I've been a huge fan of Mega Man since the very first game.  Discovered by chance at one of those "World of Nintendo" stations at my local mall, I fell in love with Mega Man right away.  A friend of mine purchased it, my brother and I borrowed it, and my love for Mega Man was born.  I not only own every original old-school Mega Man game that I purchased the very first time, some of them are still wrapped in their original plastic!  My obsession with Mega Man goes far and wide, even to the extreme of my brother and I drawing Mega Man characters all day, including a huge series of Mega Man comics we created ourselves!

And so when this contest rolled around, how could I NOT enter?  And so here they are, photographic proof of my total obsessions with Mega Man.

01) My entire Mega Man game collection.

All of my Mega Man games.  I am an old-school Mega Man fan, so the only Mega Man games that I collected are the original Mega Man games and the Mega Man X games.  Only ONE of these items above was obtained via eBay many years ago and only one was given to me by a friend.  But every other game is the original item I purchased myself.

02) Mega Man 1 through 3

The games that started it all, ugly box art and all.  Amazingly enough, all three of these games are not only the actual boxes I got when I bought the games, they are still in their ORIGINAL SHRINK WRAP.  AND their original Nintendo sleeves.  How many people can claim that?

03) Mega Man 4 through 6

Again, the original games I purchased at the time.  I don't think the sleeves are the originals (by this time, the sleeves no longer read Nintendo on them), but I still have the original sleeves, probably being used by other NES games I still own.  And note that not only does Mega Man 6 still have the original shrink wrap on it, it still has the original PRICE STICKER on it from a store that no longer exists!  $39.99 it reads.

04) Mega Man 7 and 8

Mega Man 7, The only SNES iteration of the classic Mega Man series.  And I have BOTH versions of Mega Man 8, because both had their advantages, though by now, I can't remember what those advantages were.  I know the Saturn version had Cut Man and Wood Man hidden in the game and bonus artwork.  Maybe the PlayStation version was just the 10th anniversary celebration edition or something.

Also, note below the Mega Man 8 games is the Mega Man 1 re-release on PlayStation 1.  They re-released every game on the PS1 with bonus features only in Japan, and I imported the first one.  Unfortunately, this is when they started making games that detected mod chips... not that I'd ever mod my PS1... so that discouraged me from buying any of the other ones.  I do regret that now even though Mega Man Anniversary Collection was basically just those 6 games on the PS1 all pasted together into one PS2 disc.

05) Mega Man and Bass

I not only purchased the Mega Man and Bass re-release on the GameBoy Advance, I even own the original SNES import even though I couldn't even ever play it (I didn't mod my SNES to remove the tabs that prevented playing imports).  So that import Mega Man and Bass is pristine... never been plugged in nor turned on.

06) Mega Man X and Mega Man X2

The two original games that started the Mega Man X series.  I also have the little plastic sleeves that go over the SNES carts, but I didn't feel like digging those out.

07) Mega Man X3 and Mega Man X4

I have the super, ultra-rare Mega Man X3 for the SNES.  Released VERY late in the SNES's life cycle, the game was barely noticed on the system.  As a result, the game is SUPER rare and very few exist nowadays.  This is the one game I did buy on eBay long ago, before the cost of this game had risen much higher.  It was released so late in the SNES's life cycle that a translation was made for the PS1 in Japan, and I even own that import version of the game (given to me by a friend).  And lastly, I have the Satrun version of Mega Man X4.

08) Mega Man X4 through X8

Oh yeah, did I mention I also own Mega Man X4 on the PlayStation as well?  And after that, I have the PlayStation copies of X5 and X6.  And lastly, I even have the last gen Mega Man X7 and X8.  X8 is still sealed!  I never opened it because I never managed to get through all the previous games, so X8 was never opened nor played.  Do I still plan on playing it some day?  Oh yeah, some day.  You can count on it!  In fact...

09) Mega Man Anniversary Collection and Mega Man X Collection

...I plan to play X1 through X6 again before I even get back to X7.  When will I ever have time for this?  I have no clue.  But it's still something I want to do.  And I do own Mega Man Anniversary Collection, and have played through all 6 Mega Mans on it.  In fact, I purcahsed the GameCube version first, but the incredibly crazy idea that you could NOT re-configure the button scheme on it made it so that the A button for Shooting on the left and the B Button for Jumping on the right (opposite of the original NES controller) caused me to fire a bullet before walking off platforms to my death numerous times.  It was so frustrating, I eventually returned the GameCube versions and got the PlayStation version instead.  I sometimes wish I had kept the GameCube one so I'd have both versions.

10) Mega Man: Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X

And yes, I even purchased the two PSP games.  MM:PU almost killed me, because the stage creation feature caused me to lose so much sleep because I could not stop tweaking my stages.  I ended up creating three stages that were uploaded in all, one that was really popular amongst players, one that was okay, and one that was nigh impossible to beat.  It was only ever rated by 2 people, because I think only 2 people have ever beat it.

And I own Maverick Hunter X, though I've only gone through most of it with Mega Man.  I have not yet experienced the game as Vile.

Oh, and don't mind the little import Mega Man figurine on the games.  He likes to pose threateningly, be he wouldn't hurt anyone without just cause.

11) Me and My Collection

A photo of my entire collection and myself wearing my, appropriately enough, Mega Man 8-bit T-Shirt.  Needless to say, I love Mega Man.  And when I first turned on Mega Man 9 on the Wii, I cannot tell you the feelings I got.  I played the original Mega Mans when I was in grade school, and the anticipation and excitement I got from getting NES games back in those days all came flooding back when Mega Man 9 was first turned on.  I haven't felt that much excitement for a game in a long time.  The Penny Arcade comic that I'm sure most of you have seen (they linked to it on Capcom-unity) describes how I felt with 100% accuracy.

12) Mega Man Pixel Blox

Lastly, these are on my desk at my work.  A friend got me some Pixel Blox as a gift, so I put these together.  I made a Fire Man, an Ice Man, and an Elec Man.  Pretty much when I got the Pixel Blox, making Mega Man characters were the first thing I had in mind for them.

And so there you have it.  My Mega Man collection that proves that I am one of the craziest Mega Man nuts out there.  Not many people can claim to own all of these with their original boxes and such, with only ONE ITEM actually obtained via eBay.  These are the originals, only ever owned by myself, and seeing as how I loved to care of my games, they are all in excellent condition.  In fact, not pictured here, I still even have ALL of their original instruction booklets, all of which are also in excellent condition.

And I wouldn't sell any of this for any price.

- James