I like Mega Man Legends. I like it a lot. It's probably one of my favorite PSX games, and one of the more underrated games on my roster – it's certainly got a lot more heart and soul than overrated PSX junk like Final Fantasy VII. Although the gameplay itself is simple in design, it's the perfect melding of the action and RPG genres – as well as a good story and likeable cast of characters – that makes the game so enjoyable, at least from my perspective. After a couple of years of building my seal of approval, Capcom announced that it was planning on releasing a port of the game on N64 (which had always been my favorite of the two competing consoles) in the form of Mega Man 64. That seemed like good news – I liked my N64 and I liked Legends, and although I had played through the original adventure several times I was more than willing to give it a shot on Nintendo's 64-bit console. Little was I aware that Capcom did nothing but disappoint fans of the original.
In short, Mega Man 64 sucks.
Okay, maybe that's not entirely fair. After all, this is still the entire original game ported so all those N64-only owners who missed the adventure the first time around could experience this great little title first-hand. And I suppose that if I hadn't played the original PSX game several years beforehand, I might have enjoyed this version a bit more. But then again, maybe not. Not only is Mega Man 64 an appalling port, it also takes little advantage of the N64 hardware itself. Mega Man 64 was released in 2001 during the final days of the underrated console's life (when its greatest hardware assets had already been uncovered with such gorgeous games as Banjo-Tooie and Majora's Mask), as well as the arrival of two far more powerful consoles (Dreamcast and PS2) and yet the pathetic port still proceeded in making the game feel dated and totally outclassed in every sense of the word.
Before I get into the wretchedness of this port, let me just fill in the blanks for those of you who have yet to play either the PSX original or this N64 redux. Legends takes place in “a world covered by endless water” where the people who inhabit the planet must “eke out a living on the small patches of land that remain above the sea.” Many of these inhabitants work as Diggers, who scour ancient mines and ruins for age-old treasures, including Refractors, a key power source. You are Mega Man, a half-boy, half-robot Digger that excavates said ruins. Mega Man travels the world with his lady friend Roll, her grandpa, and a mysterious little mechanical monkey named Data. When you boot up the game, you're crossing the ocean in the Flutter, Roll's own airship. Something goes haywire, and the ship crash-lands on Kattelox Island, a small but fairly well-populated island that's covered with ruins and may contain the legendary Mother Lode. Then the pirates (also known as the Bonne Brothers) come and attack the island and it's up to you to save the day and blah, blah, blah. It's not a bad story but you've heard it all before.
Mega Man 64, though (or rather the original Legends), does have a sound concept that, with the right execution, works very well. You'll be exploring the island throughout the majority of the game. There's a central city and several other key points, and often times throughout the game you'll have to fight through the Bonnes' attacks in some pretty thrilling sequences. On top of that, you'll also be given the chance to excavate ruins at various points of the game to either progress the storyline or hunt for parts that can be used to upgrade your buster gun or provide a host of interesting secondary weapons. Although such RPG-like elements are present, Mega Man 64 is essentially an action game, with a real-time battle system that has you studying enemy movements and attacks and countering them with your own set of weapons and evasive movements. There's also a lock-on system, though you can't move while locking on.
So what's the problem with Mega Man 64? Simple: It's a sucky port. Think about it this way: Legends gets released on PSX around 1997 or 1998 (I, sadly, do not have my facts straight). Three or four years later (and after a sequel to said game that contains some logical improvements), Legends gets re-released on a more powerful system, yet actually looks and plays significantly worse than the original, and contains absolutely no new content whatsoever. What the hell is that? How does something like that happen? It's rarely enough to simply port a game to another system with no changes. Capcom took the PSX version and released it for a console that's roughly twice as powerful, but they didn't take advantage of the fact that they were working with better technology. From the looks of this game, in fact, I believe that Capcom thought the N64 was actually less powerful.
The original Legends was certainly no visual masterpiece, even for its time. The characters and environments were extremely blocky, the textures were messy and low-resolution, and the animations were stiff and unattractive. But good lord – Mega Man 64 looks even worse, and this was released three years later on a more powerful console! The characters are unimaginably clunky and choppy in their movements. Textures, thanks to the N64's blur filter, don't look nearly as sharp, and the color palette has been toned down several notches. The game's draw distances are also impressively worse that those of the original (which makes absolutely no sense). To top it all off, the game's camera, which had its fair share of messiness in the first game, is absolutely ghastly. As Mega Man lurches and pivots around the screen, it constantly stays at a fixed position behind him, clipping through walls and objects that come between it and the Blue Bomber. Please, we don't need to see this.
The game doesn't play much better than it looks. The original was fine for its time because it made use of the d-pad (without need for analog) for movements and the shoulder buttons were for strafing and dodging. The Dual Shock controller felt like a decidedly nice match for the adventure, and made the game playable even if the controls were a little goofy at first. The same can, unfortunately, not be said about the N64 controller. You can use either the d-pad or analog stick for moving around, and they both suck in terms of control. The d-pad was used in the first game so that's the obvious choice, though the N64's d-pad is very stiff and uncomfortable, especially for a game filled with such constant intensity. But what about the analog stick? You can use it, sure, but Capcom decided not to incorporate analog control into this title, despite the fact that it was becoming very much a standard by 2001 (and after Legends 2 had full analog sensitivity). So, while you can use the analog stick, it feels terrible, as there's no level of sensitivity and only eight directions in which you can walk.
The game's structure is entirely the same, but that's not to say it's up to 2001 standards. Legends was a good game back in its days, but between the release of that game and this eye-straining port, we've not only seen the sequel add various improvements (such as analog control and a full-fledged targeting system) into the formula that are suspiciously absent from Mega Man 64, but we've also seen the arrival of two new consoles and many evolutions of the action genre. As a result, Mega Man 64 is a very dated game. The dungeons, once intriguing and complex, are now simple and somewhat mindless. The targeting system (which forces you to stand in place and randomly cycles through enemies) is just awful, especially after Legends 2 introduced a very Zelda-like system that made the game easier but worked better. This version of the quest doesn't even have any new content – even the menus are identical! What's the point?
Pros
+ It's a port of the once-great Mega Man Legends.
+ You might have fun if you never played the original.
+ Story and characters are still kinda fun.
Cons
- A horribly lazy port that adds nothing to the original.
- It actually looks worse than the PSX game!
- The N64 controller just doesn't work as well.
- Dated design.
- Absolutely no new content.
Overall: 2/10
Mega Man 64 is a pointless game, as there is no reason to get it other than if you absolutely refuse to buy a Sony console. Not only is the original game much, much better, it's also cheaper and can't get away with laziness factor on the developers' part since it was an entirely original game. If you really want to get into these games, then simply buy a PSX if you seriously don't already have one. That way, not only can you get your hands on the better-looking, better-playing Mega Man Legends, but you can also check out the exclusive sequel that never made it to the N64 lot. Legends was, as I said in my review, a surprisingly well-made game that presents some really interesting concepts and a lot of solid execution to go along with it. Mega Man 64 spits in the original's face. Avoid this contagious disease of a game.

Reviews on Vizzed must be exclusive to Vizzed so I'll have to close this:

Original review:
http://64dd.net/modules/games/index.php?system=n64&type=released§ion=main&id=185