Mega Man 8 Anniversary Edition

"Dr. Wily made this game to get rid of kids... right?"

"All that is good must come to an end."

Mega Man and I were great friends when we were down in the era of early 1990s. As friendly as Mega Man was, he had one hole in him (Mega Man 4), but his shining points (Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 5) were more than enough for me to forgive the guy. But then he got angry, when he got to Mega Man 7. And thus, Mega Man and I ended our friendship. And then, when he turned to Mega Man 8, he became one of my most hated enemies. Seemingly out of nowhere, he went from being great to almost as bad as you can possibly be. What ever happened?

What made Mega Man so good in the first place is still there -- the game is a side-scrolling action game, ending with a boss to fight. After a fight to compare which one was the better creation, Mega Man gets the weapon that the now pile of debris used to wield, which another robot happens to be weak against. The original Mega Man was EXACTLY what made non-linearity. You could start the game wherever you want, and then continue along the path you just took. Like Mega Man 7, there's some linearity this time because you have to start with one of four, then beat those four and go to the next four. What a pity.

I think Dr. Wily had to create his robots while simultaneously drinking alcohol from a bottle this time, because almost all of his robots are plain unoriginal and just a plain insult to my intelligence. Grenade Man is a spunky little fellow done in Mega Man 1 (Bomb Man), the element of Frost Man has been overdone (and Frost Man is built terribly), Tengu Man (one of two good robots), Clown Man (who may be the worst idea Capcom has ever made), Aqua Man (not only was he overdone but he spoke like someone from Alvin & The Chipmunks), Sword Man (overdone), Search Man (very badly names and uninteresting), and Astro Man (another robot I can't pick a fault in). Two good robots are hardly enough to make up for the stupidity of this batch.

The best part of a Mega Man game, in my opinion, were the boss fights. While the bosses are nothing compared to the bosses in earlier titles, they aren't terrible. What's REALLY ruined are the stages. They are all twice as long as they should be. I mean, c'mon, after going through half of the long, repetitive stage, we usually want to get to the boss already. Another horrible idea was rollerboarding, something we have to do in the first Dr. Wily stage and Frost Man's stage. You'll be going out of control, REALLY fast, and needing to deal with lots of enemies, jumping across pits, and sliding under gaps, VERY quickly. This is an unforgivable deed, Capcom. For shame.

It's bad enough already, but we also have to put up with Astro Man's maze, where we have to go around randomly pushing switches until we find our way out. We also have to go through Sword Man's castle, entering teleports and solving puzzles. This is completely straying from the good times of Mega Man's history and turning it into something different. Yet another stupid addition was a system where you'd fight a mini-boss halfway through three or so of the levels, and then get a new Rush ability. The lovable dog from Mega Man 3-7 doesn't feel like Rush anymore. Where is the Rush Coil and Jet? Gone. Instead, we have unnamed Rush versions: one where he drops a random item, one where he flies around giving us recovery items, one where he'll drop bombs on enemies, and the original motorcycle, which just helps us move faster. Pathetic.

If they've been defeated, they usually get worse, do they not?

Case in point, Mega Man 7's graphics were very kiddy but Mega Man 8's define kiddy. All of the stages are incredibly colorful, full of all sorts of childish stuff. Clown Man's stage is even set in a circus, with all kinds of blues, yellows, and reds everywhere. At times, the graphics can be nearly impossible to look at. A majority of the robots are plain poorly animated or weird looking. And look at poor Mega Man... he looks like a doll made out of fresh, blue plastic. To think we're going around saving the world and fighting against eight evil villains with a hero who looks like he's made out of plastic!

But can Mega Man 8 return by giving us quality music, at the very least? No, the music is downright awful. I could have hummed the incredibly childish themes in Tengu Man's, Clown Man's, and Aqua Man's stages better than how they were done in the game. Upbeat music from the Dr. Wily stages is again missing, replaced with what I'll say would make a good lullaby when you're about to go to sleep, but not a good theme for an evil scientist's castle. Now I'm just beginning -- Mega Man is voiced by a girl, there's no question. What's more, it sounds like the girl is about six years old. Aqua Man is probably done by the same girl, in a contest to see who could do the most high-pitched voice. It's certainly not intimidating when we see the few characters that actually do have good voices say cliched things like such:

"Now the world is mine!"
"You'll be regretful!"
"I'll crush you! I'll beat you!"

Just about the only fun I ever had in the course of Mega Man 8 was shooting at Clown Man as hard as I could and then intentionally dying so I could intentionally hear him scream in pain. Then I'd shut the game off. Granted, if you do manage to complete the lackluster torture that is this game, you'll never want to touch it again. Killer robots with laser beams, missiles, and dangerous ray guns are very dangerous, no one can deny that. You also can't deny that crossing pits across molten lava with platforms disappearing below you is very dangerous.

All the same, I can't be convinced otherwise. Mega Man 8 is just as dangerous.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/04