Mega Man 7: A Deep Dive

Mega Man 7 is the first Classic Mega Man game to not release on an 8-bit console, and it very much suffered from the circumstances of its release. Between Mega Man X already being considered the future of the series, and Mega Man 2 bias already at full swing, MM7 just didn't have a chance. And that's a real shame because on so many levels, Mega Man 7 is the perfect Classic Mega Man game. It excels on pretty much every level, from weapon and level design, to aesthetics, to the way it brings in elements from the X and Game Boy games without losing the Classic series' identity. It's 99% of the way to being my favorite entry in the subseries, if only it just didn't drop the ball right at the very end. Let's talk about it.

The Charm Of Mega Man 7

- I've criticized several classic Mega Man games for having rushed developments, particularly 2 and 3, and yet, Mega Man 7 probably has the most rushed development of them all. Capcom put this game together in a mere three months, which you'd think would make this a buggy mess, but playing it, you really wouldn't notice.

- Mega Man 7 has so many little touches to it, so much attention to detail that I genuinely have no idea how it could've been made this quickly. 

- The whole game looks pretty fantastic, boasting a more detailed but still cartoony artstyle that feels like it's able to evolve the Classic Mega Man aesthetic without veering too far into X's territory. It's not my favorite Classic artstyle (that belongs to 8), but it looks great and has a lot of charm.

- And that's kind of the biggest appeal with Mega Man 7, this is one charming little game. It's absolutely crammed full of cute little details, goofy easter eggs, and little celebrations of Capcom's history as you'll see me cover throughout this deep dive. Though, to get us started, the opening cutscene has a fun little reference to Mega Man 2 in the newspaper.

- But even crazier, there's a password that allows you to access a tucked-away two-player versus mode that even lets you play as Bass. It's obviously not the most fleshed-out thing in the world but the fact that it's even here is just wild.

A Greater Story Focus

- Mega Man 7 puts a stronger emphasis on the story than in any of the prior Classic games, and generally, I think it does a good job. I like how the opening cutscene shows continuity with the ending of Mega Man 6.

- Taking inspiration from Mega Man X, MM7 starts off with an intro stage complete with a dialogue exchange between Rock, Roll, and their new robot buddy, Auto. The dialogue is admittedly quite stilted, as is the norm for Mega Man localizations on the SNES, but the trio has some fun chemistry and there's a cute gag where Auto accidentally gives Rock the wrong helmet, really setting a more lighthearted tone for this version of Mega Man.

- The actual stage, however, isn't quite as fleshed-out as the intro stages in X1 and X2. It's pretty short and simple, with two quick minibosses to take down and not much else. However, the presentation of fighting through a destroyed city with rocking music in the background is still spot-on, and I'm glad this intro stage exists to begin with. A good intro stage can always set the tone for the game, and I generally prefer it when Mega Man games incorporate them.

- As for the actual gameplay, Mega Man's controls in MM7 aren't exactly one-to-one with the NES originals. This is a deal-breaker for a number of people, as I've heard people say that his slower movement speed and larger sprite in this game hold it back. Personally, I don't really notice a problem. The controls in MM7 are still really tight, and the game is built to accommodate any differences in speed or sprite size. All your moves like the Charge Shot and Slide are still here and accounted for, and everything works as you'd expect.

- And hey, you can jump out of a slide again which automatically means this game controls better than MM6 did.

- The intro stage ends with an encounter with a new character named Bass, who claims he is also trying to fight Wily. His first meeting with Mega Man echoes of Zero's first appearance, leaving the player to assume he's a good guy who'll be fighting alongside you. In reality, Bass is more of an anti-hero, and as far as the classic Mega Man games go, I feel he quickly evolves into the subseries' most compelling character for the few games he has a major appearance in.

Mega Man 7's Influences

- Once you enter the stage select, you immediately notice a few additions that align Mega Man 7 a bit more with the Game Boy titles. First off, you only fight four Robot Masters at a time, separated by an intermission stage. As I've said in my reviews of the World games, I'm of two minds about this as obviously you get less freedom of choice, but it also means that the game can have a smoother difficulty curve with its later levels actively encouraging the use of abilities you got in the earlier levels. That being said, I think Mega Man 8 executes this structure the best so I'll talk about it more there.

- Mega Man 7 also brings back the shop where you can buy lives, E-Tanks, and permanent upgrades with bolts you can find around the stages, though this time it's hosted by none other than Auto. It's a great addition and will remain a mainstay across every Classic Mega Man game from here onward, though sadly, its theme music is easily one of the most annoying tracks in the entire franchise.

- Visiting Auto's Shop will also clue you into another big addition to Mega Man 7, which is hidden collectibles. There's a grand total of twelve collectibles to find across all the stages, and they seem to take more inspiration from the Mega Man X collectible system, as each improves Mega Man's moveset capabilities in some way. Once you find Auto's Bolt, you can also buy some of these collectibles in the shop, but I personally find it more rewarding to find them myself.

- That being said, the item game in Mega Man 7 isn't especially crazy due to how few collectibles there even are, and the several forced backtracks. If you beat Freeze Man's stage first, you can get all the items in Junk Man's stage in a single go, but it has a split path with a collectible on each part so you'll have to backtrack regardless. In the second half of the game, beating Turbo Man's stage early lets you get almost all the other collectibles, but Shade Man's stage has a split path as well meaning a second backtrack. There is some potential for strategy here as Freeze Man's stage and Turbo Man's stage are easily the hardest stages of their halves of the game, but

- Oh, and finally, you can use the L and R buttons to switch weapons just like in the X games. No notes, this is a perfect inclusion.

- Overall, though, I like all of these additions to the Classic Mega Man formula. They do a lot to give Mega Man 7 a bit more to chew on than the games on NES, and I like how Capcom seemed to take visible inspiration from both the X and the World games, without taking too much from those games. You can tell they put a lot of thought into which mechanics would enhance the Classic series and which ones would distract from its identity.

Freeze Man

- Okay, now let's actually get into playing Mega Man 7. I tend to start with Burst Man out of tradition, but since I'm trying to go for minimal backtracking this time, I might as well start with Freeze Man.

- Freeze Man's stage is, as you'd expect, an ice level and as such introduces ice physics. As I've said countless times, I've always liked slippery ice mechanics because messing around with the momentum is fun and that applies here as well.

- The stage does get off to a bit of a slow start though as you need to deal with a few especially tanky polar bear enemies, but once you go inside the cave, you start having to deal with crumbling platforms, enemies that drop icicles on you that you can walk across, and penguin sleds that toss bombs at you. Overall, it's a fun stage with a decent amount of variety

- Freeze Man's stage also has a solid amount of useful hidden collectibles, including the letter H being tucked away in an optional room. There are four RUSH letters scattered around the first four stages forming the first major collectible you're likely to come across regardless of where you start. It's not mandatory like in the Game Boy games, but it will be worth your while if you get them all.

- There's also the Rush Search which is hidden at the end of a series of pretty precise jumps. If you're struggling with this, you can get the Rush Jet first, but that'll force you to backtrack.

- The Rush Search is a new addition to Rush's kit that allows him to dig around for items. Several upgrades are hidden behind the Rush Search which I'm not a huge fan of since without a guide, that just means you'll have to blindly dig around in every stage in the hopes of finding them. Thankfully, though, all of those upgrades can also be found in Auto's Shop if you're really struggling.

- The final collectible in Freeze Man's stage is the Exit Part which lets you escape from any stage after beating the boss, very useful for backtracking. Of course, you need the Rush Search to find it, though.

- I never thought the Robot Master fights in Mega Man 7 were all that special, despite their cool designs, since they sadly tend to suffer a lot from Spark Mandrill syndrome. Each of these bosses have unique animations that trigger when you hit them with their weakness, which also happens to reset their moveset making it very easy to trap them. Capcom tries to remedy this with some extreme i-frames but it doesn't help and only serves to drag out the fights further. That being said, I'm going to try to fight them Buster only this time and see if they actually have merit.

- As I said, Freeze Man is one of the harder bosses in Mega Man 7, but he's also really fun Buster only actually. He runs around super fast, freezing the ground and causing icicles to fall from the ceiling. The trick to beating him is, like with all the best Mega Man bosses, exploiting his movement patterns. Freeze Man jumps when you shoot, so you have to get up close, hit him with a Charge Shot, then quickly slide under him. It's like a game of Chicken, and it feels great to pull off.

- The weapons in Mega Man 7 are generally pretty inventive and useful, often serving multiple purposes. The Freeze Cracker, for example, lets you shoot a big projectile that can freeze enemies and certain objects. However, you can also shoot it diagonally upwards and downwards, and if it hits a wall, it will fracture into a lot of smaller projectiles. It's got a lot of functionality which makes for a weapon I see myself using quite often.

Burst Man

- As I alluded to earlier, Burst Man's stage is generally regarded as the starter stage for Mega Man 7, generally because it has first of the RUSH letters. His boss is fairly easy Buster-only too, so it makes sense why so many start with this one.

- It is a really good stage though, focusing primarily on those timed bombs that were introduced in Blizzard Man's stage. I always found this to be a really cool and versatile hazard, useful both for tense platforming segments and tricky puzzle segments where you have to find the right way to get all the bombs out of the way without blowing yourself up in the process.

- Burst Man's stage is also the game's obligatory underwater stage, so you naturally have all the usual Mega Man water conventions like spikes in the ceiling, along with water used in conjunction with those aforementioned bombs.

- The miniboss is pretty solid, too. It's a giant robot crab that shoots projectiles and flies across the screen, basically serving as a test to make sure you know how to slide. I like how the minibosses don't have i-frames in this game, you can just pelt them with bullets without having to wait and it helps a lot with the pacing.

- The second half of the stage turns its main mechanic on its head as the water turns purple, causing Mega Man to float up to the top, which is a fun new mechanic to work around. The initial vertical section, while cool, does suffer a bit from Mega Man being so high on the screen that it's hard to see what's coming, but most of this half of the stage is still generally a creative, fun, and compelling challenge.

- Burst Man's fight is quite fun and chaotic Buster-only. He tosses around small bombs along with bubbles that either bounce you around, or send you to the spiked ceiling unless you shoot yourself out of them. Dealing with the bubbles while also hitting Burst Man, and while avoiding damage from the bombs is generally pretty easy, the tension of being sent to the spikes in the ceiling still makes the fight a fun challenge.

- Burst Man's weapon, the Danger Wrap, is probably one of the weaker ones in the game, but it's not even that bad. It lets you send up a bomb in a bubble or lay it on the ground, and certain enemies will get trapped inside the bubble with the bomb. It can be useful for hitting enemies above you, and it's the only enemy that'll take out those invincible spinning dudes on the ground, but it's not one I use much otherwise.

Cloud Man

- Cloud Man's stage is a weather center, which is funnily enough quite similar to Wire Sponge's stage in X2. They both have a mechanic where the weather shifts between sunny and rainy, though I think Cloud Man's stage does this better because you can actually influence it.

- Something I didn't mention about Mega Man 7 is that there's some legitimate environmental interaction with some of the weapons, and Cloud Man's stage is a pretty great showcase of this. You can use the Thunder Bolt to cause a dangerous lightning storm, and you can use the Freeze Cracker to get it to snow. Sadly, unless you play Freeze Man's stage first like I did, most players aren't going to notice these little details since all the collectibles here can easily get gotten on your first go.

- That's kind of a cool feature about Mega Man 7 in general. As I said, this game has some serious attention to detail, and there are so many little interactions you'll only ever notice through blind experimentation. Because who would ever actually hit Freeze Man with his own weapon and find out that it causes him to heal back up? I certainly wouldn't!

- Cloud Man's stage also brings back a number of mechanics from Air Man's stage like floating cloud platforms and the birds that drop eggs, which I always thought was a really cute throwback. A less fun throwback is the return of my least favorite enemy type, enemies that pop out from pits as you approach them. Thankfully, in this stage, they come out pretty slowly so they usually won't hit you in midair.

- The most interesting thing about Cloud Man's stage is the invisible platforms that only show when you're near them. The segments could've been really annoying, but honestly, they're pretty fun and well-crafted. As you'd expect, a lot of secrets are also hidden here in really clever ways that force you to feel around for secret areas. Or, of course, you can make it snow which will reveal all the platforms anyway.

- Actually, I have to say, I love how all of the four starter stages have sections that can be made easier with weapons and items from the other stages. I mentioned how the Rush Search can get retrieved easier with the Rush Jet, and how you can use the Freeze Cracker to reveal the invisible platforms, but you can also use the Junk Shield from Junk Man's stage to deal with those aforementioned birds. It's actually quite useful to do so since the birds are probably the best way to farm bolts in this game.

- Speaking of secrets, soon after, you'll find an inaccessible ladder that you need Rush Coil to get to. When you climb up it, you'll find Protoman who gives you some advice on where to find one of the collectibles. This kicks off the best sidequest of the game, but more on that later.

- Aside from all of that, though, Cloud Man's stage doesn't have quite as much going on as the previous two, though the scenery in the final room is pretty gorgeous. It's just your standard sky level, with all the tropes and enemy types you'd expect, just embellished in typical Mega Man 7 fashion.

- Cloud Man himself probably suffers the worst case of Spark Mandrill syndrome in the game, but he's actually a much tougher boss than Burst Man with only your Buster. He tosses lightning at you, causes it to rain, and flies across the screen forcing you to quickly slide under him. I do not appreciate the constant flashing, however.

- Cloud Man's weapon, on the other hand, is one of the best in the game. The Thunder Bolt seems pretty unassuming at first glance, you just shoot a big ball of lightning forward, but it deals a hefty amount of damage and can interact with a variety of objects and bosses. If you hit an enemy with it, it'll also create sparks that shoot up and down, not too dissimilar from MM1's Thunder Beam.

Junk Man

- Ah, Junk Man's stage. This seems to be a pretty love-it-or-hate-it stage for a lot of people, and I've even seen one content creator in particular praise as the greatest Mega Man stage of all time. I don't exactly agree, but it's got its merits.

- Junk Man's stage honestly manages to cram a lot into its short runtime. There's lava to hop across, cockroaches to fight, moving platforms that carry around junk, giant worms jumping around, elevator segments where you fight a bunch of enemies, and several objects like elevators and magnets you can activate with the Thunder Bolt.

- Sadly, not every mechanic is created equal. I find the cockroaches very annoying since there's so many of them and they're too small for your buster to hit, though the Thunder Bolt can thankfully make short work of them. The final section of the stage where you're dealing with moving platforms, falling junk, projectiles, and worms all at the same time is also just way too chaotic and messy for its own good.

- On the other hand, though, the elevator fights are quite fun, and all the Thunder Bolt interactions are a joy to discover. This is also one of two stages to just straight-up have an alternate path you can uncover using the Freeze Cracker, and while I wish it didn't mean replaying the stage was mandatory, it's still a neat addition that lets you skip a decent amount of the cockroach segments.

- That being said, I would recommend taking the main path first no matter which order you do the bosses since the Rush Jet is very useful for that aforementioned annoying final section. After that, you can take the alternate path, quickly get the final RUSH letter, and use the Exit Part.

- And what do you get for getting all the RUSH letters? Well, you get the Super Adaptor, a fusion of the Power and Jet Adapters from Mega Man 6. If you saw my review of MM6, you'd think I'd hate this upgrade since it sounds like the most absurdly overpowered thing in the world, but honestly, it's actually quite balanced since it's not as powerful as either. Instead of having a powerful punch, your Charge Shot has been essentially replaced with the Mega Arm from V, and instead of being able to fly, you just get a double jump. Of course, you can't use any other weapons in this form nor can you slide, and since MM7 incentivizes using weapons more than most other games in the series, I never felt like I was relying too much on the Super Adapter.

- Junk Man as a boss is a great example of the increased variety in boss design that the improved graphics can allow for. This guy is massive, and he looks super cool, almost like he came out of an X game! As for the fight, however, I find Junk Man kind of annoying Buster-only. He hops around tossing junk at you in all sorts of patterns, but he also spends a decent amount of the fight invulnerable which is a trope I never really liked. Being able to shock him with the Thunder Bolt does feel really satisfying, though.

- And as a reward, you get the best weapon in the game. The Junk Shield is, as you can probably expect, a shield weapon. However, it's actually really good. It takes multiple hits of damage, you can move around in it, and you can remove it at any time by launching out pieces of junk that can hit enemies. No limitations, it's just a genuinely fleshed-out and useful ability.

The Intermission Stage

- After beating the first four stages, you get an intermission stage, another returning feature from the World games. The setting of this one is really cool, it's the Robot Museum which houses all the Robot Masters you've previously defeated. As you can probably expect, this place is filled with easter eggs and even the music is a throwback to previous Mega Man games.

- Sadly, in terms of level design, this one's kinda just a straight line to the boss. It's not an especially tough or complex boss either. Mash is a clown robot that hops across the room. You can shoot off its head which will also proceed to bounce around the room. Its i-frames are lower than the other bosses, so you're encouraged to try to maximize your damage before the body retrieves the head again.

- In terms of foreshadowing, I also like how you can see Wily steal away Guts Man, only to find that he turned him into a miniboss in the Wily Castle. Nice touch.

Shade Man (visit 1)

- I'm going to do something a bit strange. I'm going to start with Shade Man's stage, knowing that a backtrack is mandatory. I need to beat Turbo Man's stage to get one of the collectibles here, but I can still easily get the other one. The benefits of beating this stage first is that you get to meet Bass earlier on, and you get a weapon that'll prove very useful in Turbo Man's stage.

- Shade Man's stage is easily one of my favorites in the game in terms of its theming. At long last, we have a Halloween stage. We got crow enemies, zombie enemies, living armor enemies, bats, pumpkins, and not one, but two of the grooviest music tracks in the game. 

- As most Mega Man fans know, if you hold B when entering Shade Man's stage, the music will switch to a pretty bopping remix of the Ghosts N Goblins theme. It's such a cool easter egg, another awesome secret in a game full of awesome secrets, and it makes backtracking a bit more tolerable in this case. That being said, you can only do this if you haven't beaten Shade Man before which is really stupid.

- The miniboss in Slash Man's stage is really cool too since it has two different weakpoints, and depending on the weakpoint you take out, the boss will create a different path. This is the second split path area in Mega Man 7, and I find it to be a much more creative one.

- The path I decided to take introduces even more fun themed enemies like knights with lances and wolves, and it leads to my beloved Energy Equalizer. In general, this stage is more focused on creative combat encounters rather than creative platforming, at least outside of dodging those crushers.

- By the end of the stage, you run into an injured Bass who Mega Man sends over to Light's Lab to heal up, essentially befriending him. It's a great moment and a great misdirection before (spoilers) Bass's betrayal before the Wily Castle, though since most players tend to play Shade Man's stage near the end, that betrayal tends to feel really sudden. This probably should've happened during the intermission rather than in one of the stages.

- Also, Bass says "damn". I love how hard this game's localization tried to sound edgy.

- Shade Man's boss fight is pretty fun too. He flies around a bit before landing to shoot sonars at you. Since the sonars can bounce off of walls, you have to be really careful since projectiles will be coming at you from multiple directions.

- As for his weapon, the Noise Crush is basically that aforementioned sonar. It's a basic projectile that can bounce off walls, and if you let it hit you, you'll be able to launch an even more powerful sonar. It's a really creative and unique weapon, that lets you do some real chicanery later on in the game.

Turbo Man

- Okay, now let's properly do Turbo Man's stage. This stage is easily the toughest Robot Master stage for a number of reasons, but it's also definitely one of my favorites because of how much it has going on.

- Right off the bat, this stage starts with a chase sequence where you run away from a bulldozer. Actually destroying it before it corners you is tough, so I'd recommend preparing to use Rush or the Super Adapter to hop over it if you need to.

- Once inside, you're faced with the first main gimmick of the stage, these bouncy tires that run along the ceiling that can easily bounce you into pits. They are a really fun and creative hazard though, befitting this stage's unique racetrack theming. I also love the fake pit that sends you back to the start of the room, a clever troll that doesn't punish you with death like some other Mega Man games might (cough Mega Man 2 cough).

- Speaking of Mega Man 2, this stage also brings back the instakill lasers from Quick Man's stage, with a vertical drop section that's very much a homage to that infamous section, though it's still not nearly as hard. This stage also brings back those firebars from Mega Man 1 that you can once again freeze with the Freeze Cracker. I like how Mega Man 7 modernizes classic Mega Man hazards without feeling like it's been too obvious with its inspirations.

- Both of the upgrades in this stage can be found pretty close together. There's the Hyper Rocket Buster which basically gives the Super Adapter a charged shot, and another meeting with Protoman.

- Turbo Man's stage ends with a bang as you drop onto a moving truck, work your way to the front, and shoot down the head while dodging missiles, a very fun and memorable setpiece that really takes advantage of the SNES's technology.

- And now, it's time for the Turbo Man fight which has the funniest exploit in all of Mega Man. If you enter the room and immediately shoot out a Noise Crush, you will be able to take out Turbo Man in a single hit. It's absolutely hysterical in practice since the boss music cuts out right in the middle of the buildup, and you can do it with Spring Man too!

- But fine, let's say you want to actually fight Turbo Man, how is the fight? Well, he's not super hard honestly, but he is a pain if you ever get hit as most of his attacks can really cripple you. He shoots out a fire wheel that can burn Mega Man, which always leaves you open to getting hit even more, and he can turn into an invulnerable car and knock you against the wall, forcing you to lose your charge.

- Turbo Man's weapon basically just lets you use the Scorch Wheel. It's a bit slow to start and is affected by gravity, but you can hold down the B button to let it circle around Mega Man until you're ready to release it. And like the Thunder Bolt and Freeze Cracker, it can also affect the environment in a few cases. Solid weapon, but a tad unspectacular by MM7 standards.

Shade Man (revisit)

- Okay, now it's time to properly revisit Shade Man's stage. If you played the Ghosts N Goblins theme on your first runthrough, you get to experience this stage with the equally good original music track.

- In this case, you need to shoot the miniboss in its core to unlock a different path, which happens to contain an optional boss room. If you met with Protoman both times already, Protoman will show up and challenge you to a boss fight. This is my favorite secret in any Mega Man game ever, being able to fight Protoman is such a cool addition that really elevates Mega Man 7 for me. It's not an especially tough fight, granted, as Protoman can easily be softlock, but it's still a really fun little setpiece that always stuck out to me.

- And when you beat Protoman, you get his shield as a weapon, and it rules. It requires no energy, you can block all projectiles by standing still, and you can even charge and slide while using it.

- And in case you're wondering what else is on this path, you get a darkened room that you can light with the Scorch Wheel, and a fun elevator ride while fighting zombies.

Slash Man

- Slash Man's stage is one of my favorites in the series because of how well it manages to combine theming and level design. It's an obvious homage to Jurassic Park, being a jungle filled with various kinds of robotic dinosaurs. 

- The highlight of the stage is definitely the midsection where you ride on these small dinos across rows of spikes, before quickly being thrust into another chase sequence where you run from and fight a robotic T-rex.

- I also like how the last few bits of the stage take place in a lab, showing you how these robot dinos are created. It's quite the cool touch!

- The secret upgrade here is also really cool. You can use the Scorch Wheel to burn down a forest and reveal a ladder that takes you to a captured Beat. Hit the cage with a charge shot and you get to use Beat from now on, though he's just as nerfed as he was in MM6.

- Sadly, Slash Man as a boss isn't great, easily my least favorite of the Robot Masters. He jumps around and attacks so fast, and he drops eggs from the ceiling that can leave you stuck to the ground with no way to avoid contact damage with him.

- The Slash Claw is a solid enough ability, it's a very short range slash that deals a lot of damage. It's a solid option for if an enemy gets too close to your personal space, but it's also not quite as versatile as others in this game.

Spring Man

- Spring Man is the most lighthearted stage in Mega Man 7, which makes it all the funnier that I'm playing it last. This stage is all about springs, on the walls, floors, and the ceilings, but it also doesn't feel uncontrollable like, say, Sonic's Carnival Night Zone. You can hold down the jump button to bounce higher or further off the springs, and you can even use that to climb up the springs attached to walls making for a surprisingly fun and skill-based stage.

- This is also a great stage for the Super Adapter whose double jump helps give you a little bit of extra control, preventing yourself from bouncing into enemies and even being pretty much necessary to get the stage's sole upgrade, Auto's Screw.

- When you visit Auto's shop for the first time, he tells you he literally has a screw loose and asks you to find it. Once you give it back, he not only lets you buy most of the remaining upgrades at the shop if you want to, but it also cuts down the prices of everything else. This is really important because you will need to be able to fully stock yourself up on E-Tanks.

- Spring Man's stage actually has one of my favorite rooms in the game which is this large, open central room with several tucked-away secrets and so many different ways to make it to the exit. Mega Man games often aren't this explorative, so this room really stands out within the entire Classic series for me.

- As for the Spring Man fight itself, it's fine. Like most of the bosses, he has a decent amount of attacks that can often overlap in irritating ways. He bounces around and tosses projectiles that also bounce around, it's just kind of annoying. Good thing I can just use the Noise Crush glitch instead.

- Honestly, this is the first game in the series that's kinda making me not want to fight the bosses Buster only. They're so tanky, move around so much, and have some really long i-frames that drag the fight out. And yet, the bosses are so underwhelming when you use their weaknesses since they're so easy to softlock, I feel like they can only ever be mindlessly easy or tedious. Frankly, for as much as I like Mega Man 7, the boss fights really are its weakest aspect, and it both gets better and worse when we enter the Wily Castle as you'll see.

- And to top it off, the Wild Coil is easily my least favorite of the weapons in MM7. They're these bouncy springs that you can launch off, and while they are quite powerful especially when charged and many bosses are weak to them, actually aiming them properly is just a pain. It also doesn't help that it's heavily associated with MM7's worst boss but more on that later.

Wily Castle

- So yeah, surprise, surprise, Bass is a bad guy and trashed the lab. So it's time to head to Wily Castle and get our revenge. Finally, the dual castle setup is completely trashed, we just have one lengthy Wily Castle, as it always should've been.

- I love the atmosphere of Wily Castle 1, with the moody music and dour visuals, really selling how betrayed Mega Man must feel. It's also just a really fun stage with a neat gimmick involving these moving platforms that turn the lights off when you step on them, so you have to keep hopping on them to be able to create a mental image of the stage.

- After a simple first fight with Bass, you face the first Castle Boss, a modified Guts Man tank. Foreshadowing, see? It's a fine boss, hitting back the stones it sends at you is pretty satisfying but actually avoiding damage is kind of tough with how much of the screen it takes up and how it can just dash across the screen super quickly.

- Wily Castle 2 almost feels like a comic relief stage because it's entirely turtle-themed. The walls look like turtles, the boss is a turtle, and everything's painted green. In terms of the actual gameplay, though, it's mostly focused on bringing back older enemies and elements like the springs from Spring Man's stage and the burners from Turbo Man's stage.

- That being said, midway through, we get another pretty great boss fight as Bass and Treble get their own version of the Super Adapter. It's a cool Super Adapter vs Super Adapter fight that primarily takes place in the air, which makes for a really memorable setpiece.

 - Sadly, the actual boss, a giant turtle is pretty annoying to deal with. As you'd expect from a turtle, it goes in its shell a lot which leads to a lot of waittime. It's not a bad fight or anything, it just drags a bit too much.

- Wily Castle 3 is a perfect Wily Castle stage, genuinely. It simultaneously tests you on mechanics from previous stages like the different water types from Burst Man and the invisible platforms, and new stuff like those moving explosive platforms. There's even one last split path to deal with, how nice. To further emphasize this focus on mixing mechanics, the main theme is a climactic and energetic fusion of Burst Man and Junk Man's themes, and it's fantastic.

- The boss fight is also pretty great, a tense scrolling fight where you try to hop across missiles to land a hit with your Slash Claw. Hopping across multiple missiles and landing multiple hits without hitting the ground feels really satisfying and rewarding, as it allows you to finish the fight faster.

- So yeah, this is a really great Wily Castle so far. It's got a nice mix of old and new mechanics, fairly fun boss fights especially compared to the Robot Masters, banger music, and a legitimate sense of challenge that doesn't seem too cheap or unfair. It feels really climactic in a way most Wily Castles haven't yet. If Mega Man 7 stuck the landing with even a fine final boss, we could very well have the best Classic Mega Man game on our hands. But you know where this is going by now, because that's not what happened. Prepare for another rant.

THAT BOSS

- Wily Castle 4 seems like your standard, unassuming final Wily stage. It has a boss rush, and the final boss. The boss rush is kind of a slog this time for all the reasons I've previously mentioned like the lengthy i-frames and weakness animations, but at least it's fairly easy. Just hope you don't lose all your lives on the final boss because then you'll have to do this all again, but honestly, it's a fine price to pay for not wasting one of the four Wily Castle stages on a boss rush like the last few games did.

- The first phase of Wily Machine 7 is totally fine, you use Thunder Bolt to keep hitting Wily in his cockpit while dodging the little skeleton dudes and sliding under the machine's jumps, piece of cake. The real issue is when you reach the second phase, Wily Capsule 7. So, Wily teleports erratically across the screen, shooting four fast-moving homing projectiles at you before zapping the floors. These projectiles have elemental attributes meaning they can stun you, and they move so erratically that actually figuring out the pattern to dodging them is pure trial and error. And on top of that, Wily only has a single weakness, and it's the goddamn Wild Coil. Yes, the worst and most unwieldy weapon in the entire game. This boss feels like a practical joke.

- And wouldn't you know it, it kind of is. With this boss, Inafune himself has stated that the team just decided that they wanted to make a ridiculously hard final boss, just for the hell of it. Not because they were rushed or anything, no, they consciously decided to do this.

- That being said, there are a few strategies here. When Wily is high up, you can easily dodge the elemental orbs by going under him, sliding to the left or right, and jumping. You can't hit Wily with the Wild Coil when he's this high up so don't even try, just focus on dodging even if it drags out the fight. When he's on the floor, you can also easily dodge the orbs by going to the opposite side of him and jumping at the last second, but even that is unreliable. When Wily is somewhere around the middle of the screen, dodging the orbs is a complete crapshoot so just hope you can get hit by one of the yellow electrical orbs because it's the only one that doesn't stun you. Whatever you do, don't touch the fire orb because that not only stuns you but deals continuous damage. And most of all, stock yourself up with E-Tanks before the fight, you will not be able to beat him without them unless you are an incredibly good Mega Man player.

- At this point, I have beaten Wily Capsule 7 several times, and honestly, it's never quite as bad as I expect it to be, mostly because of those aforementioned strategies. If you're smart about this fight and use your E-Tanks diligently, it's hard to actually die on this fight, but that doesn't really make the problems go away. That just means I'm able to put up with the BS. In the grand scheme of things, this is still a horrendously designed boss in what's otherwise an incredibly well-designed game, and it leaves a real impact. Mega Man 7 has a lot going for it, but there's a reason the thing most people including myself tend to remember about it is this boss. It's so comically cheap, so blatantly bullshit, that it's hard to look past Wily Capsule 7.

- Once you finally beat Wily, you get a pretty weird cutscene where Mega Man aims his gun at Wily and threatens to kill him. Yeah, I'd probably feel that way too after that boss.

- Okay, seriously though. This is another example of the localization being needlessly edgy as it implies that Mega Man could've totally killed Wily if Bass hadn't stopped him, which was not the case. He's literally programmed not to. However, I do really like the concept of Mega Man just being totally at the end of his rope here. He stopped Wily six times before this and put him in prison, and yet Wily still escaped and tricked him with Bass to boot. I can't blame him for being fed up with the guy.

- The game ends with a pretty stellar credits scene too. The shot of Mega Man walking away from a burning Wily Castle just looks really striking and memorable, and the bluesy credits theme is an absolute banger. Even with how much this final boss dropped the ball, I still leave Mega Man 7 pretty satisfied.

Conclusion

Mega Man 7 is my second favorite Mega Man game, because it has almost everything I want in a Mega Man game. Sure, it has its share of issues like the very hit-or-miss boss design and the backtracking, but most of it is really thoughtfully-designed and well-executed. The level design is dynamic and inventive, the visual aesthetic is so cute and charming, there are so many little details in every stage, and the weapon roster is genuinely one of the series' best for how versatile and well-balanced it is. It feels like a perfect culmination of all the best aspects of every previous game, a celebration of what makes Classic Mega Man so special at the time when people were moving on to its cooler younger brother, and a triumphant victory in the face of some truly horrific crunch. 

I do really wish that final boss is better, and it honestly baffles me that all these years later, we still haven't had a romhack that tones it down, but I can't let it overshadow just how many great things Mega Man 7 is able to accomplish and how well it's able to evolve the series.