Gotta Play This Perfectly

Considering how many YouTube channels I've reviewed recently it's actually surprising to me that its taken me this long to mention Roahm Mythril. His is a channel I've been watching for years and years, one of the first I ever subscribed to on YouTube. His vods were some of my first exposure to not only "Let's Play" videos but also "Perfect Runs" of video games. I guess I simply thought, "eh, I've known about his channel for so long probably everyone has." But hey, let's rectify that.

Roahm is actually moderately Internet famous, largely for his Perfect Runs of Mega ManIn 1987, Capcom released Mega Man on the NES, a game featuring a blue robot that fought other robots and took their powers (so that he could then fight other robots with those powers, and on, and on). The series went on to release over 50 games in 30 years and become one of the most famous gaming franchises in the world. games. Perfect Runs are exactly what you'd think: you play through a stage of a game perfectly, trying to take no damage while avoiding all enemies or obstacles. Roahm has done that, so far, for every Robot Master stage in every mainline Mega Man game in the series (with the notable exception that he will never, ever play any of the Mega Man X games or, presumably, its continuations in the Zero and ZX titles).

Now, playing a stage of a game perfectly isn't always difficult. There are some games where you can do that with ease. Getting through stages perfect is an expectation of many Super Mario SeriesHe's the world's most famous plumber and the biggest face in Nintendo's stable, a character so ubiquitous you already knew we were talking about Mario even before we said his name., but doing it is pretty easy when in many of those games you can simply fly over most obstacles. The Mega Man games are different as these are purposefully crafted to be gauntlets of pain. Even easier stages expect you to take damage over and over again; that's why they gave you a health bar, so you could squeak through on a few slivers, proud of what you accomplished. Doing that without getting hit, by either the enemies and traps in the stages, or the bosses at the end, is staggeringly impressive.

Remember, Roahm has done this for all 10 of the mainline Mega Man games (as well as Mega Man V and the Game Boy). But it's not just that he played them perfectly (in many cases after many, many attempts); he also did it without using any of the Robot Master weapons (you know, the whole gimmick of these games).

There are perfect run players out there that will go through stages without taking damage but they won't limit the weapons they can use; if they got it they'll use it. Roahm, though, wanted to see if you could beat every Robot Master with just the Mega Buster, the pea shooter (or, more accurately, lemon shooter) that comes at the start of each game. With just that and nothing else (and only minimal use of Rush when requires) Roahm tackled all these robots (and then started going through the Wily castles, one by one, to tackle those too).

Roahm's perfect runs are what got me watching his channel. I wanted to watch through the whole Mega Man series before I started playing them myself (because if I was gonna suck I at least wanted to know what good game play looked like since I wouldn't experience it for myself). Roahm comes up pretty quickly once you start searching around for Mega Man let's plays, and once you get into it you can really see the skill required. It becomes compulsive watching, for sure, seeing all the ways Roahm can beat these games (beat, not break, as he plays them legitimately).

Beyond perfect runs, though, Roahm has has other ways he'll play. He's done blind runs of some of the later games in the franchise (those that came out after his channel started, such as Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10). He's also done runs through a few Mega Man fan games (which is how I discovered awesome titles like Mega Man: Super Fighting Robot and Mega Man: Rock N Roll). For a Mega Man fan his channel is way addictive.

While he won't play anything in the Mega Man X franchise, he's not completely opposed to all later Mega Man works. His current projects include running through each and every Mega Man Battle Network title, showing every inch of those games (in every iteration of the titles, no less) as thoroughly as possible. These are true "let's plays" in their bearing, so Roahm isn't trying to do no-hit runs of the games. Considering their RPG nature (including plenty of random battles), going "no-hit" would be all but impossible, but even still there is no doubt about the skill on display as Roahm rolls through these titles.

And while you're looking on the channel you can also find plenty of non-Mega Man content to cleanse the palette. He's destroyed a couple of Legend of ZeldaCreated by Nintendo in 1986, the original Legend of Zelda game presented players with a open world to explore, packed with dungeons and monsters all ready to kill them at a moment's notice. The mix of adventure and action game play created a winning game and launched not only a successful series but an entirely new video game genre. titles, including a swordless run of the 1st quest and a 100% run of the 2nd quest in The Legend of Zelda. He's blasted through a 100% run of VVVVVV, solid runs of Startropics and The Adventures of Lolo, and even a great let's play of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. Oh, and right now he's doing a no-hit run of Cuphead and its DLC (with plenty of outtakes to show how hard it is to get one solid run of each stage of the game).

For a classic gamer Roahm Mythril has plenty of vods to like. And for those that like to hear from the YouTuber and learn about them and their lives, Roahm is a pretty open book. He shares life events in his videos and has a blog he updates on the regular (Dragonsoft Studios) so fans can keep up with him. He's a surprisingly down-to-Earth guy who just likes to play video games, and it shows.

Roahm is worth checking out for his Mega Man Perfect Runs alone. But once you're in there I bet you're going to watch all that he has on offer. Seriously, this channel has a lot of great content that will keep you entertained for days on end.