Ringing in 2016 with “Mega Man 6!”

To kick off the 2016 calendar year, I decided that since I didn’t stream this one at the end of last year, I’d go ahead and have it inaugurate the new year…At least in terms of retrogaming!

Mega Man 6 is kind of an odd little duck. It first appeared as Rockman 6 in Japan back in 1993, but the game didn’t get localized on the NES outside of Japan until 1994. By that year, the Super Nintendo was well into its prime, the Sega Saturn was released, and honestly one could definitely argue that the NES’s days had come and gone. Heck, in 1993 the original Mega Man X made its debut on the SNES and by 1994 we had the joy of playing Mega Man X2 (which has a great soundtrack, in my opinion!).

Despite all of that, though, it’s actually a pretty solid game. The graphics are bright and vibrant for an 8-bit title, the soundtrack is as strong as ever, and the game does introduce a few new gameplay gimmicks to us. In Mega Man 6, you can earn Mega Man’s bird companion Beat by collecting the BEAT letters throughout the stages, but unlike other games where they are just hidden or well-placed somewhere in the stages themselves, here four of the stages have “secret” Robot Master chambers that feature an identical version of the stage’s normal boss but upon defeat yield one of the four letters. Usually, getting to these special encounters requires either the Power or Jet adapters, and so this might make you want to play the bosses in a certain order so you can get them early. Those adapters are also unique to this game. One gives Mega Man a brief jetpack ability that helps him reach areas he normally couldn’t, and the other gives him a short-range attack that’s slightly stronger than the Mega Buster and therefore able to break certain obstacles.

I decided to break this game up into two play sessions, so this first one features the eight Robot Master levels.

Joining me to provide guest commentary for the live event was Jeremy Stratton, and we talked about all sorts of things ranging from the use of controllers versus a keyboard when going back to play retro titles to various lores and musings of the Final Fantasy universe. 🙂

I hope you enjoy this retro session and please like and subscribe! More fun is on the way! 🙂