Finished: Mega Man 9 (Wii)

By alpha99 September 23, 2008 6 Comments

After that long stretch without a post here comes another one. Today was the big day for fans of the classic (read: when it was good) Mega Man series games. Mega Man 9 came out on WiiWare this morning and I spent the afternoon playing and completing my first playthrough of the game.

I'm going to just get straight to the point... If you think that Mega Man games are hard then this game is not for you! I am being serious, I can play through Mega Man 1 - 6 with no problems what so ever. I can beat Mega Man 2 without dying and the rest without ever continuing. But Mega Man 9 kicked my ass for quite awhile.

This is definitely styled after classic NES-era games where you must suffer many defeats before your practice pays off. There are some downright sadistic rooms in this game. Actually, if you have read what I have wrote about Mega Man before you may know that I hate when the series' level designs devolved into lining rooms with spikes. This game has that in spades, there isn't one level in the whole game that doesn't have a room covered in spikes. I give them credit these areas are fair, but I still think that you can do better then just go: "Spikes = harder game". More often than not: "spikes = more frustrating game".

That's another thing I am not a big fan of, this game is hard just for the sake of it. Mega Man games are challenging sure, but there are a lot times where it just seems forced. Like I said though it is nothing that some old-school skills and some practice won't help overcome.

As for the game, it is Mega Man. If you've played one on the NES, you have played this. There are some innovative new traps, platforms and a whole set of 8 new bosses, but it plays the same as the older games; Like Mega Man 2, but with the faster ladder climbing from 4 and 5. The graphics look NES-era and play the part well, but there are times when there are too many colors on the screen at the same time (but that is only something some one like me would notice). We'll call it "pseudo 8-bit".

The music is done with NES-era sound and sounds great and there are some good songs to listen to. Unfortunately it isn't quite as good as the Mega Man 2 music, it has the sound of games 3 and later. But all the classic sound-effects are there including the awesome "dee-dit" sound when Mega Man lands.

I recommend the game if you think you are hard enough to take on an old-school challenge. If you are one of those who thinks that previous Mega Man games are hard then you will not survive this... If you like to spike controllers, then this is not for you. I enjoyed the game, though I was disappointed to see all the spikes and, man, do I miss the slide.

I also recommend that you give the Wii version a shot if you have that option available as you can use the classic controller (or sideways Wii Remote) and the D-Pads on those controllers are perfect for this type of game (though the PS2/3 d-pad isn't too bad). I am probably going to check it out again next week on the 360 and see how that version controls... (I was planning on getting it on the 360 before the other systems but the Wii version came out first).

That does it for me, I'm probably going to work on another game, probably one of those RPGs I bought, I still haven't played Infinite Undiscovery yet and it's going on two weeks now (September 10th). I am also planning on grabbing Kirby Super Star Ultra for the DS. I loved the old SNES version and this on has updated graphics and such. I'll talk to you soon. You got a new weapon! Loading Complete!

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