Games | Nintendo Entertainment System | Game Boy | Mega Man Series | Ice Man
Article by wumpwoast | November 8, 2007
Over the years, Capcom has made no less than fifty Mega Man games, and about forty-five of them have an ice level of one sort or another. Why are Capcom so cold-hearted? Perhaps it's because Ice Man's stage in the first Mega Man left them plenty of room for improvement.
Aside from the scenery and cute propeller penguins, the stage has two notable cornerstones: shitloads of disappearing blocks, and randomly-moving platforms suspended over long pits that fire at each other. If you're standing on one platform, chances are you're being fired on by the one in front of you AND the one behind.
Developers don't seem to understand that arbitrary platforming exercises over long bottomless pits provide the kind of situation that strips a stage of its character. These sections are painful, and players tend to repress their memories of dying again and again.
Not that Ice Man isn't a forgettable boss anyways. It's an established tradition in Fairbanks, Alaska for the entire town to dress up as Ice Man for Halloween. He's your typical kid in a light blue parka, the kind you'd see on an obnoxious three-year-old boy. Now you know why there are so many frozen robot masters in the Mega Man universe: somebody at Capcom wishes they could wipe Ice Man from the records. By the way, his icicles drop you in three hits. The kid plays rough.
Switching over to the Game Boy, Ice Man's stage has seen small improvements, with melting blocks and falling icicles that serve as dynamic platforms. These non-arbitrary elements go a long way to making the stage interesting, although the lack of randomly-drifting foothoolds certainly doesn't hurt. Somehow those flying curling pucks didn't end up in the NES Ice Man's stage -- perhaps they didn't play nice with the robotic penguins.
In an "unexpected" surprise twist, the Ice Slasher weapon allows Mega Man to freeze enemies in their tracks. Just the thing for dealing with vertical flame columns or the otherwise unavoidable Big Eye.
Next on NES: The Bomb That Fizzled
Next on Game Boy: A Little Fire, Scarecrow