why hello there

first-off, wave man's helmet crest is obviously supposed to resemble a trident... but it also looks like the greek letter psi (ψ or Ψ). in quantum mechanics, wave functions are represented by the letter psi! not sure if this was intentional but given all the references they made with gravity man's design i wouldn't put it past them

wave man is supposed to be a successor to bubble man. unlike bubble man, he's supposed to be truly amphibious (mobile on land AND water). if you compare bubble man's flippers with wave's flippers, you'll see wave man's actually look more like flip fins! (they look like they have hinges to their sides, unlike bubble man's which just look like good old-fashioned flippers). flip fins are basically like flippers but you can flip the fin up to reveal more conventional shoes you can easily walk with. wave man never actually does this (as far we've seen he just flip-flops everywhere and makes it work somehow) but it's a neat detail!

to use water wave, wave man needs to store water. i love how he LOOKS like he could feasibly store a ton of water at high pressure. his upper body has a spherical shape and looks sturdy and reinforced with those yellow, nailed-in bands. it gives the impression of a spherical pressure vessel, which is the most optimized shape of pressure vessel for containing high internal pressures.

wave man was built to take over "sources of drinking water," and lo and behold he looks like he's permanently attached to a drinking straw.

my favorite thing about wave's design is the contrast of him being this bulky, intimidating guy with pointy things that could kill you... and also just kind of looking like a cute penguin. he's like a big bubble with pitchforks. his core shape language is big and round and gives the impression of a bighearted and cuddly character, but he's armored up with so many pointy bits. both of his arms are weapons. his hat looks like it could stab you. his flippers look like they could stab you. he just looks a little too ready to stab anything that threatens to come near him. just like his personality!

tbh the more i look at wave man, the more i think he has a strange combination of aesthetics. like. he's a scuba diver but he's also a harpooner sailor but he's also a royal triton king but he's also power-washer. that's covering a lot of ground within the aquatic employment base dude. you might wanna leave room for the rest of us.

i'll start by saying i like to play mega man games buster-only by default (which has probably skewed my opinions of certain games lol. sorry mm7), so like you said mm5's weapon selection has never bothered me. still, i don't think its nearly as bad as people say. star crash is good utility, gravity hold's a typical screen clear, crystal eye is fun, gyro attack is just really good, and charge kick is also fun and underrated (hooray for i-frames!). i do wish you could use water wave in the air but it's a good weapon otherwise. power stone is pretty situational but it's good for certain rooms if you know how to use it. the only weapon that really just sucks imo is ironically napalm bomb. (i'll also mention that i've basically never used beat in this game despite getting all the letters, but i've heard he's pretty op). but yeah i'll never act like mm5's weapons hold a candle to mm4's lol. i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the mm5 weapon hate just comes from the fact that it came right after mm4. if it came after mm3 i don't think it would have nearly as bad of a rep...

a lot of ppl who dislike mm5's gameplay either dislike it because the weapons are underwhelming, the charge shot is too busted, or both. i think the busted charge shot is a nice easy mode option (my non-platformer friends very much appreciated it.) but here is the secret. if you feel the charge shot trivializes the game... just don't use the charge shot!! the game at no point forces you to use it, and it honestly feels like it was designed with non-charge shot game play in mind as well! i mean, most enemies don't even take that many hits. while i enjoy playing mm5 with the charge shot when i wanna relax, i personally believe going without it the most fun way to play mm5. here, the sleek level design truly shines. you can't just blow away those mousubeils or mets or b bitters, you gotta aim! as a result you have to be much more intentional with your positioning, which is very fun. the bosses also become much more engaging when you know you'll have to endure them for thrice as long. charge man with and without the charge shot is a completely different experience. if you've never tried playing mm5 like this, i highly recommend. (except maybe for the very last boss, wily capsule II. don't. don't do that to yourself.) mm5 with this challenge almost reminds me of mm3 gameplay-wise (my other favorite NES game), with the speed of clearing rooms and how well it rewards you for knowing every enemy's position in advance.

oh and let's talk about the graphics, because mm5 is a gorgeous game.

this shot took my breath away when i first played mm5, coupled with stone man's majestic music. who put bob ross in my mm5??

i love the variety of whimsical locations in mm5. a sky garden in the clouds, a gravity research lab, a space satellite, a drinking water facility...

there's just so many cute and memorable things about mm5's stages. gravity man's gravity mechanic, EVERYTHING about wave man's stage, gyro man's elevator, star man's meteors, charge man's stage taking place on a moving train, etc. all these details give the game so much life. (side note: i love how the water physics level of this game isn't wave man's stage, but star man's stage! as a result you get both a unique water level and space level in one game!)

and as you said, GREAT music. compared to its predecessors, mm5's music has an unmatched level of narrative intentionality. every song is cohesive and their transitions serve to add depth to them, unlike in previous games, where songs feel more like a few catchy sections stitched together. it's like the difference between a rhetorically masterful essay and just a sequence of paragraphs. i will make a separate post yapping about mm5's ost one day but it's so unbelievably good and deserves more recognition (and fan covers/remixes. come on.) thank you mari yamaguchi!!

and i don't think i need to elaborate about how much i love the fifths at this point, but seriously. awesome designs with lots of cool underappreciated details (i will continue the character design analysis series at some point.) they're the only line other than the seconds to be 100% created by only wily, but i love how they're themed more specifically for the environments/jobs wily wanted them to take over rather than just being a gaggle of all-purpose combat bots. and of course, i love how half their backstories are just "wily needed money." LOL.