Finally beat Mega Man V, which means I’ve now beaten every NES Mega Man. I was marathoning them all a year or two ago for this purpose but stopped at this one. I had it in my head as my least favorite classic series Mega Man other than the first, but this time around, I had a lot of fun. Its position hasn’t changed, but it’s not the dull experience I remembered it being.

If anything, it reminds me of the consummate refinement that made Mega Man 4 my favorite, just dialed down in quality. And to be fair, it is one of the least imaginative ones. There’s nothing anywhere near as groundbreaking added like the charge shot, and Beat, while useful, is a shot in the dark at adding something. The letters to collect in each stage don’t add much replay value since they’re all hidden in plain sight other than Stone Man’s which is unbelievably well hidden. The graphics start getting incredibly detailed around this time, making it feel like a step towards Mega Man 6. Music is decent all around with a few stand out tracks, which is about what you expect at this point.

If there’s a place the game is really lacking in other than innovation it’s probably a lack of platforming gimmicks. Stages are pretty straightforward patterns of terrain and placed enemies, and when blasting enemies becomes the most memorable part of a Mega Man stage instead of the platforming I think the series suffers. The flow is good enough to make the basic satisfying mechanics fun though because the enemies don’t waste your time by being bullet sponges. Boss fight patterns are generally pretty good and fun, and they don’t seem to take too much damage from their weaknesses (that is, if I used the right ones).

I don’t usually fuck with special weapons but most are broadly useful against all enemies, and Super Arrow even has utility (though being able to ride it is a bit much). The difficulty is a concern, keeping a charge shot lets you pretty much annihilate anything as usual, and I unnecessarily saved most of my energy tanks for Wily who was the easiest I can ever remember him. Dark Man final was the hardest fight by far, but it’s disappointing there’s no Proto Man rematch even though it’s a fake. Probably the most straightforward Mega Man game ever but still pretty fun and better than almost all other NES games.