An In-Depth Mega Man 1 Design Analysis

[@Xanza781]

A video series that went in depth on boss weapons was Pikasprey's videos, like this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIfEgqqLhNKKoLs Though honestly I played like you did, never using boss weapons outside of boss fights.

[@DaveControlLive]

That was the one - thank you!

[@Apathesis0]

Same. I was always afraid of running out the weapon I needed before the boss. Other times, I just forgot after already beating the game and knowing their weaknesses. X4 introduced an interesting change where you can use your X-buster while having a special weapon selected. Also, the helmet upgrade gave you infinite uncharged special weapon ammunition. So you gwt to experience the neat palette changes without worrying about wasting the weapon energy.

[@heypeterReal]

Excellent retrospective here. I have been dying for an exhaustive Mega Man 1 video, and you've absolutely set a new standard! I do feel that while your critiques and praises on the game design are well-spoken and thought-out, they were extremely front-loaded at the start, which left the last 30 minutes feel a lot less exciting, because it became a much more standard review. I really hope you'll be doing a similar video like this for Mega Man 2, so I hope you consider interspersing them more evenly throughout the video. Regardless, I had a wonderful time watching this!

[@DaveControlLive]

I actually wondered if the last 30 minutes and the way I handled the Wily stages wasn’t as strong as the other sections, so that’s good to note - thank you! I’m currently writing the Mega Man 2 video, so I’ll definitely bear that in mind - and I’m glad you overall enjoyed it so much!

[@pedroponce205]

holy moly! 2 hours of Dave, when dave makes a return, he makes a statement! Love to see you back!

[@theretrodude154]

this seems like the perfect way to spend my afternoon

[@DaveControlLive]

Wait a second, I know your videos! 😁

[@theretrodude154]

​ @DaveControlLive real recognize real

[@jamesstent]

an 11 part series haha omg looking forward to the rest of the vids man

[@MrCalverino]

It's mandatory to slide through the boss gates!!! I love Mega Man 3, 4 & 6 perfonally! 6 is so slept on! It has amazing 8 bit art and music

[@cloudbloom]

Totally agree

[@illusorywall]

Very great video! Not growing up with consoles in the home and not having any friends really into MM, I never got to play more than a few minutes when I was younger. It was thanks to emulation when I was in high school (early 2000s) and getting an NES on ebay when NES stuff was dirt cheap that I got to catch up on all these games. I made sure to get all the NES mega mans on cart because they stood out as some of the best games on the system. So I was approaching these games as they were already becoming retro, ~15 years old. While they may be "NES difficult" and lack some of the conveniences of modern gaming, the Mega Man games have mostly aged a lot better than a lot of other stuff from that time peroid. A testament to everything they get right. I was always a fan of video game music growing up (I made my own mixtape of Amiga music as a kid), but it was in this wave of "catching up" in the early 2000s that I got really into NES music specifically. I remember having a conversation with my brother after playing our ebay-acquired NES about how good the music in Mega Man 2 was. This wasn't just nostalgic music from my early childhood, this is a lot of music I was listening to for the first time as a high schooler and saying to myself "oh, this is really really good". I'm kind of rambling here but I love these games and this kind of deep dive/ critique is extremely my thing. Looking forward to all of your Mega Man videos! I also can't really wait to hear what you have to say about MM9. I think it re-ranked poorly for you? It's been a while since I played it so now I'm very curious. My gut instinct is to rate it *higher* than most of the NES games, like top 3 of classic MM to me are 2, 3, and 9 maybe. At one point in the video you talked about how boss weapons' requiring energy often inspired you to stick to the Mega Buster and not mess with them for clearing stages as much. I would often feel/ play that way as well, but I remember walking away from MM9 feeling that it maybe had some of the most effective boss weapons as tools. It was a game that had me wanting to use a variety of them to help me clear levels. Of all the NES-style MMs, I felt the most incentivized to experiment with boss weapons in MM9, so it gets a lot of bonus points there from me. But still, it's been a while since I played it and I may find other issues if I go back as well.

[@DaveControlLive]

Ahh, I miss the days of cheap NES carts. I used to also use emulation in High School (around the same time as you) to play a lot of NES games I’d missed, or SNES games with fan English translations. That’s actually really cool to hear how much you ended up loving the Mega Man music. Sometimes I’m not sure how much I’m blinded by nostalgia with these things, and I try my best to take that into account - but it’s really impossible to totally separate myself from that. Yeah, MM9 does rank lower for me - even though I really appreciate them using the shop system from 7/8. That is interesting about the boss abilities, though - so I’ll make sure to try playing that way on replaying 9 again as I write that video! That was actually something I found nice about 8 - by having the Mega Buster & boss abilities equipped at the same time, I found myself using the boss abilities far more frequently - so I appreciated them making it more approachable for someone like me (or like us). Thanks for sharing your experience and history with the series! I enjoyed reading it all!

[@pokechamp3987]

The life system discussion is interesting. In one way it feels unintuitive punishing the player by extending the playtime (no more continues? sorry, even longer playtime for you). In some games they do the complete opposite of this and give you a timeout instead, like 24h. It then feels super rewarding just to be able to even experience the game again. This exact example obviously wouldn't work for all types of games. However the concept is worth thinking about. That is, what exactly are you communicating with your punishment? For arcades, buying more playtime with real life money makes the purchase feel like a new opportunity. Why? Because the salt from the money lost, even if it was just $1, will take priority in your brain. Remove the money requirement and just demand more playtime? Suddenly your perspective on that playtime will shift to the negative. This is why I think you have to substitute it with something else if you want this kind of system, to diverge the focus from the time lost.

[@Mireneye]

We are so back! Thank you for all the hard work you put in

[@DaveControlLive]

Thank you for always watching - can’t wait to keep seeing updates on your game!

[@cannonballking7]

A superb discussion and a really solid first step in this hopefully long running series. Keep up the great work, and have a lovely day.

[@DaveControlLive]

Thank you so much - I appreciate that! And have a good day too!

[@samquik]

I enjoy how practically you speak about game design, I can really tell that you've mulled over all these design choices as you've worked on your own game. very relatable to me lol

[@DaveControlLive]

I really appreciate hearing that - thank you! Are you also working on a game?

[@samquik]

@@DaveControlLive Yes, I'm doing a student game project right now! Between studies I hope we can actually finish it but it's lots of fun anyway

[@DaveControlLive]

@@samquik That's awesome! I really hope you're able to complete it, although it's still cool to take on either way. And yeah - working on a game, you definitely quickly learn just how absolutely long everything takes, and how much work goes into every little element.

[@Draconian144]

I personally think you don't need a giant Megaman 1-11 video that just combines all of the previous videos. That's pretty redundant, and you'll get more views for having multiple "smaller" videos. Instead, do a overall thoughts of the progression of design for the series that doesn't have the same content of the previous videos.

[@DaveControlLive]

That makes sense. I guess I just figured some people (+ KZbin's algorithm) like nice giant videos to slowly peel through, tbh.

[@WesYes]

When we needed him most he returned! And with Mega Man 1 content!

[@RunEscaqe3]

SO WE ARE ACTUALLY BACK!!!!!!!!!

[@DaveControlLive]

Oh, we back for real!

[@DARBOID.]

Oh shit. Bro remembered his password lol.

[@DaveControlLive]

Barely, was almost locked out.

[@Nyug3r]

I think a huge flaw in the analysis indeed is your refusal to use boss weapons on stages, not experimenting with them and seeing how they interact with enemies. For example, using ice mans weapon freezes most enemies, allowing you to handle them easier. The ice man block sections would also be much easier since cut mans and elec mans weapons kill the moving floor spike enemies, removing the hazard totally.

[@DaveControlLive]

That’s a fair critique - thank you!

[@AnAverageGoblin]

something I really love about Megaman is how some boss weapons aren't that useful for bosses, but are pretty good for stages

[@MaliciousMalcontent]

Welcome back, been a while. Still waiting on that full King's Field retrospective. Feels like lately KF has gotten a bunch of new interest in it.

[@DaveControlLive]

Do you mean a KF3 lore video, or a retrospective video like this?

[@MaliciousMalcontent]

@@DaveControlLive I'm cool with either.

[@inchperfectplays]

Love the dedication u put in your Videos - Great Inspiration! So happy you’re back & happy new year! 🎉

[@DaveControlLive]

Thank you - happy new year to you too!

[@artenrouge6950]

I love that Clint turned into Tim Robinson doing the "Cashgrab!" bit

[@badtzmzo]

You weren't lying about not using special weapons. You can kill the spiky guy at the bottom of the appearing/disappearing blocks pit in Ice Man stage with a few different abilities.

[@DaveControlLive]

You know... it's funny, I knew that from Elec Man's stage, but for some reason always completely forget when it comes to that section in Ice Man's level. Whoops, lol

[@ayreonautc1608]

Awesome, awesome video! This is the kind of Mega Man stuff I live for and it's great to see someone break out all the design choices from the game, both good and bad. Looking forward to the rest! Also, my 8 year old son loves geeking out on these sorts of details from the games, so I'm gonna show this to him as well!

[@DaveControlLive]

Thank you - I’m so glad you thought so! I hope your son enjoys too. :)

[@balasuar]

Dave’s back. Happy New Year!

[@DaveControlLive]

Happy new year!

[@youssef11223344]

There we go welcome back Dave!

[@DaveControlLive]

Thank you!

[@bigles025]

awesome to see another retrospective

[@BlackReaper0]

What a way to come back!

[@bloodbloodyum]

No way! Welcome back

[@alexz.8302]

DAVE! The GOAT is back!!!

[@kn8ski]

Great to see your content again, Dave! Happy New Year 🎉

[@DaveControlLive]

Happy new year to you too! Glad to see you back in the comments :)

[@michaelturner2806]

Mega Man 1 was actually the only game in the series that I played a lot of. And that was because it was one of only three games I had as a kid for a long time. And even later with Game Genie codes I couldn't get past the tricky jumping at the start of Gutsman stages.

[@DaveControlLive]

What were the other two games?

[@michaelturner2806]

@DaveControlLive the pack in Super Mario Bros. and Ghostbusters.

[@EeleyeDD]

Heads up that you can use Elecman weapon to break those blocks in his stage as well.

[@dudenamedzelda3179]

Dude this is awesome Rockman is in a three way tie with Trigun Maximum and Berserk as my favorite thing ever.

[@DaveControlLive]

Wait, what's wrong with Trigun pre-Maximum? :P Really, though, amazing list. Those are 3 of my absolute favorite things too.

[@dudenamedzelda3179]

​@@DaveControlLiveNothing all Trigun is good it's just that Trigun Maximum is what we just call the entire manga, Great video by the way can't wait for Rockman 2.

[@CaptainPerfect]

Yessss

[@visionary1138]

Love to see you doing variety stuff. I wish KZbin didn't punish creators for switching styles and topics but this is really good!

[@DaveControlLive]

Thank you! I wish that too - maybe it would do better on a totally new account, but who knows? Happy you enjoyed and people still chose to watch this. :)

[@MisterPuck]

DAVE! WB man! I'd like to point out that Black Devil in Mega Man X6 is also a reference to Yellow Devil.

[@manuelchaparro4073]

Heck yeah!!!!!!!

[@MasDouc]

So glad ur back!

[@cerealexperimentsgrain]

honestly i think the biggest flaw of the mega man series (both classic and x) is that boss weapons have limited ammo. the fact that they're limited at all makes me never want to use them unless absolutely necessary and i know i'm not the only one like that. it also creates the infamous issue of using up your ammo trying to defeat a boss, losing a life, and then not having any ammo for your next attempt. imo rather than refilling your energy upon death they should just completely drop the ammo mechanic and let you use your abilities infinitely. it would make these games significantly more fun in my opinion.

[@cerealexperimentsgrain]

you make the point that ammo helps balance weapons, and that makes sense, but i think having certain weapons be OP isn't the worst thing in the world. i mean, mega man 2 is widely considered to be the best classic mega man game and in that game the metal blade has so much ammo that it's practically infinite and it trivializes a large portion of the game. it's still fun though, and that's what really matters.

[@Kuroitakai]

Welcome back, Dave!

[@DaveControlLive]

Thank you!

[@BDLA]

Loving the longer Video Dave!

[@Mireneye]

The NES infamously had to constrain sprites on screen a lot or employ tricks to sequence rendering by swapping which one is displayed what frame. For bullets the reason why you only have three typically in a NES game is because you have a pool of three that gets reused. They never respawn. This pattern is widely used today in modern games and is called a Pool / Object Pool. This is because the cost of spawning/respawning to fetch and allocate memory is typically much heavier than to reuse something that is already allocated. And also "destroying" (which ofc is a pretty high level concept) an "object" comes with more actions. While moving it and zeroing it's velocity is way less. It's always fascinated me that we use this pattern widely still today. And to be honest especially when it comes to VFX we use it in a very similar way to optimize particle VFX to reuse emitters and individual particles. But now in order to have possibly millions of them on screen instead of something like three.

[@Mireneye]

Another VERY cool side effect (as you sort of nudges on in the video) of this on the NES is that if you get VERY Close to an enemy you can mash faster the closer you are because the bullet you just fired that registered a hit can be reused immediately. An optimizing trick that adds strategy. Certainly a hallmark of a time of innovation and creative solutions.

[@DaveControlLive]

Ya know, I didn't even consider that they were probably doing object pooling, but I'm sure you're right that's the strategy they're using to save on memory usage. I've still managed to avoid using it on our game, haha. But, I think that's part of the advantage of making a modern 2D game. :P

[@Alianger]

Nice vid. In this case I do prefer the Wily Wars version, at least with overclocking and a code to make the movement like in MM2/3

[@noxlunesia]

new Dave before the new year!

[@ABenAbides]

This game was so frustrating to me as a kid: you're a an actual hero for finishing this multiple times in my opinion. I didn't come back to Mega Man until the X series 😅

[@DaveControlLive]

Honestly, I'm pretty happy to be moving onto 2 now - as the amount of times I had to replay sections over and over again to write this were... a lot. So, nice to move onto one of my favorites from the series.

[@Tirgo69]

Mega Man 8 is one of my favorites! I actually really enjoy using almost all of the weapons, it's underrated but it's one of my favorite weapon lineups. I like the bolt system too. Easily the worst part of the game to me is jump jump slide slide, especially with input lag on Xbox Anniversary Collection played on 360 backwards compatibility. I'd know.

[@DaveControlLive]

I like the bolt system a lot too - that was actually one of the things replaying the game I realized they did really well. I also appreciate how many risks they took trying to change things up.

[@illianstrange5556]

YAYYY NEW VIDEO!

[@itsfawn4387]

I have thought a lot about the boss i-frame thing, because I feel like if your in a position where you can mash the fire button at full speed, and not get hit, you should get rewarded for your positioning. But as you said, making the Bosses health bar big enough to compensate for that is going to make each fight drag on for players who haven't mastered the fight. I always wondered if they could have implement damage scaling, almost like a fighting game, where repeatedly hitting an enemy reduces the damage of the next hit, until you stop hitting them, or they get an action. Mashing the button then would reward you with a spike of big damage that slowly tapers off. if that didn't work, you could more simply have the boss trigger i-frames every 3rd or 6th shot. I only have a sour spot with boss i-frames because I feel like it makes combat a bit 1-Dimensional. Unless its a weakness, rapid fire weapons suck for bosses. Once the charge shot is introduced, using normal shots in a fight feels pointless. Bosses would feel more dynamic and fun if you had to decide whether its worth getting close and hitting the boss really quickly to chunk off health fast, or stay back and pick your shots with the charge buster. IDK, this is very much a hindsight is 20/20 moment.

[@DaveControlLive]

Oh, that's an interesting idea with rewarding players for being close with the fire button. I guess it's kinda like how speed runners take on the "alien" boss of Mega Man 2, in a way. I have some issues (in general) with the charge shot of MM4 and onwards... especially in how it affects boss fights. But, wasn't planning on talking about that until the Mega Man 4 video.

[@operatieNL]

Welcome back appreciate this

[@AntonCorazza]

Can you tell me the music that's used at 55 minutes? Thanks. Nice video, very nerdy 👍

[@DaveControlLive]

For sure! The Brink of Time - Chrono Trigger

[@LeftyPem]

You beat MM2 at 4 years old?! Daaaaang!😮

[@DaveControlLive]

Only thing in life I’d say I’m naturally talented at.

[@alosayefmujtaba]

like before even 1 min mark

[@hardcoreclassic212]

Ice Slash your turkey robots at the full height of their jump and run under, or even magnet beam over when facing them on the first Wily fortress. Otherwise, great video.

[@DaveControlLive]

I actually found the ice attack froze them in midair when I was testing all of the abilities on them... and managed to completely forget when I was writing this section of the video. So - thank you for the reminder on that - and I apologize for missing it! Definitely a good point that should've been factored in for that section!

[@hardcoreclassic212]

@DaveControlLive - Not surprising things would get lost in such a big video. Thanks for covering my favourite game ever with such love. Megaman 1 is incredibly underrated next to it's sequels.

[@DaveControlLive]

@@hardcoreclassic212absolutely! Thanks for watching. :) It definitely gets overshadowed, and I think people forget that creating something completely original, like Mega Man 1, takes far more thought than how to evolve it for a sequel.

[@paristraylor5080]

I miss your videos my dude especially your super shows I know you're probably really busy lately and stuff like that but please give me a few more super shows to binge😅

[@DaveControlLive]

Maybe one day - we’ll see. I did almost finish writing one, so maybe one day I’ll go back to that one at least.

[@paristraylor5080]

@DaveControlLive that would be great I look forward to it if you ever get around to it 😆👍

[@darkmystic7764]

Awesome

[@yellowinahat]

Did you freaking use music from Popful Mail

[@DaveControlLive]

You know it! Although, I'm shocked someone even recognized that.

[@lReb]

When you said you were returning to KZbin I was pretty doubtful to be honest - But it's good to see you have kept your word on that so far, I can appreciate making a 2 hour long video must have taken you a very long time, so thank you for that. Do you have a Patrion? I think it would be good for your subscribers to have the option to give a little back considering the amount of content you're providing is essentially free here.

[@DaveControlLive]

Yeah, I debated even doing the “I’m back” video, as I thought it would be cooler to just drop a big video id been working on. I used to have a Patreon, but I deactivated it. Until I can confidently say I’m regularly making content, I don’t think it would be fair to ask for money. Thank you, though!

[@gooeydude574]

I feel like the Game Over and limited lives system is less egregious when the game is short

[@KoalaMarch77]

YOURE STILL ALIVE?!

[@DaveControlLive]

Scraping by!

[@JYGamingGuys]

The Complete Works / Anniversary Collection versions of Mega Man 1-6 are the definitive versions But Mega Man 7 and 8 are way better in the Legacy Collection than the Anniversary Collection.

[@DaveControlLive]

Wait... why are 7 & 8 better in the Legacy Collection? Is the code better or more accurate to the original? My main gripe with Legacy versus Anniversary was mainly that Anniversary included every game up to that point, where-as Legacy decided to split it into to versions, and make people pay double for all of them, essentially.

[@triplepancakeattack5053]

I want to own all of the classic series CIB but holy fuck US MM5 and MM6 will always be too expensive for me to justify

[@DaveControlLive]

Yeah, for sure. That's why this has been a very, very slowly growing collection for me. I'm actually pretty shocked that MM5, in particular, is so expensive. If you think that's bad, MM7 is insane. (MM1 is especially bad too, but that one at least feels like it makes more sense).

[@triplepancakeattack5053]

I've never checked MM7's price, I'm just planning on only collecting NES MM games CIB. While I'm still in Japan, I'm collecting all of the Rockman World games (loose copy only)

[@DaveControlLive]

@@triplepancakeattack5053ohhh, that’s a great idea. Whenever I finally finish my NES & SNES collection, I was hoping to start doing those ones. Are the Rockman World games at least somewhat reasonably priced? I know the NA releases as CIBs are also totally insane in price.

[@triplepancakeattack5053]

@DaveControlLive I can't attest to the CIB prices since I don't bother looking but I got RW5 for about ¥4500 ($28 USD) Even if you import them from Ebay they're reasonably priced (especially compared to the US equivalent games) Being a retro game collector in Japanese is a paradise 😂😂

[@Yura-Sensei]

while mm1 is the only one i have nostalgia for, i think its easily the worst in the series. i do like its music the most tho, has this very old anime vibe to it

[@DaveControlLive]

I don’t know if I think it’s the ‘worst’, but it’s definitely one of my least favorites for sure. Just goes to show how much future games were able to elevate the formula it set.

[@-TriP-]

Megaman 2 beaten at age 4? I mean... not that I don't believe you but I bet your dad put on the Game Genie without telling you lol

[@DaveControlLive]

lol It was the only thing (video games) I’d say I was naturally talented at. Although, I did best MM2 on the North American “normal” mode, which we now know is an easy mode.

[@AnAverageGoblin]

Megaman 8 is the best imo.

[@DaveControlLive]

I’ve warmed up to it in replaying it. It’s pretty different, and they took a lot of risks (which I like), so it makes sense that it’s such a divisive one.

[@AnAverageGoblin]

@@DaveControlLive like it or dislike it, it gave the world a memeable dub so in the end it was worth it.

[@DaveControlLive]

@@AnAverageGoblin Haha, true that.

[@SmokieByron]

Mega Man 2 that easy a 4 year old can beat it? 🤔

[@DaveControlLive]

I guess this one could. Video Games were also probably the only thing I was ever 'naturally' talented at.

[@SmokieByron]

I wish I was naturally talented, every time I want to play Mega Man I changed my mind last minute because how hard it is. But Mega Man x is no problem though. 🥲

[@skunkface_]

Mega Man has way too much health in the classic series. It often leads to boss designs that are random and highly erratic where the seemingly intended behavior from the player is to trade blows with the boss (e.g. Quick Man, Shadow Man, Burner Man). It puts an incentive on mediocre play, and this is why arcade games typically have 1 hit deaths with lives, or a very long lifebar but only one life (e.g. Guwange), and attack patterns that are harder to fight but are more predictable. While Mega Man 4 in particular has very well written boss AI, Capcom probably knew something was up, hence the X and Zero series starting the player off with much less health. Zero in particular allows for more skill based play by allowing players to learn EX skills from bosses if their mission rank is high and by having health bar expansions locked away behind items that decrease said rank (i.e. the cyber elves).

[@cloudbloom]

As someone with an 8-bit Mega Man tattoo on my arm (as well as being a long time fan of your stuff) I'm looking forward to this🤌

[@DaveControlLive]

I definitely hope this can live up to your tattoo!

[@thelocalconveniencestorema389]

T H E R E T U R N O F D A V E .

[@logolept]

I copy. Edit: /ˈwɑɪnd.ɛ̽d/. Edit 2: I digress for the vagary.