Knight's Favs: Mega Man Legends

I feel terrible for interrupting our Thrawnspotting, but I have to talk about this game! I gots to!

We have this local game shop in town that was around before anyone had ever heard of a GameStop or Game Crazy. In fact, the only real places to buy video games were either at department stores or really obscure places a few towns over. Video Game Swappers was one, FuncoLand was another. But the one here in town always had the look that you could conceivably by drugs there if you happened to say the right passphrase.

It's the place where I bought my first modchip for my Playstation One, so I could play a Japanese version of Dragonball GT: Final Bout and Dragonball Z: Ultimate Battle 22. It was a fun place to check out, if only because you didn't know what stolen goods would be hanging around the shop that day.

I bought a game there one time, but I can't remember what it was. All I remember is that it was scratched all to hell and I hadn't checked it before I bought it. So I took it back, and the guy was kind enough to let me trade it for something else. I looked through case after case of random Playstation games until I stopped at something familiar. "Mega Man."

I fucking love Mega Man. It was one of the first games I played on the Nintendo, and I even had a copy of the MS DOS version with the realistic-looking Mega Man on the cover. You know the one.

So, I see a copy of Mega Man Legends just sitting there at a very good price. It's probably definitely most likely stolen, but what the heck. I get that game and take it home, because I had been wanting to try it since I had first heard about it. Mega Man in 3D? GTFO.

The game, in short, is/was amazing. I was so hooked that I can barely remember how I got to the end boss. There was just so much detail poured into every little thing. The characters were great. The game had an awesome sense of humor. The action was intense, and it was, dare I say, the first game I had ever played where your decisions actually mattered. Which might be why I've sort of slanted in that direction with RPGs ever since.

Basically, you were a treasure hunter, a "Digger," and your quest was to find the fabled Mother Lode. Every machine in that universe is run by crystals called "refractors," and you've made it your mission to find them. It's not quite what people have in mind when they think of Mega Man, and it took a while to grow on me, but grow it did. Running around, upgrading Mega Man, interacting with the citizens of Kattelox Island, and thwarting the Bonne Family's evil plans was all in a day's work, and it was good.

Now, the decisions: when you fought a boss, sometimes it took place in the city. This meant that if you weren't quick with the rescuing, buildings were destroyed. Foreverz. But you had the option of making donations to the city, which would allow them to rebuild everything that was destroyed in your battles. The buildings would eventually (you had to wait) come back, looking bigger and better than ever, and everyone would treat you a whole lot better, too.

I spent a greater portion of the time I'd played that game just...exploring. Running around, looking for items, going on digs like a mechanical Indiana Jones just for the heck of it. And I was just floored by the amount of things that would change around the city based on your actions. There were little quests that were just so clever, too. In the beginning of the game, I noticed this old car just sitting off in the grass. At first, I thought it was just part of the scenery, but way later on in the game, you have the chance to fix it up! Woah!

Yeah, not that impressive by today's standards, but it was back then...Wait, scratch that. That's still impressive by Japanese gaming standards! Keiji Inafune is still one of my idols in the entire gaming industry. Just saying.

Basically, I had a ton of fun with that game. It was a true RPG, because it had so much auxiliary gameplay that you would never see if you didn't look for it. Stuff like making donations to the local museum or helping out the Kattelox Police in solving crimes and stopping terrorists. Exploring was rewarded, as was doing the right thing. It was a game that patted you on the back if you helped people out, and ignored you if you just didn't care.

My most favorite quest in the game is where you help out this group of kids who had built a clubhouse out in the forest. They ask you to bring back some supplies, and every time you come back their house has gotten bigger and better. This was no short quest, but when it was done you got this amazing item. It was one of the most rewarding quests ever, short of the Biggorron Sword quest in OoT.

My one regret is that I never got to play Mega Man Legends 2. The first one flew so far under the radar that I'm surprised I had even heard of it. Still not sure why I didn't pursue the sequel, even after I did hear about it in the form of a demo disc that was given to me, but it's one of my great gaming shames!

That's why I just about cheered myself into a stupor when I heard that Mega Man Legends 3 is finally getting made, ten years after I had played the original. It may be for the 3DS, but I could not care less. I'm just excited to see how Inafune will pull this one off, and if he'll be able to bring back what was so special about the first game. Even if he doesn't, I'm completely willing to take that chance and give it a try.