Genre : Video Game
Publisher: Capcom
Players: 1
Retail Price: $10
Availability: WiiWare, PSN, XBLA
It’s hard to believe that a person reading a gaming site has never played a Mega Man game before. It seems fairly safe to assume that we have a set of shared experiences, but just in case, the only real things you need to know are that Mega Man is blue, has a blaster with unlimited ammo and has to fight a series of robot bosses who will, upon defeat, give him their abilities. Each boss is also weak against another’s attack, though while growing up I never payed much attention to this aspect.
‘While growing up’ is a fairly key phrase when dealing with Mega Man 9. Once the series hit the Playstation I began to lose interest, as the games seemed different somehow. Not so with this iteration, as everything about the game screams 8 bit, down to the music that annoyed the hell out of my wife but made me feel like I was seven again.
That’s just the thing, though: this game is not made for the uninitiated. You have to love the series already, or there’s no way you’d put up with dying incessantly. This isn’t the first place you’ve heard it, but it remains just as true: this game is incredibly difficult. Roughly 10 seconds into my first level I took damage, and 30 seconds in I was dead. This set the tone for my first few hours of play, as I barely made any progress. I’d die, then be respawned waaaaaay back at the middle of the level if I was lucky, which I frequently wasn’t. I came to the conclusion that this game is for people who hate themselves.
Then a remarkable thing happened: I beat Galaxy Man. I threw my hands in the air, and changed my Adium status to ‘Suck it, Galaxy Man!’ I continued playing, with a smile on my face. Then I beat Concrete Man (only to find out later that the former is weak against the latter). It took me five to 10 tries to do it, and at one point I died when he had one bar of health left. But I persevered, and his weapon was mine.
Concrete Man’s death taught me two things: one, that the level that once took me forever to do was now over relatively quickly; and two, that I was damn satisfied with myself when I cleared a level. It’s challenging, definitely: some people may say it’s too hard, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. The levels are the same each time, though, down to enemy placement and movement, and so after dying 15 times you know what you need to do to get by the section. It may take you until your 23rd try, but then it becomes almost a matter of muscle memory. Once you know how to beat those goddamned elephants, you can do it without taking much damage. Not only that, you feel good about yourself when you do it.
The idea of procedurally generated content is all well and good. Games that constantly offer you a new experience are a huge asset to the industry, and will probably continue to be the way of the future. But there’s something to be said for the old way of doing things, and Mega Man 9 is the essence of a ‘hardcore’ game: brutal, inaccessible and static, while at the same time rewarding, engaging and fun. The achievements are similarly hardcore: beat the game without dying. Beat the game five times in a day. You’re definitely meant to play the game through multiple times, which presumably gets easier each time.
That’s not to say that Mega Man 9 is perfect. There are a few small things that detract from the overall experience, like the smooth ‘Loading’ text placed next to the awesome NES font. Also, whileI don’t expect them to hold my hand, if I hadn’t heard that you could buy items before I played I probably would never have spent any of my hard earned screws at the home base at the bottom of the screen. Perhaps most annoying is that, as far as I can tell, you can’t save from the level select screen. Instead, you have to either lose all your lives or beat a boss to get to the ‘Level select / Save / Title’ screen. It might be there, but if it is, it’s hidden.
In the end, though, Mega Man 9 set out to recreate an original Mega Man experience, and that’s been done with (MIDI) bells on. It’s hard, yes, and if you aren’t a huge Mega Man fan already then it’s probable that you’ll throw the controller across the room, wonder why the hell you’re doing this to yourself and go play something fun. Those who stick through it, though, will find out exactly how fun a game that absolutely refuses to hold your hand can be. They’ve turned me into a masochistic old coot, sitting on his porch steps saying ‘In my day, kids didn’t have all these newfangled conveniences! We couldn’t get past the first level of Bayou Billy and we liked it, dag nabbit!’
You know what? I’m fine with that. Now excuse me, I have to go try to beat Splash Woman in under 10 seconds.
