Rejoice those who wasted your youth with the Nintendo Entertainment System! A compilation of one of the most popular game franchises on the NES has come your way: Mega Man Anniversary Collection. And while it is not absolutely perfect, it comes awfully close.

Let’s first establish a couple of ground rules. I am not going to critique the actual Mega Man games that are on this compilation. These are games that were made for a bygone era and implemented on hardware that was less than one one-hundredth as powerful as the consoles this compilation is now running on. You might as well compare the performance of a Ford Model T to a Dodge Viper. We cannot really look back and rate them fairly. Their place in gaming history now belongs to the ages. (Was that a little overly dramatic?) What we can look at is the choice of games, the faithfulness of their reproduction on the modern system, control with modern input devices, and any extras that may have been included.

Very quickly for the uninitiated (both of you), the original Mega Man games feature a blue robot character designed by Capcom’s Keiji Inafune. He is good at jumping and has a gun in one arm. (Mega Man, not Inafune.) In the games Mega Man fights the minions of his arch nemesis, Dr. Wily. These enemies take the form of various off-beat robots. The twist was that the player could send Mega Man into battle against Dr. Wily’s robots in any order he wanted. After working his way through the level and defeating the boss robot, Mega Man got that boss’ weapon to use in later battles. Some weapons were better against certain bosses than others, so it became an exercise in learning which weapons to get first to take down all the bosses most effectively.

Over the years and over the consoles Mega Man’s play style diverged a little from the original games. We won’t address that here. The eight main games on Mega Man Anniversary Collection represent the 2D roots of the franchise and are for the fans of the franchise who remember it back to its beginnings in 1987. Capcom is celebrating the 15th anniversary (when I subtract 1987 from 2004 I actually get 17 years) of the Mega Man series with Mega Man Anniversary Collection, so these eight games, six from the NES era and one each from the SNES and PlayStation eras, are the perfect choice for letting players see what made Mega Man such an enduring franchise. Full points for game choice.

Emulation of the games on the GameCube is spot on. If the player is a purist, the games can be played almost one-hundred-percent faithfully to the originals. Capcom also thoughtfully made it possible to add a couple of improvements to gameplay to make playing easier. Mainly it involves the improvements made over the development of the games culminating in Mega Man 8. What the player gets is the same play goodies that Mega Man 8 possesses in all the first six games. “Navi mode” gives the player an on-screen display of game information and direction to go in. This mode can be turned off in the earlier games for authenticity. The only thing that cannot be disabled, and keeps the games from being completely authentic, is the auto-save feature that replaces the password system of the originals for saving progress in the games. But I don’t think many people are going to complain about losing that clunky experience. Full points for game emulation.

Control was fairly simple in the Mega Man games: a directional pad and two buttons for jump and shoot for the most part. Dedicated buttons for sliding and autofire are also assigned. The GameCube controller handles these very well and is adequately responsive. Some may debate whether the ‘A’ button should have been jump rather than shoot, but in the end analysis it does not really make a lot of difference after playing a little while. Full points for game control.

The extras are where Mega Man Anniversary Collection is a disappointment. While they are numerous and of good quality, they are also locked up in a “secrets” area until the games are played. Now as a game historian and collector I most wanted Anniversary Collection for the historical information that was on the compilation. In my opinion an emulator can go only so far in recreating the experience of playing the game it is emulating. Every game is really designed with the hardware it is to be played on in mind. If I’d wanted to play most of these games through again, I have the luxury of being able to pull out the appropriate systems and cartridges and playing the real thing with the controller it was designed for. But no, I’m stuck playing the games on the compilation to get these goodies unlocked. Extras include such things as developer interviews, songs and music tracks, art sets and even two Mega Man arcade games: Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters. Sadly, it will be a while before they are all seen. I’m glad DVDs don’t make me work for the director’s commentary. Big point gig for locked extras.

So who should rush right out and buy Mega Man Anniversary Collection? If you had these games but long ago traded in your NES and now want to remember when game playing was simpler, buy it and you won’t in any way be disappointed. If you never played these games before and want to see what all the adulation is about, pick it up but keep an open mind as some of these games are 17 years old and will not compare with current gaming experiences. If you’re interested in Mega Man history and want to see all the extras that document the lore of one of the most influential game franchises of the post-crash 8-bit era, prepare to spend some playing time to see that stuff … or go to another source.