Toronto Thumbs

REVIEW
Mega Man 9

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Mega Man 9 is now available for the three mighty consoles via digital distribution. If you haven’t played a Mega Man game but consider yourself a gamer – well, I’m sorry, but you’re missing out on an entire set of feelings and sensations. It’s like thinking you’re a candy lover while you’ve never had dark chocolate. It may not be for you, but it’s something you just have to try.

My first memory of Mega Man was running over to my friend Steve’s house (he lived down the street) to play his NES and Mega Man 2. It was immediately different from other games I’d played because of the stage select feature. Rather than having a stage 1, stage 2, and so forth, players could actually choose which stages they wanted to go to and in which order.

When the series made the jump to the Game Boy, I made sure it was on my Christmas wish list. Since the first time I took my turn at Crash Man’s stage, I knew I was playing something special. After the X series of games on the Super Nintendo, however, I fell out of touch with the series and was content to play the newest games of the time – but I’d still pick up Mega Man 2 on my Game Boy every now and then for old time’s sake.

Mega Man showed up on my radar again when the Anniversary Collection was released for the GameCube. A whole disc of 2D Mega Man games for $20? Can’t go wrong with that.

Now, Mega Man 9 has hit and I’ll admit, at first I was skeptical. Was this just a cheap attempt to pull at retro gamers’ wallet strings by stirring up their desire for new nostalgia? The unveiling of the downloadable extra content didn’t help this feeling. To get the full game, with all the extras, would cost gamers around $18. Not bad for a new game – but Mega Man 9 is kind of an old game, isn’t it?

Actually, it isn’t. After playing Mega Man 9 I can definitely vouch for its worth. And yes, if you’ve ever enjoyed a Mega Man game, you owe it to yourself to try this one out. It’s oftentimes painfully difficult but it’ll remind you of a time when games had set rules and boundaries to play within. If anything, the existence of Mega Man 9 is the ultimate advocate for the saying “gameplay over graphics.”

Not that the graphics are bad – they’re classic Mega Man, and they’re even an option to allow for sprite flicker for those who can’t get enough old-school action. The success of this title says a lot – it says that gamers aren’t all a bunch of graphics snobs and makes me wonder that if a company like Capcom ever built an NES cart, would the demand be sufficient enough for Nintendo to re-release a new NES? Capcom has always published system-selling titles and their franchises are arguably better than first-party ones.

It has been my experience that the people who don’t like Mega Man games are the same people who stink at them. Call yourself a gamer? Try Mega Man 9.

Posted in Blast From the Past, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Wii, Xbox 360 |