Does the Legends Series Really Need a Charge Shot?

[Buster Cannon]

Mega Man Legends’ charge shot (or the absence of it) is one of the most talked about gameplay nuances in the series. In this piece, I’d like to dig deeper and discuss implications of this oft-requested feature.

Buster Breakdown

The Mega Man franchise has had many spinoffs, but one thing has remained a constant between all of them: the Mega Buster. This weapon is the tried and true sidearm of the titular hero. The buster can be used in almost every situation the game throws at you, and it’ll get the job done with the right effort. It’s also complimentary to a wide variety of special weapons (and/or battle chips, card, transformations, etc.).

The Legends series is no different. Volnutt’s standby arm cannon can be upgraded in various capacities. The buster parts system ensures that the player always has an effective weapon on hand that can get the job done, no matter how strong of a foe they find themselves up against. Mega Man Legends has a powerful selection of weapons, but the buster is always there as an effective method of dealing damage.

So what does all of this have to do with charge shots?

The Relationship Between Buster and Weapons

A game with a really strong buster runs the risk of overshadowing the accompanying weapons. Let’s use the Classic NES MM games as an example. The first three entries featured a very basic plasma cannon as the main weapon, with some very clever and powerful weapons dropped by the Robot Masters. The fourth game introduced the charge shot, giving the buster a damage boost in exchange for charge time. This gave your main weapon a little more “oomph” in exchange for having to hold the button down. It also added an element of risk/reward. Missing a charge shot requires you to charge all over again, while you can be less discerning in aiming the “pew pew pew”. In spite of this change, Mega Man 4 had a solid arsenal that complimented the Mega Buster.

MM5 made a few key changes that skewed this balance. The weapons were far less useful than in the previous games. The charge shot also gained a larger hitbox, along with shorter charge time. These changes helped to discourage the player from trying special weapons. If the buster is so good, why the heck am I gonna go with Water Wave or Star Shield? Mega Man 6 exacerbates this even more. The power and utility of the Rush Armors end up heavily overshadowing the lackluster set of weapons.

The golden rule of special weapon balancing is this: a strong buster needs to be complimented by even stronger options. Mega Man X on the SNES is a perfect example of how to pull this off. X’s charge shot is strong, but not so strong that he doesn’t appreciate the sheer power of powerhouses like Storm Tornado and Fire Wave. When X’s buster gets upgraded, his weapons do as well, allowing him to charge them. This gives X even more new toys to play with. These aren’t simply offensive either, as weapons like Rolling Shield and Chameleon Sting provide defensive uses. The upgrades don’t make the weapons obsolete, they enhance them.

Back to Halcyon Days

Juggling the effectiveness of the buster and weapons is something that the Legends games have done quite well. While the buster remains useful throughout the game, the special weapons are creative and powerful enough to hold the spotlight. Who can forget taking out Tron’s machines on Kattelox with the Splash Mine, the sheer utility of the Machine Buster, or discovering how hilariously broken the Shining Laser was for the first time? Every special weapon, good or bad, has its own identity. Players are paired with only one at a time, encouraging you to learn the nuances of each one.

Adding a charge shot would effectively throw a wrench in this balance. You’d have to make the special weapons even stronger to compensate for the better buster. If not, the draw of the special weapons goes down considerably, as there’s less of a motive to use them. This would also give the player less incentive to spend money on upgrades, as a super strong main weapon covers more bases.

Conclusively, a charge shot is something that I really don’t think the Legends series needs. The balance of the games’ combat system is solid as-is, and there’s no need to add something just because other spin-offs in the franchise use it. Let Legends be Legends.

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Thoughts, anyone?

[Dashe]

I'd have to disagree on that front, to be honest. There's nothing saying you can't add in charged versions of special weapons, especially if the hypothetical in question is a new addition to the series instead of a remake, and I'd rather have a smaller amount of special weapons that have been well thought-out than a bunch of them, but only about half of them are worth using.

And as far as the "let Legends be Legends" argument goes, since it's one I use very often in regards to cameos transplanted from other games, I'd honestly prefer it to something like an entire character being transplanted from Classic or X. A charge shot has no bearing on the plot, even in the context of ruins, and if it were me, I'd allocate the cameos to something subtle that doesn't affect the story or characters as much. It'd even be less intrusive than that shoddy boss rush at the end of Legends 2, which, while a gameplay element, did affect the flow of the plot just by breaking up that last dungeon, most likely simply for the sake of being a throwback. A charge shot is quite possibly the least intrusive direct callback to Classic/X as far as what makes Legends enjoyable goes.

Plus, I'm all for any weapon upgrade that might make a really tough fight less rage-inducing. You could even design Reaverbots specifically to counter charging. That would be awesomely frustrating.

[Buster Cannon]

Yeah, that's something I kinda hinted at towards the end. The charge shot would require a buff for the special weapons to compensate, and a charge ability for the weapons is one way to pull that off. However, at that point, do we have to buff the enemies and bosses too since Volnutt's arsenal is hitting even harder? The stronger weapons in the series can already curb stomp bosses, so with charged versions in play, they'd be even more nuts. I'd rather just outright strengthen the weaker weapons in various ways so that they don't suck, and that would go a long in way in balancing the game's options. I'd like weapon selection to be less of a question of "which one doesn't suck?" and more of "these are all good, but which one fits my play style?"

Mar 2, 2017 13:44:09 GMT -5 Dashe said:

that shoddy boss rush at the end of Legends 2, which, while a gameplay element, did affect the flow of the plot just by breaking up that last dungeon, most likely simply for the sake of being a throwback.

Honestly, I dislike the way the Mega Man series handles boss rushes, with a few exceptions (Mega Man X, MM1, MM&B); they tend to be more of a time-waster than anything else. It REALLY didn't belong in Legends, especially with them having the audacity to not put some sort of teleporter down there. There's no reason to force the player to travel 5 floors down just to get to Sera...

[Dashe]

Oh, right, we have a buster part system. A charge shot would probably skew attack and energy. Some of the Devroom members brought up the idea of a charge stat for the buster on its own, but the more I think about it the less that would make sense as far as the buster stat distribution is already allocated. It'd be like having two different busters, just like charging special weapons would be like having two different special weapons. I'd still think it's doable, and preferable to having dozens of mediocre special weapons to have to deal with.

What if the charge function were optional to equip, and there were some kind of reward for making it through the game without using it? Not just a little achievement, but an actual major extra ruin that you can't explore unless you spent the whole game without the charger equipped. It'd be like making an easy mode that you can toggle on and off at will, instead of selecting a difficulty from your drop-down list. That would be much less pressure on the player's part to try and tackle a difficulty setting that's way over their skill level, since it wouldn't directly imply that you're setting the game to a lower difficulty level by equipping that shot in the first place. If there were other in-game variables that could affect the difficulty on top of that, using the charge shot at all wouldn't necessarily imply the easiest setting by default, and you had no way of finding out what difficulty you were playing at until the end, you'd have a much more versatile and nuanced difficulty system in play than what you're used to. It could be like a combination of license testing, charge usage, and other stuff like that.

[Digouter]

Hullo, I heard there would be charging busters so I thought I'd let myself in... 8)


The discussion between the two of you have effectively already made solid points haha. I'm just going to chime in with my opinion as I'd often ignored this particular aspect (the charging mechanic I mean). When it's there I can't stop using it (Megaman 4, etc.) but for some reason I never quite saw it as synonymous with Megaman! That's weird, yeah but... maybe it has to do with Legends, too. I had played the older games on the famicom as a little one but I could only truly wrap my head around the series as a whole when the DASH/Legends series popped up.

It was missing the charge function but because I was still completely impressionable, I didn't even notice the lack of a charge shot. Even as I went on to play further with the X series, I had not once considered adding this function in the game. That isn't to say that this isn't an interesting line of thought! Just like how Megaman 4 played so differently from the ones before because of the addition of this function, Legends is affected in so many ways by it too!

You guys have already mentioned what the game would have to do to compensate for its addition, though I feel like it wouldn't have to be too crazy as far as balancing goes. In my opinion the charge attack wouldn't even be very strong! Instead it would have gameplay elements that cater to it. Like say, a Reaverbot that only becomes vulnerable after you chuck a charge shot at it. The buster's rapid fire would still be the go-to for damage output so after you shoot it with the charge shot you can go to town - get up close and shoot shoot shoot. You could add a boss that shoots projectiles at you that you can either shoot at with normal shots to destroy, or chuck a charge shot at to turn it into a hurling fireball back at the boss.

I would make as many uses for the charge shot as I can, though I would not change what the special weapons can already do. That Reaverbot that can only be hurt after a charge shot? Only counts for the buster, some special weapons can damage it just fine. With the finite ammo you wanna be rewarded when you use it haha.

But in any case I've rambled quite enough! Does the Legends series really need a charge shot? In my honest opinion, nope! I'd never looked for it, and I wouldn't miss it if the next iteration didn't have it. I'm not going to deny however that I would have a lot of fun thinking of ways to make it useful in a Legends game!

[Rockman Striker]

Who needs a charged shot when we can use forward-tapping rapid fire!
Now, since that's not an actual gameplay mechanic but a weird programming glitch, I suggest one small but effective way to include it while keeping the game balanced: include the charge shot as a buster part, that way the player would have the option to power up the buster by installing the usual three parts or having a weaker buster with the ability to charge shots.

[UltraViolet64]

I personally never considered the inclusion of a Charge Shot very in Legends at all, but I can't help but feel it would be extremely redundant. Rapid fire more or less covers why you would even need it in the first place, and it would come out faster, too. Plus (at least to me), I feel like the extra weapons in MML were situational at best, and a Charge Shot would just make them even worse in that regard. I wouldn't mind a Charge Shot if the game was slightly different, but if left as is? It wouldn't really be the best idea.

[Trege]

A charge shot could bring more strategy to the game so I wouldn't be too bothered by it being added, for instance the shield using Reaverbots, you could make a charged shot break their guard, but also give the player the option to shoot their back instead. Legends 1 I believe made rapid fire break their guard after awhile basically just give the player multiple options for each encounter and balance them.

Also, if the player uses the charger just disable rapid and replace the stat with charge. If they want rapid back disable the charger and return the rapid stat to normal.

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

I hope no one minds me reviving this old thread (though in fairness, replying to a lot of threads here would involve some form of necromancy). I was going to start one about this myself if one didn't exist already, but lo and behold...

I was watching a video of the "Mega Man Legends X" fangame someone linked in the Discord Devroom channel, and noticed the use of a charge shot there. Kind of gave me some mixed feelings, in part since it was remaking Legends 1.

I'm not entirely against the idea. They did consider it early on, and it's even one of Volnutt's attacks in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, so there is a sort of precedent for it. But I also kind of liked the return to basics that Legends provides that way.

Incidentally, I did give a character a way to charge shots in my stories, but it's really more of a "for emergency use only" sort of thing, as using it can drain their own energy. So something like that, maybe, might be something to consider. Maybe tie it to the shield mechanic from 1, for example? Overuse it, and you risk doing damage to yourself?

And while it might not make as much sense logically, I can see it being something available when Volnutt is at critical health -- something to help even his odds of survival. I'm trying to remember where I've seen it -- oh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES comes to mind. Maybe some beat 'em ups, too? -- but some games do make your attacks more powerful once your health drops beneath a certain threshold. So maybe that's a possibility here?

Mar 3, 2017 11:52:07 GMT -5 Rockman Striker said:

Who needs a charged shot when we can use forward-tapping rapid fire!
Now, since that's not an actual gameplay mechanic but a weird programming glitch, I suggest one small but effective way to include it while keeping the game balanced: include the charge shot as a buster part, that way the player would have the option to power up the buster by installing the usual three parts or having a weaker buster with the ability to charge shots.

Y'know, I was thinking the same thing. A Buster part could be just the thing. Maybe it could be affected by other parts, too. For example, make one charge shot the equivalent of however many shots you're able to have on screen at once via the Rapid parts (IIRC)? And of course, other parts might sacrifice other attributes. Like you might have a more powerful shot, but the range is still affected if you're not equipped for that? Or if you are set for Range, then the power is weakened, because you don't have the Rapid equipped?

Incidentally, I wouldn't mind something akin to the NaviCust from MMBN when it comes to equipping Buster Parts. Maybe be able to fit more different things in, but to different degrees?