there aren't many of them, they can be used to fill up the energy for every weapon. Of course, I saved my only one for the boss rush.

- The boss for this stage, the Wily Press, is once again pretty solid. His attack pattern is simple, flying around erratically and stopping to crush you, but the real difficulty comes in not accidentally falling into that spike pit in the middle. He's a worthy penultimate boss, I think.

- As for the final boss, it's probably one of the best ones so far, even though that's not saying much. The Wily Machine 5 part is actually pretty great since he has a bunch of varied attacks, from shooting out fast-moving missiles, rolling back and forth to catch you off-guard, sucking you in, and shooting bouncing ball projectiles at various speeds. The Wily Capsule part, on the other hand, is basically just a clone of the one from MM4 but this time he's visible and often flies above your reach encouraging you to use Beat. And while it is pretty cool and fitting to have a final boss built around Beat, MM5's main addition, it's not exactly the most fun to play.

- Though, once again, the ending is pretty strong. The final cutscene where the ceiling collapses and Mega Man has to hold it up even if it means Wily ends up escaping is great.

Conclusion

Mega Man 5 is a game I have a lot of fondness for, because it gets so much right. With some of the most creative level design on the NES, some generally strong boss design, fun collectible hunting, fantastic music, great final castles, an entertaining story, and a metric ton of polish, MM5 really perfects the Mega Man formula on NES in so many ways, and it shows in how consistently strong the next few games will also be. 

But yeah, it's not flawless. The weak subweapons really hold back the game from being a truly top-tier entry, and the Dark Man fights are also pretty lame, but compared to the issues I have with many of the other Classic Mega Man games, these just aren't enough to diminish my love for Mega Man 5. For me, this is a memorable entry in the series, and it deserves to be remembered way more fondly than it is now.