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Do you like Mega Man X? Do you like Smash Bros.? Have you ever thought that putting Smash Bros. mechanics into a Mega Man game would be a good idea? Gravity Circuit might be the game for you.
Basically, Gravity Circuit takes nearly all the key game play elements from the Mega Man X games, plus a little bit of Mega Man Zero 2 and 4, and a little bit of Smash Bros., and mixes it all together.
After an intro stage mirroring Mega Man X, you get to play through any of 8 different, specially-themed stages, all set to an excellent soundtrack by Dominic Ninmark (of "What if but Eurobeat?" YouTube fame). At the end, you fight that stage's "Rebel Circuit" (not to be confused with "Robot Masters" or "Mavericks/Irregulars"). Then you play through 3 final levels, and without getting into spoilers, all of the boss fights for these final levels are reminiscent of similar fights either from Mega Man X or its sequels.
Unlike in the Mega Man X games, the player character (Kai) fights using punches and kicks, so the game actually plays more like the Mega Man Zero games in both mechanics and difficulty, as players have to get up close and personal to deal damage to enemies, at least to start with. However, the devs *slightly* alleviated the difficulty by making it so that enemies that are being attacked effectively get stun-locked for as long as they're getting hit (you can also bounce off of things by kicking them!). After a certain number of hits, enemies turn grey, indicating that they can be thrown. This is done using the game's secondary weapon: a combination of the Chain Rod from Mega Man Zero 2 and a Zero Knuckle (MMZ4)-inspired throwing mechanic. Basically, you press/hold the key to use the chain on a greyed-out enemy, then release the key while holding the direction you want to throw it. It is possible to literally monkey-style your way through entire levels, just throwing enemies at other enemies.
Finally, players get in-game currency and "Burst energy" as drops from defeated enemies. The currency can be used to purchase equipable upgrades in the form of "Booster Chips" (though players also have to save survivor bots hidden throughout each level to be able to buy these (ala Mega Man X5 and on)), equipable Burst-energy-using "Burst Techniques" (which players gain the ability to purchase after defeating the boss at the end of each level), or at checkpoints found throughout each level which can heal the player and completely fill up a special Burst energy meter.
The Burst energy meter normally fills up as players defeat enemies throughout a level, and depletes as players use different Burst techniques. Up to 4 of these special moves can be assigned at once, to be activated using the Burst Technique key + up, down, side, or neutral, thus the comparison to Smash Bros. Unlike the Mega Man games, these moves generally don't have any kind of elemental affinities to them, though they do relate to moves used by the bosses. There also didn't seem to be any of the classic Mega Man "rock-paper-scissors" going on. As far as I could tell, they're just super moves. As such, I started picking moves based on how bosses moved around the room, not what they might be weak against (because again, I couldn't see that they were particularly weak to anything). It kind of left a little hole in my soul that the most foundational Mega Man "thing" didn't seem to be in the game, but it's also something that kind of makes the game more unique.
The story has a little bit of nuance to it, but in true Mega Man fashion, there really isn't much to it. If you're thinking of playing this game for the story...don't. If, on the other hand, you love Mega Man games, then you know better, you know what you're here for, and you will get it. Trust me. I got all the achievements for this game. For me to do that, a game has to be very well designed, and I have to be enjoying it a lot.
Having said all that, I highly recommend this game, but only to seasoned Mega Man players. Anybody else will get curb-stomped. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. It is what it is.