Mega Yawn
The tenth installment of the long running, 8-bit Mega Man series was release in early 2010 on WiiWare, PSN and XBOX Live and is a direct follow-up to the extremely difficult Mega Man 9.
The story takes place in the 21st century and a robotic virus, dubbed Roboenza, has started infecting robots all over the world. The infection causes robots to shutdown, malfunction and even go berserk. Dr. Wily, the primary antagonist for every other Mega Man game, comes to Dr. Light and the blue bomber seeking aid. Wily claims to be working on a device to cure Roboenza but an infected robot stole it and he needs Mega’s help to get it back. Mega Man joins up with Proto Man to go after the eight infected bots in order to save the world...again.
As plots for Mega Man games go this is pretty good as it ties in directly with the Mega Man X series and the Sigma virus. It has been strongly debated by Mega Man fans that Dr. Wily was the originator of the Sigma Virus, which was originally contained within Zero who was supposedly constructed by Wily.
The game play does not stray far from the Mega Man formula. Eight robot bosses to defeat, each weak against a specific weapon from one of the other bosses. Both Mega Man and Proto Man’s move sets are the same but Proto Man has a shield and Mega man’s charge shot is more powerful. There is also a store where one may purchase upgrades and rechange tanks using bolts collected in the game.
If one has played a Mega Man game before then they know what to expect. The sad thing though is that none of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 10 are all that memorable. Nor are their levels, nor is the music. Just about all of the game is instantly forgettable. Which is very, very sad.
What is memorable is just how amazingly stupid some of the new Robot Masters are. Specifically Pump Man and Sheep Man. Yes, you read that correctly, Sheep Man. Pump Man is a hand powered water pump with arms and legs. He gives Mega Man this game’s shield weapon. Sheep Man is....different. His attack pattern is to shoot an easily avoidable ball of static electricity towards the player, then rise into the air and split into four clouds. The clouds then shoot lightning down at the ground. Sheep Man then appears from the last cloud and falls to the floor. Rinse repeat. Taking Sheep Man out can be done in about a minute with the MegaBuster.
The weapon that is taken from Sheep Man is the Thunder Wool. When the weapon is fired a gray thunder cloud rises into the air in a logarithmic parabola, pauses for a moment, then unleashes a lighting strike directly downward. But if the cloud is touched before the bolt is unleashed them the weapon disappears with little to no damage done. This weapon is the most useless weapon in the history of Mega Man.
To put the uselessness of the Thunder Wool in perspective one needs to realize that the Top Spin, from Mega Man 3, is a better weapon than the Thunder Wool. How? Simple. While the Top Spin may be hard to use it can at least HIT an enemy. Thunder Wool cannot even hit enemies that don’t move. It has been witnessed that the weapon appears to hit an enemy point blank, yet miss. If an enemy is moving, forget it, use another weapon.
One design choice that is welcome is the addition of an easy mode. This mode adds platforms in certain spots and reduces the amount of hits required to take out enemies. Considering how punishing Mega Man 9 was this is a good move on the developers part.
Overall Mega Man 10 is simply forgettable. There is nothing here that is unique, challenging, or engaging. The ability to choose Mega Man or Proto Man from the start is nice and the addition of the easy mode is also welcome. But everything else has been done before and been done better. Those looking for a typical Mega Man game will find what their hearts desire in Mega Man 10, but those looking for something more engaging should look elsewhere.
