DARKFLAMEWOLF'S PROFILE

Some responses to your nitpicks in the Gameplay section: The checkpoints are not variable. There are typically two permanent (you continue there after a game over) and two temporary. The two permanent are ALWAYS either after the checkpoint midboss room and at the boss door itself. Any other checkpoints are temporary.
Extra lives are amazingly abundant if you do well on the scoring system. Literally every 25,000 points is an extra life. Start using enemy weaknesses and you get 300 points extra per robot kill which can only rack up your score and bonuses! Do well, earn well. (Or you could beat Centaur Man and just re-enter/exit his level a bunch of times and spam that extra life at the start!)
The spikes at the intro boss were put there for one reason: in hopes the player would die to them and get a game over: why? So they'd hit continue, ready to quit if they had to start it all over again and then realize: holy crap, there are permanent checkpoints!

Thanks for the review and glad you liked it!

Good review. I'll take it. :D
As for the story, since the entire concept is a rehash of old robot masters and their stages, why bother rehashing with a new story? The point WAS that it was predictable and stale. Its like a tongue-in-cheek 'take that' to all cheap storylines of the NES Mega Mans. Not to be cruel or anything, but to point out how silly and absurd they were but still pay loving homage to them regardless.
The intent of the game is about the gameplay not so much the story. Its there to provide a framework, not the drive. :D

I can understand your complaints about the spikes. It seems to be a common one. But I made sure most of it was fair and not cheap. Not sure which version you reviewed, but I knew ver 1.4.1 removed quite a few unfair spots and ver 1.3 before that revamped a ton of spike spots so that it was far more balanced for platforming. Regardless, this is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I agree the robot master stages can get a little long in the tooth but I noticed you mentioned very little of the final 8 Wily stages, which I've read in many other reviews or comments, as being a very strong point to the game. Like a great reward for slogging through the RM stages.
Good review regardless.

Well, you can change out the difficulty mid game if you must by restarting, going to options to easy mode and then rebooting your most recent save. With the ability in ver 1.4 to skip ahead Wily levels to get back to the one you left off at, there is no more reason to play it straight through in one sitting.

Go outside any town, area or dungeon and wait on the overworld map. Time will pass and day will turn to night. I must apologize that I made the 'timer' rather long however. Just be patient. Fight some enemies, it'll soon be night and vice versa.