Mega Man 9 & 10. They just don't feel the same.

[Beautiful End]

I recently bought Mega Man 9 and 10 for my 360. I loved Mega Man when I was a kid and I've always wanted to try out these two games. But I was disappointed once I started playing them.

For once, they got rid of two of the most important features: Mega Buster charge and sliding. These two features were introduced around MM3 and 4 but became iconic and necessary. Charging the Mega Buster required strategy. If you got hit while charged, you lost your charge, you needed a couple of seconds to get a full charge, if an enemy was too fast, you couldn't even get a good shot. Sliding made moving across levels faster, it added a new level of strategy for boss battles too, it made it so that you HAD to learn how to slide in order to finish the game. It felt...good. It made me feel more powerful as Mega Man.

But with these new features gone, the games just feel...unfinished and bland. Not only that but the drops from enemies are more rare, there's probably like one or two checkpoints per level and heck, even when you die, there's that half a second pause before you disappear into small particles.

I know it seems like I'm being nitpicky but I guess I was just expecting something almost exactly the same as the old games. Where farming, as cheap as some people might call it, was a thing you did. Where enemies could be easily disposed off with my Mega Buster, where if I died halfway through a stage, I wouldn't be sent back to the beginning. These new games feel much harder than before, and that's saying something considering my 7 yeah old self beat most of the other ones years ago. I don't think Mega Man needs to be more challenging or "almost as it was when MM1 was released". I think Mega Man came a long way and became the great hit that it is because of how it evolved throughout its sequels.

Eh, I guess I'm just ranting. But anyway, I'll admit I haven't even made it to Dr. Wily's stages so I guess I just want to know: Is it worth playing these games all the way through? Do they get better? At this moment, I am tempted to just forget about these games and move on to something else. But I do like Mega Man! Ugh.

 

[Justin Raver]

I know it seems like I'm being nitpicky but I guess I was just expecting something almost exactly the same as the old games.

9, and 10 are exactly like the old games in my opinion, the old games being 1, and the perfect specimen 2. The features you are upset for them not provided did not appear until later games as you mention. I thought 9 and 10 were equally as hard as 2 maybe a bit harder than 1.

Megaman games got easier after each installment after 2 and I think that is where they went off the tracks. I used megaman as the gold standard for satisfying difficulty up until Dark Souls knocked it off the pedestal and with that perspective 9, and 10 are fantastic examples of pure megaman goodness from back in the day.

 

[ultrabiome]

I remember reading that Inti Creates had felt that the Mega Buster and the slide had made the later games "too easy." Mega Man was originally slow and weak, which the boss weapons were supposed to augment to make him more powerful. The Mega Buster in particular allowed the player to ignore the boss weapons because they are only marginally more powerful than a fully-charged Mega Buster blast, although the weapons didn't need to spend the time to charge up.

There still are mid-level and boss door checkpoints as far as I remember. You always got sent to the boss select if you lost all of your lives.

I feel your pain - my favorite Mega Man is still V. But I would seriously consider trying out the boss weapons in 9 and 10, and maybe you'll see where the designers were coming from. No Mega Buster means that you'll actually try out all of those neat weapons and discover that many of them are actually useful, and once you figure out the boss weaknesses (or look them up), you can use the other weapons freely throughout the stage.

I thought 9 and 10 were quite solid Mega Man games. Clearly still not my favorite, but worthy additions to the Mega Man series.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I played through Mega Mans (Mega Men?) 2 through 6 or the first time a couple of years ago. I like the slide but I think the charge shot made the later games way to easy. Mainly because it felt like they had designed the levels, enemies and bosses without taking the charge shot into consideration so you could just blast your way through everything. Not to say I want the games to be too hard either. I still haven't beaten 1, 9 or 10 (actually I don't think I've played 10 yet) due to giving up in frustration.

I can't remember what my point was, but as someone who didn't grow up playing the classic Mega Man games I think 9 is as good as the classics.

 

[Something Amyss]

See, the thing is, games like Mega Man 9 and 10 are great tools in remembering why the 80s weren't this glorious bastion we remember it. I loved the early Mega Man games growing up, but looking back once filtered through the experience of years of better gameplay? I don't want to go back to that.