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> Results: Mega Man Powered Up
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For nearly 20 years, little blue robot Mega Man has delighted video game fans of all ages with colorful stages, cool enemy robots and weapons, and a million billion sequels and spin-offs. Now you can enjoy the original game that started it all, remade and overhauled for the PSP handheld.
In the year 200X, Dr. Light makes helpful worker humanoid robots. Evil scientist Dr. Wily steals Light's robots and reprograms them to be bad so he can use them to take over the world. The only good robots left that Dr. Light created are sibling helper house robots Rock and Roll. Having a strong sense of justice, Rock urges Dr. Light to make him into a fighting robot, and thus Mega Man is born. Mega Man has the power to wield the weapons of enemy robots he defeats, and since each robot has a weakness to another robot's weapon, it's up to you to figure out the best order to tackle the boss robots and their stages. The first thing you notice about Mega Man Powered Up is its unique and new graphic style. Everything is overly cute. Characters have big heads, funny voices, and cartoony squash and stretch animations. Background graphics are simple yet colorful and the remixed tunes are happy and bouncy. You almost feel guilty as robots are destroyed in cute, flowery little explosions.  There are two ways to play the gameﾗOld Style and New Style. Even though Old Style has 3D graphics, the stage layout and screen dimensions emulate the original Nintendo Entertainment System game as close as they can. They even use the original 8-bit NES music in the stages. New style fills up the whole PSP screen with a closer view of the action. Levels are similar to the original game, but rearranged ever so slightly to take advantage of the PSP's screen dimensions and to keep Mega Man veterans on their toes. Two new bosses have been added in New Style: Time Man and Oil Man, bringing the total boss count to eight, just like the other Mega Man games. In New Style, you can also select your difficulty level for each and every stage. In most games, the only thing that changes through difficulty levels is lives or number of hearts. But each difficulty level here is distinguished and different. Easy mode truly is easy. Enemies move slower and have fewer attacks. More blocks and footholds are added to keep you from falling into danger. But the harder modes take away these footholds and make enemies and bosses fiercer and tougher to beat. One of the coolest new things is that you can play as the boss robots. If Mega Man beats a boss without using a special weaponﾗusing just his arm cannonﾗthe robot is stunned, but not totally destroyed. Then Mega Man will say, "Hey, are you OK?" and take the stunned robot back to Dr. Light's lab. Dr. Light repairs the broken robot to make him good again, allowing you to play as that boss robot in all the stages! Each robot has his own skills and weaponsﾗCut Man wall jumps, Guts Man summons rocks to stand on, Elec Man moves electric blocks and more. The game keeps track of scores and best times for each stage played by each robot and for each difficulty level. This translates to genuine replay value. If you want a hardcore challenge, tackle 100 short obstacle course-style platform levels with each robot boss.  If that's not enough for you, the game also lets you create your very own levels with the in-game Construction Mode. Design your own Mega Man stage, complete with obstacles, spikes, enemies, and even a boss at the end. Making your own stages is daunting and cumbersome at first, but Mega Man's sister Roll is on hand to get you started and give you pointers. Hidden in the stages on New Style mode are special packs that let you have even more things to build with in Construction Mode. Using the PSP's WiFi capabilities, you can download other people's created stages and upload your own for others to try. You can also download other special goodies this way, too. Playing the game as Mega Man's sister Roll is super cool, but you can only download her through the WiFi service. With solid play control, fast and fun action, and limitless replay value, Mega Man Powered Up is a classic remake done right. 
Kids will love the bright and colorful graphics and cute characters. Harder difficulty levels may frustrate little gamers, but the easy mode shouldn't be a problem for most. The youngest and least experienced players may still need a little help from time to time, but not too much. Reading skill isn't required as dialogue is spoken and controls are easy to figure out. Kids may need a little help with the Construction Mode at first, as well as help setting up the wireless connection to the Internet.
Violence is only cartoony. Kids will blow up cute robots, but they'll be back again to spar with gamers on the next playthrough. Best of all, the game rewards you for being merciful. By only stunning the boss robots with Mega Man's basic arm cannon instead of destroying them outright with bigger weapons, Dr. Light will praise Mega Man and your young ones for being compassionate and reward them by letting them play as the boss robot. Cut Man and the rest are really Mega Man's friends anyway, so he doesn't want to hurt them. Mega Man Powered Up may just be the best kid's PSP game yet! This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Mega Man Powered Up |
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