GAME POWER! :: Mega Man VII

Mega Man makes the leap to 16bit in Mega Man VII, picking up right where Mega Man VI left off. Wily is behind bars and everything seemed peaceful... for a while. The doctor had a backup plan, along with eight robots with timers installed that, if not interacted with for a year, would activate and begins seeking out their creator.

 

Beginning with a trend that started in the Gameboy games and then crossing over into the console games for 7 and 8, you are given only four Robot Masters to choose from at first. Something I imagine was done to take off some of the trial and error of going in blind with a new Mega Man game, which frankly I always liked, but I can understand why they might change it.

Another interesting change that no game besides 7 and 8 did was give Mega Man an intro stage to set the story. This was something only seen in the X series at this point.

Cloud Man has always been my go-to pick for the first RM. You can farm bolts to a great degree hallway through his stage if you so choose, which if you're a new player, helps in the long run in purchasing things from the newly added shop.

Junk Man can be torn apart using Cloud Man's weapon, so have at him.

Who likes dirty ice? No one, especially not Freeze Man. Hit him with Junk Shield to deal meaty damage.

Burst Man is the last of the initial four RMs you should tackle. He can be pretty trick honestly, possessing something very few Robot Masters have in the series: A spiked arena! You can freeze him, but be quick and get ready to button mash if you get caught in one of his bubbles.

In yet another surprising change-up, you get thrown into a mid-game stage to visit the Robot Museum upon defeating the fourth RM. Here you see a bunch of your past adversaries but also face one that is very reminiscent of things to come in the next game.

And now you are given access to the remainder of this game's eight RMs: Spring Man, Slash Man, Turbo Man and Shade Man.

Weakness-wise, Slash Man should be first given he's also weak against Freeze Cracker, but I always like to take on Spring Man first due to how fun he is to fight using the buster.

(Not Pictured: Shade Man)

I forgot to grab a picture of him, but he's weak against Spring Man's weapon. Bonus points if you charge it.

It's Turbo time! Turbo Man is weak against Shade Man's weapon. A fight that can be quite cumbersome if you aren't good at dodging.

And then we wrap things up with Slash Man. As previously mentioned, he is weak to Freeze Cracker.

Here we go, 16bit Wily Castle!

First encountered in the intro stage and later revealed to be an agent to Wily, Bass is a new character introduced to the series that would go on to become a fan favorite and even become playable at one point.

Guts Man G! Either Wily didn't have the time to finish the modifications or his intent was on making Guts Man somehow less effective than his base form. Guts Man G can be easily dealt with using Slash Man's weapon, either by hitting him directly or by deflecting the pieces of the ceiling that dropdown.

Bass is back, and this time with Treble! The two merge and create Super Bass. His weakness here is either your charged shot from your own Rush Adapter or Noise Crush.

Gamerizer is weak to Spring Man's weapon and is an obvious nod to Gamera.

HannyaNED² is the third and final bigbad in Wily's Castle and used to be the biggest challenge before I realized that you didn't NEED to use his missiles as platforms in order to get high enough up to deal damage.

Wily Machine 7 is here. It's slow and a chore to fight, but can be done using the buster.

Wily Capsule this time around is the hardest boss in the entire game, if not the entire mainline series. Sometimes he's impossible to hit if he appears at the top of the screen. Then you have to dodge his projectiles on top of it.

Oh my.

This is how it felt walking away from my last job.