The Gaming Historian

Mega Man Was On The Game Gear

Hello and welcome to The Gaming Historian!

I have said before that my favorite gaming console is probably the Game Boy. It was the first system I owned that actually belonged to me, and it had so many good games. Not to mention, it was portable! When you are a kid, long car rides become nothing thanks to the Game Boy. Not to be outdone, my brother had a Game Gear. It had a few solid titles, but it really paled in comparison to its Nintendo rival. One game I played religiously on my Game Boy was Mega Man. It’s probably my brother’s favorite game series as well, so he would constantly ask to play. Little did we know, that Mega Man was available for him on the Game Gear.

I actually never knew this game existed until a few years ago. I bought a cheap lot of Game Gear games off of E-Bay, and this game was thrown in there. I had to double take when I saw the cartridge. Whaaa!? MEGA MAN? Yes, it’s true. This game was developed by a company known as Freestyle, and published by US Gold. What’s odd is that the publisher is based out of Britain, but this game was only released in North America. Basically, Mega Man was a hot commodity in the early 90′s, so US Gold sublicensed the series from Capcom.

A good mix of robot masters

The game features 6 robot masters from Mega Man IV and Mega Man V. There are only four at the stage select, but you fight the next two during the final stages. The graphics are actually very nice, and so is the sound. What isn’t nice however, is the screen size. I guess that’s not the game’s fault, but try playing Mega Man in confined quarters. There’s actually vertical scrolling in this game due to the size. You want to talk about a hard game? If you truly call yourself a Mega Man fan, play and beat this game. The difficulty is ramped up due to the hardware limitations. Not only that, there is actually a HARD mode option.

Jump n’ Shoot!

This game gets a bad rap, but the problem is people compare it to all the other Mega Man games. Obviously these people never played much Game Gear. My brother would have probably killed to have this game. It’s a hard title to find, going for about $30 on E-Bay. If you are a Game Gear enthusiast or a Mega Man fan, check it out.

Stay tuned next week when I talk more about Mega Man on another SEGA console.