Mega Man II -- Review

Category: classic games, sidescroller, platformer, nintendo, capcom
Price: $4.99
App Store Link: [Full] / No Lite Version

Review: Love it! (except for one big problem: tiny screen and controls )
Recommendation: Great gameplay and exceptional port; very poor use of iPhone screen. (Read the very last paragraph after the pics and video for a more detailed recommendation)
Replay Value: High

It seems like we're starting to see more and more classic games roll out into the App Store. With the recent additions of Alien Abuse and Wolfenstine 3d, the iPhone is starting to fill the "retro" niche, as well. Needless to say we were excited when we learned that early this morning, Capcom decided to jump on-board by releasing their Nintendo classic, Mega Man II for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Mega Man II is a classic platformer action game originally released in the US 20 years ago in 1989 for the NES. Gameplay is fairly basic, but a lot of fun. Players control the protagonist, Mega Man, a cybernetic boy with a built-in arm cannon. Mega Man fights his way through 8 different specialized levels to defeat 8-different robo-bosses designed by the nefarious Dr. Wiley. Each boss has their own special power that, when beaten, can be added to Mega Man's arm cannon arsenal. After beating all the robo-henchmen and acquiring their weapons, Mega Man fights through several additional level to take on Dr. Wiley himself.

The game offers three difficulty modes--none of which seem quite as challenging as the original, but still fun to play. Game controls function almost exactly like the original Nintendo control. Players are given an on-screen joystick along with two buttons labeled "L" and "R" that shoot and jump respectively. Except for one major exception (see the next paragraph), Capcom did an excellent job with the touch controls. Unlike many other 2d sidescrollers on the iPhone, Capcom built multi-touch into the virtual control pad; this allows players to shift directions and jump while shooting (and vise versa) without taking their fingers off the screen. Will this may not seem significant at first, it's important to note that similar games will only recognize one virtual button at a time, often leaving players with a very limited feel of control (i.e. jump or shoot, but not both).

Unfortunately, the there is one or two major flaws to this near perfect port of the original. The first flaw is the poor use of the iPhone screen. In order to give the game an arcade-like feel, Capcom shrank the gameplay field to about 1/2 the size of the actual iPhone screen (placing the virtual joystick controls beneath). I believe that this may cause many gamers to feel a bit cheated with gameplay and fault Capcom with poor use of the device. The second major flaw is with a vertical confinement of the virtual joystick controls; because the game is played in the vertical orientation, the joystick and buttons are so close together that just about everyone will feel cramped when trying to move and utilize the buttons. The space is so confined that people with large thumbs physically may not be able to play game. Luckily, this is something that could easily be fixed with an update that allowed for horizontal orientation, and hopefully Capcom will respond quickly to the App Store feedback.

Click to Enlarge

Gameplay Video:

What we'd like to see in future updates: Fuller use of screen; option for horizontal orientation; less cramped controls.

Recommendation: The game is incredibly faithful to the original, but makes very poor use of the device itself. While some players might quickly become frustrated with the cramped virtual controls (especially players with large thumbs), I was able to adapt to them after a few levels of play without many issues. My personal recommendation would be that if you can get past the small screen and the cramped controls (see the screen shots and video above to get a sense of the game), then this game is a lot of fun and worth the money. However, if you have particularly large thumbs, you might be out of luck until we see an update (and unfortunately, I'm quite serious about this).

~M@