Propaganda in Megaman

The whole reason behind Megaman's creation in the series is the oppression of the human race by the evil Dr. Wily. He was built directly as a result of Wily taking over as a dictator and controlling the human race with his robot army. Megaman's purpose is the freedom of mankind. To fight oppression.

I think The Protomen accurately described this in part of the subtext narrations of their song The Will Of One:

"The voices of the men and women carry him forward. Megaman has no fear. Standing between the sea of men and Megaman's final purpose is an army of robots, commanded by one leader. This is not Dr. Wily. Wily has no power on a field of battle. This is Wily's second in command. His face is shrouded in the shadow of the fortress, his rough features and solid construction obscured by the void of light."

This represents not only that humanity wishes this to end, but also that Megaman must overcome overwhelming odds in order to achieve his goal.

The underlying theme seems to be that a single individual is enough to make a difference when faced with the task of fighting overwhelming oppression. And that one should always fight for what's right.

Life Lessons in Megaman

Arguably, kids these days learn as much from videogames as they do from school or the internet. The games now are much different than they were in the days of the early videogames though, some are designed to be educational and some are just outright violent. If we look at some of the lessons learned from Megaman, we can easily see how they apply to life:

The first one needs a little interpretation but yes, it is relevant to life that if you really can't do something try something else. The second is more of a joke so I can't really find a good meaning for it. The third is basically saying that bad people don't change, there are definitely some bad people out there like that.

The fourth thing not only applies to dogs being man's best friend, but also to friends being the most important thing in the world. Without them you'll get nowhere. The next 3 are more specific than the others and as such harder to apply.

The 3rd from last can also be taken to say even if you can't fix a problem a normal way, there's got to be a different way it can be done. The second to last is clearly anti-drug without any interpretation at all. And the very last is a hard life lesson that a lot of people don't realize the implications of.

Seems like most of those can readily be applied to real life with good success.

Megaman and Value

With a few exceptions, most games released for the NES are now fairly cheap to buy (3-5$ each). So while the majority of these cartridges are worthless, why is it that some of the Megaman games are still worth upwards of 50$?

One reason could be the game market today. Now games have become so easy that people may want them for their legendary challenge. This has actually become a problem in gaming recently because as people get better at games and the games get easier newer games become less and less entertaining. It's to the point where one has to wonder whether the videogame market can survive such a dumbing-down.

Another reason could possibly be the nostalgia of playing such a well known and long-running franchise in its original form. The fact that games are still being released in the franchise means that it's not possible to have the full collection yet, and holding on to the ones you can get could make them more valuable later if sold as a set. Yes there are compilations for later systems now (anniversary collection on the ps2) but the games have been slightly altered and no longer have their original feel.

Morality in Megaman

In Megaman, the player is always fighting to defeat the (stated as) "evil Dr. Wily". This makes the morality fairly easy to determine as far as the broad scope of the game.

The part that isn't quite as easy is everything that comes before the final boss. Yes, Wily is evil. Yes, he needs to be stopped. But before that can happen Megaman must murder in cold blood 8 other sentient robots and all of their underlings. These robots were built by an evil man (except in the first one, then they even have the same creator) but does performing their jobs make them evil? After all, the robots are just following orders. We don't know that they enjoy this, maybe it would have been better to ask them to join before outright killing them on the spot.

Either way, Megaman murders hundreds of thousands of enemies every time he fights to get to Wily, and one just has to wonder if the other robots deserve it.

Art style on Megaman Cartidges

The Megaman everyone knows is the boy robot seen in all of the games:

What most people don't realize is that Megaman is originally depicted on the first two cartridges as a full grown man, not a little boy:

 What's more, in both of those original game covers Megaman is holding a gun, not firing from his built-in arm cannon.


It's not until Megaman 3 comes out that we see his iconic childlike appearance and trademark weapon appear:

Death In Megaman (Character Deaths)

While game overs are one thing, there is a lesser death in Megaman, the character death. I say lesser not because it happens less, in fact it happens at lease 3 times as much. I say lesser because unlike game overs, if you have more lives you can start from half-levels and you can keep your E-tanks (powerups).

The other main difference between the two is that character death is almost impossible to avoid. While lucky players can store up lives or power to ward off game overs, there's only 1 false move between a player and character death. With the number of instant-death situations in the Megaman games, it's surprising how many times he explodes.

When Megaman dies, he doesn't just fall over or leave the screen.. he explodes. I guess that's reasonable for a robot but still... explodes. Explodes into little balls of light:

Death in Megaman (Game Overs)

With the entire Megaman series being so damn hard, probably the most viewed screens in them are these:

That's right, the game-over screens.

Since the boss order is usually guess-and-check until you know what works well, and the stages themselves are not easy to begin with, most players will see game over at least at few times before they get their first power.

Of course, then they have 1 power and a boatload more bosses so there's not really a lessening in either the stage guessing or the game overs for at least a few more tries.

Megaman in Pop Culture (Music)

There are also several bands whose entire careers focus on the Megaman series and/or events surrounding it:

The Protomen in particular  have written an entire rock opera detailing the events and backstory of the series.They go into detail about Protoman, Megaman, Sniper Joe, the bosses, even Dr. Light and Dr. Wily themselves.

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The Megas have taken a different approach, making all of their songs about the backstories of the Megaman bosses. As such, they had to create personalities and stories for the bosses based on their levels, since that is never given in the series.

Both bands have achieved relative popularity over several age groups in the United States, selling out small-venue shows across the country. (Even my mother has gone to see them twice..)

Megaman in Pop Culture (Difficulty)

Megaman as a series has been around quite awhile. The series has always been known for being incredibly difficult and lacking an easy mode. As such, people have come to expect a challenge from Megaman games. Sometimes even to the point of referring to games as having a "Megaman-like level of difficulty".

And so when Megaman 10 came out not too long ago, (containing an easy mode)  fans of the series were...well confused and kind of put off. One such decided to make a video mocking said easy mode:

...which has received over 175,000 views on youtube.

Obviously, the series is most remembered not for the gameplay or the story, but for how HARD it is.