61 Frames Per Second

Shadow Man



As Pete said, Mega Man III started to strain the series' robot-masters-as-industrial-tool conceit. Silly as Top Man is, I have even more trouble getting my head around Shadow Man and his lair sitting at the bottom of a waterfall of lava. What was the civic-planning meeting like for this one? "Finally, we have used the remaining funds in 200X's robot-master budget to build a crazy-sweet ninja robot who lives in a rad fortress at the bottom of a lava flow. He will be protected by robot frogs and parachuting heads." "Madness! Why would you do such a thing?" "Because, sir. It is awesome." Know what? He's right. — JC

Bubble Man



A big part of the classicness of any given Mega Man stage is the music. Bubble Man's got one of the greatest tunes in the series, an unforgettable bit of melodic pop that builds quickly to a dazzling chorus of harmonized square waves and Van-Halen-esque arpeggios, all over an appropriately watery triangle-wave bassline. But let's not forget the stage itself, which follows our hero from a huge waterfall, down into a cramped subaquatic tunnel (some kind of refinery?) stuffed with giant robot lantern fish, then back out into the open air for a showdown with the local kingpin. As in so many classic Mega Man levels, there's a beautiful sense of the elemental here — the breeze, the cold metal, the spray of the sea. — PS

Crystal Man



You'd think Capcom's increasing ability to push the NES hardware would've made stages in the later Mega Man games even more memorable than their simpler precursors. Unfortunately, this usually wasn't the case. Many levels in Mega Man II and III gave you just enough detail to fire your imagination, and not enough to stifle it; the increased detail of IV through VI actually made the stages seem less like real places and more like digital constructions. Sometimes the most evocative background of all is just a sinister and inviting black. Still, the fancier graphics of later games did allow the occasional surrealist delight, like Crystal Man's stage, a jagged landscape of shimmering gems and glass-tube-enclosed machinery. For a brief and gorgeous section, the blue background switches to glowing hot pink like an animated bar sign. — PS

Dr. Wily's Castle, Part 1



This is the finest stage in the entire Mega Man franchise, spin-offs included. Mega Man II has four scenes of explicit narrative, and outside of the introduction's brief narration, they are wordless, used only to provide spatial context. What is remarkable about the first stage of Wily's castle is how it conveys scale and design independent of the cutscene that precedes it, how its propulsive music perfectly illustrates exhaustion, finality, and resolve. It is an assault, the scaling of a mountain using literally every tool at your disposal. The level concludes with actually breaching the fortress' walls and finding a chasm, the crossing of which requires precisely timed jumps across miniscule platforms. The castle's guardian, a screen-filling robotic dragon, destroys your footing in its pursuit. The stage, the music, the opponents reveal everything about this world and its stakes: you are fighting a madman on his terms and survival is not guaranteed. Remarkable. — JC

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

What'd we miss? Tell us in the comments. For the record, we like Flame Man's arabesque oil well and Tomahawk Man's cod-western badlands too, but nothing from MMVI makes the top ten in fairness. MMVII and MMVIII are beneath discussion.