Mega Man 9
Reviewer: Graham
How do I
describe Mega Man 9? Well… “retro”
would barely scratch the surface of this one. Capcom set out to make a true
successor to the old 8-bit Mega Man games, and apparently the best way to do
that was through another 8-bit game. That’s right, MM9 is essentially a new NES game released for the Wii, PS3, and
360. And, despite the fact that it is one of the most technologically primitive
games released in the last 2 decades, it really is a fantastic game.
GRAPHICS
4/5
20 years
ago, this game would have had top of the line graphics. Now, it’s something of
a shock to see pixelated sprites. But once you get over that initial shock, MM9 has its own visual charm. Everything
looks good, with detailed environments and interesting character designs. Bright
colors are everywhere, and the game is never boring to look at.
SOUND
5/5
8-bit
sound in all its glory. No orchestrated music or voice-overs here, just good
ol’ fashioned NES-style sound effects and tunes. As a series, Mega Man has always had solid
soundtracks, and MM9 continues that
proud tradition. I don’t think there’s a bad track in the game, and some of
them, such as Tornado Man’s Stage, are good enough to stand with the best Mega Man themes. Needless trivia: My
personal favorite song from the game is Hornet Man’s Stage.
GAMEPLAY
5/5
Classic
Mega Man, all over again. That means some of the best action and platforming
around. However, it also means that MM9
is hard. Incredibly hard. I’ll be honest; I actually can’t beat the game myself.
Wily’s Castle is just too brutal. This is really a throwback to the difficulty
of the NES days, where beating a game took hours of replaying levels,
practicing over and over again until you were able to finally beat them. It can
be very frustrating at times, but finally beating a level after all that hard
work is immensely satisfying. There are moments that make you want to throw
your controller across the room, but usually the game is hard in all the right
ways. It’s challenging and makes you want to play further, instead of just
being unfairly hard.
MM9 controls just like the older Mega Man games, so in other words,
control is spot-on. After playing all our new-fangled modern games, it may take
a while to get used to not having such simple maneuvers as “shooting upwards,”
but everything is very intuitive once you get the hang of it. The level design
is superb. Each level is cleverly laid out and they all have fun gimmicks that
make every level feel unique but don’t take too much adjusting to get used to.
STORY 1/5
Why
would you play a Mega Man game for
story? Though, for the few people who care, this game does have a twist on the
old formula. This time, the evil Dr. Wily has convinced the world that Dr.
Light created the evil robots, and Mega Man must clear Dr. Light’s name.
Intrigued? ... Yeah, like I said, who cares about the story? You’re a robot
with a gun for a hand. You blow up other robots. This is all you need to know.
REPLAY
3/5
This is
kind of a tricky area. The game is pretty short. If you were good enough, you
could probably play through it in an hour or two. However, you’re probably not
that good, at least not at first. So your initial run will probably take
several hours of playing the levels over and over, trying to learn them. There
are also some modern touches to the game in the form of Achievements and
downloadable content. The Achievements can get pretty ridiculous in difficulty,
so they’re mostly for the hard core, and the downloadable content includes
harder difficulty levels (in case you hate yourself) and time attack modes. So
really, this is the kind of game where the replay really depends on how much
you are willing (or even able) to put into it.
OVERALL
4.5/5
Mega Man 9 is not just a throwback to a
bygone era of gaming; it’s a great game in its own right. This is a very pure
and concentrated dose of intense gaming. It may be hard, but for those who are
up to the challenge, the end results are ridiculously satisfying.
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