RetroHate

RetroHate: Mega Spike Man

Welcome Retro Ladies and Classic Gents to another RetroHate! Where I take a retro game or concept/element and throw it under the Magic School Bus, thereby ruining all your childhood memories.

Today’s topic of dissection: The Bomber in Blue aka Mega Man or “Mega” as he’s known to his friends. Now I’m not going to take apart Mega Man as a whole or any one particular game, rather I want to focus on a rather peculiar aspect of Mega and his games; namely his intense aversion to spikes. Anyone who’s played a Mega Man game knows of this horrible and deadly allergy and has likely fallen victim to it more times than they’d care to admit. But here’s the thing, this “allergy” shouldn’t exist at all. At least, if we are to make some obvious assumptions about Mega Man.

megaman tv intro

What do we know about Mega Man? Well, he’s blue. Ok but seriously, he’s a blue robot. A robot originally designed for menial household tasks. He’s basically Rosie but without the smart quips and rockin’ mini-apron. But Mega, or Rock as he was originally called, didn’t hold that duster for long. After Wily went nutso, stole all of Dr Light’s robots & sent them on a rampage; Light gave Rock the ultimate upgrade, turning him into Mega Man the “Fighting Robot.” Not only did Light make Mega Man into a fighting robot, but he also gave him the greatest robot-power of all: the ability to absorb and copy other robots’ powers. So Mega Man is essentially the robot equivalent of a Ditto. But of course every over-powered super hero has to have at least one ridiculously stupid weakness and Mega really drew the irony card on this one: metal spikes.

Hope Rust Man doesn't go near those chains...

Hope Rust Man doesn’t go near those chains…

SERIOUSLY? Metal, spikes? Mega Man is (presumably) made of metal & the best weakness you could come up with is metal spikes? Ok, maybe if the spikes just dinged him up a bit or scratched his blue paint job, but NOOooOOO. No, you had to make him VIOLENTLY E’SPLODE  if he so much as touches ONE measly spike. I mean come on Light, that’s some really shoddy design there. That’d be like making a construction robot like Gutsman “deathly allergic” to heavy construction materials like bom-oh wait…

You know what’s really sad about this whole situation? Not only did Light make his robots with a stupid, fatal flaw but Wily in all his evil genius, DIDN’T THINK TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT!! Come on Al, you have an adversary who explodes if he so much as pricks his finger on a rose thorn and you throw mutant jello-man & Puff the Magic Dragon at him? It’s like you’re not even trying. Free evil villain advice for ya: cover your fortresses completely with spikes; floors, walls, ceilings, the works. Then make sure all your robots don’t blow up when they get paper cuts and bingo bango, you’re free to conquer the world as you please. Better yet, just cover all your robot masters in spikes too, then you’ll be unstoppable. No, no need to thank me; I’ll just take Mobius and we’ll call it even.

Ok, we may have to do something about that dog...

Ok, we may have to do something about that dog…