Mega Man 9

"Obnoxious, flipping brutal, and Capcom isn't playing. Play if you dare."

Megaman 9 is the first original Megaman game since the release of Megaman 8 in 1997 and Megaman and Bass sometime after that. Capcom has decided to go with the whole "retro" look and make the game an 8 bit download for Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 for ten bucks. After I tried the demo, it didn't look at that bad. Yeah, didnt LOOK bad. Read on.

Gameplay 2/10

Megaman 9 just doesn't mess around. This game is REALLY hard. Capcom went all out and made this game so obnoxiously hard that it makes you want to take a gun and shoot yourself every single time you run out of lives. The game over screen is going to be your new best friend.

As many have said before in their own MM9 reviews, you are constantly replaying stages because you will not make it ever on the first try. It's too easy to die. You get hit by an enemy and your on a small cliff, about 95% of the time you WILL die. There is no doubt about it. and every stage you will be either making really hard jumps, avoiding spikes, or fighting a load of enemies. Going through a stage without getting hurt is almost impossible (and it's a challenge as well).

It's not fair most of the time. The game has no room for forgiveness. It even takes out the Buster Charge and the sliding from the past games. Why? No idea, they just want to make it even harder. But it's so hard to where it's really hard to enjoy. You just want to conquer it just so you don't have to play it again. MM9 is hardcore. For any Megaman fan who sucks at video games, you won't last unless you adapt.

You can more lives and protection from the store in the game, but unless you spend time getting a lot of screws, there isn't much you can purchase.

Graphics 4/10

I know it's a retro game, but it looks like all the previous MM original tiles. Nothing higher than 8 bits just like the NES. A lot of the bosses are unoriginal. Plug man sounds like Elecman. Magma man sounds like FireMan. Tornado Man sounds like TenguMan. It's just too similar and most arent memorable.

I think a 3D title would have been ALOT better. Im sure it would have costed more, but still. It looks depressing staring at the game. You don't feel right playing it most of the time. It looks like you downloaded Megaman 1-3 instead of Megaman 9. It looks as a really old game that was the first of it's series, not the 9th installment.

Sounds 8/10

They are decent. I'm not gunna lie but Capcom but some effort into making 8 bit sound be good on the ears and it sounds pretty decent. For a retro game, it's not bad. If this was released in 1992, people would enjoy the sound.

Replay Value 1/10

I don't care about beating a stage without getting hit since I would have to sacrifice the rest of my life to do so. I can hardly get to the boss alive as it is. The game offers challenges which are task you can do to make the game harder on yourself. Such task for example will be "Beat the game in 120 minutes" or "defeat a stage without getting hit before the boss". Pointless, nothing is obtained from doing so, and most of these tasks are next to impossible without putting a good month's worth of playing or weeks without sleep worth of gameplay involved and nobody has the time or patience just to beat something with just about no reward.

And it's not just the fact that I don't want to put any effort into it, I gain absolutely nothing out of doing so other than bragging rights. No new weapons, no new items, nothing. A waste of time. Nothing is cryptic about MM9. Everything is set into stone, beat 8 bosses, beat Wily stages, end of story. There is Time Attack and the challenges, but what motive is there to beat them other than "Wow I survived MM9 and got 100% on it, HARDCORE!"? Pretty much none.

Overall 3/10

MM9 is just another MM game that makes the franchise look more and more like a joke now a days. MM is getting less and less recognized as a known game series and it's getting put more on to the back burner of Capcom's game library. Street Fighter and Metal Gear Solid are receiving alot more recognition and they actually make titles for them that are up to date and with good quality.

I dunno what happened when Capcom decided on MM9. Yeah sure, I admit that it's worth 10 dollars, but not a penny more or less. But it doesn't help the series at all. The game isn't player friendly except to die hard Megaman fans. I am a big Megaman fan, but I don't like this game just because it's hardly enjoyable, and it's not really anything new.

I'm not mainly complaining about the level of difficulty of this game, but just how it feels like just another MM title. The game offers no new elements of gameplay, removes old elements of game play, adds in bosses that don't really look exciting, makes a plot twist that is really obvious to see through and just doesn't try. Capcom thought the difficulty of the game could make the game unique, but it just makes me sick personally.

Is MM9 worth downloading? If you have 10 dollars to spare, I don't see why not. It's just disappointing and makes you wonder what Megaman 10 or Megaman X9 will be like. The Blue Bomber isn't what he used to be, and Megaman 9 is just a plain example of that.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/09

Game Release: Mega Man 9 (US, 09/22/08)