Mega Man is a 1987 NES game from Capcom, catalogued here for 6 defining game mechanics.
NES1987Complexity 42/1002D SidePopular
Mega Man, known as Rockman in East Asia, is a 1987 platformer game developed and published by Capcom for the NES/Famicom. The first installment in the Mega Man franchise and the original video game series, Mega Man was produced by a small team specifically for the video game console market, a first for Capcom, which up until that point focused on arcade games. (via Wikipedia)
The genre Mega Man helped define
Stage-select action-platformer. choosing your own boss order and taking each defeated boss's weapon, so the difficulty curve is the player's to shape.
The game mechanics of Mega Man
Scrolling MovementTraversalWorld scrolls in one or two axes as the player moves or time passes; player exists within an advancing boundary.
Boss EncounterCombatA single high-health enemy with unique scripted behavior and distinct phases serves as a gated progress challenge.
Contact DamageCombatTouching an enemy or environmental hazard deals damage to the player without any explicit attack trigger from either party.
Real Time Action CombatCombatCombat resolves continuously in real time; player inputs compete directly with enemy behavior each frame.
Lives SystemResourcePlayer has a finite number of attempts; losing all lives resets progress to a defined point or ends the game.
Weapon InheritanceProgressionDefeating a boss or completing a challenge awards the player that enemy's attack capability.
Each mechanic links to how to build it in Godot, with the retro games that share it.