this seems like one of those videos you'd get recommended and it's absurdly, unnecessarily long, but it's actually a reasonable length. well edited. fun topic. i enjoy. i honestly always thought that the clear score was the amount of points you had to get to beat the level, so it always kinda stressed me out.
Mega Man 1 is such a beautiful anomoly of a game. So many decisions were made only in this game and were never repeated in any future iteration or spin-off of the series ever again. It's such a product of its time, the original Mega Man is, and I love it for that reason. All the hiccups, glitches, exploits, and weird design choices are things I'd never want to change. It makes it unique and special to me.
I hated Mega Man 1 for how difficult it was as a kid, but it's now my favorite one. It has a pretty good balance in most of its systems once you know the game well. Unlike games like Mega Man 2 where the buzzsaw is OP or later games where all the weapons suck.
Even back in the day, people realized this. If you pay attention (and it sounds like you do!), there are so many intentional parallels between Mega Man 1 and Mega Man X 1. Clever stuff aimed directly at the player, too, like switching it up so that the electric enemy is weak against the ice weapon. On a similar note, I like Time Man and Oil Man, but I wonder what a revised edition of Mega Man 1 would be like with an added Storm Man and... uhh... Sting Man, I guess? XD
I was always so confused when I picked up a score ball and nothing happened... Great video by the way! Rare to find a type of video which covers well-covered ground without it sounding like it's been covered before!
Mega Man Zero has a really in depth score/ranking system that makes it really rewarding on replays. Getting the S ranks encourages you to play the game in the most fun way possible.
Yeah, though it's more of a "grading" system than a traditional scoring one. 100 Mission Score means completing objectives whilst no-damaging whilst essentially speedrunning, on top of using no power-ups. Inti are sadists.
@@junkyardcrow1748the time limitations are pretty lenient, and I'm used to not using power ups since when I was a kid I couldn't figure out how to use the cyber elves lol. You can often get away with taking a few hits as well. So it's not quite as strict as it seems, but there's still very little room for error. I kind of love how demanding the s ranks are because you can keep coming back and seeing a tangible representation of your skill improving.
@@princessolmeca2933 Come to think of it, I never had that one. S ranked all of the others. I loved how the bosses of the level would get a new attack if you were on the path to S rank, and you could acquire it from them. More games should adjust difficulty based on how the player is doing, in my opinion.
The most wild thing to me about this is the bosses giving random score. I had noticed it appeared to be different each time but always assumed it probably had something to do with how I did on the level or fight itself and didn't give it any more thought than that. Why not just make it a set amount - any set amount? To what benefit is randomizng it even if you assumed people cared about score??
The score system definitely felt like a holdover from Capcom's days of making arcade games. It's a neat novelty, but I'm glad that they realized that it didn't really translate to console games well by the time they made the second one.
I used to believe that the score system was a requirement to beat each robot master or else if you beat them with a low enough score you restart the level so I'd occasionally grind in those tunnels for more points.
The Whose Line? bit with "You guys wanna fight?" got me good - fantastic editing, great humor, fun video. Definitely subscribing to see what you put out next! Keep it up, man! :)
I don't think points are obsolete, just weird for a linear platformer game that expects you to die and contine a lot like this. There's still a place for score attack games, like Analynn for instance. Or hell even games with a rank system like Megaman Zero
Just beating Mega Man 1 is already an achievement in and of itself without trying to get the perfect 1cc run. Though point systems can add an extra layer of challenge, especially for games built around optimization and not simply just trying to survive. Also, spicy hot take, I prefer how arcade games tied lives to score as opposed to most console games which tied them to coins, rings or severed heads. It gave a tangible benefit to playing well and made lives a more important resource.
@@NIMPAK1 [re: your profile picture] I really like the way Gimmick! ties item drops to the digits of the score, which makes paying attention to points worth doing even though it's a linear platformer (particularly, items drop when enemies are killed while the tens and hundreds digit match, with their value determining the item type, on top of points also giving extra lives when one has enough). There's still not a huge incentive to go for the max points possible (there's better ways to grind for lives than just getting a big score if one really wants to, since items can be combined into extra lives) but there is reason for the score system to be there and for the player to care about their score.
Especially if the score can be compared to other people’s scores. Not the same at all but look at most of the main Zachtronics games or Poly Bridge, where the point is to optimize the build, and you can feel good about where you got on the leaderboard. In regards to action games I don’t mind ranks like most sonic games or azure striker gunvolt or something because it’s a measure of proficiency at the game. So long as it’s fair. Super meat boy having time leaderboards also comes to mind. Or the mega man legacy collections and their challenge modes.
I love this format! Great work! I would love to see more "useless crap in video games" stuff with this "intrusive meme" thing. Your delivery is hilarious, too. Deadpan with a flare. Like you're excited by how done you are with this goofy thing lol Again, absolutely loved it!
I’ve watched a lot of gaming RUclips essays. This is a fantastic fresh take on something I once wondered and never thought I’d even think Of again. Preeeeshiate it
The score system is utilised to great effect in Castlevania Rondo of Blood, where each 20k points give an extra lives. When planning a 1cc run, this is really useful and it incentives exploration and beating bosses with minimal damage and subweapon usage. The score also correlates with currency, which can be used to buy boss videos if a player is struggling with patterns. Sonic 3k also effectively utilises points to serve as a motivator for higher levels of gameplay; as if you want a high score you have to both be quick and take minimal damage while collecting maximum rings, which completely flips the game structure on its head and requires a different level of strategy and recontextualises seemingly insignificant aspects of previous level design.
The editing is amazing and the topic itself was greatly explained and well researched, this overall was fantastic! I just know if you keep making such high quality videos like this, you'll achieve great success
You know how unthinkable it would be these days for a game to not have auto-save? That's kinda how developers thought about points in the past. In Capcom's case specifically, though, this was its first console game, so moreso than others, they were very much in the arcade mindset when making it.
Mega Man not having a time limit for levels was the main reason I felt this series wasn't QUITE as difficult as the other "NES hard" games i.e. Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads. In general it was only a bit harder than what my millennial, Gamecube & Wii era brain was used to.
bro your editing and presentation had me SHOCKED you have so few subscribers, it's so good! all you need is a better mic and your viewership will skyrocket
Admittedly, I normally just randomly get videos like this, watch them and never engage with the creator ever again. However, I paused the video right after I saw the Whose Line edit with the "Wanna fight?" and the health bar coming up, and I can't not subscribe. That is top notch editing.
Thank you for providing us with all this Useless Data. Someone, somewhere probably couldn't sleep at night without knowing that Robot Masters in MM1 gave completely random scores to the tally.
1:36 Subscribed. Holy fuck man, you just don't stop with the hits in this video. From the rolling rocks 0.5 A press explanation music to the sonic 1up sound and the memes like the spiderman NOOO.
This was a great video on a mechanic I never bothered to know more about! When you were showing scans of the first game's US manual, I noticed all enemies seem to refer to their appearances "on the robot masters" rather than their stages. Also not only was the crouch button misleading, but apparently pressing up on the d-pad makes Mega Man jump. AAAAAND the diagram of the controller is actually a Famicom controller, not an NES one! So many things wrong with the US packaging materials. I wonder if it was a new guy at the office doing it.
Maybe it was time constraints? They may have reused the Famicom controller graphic purely because the didn't have time to draw up an NES controller version.
Why does it state that you can crouch? I really doubt that that was ever even a thing in pre-release builds. Did they just guess what buttons do without even knowing how to play the game?
@@elio7610 I would think so. They were probably under the assumption that games "like Mario" let the player crouch. The whole localized packaging is a mixed bag of weird content. I wish we could have an interview with someone from that era to get a better understanding of the process at the time.
I wouldn’t dismiss score play in games completely, contemporary arcade inspired games bestow a great deal of thoughtful design into score play. Look no further than traditional bullet hells and score based games (hyper demon, killer queen black, etc). I think it’s a shame that an interesting and rewarding scoring system was among the casualties of megaman 1’s rocky development and I’d love to see a rom hack that maybe rebalances and fixes its issues.
Yeah, it's not that score itself is inherently broken, it's that a good scoring system is really hard to design. All it takes is one exploit to go infinite and the entire system is a waste.
This guy gets it. Nobody understand the appeal of scoring anymore because we have gotten use to games that have unbalanced and therefore meaningless scoring systems. I think speedrunners would enjoy scoreplay a lot, but the vast majority will never hear about masterpieces like Battle Garegga, Dodonpachi, etc.
Yeah, the comment about scoring implying the entire concept is worthless is a little strange. Console games, especially from the time, generally had really laughable scoring systems out of a sense of obligation, but that's more a them problem than an inherent problem of scoring as a whole.
yeah, agreed. games like nights into dreams and sonic adventure 2 are way funner when you actively try to get higher scores, which is the intended way to play.
0:16 If I remember correctly this happens because the game is still calculating your falling speed while standing on movable/temporary platforms when it really shouldn't, so if you fall from them you just drop like a box of Rocks at terminal velocity.
It's interesting how the score system was so pointless in the original Megaman that it was removed from subsequent games, but then came back with a vengeance in Megaman X and Zero.
Good video! Yeah, I never understood Mega Man 1's scoring system. The lack of a high score table made it all the more baffling! I always wondered about the Robot Master clear score. I had a feeling it was random, but never knew for sure. I appreciate all of the information! There actually is a Mega Man 1 hack that puts the gratuitous scoring system to use. A hacker by the name of Magus made a hack where you can trade score (100k, 200k, or 300k) to completely refill your health (like an E-Tank).
One note on 5:09 because I'm a fucking pedant and made an MM1 tas a billion years ago: score is not "random" and determined then and there, it's based on the frames and input up to the moment you select the boss in the menu. That's pretty much how rng is seeded in general on older systems
Games like this really made scores feel superfluous. Robust scoring systems can really feel rewarding if there is a cool System in place, but this goes to show why people have thought scores are silly and archaic.
Sweet video! Mega Man is my favorite game series of all time too, and I've kinda been dying for more high quality videos about it. This is not only entertaining, but very in-depth, and I love it. All the Powered Up music really makes me curious about the MMPU scoring system, too, like is it any better? I remember it being... okay.
Great video, I'm so glad I never messed with the score any time I played this game. I was tempted to at early points, but realizing how dumb it is that the boss score was random stopped me
I vaguely remember this tidbit when reading an old gaming article. In it, someone involved in development of Rockman mentioned that they were required to add a score system, because senior staff had this idea that good games needed score counters.
Every now and then I just think about the bulborb popping up with that "But, again, why would you do that" and just bust out laughing. I'm so glad this got the algorithm, it's so good, exhaustively thorough and hilarious throughout without going _too_ far with the memes
I never thought about there being a video about the scoring system in Mega Man, but now that there is one, it sure does a great job explaining in such a fun manner!
I first played this game in the beginning of the 90s, when I was 3 or 4, and to this day never paid any attention to the score. The most (mildly) interesting thing I learned from this video was the randomness of the clear points. I used to think it was perhaps supposed to be the developers' opinion on how hard the level or boss was, but never bothered to check further.
Holy shit Megaman 1 never really ending and just letting you play over and over again is actually really cool since that’s kinda what happens in the Megaman world anyways. Like endless fighting and stuff. Not intentional but very cool. Also idk why but I REALLY like points in games where points don’t matter (they are cool in arcade games but nothing else) Like my score in uhhh Mario Wii? Fuck yeah, that matters. I think it’s funny to care about them so I like, do
I remember when I was a kid thinking the declared points were a minimum I had to achieve before beating the stage actually counted rather than the bonus the stage’s boss was going to give.
Also, the sound of the point counter is forever stuck in my brain, and often times in public, I get really weird, cause my paranoia tells me that I'm hearing someone have the same exact sound as their ringtone, and it messed with me.
The “unnamed girl” at the end of the game is named Roll. Because megamans name is Rock so they’re Rock and Roll. I think it’s in the Japanese manual or in a magazine or something
Calling him Dr. "Wright" is actually what it's supposed to be. It's Mega Man 2 that screwed up by calling him "Light", and that just sort of stuck in English-speaking territories.
I always assumed it was a translation error/mix up from the Japanese to the English. Similar to why is Guts Man called Guts? Because Japanese refer to strong men as having strong guts? And the English translated it literally.
@@DTGee64They're all valid translations but as far as I've seen they tend to use "Right" far more often than the other spellings when romanizing it in Japanese works. Normally in games they just say "Dr.ライト" (usually with the English "Dr.", I assume originally for reasons of kanji being hard to show with space and resolution restrictions) but they do romanize it sometimes, like Rockman World 4 and 5 say "Right Lab" in the menus. There's also the use of "DRN" and the "Dr. R" emblem which both suggest a spelling with "R" rather than "Wr" or "L". It's not totally consistent though, like the ending of the PS1 version of 8 uses apparently "Light" even in Japanese while the Saturn version uses "Right".
A great deep dive into this odd mechanic! I don't think I've really seen it dissected by most youtubers. People really only mention it being bafflingly useless, but I do have several ideas about how it could've been used. The most logical assumption I have is that the team did want to tie your score to some sort of bonus/item shop mechanic, considering those weren't uncommon in Capcom games of that era. Along the way they might have realized such a system would have had a dramatic effect on the game's difficulty and balance and that's why they neutered it into uselessness, or maybe they couldn't polish it properly due to time constraints? Another potential explanation is that the score system would be tied to some sort of real-world contest, like, they would've had players mail their high score to the office and that'd possibly win them a prize. Once again, not exactly something unheard of back in the day. Alternatively, the devs themselves might have used the system for play-testing and marking progress in the stages somehow, or maybe they would compete with each other for fun and ended up not cutting the mechanic because they forgot or couldn't be bothered to do so. Either way, it's all fun to speculate about. Thank you for the quality content!
Mega Man 1 is definitely one of my favourite Mega Man games so I was really curious to find out what the score system was actually for. I was not expecting "Lmao they didn't know how to make video games yet" but that is probably the most Mega Man 1 answer ever
I like your editing style (and your mic? idk lol, the whole video overall just has that 2010s vibe to it and I love it) Just subscribed, keep going my friend
This was not the video I expected. No, this was way, way, _way_ funnier. And also, surprisingly informative in a way I also wasn't expecting. Well done! Also, this gives me a terrible, horrible idea for a stream… "Max Score" run, anyone? (Yeah, like I'm even remotely that good at this game…)
Hey dude, I don't usually go through the trouble of commenting on a video, but I enjoyed this so much that I figured I'd give it the good ol' algorithm boost. Your narration is snappy and witty, and the video itself is extremely well paced. I really hope you continue uploading in 2024, because while of course I enjoyed learning about this niche bizarre topic, I really enjoyed your presentation style and would love to see more from you! This was an easy sub for me, and I'm hoping the momentum continues :)
This video was great from start to finish! I can not believe sincerely that you don't have any more videos, because I felt like I could watch at least half an hour of your content per day. Please continue making videos like this one!
"Super Mario Bros. 3" actually has a great score system: that game gives you the N-Spade memory minigame every time you have collected 80,000 points. I found out about that just a few years ago, and it really took that game to another level, and made it even more awesome than it already was.
i always wondered about this but never once even began to care enough to look into it. thanks!! not only does it answer the question but it's just a REALLY well-done video!
Bro this was a great video I knew I was absolutely on board the second I saw the Whose Line bit, and it just kept getting better from there, keep it up, man
The fact that this man fact noticed the wily wars port didn't add the rematch fight score bonuses is kind of clinically insane
This mentality is the backbone of RUclips
I wanna be called a man fact one day.
@@wheedler 5 months and I still haven't financially recovered from this mistakrle
"Maybe next time you'll think twice before being born stupid" has immediately lodged itself into my vocabulary, thank you
What just happened? I watched the whole thing believing it was a 400k subs channel or something. This is gold.
this seems like one of those videos you'd get recommended and it's absurdly, unnecessarily long, but it's actually a reasonable length. well edited. fun topic. i enjoy.
i honestly always thought that the clear score was the amount of points you had to get to beat the level, so it always kinda stressed me out.
I agree with what you're saying uhh 3slimy5me?
frankly I was disappointed, I was 100% ready to watch a 1 hour long video about mm1's score system
Anyone can give me a link to a 2 hour long video essay on how Mega Man 1's Scoring system works?
@@Davian2073 36 minutes and 20 seconds is the best I can do. All you need to do is set playback speed to 0.25x
@@patu8010 Give me, please.
“What have we learned?”
We learned videos like this rock
they rock, man
Mega Man 1 is such a beautiful anomoly of a game. So many decisions were made only in this game and were never repeated in any future iteration or spin-off of the series ever again. It's such a product of its time, the original Mega Man is, and I love it for that reason. All the hiccups, glitches, exploits, and weird design choices are things I'd never want to change. It makes it unique and special to me.
I hated Mega Man 1 for how difficult it was as a kid, but it's now my favorite one. It has a pretty good balance in most of its systems once you know the game well. Unlike games like Mega Man 2 where the buzzsaw is OP or later games where all the weapons suck.
Same thing for me with this game, Kirby's Dream Land and Sonic The Hedgehog.
Early installation weirdness is a TV Trope page for that.
Even back in the day, people realized this. If you pay attention (and it sounds like you do!), there are so many intentional parallels between Mega Man 1 and Mega Man X 1. Clever stuff aimed directly at the player, too, like switching it up so that the electric enemy is weak against the ice weapon. On a similar note, I like Time Man and Oil Man, but I wonder what a revised edition of Mega Man 1 would be like with an added Storm Man and... uhh... Sting Man, I guess? XD
I think MM1 had the best difficulty level of the series too since you can't cheese your way through bosses with e-tanks
early-installment weirdness has such a charm to it
I was always so confused when I picked up a score ball and nothing happened...
Great video by the way! Rare to find a type of video which covers well-covered ground without it sounding like it's been covered before!
Mega Man Zero has a really in depth score/ranking system that makes it really rewarding on replays. Getting the S ranks encourages you to play the game in the most fun way possible.
Yeah, though it's more of a "grading" system than a traditional scoring one. 100 Mission Score means completing objectives whilst no-damaging whilst essentially speedrunning, on top of using no power-ups. Inti are sadists.
@@junkyardcrow1748the time limitations are pretty lenient, and I'm used to not using power ups since when I was a kid I couldn't figure out how to use the cyber elves lol. You can often get away with taking a few hits as well. So it's not quite as strict as it seems, but there's still very little room for error. I kind of love how demanding the s ranks are because you can keep coming back and seeing a tangible representation of your skill improving.
Not on the first game. Especially not in the first game. Getting a high ranking in first MMZ is a pain in the ass compared to the later games.
@@princessolmeca2933 Come to think of it, I never had that one. S ranked all of the others.
I loved how the bosses of the level would get a new attack if you were on the path to S rank, and you could acquire it from them.
More games should adjust difficulty based on how the player is doing, in my opinion.
@@Nobody-ud6ouusing cyber elves feels too much like digital murder ;_;
The editing is immaculate, I need more
Couldn't agree more
I think it's annoying
@@ncapone87 Well, it's not for everybody.
Puncuality, informative, entertaining and good editing... subbed
@@ncapone87thanks for sharing
What we have learned today was "oh right, Mega Man was supposed to be an Astro Boy arcade game or something, so they just left the points there."
Wow. I didnt know the yashiki was worthless or the robot masters point tally was random. Awesome work. Thanks for satisfying my curiousity
It might be more accurate to say the Yashiki is...pointless? lol
@@jacketofdiamondsba dum (pharaoh man punch)
Yeah it fully restored all your stuff it ain't worthless@@jacketofdiamonds
@@anueutsuho7425 hey I never said it was worthless. just pointless B)
maybe the real maximum score was the friends we made along the way
The most wild thing to me about this is the bosses giving random score. I had noticed it appeared to be different each time but always assumed it probably had something to do with how I did on the level or fight itself and didn't give it any more thought than that. Why not just make it a set amount - any set amount? To what benefit is randomizng it even if you assumed people cared about score??
The score system definitely felt like a holdover from Capcom's days of making arcade games. It's a neat novelty, but I'm glad that they realized that it didn't really translate to console games well by the time they made the second one.
It translated pretty well, but it had to be implemented differently. Ranking systems in games exist, and mobile games use high scores all of the time
I used to believe that the score system was a requirement to beat each robot master or else if you beat them with a low enough score you restart the level so I'd occasionally grind in those tunnels for more points.
I always love learning about useless megaman facts that i can't impress my friends with
The Whose Line? bit with "You guys wanna fight?" got me good - fantastic editing, great humor, fun video. Definitely subscribing to see what you put out next! Keep it up, man! :)
Came to say this exact thing. Thank you.
I don't think points are obsolete, just weird for a linear platformer game that expects you to die and contine a lot like this. There's still a place for score attack games, like Analynn for instance. Or hell even games with a rank system like Megaman Zero
Yeah it just depends on the game
Just beating Mega Man 1 is already an achievement in and of itself without trying to get the perfect 1cc run. Though point systems can add an extra layer of challenge, especially for games built around optimization and not simply just trying to survive.
Also, spicy hot take, I prefer how arcade games tied lives to score as opposed to most console games which tied them to coins, rings or severed heads. It gave a tangible benefit to playing well and made lives a more important resource.
Sonic actually is built around score. Makes it so you need to beat the game fast and without getting hit
@@NIMPAK1 [re: your profile picture] I really like the way Gimmick! ties item drops to the digits of the score, which makes paying attention to points worth doing even though it's a linear platformer (particularly, items drop when enemies are killed while the tens and hundreds digit match, with their value determining the item type, on top of points also giving extra lives when one has enough). There's still not a huge incentive to go for the max points possible (there's better ways to grind for lives than just getting a big score if one really wants to, since items can be combined into extra lives) but there is reason for the score system to be there and for the player to care about their score.
Especially if the score can be compared to other people’s scores. Not the same at all but look at most of the main Zachtronics games or Poly Bridge, where the point is to optimize the build, and you can feel good about where you got on the leaderboard.
In regards to action games I don’t mind ranks like most sonic games or azure striker gunvolt or something because it’s a measure of proficiency at the game. So long as it’s fair. Super meat boy having time leaderboards also comes to mind. Or the mega man legacy collections and their challenge modes.
I love this format! Great work! I would love to see more "useless crap in video games" stuff with this "intrusive meme" thing.
Your delivery is hilarious, too. Deadpan with a flare. Like you're excited by how done you are with this goofy thing lol
Again, absolutely loved it!
I’ve watched a lot of gaming RUclips essays. This is a fantastic fresh take on something I once wondered and never thought I’d even think
Of again.
Preeeeshiate it
everything i didn't need to know about megaman 1's weirdest quirk, all in one video
how convenient, also nice work
0:56 Tetris and Shmup players: "You what now?"
Great video
The score system is utilised to great effect in Castlevania Rondo of Blood, where each 20k points give an extra lives. When planning a 1cc run, this is really useful and it incentives exploration and beating bosses with minimal damage and subweapon usage. The score also correlates with currency, which can be used to buy boss videos if a player is struggling with patterns. Sonic 3k also effectively utilises points to serve as a motivator for higher levels of gameplay; as if you want a high score you have to both be quick and take minimal damage while collecting maximum rings, which completely flips the game structure on its head and requires a different level of strategy and recontextualises seemingly insignificant aspects of previous level design.
In defense of the score system, look, you saw the box art you knew what you were getting into.
"Megaman 1 is the only mainline game with 6 robot masters instead of 8"
Challenger from the Future:
The editing is amazing and the topic itself was greatly explained and well researched, this overall was fantastic! I just know if you keep making such high quality videos like this, you'll achieve great success
You know how unthinkable it would be these days for a game to not have auto-save? That's kinda how developers thought about points in the past. In Capcom's case specifically, though, this was its first console game, so moreso than others, they were very much in the arcade mindset when making it.
Perfect example. I personally do not care about autosaving if the game is design with it in mind, but it does diminish the challenge
It's a small thing but I want to praise the volume mixing here.
A lot of youtubers are less careful about how loud their random clips are.
Mega Man not having a time limit for levels was the main reason I felt this series wasn't QUITE as difficult as the other "NES hard" games i.e. Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads. In general it was only a bit harder than what my millennial, Gamecube & Wii era brain was used to.
bro your editing and presentation had me SHOCKED you have so few subscribers, it's so good! all you need is a better mic and your viewership will skyrocket
Admittedly, I normally just randomly get videos like this, watch them and never engage with the creator ever again. However, I paused the video right after I saw the Whose Line edit with the "Wanna fight?" and the health bar coming up, and I can't not subscribe. That is top notch editing.
The fact that you took the time to get the "maximum" score by itself is worth the thumbs up. Doing the science so we don't have to.
The physics joke at the start caught me off guard, LMAO
Thank you for providing us with all this Useless Data. Someone, somewhere probably couldn't sleep at night without knowing that Robot Masters in MM1 gave completely random scores to the tally.
I'm pretty sure in speedruns you want the lowest score from bosses and the fewest point balls. This reduces how much time you spend on end screens.
1:36
Subscribed.
Holy fuck man, you just don't stop with the hits in this video. From the rolling rocks 0.5 A press explanation music to the sonic 1up sound and the memes like the spiderman NOOO.
This was a great video on a mechanic I never bothered to know more about! When you were showing scans of the first game's US manual, I noticed all enemies seem to refer to their appearances "on the robot masters" rather than their stages. Also not only was the crouch button misleading, but apparently pressing up on the d-pad makes Mega Man jump. AAAAAND the diagram of the controller is actually a Famicom controller, not an NES one! So many things wrong with the US packaging materials. I wonder if it was a new guy at the office doing it.
Maybe it was time constraints? They may have reused the Famicom controller graphic purely because the didn't have time to draw up an NES controller version.
Why does it state that you can crouch? I really doubt that that was ever even a thing in pre-release builds. Did they just guess what buttons do without even knowing how to play the game?
@@elio7610 I would think so. They were probably under the assumption that games "like Mario" let the player crouch. The whole localized packaging is a mixed bag of weird content. I wish we could have an interview with someone from that era to get a better understanding of the process at the time.
hats off the the "you guys wanna fight" joke with the boss health charging up.
Well done.
and then you put in the old newgrounds flash animation of spring man slinking down the stairs.
ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME LIKE YOU?
This was really entertaining! Loved the ending. And I knew the score system was a mess, but yeeeesh, I had no idea it was this convoluted
I wouldn’t dismiss score play in games completely, contemporary arcade inspired games bestow a great deal of thoughtful design into score play. Look no further than traditional bullet hells and score based games (hyper demon, killer queen black, etc). I think it’s a shame that an interesting and rewarding scoring system was among the casualties of megaman 1’s rocky development and I’d love to see a rom hack that maybe rebalances and fixes its issues.
Yeah, it's not that score itself is inherently broken, it's that a good scoring system is really hard to design. All it takes is one exploit to go infinite and the entire system is a waste.
This guy gets it. Nobody understand the appeal of scoring anymore because we have gotten use to games that have unbalanced and therefore meaningless scoring systems. I think speedrunners would enjoy scoreplay a lot, but the vast majority will never hear about masterpieces like Battle Garegga, Dodonpachi, etc.
Yeah, the comment about scoring implying the entire concept is worthless is a little strange. Console games, especially from the time, generally had really laughable scoring systems out of a sense of obligation, but that's more a them problem than an inherent problem of scoring as a whole.
yeah, agreed. games like nights into dreams and sonic adventure 2 are way funner when you actively try to get higher scores, which is the intended way to play.
The score-ball drop rate was similar to the P-chip/bolt drop rate. Maybe score could be used in a shop system!
This really only has under 1000 views? You deserve way more, this is a really cool video!!
I’m so happy I found this video. Now I understand how score system works in Megaman. You made me laugh with the editing and made my day. Thank you!
I think the real competition would be who could beat the game with the lowest score without dying.
0:16
If I remember correctly this happens because the game is still calculating your falling speed while standing on movable/temporary platforms when it really shouldn't, so if you fall from them you just drop like a box of Rocks at terminal velocity.
It's interesting how the score system was so pointless in the original Megaman that it was removed from subsequent games, but then came back with a vengeance in Megaman X and Zero.
Good video! Yeah, I never understood Mega Man 1's scoring system. The lack of a high score table made it all the more baffling! I always wondered about the Robot Master clear score. I had a feeling it was random, but never knew for sure. I appreciate all of the information!
There actually is a Mega Man 1 hack that puts the gratuitous scoring system to use. A hacker by the name of Magus made a hack where you can trade score (100k, 200k, or 300k) to completely refill your health (like an E-Tank).
One note on 5:09 because I'm a fucking pedant and made an MM1 tas a billion years ago: score is not "random" and determined then and there, it's based on the frames and input up to the moment you select the boss in the menu. That's pretty much how rng is seeded in general on older systems
i love it when creators put memes at the end of their videos
Games like this really made scores feel superfluous. Robust scoring systems can really feel rewarding if there is a cool
System in place, but this goes to show why people have thought scores are silly and archaic.
Sweet video! Mega Man is my favorite game series of all time too, and I've kinda been dying for more high quality videos about it. This is not only entertaining, but very in-depth, and I love it.
All the Powered Up music really makes me curious about the MMPU scoring system, too, like is it any better? I remember it being... okay.
I should mention this was one of the funniest Mega Man videos on the Internet. Hats off. Never attempt this again.
you guys wanna fight?
* *health bar scrolls* *
I appreciate the restraint that you show in the editing. It's still a bit showy, but it's not as obnoxious as many other gaming videos on RUclips!
Great video, I'm so glad I never messed with the score any time I played this game. I was tempted to at early points, but realizing how dumb it is that the boss score was random stopped me
What if the real prize is the -friends we made- points we earned along the way?
Glitchless rollover percent sounds like a speed run.
This was an awesome video! I never usually think about the point system, but this was really fun to watch!
I vaguely remember this tidbit when reading an old gaming article. In it, someone involved in development of Rockman mentioned that they were required to add a score system, because senior staff had this idea that good games needed score counters.
Every now and then I just think about the bulborb popping up with that "But, again, why would you do that" and just bust out laughing. I'm so glad this got the algorithm, it's so good, exhaustively thorough and hilarious throughout without going _too_ far with the memes
Insanely good editing. I can't compliment it enough. Keep up the great work!
I never thought about there being a video about the scoring system in Mega Man, but now that there is one, it sure does a great job explaining in such a fun manner!
The "DAMMIT" at 0:16 lives rent free in my head
Congrats on 100 subscribers!
I first played this game in the beginning of the 90s, when I was 3 or 4, and to this day never paid any attention to the score. The most (mildly) interesting thing I learned from this video was the randomness of the clear points. I used to think it was perhaps supposed to be the developers' opinion on how hard the level or boss was, but never bothered to check further.
Holy shit Megaman 1 never really ending and just letting you play over and over again is actually really cool since that’s kinda what happens in the Megaman world anyways. Like endless fighting and stuff. Not intentional but very cool.
Also idk why but I REALLY like points in games where points don’t matter (they are cool in arcade games but nothing else)
Like my score in uhhh Mario Wii? Fuck yeah, that matters. I think it’s funny to care about them so I like, do
This is really well edited and well paced. Definitely hope to see more even if it's non megaman!
Extremely well edited video for someone with 300 subs. +1
I remember when I was a kid thinking the declared points were a minimum I had to achieve before beating the stage actually counted rather than the bonus the stage’s boss was going to give.
Also, the sound of the point counter is forever stuck in my brain, and often times in public, I get really weird, cause my paranoia tells me that I'm hearing someone have the same exact sound as their ringtone, and it messed with me.
And the point counter always obscures part of the boss intro music and confused The Wily Wars' composer about what that melody was supposed to be!
Great work with these first two videos! Good information, good humor, good editing. I hope we get to see more from you in the future :)
The “unnamed girl” at the end of the game is named Roll. Because megamans name is Rock so they’re Rock and Roll. I think it’s in the Japanese manual or in a magazine or something
Or in the pal manual maybe
Calling him Dr. "Wright" is actually what it's supposed to be. It's Mega Man 2 that screwed up by calling him "Light", and that just sort of stuck in English-speaking territories.
"Wright" isn't really correct either I think, considering the Japanese versions spell it "Right" (sans-W).
I always assumed it was a translation error/mix up from the Japanese to the English. Similar to why is Guts Man called Guts? Because Japanese refer to strong men as having strong guts? And the English translated it literally.
@@GrizonII He's called ライト博士, which can be translated as "Dr. Wright", "Dr. Right" or "Dr. Light".
@@DTGee64They're all valid translations but as far as I've seen they tend to use "Right" far more often than the other spellings when romanizing it in Japanese works. Normally in games they just say "Dr.ライト" (usually with the English "Dr.", I assume originally for reasons of kanji being hard to show with space and resolution restrictions) but they do romanize it sometimes, like Rockman World 4 and 5 say "Right Lab" in the menus. There's also the use of "DRN" and the "Dr. R" emblem which both suggest a spelling with "R" rather than "Wr" or "L". It's not totally consistent though, like the ending of the PS1 version of 8 uses apparently "Light" even in Japanese while the Saturn version uses "Right".
I hope you keep on making content! This video was very well done!
Nicely done! I can't wait to see more vids from you!
A great deep dive into this odd mechanic! I don't think I've really seen it dissected by most youtubers. People really only mention it being bafflingly useless, but I do have several ideas about how it could've been used.
The most logical assumption I have is that the team did want to tie your score to some sort of bonus/item shop mechanic, considering those weren't uncommon in Capcom games of that era. Along the way they might have realized such a system would have had a dramatic effect on the game's difficulty and balance and that's why they neutered it into uselessness, or maybe they couldn't polish it properly due to time constraints?
Another potential explanation is that the score system would be tied to some sort of real-world contest, like, they would've had players mail their high score to the office and that'd possibly win them a prize. Once again, not exactly something unheard of back in the day. Alternatively, the devs themselves might have used the system for play-testing and marking progress in the stages somehow, or maybe they would compete with each other for fun and ended up not cutting the mechanic because they forgot or couldn't be bothered to do so.
Either way, it's all fun to speculate about. Thank you for the quality content!
I hope to see more videos covering gameplay mechanics like this. I wish you good fortune on your channel
Mega Man 1 is definitely one of my favourite Mega Man games so I was really curious to find out what the score system was actually for. I was not expecting "Lmao they didn't know how to make video games yet" but that is probably the most Mega Man 1 answer ever
This might be one of those diamond in the rough channels. Great editing and you can tell you've done your research and then some!
when they make a mega man 1 scoremaxxing speedrun category I'm blaming you
So, what have we learned?
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This video is my kind of content, really hope youre working on more!
Thus feels like Cybershell but for Mega Man
Subbed
I like your editing style (and your mic? idk lol, the whole video overall just has that 2010s vibe to it and I love it)
Just subscribed, keep going my friend
Awesome video! I'd love to see this get more recognition!
This was not the video I expected. No, this was way, way, _way_ funnier. And also, surprisingly informative in a way I also wasn't expecting. Well done!
Also, this gives me a terrible, horrible idea for a stream… "Max Score" run, anyone?
(Yeah, like I'm even remotely that good at this game…)
The first 40 seconds of this video showed me that you and I should be friends.
Hey dude, I don't usually go through the trouble of commenting on a video, but I enjoyed this so much that I figured I'd give it the good ol' algorithm boost.
Your narration is snappy and witty, and the video itself is extremely well paced. I really hope you continue uploading in 2024, because while of course I enjoyed learning about this niche bizarre topic, I really enjoyed your presentation style and would love to see more from you! This was an easy sub for me, and I'm hoping the momentum continues :)
This was delightful; thank you for making it
I could watch videos about weird, obscure Mega Man trivia all day. Please keep it up!
Amazing editing and I knew literally none of this. Fantastic work. You just got a new sub.
This video was great from start to finish! I can not believe sincerely that you don't have any more videos, because I felt like I could watch at least half an hour of your content per day. Please continue making videos like this one!
"Super Mario Bros. 3" actually has a great score system:
that game gives you the N-Spade memory minigame every time you have collected 80,000 points.
I found out about that just a few years ago, and it really took that game to another level, and made it even more awesome than it already was.
i always wondered about this but never once even began to care enough to look into it. thanks!! not only does it answer the question but it's just a REALLY well-done video!
Bro this was a great video
I knew I was absolutely on board the second I saw the Whose Line bit, and it just kept getting better from there, keep it up, man
Congrats on your success, RUclips recommended me your Zelda video and now we're here.
I mean people do play for score, but it is differently implemented. Like S Ranks are basically the same thing and in popular games in Sonic and DMC.
This is my new favorite Mega Man content. You are a light in a dark tunnel for me as a Mega Man fan. Keep it up!
This was wonderfully put together. I’d love to hear your thoughts on more topics from the series! Instant subscription.
I love the video idea and your editing.
MM1's scoring really was something that bugged me whenever I thought about it, good stuff esp the roulette values for bosses, I NEVER noticed lol.