With a few hours of Mega Man 9 under my belt I’ve got to admit, this game is FREAKING HARD. I’ve played many games since the original Mega Man series was released on the NES and later on the SNES and nothing compares to Mega Man 9 in terms of sheer difficulty. This new franchise title looks and acts like the original with all the glitches, colors, bleeps and effects of the original games.
This game is much like chasing your kids around the yard, you forget how “old you are.” Mega Man 9 challenges reflexes, hand-eye coordination, patience and persistence. You are constantly awarded with death upon death and level restarts. Just when you think you’re getting close to a leader you’re actually just encountering a harder portion of the stage.
Between the start of a stage and the final boss you’ll encounter larger single-screen microbosses who challenge your patience and skills. As it turns out, I’ve got very little of both attributes. Upon defeating a little boss I am handed another like boss which is a little tougher. Upon defeating this slightly tougher boss (after many level restarts) I’m rewarded with yet another more difficult microboss.
Mega Man traditionally allows you to wonder all of the selectable stages out of the gate but each one gets easier as you build your characters weaponry. The trick is finding that “easy” level to get you to a boss, defeat said boss and acquire a weapon of mass awesomeness. Alas, I’ve done none of these.
You can find online video walk-throughs on the Internet which can give you tips for getting around the stages but the end result is the same: patience, persistence and accuracy. Mega Man 9 teaches you that nobody is a game master without consistent practice.
The first time through a stage is a destructive mess of failure. As you restart the stage over and over you’ll learn some of the tricks to getting you through the initial enemies without taking damage. You’ll build up your arsenal of tricks for hitting enemies before they’re on the screen and mashing the fire button to freedom… until you hit your first spike.
Spikes are the bane of the Mega Man character. Mega Man isn’t a fan of little pointy objects which result in instant death. You can hit the jump button quickly for shorter jumps and longer for bigger jumps; jumping technique is required to move you through spike infested levels.
You learn quickly to never turn your back on an enemy. Turn around, ever so slightly, and walk back on the side-scrolling screen and forward again will result in the rebirth of all enemies you’ve killed. This includes bomb wielding birds, rock tossing baddies and hells fury in the form of red and green cannons.
If you’re looking to discover all the ways you can possibly lose in a game, feel your inner child emotionally crushed under the weight of 8-bit bad asses, Mega Man 9 is the game for you. The achievements will make you laugh and the difficulty will invoke that old controller tossing nostalgia.
Mega Man 9 is a challenge. If you wish to take on this challenge and prove your 8-bit weight in the world of high resolution graphic fairy tales this may be the title for you!
Seeing as I posted my comment late on the previous podcast, and the topic was E3, I’ll just copy and paste it.
Plenty of games have been added to my list of games I want to play, among them are:
-Need for Speed Most Wanted
-Epic Mickey 2
-New Super Mario Bros. U
-Pikmin 3
-Rayman Legends
-Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist
-Tomb Raider
-Watch Dogs
Worst E3 conference was Microsoft, best was Ubisoft. What I don’t get is how many people are “disappointed” by Nintendo’s conference, expecting huge releases such as Zelda, Metroid, F-Zero or even Smash Bros. I think that many people do not understand how long it takes to make the great games Nintendo makes, and expect them to churn them out like Call of Duty. I also think that it’s a smart move by Nintendo, releasing quite a few good titles at launch, and then pace the awesome games one by one for the future. Maybe this way the WiiU won’t run out of first-party games as soon as the Wii did.
2 questions, both for Paul:
So, did you shit your pants when Nintendo announced the WiiU will come out Holiday 2012?
Have you finished Skyward Sword yet?
Jonah, good call on the next level of consoles by the games displayed.
@THQ closes their San Diego Studio, sells the UFC license
It’s cold, hard, business. Sorry for the devs though. 2 mil. sales at a medium price of 20 USD that would give us aprox. 40 mil. USD.
@annual Assassin’s Creed releases funded AC3:
This means that the games are quite good, if they manage to provide a good revenue stream. Kudos to the developers then.
@Vivendi may sell Activision-Blizzard:
Talking about short term thinking … they’re going to sell the powerhouse that got them a truckload of money, without taking into account the possibility that they might build another great game.
Mission Impossible for NES is based on the TV series.
Jordan, you don’t play PC games :O ?!
Had to be the most boring E3 I’ve seen. I only managed to stomach 3 conferences: Microsoft, EA and Nintendo. And I want my 3 hours 43 minutes 57 seconds back.
@Microsoft: I was very surprised when the conference ended after Black Ops. Iwas expecting at least another 30 minutes when Microsoft usually brings out some exciting stuff. But it never happened. A very anti-climatic finish when compared to previous Microsoft conferences.
@EA
OMFG!!! They made sport more realistic than it is in real life. The only way to top that is to stick a joypad up David Beckham’s arse. Why go outside and play ball with friends when you can wall yourself from society and game yourself into a blind comatose stupour.
@Nintendo
No launch date. No launch price. No launch line up. No information on the Wii U. Will it have proper on-line capabilities? What will be Wii U policy on DLC, DRM, Region Lock, Backwards Compatability, Friend Codes etc… But Oh My Gard it will have Pikmin. And what happened to the 3DS? Why did I even buy this brick? To play Mario game remakes? There is only so many times I can stomp a goomba. I recently purchased Mario Kart 7 and it feels like an expansion pack to the 2006 DS version. In 3D. Was it made by George Lucas? For one, I am looking forward to the arrval of Assasin’s Creed and Mass Effect on the Wii U. I am sick and tired of saving princesses.
@DynamicJul
Recently we have seen critics bashing Nintendo’s golden IP. If I was to tell you 2 years ago that a Zelda game will recieve on average 7 out of 10 from most critics, you would call me insane. But such is the truth. It appears to be that Nintendo’s golden formulas have been over-abused. Pokemon. Zelda. Mario. Each iteration closely builds on the previous one. I stopped playing Pokemon because I am bored of following the same story doing the same things but with 150 new ugly Pokemon. Same can be applied to Zelda. On this E3 people wanted to see something new. They wanted to see how the Wii U will transform classic IPs into modern HD versions. Remember, Nintendo’s own developing studio has next to none experience with HD high performace games. People wanted to see at least a glimpse of what is to come.
Overall, dull E3. I was expecting something more. I just hope more info will be available about the Wii U. It’s my last attempt to go Nintendo. If Wii U fails, I will turncoat to Microsoft for the following eternity. Sick and tired of bricks…
PS: I hope in the next episode you will cover Warren Specter’s comment on ultraviolent games. So that I will get an opportunity to tear that prick apart and re-assemble him the way he shoul be.
@Arthur V
Woah, woah, woah… what are you talking about?
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Metacritic score of 93. Where the hell did you get an average of 7 out of 10?
Pokemon Black and White has a metacritic rating of 87.
Mario Kart 7: metacritic score of 85.
Super Mario 3D Land: metacritic score of 90.
As far as critics go, they still all agree that Nintendo makes stellar games with their IPs
By the way, it’s my birthday today.
Happy Birthday DynamicJul. And I got those scores from Gamespot. I have been using Gamespot since 2006 or so. They are sometimes unnecessarily harsh on games but I can see the point they are making regarding Nintendo games. Regardless, I still firmly stand by my point that Nintendo’s press conference was a drag. It could have been way better.
Hate to break this to you, Dynamic, but that game only sold because it had the Zelda title, and Nintendo’s Iwata just made a statement that everyone hated the Wiimote, citing the fact that only 40% of people who owned Zelda actually finished the game thanks to the bad controls.
And that’s coming from Nintendo.
Sorry to post another comment, this will be the last one, but I had to get this out.
First of all, isn’t it kind of the point that it’s a Zelda game? Nintendo has always been about their famous IPs, and that’s why they are constantly being made.
About Iwata saying everyone hated the Wiimote, I’m sure that it is taken way out of context, please provide me a link because I want to read its source. I haven’t heard a lot about people hating the Wiimote, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of people like me who enjoyed playing the game with the MotionPlus.
And lastly, if 40% of people who owned it actually finished it, that is quite good, because nowadays single-player games are rarely finished. It has been found that only 10% of Red Dead Redemption owners played the last mission (http://bit.ly/qXeB45). In a recent survey, taken by IGN users (majority obviously active gamers), only 51% of them always finish single-player games (http://go.ign.com/MdYUey). So yeah, 40% is not a bad number, at all.
No. Quit playing it. Because of the controller. Big difference.
hi guize!!!
no time so…
@QOTW
Watch Dogs
Need MW
and the sad news that next gen consoles will make my PC “useless”… again…
must acquire currency and purchase new PC T-T