19. Mega Man X (1993)
Few 8-bit series made as an impressive a jump to 16-bit as Mega Man. The series takes place a century after the original NES series, and as ‘X’ you have far greater abilities than before.
The core gameplay is similar as you work your way through eight stages of various enemies and face a boss with a unique ability/pattern of attack. Beating them will grant you their power, which you can select throughout the game. The beauty of Mega Man is that it has always allowed you to choose which stage to tackle first, meaning through trial and error you can determine which is easiest to tackle with your default arsenal, or which boss must be defeated so you can gain their power to beat the next on your list.
With all new wall-scaling/jumping mechanics and the armour upgrade system, there is lots of new elements to make this fresh and exciting to hardened Mega Man players, but sophisticated enough to wow new players getting on-board with the 16-bit iteration of this all-time classic. Enjoy this as much as you can via the SNES Mini, as it’s highly expensive to purchase complete in box.