OMGJeremy

Humpday Gaming: Mega Man 10

In 1987, a game called Mega Man was quietly released by Capcom. This game was amazing for the time– it was the first game I had played where you get to take the bosses weapon after you killed him, and it was also one of the first games where you decide the order of your levels. I don’t even know exactly how we had it. All I knew about the game was one unflattering screenshot in the back of the Official Nintendo Players Guide, and that the game had some of the most horrendous box art I had ever seen , but somehow my parents bought the game for my brothers and I. I quickly became one of our favorite games, and despite all the odds and some of the worst advertising ever, it apparently warranted a sequel. Mega Man 2 on the other hand had loads of press, full Nintendo Power coverage, and really pushed full screen colorful bosses that blew our minds and pushed the series to video game stardom through another bunch of games, including the spin-off Mega Man X, Mega Man ZX, and even a 3d entry the ill-fated Mega Man Legends series that I might be the only fan of.

It is an understatement to say that the Mega Man series of games are regarded as “hard.”  I would say they are not hard as much as they are absolutely relentless at times. I think people have forgotten about how hard NES-style platformers used to be, because in 2008 Mega Man 9 was released as a retro-throwback title. Mega Man 9 featured all new levels, but with classic NES graphics and classic NES difficulty. And people cried about how hard it was (myself included), but as I discovered when I finally played through Mega Man 9 as part of my 2010 Backlog Challenge, it’s really not “hard” as much as it is unforgiving. A staple of the series has always been bottomless pits and beds of spikes that will insta-kill you, and platforms and enemies who were designed to knock you into them. The Mega Man games (really most NES platformers) were more about memorization and quick reflexes than most of today’s current games, and the gaming population was no longer accustomed to this sort of gameplay.

On March 1, 2010, another NES style throwback was released for download on the Wii, Mega Man 10 (it will be out for the Xbox 360 and PS3 later this month). And it’s still hard. But this time, they have thrown the weakened gaming population a few bones. And one is mildly insulting.

Good news, pretty much half of this screen can kill you. Also, Mega Man still jumps like a dork.

See — NES style graphics, but without constant slowdown and screen flickering. I’m going to assume everyone knows at least the basic Mega Man gameplay, so I’m going to get right into this. Like I mentioned earlier, I just beat Mega Man 9 a few weeks ago. As such, I consider myself “in shape” to handle this game. I’d say so far it’s about as hard as Mega Man 9, maybe even slightly less so. I’m still dying to stuff, but I was able to get through my first level (the realm of the unfortunately named “Sheep Man” — how could I resist trying that?!) and get to the boss after a couple tries. This has all the stuff that made the older NES games the stuff of nightmares — mid-bosses that will destroy you, end bosses that I still don’t know how to beat consistently with my basic weapon, disappearing floors, whole levels of time-sensitive moving blocks, and filled with regular enemies that are just easy enough that you will scream out in anger when you die to one. And it’s glorious.

The game has a few built-in options that you had to pay extra for last time. You can play as Proto-Man, Mega Man’s mysterious friend with a charging shot and a shield, and you can run time trials of the stages if you are a complete masochist. Don’t worry though — there are already downloads scheduled to take your hard-earned money, including getting to play as Bass (Mega Man’s evil twin more or less) and “special levels” to drive you insane. But you do get more “out of the box” this time around than ever before. Mega Man 9′s challenges are back as well, so you can get proof that you spent a whole day beating Mega Man 10 over and over, but interestingly there are two types of challenges. There are the “in game” challenges that you will earn by playing the game faster and better than you have ever played a Mega Man before, but there are also special challenge stages that you can run that I will reference as Mega Man Academy. Mega Man Academy is essentially skill drills that unlock as you play the game– the first time you get to a boss or a hard piece of the game, a new challenge unlocks that lets you practice just that part of it over and over without having to run through the level just to get to the boss with 2 pieces of life and no continues. This was part of the difficulty of the previous Mega Man games, but this is a change I can welcome. You’ve still got to play the game and not screw up to beat the levels, this just allows you to really focus on what YOU suck at without handicapping yourself by missing a poorly placed jump or ten.

Mega Man Academy is the first way that Capcom has made this game more accessible, and I kind of wish that this was the only thing they added in that respect. Not because I’m a huge loser that wants to show off my e-penis to 14 year old girls, but because the other option makes Mega Man 10 so easy it’s insulting to everyone with thumbs (admittedly if you can even beat Easy mode without thumbs, I congratulate you– way not to let that band saw incident ruin your life). Let me explain how “Easy Mode” is implemented, and let’s see if you agree that it’s essentially handing you a meaningless victory.

Protoman, in regular mode, on Sheep Man's stage.

Ok, sorry for the poor screenshots, but since I only have this is on Wii and I couldn’t find a stock photo to illustrate this point better, I took a screencap of a video and drew on it. We’re at the top of technology here at OMGJeremy, so you’re just lucky that I didn’t attempt to draw the whole level. This is sheep man’s level. The bottom of the screen is a bottomless pit, and the platforms that I’m standing on are charged by running on the treadmills shown at the bottom right and left of the screen there. The platforms only stay charged and “up” for a few seconds and then flip down, sending your poor Mega Man (or in this case Proto Man) falling to his doom. It’s a pretty prevalent mechanic in the level, and I died a few times on them due to stupidity– but they’re definately doable, and without them the level loses some major difficulty.

So what does this level look like in easy mode?

Proto Man, in easy mode, same stage. My platform drawing skills are amazing, but I should have added balloons.

It’s the same layout, only they’ve put little platforms over the pits, and added a static platform so that you no longer have to speed-jump across a series of platforms — you can now casually saunter and hop on platforms, and if you fall you can just go back and do it again and YAWN. This fills the level as well, it’s not just here. You can guarantee if there are pits of spikes or anything else that is designed to beat you into submission that it is either covered with safety platforms or in some cases removed altogether. Capcom has essentially created Bumper Bowling for Mega Man.

If this wasn’t easy enough, they have also taken about half of the random enemies out of the levels, and enemies do significantly less damage to you. I get that this is “easy mode,” but this is ridiculous. It’s like someone at Capcom said “fine… you want easy? Here you go, you big babies” and designed a game that is more or less handing you the game while calling you a pansy. They stopped one step away from turning all the enemies into smiling people that hand you candy and tell you that “You are special!” when you walk by. Every boss should just give you their weapon and then hug you for your trouble. Then at the end, instead of fighting Dr. Wily, you can kidnap him and hang out at Dr. Light’s house and make cookies and have a pillowfight.

I don’t know why this bothers me so much, it really shouldn’t, but this is like gaming welfare. Getting a payoff for little to no effort… Wait a second… does this make me the Rush Limbaugh of platform gaming? Uh… I take this back then. Hooray for easy mode!