Mega Man Legacy Collection 2

This collection of four platforming games will test your skills and your patience by building on its 30-year franchise of difficult, fast-paced robot combat. Following up on 2015's collection of the first six titles for the NES, the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 closes out the major titles of the series by adding in two of the titles released on the SNES (Mega Man 7 and 8) and the more recently released downloadable throwback titles. This set continues the tradition of featuring gallery work for the games, along with game soundtracks and loads of challenges. The challenges are what extend the gameplay significantly, testing things like how quickly you can beat a game, defeat enemies with the default blaster, or complete stages multiple times. In fact, for fans of this franchise, the challenges will keep them coming back long after they've finished destroying Wily's bots. Plus, the addition of a bonus armor mode for the Nintendo Switch version helps if you just can't complete a challenge or a stage because it's just too difficult -- which will hopefully be added to the other versions of the game.

But players should know that Legacy Collection 2 isn't entirely perfect -- you're getting two fewer titles in this collection than in the previous one. That isn't a make-or-break issue, but considering that there are other spin-off Mega Man games and titles from portable platforms, more games could've been included in this one as well. Worse, only three of these games feel like an acceptable challenge. Mega Man 8 is quirky with its voice acting and its ability to use multiple weapons at once, but it feels like an expansion to the franchise's gameplay. Mega Man 9 and 10, in embracing the classic visuals, also cranked the series difficulty to a controller-shattering level, which will give even the most hardened player fits of rage (in both a good and a bad way). But Mega Man 7 is the odd game out, because the gameplay feels slow, clunky, and unimpressive. Without any improvements to the on-screen action, it stands out like a sore thumb compared to the other games in this franchise. As a result, most players will probably choose to skip this game in favor of the other three, especially when they want to truly test their gaming abilities with this great platforming collection.