1. Plot

2. Gameplay

3. Development

4. Reception and legacy

5. References

6. External links

Mega Man 6{{efn|known in Japan as {{nihongo|Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!!|ロックマン6 史上最大の戦い!!|Rokkuman Shikkusu: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!!|"Rockman 6: The Greatest Battle in History!!"}}}} is an action video game developed by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It is the sixth installment in the original Mega Man series and was originally released in Japan on November 5, 1993 and in North America the following March. It was included in the Mega Man Anniversary Collection released in 2004. Its first PAL region release was June 11, 2013 for the 3DS Virtual Console, nearly twenty years after the game's first release.

The story of Mega Man 6 opens during a competitive robot fighting tournament with entrants from all around the globe. A villainous figure known as "Mr. X" announces he has reprogrammed the eight powerful contestants with intent to use them for taking over the world. The game's robotic protagonist Mega Man, who was sent to oversee the tournament, springs into action to foil X's plot. A standard action-platformer, Mega Man 6 plays nearly identically to its five predecessors with a few added features such as stages with alternate pathways and new Rush adaptors.

Mega Man 6 is the first game in the series to receive character design input from fans outside Japan. This late-era game was also the last in the series released on Nintendo's 8-bit console. Due to the declining support of the NES and the growing presence of the newer and more powerful Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Capcom decided not to publish Mega Man 6 in North America. The North American version of Mega Man 6 was released by Nintendo of America instead. Critical reviews favored the game's comparable presentation and use of the established gameplay model from preceding chapters in the series, though nearly all judged it a redundant sequel.

While the first five Mega Man games are available on the Wii's Virtual Console, Mega Man 6 is absent from the Wii Shop Channel; however the game was released via the 3DS Virtual Console in Japan and Europe, with North America on June 20, 2013. It was also released via the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan on May 14, 2014, in Europe on July 24, 2014^[6]{{Full citation|date=September 2018}} and in North America on August 21, 2014.^[7]

Plot

Gameplay

The gameplay in Mega Man 6 is largely similar to its five NES counterparts.^[9][12] The player takes control of Mega Man to complete a series of side-scrolling platform stages littered with smaller robot enemies and occasional larger mini-bosses. The player's primary method of attack is the "Mega Buster" cannon, which can be charged for more powerful shots. At the end of each of the initial eight stages is a boss battle, where the player inherits that Robot Master's unique "Master Weapon" if successful.^[8] These eight levels can be completed in any order, although all Robot Masters are weak to a specific Master Weapon, adding an element of strategy to the order chosen by the player.^[9] The player's health is represented by a gauge that can be refilled by picking up energy pellets. Extra lives, reserve energy tanks, and pellets that refill Master Weapon power can also be found throughout each level. Mega Man 6 introduces the "Energy Balancer", which automatically refills the weapon with the lowest energy when picking up Master Weapon power.^[8][13]

Previous Mega Man games typically allowed the player to call on the transformable dog Rush or use other support items in order to traverse difficult or otherwise inaccessible parts of a stage. Mega Man 6 instead features a pair of "Rush Adaptors" that fuse Mega Man and Rush into special forms. The first, "Jet Mega Man", lets the player fly upward or hover for a brief period of time, but prevents the use of charge shots. The second, "Power Mega Man", utilizes a powerful, short-range punch attack for destroying large blocks.^[8][9] The player cannot slide when using either adapter. Mega Man 6 also presents less linear ways to complete the stages than in previous entries in the series. There are two pathways in many of the stages that lead to boss rooms, but the player is often required to use one of the Rush adaptors to begin an alternate route. Although either one will clear the stage, only one of them will give the player a letter circuit board for assembling the helper bird Beat.^[9][14] Collecting all four parts will allow the player to call on Beat to attack enemies.^[8]

Development

The Robot Masters featured in some of the previous Mega Man games were the result of design contests held in Japan, in which fans of the series would submit their character ideas to Capcom. Keeping with the tradition, Japan held a design contest for Mega Man 6. After the release of Mega Man 5, the magazine Nintendo Power held a similar contest in North America.^[1][15] Only eight out of the more than 200,000 worldwide character submissions for Mega Man 6 were accepted for the game.^[1] Six of the Robot Masters were designed by Japanese fans, while the remaining two (Knight Man and Wind Man) were designed by North American fans who entered the Nintendo Power contest.^{[9][13][14][16]} The North American cover of the game pays homage to the two designers by featuring their Robot Masters on it. Inafune admitted that it was stressful when the last characters being designed for the game were not meeting with the development team's schedule.^[17] He concluded, "For having hit a lot of roadblocks, I feel like we got a lot done for 6. The theme for our designs was 'The world is our stage,' and I really enjoyed bringing what I felt was the unique flavor of different countries into the game."^[1] Yuko Takehara, credited as "Yuko", composed the musical score for Mega Man 6.^[18] Takehara collaborated with several other composers for the follow-up Mega Man 7 in 1995.^[19]

A few months after the publication of Mega Man 5, Capcom announced the sixth installment in the original series, as well as Mega Man Soccer and Mega Man X for the SNES,^[20] making Mega Man 6 the last title in the franchise to be released on the 8-bit NES. Capcom chose not to publish the game outside Japan. Instead, Nintendo of America published it in March 1994.^[16][21] Before the NES era in North America was about to end, Nintendo of America made a plan to help sell it along with StarTropics II and the NES version of Wario's Woods, which were also published by Nintendo in North America during the same time. Their plan was to release the top-loading NES-101 for a retail price of $49.99 to attract consumers to buying the updated version of the original NES along with one or more new titles for the console, including Mega Man 6.^[22] The game was also showcased alongside Mega Man X at the 1994 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.^[23]

Reception and legacy

Elements of the game made their way into the Mega Man series from Archie Comics prior to it going on indefinite hiatus. Some notable liberties were taken, such as introducing a creator character for Plant Man, Dr. Pedro Astil, and introducing the X Foundation-renamed the X Corporation-at the conclusion of the Mega Man 3 adapt. The latter concept notably featured Mr. X as a separate character from Dr. Wily and as a future version of Xander Payne, a character exclusive to the comics who became involved in time travel after being part of an anti-robot extremist group known as the Emerald Spears. A view of the events of Mega Man 6 in the series' final issue prior to the hiatus hinted as Xander's overthrow and Wily's seizure of his resources and alias. The X Corporation's resources also provide Wily with the means of laying the groundwork for other schemes, including the abduction of Kalinka Cossack leading into Mega Man 4. Its membership was shown to include numerous identically costumed grunts and Madame Y, a character based on an "alternate universe" concept by Mega Man artist Hideki Ishikawa.

References

External links

• Official Rockman website {{ja icon}}

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