Mega Man 9

"Capcom takes a daring move... And succeeds!"

Mega Man 9 is technically the 7th game of the NES Mega Mans. While some may argue Mega Man VII for SNES and 8 for PS1 are they aren't. Mega Man 9 sticks to the true roots of the NES games, by staying with 8-bit Graphics. Capcom took a daring move with this game so my thanks goes out to them. In this day and age unfortunately a good majority of the video game fanbase are unfortunately very against games with poor Graphics. So, how was the game? It was excellent. Absolutely, excellent. Well, worth staying up until it was released on Xbox Live Arcade to get.

Graphics:10/10:The Graphics for Mega Man 9 are simply gorgeous. I do not think I have ever seen better 8-Bit Graphics before. Capcom really went above and beyond for Mega Man 9's Graphics. Levels have great design. Enemies look great too and have a fair amount of variety. Megaman himself still looks the same. Bosses look terrific too and in general the game's Graphics are wonderful. So, overall a 10/10 on the Graphics for being so wonderful.

Gameplay:10/10:The Gameplay in Mega Man 9 is excellent. As Capcom stated with Megaman's capabilities they wanted to keep it at a minimum. So, it goes back to Mega Man 2 in terms of capability. Megaman can only jump and shoot, but believe me the game still remains extremely strategic due to the ingenious level design. So, to start off the basic Gameplay is still the same good old stuff. Eight robot masters and Megaman has to defeat them all and then foil Dr. Wily's evil plans. So, now onto my opinion of the level design.

The level design in Mega Man 9 does not disappoint. Capcom honestly never ceases to amaze me in Mega Man 3-6 on NES with the innovative, fun and challenging level designs. I can confidently say Mega Man 9 can proudly hold it's head up. The levels are very innovative, fun and challenging. As in terms of innovation a minor example is Galaxy Man's level. At one point, you must jump into a warp. It then launches you out of the corresponding warp. You must carefully plan out which warps to go into and how to move your jumps to reach the other warps throughout certain parts of the level. So, the level design is ingenious and still great, but what about the difficulty? Well, the difficulty...

Is extremely high. Mega Man 9 does not JOKE around when it comes to difficulty. This is no doubt one of the most challenging 8 Bit Mega Man games. I've beaten 3, 4, 5 and 6 myself and nearly beaten 1 and 2. Just to celebrate Mega Man 9 coming out I beat 3-6 again. I had a very tough time with Mega Man 9. The first two levels I did the easiest posed a little challenge, but not so bad. That's not saying much though, because this was just after I beat Mega Man 3-6 again. So, actually that's impressive that the levels occasionally made me die once or twice. The rest of the levels and bosses were at the minimum fairly challenging. Most of the time, I would actually say I spent a good 10-20 times dieing in like Tornado Man's level. I did get much better from all the dieing though and learned from my mistakes. See, that's the great thing about Mega Man 9's difficulty. It's NEVER CHEAP. If you die you will ALWAYS KNOW WHY. You will realize the mistake you made that lead to your death. One thing, that made me happy was Dr. Wily's Castle was actually challenging for once. Normally, it's usually at the very most fairly difficult. This time though, I must have died at least five through ten times before beating each of the levels. Now, simply put overall the difficulty of Mega Man 9 is extremely high. For those new to the game and are considering it take the difficulty into consideration. If you even slightly hate challenging games STAY AWAY FROM MEGA MAN 9. This game will absolutely test your patience and will have you cussing several times at your TV when you die or even worse get a Game Over. So, Overall the difficulty is extremely high. As for the overall Gameplay of Mega Man 9 it gets a 10/10 from me. It's a lot of fun, innovative, and extremely challenging. Now, onto the Music.

Music:10/10:The Music in Mega Man 9 is fantastic and some of the best Music the series has to offer. Songs in particular I liked were Tornado Man's, Dr. Wily's Castle 2, the level select screen music, store music. The rest of the levels though believe me had very good songs, but those ones that I mentioned I remember better since they are my favorites. Overall the Music gets a 10/10 for being fantastic. Now, how is Mega Man 9 overall?

Overall:10/10:A excellent game. Anyone even people who have a problem with 8-Bit Graphics(Shame on you, if you think Graphics make the game) should get Mega Man 9. It's a ton of fun, challenging and it has amazing level design. The Graphics even for a 8-Bit game are impressive and probably the best 8-Bit Graphics for a platformer I have ever seen. The Music in the game is absolutely fantastic as well. Overall you just can't go wrong with Mega Man 9. It's just about a perfect game and so it gets a 10/10 in my opinion. I can safely say the wait until 1AM in the morning to get this was WORTH IT. I will also safely be saying I will be replaying this epic masterpiece several times over and over in the future...

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/08

Game Release: Mega Man 9 (US, 10/01/08)