Review: Mega Man 9

[Skweebl]

Arguments on emulator legality aside, this was a good review. I figured that they would keep the usual unfair difficulty intact. The old Megaman games -are- a lot of fun, and in spite of getting insanely angry at times, killing a boss in these games often feels more satisfying than in newer games simply because it's harder. The "failing at leisure" line made me grin, because it's completely true.

I think they should have let some of the archaic mechanics go though, like having to pause to swap/refill weapons and being unable to save within a level. It even sounds like a bit of a regression from some of the later NES Megaman entries, since you (from my understanding) can't charge your weapon or slide/dash.

Anyway, I'll probably pick this one up if I ever get the chance, if anything for old time's sake. I've played some of the old NES Megaman games recently, and I still can't figure out how I beat these things as a kid. I got to Wily Stage 1 in Megaman 2 a little while back and, like you, gave up after several game overs on that damn Mechanical Dragon boss. My friend thought it was pretty funny how after dying I'd say "oh God, screw this game," yet end up trying again.

 

[domicius]

I have to wonder who these games are being made for. The original gamers who used to play this have become used to easier games, and in any case don't have the time and patience to retry levels a hundred times in order to make progress.

Not to mention that younger gamers are not used to punishing difficulty, and would probably ascribe it to "bad design" rather than "intentional difficulty".

So that leaves the few people used to play games back when you played anything (because you only had 3 cartridges dammit) and who also have time on their hands (due to the financial crisis). Only they probably aren't likely to appreciate being kicked some more while they're down.

So, if it wasn't for the fact that this game was programmed on such tight a budget that they only used recycled characters and a 16 colour tileset (discounted down from 256, offer must end soon), I would doubt it would turn any sort of a profit.

Yes, the demo did rip off both my arms and hit me repeatedly on the head with them. How could you tell?

 

[Vern]

I just want to say that technically no game, as long as it is still copyrighted is not abandonware. Even if the company no longer manufactures or sells the game, it is not abandonware and legal to download for free as long as the games copyright is still valid. Even the issue with ROMs is vague, because even if you own the original cartridge or disc, it can still be considered stealing since the copy you've downloaded is not a backup copy of the version you have, it's a ripped version of the game downloaded in a different format. The only time I believe it would be legal to have a version of a game you didn't pay for would be if it wasn't copyrighted, or the copyright has expired. You can use any argument you want to justify it, but technically it's still illegal.

Still, Megaman 9 is a fun game, and worth the price of admission, although the jumping can be damn frustrating.

 

[Dectilon]

It seems to me the reivewer failed to notice the shop where you can buy items that let you exit levels immediately or replenish the weapon with the lowest energy without you having to switch to that weapon before picking up the capsules.

I personally think those two functions should've been active right away, but they are still there if you want them... Having Wily's fortress be one big level is a bit sadistic...

 

[Bobby_C]

I have to wonder who these games are being made for. The original gamers who used to play this have become used to easier games, and in any case don't have the time and patience to retry levels a hundred times in order to make progress.

I thought it'd kinda be this way at first, but from reading a variety of forums a bit everywhere the reaction seems to actually be that it's easy to get back into the old groove, and I agree with that. It's notably because as noted in my previous post the game actually isn't among the harder Mega Man platformers, even considering just the recent ones. The GBA Mega Man Zero series was much more punishing, and I think the ZX series ranks above it too. Even compared to the NES games it's more on the level of Mega Man 2, which actually was lowest in the classic MM difficulty scale.

Regarding profit, the original goal of the project was indeed to make a game for a lesser budget. As noted in numerous interviews the series producer doesn't believe a 15 million dollars (apparently the standard Capcom game budget at the beginning of this gen) MM game released through retail would turn any profit. It seems the production ended up being more expensive than planned though, because they didn't have much data left from the original games and took great care in reverse-engineering a lot of small details (like reproducing the old sprite glitches as allowed in the options). Another goal was to have a much smaller but tighter team, but that's more of a production side aspect.

 

[Brett Alex]

"Case in point: the jumping mechanic, which adjusts the height of your leaps according to how long you hold down the A button. It's a direct holdover from the original NES controller, which lacked the pressure sensitive buttons that have become standard on modern gamepads."

Umm, what? If we have gamepads now that handle pressure sensitivity like that with any kind of usefulness, I want one.

I'm not saying anything about the review (don't really give a damn about the game) but are you suggesting that using how far the trigger button (say on a xbox 360 controller) is a useful value for determining height of jump? If there's some trick people have been using in games to give variable jumping height using pressure sensitivity, I want in on it. But however I look at it I just don't see a way either the trigger buttons of the analog sticks can provide the kind of pixel perfect jump accuracy that Megaman's (and for that matter, Super Mario Brothers) control scheme provides.

You played Metal Gear Solid 4? Thats a near perfect example of how pressure sensitive controls work and how they can be instituted effectively into gameplay.

As you seem to be commenting in relation to the Wii, I couldn't say what games have/haven't used it as I have never played one myself.

 

[Bobby_C]

Oh, it's easy, the button used to jump on the wii MM9 isn't pressure sensitive. Since that was the primary version, it makes sense they'd aim for a control style consistent for all platforms (not to mention with the dozens of previous games). Plus frankly, I can't think of a single platform game that uses pressure instead of holding down the jump button, it's the proven standard.

 

[dunnace]

I'm too young to get nostalgic over Megaman (though I did beat MM2 on a Java NES emulator about a year before this) but I absolutely love this game. The challenge comes from timing/knowledge of the levels and I get immense satisfaction from that. I like hard games that are 'simple' if that makes sense. For example, I don't like RTS all that much because it's hard and complex, but Megaman has about 3 moves to start off with. It's the simple input but complex process that gives me the great feeling of achievement.
Also, it isn't that hard, I'm up to Wily now so it's not impossible, and you can't have your 'next gen controllers can do this' argument, because the Wii doesn't have pressure sensitive buttons, nor enough buttons to ammo swap with ease. The pause screen lets you swap in the heat of battle without taking damage while you do so. It's not game killing, it's actually a welcome mechanic in my book. I do agree with the ammo thing though.
Overall, Megaman delivered on what it promised, don't criticize something because it isn't what you wanted.

 

[Ravenlock80]

Wow, this reads like an overly and unnecessarily hostile review. It smacks of the opinion that somehow the devs took a lazy approach to designing this game, when as a fan of the series nothing could be clearer to me than that they studied long and hard the design of classic Mega Man games and went to great pains to lovingly recreate it.

I wanted to beat Mega Man 9, but couldn't. There are few things more disheartening than failing at leisure.

...It's suddenly bad game design to make a game hard enough that somebody can't beat it? I mean, it's not like nobody can beat it, there are plenty of folks out there who have beaten MM9 now. (I am not one of them, but I'll get there.) But is there some rule that every game should be beatable without practice, without improving one's skills in a game? I enjoy a good mindless romp through an undemanding game as much as the next guy, but how depressing to think that anything requiring more out of a player should be regarded as antiquated. The steady progression towards easier games that anyone can eventually beat is not universally regarded as good, you know.

And they did make plenty of design updates to the NES formula that could not, in fact, be had by getting an emulator and some ROMs (which, as others have noted, you should really edit out of the review, since all MM games are still readily available for purchase). The multiple save states are great, but more than that the longevity added by the achievement list and downloadable content (Endless Attack mode is something truly new, a randomly generated "play as long as you can survive" mode that still feels like classic MM levels) adds up to a rather phenomenal value considering the low asking price. Granted, if you don't even like the base game you obviously won't want more, but for the many people enjoying it, it's a great deal.

I have to wonder who these games are being made for. The original gamers who used to play this have become used to easier games, and in any case don't have the time and patience to retry levels a hundred times in order to make progress.

Hell with that, I say they made it for me. I am one of those original gamers, and I absolutely love getting kicked until I redevelop some of the skills I used to have. The satisfaction of beating a Mega Man 9 stage is far greater than, say, that of beating a Mario Galaxy level, lovely though Galaxy's levels are. Reward requires effort. [Something that was noted in the review, it just didn't seem to be emphasized as anything special, but I think it is.]

And if (when) I get frustrated with it, I just save, walk away, and come back later. It's not like you need to beat it in one go (Wily's castle notwithstanding, but Wily's castle being an unrepentant torture is a series standby).

Honestly, I think it's a fantastic title. Aesthetically they achieved exactly what they set out to do, delivering a game that feels like it could have come out of the NES even though it technically couldn't have. The gameplay is extremely solid, and yes, demanding, but not unfair. For $10 I think it's a no-brainer.

And ...

The original Megaman 9 software is no longer being produced. The Virtual Console and PSN and Arcade versions have other things in them the originals don't therefore, by the definition of Abandware, Megaman 9, is abandware.

Seriously? I'm a little shocked there's somebody who reads The Escapist who didn't know this was a brand spaking new game.

 

[domicius]

...It's suddenly bad game design to make a game hard enough that somebody can't beat it? I mean, it's not like nobody can beat it, there are plenty of folks out there who have beaten MM9 now. (I am not one of them, but I'll get there.) But is there some rule that every game should be beatable without practice, without improving one's skills in a game?

You make a well phrased point - one should of course be able to beat a game with practice. And of course there are people who do relish this kind of game - where incremental improvement leads to incremental progress.

My contention, though, is that these gamers are in the minority. Not only do most gamers want to actually get past the first five screens of the demo after an hour of play (curse you, ball-blowing elephant!!!!*); if they don't they'll go over and play The Force Unleashed demo where their brains will be seared to ashes by the sheer lack of originality therein.

And that's just irresponsible game design from the Mega Man 9 crew.

Just to sum up my point - some people like this game, and I'm just bitter because I got stomped on.

*Yes, it sounds dodgy, but it's just an elephant with a big deadly ball.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Curse that ball blowing elephant and curse that damned hairball spitting cat from MM3.

 

[Random Argument Man]

Aaaahhhh old 2d goodness. In the time, where every game weren't piss easy. If only the video game industry would listen. Well they did for Devil May cry 3, but they had to re-release, because people complained about the difficulty. (wimps, can't take the heat?)

New gamers will have a feeling of the old days.

 

[Xvito]

The thing that Mega Man forgets is that games aren't meant to be hard, they are meant to be fun.

 

[Dectilon]

The thing that Mega Man forgets is that games aren't meant to be hard, they are meant to be fun.

Something you're forgetting is that people have different skills and different tastes. I, for one, had more fun with this and BC:R than with any hold-your-hand game of recent times.

 

[Xvito]

The thing that Mega Man forgets is that games aren't meant to be hard, they are meant to be fun.

Something you're forgetting is that people have different skills and different tastes. I, for one, had more fun with this and BC:R than with any hold-your-hand game of recent times.

Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but when you do what Mega Man does it just starts to get annoying.
Edit: Oh and let us not turn this into some kind of battle as to which one of us is the better gamer.
Cause I would just win(irony).

 

[Dectilon]

The thing that Mega Man forgets is that games aren't meant to be hard, they are meant to be fun.

Something you're forgetting is that people have different skills and different tastes. I, for one, had more fun with this and BC:R than with any hold-your-hand game of recent times.

Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but when you do what Mega Man does it just starts to get annoying.
Edit: Oh and let us not turn this into some kind of battle as to which one of us is the better gamer.
Cause I would just win(irony).

Oh, I'd never do that. I know tons of people whom are better than me at almost every game, so I'm usually humble ^^

I admit, I wouldn't want games to be this hard all the time, but since you have such exact precision in your movement (you can edge forward one pixel at a time) in Mega Man, and the controls are so good, you can blame only yourself when you fail. Not imba, not lag, not delay; nothing like that ^^

I've died and died again playing this game, so it's not like I'm some kind of expert Megaman player who can clear the game on the first try, but I've enjoyed having to figure out the little tricks that let you progress in the game, slowly but surely.

By the way: A guy on the SomethingAwful forums is making a freeware Megaman game for PC, and it's looking pretty good so far. Here's his demo if you want to check out one of the levels:

http://student.elon.edu/gross3/MegaManReturnsDemo1.rar

He even included a few of my suggestions in it. I'm so nerd-proud right now ^^

 

[Fordo]

Sorry to rez an old review. I picked this game up for the first time yesterday at a friends house and didn't put it down for three hours.

How many games do you play through these days where you find yourself pushing the save button almost as much as you hit reload?

For a cynical 20 something who blows through most game's single player without losing more than a handful of lives, it's refreshing for me to see a game that focuses so hard on bringing a relatively small, but very well done amount of content that will be challenging to beat for hours and hours because of the sheer difficulty rather than your standard hugely large world with very limited linear path with repetitive game baddies and gimmicks.

MegaMan 9 offers a gamer a very striking and glaring challenge. Instead of focusing your time looking for a great spot to save, or a place out of the action waiting for health to regen, MM9 requires the player to trudge on or die. Need health? Better kill that robot duck/penguin thing and hope it drops some HP. Wishing you had more lives before fighting magma man? Yea, I wish I had a girlfriend with bigger tits.

Maybe what I like about the game is how solidly simple the mechanics are and how challenging. I found myself at times shouting more explitives at the screen than I could properly orate out of my mouth at once. There's something to say about a game that riles you up enough to challenge its sexual preference. Hard but fair are the words I'm looking for to describe this game.

Rewarded are players that can catch on to patterns quickly and aren't afraid of random leap of faith jumps that will go wrong 99% of the time on the first try. In the three hours I played I had only beaten one of the bosses. This was due in large part of how hard each level was, but also because I was trying to play through each level at least up to the boss before reality drove me away from the game and back to bars...

Yes, back in the day I welcomed the slide. And then the charge gun. And I thought MegaMan X was great. But somewhere around the time MegaMan started sounding like Dr. Light forgot to bolt balls to his robot, something was lost...

MM9 garners nastalgia, but comes with an item shop which you never had in MM2 or MM3. You also have the ability to save which is great. The game has tons of achievements for the nutso gamer crowd and I believe it even allows you to post your fastest clear times online.

This game isn't just for the oldies. This game challenges players to sack up and put down the Jergen's.

TLDR: $10 gets you a game to definitively prove to yourself what kind of gamer you truly are.