After six games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Mega Man series was moving to the Super Nintendo. In 1995, Capcom developed and published Mega Man 7 paving way for the blue bomber to upgrade to 16-bit graphics. How would the series differ from the NES and what new characters would be introduced?
Story:
Out of the previous six Mega Man games, Mega Man 7 might have the best story as far as how the plot makes sense. We pick up six months after the last game with Dr. Wily sitting in prison. Dr. Wily is no fool and he was bound to get caught at some point so he implemented a plan to rescue himself if he ever was caught.
He secretly hid four robot masters in a base that would activate if there was no contact for six months. With Wily in prison, the robots are self-activated and start searching for their creator. They find Dr. Wily, bust him out of prison, and start destroying the city. Mega Man arrives on the scene and starts to control the damage but not before meeting Bass and Treble, a mysterious duo that is similar to Mega Man and his robot dog, Roll. They test Mega Man’s skill before revealing to be on a similar quest to stop Dr. Wily.
Mega Man begins the process of cleaning out the four robot masters and returns to Dr. Light when his missions are complete. After the four robots are destroyed another four come out and start causing havoc. Mega Man cleans them up too before returning to headquarters to find that Bass and Treble have destroyed it sending a message that they were working for Dr. Wily all along.
In a predictable turn of events, Mega Man storms the base of Dr. Wily destroying the robot masters again before meeting Dr. Wily. This is where it gets really good! Mega Man defeats Dr. Wily and says “I should have done this a long time ago” Die Wily!” MEGA MAN ACTUALLY SAYS DIE WILY!
Looks like Mega Man is sick of all Dr. Wily’s crap like the rest of us and wants to put him six feet under the ground. Wily retorts that robots can not harm humans and Mega Man says he is more than a robot pointing his arm cannon at Wily. But just as we thought that Mega Man had finally had enough and that he was going to blast a hole in Wily’s head, Bass and Treble storm the room and rescue Wily from Mega Man.
I have to say that I was shocked to see Mega Man turn dark and actively discuss murdering Wily! I’m also surprised that Nintendo let that happen as they typically stay on the PG side. It was great to see some real emotion from the Mega Man series, especially from the hero who is frankly sick of having to stop Wily every few months.
Gameplay:
I was curious about how the gameplay would change on the Super Nintendo along with other factors. The graphics look great but the screen feels zoomed in. In the Mega Man games on the NES, the screen felt like you were seeing the whole picture where Mega Man 7 feels like you’re not seeing everything. The colors and details are great as you are treated to better animation from cut scenes and robots have unique designs. Some robots you’ll shoot their bodies only to have their heads fall off and attack you next.
The biggest change for the series is the control of Mega Man. On the NES he was much quicker and his jumps felt better controlled. In Mega Man 7, he is slower and his jumps feel weighted down. It’s not that big of a deal but you’ll notice it if you just got done playing Mega Man 6 as I did.
As for the challenge of the game, Mega Man 7 is still a very difficult game. The levels are easier than the first six Mega Man games, but the actual robot masters vary. Some are fairly easy, while others will kick your butt. Shade Man was tough as he would swoop down from the ceiling and suck your energy out and inject it into him. You really have to be quick when sliding on the ground and dodging his attacks. The hardest challenge by far was Dr. Wily. I’m used to him kicking my butt all over the place but his second form was near impossible for me. It sucked that the only weapon that I found that could damage him was the spring coils but I had used up a lot of it already on previous fights. If Mega Man is powered up with a ton of weapons, there should be more than one weapon that can hurt Dr. Wily.
Can hardly contain himself. 
Has his heads in the clouds. 
Has a heart of ice. 
Don’t touch his junk. 
Failed cereal mascot. 
Sandslash’s mega evolution. 
Has a spring in his step. 
Just wants to be a transformer.
A few levels stood out to me like Spring Man’s circus-like atmosphere, Shade Man’s creepy undead robots, Turbo Man’s race track, and Slash Man’s dinosaur-themed park that clearly was influenced by Jurassic Park. You even get a robot T-Rex chasing you through a portion of the level. The music didn’t quite fit for me, I’m not sure what it was but it wasn’t up to the Mega Man mix that I’m used to.
Memories:
I tried playing Mega Man 7 a few times over the years but never got into it. It was only until I started to review video games seriously that I wanted to dive into the seventh game as I’d played the first six games a few times.
Overall:
Mega Man 7 introduces new villains and showcases some great looking environments to go along with the best plot of the series up until this point. Where the game suffers is the slowness of Mega Man, lack of gadgets, and predictable course to the game as seen in the previous six entries.
Mega Man 7 scores a 7.6 out of 10.
Do you remember when Mega Man 7 first came out? What was your favorite robot master? Could you believe the ending with Mega Man ready to KILL Dr. Wily? Did you even reach the ending? Where does it rank in the series? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!
If you’d like to own a copy of Mega Man 7, you can purchase a used copy of it for Super Nintendo from eBay for around $35.
Tiger Chainsaw 