The star of many games over 15 years, Mega Man has seen more revisions and spin-offs than any late night TV drama - and has probably outlasted all of them. He's been a treasure hunter in 3D, a virus-busting Internet vigilante, and even a recreational street fighter...but when most people wax nostalgic about him, they remember the simple times, when Mega Man was merely a cute little robot boy with dinnerplate eyes and a death ray for an arm. Good times abound for us Mega Man fans, then; it seems that Capcom, with developer Atomic Planet riding shotgun, remembers those halcyon days of violent robot children too. Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Nintendo GameCube is an anthology of all the vintage Mega Man titles from the earliest NES days, all the way through his 32-bit adventures on PlayStation and Sega Saturn, with some interesting bonuses thrown in for good measure. Considering that most "classics" compilation games are generally 80s arcade games, it's nice to see some goodies from the NES era. However, the real great stuff here isn't so much the games; it's the way they're presented...or in this case, "re-presented".

When we're talking about the Blue Bomber, you know exactly what the deal is storywise. It's always the usual thing; the nefarious Dr. Wily makes a bunch of robot masters - all with the inexplicable last name of "Man" - and Mega Man goes out for his routine session of robocide to deal with them. Simple, right? There are random attempts to switch up the story here and there, but at the end of the day, it shakes down pretty much exactly like that. The real hook of course, besides the intoxicating mix of platforming and shoot-'em-up action that the series is known for, is the ability to copy the powers of the robot masters he scraps. With the basics intact, and the individual charms of each game still there, you're free to enjoy the new tweaks in presentation that Atomic Planet put into Mega Man Anniversary Collection.

For starters, you can adjust the difficulty levels and initial amount of lives when you start for each game in each game, which probably makes the game much more playable for some folks out there. Not me, of course...but for some rookies out there, the new options are lifesavers. The new rapid fire button allows you to hold the fire button down and release streams of three shots rather than tapping for individual shots; Mega Man veterans might act like they're not pleased with the feature, saying that it would make the game easier or something, but it's really just a front...we're all secretly happy for anything that saves our thumbs from the horrible beating they'll take when Quick Man comes around. It's also entirely optional, so you can feel free to play as purely as you'd like anyway. The quick weapon select feature incorporated in Mega Man VIII is active for all the Mega Man titles here as well, which is extremely convenient to have for the earlier games. The tweaks don't stop there, though; Atomic Planet actually took the time to "remix" the original games a little. By selecting the Navi Mode, the player interface for each of the older games is changed to match Mega Man 8's more closely - complete with easier-to-read life and weapons energy bars, menus, and updated artwork for everything else. You can also call on Mega Man's buddies for gameplay and navigational hints with Select. All of you Mega Man purists out there don't have to worry too much about playing in this mode though; the core gameplay remained the same, so it's not as if you'll be sliding in Mega Man II or using Beat in Mega Man IV or something.

For whatever reason, the GameCube version is without the remixed game music of the PS2 version in gameplay; you can only access the new tuneage in the Sound Test mode. The official excuse is that the disc couldn't hold everything, but a GameCube disc holds 1.5+ gigabytes of data, so this excuse is dubious at best. In an even more diabolical omission, or error...or whatever you want to call it, it's just really bad news - the time tested control scheme, with "B" to shoot and "A" to jump, has been switched around. Now, this wouldn't be so awful if Mega Man, in every single playable incarnation ever, didn't have this control scheme. It wouldn't be bad at all if this control scheme wasn't burned into the minds of gamers everywhere for the last 15 years or so. It wouldn't be such an affront to sensibility if they even put the ability to swap the controls or set your own scheme in the game options. Of course, none of these things were the case, the controls are still swapped, and anyone that's been playing Mega Man games since 1987 is assed out and will have to readjust...likely dying a ton in the process. I swear, Atomic Planet's lucky the rest of the port's so wonderful; us Mega Man fans are crazy, man. We might mail an exploding cat to your premises or something.

The unlockables in the Mega Man Anniversary Collection are sure to please die-hard fans, and are a welcome addition to round out the package. Artwork, series history and a bonus pair of Mega Man arcade fighting games that only saw a limited American arcade release are all there for the perusing, and GameCube users can check out a documentary, with developer interviews, on the history of Mega Man, too. The selection of extras isn't quite as huge as you could find in other collections, but they're good times nonetheless. The porting of the titles is spot-on, right down to bouts of occasional sprite flicker and slowdown; granted, the slowdown and flicker isn't anywhere near as bad as it was in the original NES/SNES/PlayStation/Saturn games, but it's just enough to make you remember it...and if you're sadistic enough, you might even do so wistfully. Load times are pretty short also, even though any load time to begin with is a step back from the cartridge originals.

The time before the holiday season is almost always a lean time for gaming, since this is usually when the most shovelware and movie tie-ins make their way onto shelves; however, the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for GameCube makes for a nice break from the crappy titles with a series of quality throwbacks even Mitchell and Ness would be envious of. Granted, the game selection is a little light, seeing as other compilations come loaded with more games than this - and of course, there’s that control snafu with the swapped buttons - but with a low $30 price tag and all that untouchable Mega Man goodness, I can be a little forgiving. Capcom and Atomic Planet did right by the blue bomber's classic catalog with Mega Man Anniversary Collection, make no mistake. Fans and newbies of all ages should run out and buy it immediately; there's no easier way to show your vintage love than by picking this up. Buy it!