It's time for something a little extra special as we approach the end of MEGA MAY.
While Mega Man: Powered Up is a remake of the very first Mega Man game, this review is essentially a remake of the very first review I ever wrote. This was before SuperPhillip Central even came to be back in June 2008! And while I only published my original Mega Man: Powered Up review on SPC in 2009, the review itself is indeed older than the site, debuting around 2006 or so!
Here's the old review as posted on SPC in all its "glory" (for lack of a better term)! We all have to start somewhere, and I'd like to think I've become a better writer and moreover a reviewer since then.
That all notwithstanding, I wanted to revisit one of my favorite Mega Man games, and in turn, that found me revisiting my reviewing past. All the same, here's my 2026 review of Mega Man: Powered Up!
Powered Up, and ready to Rock.
It was at one time where in every direction you looked, boom! There was a Mega Man game in sight. We didn't know how good we had it, really, as nowadays, Mega Man releases are limited to the sporadic retro collections and the even rarer brand-new release. One Mega Man game that hasn't been included in such a retro collection is one that definitely has fallen through the cracks over the years: Mega Man: Powered Up, a PlayStation Portable release.
Mega Man: Powered Up is a remake and somewhat of a re-imagining of the original Mega Man. The most apparent difference is the chibi aesthetic applied to the game, but there is a lot more added to this spirited remake. In fact, there is SO much more to it.
Right away, upon starting the game and a save file, you get the choice between three difficulties: Easy, Normal, and Hard. Easy provides additional makeshift platforms to allow the more challenging jumps in the game to be less stressful and difficult. Normal is the default difficulty, of course, and how someone who isn't a beginner with the Blue Bomber should enter the game. Finally, Hard Mode adds to an already challenging game by boosting the damage Mega Man takes from enemies and hazards.
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| See how a boy became a Mega Man in Powered Up's brand-new opening stage. |
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| Levels feel more compact due to the PSP, but they're just as enjoyable. |
From there, the traditional Mega Man way reveals itself. That is, you select between one of eight Robot Master stages to begin with. Each stage houses its own theming, locale, challenges, hazards, enemies, and of course, at the end of a given stage, the Robot Master you must do battle with in a boss fight. Due to the wider real estate of the PSP screen, as well as the larger character models incorporated into Powered Up versus the NES original, stages are more compact and scrunched in appearance. They're still designed similarly across both games, but visually they're a little different due to the above reason.
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| Special effects like these cute explosions add to Powered Up's chibi-style charm. |
The original Mega Man only included six Robot Masters before the standard eight would be featured in future installments. Mega Man: Powered Up adds two brand-new Robot Masters into the fray: Time Man and Oil Man, each with their own stages. Whereas Time Man's stage takes place in a clock tower with electric pendulums to avoid, as well as the possibility to frustratingly fall to a previous level of the stage, Oil Man's stage occurs in an oil refinery, complete with slippery puddles of oil that will send Mega Man falling on his butt if he's not careful.
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| Oil Man and Time Man are the new Robot Masters on the block, and their stages are just as wonderfully designed as the original Robot Master stages. |
The Robot Master battles that occur at the end of each of the eight initial stages are more complex than the NES original. Each battle plays out similarly at the start to the battles seen in the original Mega Man, but as a Robot Master's health enters low territory, a new move will be added to their arsenal. From Cut Man throwing a massive boomerang, to Bomb Man chucking a big bomb with a large, explosive radius to it, these moves add some fun, albeit dangerous curve balls to those who think they know the OG Mega Man like the back of their hand.
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| Cut Man's living on borrowed time, so his desperation attack cuts to the chase! |
Furthermore, and one of the coolest additions to Mega Man: Powered Up among a host of many awesome additions, is the ability to play as all eight Robot Masters, each with their own unique abilities. Bomb Man tosses bouncing bombs, Fire Man launches pillars of flames, Ice Man lets loose freezing chunks of ice at foes, etc. These Robot Masters become playable if you defeat them as Mega Man with his Mega Buster only instead of any special weapon.
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| Playable Robot Masters like Bomb Man? It's an absolute blast! |
Yes, true to the series's penchant, defeated Robot Masters give Mega Man their primary special weapon. For instance, Guts Man's Guts Arm allows Mega Man to lift up certain blocks and chuck them away at baddies. These can be cycled through with the PSP's shoulder buttons or selected from the pause menu, in case you'd rather take a breather and select a weapon when you're not inundated with enemy attacks.
Also, true to the series's penchant, there's generally a recommended order for taking on the Robot Masters due to all of them being weak to a given other Robot Master's special weapon. Whereas Cut Man's Rolling Cutter slices through Bomb Man's bombs (and Bomb Man himself) with ease, Ice Man is no match for and gets quite the shock from Elec Man's Thunder Beam. Though, I found the order to fight the Robot Masters initially didn't matter since I wanted to unlock each Robot Master as a playable character. Thus, I took each on with Mega Man's Mega Buster exclusively. You can imagine how much of a challenge this could be, however!
The playable Robot Masters each have their own version of the game's story to play through with different voiced dialogue as they meet each other Robot Master in their stage, which was something I did not expect but was positively surprised by. Furthermore, the stages in general have all-new areas and alternate paths that only specific Robot Masters can reach.
Not only that, but unlike the original Mega Man, where once you beat a stage, you couldn't return to it, Mega Man: Powered Up's stages encourage you to replay them with obtained special weapons and Robot Masters due to the fact that they contain brand-new items in them called construction kits. These come in pink and yellow forms (enemy and scenery packs, respectively), and these unlock new customization and construction options in Powered Up's coolest feature: the stage creator.
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| Construction kits are housed and hidden in all manner of locations in levels, encouraging replays. |
Yes, with packs earned throughout Mega Man and his friends' adventures, you can create your own stages within Powered Up. It all starts with choosing a specific enemy pack and scenery pack and then letting your imagination take over. The included tutorial is a great help, and the tools to design your own stage are really intuitive, too, and easy to use. You can even select which character or characters you can play as, which Robot Master awaits at the end of your custom stage, include how much health your playable character starts with at the beginning of the stage, what special weapons they have to utilize, and of course, you can give your stage a name. At the time of release you could even share your stages online and play others', which was a mighty cool aspect of the game.
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| Make your own masterpieces come to life in Mega Man: Powered Up's in-depth stage creator. |
Mega Man: Powered Up is an immensely meaty Mega Man game. With the dozen or so replayable stages to play and beat on all three difficulties, including as each Robot Master (and the game keeps track of this for completionists out there), the in-depth mega-cool stage creator, a slew of special challenges focusing on different special weapons and abilities, and a multitude of unlockables, Mega Man: Powered Up will keep you playing for a looong time.
It's also a dang difficult game. Despite taking a lot of influence and inspiration from later Mega Man games, what Mega Man: Powered Up does not give the player is that of E-Tanks. Those wouldn't be introduced until Mega Man 2. These health-restoring tanks made a lot of future Mega Man games more manageable, but in Powered Up, they're not present at all. Thus, while you do have an inviting, cutesy chibi anime aesthetic with Mega Man: Powered Up, the difficulty of the game couldn't be any less welcoming comparatively to the art style!
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| Mega Man: Powered Up is positively flooded with chibi-style charm! |
That said, the challenge is always fair. Sure, sometimes you'll be thrown for a loop and a given stage or boss might present a "gotcha" moment to you, but through determination, perseverance, patience, and little bit of rote memorization, too, you'll find a way to overcome the myriad challenges and obstacles thrown in your path.
All of the additions, from the lovely art style, voiced characters, stellar presentation, awesome remixed tunes, to the gameplay inclusions like playable Robot Masters, new areas and alternate paths in familiar stages, and the superb stage creator, prove that you can teach an old robot new tricks. And you can do so in a mega magnificent way, as Mega Man: Powered Up does. The level of difficulty might be off-putting to a fair amount of players, but for me, I absolutely adored nearly everything about this re-imagined remake. It's a damn shame the game was not a success for Capcom, as I would have definitely loved to see later installments get the remade Powered Up treatment.
[SPC Says: A-]
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