Retro gamers, your time has come. At least if Capcom has anything to say about it. Recently, the company has been catering to its hardcore, older fan base by reviving long-dormant titles such as 1942 and Bionic Commando–giving them a fresh lick of paint and making them available to download on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.
A rough recollection
Retro gamers, your time has come. At least if Capcom has anything to say about it.
Recently, the company has been catering to its hardcore, older fan base by reviving long-dormant titles such as 1942 and Bionic Commando–giving them a fresh lick of paint and making them available to download on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.
Now, after a 12-year absence, Capcom has brought back their NES icon and sometime company mascot, Mega Man, for the ninth official game in the original series.
However, unlike franchise revivals 1942: Joint Strike and Bionic Commando: Rearmed, which feature updated-for-HD graphics, sound and presentation, Mega Man 9 is strictly old school, with a purposefully archaic presentation. That’s right: eight-bit sound, graphics and game design.
Fans of the blue bomber will either rejoice at this news or plan on breaking a few controllers. Or maybe both.
Mega Man 9 looks like it came out around 1988, minus the graphic graininess typical in NES games. I have to say, it’s pretty strange to witness a new eight-bit game being created for HD.
Of course, with such a decidedly throwback approach, veteran gamers can and should expect hard gameplay. And if you think today’s games are too tough already, you’ll be thrown for a loop by Mega Man 9‘s deviously old-school challenges.
Essentially, whether you’re familiar with Mega Man, Ghosts ‘N Goblins or Contra, the game design remains more or less the same, with the player navigating to the end of trap and obstacle-filled levels while avoiding enemy attacks. (As a gamer, I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence.)
Mastering timed jumps and learning enemy or boss firing patterns is the name of the game, and if you’ve played just about any side scroller from 1985-90, you know how brutally punishing these games can be.
Mega Man 9 tries to revive the spirit of these hardest-of-the-hardcore games for today’s generation. No doubt about it, this is a straight up NES game, and they sure as hell don’t make them like they used to.
That being said, Mega Man 9 plays exactly like any other Mega Man game (though its NES sensibilities are ironically retroactive, given that Mega Man 8 was released on the 32-bit Saturn and Playstation systems).
The story is minimal, as it should be: Dr. Light, the creator of the blue bomber, has been thrown in jail after being accused of trying to take over the world (usually series villain Dr. Wily’s job) due to some malfunctioning Light-created robots. Thus, Mega Man sets off to right the wrongs done to his creator by bringing down eight new boss robots in each of their respective stages.
No matter the stage you choose, expect to die a lot. Mega Man 9 isn’t as sadistically difficult as Gradius or Contra, since Dr. Light’s finest creation can actually be hit more than once before losing a life, but it’s still no walk in the park.
The levels are devilishly constructed (and as such can be incredibly frustrating, especially in Plug Man and Magma Man’s levels) and the boss battles equal, if not surpass, their design.
To stay truly old school, there’s only two checkpoints per level: one at the middle and one just before the end-of-the-level boss. So if you happen to die right before the first checkpoint, you’ve got to go all the way back to the beginning of the level, which sometimes means thrashing with tough mini bosses.
Since Mega Man 9 is a downloadable game, there are a few new features. A time trial and an achievement system have been implemented, and Capcom has promised that downloadable bosses and challenges are on the way.
These added details are appreciated, since the game costs $10 to download and can be beaten in about 45 minutes (assuming you’re superhumanly good at old-school titles).
Whether or not you like Mega Man 9 is probably going to depend on your nostalgia for the series… and your tolerance for pain. Newcomers will probably give up after about 10 minutes, but for older gamers, this old-school revival is the punishing classic you’ve been waiting for.
Mega Man 9CapcomXbox 360, Playstation 3$10****
