The first great 8-bit title in 15 years
I never really got into Mega Man games.
The first game, a kiss of death waiting in my Easter Basket, taunted me with its unbeatability. Even after summoning the power of game genie to defeat it years later, the whole experience left a sour taste in my mouth. The game's sequels passed over each other in such a dizzying fashion that I thought the ship had sailed - how could I get into these new games if I didn't know how to play the first one? I even tried to get into the reboots, Mega Man X, Mega Man 8, Mega Man Zero, and even if the slightly less obtuse movement of the hero and increase in attack options helped, the added complexity in design drove me away. I liked the idea of Mega Man, the freedom of level selection and getting stronger with each foe beaten, but each game served to further segment its audience in the name of development. Capcom realized this. They realized they needed to go back to the series' peak, numbers 2 and 3, and start from scratch. Forget Mega Man 4 and every game thereafter, this is the sequel that should have happend.
Mega Man 9 uses 8-bit graphics and sound well within the limitations of the original NES hardware, and this back-to-basics approach puts the failures of the later games in stark relief. The aesthetic may be simple, but every pixel has meaning and hit detection is much more accurate and predictable then the more lazily produced sequels, or the stillborn attempts at 3d. The MIDI soundtrack may be basic, but the infectiousness of its tunes easily surpasses the full orchestras and licensed tracks of modern faire. And the gameplay may be brutal, but it is fair. Mega Man 9 is not a game of WTF deaths. Each enemy has a very predictible pattern and deliberate purpose, each jumping puzzle is set aside from the regular droves of enemies, allowing you to study its clock-like precision before executing your answer to its riddle, and each boss room has wide spaces of relative safety if you can look past the glitz of your flashing, immenent death long enough to see them. While refilling health and copious checkpoints have allowed modern designers to skirt the issue of fairness, every life in Mega Man is worth something, and you can't take it away from the player without offering some knowledge in return.
For all the good it has done the series to eschew modern technology in the name of clairity, plenty of features still feel arcane. Hiding the weaknesses of bosses and the difficulty of stages in the age of Gamefaqs is not recommended. No one who starts off in the heinous fires of Magma Man's stage or the disappearing platform of Plug Man's is not going to have a good first impression. Allowing multiple saves and infinite continues is a wonderful conceit, but doesn't go far enough to make the persistent elements of the game, like the between-mission shop, worthwhile. More lives, more checkpoints, and more ways (and reasons) to avoid the continue screen could open up the game to a wider audience without comprimising the intelligence of the challenges. The game does include some modern features, achievements ranging from the simple to the insane, dowloadable content in the form of a harder Proto Man mode, and time attacks and other goodies for the superskilled fanatics, all of which make the absense of any pity for the poor, wimpering masses that will inevitably download this game seem unduely cruel. Mega Man, like many games of its day, has the distinct ability to become exponentially harder the more you loose, since frustration and anxiety ruin the timing of your movements, building impatience with each soul-shattering spike death. You might eventually discover ways around the obstacle in question, most challenges can be made simple if you have the right weapon, but there's no guarantee you won't smash your controller first.
Still, I think Mega Man 9 holds a special place in the annals of gaming. We think nothing of a hot director shooting a film in black and white, or a rock band throwing acoustic tracks in between overproduced pop hits, yet the decision to make a game 8-bit, to recognize an inferior form of technology as a unique mode of expression, is something that games have never done before. Videogames until now have been treated like rollercoasters, each new generation replacing the old with better technology and a more immersive, visceral experience. For games to evolve, we need to move past that. My point is not that Mega Man is a work of art, but that it treats the NES as a canvas, as a platform for art, and that might be the first, crucial step. If the idea of Mega Man, that ethereal concept which captured my imagination despite the failures of its long and beleagured franchise, if the idea holds any artistic merit, I believe we are one step closer to finding it.
It may have been coded for its own, masochistic niche, but this is the first Mega Man game I've ever enjoyed.
