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PS3 Review: Mega Man 9

Wed, Oct 8, 2008

Consoles, Reviews, ps3

PS3 Review: Mega Man 9

There’s something wrong with Mega Man 9: It doesn’t fit. That’s not necessarily a knock against the game itself, but purely a poor design call by Capcom. Why have we went back all the way to Mega Man 1 and 2, when the last game was on the PlayStation and Saturn?

The true 8-bit stylings run deep through this retro revival, in the truest sense. This is a NES game, right down the flicker. The music is phenomenal, the pixel art excellent, and boss design mostly interesting (Galaxy Man looking a little too much like the obscure Japanese monster Guilala).

Here’s the problem though. Mega Man 9 is hard, and any fan of the series should expect that. However, Capcom has taken that mentality and multiplied it, creating some absolutely absurd level designs that even die-hard masochists will frown upon. While past Mega Man games relied on memorization and precision, Mega Man 9 requires a higher level of both. You can almost hear the level designers laughing at how devilishly difficult certain segments are.

It’s certainly up for debate whether or not this is an attractive feature or a reason not to buy. Regardless of where you stand, you have to agree that a certain level of fun is still necessary for this game to succeed, and much of the difficulty saps that away.

Part of the problem is the original 8-bit style, and that means true original 8-bit. Even though Mega Man 3 introduced the slide move and Mega Man 4 brought us the Mega Buster, Mega Man 9 has neither of those. If you can get past the graphical downgrade which doesn’t let this game fit into the timeline, not including these classic maneuvers really messes with your head.

That’s not saying the visuals are bad. In fact, they’re wonderful, especially just to see the style brought back (the dragon mid-boss is arguably the highlight). The problem is in calling this Mega Man 9, it’s following a 16-bit and 32-bit entry. Making a Bionic Commando sequel that looked like this would have made far more sense given that franchise lived and died on 8-bit hardware.

Also, if Capcom was so intent in keeping this in an era of NES classics, why are we paying for downloadable content? All of that work to keep this firmly planted in its roots is wasted if you can unlock secret characters with cash instead of skill. This is such an authentic experience, you can’t switch weapons with the triggers. You need to enter the pause menu. Yet, we need to pay more for a complete game.

From a pure play perspective, Mega Man 9 is fine. It’s the same game any true gamer should have played numerous times before. The platforming is spot-on, as are the controls. The bosses maintain their own attack patterns, acquired weapons do extra damage to the right enemy, and the final castle stage is an absolute nightmare to pass.

Had this come out and been called Mega Man 7 on the NES, it would have been slammed by critics for being more of the same with nothing new to offer (much like Mega Man 6 was). However, the passage of time has gave way to warm nostalgia, which Mega Man 9 tried to bring back. In most cases, it does, but it more or less limps its way into your nostalgia-fueled mind instead of Mega Busting it.

This post was written by:

MPG_PuzzleFighterFan - who has written 437 posts on www.Multiplayergames.com - Multiplayer Games.


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Viewing 3 Comments

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    Megaman 9 is quite possibly the greatest game released in 2008. This game is like a trip back in time, back to a time when games were challenging and fun to play, rather than pretty looking and boring. Although I still think this game looks gorgeous and the sound is phenomenal. I'm tired of 3D graphics and lame ass cameras, I'll take games like this any day.
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    The reason for the 8-bit graphics is both financial and creative choice.

    The former is pretty easy to understand, as Mega Man has not been popular with the general gaming audience for years. That's the reason why all the recent Mega Man 2-D games are on handhelds and why Keiji Imafune won't make Mega Man Legends 3 even though he would like to. By going with the 8-bit art style, they dramatically reduced the production costs of the game. In fact, it's pretty easy to be completely cynical and cite this as the only reason why Capcom went this route, but then you're missing the latter argument.

    I have yet to meet someone who says that either Mega Man 7 or 8 is their favorite title. Part of the reason for this is the graphics of those two games actually get in the way of the game play experience. In the seventh installment Mega Man has this huge character sprite that might look cool, but makes it much harder to dodge things. Mega Man 8 may look nice, but the animation seems exaggerated and it just doesn't feel like Mega Man. So for many fans, the 8-bit graphic style is the true essence of Mega Man. So with that in mind, why try and create a new graphic style that may or may not win over the fans when you can instead give them exactly what they want?

    As for some of the other complaints mentioned in your review, such as the lack of later series features and the difficulty level, you seem to lack perspective about them. The fact is almost every fan of Mega Man cites either the second or third game as their favorite game, and view the following games with an increasing amount of scorn and disdain as they feel they dilute the overall Mega Man experience. Chief among their complaints are the Mega Buster and the decreasing difficulty level. They are happy that the charge is gone (even though the game still call it the Mega Buster) and they are happy the game is hard. Besides, while the game it is not particularly cheap. I would not consider myself a Mega Man expert, but given enough time (and a couple lives) I could navigate most of the normal stages pretty easily.

    I will agree with you that had this come out on the NES back in the day it would have been ignored, but that was because at the time most people were moving on. Most of the long-time fans had been burned by Mega Man 5 and moved on to other games. People have actually gone back to Mega Man 6 and realized that it actually did introduce some new and interesting elements they never noticed because they passed it over as "just another Mega Man game." Warm nostalgia certainly helps Mega Man 9's case, but if the game wasn't as well-designed as it is, then there would have definitely been an Internet backlash. The fact is Mega Man 9 while Mega Man 9 does bring a lot of familiar elements to the table, it brings a ton of new ones as well. Best of all, its success will prove that not every game needs to be made with the cutting edge in visual technology and that there is a market for older-style games.
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    Wow. It's the internet and we have an actual, well thought out response to a review? Really?

    Anyway, I don't know anyone who liked 7 or 8 the best either. That's not the point. It's still going backwards, and it's chronologically broken. Also, I loved 8, but that's beside the point.

    Also, I definitely don't lack perspective. The original Mega Man was hell. As for two, it was actually quite easy with the exception of the dropping metal in Metal Man and of course Wily's castle. The series was never that hard, it's was challenging. Nine takes it to a whole new level, especially with the level design. It's not in the same league.

    As for production costs, that's not a good argument either. Mega Man has a far larger following than Bionic Commando, yet Capcom went back, spent the money and remade it in full 3-D. The results were gorgeous. I'm not saying Mega Man 9 should have been 3-D, but could you imagine if it looked like Super SFII HD Remix? That would be a sight to see. Instead, they fall back on something we've seen countless times before.

    I appreciate retro gaming with all of my heart. Hence my massive collection and spending free time to be the review editor of Digital Press. However, I'll never see this move in the Mega Man series as a positive one.
 

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