Hey there! I was the lead tester of Mega Man Revolution, recently beat the game without use of refill tanks and wanted to weigh in. (I was also the guy on facebook who said I would punch Yoku Man in the face, and I totally did - no e-tanks or Rush abuse or weakness weapon but I admit I had to look up where the U was, so if you are reading this, Yoku Man creator person, consider their face punched like twice already unless you want to count the U letter lookup against that, so instead I slapped their face with like four fingers or something in that case.)
I'm going to stream of consciousness this, because I'm still on a high from getting through the game. It may not be terribly succinct, maybe slightly less objective, but paradoxically, probably more honest. I apologize for the long walls of text, and also very minor spoilers. I tried to be as discreet as I could in this and only said what I felt needed to be said to communicate what I mean. (I'll edit this with proper spoiler tags once I figure out how, though I don't think they may be that necessary here.)
Some backstory, the day this came out I decided not to sleep the night as to reset my sleeping schedule. This probably proved to be a mistake, as it made the early goings fairly frustrating with my compromised reflexes and judgment. I went to bed after being on Wily 1 for a long while, thinking that trying to beat the game after 24 hours of no sleep was probably a really bad call (it was, as I kept misunderstanding what the boss was doing in my sleeplessness but coming at it fresh I picked up on what needed to be done). Then I started fresh when I woke up after 6 hours of sleep, with the weakness loop starting at Tank Man. If I had to take a guess I think it did take me 16 hours-ish total of playtime to really make it through.
I'll skip mention of the NES limitations issue since better informed people on the subject have already weighed in. I feel the tilework is generally really cool if sometimes a little inconsistent in details, but it could be the times CHR limits are stretched/disregarded might color my opinions a bit - still, I should say I like it. Some of the enemy designs really made me have a great laugh, I like them despite the obvious palette limit breaks. The guy with the suitcases is probably my runaway favorite.
As for music, it's all good to me aside from the somewhat jarring change in 'feel' between tracks that were primarily Phil and those done by the rest. Phil is an adequate composer, the others are genuinely amazing. I will make a significant disclaimer here in that I pressed fifthindependent to keep Pyre Man's music the way it was in Mega Man Revolution because its (to general consensus post-release) annoying chorus really truly grew on me as I played the game over and over in testing, so my taste may genuinely be in serious question (also, I'm really sorry if that stage theme really did make you cringe, I can't envision the stage without that chorus playing now). That said, there were no tracks I hated or disliked, plenty that I loved, and others I would still like to listen to from time to time.
In terms of control, my keys sometimes stick so I don't want to fault those incidents on this game, but it does sometimes feel that hitting ledges is inconsistent (you hear the landing sound but Mega Man falls off anyway) and depending on the velocities of what you're jumping off of, you can get caught up on stuff moving upward (a huge deal for one later boss). Sometimes I also appeared to jump instead of slide, which did kill me in some places - some have said that the game has some trouble reading diagonal directions and this may be what's going on as I'm holding down and forward when I slide. Not quite as tight as it could be, perhaps, but ultimately I got through the whole game so there's no super dealbreakers here.
Level design-wise, it really does feel like there is an effort to make every room and space meaningful, that there's something in there to do/deal with/find. It can get overwhelming, as others have mentioned - some sequences do feel incredibly saturated with elements, but I only felt at a complete loss occasionally. When mistakes were made, most of the time I knew it was me or a keyboard arrow sticking and not the controls (which I guess also means 'me'). I feel a decent majority of ideas are well communicated as to what they do, and it feels like there was an effort to use those ideas to the fullest extent that they could. I think I liked it a bit more than some of the others here have said, and eventually overcame most of the difficult parts with familiarity and can appreciate a many of the decisions, if not all of them.
The biggest issue I have is Rainbow Man's stage. It is extremely trial-and-error, and I think it highlights a problem with the Quick Man lasers in general. When you know what you are doing, it might be a bit exhillirating to get through a space frame-perfect (you basically have to), but knowing what to do takes a lot of tries, and there isn't much time to reflect on what you did wrong or what needs to be done when you mess up. The problem is, if you slow the lasers down at all, they lose any meaning as a threat (as they more or less did in one part of the stage) - it's an element that only 'works' going that fast, and when you already know what to do, which first-time players won't - especially if they picked that stage first as I presume a lot of your fans on Facebook did. I feel it's an exercise that proves that Quick Man instant-death lasers are not fun to learn or deal with, and something we can probably safely leave in the past from here on out. (Also Ripurakons suck and are the most annoying thing in the quantities you see them in that stage, but they take a backseat to the lasers.) I have no idea how I managed to clear this when I played this sleepless, because holy crap.
I'd also really like to divorce the need to use Rush Jet towards the final stretch of Wily Stage 1, as if you die at a certain point and run out of energy, all you have to farm back energy with is with a Red Guardian. If not this, consider adding one of those shield telly spawn things around there to help with getting some energy back - there's a few in small platforms areas some ways after that which is good, but there needs to be one there too. There runs the risk of making the platform stretch too easy to cross with unused Rush Jet energy, but it's still incredibly annoying and time-consuming to have to build back up energy from that checkpoint if you run out entirely.
There was one jump in Jet Man's stage that pissed me off where if you are going at a decent clip through that part, you will inevitably be hit by the blue bomber jet thing that passes by. It was not clear to me that they came in a timed interval rather than a locational one. If possible, some audio cue or even a flashing arrow might be kind of cool for more of an 'organized airport' feel and might make it more clear that they are coming in a certain rhythm. Also I sometimes had trouble jumping off corners of the tread platforms for whatever reason, not sure if I can blame that on the game or me.
As for Trinitro Man's level, sleepless me flipped the bird to one part of it and went the other way. The more awake and alert me hasn't attempted that part with all the nitro platforms arranged in a precarious way to the center ladder with the 1-Up to the right since. I keep going that other way. I'll have to try it again soon, but I'm really comfortable with that other route now.
What is even the point of the other route in Glue Man's stage? If there's nothing interesting or cool there other than that one difficult stretch for the sake of stretching out that particular element of its level design, I say seal it up or replace it.
To speak of an example of good design, Yoku Man's stage is one of the really good ones. The platforming is difficult, but not unfair. If you pay attention, you will see what's going on ahead, and that is very important. I never felt the rug was truly pulled out from under me in an unfair way, and the parts that required guesswork only cost time instead of health or lives. I watched what was going on, I dealt with it with confident jumps, and I got through just fine - there were a handful of deaths from a few bad judgment calls or going a bit too slow, but I never felt overwhelmed in the least. I think the only mark against it is at the very end, where it seems to me (for now) that damage is unavoidable unless you use something like C. Dash to get to another ladder and then climb up quickly (which I didn't think to try until I wrote this), but beyond this, this is probably the very best stage in the game in terms of challenge. It just felt completely right, and earns its distinction as a great bonus stage.
I think I really liked Wily Stage 3 too. Without going into too much detail, I feel it makes use of the gimmick in such a way that I am now totally satisfied with its use and that its fullest potential may have been explored. I did get stuck and frustrated on all the Wily Stages for a while for various reasons, but now that I know how to navigate them somewhat reliably I think this one was my favorite of the lot, though it isn't quite to Yoku Man's level of communicating and executing ideas. There are a few blind moments that set this back a bit, but this and Yoku Man's stages probably make up my legitimate favorites in terms of designs and ideas.
Weapon-wise, now that I've beaten the game and know what happens where, I will likely find uses for a lot of them in a future given playthrough - in theory they feel all decent on paper (except for one) but I admit I was conservative for the most part in using them as I am generally like that. Yoku Attack really stood out to me in the latter parts of the game, C. Dash helped with some tricky jumps and green stompy enemy placements (the energy cost here is truly justified to me), N. Shield is one of the better shields but doesn't have any easy indication that it's about to expire. J. Missile did help nail a few small enemies I was afraid of approaching. Unfortunately, I feel the Yo-Yo weapon all but outshines Tank Man's weapon simply for its ability to be aimed, where Tank Man's felt unreliable for hitting stuff below you (which feels counter to its function of throwing projectiles everywhere). The rest I don't have much of a strong opinion on, though I'm surprised I didn't use Glue Man's weapon so much, there's probably some interesting shortcuts I could take with it if I looked hard enough.
Boss-wise it's all over the place. Some bosses feel way too fast to be really fair to fight without their weakness weapon (Glue Man), others feel just right if kind of easy once you understand what to do (Tank Man, Yoku Man, and Trinitro Man who is my favorite to fight because there is always risk), and yet others are tough/grueling but not horrible (Jet Man's superfast missiles, the scant little amount of time you have to harm Nail Man outside of weapons). The Wily Stage bosses are a special kind of nasty in ways I'm not sure I like, the first only because any single mistake will kill you despite having a very fair pattern otherwise, the second because it can be tough to properly time/space the way to avoid its kill attack without yourself getting stuck to it even as you are moving away, the third because it is difficult to read the pattern without split-second recognition. The second phase of the final boss is the worst of the bunch by far: there is one attack where it is not clear at all as to how to consistently avoid it - you either have no time to really get out from underneath it, or there's no easy way to guide it so you have an opening, and the way it moves in the phase after that is completely obnoxious to read and deal with, where avoiding damage requires the use of the C. Dash (especially if it jumps at a weird angle) and actually getting a clean hit is almost luck based. It also forces you to use special weapons to hit them at all, it feels like, which is something I'm not sure I agree with. I'm sure as I play the game again down the line I'll 'get' the bosses and be much more comfortable with buster dueling them in general as well as better appreciate the hows and whys, but on the onset there is a lot of hit and miss in terms of fairness in the patterns, and the speed of which they throw things at you.
In terms of weakness order, I disagree with OBJECTION MAN and feel that fighting style-wise most of it feels about right, if not so much 'elements' (and so that does mean to a first-time player there is some real random guesswork to be had but things click as you fight them). Glue Man's weakness makes complete sense in regards to his AI, Nail Man's was ambiguous between a few on the onset but the one that does do bonus damage feels correct. Comet Woman's is one of the ones that feel a little random, Yo-Yo Man's becomes obvious once he does one of his specific attacks. Those are just some examples without spilling exact details.
All in all, well, I did get very frustrated (especially when I thought it was a great idea to first play it on no sleep). I can agree that this is very difficult from how compact everything is put together, and in some cases probably way way too thick. I would have probably finished sooner if I used tanks, or spike shocks, or Beat whistles, or any of that, but I was particularly stubborn as a matter of pride and ultimately felt good at getting through, if embarrassed at how long it took. Sometimes it takes too many tries or too long to really understand all of what's going on in a scenario, if there is anything to truly be understood. This is going to - and has - turned off less patient players. When I step back and see how everything was put together, though, I can understand many of the decisions made even if I do not ultimately agree with all of them.
For what it's worth, I don't regret my time spent, only regret how long it took for me to get through it the first time! It will probably be a while before I want to play it again, though, because it really is that intense - especially in the final stretches where you really can't stop and take a breather at all. It is a memory hog and leaving it going in the background is probably a bad idea, so it's a hell of a commitment that I'm not sure I'll be ready to make again for a while.
Despite whatever disagreements I might have with design choices for some of the levels and bosses, I thank you for taking the time to provide all this. More Mega Man is always good, and every fan game has something to offer no matter its production values. This one is no exception.
For those who scroll to the bottom: don't play this game on sleep deprivation.
