Screenshots :.
Mega Man 9
Wii
Matt
30-09-2008
"The bees! The goggles do nothing!"
"This bit is really tricky"
"Actually, all of it is really tricky."
I know you. You might not think I do, but I know you. You enjoy Mega Man 9, right? Yeah. See, I also know that the first thing you do when you enter a curry house is order a phall with extra chili. I also know that when you wake up in the morning you jump into an ice bath and then walk downstairs on a staircase made of beds of nails. You can sit through an entire James Blunt album without vomiting. You support Newcastle United. You use dead hedgehogs to comb your hair.
See, I don't do any of the above. I'm a normal guy who enjoys his videogames. Perhaps time has withered away my ability to go through hard side-scrolling efforts so competently (a veteran of Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, here). I've played Mega Man before too – X on the SNES was excellent if a little tricky. This is something different entirely. Mega Man 9 is, unless you are sodding brilliant or very, very patient, an aneurysm waiting to happen. Perhaps, as said, my gaming skills have been dulled, but this is the equivalent of kicking a man in the teeth when he's tied to the floor.
Not that I can't appreciate what 9, in all it's retro 8-bit stylings, is trying to do, and who it is aimed at. It's an unashamed fan service from Capcom to the series' loyal fans, with the little blue wonder going back to his platforming roots in order to save Doctor Light's reputation after he's nabbed for causing robots to go mental across the land and threaten humanity. Rather obviously, someone else is to blame.
As with previous Mega Man games, 9 allows you to tackle any of the levels in any order, with each having their owned themed bad guy and weapon unlock as a reward from completing them. Thing is, each weapon has a use in certain levels or against certain bosses which will smooth down an otherwise insane boss battle, so doing them in some sort of pattern actually works rather well.
Take, for example, my attempts to beat Hornet Man. As you can imagine, the little bugger fires some bees at you and then hops around whilst everything starts killing you. Firing my standard gun at said bees proved vastly inefficient to say the least, hence going and killing Magma Man instead gave me a rather tasty magma gun which dealt with the bees rather more quickly. A neat tactic, sure, but it only eases the pain a little.
That goes for the platforming in general too – it's hellishly exacting at first until you work out the technique, at which point it becomes somewhat easier but still rock hard. It's frustrating, it'll have you throwing your controller at the television and screaming bloody murder... but it's also packed with 'one-more-go' appeal. If, like me, you hate getting your arse handed to you on a plate by any game, you will no doubt be piling up the hours even if you're convinced you hate the thing.
To help you along the way, collecting bolts and various other parts scattered around the various levels will allow you to buy energy tanks, 1ups and the like to give you a little more juice in reserve. The relatively low bolts to item conversion rate means you can chock up quite a few of them pretty quickly, and once you get a boss down to a certain tactic and can almost kill him without the need for said items, adding them to your armoury will pretty much end any trouble you had in the first place.
Of course, the main thing that slaps you in the face when it comes to Mega Man 9 (other than the game doing it repeatedly through its difficulty) is the visual and audio style, with things very much lodged back in the late 1980s. Heck – you know that annoying grainy flicker around sprites on occasion? They've even added that in there, as well as forcing you to play in classic 4:3 vision. Be it the short, looping tunes or the basic, colourful visuals, 9 is very much a nod toward the past.
Hence, it's very hard to miss the point of what Capcom were aiming at. Whilst I will readily admit to not particularly liking it due to the insanely frustrating way it constantly reminds me how crap I now am at this kind of thing, I will say that I can appreciate its target audience and that it ticks all the boxes as far as they are concerned. It's not an unfair game at all – it's simply very taxing and very reliant on memory and reaction. It's a true blast from the past at a time when retro gaming is making a big comeback with the Wii Virtual Console, and it's a real challenge in the truest sense of the word. If you think you're man enough, dip in.
See, I don't do any of the above. I'm a normal guy who enjoys his videogames. Perhaps time has withered away my ability to go through hard side-scrolling efforts so competently (a veteran of Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, here). I've played Mega Man before too – X on the SNES was excellent if a little tricky. This is something different entirely. Mega Man 9 is, unless you are sodding brilliant or very, very patient, an aneurysm waiting to happen. Perhaps, as said, my gaming skills have been dulled, but this is the equivalent of kicking a man in the teeth when he's tied to the floor.
Not that I can't appreciate what 9, in all it's retro 8-bit stylings, is trying to do, and who it is aimed at. It's an unashamed fan service from Capcom to the series' loyal fans, with the little blue wonder going back to his platforming roots in order to save Doctor Light's reputation after he's nabbed for causing robots to go mental across the land and threaten humanity. Rather obviously, someone else is to blame.
As with previous Mega Man games, 9 allows you to tackle any of the levels in any order, with each having their owned themed bad guy and weapon unlock as a reward from completing them. Thing is, each weapon has a use in certain levels or against certain bosses which will smooth down an otherwise insane boss battle, so doing them in some sort of pattern actually works rather well.
Take, for example, my attempts to beat Hornet Man. As you can imagine, the little bugger fires some bees at you and then hops around whilst everything starts killing you. Firing my standard gun at said bees proved vastly inefficient to say the least, hence going and killing Magma Man instead gave me a rather tasty magma gun which dealt with the bees rather more quickly. A neat tactic, sure, but it only eases the pain a little.
That goes for the platforming in general too – it's hellishly exacting at first until you work out the technique, at which point it becomes somewhat easier but still rock hard. It's frustrating, it'll have you throwing your controller at the television and screaming bloody murder... but it's also packed with 'one-more-go' appeal. If, like me, you hate getting your arse handed to you on a plate by any game, you will no doubt be piling up the hours even if you're convinced you hate the thing.
To help you along the way, collecting bolts and various other parts scattered around the various levels will allow you to buy energy tanks, 1ups and the like to give you a little more juice in reserve. The relatively low bolts to item conversion rate means you can chock up quite a few of them pretty quickly, and once you get a boss down to a certain tactic and can almost kill him without the need for said items, adding them to your armoury will pretty much end any trouble you had in the first place.
Of course, the main thing that slaps you in the face when it comes to Mega Man 9 (other than the game doing it repeatedly through its difficulty) is the visual and audio style, with things very much lodged back in the late 1980s. Heck – you know that annoying grainy flicker around sprites on occasion? They've even added that in there, as well as forcing you to play in classic 4:3 vision. Be it the short, looping tunes or the basic, colourful visuals, 9 is very much a nod toward the past.
Hence, it's very hard to miss the point of what Capcom were aiming at. Whilst I will readily admit to not particularly liking it due to the insanely frustrating way it constantly reminds me how crap I now am at this kind of thing, I will say that I can appreciate its target audience and that it ticks all the boxes as far as they are concerned. It's not an unfair game at all – it's simply very taxing and very reliant on memory and reaction. It's a true blast from the past at a time when retro gaming is making a big comeback with the Wii Virtual Console, and it's a real challenge in the truest sense of the word. If you think you're man enough, dip in.
7/10