YMMV / Mega Man 6

• Anti-Climax Boss: Even by the game's standards, the Wily Machine is insultingly easy to defeat. The fact that every form is weak to the Silver Tomahawk doesn't help.
• Contested Sequel: While 6 is generally better-liked than 5, the question as to whether it's up there with 2, 3, and 4 or barely better than 5 is a pretty big topic of debate. Supporters appreciate the weapons and stages being pretty decent and the adapters shaking up the game a fair bit, and consider it a strong execution of the overall formula. Detractors argue that the adapters aren't well-designed, the tweaks to sliding make the controls more awkward, and the game doesn't innovate much in general.
• Disappointing Last Level: The Mr. X and Dr. Wily stages aren't much of a challenge for endgame levels versus what was encountered in previous titles. Part of this is due to the stages not accounting for the Jet Adapter's superb mobility.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Knight Man is remembered as one of the cooler-looking bots in the Classic series. It doesn't hurt that the Knight Crusher is a pretty effective weapon.
  • Yamato Man also scores coolness points for being a samurai bot, and having a Friendly Rivalry with Knight Man. His boss battle is also one of the more complicated ones.
  • Tomahawk Man, with more and better Indigenous representation in media, has won over a new generation of fans for being a throwback to an unashamedly Badass Native design, visually striking and memorable. It helps that Mega Man Arena did him enormous justice as a playable character.
• Fanfic Fuel: The First Annual Robot Tournament, and indeed the premise of a tournament for robots in the Mega Man series in general, has a lot of potential for story expansion. How many Robot Masters might actually have been entered into the tournament? What kinds of designs could have come in from other countries? What kinds of weapons might they have used? Did Cossack enter a robot into the tournament? Did any of the Robot Masters seen in later games enter? What were the actual battles like? Were they one-on-one duels or free-for-all brawls? All we know from the English version is that the final event was about to begin when Mr. X took control of the eight finalists. ^note The Japanese version offers a much less tantalizing premise: The First World Robot Tournament was about to begin when Mr. X made his move, eliminating the possibility of other contestants.
• Fan Nickname: Fans like to split up the Robot Masters in this game by referring to Plant Man, Wind Man, Flame Man, and Blizzard Man as the "Element" Robot Masters, and Yamato Man, Tomahawk Man, Centaur Man, and Knight Man as the "Warrior" Robot Masters. It helps that the Beat parts are all in the hands of the latter. The later also follow a linear weakness chain starting with Plant Man > Tomahawk Man, and the former starting with Centaur Man > Wind Man.
• Fanon: Some fans like to play around with the idea that Mr. X is/was a real person, and that Dr. Wily either kidnapped him to take his place for the tournament, or that Dr. Wily actually killed him beforehand. The Archie Comics series even uses this with Mr. X being an elderly Xander Payne.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some hardcore fans like to consider 6 to be the final game of the Classic timeline, since it is the last of the NES-era Mega Man games, ignoring the events of Mega Man 7 and beyond; the fact that Dr. Wily isn't captured onscreen after this doesn't help the later games' case. Alternately, they skip directly from this game to Mega Man 9, as 9 returns to the Mega Man 2-style and starts with Wily having been captured for a while (though this requires ignoring the fact that 7 begins by showing Wily's arrest from the end of 6 before skipping ahead six months as well as how the ending depicts all of Wily's prior defeats from the console installments, Mega Man & Bass included).
• Game-Breaker: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Goddamned Boss: Blizzard Man, Tomahawk Man, and Knight Man are not hard to fight at all, but all of them have a rather inconsistent attack pattern that makes them slightly less predictable than the other Robot Masters, as pointed out in a perfect run video involving refights against all eight Robot Masters. There's a small chance they'll slowly advance towards you after attacking, therefore limiting your dodging room, which can be frustrating for those trying to beat them without getting hit or have very little health left.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Regardless of opinions on the games standing in terms of real greatness, it's long been held by the fandom that this game is the one from the Classic series that really shines with the most polish, pushing the NES hardware to its limits even right at the end of the console's lifecycle. But when it came time for the sixth installment of the X series, the exact opposite happened: X6 was deeply marred by being Christmas Rushed and gained infamy for its lack of polish by contrast.
  • The (very) mild kerfuffle about the overly stereotypical designs of Flame Man and Tomahawk Man would pale in comparison to the outright revulsion fans would have over a future Robot Master: Oil Man, from Mega Man Powered Up.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A character based on the Rafflesia flower? It wouldn't be the last time we see it!
  • Yamato Man, a spearman, is weak to Silver Tomahawk, wielded by Tomahawk Man, a warrior with an axe. Fire Emblem players will recognize this as following the weapon triangle where axe-users have an advantage against lance-wielders, which was first introduced three years after Mega Man 6 in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.
  • Optional miniboss Gamarn and Gamadayu, found in Yamato Man's stage, is a ninja robot riding a giant frog robot, three years before Shadow Man would do the exact same thing in Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: A common complaint about the game is that its difficulty is generally much easier than that of previous entries in the series, due to the Robot Masters' very simplistic attack patterns and the addition of Jet Mega Man.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The Classic games have always been Strictly Formula, but this game in particular had outcries of Sequelitis. While it actually added a lot more new gameplay elements than 5 did, it was the third game in a row to have yet another transparent plot of being Hijacked by Wily, following similar plots involving Dr. Cossack and Proto Man, and the way it was executed just smacked of laziness. It also didn't help that the game was released at around the same time as Mega Man IV, which introduced a lot more in the way of new mechanics to the Game Boy sub-series, and was probably a major factor in said mechanics being brought across to the main series with Mega Man 7.
• It Was His Sled: Mr. X is Dr. Wily in disguise.
• Narm: There isn't really a reason given for the whole "Mr. X" disguise, especially seeing as not only does he look like Dr. Wily anyway, but he's doing Wily's usual robot-stealing world domination shtick. And yet Mega Man seems genuinely shocked by this revelation. It also doesn't help that the English localization prefaces this with "My scheme for world domination has faild!"
• The Scrappy: Most of the Robot Master designs for 6 are very cool, even iconic...except Plant Man. His design was probably chosen as an homage and a Call-Back to Wood Man, given their similarities and how 6 was the Grand Finale of the Classic series. Except...
  • Although the design itself is indeed very unique and vibrant at first glance, that's only until you learn its based on one of the most horrifying flowers in existence. As if this wasn't bad enough this particular flower — the Rafflesia or corpse flower — isn't even native to his country of origin, Brazil.
  • His boss fight is marked by a pathetic attack pattern, made even more pathetic by him being weak to two different weapons (Flame Blast does 4 damage; Blizzard Attack does 2) which is highly unusual for a Robot Master.
  • His shield weapon is perhaps the worst of all similar weapons in the whole series, as the entry under Scrappy Weapon details.
  • And to top it all off, his stage is also the most infuriating level in the entire game, and given how big the game is to begin with, that's saying something.
  • With all this compounding things, it's little wonder Plant Man only got Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in the Archie version, which made him integral in one of its better arcs, years later.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Like in 5, you lose your charge when you get hit.
  • The Jet and Power Adapters are cool and very useful upgrades, but having to constantly turn them on/off from the Pause Menu, just to use the charge shot or slide when those obstacles pop up, can get annoying fast, especially since a little cutscene plays each time you select them. You can skip the cutscene by pressing Start, though.
• Scrappy Weapon: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: The stage difficulty is much less pronounced than before, and bosses have more basic patterns. The difficulty takes another dip once you unlock the Jet Adapter, allowing incredible mobility. The fortress stages also lack anything brutally difficult and some challenges are spoiled by the aforementioned Jet Adapter.
• That One Level: Most of the game is fairly easy by the standards of the series, but Plant Man's stage can be a nasty surprise for newcomers. It's a very long level with a lot of small, irritating enemies, and no less than three mini-bosses — and if you die to the latter two, you have to fight them all over again. And a good chunk of the level is centered around a spring segment where leaping fish can easily knock you into the local water pits. You also have to fight other enemies hogging the nearby springs before you can move on, and also dodge the occasional flying bug that tries to blindside you out of nowhere. Fortunately, Plant Man himself is quite easy to beat and you get rewarded with the Jet Adapter for your troubles, which makes the rest of the game a cakewalk.
• The Un-Twist: It's very obvious just from looking at him that Mr. X is Dr. Wily wearing a fake beard and sunglasses. The fact that the previous two games had nearly the exact same plot twist didn't help matters either. That said, the fact that it's so obviously Dr. Wily under that disguise makes this a pretty funny moment for some fans, being so lazy an attempt it 180s around to being brilliant.
• Values Dissonance: Of a mild sort. Although still beloved today because of their creativity and intricate, eyecatching designs, all eight of the Robot Masters in this game are based on National Stereotypes. They're mostly low-key enough to not come across as insensitive — not nearly as obscene as Oil Man would be later on — with two exceptions: Flame Man and Tomahawk Man.
  • Flame Man makes use of Arabian stereotypes about limitless oil supplies, with pointy shoes and a turban to complete the look. In addition, much of his stage, and the entirety of his power, involves setting stuff on fire.
  • Tomahawk Man is an unabashed embodiment of what people think Native Americans look like, with some Noble Savage ("Tomahawk Man never lies," is his quote from the Mega Man & Bass CD data) thrown in for good measure.

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