The second, but not final, word on Mega Man 9

By Stephen Munn | December 8, 2008

Have you downloaded Mega Man 9 yet? If you’re a fan of the original games you really owe it to yourself to do so, unless you’re prone to throwing controllers. I mean that, seriously. I love Mega Man 9, but it’s really damn hard. Since you’ve heard that so many times before, I’ll move on.

Mega Man 9 does many things well. It looks and sounds great, taking into account the visual style. If you love pixel art, you know what I’m talking about here. Where the game shines is control. Everything in the game behaves the way you expect it to. It was critical that the developers clamped the new designs onto that rock-solid control and physics core that Mega Man fans were raised on, and they’ve hit it dead on. None of the enemies I’ve encountered in the game could qualify as one of those “slapped-on” designs we started to see toward the end of the NES era. The new enemies are smartly designed and they behave distinctively, which is critical to pattern mastery.

I’m going to save the DLC for when I’ve completed the game, but before that, I’ll be back with more from the end of the game. I expect I’ll have the time for that when this semester ends.

I’m playing the game on WiiWare and PSN, and I have to say I’m still annoyed that I can’t send the game to my PSP. Why not, guys? Come on, now.