Let’s be honest here. Sure, I’m excited about a lot of games at the show this year. But when you boil it all down, there’s hardly anything more enticing to us old-school gamers than freaking Mega Man 9. Although I knew it would be there and I knew pretty much exactly what to expect from it, that still didn’t prevent me from getting all giddy when I saw the kiosk sitting there on the show floor. A nearby Microsoft representative responded with a disgusted frown when, in my reckless excitement, I informed her that I recently forced my wife to watch me play all the way through Mega Man 3. Seriously, what an awesome idea it was for Capcom to pull this one back to its roots and deliver an all-new $10, gameplay-centric, chiptunes music’d, 8-bit installment of Mega Man 9.
So how does it feel? Well, after spending a full 35 minutes with the title (because that’s how long it took me to beat one of the levels), I can honestly say that it rocks every bit as much as I had hoped. There were two levels on showcase at E3: Plug Man’s level and Concrete Man’s level. Neither of the two was labeled, either because the translation had not been finished or Capcom didn’t want to give too much away prior to release. Regardless, both levels were very difficult, and they are definitely as close to classic Mega Man gaming as we’ve seen in a decade.
Concrete Man’s level begins with lots of hornets carrying seeds (that they drop readily on your head when you pass underneath them) along with narrow bottomless pits that feature these lovely little creatures that like to rise up out of them right when you jump across. A bit further into the level, we find some more familiar Mega Man enemies, and finally we arrive at three devilish elephants (consecutively) that blow gigantic balls at you and suck the life out of Mega Man with very little effort. The first two aren’t so bad, but the third one is quite a challenge until you get the hang of avoiding both the ball and the bottomless pits simultaneously. After this point, the level features some blocks suspended over a floor of spikes, one of which is awesomely fake, sending Mega Man plummeting onto the one-hit-kills surface below without so much as a clue as to what happened. Just like 1989.
Then there’s Plug Man’s level, which is probably even tougher. This is actually the level I managed to beat, although I’m really not sure what got into me when that happened (could have been the 5-Hour Energy I was rocking at the time). Anyhow, it starts off with a wonderful array of floating bad guys that love to creep toward you as you jump through the obstacles, getting in your way in such an amazingly distractive fashion that it almost constitutes a form of art. Naturally, this formula is gradually spliced with an increasing number of bottomless pits as well, not unlike Spark Man’s level from Mega Man 3 (one could argue that Plug Man needs to work on his creativity). After some time, the lights go out, and you’re being assaulted by black-and-gray Mega Man doppelgangers that appear only after you pass certain static-filled areas of the background. Couple that with a metric ton of disappearing blocks sporting remorseless patterns overtop bottomless pits and you’ve got quite a heck of a level.
I finally reached the end of Plug Man’s level without losing so much as a single life, and sporting nearly a full bar of health, to boot. I took a deep breath and made my way into the boss chamber… but there was no boss. That was the end of the E3 demo—no bosses on showcase! Either way, it was every bit as enjoyable an experience as it should have been, and if you’re a fan of the older Mega Man titles, you’re going to love this one from what I’ve seen; trust me.
Oh, yeah, and one more extremely important thing: the music. It’s fantastic! Perfectly suited to the series; it sounds just like BUN BUN came out from wherever he’s hiding and decided to construct another legendary 8-bit soundtrack. There were only around four or five songs to behold in the demo, but rest assured that every last one of them was as captivating and infectious as can be during its minute-long loop. Classic stuff, I tell you—I just hope companies continue this trend of downloadable old-style games, because it’s a wonderful remedy for the big-budget play-it-safe philosophy that has saturated the industry as of late.
Bring it on, Capcom.
