Game Discussion of the Week: Mega Man Legends series

I'll copy my Legends 2 review from the other thread:

Mega Man Legends 2 was a real improvement over the original in almost every area. The most important fix were the controls: it supports the PS1 dual shock controller, with it the controls are exactly like any modern third-person shooter. Also, now Mega Man can move while locking on the enemies. Considering how the lock on and dual analog configuration (movement+camera) for shooters only became common by the middle of the PS2 generation, MML2 must be among the first games to implement it right. The graphics are also better than the first game, with more detailed models and scenery (the levels now have ceilings and multiple floors) and more colors, for which they used the PS1 dithering effect - not everyone likes it, but I think it works well here. The animations were touched up, flow more naturally, and there are many more cutscenes, which are all done in-engine and are very well animated. As for the game itself, it now has multiple towns and every dungeon is different from each other, with specific gimmicks, enemies and visuals - in MML1 this was a huge flaw, with every dungeon looking like the same. To sum it up, MML2 is a more polished game that feels modern, and the lessons learned both by the first one and by the impact of Ocarina of Time are very perceptible here. Even the enemies' attack patterns were changed so you can't defeat all of them just by running in circles.

It's not perfect, though, and a few aspects are downgrades from the first game. For example, with more detailed visuals the areas became much smaller, so there are no large, sprawling areas like the city or the fields from MML1: they are all divided into smaller sections and there are just too many loading times between one area and the other, so navigation becomes a bit annoying with time. While there are more towns, they don't have as much to do as in the first game: there are almost no side quests or minigames, and the characters don't change their dialogues as you progress, so it doesn't feel as dynamic as MML1. Also, there are two dungeons in the game that are underwater, and they feel almost broken: their only gimmick is that everything moves in slow motion, so it takes forever to go through them, it's grating and one of the most stupid decisions I've seen in a game (the game moves at around 1/3 of its normal speed, it's quite terrible). Another change is that the dungeons aren't connected like in the first game, so there's no more of that Metroid feeling - you just complete each of them once and there's no need to come back for further exploration, it's like Zelda.

Because of all that, I think MML2 is the better game overall, but, provided you can deal with its archaic controls, MML1 is more replayable and memorable, with more things to discover on repeated plays and more interesting characters and dialogues.