Mega Man Legacy Collection brings the six Famicom/NES games in the series to your Nintendo 3DS, and beefs it up with a number of extras and goodies. Expect art galleries, a music player and a long list of challenges.

If you have played Mega Man before (especially the NES or Game Boy ones), you can skip ahead a couple of paragraphs. For the few of you who have never, get ready for some Mega Man 101. Basically, every game starts out with a roster of six robots on the haywire, all under control of the wily Dr. Wily. You can complete these first six Robot Masters (with their matching stages) in any order you want. However, every robot has at least one weakness. So if you want to give yourself a little breeze in these I-want-to-throw-my-3DS-out-of-the-window hard games you will want to find out the weaknesses of the bosses. Because when you defeat a Robot Master, you acquire its special weapon which can be used in the next stages. Having a super-effective weapon on hand when facing the next boss gives you some serious advantage.

Other typical aspects of a Mega Man game are the final stages, which bring you face to face with Dr. Wily, who will use some big machinery to stop you. But only after you have battled a number of sub-bosses and the Robot Masters again. As said before, these games are hard. Further the game really has a learning curve, since you will be forced to remember orders of appearing and disappearing platforms, or attack patterns of the enemies and bosses.

What is great about this Legacy Collection is that the emulation of the games is spot on. The games play exactly as the originals. This includes frame rate drops, glitches in the graphics et cetera, all adding to the nostalgia feel. You can choose to play the games with or without a border around the screen, depending on your liking. Personally, I found the borders a little bit distracting. What is a big minus of the game however is the lack of 3D support. Capcom could have taken learning from Nintendo, or from Sega with their 3D Classics approach. The lower screen shows artwork from the title you’re playing, and gives you an extra menu when the game is paused using the R button.

In this menu you will find one of the most convenient extras in MMLE; the option to load and save your game. This means that you can cheat a bit, for example by saving before a difficult part or boss battle. If you die, load your save game and you won’t lose your precious lives. Other options include changing the controls, and turning the before-mentioned screen border on or off.

Each game also has a rich vault of bonus content in the form of a Database and a Museum. The Museum shows artwork from the game such as character models, manuals, advertisements and more. Especially the EU/US box arts are hilarious, and definitely worth checking out. The Database works as an encyclopaedia, giving you info about the enemies and bosses in the game, and very useful, their HP and weaknesses.

Another big part of the Legacy Collection are the Challenges. This extensive list (which can be extended even further if you have a Mega Man amiibo to scan) gives you a series of challenges. These vary from fighting one boss to fighting a number of bosses, to remixes of games where you are thrown in random sections of a game (or even multiple games). These remixes are not as extensive as the remixes from for example NES remix, but they are fun. Some challenges are done easy, especially when you have played through the main games. Other ones are brutal, as they for example prohibit the use of items. Completing them all under par time is quite a challenge indeed.

The final two options are the Music Player, and the choice of version. The latter gives you the option to play the NES version (Mega Man) or the Famicom version (Rock Man) of the games. The Music Player lets you listen to every tune from every game, and is well worth your visit as the sound tracks of these games are amazing, and have inspired many a chiptune artist. Too bad the music stops when you close the system.

If you have all Mega Man games on the 3DS on Virtual Console already, you can probably skip this title, since the Challenges are a nice addition, but not as revolutionary as for example the ones found in NES Remix. Otherwise, this game is great value for money. Even if you have played the titles before, 15 euros is a steal for having these games available on a portable device, and the extras are a nice addition.