John Bernardy
Charge Man
I enjoy the theme gimmicks in Mega Man V. Every stage and boss has something a little extra that none of the other games add, not even Mega Man VI. Star Man stage has the space jump feeling, Gravity Man reverses whether you’re on the ceiling or the floor. Gyro Man hides in the cloud cover before attacking. There’s so many fun bonus interactions in this game. But one of my favorites is Charge Man. Because he’s a train engine.
His whole stage is in a depot or on top of moving trains. Even the Hard Hats are driving on trains. But it’s even better when Charge Man comes on the screen shaped like something out of Chuggington. He may not charge as fast as I want—he’s a steamer, not a bullet train—but he gets huge style points when his projectiles—-that then land at random locations from above—shoot from his smoke stack with a whistle sound effect.
This guy gets into his stage theme better than pretty much all the other robots, and I’ve got to tip my hat to him.
Quick Man
He looks like an anime villain, right down to his slim proportions and the boomerang image on his forehead. He’s a classic simple design that is properly aerodynamic, which is form following function perfectly. Because he’s a jerk who’s ready to kill you in as quick a time as possible.
Quick Man and his stage destroyed me more than any other. Granted, this was back even before boss orders were easily available, so it took me a while to figure out how to best use Flash Man’s power to make it through that freaking level. And then Quick Man would still kill me because you can only knock out so much of his power bar before the Time Stopper ran out. Then it’s nothing but fast stomping and boomerangs.
Quick Man doesn’t jump high, but his vector shifts and he covers a lot of space anyway. And while in the air he shoots three boomerangs in a spread pattern that will hit you. And when he’s on the ground he runs like the Flash. He’s a speedster in every aspect and he’ll bowl you over easily if you let him. Now I know how to beat him, and I’m certainly practiced at it, but every single time I do defeat him I take extra satisfaction. Every single time.
Quick Man’s level destroyed me as a kid, I could always beat everything but I would leave him for last because he gave me so much trouble.