A return to gaming roots.
This, my friends, is true time backtracking. A game that could have been made in 1990 indeed. The whole package is set to stay primitive: in-game graphics, cutscene graphics, menu, music, controls. Everything is made like it would have been two decades ago. The stages are all designed with limited number of colors and staying simple at all costs, but they've actually managed to create a retro atmosphere that's absolutely incredible. The musics and sound effects are presented in an archaic manner as well, like the sound of old 8-bit games. Although primitive, the musics are insanely addictive, as music quality doesn't necessarily mean high-end production, many memorable video-game musics are from the 8-bit era, many received improvements in the composition and can now be played by an orchestra, but the sheer beauty of a nostalgic low-fi track is not something to be underestimated. While in the music department Mega Man 9 is awesome, with several memorable tracks that aren't classics simply because they weren't made 20 years ago, the sound effects do a incredibly good job as well, the same old beeps and bleeps we had back in the day, but amazing nonetheless.
If everything about this game is like how it was many years ago, the difficulty should follow the same path, right? Yes, that's right, and you bet it did. The game is very challenging, you'll spend many hours trying to get past the 8 stages found in the game, which sounds too few stages for today's standards, but believe me, it isn't, the stages are addicting and takes a lot of time for them to get old; not that this game has a problem with breaking current standards anyway. After all, the steep difficulty is one of the aspects that make this game shine, making a game difficulty with clear but hard tasks for the player to overcome was one of the few tools the game developers had in the past. With that, it's safe to say the player won't "accidentally" beat the game the first time he sits in front of the TV to play it, this is the type of game that requires some kind of devotion. The first times you enter a stage you'll mainly try to figure out how the stage works, what kind of enemies are in it, what kind of attacks they use, what is their weakness, where are their locations, what surprises you may come across, what's the enemies' attack patterns, item locations, traps, and so on. Only after many deaths, and a few "game over" screens you'll have the stage known like the back of your hand. The bosses follow Mega Man habits, you have one boss at the end of each stage, and if you beat one of them you acquire a new weapon that reflects the abilities of the boss you've just faced. This weapon will be the weakness of some other boss, and using it will certainly ease things up a lot for you. So it all comes down to 8 bosses, 8 new weapons and 8 weaknesses, very familiar for anyone who has played at least one Mega Man game before.
The weapons are also pretty cool, like the Black Hole Bomb, which shoots a projectile that will travel the screen until the point you decide to press the fire button again to activate the black hole, sucking almost everything up inside of it, be an enemy or a projectile coming at you, pretty cool. These special weapons have a limit, and you can refill them by downing enemies along the way and collecting the refills if you're lucky enough for them to drop it, the always useful Mega Buster has infinite shooting, just like always; again, good old Mega Man style. You also have two handy techniques using the ability to summon Mega Man's dog, one lets you jump on the dog's back to take a big jump reaching incredible heights; in the other, you'll be able to jump on his back and use the dog as a flying little ship, it can come in handy in many difficult situations, and when you get the hang of it it'll ease things up a lot for you during the game. You control holding the wiimote horizontally in your hand, making it look like a NES controller -- which couldn't be more convenient for a game like this --, your left thumb will reach the d-pad of the controller, while your right thumb will take care of the "1" and "2" buttons, one for shooting and one for jumping; like I said, keeping it simple. The "+" button acts as the pause button. Like that you'll practically feel like having a NES controller in your hand, and that adds up to the experience. No fancy controller is needed because the game keeps it simple at all costs, so everything you need will be at the palm of your hand using the wiimote. Other moves implanted in later Mega Man games aren't present in this one. In addiction, you have some items to help you during this hard game, health filler, special weapon meter recovery, etc. You also have the opportunity to gather bolts in the game, which you'll be able to exchange for items in a shop accessible by the level select screen.
If beating the game isn't enough for you, other modes can also be found in Mega Man 9. Like a time attack, which the name pretty much sums it all up for you, timed mode while playing the courses found in the game; best times can be sent to an online ranking. Also a list of challenges with several criteria waiting to be met in-game, some are easily achievable, like killing 100 enemies, but some are insanely cruel, requiring the player to do tasks like beating the game without ever receiving damage. Downloadable content is present as well, if you're up to it, after finishing the game, it's a good choice to purchase it and add some more hours of gameplay; if a game is this good, that's never a bad idea.
So, what do you do when the advancement of graphical capabilities doesn't suit your series? Go back to what it used to be, of course. That's what Capcom did, and I hope they do it again, soon! That it may serve as an example for many other developers with old-school series just waiting to enter a time machine and bring us more of that old-school charm they all had; simple, but effective. This game turned out better than I had imagined, and I imagined a great game, often I'm deceived by my high hopes for stuff, especially for games, but not this time. The minimalistic approach can be the experience of a decade for some, and insanely unexciting for others, it's your call, I guess you might have an idea if you'll like this game or not. For anyone remotely interested in this simple, but inherently complex, title, I gladly recommend Mega Man 9.