The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Megaman Anniversary

That's Right!

Last year was the little bastard's 15th birthday, in the USA at least, so Capcom of America decided to release an Anniversary Collection on PS2 and Gamecube, containing a whopping 10 megaman games!
Being: Megaman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 and the never before released Power Battles and Power Fighters.

Now this would indeed be a good thing if Capcom hadn't made one capital mistake: they let someone else do it! So, in comes Atomic Planet, a never before heard of stupid company who were probably happy they could get their hands on a hot license (or 10) to finally make that big break.
They failed to notice that they SUCK at everything they do (I've never actually played any games from this company, if indeed they've made any. I'm not about to go and buy one either) so they royally fucked up something that could've been masterful.

I only own the GC version, but I'm not too happy with it at all. I've been told the PS2 version is much much better, and it should be, cos goddammit we're talking about NES games here. Well, 6 of them anyway.
The 6 NES games had previously been released on PSX, on SEPARATE CD-ROMs, as a nice "fuck you and give us all your money" from Capcom to its devoted Megaman fans.
What Atomic Planet did was to take these Japan-only rereleases, have them translated by a team of blind monkeys, and implement on a GC disc. The PSX games had some extra stuff, like hints and reworked menu screens and such, and as such the games required more storage space than the 1 megabyte originals. Please note that a GC disc holds about 1500 Megabytes I think.

However, the last 3 of the PSX rereleases featured fully arranged soundtracks, which help explain why I still accept Capcom as my daddy, and therefore cost even MORE storage space, and all of this simply could not fit on a GC disc.
Megaman 7 is a Super Nintendo game of maybe 4 megabyte, which was completely raped for this version. I think they ripped a very cheap SNES emulator off the Internet and then used it to run MM7 off and the emulation is really rather crappy.
Megaman 8 was a PSX game, and as such pretty large, and the last two fighting games are arcade games, and are probably run on MAME or something.

To make a long story short, they had to considerably compress the entire collection to make it all fit on a GC disc, throw away all the arranged music, and what's left is all MONORAUL. THERE IS NO STEREO IN THIS ENTIRE COLLECTION, but they did add some really crappy own arrangements outside of the games, and they have an interview with the Megaman Staff which is not bad.
Basically though, Gamecube owners are raped in the ass and they get a very shabby game, where PS2 owners supposedly get the works.

I can't help but think that an entire asylum of blind, dumb, deaf and drunk retards would have done a better job at this than Atomic Fucking Planet, but as it is, it is a complete disgrace to the Megaman Legacy and it pains me to see my Blue Hero raped in such an abominable way.
A crying shame, for in essence this collection is what I have always prayed for, I mean, geez, you get 8 great games, plus two really good ones that have never been released outside of Arcades before! And for only 30 bucks! I can't think of a single game that gives you so much your money's worth as this one, and I would recommend it to anyone who's every remotely enjoyed games EVER.
Make no mistake, assuming the PS2 version is what it should be, it would get a 10, but I can't affirm that, since I don't have it. As it is, I'm stuck with the subpar GC version, which is an insult. Try to get all the separate games. It'll cost you more, but at least you'll be able to enjoy them the way they're supposed to be.

That said, you STILL get 10 wonderful games on one disc, and if you don't care about the music anyway (don't care about Megaman music? Then you can seriously kiss my furry behind) you probably won't be bothered by it as much as I was, but I say, get the PS2 version instead.
Also, this version offers NO control customization, and there have been numerous complaints by fans about the fact that B is Jump and A is fire. Look at the GC controller, and you might understand why people complain. I honestly think this was one of the least problems, it took me about 5 seconds to get used to, but it's kinda stupid that you don't get to change it, I'll admit that.

So, I'm going to say: GC version: Avoid like the plague (6)
PS2 Version: Get it or DIE. (10)
Which is kinda weird, since they're both the same games. Seriously, if you're not that bothered by the GC's unfaithful treatment than consider it a 10 as well, cos the fact remains that there are 10 fantastic games (well, some better than others) on this disc, which are totally worth the insanely low price. If you won't find anything to like in here, there is something seriously wrong with your head, and it needs to be taken off.

By the way, I'm not going to review every separate game. I have most of these games on separate Discs/Cartridges and I'll review them when I get to them (mostly in the R for Rockman section), but I did play all the games I don't own separately, like the rules state.

posted by Ingen! @ 1:08 PM