AH yes, Capcom milking something that hasn’t really been milked since the early 90s. After the success(and awesomeness) of Mega Man 9, it was no surprise that people wanted more, and Capcom never misses the opportunity to make easy money.

Since the fans loved it so much, myself included, this game goes back to the NES style of Mega Man games again. Cover art and all. Yeah, I really love that cover art… The game features nostalgic graphics, nostalgic music and nostalgic gameplay.

Does it hold of as well as Mega Man 9, or should have Capcom stopped milking the cow already?

Read on and see!
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Date of Release: March 1st 2010 (Wii), March 11st 2010 (PS3), March 31st 2010 (360), Wii version reviewed
Platforms: Wii, PS3, Xbox 360

Genre: Side-scrolling Platformer
Players: 1
Rated E for Everyone

Presentation
Well, the graphics are just like the NES games, and MM9. It looks great. The sprites and areas are nicely detailed, while always retaining the 8-bit NES style. Each area is unique, containing different visual styles and level elements for each. There’s really not much to say here. If you like the NES look, you’ll love this.

The sound is good. Again, most of the sound effects are taken from the NES games, though the weapons mostly have new sounds. All of those retain the NES-like sounds. The most important though, in any Mega Man game (in regards to presentation at least), is the music. The menu music and such is okay, but not stellar.
As for the level music, let’s go at them quickly one by one. Blade Man is okay, but lacks anything really good and the composition is rather flat. Solar Man’s music is really cool. It starts out rather bland, but it picks up the pace and becomes fast and exciting, with something of a double pedal sound in the backing, making it one of the more interesting tunes in here. Pump Man’s music is kinda slow and doesn’t really “climax”, and overall it’s okay but short and not too exciting. Commando Man’s music sounds pretty cool. I find it a bit slow paced, but I think it fits to mood nicely. The music in Chill Man’s level sounds appropriately winter-ish, but it kinda lacks character, and doesn’t feature many instruments, making it more bland than it could be. Sheep Man’s music has that “electronic” sound to it, being an electric-themed stage, and it sounds pretty good, with a nice tone and melody. Strike Man has some music that’s high on energy and quite fun to listen to, quite fitting with the level’s sports-theme. Nitro Man has another nice fast-paced tune with a good melody, and I quite like this one. The final levels, after beating the Robot Masters, also have a few nice tunes. Overall, the music quality isn’t bad, but there’s nothing really memorable.

Finally, a quick passing note on the story. The story here involves multiple robots, including Roll, catching Roboenza, a virus that only affects robots and almost renders them useless, and, after a couple weeks, turns them violent. Doctor Wily turns up at Dr Light’s lab, after his flying machine has been destroyed by berzerk robots, saying he had almost found a cure, but had his medicine-making machine stolen from him, so Mega Man goes to find it, with Proto Man tagging along since he thinks Mega Man might need his help. The story is superficial, as with all Mega Man games, but it’s still has that old-school fun factor to it.

Gameplay
Well, the game retains the same gameplay as the NES classics, has the same jumping and shooting mechanics. The shop is back from 9 so you can farm screws to fill up on lives and E-tanks when you want. And this game adds real-time weapon change, with the A and B buttons on the WiiMote, and I think L and R on the Classic Controller/Ps3 and 360 controllers.

Bosses/levels
Each level features some unique elements. Of course Sheep Man’s level has the trademark disappearing blocks, and Chill Man has slippery grounds, but each has some really interesting ideas that make them all rather unique. Most of them will have elements that will completely change the platforming, like speeding trucks in Nitro Man’s level, or that tether thing in Blade Man’s level, for example. Some of the levels also have mini-bosses, and I’ll say that the ones here are actually quite interesting, and overall I find them really fun to fight. The giant goal in Strike Man’s level is really quite interesting, though a bit easy if you have the right weapon. Each boss is also completely different, and I’ll say there’s some really cool fights here. Trying to find each boss’ weakness without reading about it before is quite fun, if not a little bit easy. Trying to figure out Blade Man is REALLY tough but totally satisfying since his pattern is so fast and random and adaptive of your behavior. Finding the best ways to avoid Solar Man’s attacks is hard but quite fun. Easily killing Sheep Man is fun too, and avoiding several of Nitro Man’s attacks requires precision jumps. A few of the fights aren’t as great, but overall I think they did a good job with the bosses.

Weapons
After killing a boss, you get his weapon, of course. The weapons here are not too bad. There’s a few good ones.
The Water Shield is one of the more interesting shields in the series.
The Thunder Wool basically creates a little wall of electricity in front of you(after around 2 seconds), shielding you from certain attacks and dealing good damage (though it’s hard to aim properly).
The Triple Blade you get from Blade Man can hit up to 3 times at once if you’re close enough to your target, and doesn’t use that much weapon energy compared to the other weapons.
The Commando Bomb can be remote controlled to go where you want (though your character moves as you move the missile, so be careful).
The Cutting Wheel moves across the floor and on the walls which is cool, and it stays attached to Mega Man’s (or Proto Man’s) arm until you release the button, so it can act as a shield, and it can be used to climb walls too.
The Rebound Striker can be shot either in front of you or diagonally, and it bounces off walls a few times too, making it quite useful in the right situations.
The Solar Blaze isn’t really great though, basically shooting a fireball then splitting in 2 fire waves on each side, which does no more damage than the buster.
The Chill Spikes are… not too great, unless you use it on an enemy that might walk on the spikes those produce (you can’t shoot again until something touches the spikes).

My big problem is that most of the weapons use a LOT of weapon energy. The Thunder Wool can only be shot a few times before being empty, as does the Rebound Ball, and the other weapons get empty relatively fast as well. The only weapon that can be used a bit more is the Triple Blades, which is a good thing since they’re really good.

Difficulty
The game is hard. It’s not cheap hard like most modern “hard” games, it’s “Nintendo hard”. Your first time through most levels will probably kick your ass, but you’ll eventually learn how to pass the tougher sections with trial and error. There’s a few areas that are more annoying than hard, but they’re relatively rare. The mini-bosses are also pretty tough, especially in Strike Man’s level, but learning the patterns will eventually get you through them without getting hit. The boss battles range from really easy (sheep man) to really hard (Blade Man), and most bosses will require more than one try to finally get their pattern and beat them easily…. or learning their weakness (which you should do on your own rather than looking it up online). Overall it’s quite a hard game, but I’d say not exactly as hard as Mega Man 9, since I got to the end a lot faster than 9.

The game features an easy mode. This changes quite a few things: some enemies are removed or replaced, some enemies don’t have the same attacks, some pitfalls/spikes are covered by flying platforms, some “puzzles” are changed completely like the disappearing block part in Sheep Man’s level, and the game is a LOT more generous on lives, E-tanks and screws. The levels also all have, 2-3 times each, an item appearing that fully heals all your life bar, sometimes right before boss battles. The bosses are also a bit easier, mostly featuring easier to avoid attacks. While this mode is almost useless for veteran Mega Man players (though it’s required to play to unlock all the challenges), newer gamers who are used to having their hand held through a game will definitely have a much easier  and probably more pleasant time with the game if they start out on easy mode.

Extra stuff
Here, you can play as Proto Man without having to pay extra, unlike in MM9. Here, he plays just like in MM9. He can slide, charge his weapon, he holds up his shield when jumping (unless he’s shooting) which stops almost any projectile that touches it. On the downside, he can only have 2 shots on the screen at once instead of Mega Man’s 3 shots, and he takes more damage. And here he has access to the shop unlike MM9, though it doesn’t have the same inventory as in Mega Man’s, and stuff costs more. Overall he’s pretty fun to play as.

Here, the game features 2 types of challenges. Just like in MM9, the “Challenge 2″ section is basically achievements. There’s a lot fewer than in MM9, but all the “important” ones are there. The “Challenge 1″ section is actually a relatively big amount of challenge rooms. Most of them require getting to the end of the room without dying, using pixel-perfect precision jumps, and various other things. This actually makes you get used to the game’s various jumping mechanics and puzzles in the game. There’s also boss fights and such here. It’s a really nice addition.

Like MM9, this features a Time Attack mode, where you try to finish levels as fast as possible, with all access to all weapons, with only 1 life. When you’re done, you can post your time on the leaderboards, and you can save a replay of your run. This is REALLY cool, because, if you save your replay, your recording becomes available online and people can watch it straight from the leaderboards. That way you can look at other people’s runs, to find out little tricks and such. This is a cool feature, for sure.

Overall
Mega Man 9 was the perfect revival for the 8-bit classic Mega Man. This is just Capcom milking the idea of making old style Mega Man games since it sells so well. It doesn’t feel like they put as much effort in this one than they did in Mega Man 9. But don’t get me wrong, this is still a really good entry. Damn good.

But overall it’s quite fun. The platforming is good, the boss battles are interesting and require really learning how to fight them, there’s some really challenging parts and it’s overall really fun to play. Being able to choose 2 distinct characters from the start is good, though being able to unlock Bass would be a LOT better than having to buy him.

The Easy mode makes levels almost too easy to veteran gamers, but newcomers will definitely like it more.

Overall, any Mega Man fan should check it out, and people new to the series should check it out too because of Easy Mode.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Fun retro gameplay
- Looks great
- Sounds good
- There’s a few quite good music tracks in here
- It’s hard
- The “Easy mode” makes this a perfect for beginner Mega Man players
- Being able to watch other peoples’ Time Attacks online is really a nice feature, you can learn quite a few cool tricks
- Challenge mode is fun

Cons
- The music is nowhere near as good as in MM9
- Some parts are just annoying rather than challenging
- The weapons aren’t the the best in the series, though there’s some really cool ones
- Bass is downloadable rather than unlockable, which is really stupid

The Save Factor
Despite not being as good an entry as Mega Man 9, it’s still a solid game and is well worth the 1000 Wii Points it costs. So $10 is the Save Factor here!

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