Mega Cat Studio, who brought us Coffee Crisis and Bite The Bullet, along with Retrotainment Games, creators of Haunted Halloween ’86, have been working with 8BitLegit, Gradual Games, and 6502 Collective to release Trophy, a new retro NES game inspired by 8-bit Mega Man. Not to be confused with Sony’s Playstation Trophy system, this is a brand new 8-bit NES game that has been ported to Xbox.

Trophy is basically a new Mega Man game. The main robot protagonist shoots arm cannon bullets, cannot duck, the player can select any of the initial 8 stages in any order, each stage features a different theme, and boss battles cap each level. Overall, the presentation takes a simple approach as the player can only jump and shoot but each environment gives the player a twist, like including twitch falling sections or messing with gravity when in water. Although each stage is linear, there are optional secrets to discover to increase the stats of this white playable robot.

It is important to highlight the fact this is a new NES game simply ported to the Xbox. Meaning, this game is super hard and it is presented in non-widescreen format without other modern quality of life features. For dedicated fans, a physical NES cartridge is available if you wanted to experience that authentic feeling. This Xbox version supports Achievements. In fact, you can make a few Achievement pop by inputting the correct password found at the start screen (Google is your friend). 

Trophy looks, sounds, and plays like a Mega Man game right down to the platforming, climbing ladders, and taking down giant bosses. Just be warned of the steep difficulty as this game is very much NES-hard.  Occasionally, there is some cheap enemy placement that can cause one-hit deaths. Bosses are tough even if you have good pattern recognition skills too.  Limited lives means you’ll only have a few chances before starting over.  

Even though this is on Xbox, it is basically the same game as the NES version. Meaning, there is no rewind feature, you cannot adjust the difficulty on the fly, there is almost no UI minus your health bar, health drops are scarce, and the game pauses without any type of menu/options. This is a new old game without any modern features. Not that there is anything wrong with this, just don’t expect modern quality of life features here right down to the password system (there is no save option). 

For fans of classic Mega Man, you need to play Trophy.  For curious retro enthusiasts, be ready to have your ass kicked without mercy.  Definitely a “git gud” game that is a quality throwback to the late 80s.

Also available on NES.

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By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com

Twitter: @ZackGaz

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