For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Geminiman's and Grizzly's Mega Man: The Wily Wars (E) (Genesis) maps.
It's been a while since we've honoured a Genesis (or Mega Drive) game. Besides being overdue, this is also fitting right now, as this month sees the release of the Sega Genesis Mini, a small plug-and-play console packed with dozens of classic Sega Genesis games. One of those games is Mega Man: The Wily Wars, which was not released in cartridge form in North America (fitting that it would be released in parts of the world where the Genesis is known as the
Mega Drive), though it was accessible via the Sega Channel. But as the service is no longer available, and hasn't been for two decades, the Sega Genesis Mini is particularly appealing because of the rerelease of this specific game!
And in a way it's more than just one game, as it is a compilation of the first three Mega Man games previously released on the NES, but now with 16-bit visuals and arranged music. A save feature is now available, replacing passwords. And a new challenge, "Wily Tower", has been added, where Mega Man tackles new stages and encounters three new bosses - appropriately called the "
Genesis Unit" - based on characters from the classic Chinese novel, Journey To The West, before taking on Dr. Wily yet again.
This month's selection doesn't just recognize a key game included in the Sega Genesis Mini, but also the 30th anniversary of
Captain N: The Game Master, where Mega Man was a major character. (Though maybe ironic that we would focus on Mega Man's first non-Nintendo game...)
Geminiman (fitting name) and Grizzly did not actually mean to collaborate on these maps. But they each submitted some maps at the same time, with only one map being a duplicate submission. Great minds think alike! Such a coincidence hasn't happened before or since!
So to recognize the effort put into mapping this mega gem for the Mega Drive or the Sega Genesis Mini, Geminiman's and Grizzly's Mega Man: The Wily Wars (E) (Genesis) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for September 2019.
