Ghosts of N64 Week: Mega Man 64

Welcome back followers of the almighty console to Day 2 of the Ghosts of N64 Week.   Today I touch base on a series as old as Nintendo's humble beginnings with one of its original but it is not the truest of the incarnation.  MegaMan is commonly an action/platform side scroller which was brought to market on December 17, 1987.  This time around our series is based on Microsoft Windows, PSP, PlayStation and Nintendo 64 bringing Mega Man Legends.  This is Mega Man 64.

The Claw is our master!

Hailing from the franchise of Capcom (Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Devil May Care, Bionic Commando, Ghost n' Goblins, Strider amd Darkstalkers) in 2000, our game is thousands of years in the after the ZX series (In nerd terminology, that means after Mega Man X series) our character is called Rock Volnutt, a treasure hunter and digger who prospects through the ruins around the world picking up refractor shards to mine and trade them as the coin of the realm.  Adopted by Professor  Barrell Caskett a well known digger and author of multiple books on the subject.  He found Rock on Nino Island and took him in as he did his granddaughter Roll after her parents seemed to have disappeared.   Data, their robot monkey holds all existing MegaMan memories and for some reason Rock does not recall his own life.

Living on the edge!!!

A gathering of pirates is constantly giving them a peck of trouble with mechasuits, servitor robots and a collection of Reaverbots, the world as we know it is in danger.  The battle for supremacy of machine and man has begun.

Just a few notes on the game itself.

Unlike the previous Mega Man incarnations this game is more of a action adventure RPG format and Japan dubbed this series Mega Man Legends.  The complaints I have is the camera system similar to Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire bounding 3D views and giving a 360 view which makes it difficult to travel with.   With that, the exploration and old school shooting technique gives the RPG feel a decent game.  Interaction with the NPCs coming with side quests and giving clues on where to go next is the standard role-playing game feel.

The static 3D animation follows Super Mario 64 and the two Zelda games which giving tumbling hills, flatten dirt roads, and bulbous trees.   With the blinding contrasts of the color combos that doesn't completely mesh well, jerky controls on the analog stick takes a bit of getting used to.  The only speed is running after your metamorphose, otherwise you need to tap the R button slightly.   The photo-phobic crowd may wish to stay away from it.  While the PlayStation version's graphics are a bit more fine tuned, the cartridge version loads faster and cleaner.

Well, at least I don't have to play an ocarina.