From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Mega Man 7 - Failing to Meet X-Pectations
Having witnessed what a reinvigorated Capcom could do, my hope was that its newfound inspiration would be on display in the original series' latest entry.

For most of 1994 (and, well, for pretty much the entirety of the 16-bit generation), I was completely obsessed with Mega Man X. It was my new favorite action game, and I considered it to be my favorite entry in the entire Mega Man series.

Its biggest triumph was that it had proven me wrong. It had overcome the dampening force of my preconceived notions, which caused me to believe that it would be nothing more than yet another formulaic series entry, and showed itself to be a amazingly evolutionary Mega Man game and a superior entertainment product in general.

I absolutely adored it.

It was special to me because it was the type of video game that I could enjoy in multiple ways: I could have fun replaying it and savoring its incredible action. I could listen to its inspiring, rockin' music and let it shape my daydreams. I could marvel at its awesome visuals and intently examine all of its engrossing background work. I could think deeply about its story implications and wonder how, exactly, it was connected to the original Mega Man series. And I could joyfully drink in its emanations and take the time to appreciate its impressive accomplishment of capturing the spirit of the NES games while simultaneously establishing itself as a shining exemplar of game that exuded that "quintessential, unmistakable 16-bit vibe" (as I termed it).

And it also did something that games of elite status often do: It left me wanting more. It made me crave more of what it offered.

For that reason, I couldn't wait to see how Capcom was going to build on its success! "What's going to be the next evolution?" I continued to excitedly wonder.

My enthusiasm meant, certainly, that I was heavily invested in the idea of a Mega Man X sequel, but at the same time, it also represented my hope that Capcom's newfound ambitious spirit would be on display in the upcoming entries in its other series, many of which I was hoping to see reborn in equally evolutionary ways.

"If Mega Man X's transcendent quality is any indication," I thought, "then it's very possible that Capcom's innovative energy has already begun to show its influence elsewhere! The company's other series might be benefitting from it already!"

My problem was that I started looking for that inspiration in certain places and simply couldn't find it

There was Mega Man 6, for instance. Because I was in such a deep spell, I naively convinced myself that Capcom's newfound creative spirit would be on display even in the original Mega Man series. So I made the terrible mistake of buying Mega Man 6 solely because I was certain that it, too, would evolve the series in some way. And I was expecting its ending to express the same type of evolutionary vision. I was sure that it would contain a major storyline advancement and specifically a scene that functioned to naturally and epically transition the original series into the X series.

Unfortunately, Mega Man 6 didn't meet either of my expectations, and I almost wound up hating it for that reason.

But when it came to the newly announced Mega Man 7--the first 16-bit entry in the original series--I was positive that things were going to be different this time. Capcom's latest, I was absolutely certain, was going to be the game that granted both of my wishes: It was going to evolve the original series in grand fashion and thus bring it in line with Mega Man X; and it was going to serve as an unforgettable final chapter in a series that was now prepared to make a glorious transition.

It was going to deliver. I could feel it.

I wasn't even worried that Nintendo Power's coverage of Mega Man 7 was failing to say anything about it being the original series' grand finale. I thought nothing of it detailing what seemed to be just a typical Mega Man plot ("Dr. Wily is back with a new set of Robot Masters!"). Clearly, I was sure, Capcom was simply withholding information on major plot developments because it didn't want to ruin the surprise!

"That has to be the case!" I thought to myself while dismissing my underlying feeling of nervousness. "It's all part of the big setup!"

I had a lot to look forward to. I couldn't wait to find out if Mega Man 7's visuals were as great as they appeared to be the in the screenshots, and I was eager to see just how much Capcom had learned from its experience in developing Mega Man X.

"This could be the most epic Mega Man game ever made!" I was encouraged to think.

So for the first time in a long time, I was genuinely excited about an original-series entry!

And that feeling of excitement was what drove to go out and buy the game the moment it started appearing in stores!

And, well, I just wish that I had a more enthusiastic tale to tell about my first experience with Mega Man 7. Sadly I don't. The truth is that I was completely let down by the game. It fell flat with me almost immediately.

What made the game's quick descent into mundanity more disappointing to me was the fact that it started out in promising fashion. It had a well-crafted intro scene whose splendid animation, intriguing interactions, and strikingly vibrant visuals spoke of a game that was much larger in scale than any of the previous original-series games.

It gave me the sense that I was about to play a next-level Mega Man game.

But unfortunately, none of the following scenes or action sequences could maintain that spirit.

There was the title screen, for instance. It was the most plain- and boring-looking title screens I'd ever seen in a Mega Man game. Its colors were drab, its logo was uninspiring, and it lacked any in the way of the powerful visual intensity or rousing, invigorating musical accompaniment that was in such abundance on Mega Man X's incredibly energetic title screen. It completely failed to grab me or inspire me in any way.

And the game's opening scene--in which Mega Man, Roll and Auto were driving across the city--was painfully long and boring. The characters' dialogue was entirely drawn-out, and it scrolled along at a plodding pace; and consequently it slowly drained away what little enthusiasm I had left. Also, the game's lame attempt at humor (having Mega Man don a Metall helmet by mistake) made me cringe and effectively put me in a sour mood.

I couldn't recall Mega Man X doing anything like this. It didn't waste my time with an insanely long opening scene that was filled with boring dialogue and superfluous bits of "character development," no. Rather, it got moving right away! And it let its cool action and impressively active environments tell the story.

"Just let me play the game already!" I kept thinking to myself as I endured one overly long cut-scene after the next.

I was happy to see that Capcom decided to include a pre-Robot Master intro stage. Its presence instantly gave Mega Man 7 a notably distinguishable quality.

But the problem was that there was barely anything to it! It felt, in fact, like an abbreviated, watered-down version of Mega Man X's opening highway stage. And its bosses were pitifully easy. Series newcomer Bass, in particular, was a joke. He did nothing but jump in place and fire off a buster shot every two seconds. Also, his character development was meager at best. I learned almost nothing about him!

Characters like Vile and Zero were far more interesting than he was. They had cool personalities and clear motivations, and everything they had to say was compelling.

But the biggest problem, still, was that there was simply too much in the way of exposition. And all of it was tedious, protracted, and hardly a fit for what was supposed to be a fast-paced action game. In Mega Man X, conversely, I was able to speed through the dialogue scenes and quickly get back into the action, and resultantly, such scenes never interrupted the game's flow.

The more I saw of Mega Man 7, the less impressed I was with its graphical style. The aspect with which I had an immediate issue was the scaling: The screen dimensions were the same as the NES games', but the character sprites were twice as large! And the result, naturally, was that many stage segments felt uncomfortably cramped and the field of vision was smaller.

The smaller field of vision was a bigger problem because enemies tended to rush in quickly from the screens' edges and thus I had less time to react to them. So I had to make it a point to advance slowly and cautiously. And, really, I didn't want to play that way, no. Rather, I wanted to do what I'd always done in Mega Man games: speedily charge forward with guns blazing, which was the style that previous series games had openly encouraged.

But if I tried to play that way in Mega Man 7, I'd get abused and quickly die.

What bothered me, also, was that the game's action felt kinda sluggish--not just in comparison to Mega Man X but even to the NES games. Mega Man seemed to run more slowly than usual, and he couldn't fire as rapidly as as he could in any of the previous games. My theory was that the slower movement and firing speeds were somehow a byproduct of Capcom's decision to increase Mega Man's sprite size. (The Charge Shot's newly applied start-up lag would have helped to reinforce my theory had I not instead perceived it as mechanic designed to slow the weapon's charge-rate and thus prevent Mega Man from feeling too overpowered in his base form. Because that's what he was in the previous three games.)

I was, though, a fan of the game's background work and stage environments. I considered them to be the best parts of the package. I was fond of the visual themes they created and the vibes they exuded.

I liked, in particular, the science-y feel of Burst Man's stage, whose background was filled with large beakers, flasks, spiral tubes, and all other kinds of interesting containers and connecters; the Jurassic Park-inspired imagery of Slash Man's stage (all of which was clearly ripped off from the movie), which had a mysterious and engrossing "prehistoric" atmosphere to it; the winter-wonderland feel of Freeze Man's stage, whose icy caverns, interestingly, gave view to robotic dinosaur fossils; and the exuberant energy of Spring Man's stage, whose surfaces were adorned with carvings of cute little Metall couples and some neat visual-diagnostic displays of Mega Man and the stage's enemies.

These aspects helped to create some very memorable Mega Man stages.

But still, none of its backgrounds or textures were quite as visually enrapturing or as thought-provoking as Mega Man X's, all of which were a special kind of wondrous. They rendered a glorious sprawling cityscape; an enchantingly mysterious forest; a beautifully scenic ocean base whose environments were formed from eye-catching aquatic plants and towering glass containers; a sky-scraping airfield that gave view to intensely vivid runway strips, mountains and scrolling clouds; and many other breathtaking natural and industrial settings.

In each of my Mega Man X play-throughs, I'd take the opportunity to marvel at its backgrounds, textures and environments. I'd take the time to intently observe and examine them and think and wonder about the spaces they were working to create. That was one of the big ways in which I derived enjoyment from the experience.

Mega Man 7's visuals didn't hit me that way. They simply weren't as awe-inspiring or absorbing as Mega Man X's. They didn't inspire me to want to stop and observe them and examine their every detail and think and wonder about the stories they were trying to tell. And that was disappointing to me.

I wanted more from the game visually.

I knew from reading Nintendo Power's coverage that Mega Man 7's would adhere to the original series' classic style of level design and offer stages whose sections were purely horizontal and vertical in form, and I was OK with that. "Original-series games should stick to that type of level design," I thought to myself. "It's what differentiates them from Mega Man X, whose style should remain its own."

But I didn't know that the character sprites would be so big that they'd make the stages' traditionally proportioned rooms and passages feel constrictive and uncomfortably cramped. That aspect of the game was inexplicable to me. "They should have compensated for the larger sprites by making the rooms taller and wider, respectively, so that the characters had more room to maneuver," I couldn't help but think.

I mean, seriously: Some enemy characters couldn't even operate properly in the rooms in which they were stationed! Oftentimes their projectile attacks would smack into low-hanging ceiling structures and travel away from Mega Man, and in some instances, their basic movement would be greatly hindered by uneven environments. Also, there were points in which you could grab onto an adjacent screen's upper ladder by transitioning into said screen with a jump executed from a high-up platform, and thus you could completely skip that screen!

And in the end, the oversized sprites and compressed spaces only served to create the sense that Mega Man 7 was far smaller in scale than Mega Man X and nowhere near as ambitiously designed.

Even the game's enemy design felt tame in comparison. Mega Man X featured spectacularly large, towering foes whose attacks and movements shook the earth and had palpable visceral impact. Mega Man 7, conversely, had a robotic polar bear that simply pushed an ice block in your direction every few seconds. Mega Man X had unique, creatively designed enemies flying and charging at you from all directions. Mega Man 7, on the other hand, had a bunch of enemies that just kinda floated in place or mindlessly patrolled tiny portions of land.

Mega Man 7, I could admit, had a few genuinely interesting mid-bosses--like the rampaging, flame-spewing T-Rex and the bouncing, acid-spewing pumpkin--but that's about all I was willing to give it. On the whole, it was clear, it lacked the sheer breadth of Mega Man X's diverse enemy assortment. Also, none of its enemies were as cool-looking or as visually impressive as X's.

Mega Man 7 was a graphically inferior game by a big margin.

Honestly, I didn't know whether or not I was being fair to Mega Man 7 by constantly comparing it to Mega Man X, but it was something that I just couldn't help but do. I couldn't stop myself from comparing its every aspect--its graphics, its music, its controls, its pacing, its level design, and even the vibe it exuded--to X's and viewing it in that context.

At the time, I didn't realize that I wasn't giving Mega Man 7 space to breathe and form its own identity. I couldn't have. I was too busy focusing on comparisons and trying to understand why the game wasn't measuring up to the extraordinary Mega Man X, which was, as far as I was concerned, the series' best entry. "Why does this game seem uninterested in building on what Mega Man X did and striving to raise the bar higher?" I kept wondering. "What happened to all of the inspiration and ambition that fueled the creation of Mega Man X?"

And by the time I reached Dr. Wily's castle, I'd already made up my mind that Mega Man 7 was so underwhelming that it would never, ever resonate with me as strongly as Mega Man X or even the worst NES entry.

Even when I wasn't comparing Mega Man 7 to Mega Man X, I was still finding fault in it. I didn't like, for instance, how the Robot Masters were split up into two separate groups of four. I saw this as the designers merely repeating the formula while cheaply trying to create the illusion that they were doing something new and different. Unfortunately for them, I saw through their trickery.

Also, I was annoyed with how this change in structure worked to eliminate any semblance of a true weakness chain and required that a boss from the second group (Slash Man) have a vulnerability to two separate weapons (Mega Man 3 did something similar to this, and I didn't like it back then, either). "That's just making a mockery of the formula!" I thought.

I became less bothered by this change as time went on, but still, I continued to perceive it as a tactically shortsighted approach to trying to make the game seem less formulaic. It was, I felt, the wrong solution to what was certainly the least of the game's problems.

And I had all other kinds of issues with the game: I couldn't stand Turbo Man's stage because its obnoxious conveyor-carried tires kept bouncing me into spike pits and concealed gaps, each of which would deposit me back at the stage's starting area. I was annoyed by the platforms' indiscernible bounding boxes, and I'd get increasingly angry each time I'd fail to land on a platform even though I was two or three pixels over its edge. I hated that Mega Man would routinely fail to grab onto ladders' bottom rungs (whose bounding boxes were also indiscernible) and that resultantly I'd keep falling back down to bottom levels or previous screens. And I didn't like how enemies would suddenly appear at the screen's edge and collide with me as I was in mid-jump.

I also didn't care for how Mega Man controlled when he was aerial. His movements, in both his normal and Rush Adapter forms, were shaky-feeling, and that became all the more apparent in segments like Wily Stage 1's awful rail-lift area, which required precise aerial movement.

To get through that area, you had to traverse your way across platforms that rotated at certain points, and you had to do so while minding the expansive death pits below and a distressing light-switch mechanic that caused the entire area to go dark whenever Mega Man was standing on solid ground. (You know: Because when you think of "fun," the first thing that usually comes to mind is jumping across series of unstable platforms in the dark.)

This challenge and others like it were made more difficult by the fact that Mega Man wasn't as agile, controllable or adaptable as he was in previous games. It meant that there was always a high probability that you were going to miss a targeted platform and fall to your death.

Much of my frustration was an inevitable result of the designers intentionally and repeatedly using cramped level design and surprise enemy spawns as weapons against me. It was too often the case that I'd have to (a) execute a pixel-perfect jump to clear a death pit that was placed within a narrow passage or (b) leap across a long gap while trying not to collide with suddenly-appearing enemies.

And I hated everything about that approach to level design. I thought it was cheap and irritating, and I saw it as an indication that I was dealing with designers who were purposely trying to be cruel.

Oh, and I absolutely abhorred the new flame-engulfing mechanic that would take effect whenever Mega Man would come in contact with fire. It would lock your controls for a long period of time and inflict a crippling amount of damage. It was the worst. And in one particular instance, its use was rage-inducing.

I'll tell you about that one later on.

I wasn't negative on all aspects of the game, though. There were some that I really liked. I was pleased, for instance, that the game borrowed Mega Man X's quick-weapon-swap and stage-exit functions, both of which, desirably, helped to speed up the action's space. I was fond of their inclusion, also, because their presence helped to create a natural sense of evolution for the Mega Man character and further advance his slow build toward the type of hero we'd see in the Mega Man X games.

(I liked that the "Exit" item wasn't built into Mega Man's suit and that he could only use an external version of it. This showed that he didn't have the same inherent abilities as his more-powerful descendants. I was happy about this because I knew that developers were sometimes tempted to go back and power up prequel heroes and put them on par with physically or technologically advanced future heroes. That practice never made any sense to me.)

Also, I liked how the Robot Master battles had more variety in terms of field conditions and how the Robot Masters now had multiple attacks. Burst Man could assault you with bouncing or exploding bubbles, and he could encase you in a large bubble whose natural upward trajectory would carry you up into the room's spiky ceiling. The hovering Cloud Man could blast you with lightning bolts and produce storms whose fierce winds would push you toward the death pits that were placed on either side of his two-screen-wide battlefield.

The agile Slash Man would slash you with his claws and bombard you with slimy, sticky substances ("pudding drops," as I called them) that would temporarily hamper your movement and negate your ability to fire your weapon (admittedly this effect was more annoying than anything). The winged Shade Man would fire off two different types of Noise Crush sound waves, and if he caught you with his swoop attack, he'd suck away your life energy and use it to replenish his health. And the speedy Turbo Man would generate a fire shield and toss it at you, use magnetism to pull you closer, and transform into a race car and charge across the screen.

These Robot Masters had a lot of moves in their repertoires, whereas the NES entries' Robot Masters rarely had more than two.

Also, it was cool how the Robot Masters would exhibit special damage-infliction animations when they were struck by weapons to which they were vulnerable. I liked that aspect of the Mega Man X Maverick fights, and I was happy that Capcom carried it over to Mega Man 7.

Mega Man 7 lacked Mega Man X's ingenious consequential-stage-alteration mechanic, but still it had some fun with its level design. It allowed you to manipulate or interact with certain stage elements (with your Robot Master weapons) and thus open up hidden pathways or produce environmental changes.

I liked how you could use the Freeze Cracker to freeze the lava in Junk Man's stage and then proceed to shatter the cascading portions of it. How you could use the Thunder Bolt to activate the non-functioning machinery in that same stage. How you could cause Cloud Man's stage to become besieged by snowfall by blasting the little weather bots with the Freeze Cracker (as a benefit, the snow would fall onto and cover invisible platforms and thus reveal them). And, most memorably, how you could use the Scorch Wheel to burn away the trees in Slash Man's stage (this was mind-blowing to me because I didn't know that games had advanced to a point in which it was to possible manipulate huge, screen-filling background objects) and open up a hidden path that led to the room in which Beat was being imprisoned.

There were a lot of fun things that you could do in the game's stages.

Also, I thought it was great that the game had an exploration element. I liked how you could return to completed stages and search for alternate paths and hidden rooms. To me, they worth finding and traversing because they housed secrets (special items, like the Beat letters, and optional Proto Man encounters) and some of the game's more interesting platforming segments.

And I thought it was especially cool how you could use the new Rush Search to uncover some of the game's most useful upgrades and adapters and thus avoid having to buy them in the shop! This was great because the shop versions were so damn expensive! (In truth, you can uncover all of the upgrades and adapters with the Rush Search. I didn't know that back in 1995 because I hadn't searched the stages thoroughly. It wasn't until years later that I discovered that you could obtain the Energy Balancer and Exit item with the Rush Search. I'm kinda glad that it happened that way, though; it helped me to see that the game had, to its credit, a significant amount of hidden depth.)

And while I didn't care for how they split the Robot Masters up into two separate groups, I was a big fan of one of the game elements that resulted from that design choice: the intermediate stage--the Robot Museum. It was a really short stage, but it managed to do a whole lot with the limited space that it was given. It did some great things within that space.

Mainly, it featured my favorite musical and graphical themes.

I loved its backgrounds' visuals of encapsulated Robot Master from the previous NES games (Snake Man, Blizzard Man, Pharaoh Man and Heat Man were on display in the front layer while Plant Man, Flame Man, Skull Man and Ring Man could be seen in the back layer). Whenever I'd get to this stage, I'd always take the time to stop and intently gaze at and examine the Robot Masters and marvel at how amazing they looked in 16-bit form.

I remember how I'd scroll the screen as far over as it could go, in both the rightward and leftward directions, and do so with the hope of bringing even more Robot Masters into view. Sadly I was never able to reveal any additional displays. The aforementioned Robot Masters, it appeared, were the only ones included.

Engaging in those types of activities gave me plenty of time to enjoy my other favorite aspect of the stage: its outstanding musical theme! It was a medley that combined parts of Snake Mans, Guts Mans and Heat Man's stage themes into one continuous piece. Mega Man 7's music was, in general, finely composed and aurally pleasing, but it felt somewhat subdued and lower in energy than previous entries' music. That's why this medley felt like such a strong outlier. It was highly energic, incredibly spirited, and wonderfully rhythmic. It was what all of the game's music should have been like.

It was a really fun musical theme. I loved listening to it. And I was able to do so any time I wanted because I used my tape recorder to record it! I included it in one of my personal video-game-soundtrack compilations, and I always made sure to play it during my Costumed Celebrity Dance Shows, during which I'd have my He-Man figures--which I pretended were pro-wrestlers dressed up as lizards, knights, rock people, etc.--dance to the video-game music I recorded!

The Robot Museum stage did a lot for me. It delighted me, it filled me with energy, it stirred my imagination, and it made me happy to be playing video games. Also, it gave me an intriguing glimpse into what the old Robot Masters would look like if they ever showed up as foes in 16-bit Mega Man games! I hoped to see them in that form one day.

Early on, I wasn't too keen on the newcomer Bass. I saw him as an unnecessary addition to the cast, and I felt that his presence only served to diminish the importance of the Robot Masters, who could no longer be said to be the real stars of the show. "That's not how it should be," I thought. "Robot Masters are completely synonymous with the series and should always be treated as its most important villains! The focus should always be solely on them!"

Over time, though, Bass grew on me, and I began to see him as a differentiator--a character whose presence played a big role in helping Mega Man 7 to stand out and develop a unique personality. Without him, I believed, the game might have felt entirely formulaic and thus indistinguishable from the 8-bit series entries.

Also, I liked Treble, his canine companion, because he reminded me of Sigma's companion Velguarder. His resemblance to the latter made me believe that there had to be a connection between the two characters. And that was important because I loved thinking about the possible ways in which the two series were connected!

But on the whole, my impressions of Mega Man 7 were still largely negative. During my first play-through of the game, I was filled with feelings of apathy, frustration and disappointment caused by the game's failure to compare favorably to Mega Man X in any way.

What really sealed Mega Man 7's fate was an event pissed me off in a way that only the most maddening of games had in the past: the battle with Dr. Wily's final ship. It was another unoriginal teleporting capsule, but it was notable because it represented the most ridiculously difficult boss in the series' history.

This capsule fight was one of the most infuriating things I'd ever experienced in a video game!

Here's how it went: Basically, Wily would appear in one of multiple locations and fire out a set of four randomly assorted elemental projectiles, all of which would proceed to home in on you in a three-point darting animation.

At first, the attack seemed to be completely unavoidable. There were no perceptible holes in it. I'd get hit by it every time. And after a while, I gave up trying to evade it. What I did, instead, was take the only option available to me and settle on a strategy of intentionally making contact with the projectile that I knew would inflict the least amount of damage (preferably the electrical projectile, if it was included in the set).

But doing that didn't improve my chances of actually winning the fight. All it did, rather, was help me endure a bit longer. It allowed me to delay my inevitable destruction by about 20-30 seconds.

I was honestly stunned by the fight's extreme level of difficulty. "This is insane!" I kept thinking to myself as Wily's attacks overwhelmed me. "Why the hell is this boss battle 10-times tougher than any of the game's other boss battles and, for that matter, any of the boss battles from the previous series games?!"

Being slaughtered over and over again was aggravating enough, but what was worse was having to refight the eight Robot Masters every time I suffered a Game Over. That process was both tedious and time-consuming and certainly not the type of thing I wanted to endure at a time when I was angry and in a rush to get back to where I was. It was absolutely agonizing.

Eventually I stumbled upon a fairly reliable evasion tactic: If you jumped straight up while positioned near one of the screen's edges, I found, you could draw the projectiles over to the screen's middle portion and then turn and slide beneath them!

The problem was that the tactic would only work effectively when Wily was positioned in the middle or upper parts of the screen and when my timing was correct--when I fast enough to execute an attack and then get to a screen's edge before Wily fired off the projectiles. If he appeared directly overhead, or if my execution was too slow, I'd take damage.

Most of the time, I'd properly execute my tactic but get nicked by a projectile anyway! This made me think that I'd never be able to consistently avoid taking damage. It made me start to doubt my gaming skills.

And the most irritating part wasn't that I couldn't avoid the projectiles, no, but rather that I seemed to be a magnet for one of the projectiles in particular: the obnoxiously awful fire projectile, contact with which would cause me to (a) become immobilized by the aforementioned inescapable flame-engulfing effect and (b) suffer the loss of about one-fourth of my health!

I really, really hated that fire projectile.

So inevitably I had to settle on the more simple strategy of coming into the fight with four energy tanks and one super tank. That way, I would have about six energy meters' worth of health to work with.

And it turned out to be the winning strategy. By using it, I was finally able to win the fight.

But even then, it was still close at the end. I still just barely managed to eke out a victory. That's how ridiculous that fight was. (One of the reasons I struggled so much was that I didn't realize that you could increase the charged Wild Coil's vertical range by holding "up" on the d-pad. I kept putting myself in a position in which I had to rely on my minimally effective buster shot.)

That Wily battle was thoroughly exasperating, and consequently it made one of the worst final impressions a game had ever made on me.

That was sad because before I'd reached the final stage, I was actually starting to warm up to Mega Man 7. I was having some fun with it. But after being put through hell by the Wily fight, my feelings changed. I was once again sour on the game. And just thinking about that fight entailed made me never want to play the game again.

"What the hell were they thinking with this Wily battle?!" I wondered while in an intensely angry state. "Why in the world did Capcom decide to use a Mega Man game as the testing ground for the most difficult boss battle it ever created?!"

It was inexplicable.

(These days, I'm able to beat the Wily capsule damage-less, and I'm able to do it quickly and efficiently. In fact, there was a period in which I had a top-10 time in Mega Man Legacy Collection 2's "Wily Machine 7 Time Attack" challenge, which puts you up against both of Mega Man 7's Wily forms. And now I can honestly say that I actually like this fight, which is something my younger self would never have imagined a future version of himself saying.)

And what I saw in the ending made me feel even more sour. I'm talking specifically about Mega Man's aggressive, threatening behavior. It was so jarringly out of character that it made me feel uncomfortable.

Shockingly, Mega Man, who was always known to be innately and characteristically compassionate and peaceful, was inching his way toward the incapacitated Dr. Wily with his Mega Buster outstretched and expressing his intent to kill. "I gonna do what I should have done years ago!" he said with fiery anger. "Die, Wily!"

This scene rendered me speechless. As it played out, the only thing that I could do was watch it and try to process its disturbing events. The whole time, a feeling of unease filled my heart, and I kept wondering, "Is Mega Man actually going to murder Dr. Wily right now?!"

He didn't act on that impulse, thankfully, but still, his chilling words, alone, were enough to put an unfortunate stain on his reputation and consequently alter the way I viewed his character. "After this," I thought, "I'll never be able to forget that he has the propensity to be hostile and menacing." (Also, I didn't want to believe that he only refrained from firing because the castle started to shake and fall to pieces. I adamantly denied that possibility and never strayed from the opinion that he refrained because his sense of reason caused him to have a change of heart.)

In the credits sequence that followed, Mega Man could be seen angrily marching toward the camera and away from the flame-engulfed castle (in an admittedly cool-looking scene). He was continuing to show that he had a wrathful side to him.

And, just like previously, I didn't understand his behavior. I had no guess as to why he was suddenly so incensed. I would have been more accepting of this turn had there been an obvious build to it, but there wasn't. There was never even a hint that he was starting to develop feelings of anger. There were zero outward signs. And what made the turn worse was that it ultimately meant nothing. There was absolutely no follow-up to it. In the subsequent Mega Man games, he simply went back to being unwaveringly even-tempered and peace-loving.

So it was yet another inexplicably stupid creative decision.

Also, the aforementioned ending scene did nothing to suggest that the original series was prepared to transition into the X series. It made no reference to Mega Man X or its characters. And honestly, that didn't surprise me. It was exactly what I was expecting.

I wasn't even mad about it this time. Because by that point, I'd long since come to accept that I was hanging onto a pipe dream. I'd resigned myself to the fact that the original series was going to continue on indefinitely whether I liked it or not and there probably wasn't going to be an epic transition.

And besides: I didn't have the energy to think too deeply about the issue because that Wily battle had wiped me out emotionally.

Despite my being really angry at Mega Man 7 for some of the inexplicable design decisions it made and for the way it emotionally abused me, I didn't shun it. I simply stayed away from it for a while.

When I returned to it, I played through it a few times, and as I did so, I started to warm up to it again. I continued to believe that it was the original series' worst entry, but still I was honest enough with myself to admit that it wasn't a bad game. Rather, it was actually a pretty good Mega Man game and a solid action game in general. And it was definitely one that was worth revisiting on occasion.

I didn't like it enough to include it in my frequent Mega Man binges, in which I'd marathon all of the original-series games in a two- or three-day stretch, no, but still I devoted plenty of time to it. I played through it once every few months. And in each play-through, I learned to like it a bit more. (This was especially true in the period in which Mega Man X's overshadowing power started to diminish in intensity because of how disappointed I was with its sequels. That was when I was finally able to judge the game's qualities in an unbiased way.)

And in the last two decades, I've gained a strong appreciation for Mega Man 7. It was an easy target for my criticism during the mid-90s, when there were so many competing action games on the market, but as the 16-bit era drew to a close and the industry's rapid transition to 3D left the side-scrolling-action-game genre in the dust, I started to see that I was being way too hard on it. I was holding it to too high a standard.

And as the years went on, and the industry completely moved away from classic-style 2D action, I started to see Mega Man 7's true value. I started to understand its importance. And in that time, I formed a connection with it.

And in the present day, Mega Man 7's old-school values and classic 16-bit vibe mean more to me than ever. They serve as a powerful reminder of how great action games were during the mid-90s and how good I had it as a fan of the genre (and as an enthusiast in general). And they're the reason why I now have a lot of nostalgia for the game.

That's how time and wisdom change you, I guess.

So retrospect, as you can see, has taught me a great deal about Mega Man 7 and what Capcom intended for it to be: It wasn't designed to evolve the series or take it to the next level, no. That's what Mega Man X was for. It was designed, rather, to be an ideal option for those those were intimidated by the genre's growing complexity (particularly in the 16-bit era) and looking for an action game that was simple, accessible and very similar to the types of games they loved to play on their old 8-bit consoles.

And it did its job well. It provided those types of players exactly what they were looking for, and thus it showed them that the original model was still one of the greatest ambassadors to the cause. Also, it was a solid, reliably fun action game.

And, really, that's all it ever wanted to be.