Mega Man Legends was one of the first 3-D games I ever played. It's also the only Mega Man game I've ever truly loved. Since its release in 1997, however, the game and its sequel have languished in obscurity. To play them (legally) meant buying increasingly expensive PlayStation discs on the secondhand market.
Now—after neglecting the series for years and cancelling a potential sequel—Capcom will release Mega Man Legends on the Playstation Network today, playable on Playstation 3 and PlayStation Vita (though not PS4). If you haven't played it, you should.
As a child, I found the side-scrolling Mega Man games overwhelming. Even if I was good enough to play through them, there were so many that I had no idea where to start. As new Mega Man for a new era, Legends was attractive to younger players like me.
It's an adventure game more interested in evoking fantasy story grandeur than providing ultra-hard challenges. There is no Dr. Wily, no transforming dog, no themed armada of rival robots. There's just a boy, human-like but still machine, and a civilization full of optimism tinged with subterranean pain. The boy, like before, has a laser gun on his arm, and he's not afraid to use it, if he must.
