This is a great buy for nostalgia alone to anyone who had a NES as a child, but the challenging gameplay and retro charm
At the end of September this year Capcom resurrected the classic gameplay of their beloved Mega Man franchise by releasing Mega Man 9, the first game to be released in the original numerical series since 1996. Available across all three current gaming systems (Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox360, and Sony Playstation 3) as a downloadable title for the paltry sum of $10, MM9 is a nostalgic look back at what gaming used to be and provides hope for some of us that the 2D platformer genre isn't dead yet.
A 2D platformer is a game that takes place solely in two dimensions, with the protagonist primarily jumping from platform to platform. The most famous example would be the original Super Mario Bros., which brought popularity and demand for the genre to the western world. While the screen can scroll on its own accord either from left to right or up and down, sometimes it is necessary for the player to initiate the change by reaching the edge of the screen, like in Mega Man.
Mega Man is the titular character we play as. He looks like a young boy but he is actually a robot in blue armor created by a scientist named Dr. Light. In this adventure, it is the year 20XX and robots all over the world have begun to go berserk. Dr. Wily, nemesis and former assistant of Dr. Light, appears on a news broadcast claiming that Dr. Light is responsible for the robot rebellion and asks that money be donated so he can build robots to stop the carnage. Wily is shown talking to Dr. Light, whom we see confess his plans of using his latest batch of robots to take over the world. Dr. Wily says he wants no part of this, having changed his evil ways. Dr. Light and Mega Man are watching this together on television, so it is obvious to them that Wily is up to his old tricks. Mega Man is charged with clearing Dr. Light's good name but before he can get to Wily he must defeat the eight robot masters that Dr. Light created which Wily took control of. The story itself isn't anything to write home about, but it does provide the necessary motivation to stop Wily for the ninth time.
There are eight levels to select from at the beginning of the game, each containing a theme (usually elemental) with a robot master as a boss at the end of it. Once Mega Man defeats a robot master at the end of their respective level, he acquires their special power. The levels themselves are mostly memorization tests. There are multiple robot enemies that are placed throughout the level, along with an abundance of spikes and pits that spell instant death. At first the game might seem overly difficult, but once the level has been attempted a few times the brain kicks into gear and starts to automatically avoid these traps. Besides the eight weapons Mega Man can acquire, he also has his trusty robot dog Rush at his disposal, who can help him reach high ledges and later in the game become a jet for Mega Man to fly around on. Helping offset the difficulty is the shop feature, where Mega Man can purchase energy tanks that replenish health or other useful items in exchange for screws (the shop currency) that enemies can potentially drop. Once the eight robot masters have been defeated, Wily's castle becomes available, four stages in succession culminating with a showdown against Wily himself. This is the tried-and-true format Capcom created that worked so well throughout the eighties and nineties, and it proves it is still capable of providing good times. There are still the same moments of screaming frustration at repeated deaths, and the glorious cry of triumph when a robot master is defeated.
The format isn't the only thing that is familiar. On the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Capcom and many other developers were limited to what they could achieve in terms of visual accomplishment. This led to a small number of colors on the screen at the same time, a limited number of animations that could be occurring on the screen at once, and a hero who could only manage to blink on his own accord without user-guided input. Capcom intentionally limited themselves to those parameters again while developing this new Mega Man, an accomplishment that delivers us the look and feel of a game that could have been released in 1990. For gamers like myself who grew up on Nintendo and 8-bit games, this is a refreshing retread of childhood achievements and failures. For gamers who were weaned on Halo and later games, they will probably be disgusted by the lack of detail and polish, not to mention the absence of hi-definition.
Returning along with the 8-bit graphics is a soundtrack of simpler times, consisting mostly of blips and bloops that chug along on a set loop. Together with the classic Mega Man sounds of the mega buster (Mega Man's arm cannon,) obtaining an extra life noise, and the familiar dispersement of Mega Man's molecules when he is destroyed, the score provides old-school nostalgic nirvana. Gamers who are expecting a fully conducted orchestra along the lines of Metal Gear or Final Fantasy will be disappointed.
As far as replay value goes, the game offers fifty challenges for serious players to complete. Although there isn't any sort of reward for completing any or all of them, they can provide a fresh way to play the game. The challenges range from the simple (defeat 500 enemies) to the nigh impossible (complete the game without getting hit!) The game itself probably wouldn't take much more than four to five hours on its own, but because of the challenges I actually ended up finishing my initial run at twelve hours. Subsequent runs have taken me around an hour.