This is the only legitimate
Mega Man game for the
Sega Genesis. It's a
Super Mario All-Stars-style collection of the first three
Mega Man games (
Mega Man,
Mega Man 2, and
Mega Man 3) in a single package. All the graphics and sounds have been updated for the
Genesis by Capcom, while the old password system has been dumped in favor of a battery-pak for saving games. After completing all three games a new set of levels,
Wily Tower, become available where
Mega Man faces off against three new
Robot Masters (
Buster Rod,
Mega Water, and
Hyper Storm) and then against
Dr. Wily himself in his new tower. This news section of the game is especially unique as
Mega Man can equip himself with any combination of weapons and items from all three
Mega Man games on the cartridge. However, he is limited to eight weapons and three items at a time. The
Wily Tower levels also include elements and enemies from each of the other games on the cartridge.
The games themselves have been tweaked slightly. Mega Man is a bigger sprite and the timing of all the games is a little different from their NES counterparts. They seem to run slightly slower, forcing players to relearn the classic patterns of games passed. Oh, and of course the graphics and sounds are pumped up.
If you ever get your hands on this cartridge, hang on to it. The game was released in cartridge form in Europe and Japan in 1993, but in the USA the game only appeared on the Sega Channel for a brief time, making the cartridge version somewhat of a collector's item. It's been seen on eBay fetching prices of hundreds of dollars. The ROM of the game is floating around on the Internet, but due to some technical glitch the emulated version does not save correctly. As a result Wily Tower is unavailable. Luckily there is also a hacked save state lurking around that will take players right to the menu screen for the initial battles against Buster Rod, Mega Water, and Hyper Storm.