Let's Play Mega Man 7 - Junk Man

I recorded footage for this in 2018 too but it kinda sucked and it was part of the reason for why I didn't pursue the project further. I redid it properly and therefore this is now the first fully modern video. Signified by the new and sleek thumbnail! (I redid it from scratch from spritesheets and by matching the font)

It still wasn't super trivial to get good footage - some of the screens in this are really awkward to get right if you want to show off the special weapons, you can tell I'm struggling a little. Because Freeze Cracker isn't very good. It's fine against the small cockroaches, but has issues with anything that has more health than none.

The stage itself is very complex, and we're not even done showing everything! Fortunately, the boss isn't too hard. This one might be a good starter if you can deal with the floating platform segment (which you're forced into without the Cracker).

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After 12 years, I'm finally back to show off the main classic Mega Man series. We jump from 8 to 16 bits in this sole Super Nintendo entry, but does that mean double the fun? Join me as I analyze level design, give every special weapon a workout, and show off everything the game has to offer!

[anthonylooyen]

This level is a perfect example of Mega Man 7's design philosophy;

'Have a bunch of gimmicks without any actual structure where the challenge is derived from a player having one or two trouble spots dependent on what the individual player has difficulty with.'

I've never had difficulty with the Ice Man platforms, but clearly Simon does, and that's possibly what the developers were going for beyond the 'gimmick by level' approach. They have a bunch of different ideas they want to put into the game in the hope that something is memorable or challenging, and I'll give that this actually works fairly well. Moments like the T-Rex chase and the truck miniboss are all super unique and contribute massively to the appeal and scope of the game in comparison to its elder 8-bit brothers; something a fresh take on a new system can do to make a game really shine.

I've long been of the opinion that the Classic series by and large improves with each game, and that's not always a view people share. There are personal outliers - I loathe Mega Man 10 - but I'd be remiss to leave out that, for all the faults this approach to level design has, it's still more inspired than Mega Man 6's relatively empty, lifeless hallways punctuated by one or two damage sponges, and I think it has more overall charm than the stages we got out of Mega Man 4 and 5. Going back even further, there's never really anything egregiously bad (level wise, we'll get to Wily later) in 7 like there were in 1-3 (aforementioned Ice Man platforms, Heat Man's stage, some of the Doc Robot stage gimmicks) about the level design either. At worst, I'd call it inoffensive - they finally figured out (possibly from Minakuchi Engineering, who I should note understood stage design far better than Capcom) how to at least make stages that were neither bland nor horribly designed. I'd rather have a game that has some difficulty with in-level difficulty curve and focus than one that doesn't really try at all. At least with Mega Man 7, they had to come up with and program all these gimmicks, whereas Mega Man 6 had maybe one draw per level and otherwise just had boring hallways.

That's not to say this approach isn't without its flaws. Stages like these highlight the short development cycle with how involved each gimmick is - sometimes you'll have a fun elevator sequence, whereas other times you'll have a rather 'meh' romp over molten metal.

Going back to my discussion of sequencing, this is one failing I'll admit in both cases. I'm a Zero and ZX fanboy colored by the sequencing of stages from those games, and while I like it here to generally ramp up the difficulty in each set of stages, it definitely feels like the back half of the game has more meat to it than the front. That might also just be my music preferences contributing to my opinion though - I enjoy Shade, Spring, Turbo, and Slash's Man's themes significantly more than the first four, which I tend to find somewhat tinny. Comparing Turbo Man's stage to Freeze Man's stage is like night and day in terms of overall difficulty, and while Turbo Man has one or two kinda 'bleh' hallways the gimmicks stand out as pretty brutal if you can't adapt to them. The Zero and ZX series will do a better job with their difficulty curves in the future, but it's probably for the best the whole 'first half / second half' thing stopped after Mega Man 8. (Yes I know about MM and Bass but I didn't have access to anything that would make the game tolerable. Want to talk about screen crunch? Yeesh!)

Either way, Junk Man has some fun sequences but nothing truly spectacular to it. It's an enjoyable level, but the fun boss fight and the weapon are the real prizes here.

Junk Shield changed the entire ball game on shield weapons. This thing is a brutal beast, the precursor to the exceptional Jewel Satellite, Water Shield, and Acid Barrier. It deals massive damage, rips through adds with ease, and has more uses than Plant Barrier!

Okay that last one isn't saying much but it's just overall much better designed than previous shield weapons, and many players (myself included) will agree it's the single best weapon in 7.

The order Simon takes is interesting for me personally, because I always do the same sequence when I play Mega Man 7 - Freeze Man, Cloud Man, Junk Man, Burst Man, Turbo Man, Slash Man, Shade Man, Spring Man. Not already having the Thunder Bolt to get every goodie in Junk Man's stage is novel to me, and I'm interested to see his sequence going forward!

I just really enjoy Freeze Cracker's interaction with Cloud Man's stage, which is rather clever!

[MarxForever]

It's kind of baffling that the Freeze Cracker doesn't break when it hits enemies, only objects. Especially since Shotgun Ice can, and that's from an older game. I can't help but feel like that would have made it at least marginally more useful. I do love the the environmental manipulation though.

Kind of funny that Mega Man X2 came out only a few months before Mega Man 7, and they both have elaborate junkyard levels with a boss that throws trash at you. Actually, now that I think about it, that attack where Junk Man gathers garbage, and throws it at you is very similar to the Silk Shot's charged version. I wonder if the two teams were borrowing ideas or sharing employees.