The Blue Bomber's latest adventure, Mega Man 9, is so difficult we nearly chucked controllers into the TV screen. Forget about Grand Theft Auto IV causing violence. It's games like this that make us want to kick someone in the teeth. Somehow, we think that's exactly what Capcom intended.
Set in the year 200X, Dr. Wily is once again up to his old tricks, creating armies of evil robots to enslave mankind. Riots erupt all over the world, and it turns out that some of the malfunctioning robots are Dr. Light's. Mega Man must not only thwart Wily's evil schemes, but clear his creator's good name. Thus begins your typical Mega Man adventure, where you'll explore varied worlds and battle a series of bosses, the goal to defeat them and absorb their unique abilities.
What makes the game stand out from previous Mega Man entries is its art style. Instead of creating a detailed 3-D adventure or even a 2-D romp featuring high-resolution graphics, Capcom designed Mega Man 9 to resemble an NES game. This means you'll see simplistic 2-D sprites that hark back to the days of Mega Man one through six. Capcom even commissioned I am 8-bit artist Gerald de Jesus to create retro (and intentionally awful looking) box art for T-shirts. Don't believe us? Check this to see for yourself.
In addition, the developers made Mega Man 9, to use the delightful phrase, hard as balls. We're not even talking Ninja Gaiden difficult. Ninja Ryu Hayabusa's teeth-clenching adventure is easy breezy compared to Mega Man's vein popping, wall smashing excursion through 8-bit hell. It's great, but you'll need a stress doll or a whole lot of bubble wrap to keep yourself from destroying your controller.
Case in point, we came upon a mechanical elephant with a giant pink ball in its trunk. To attack, the robot propels the ball at Mega Man and then sucks it back in, only to repeat the process. To help us defeat this enemy, the designers tossed a ladder onto the playfield, allowing us to climb and shoot our adversary from a safe distance. After destroying the beast, we encountered another elephant sans ladder, so we needed to avoid the ball and shoot. It was a bit harder, but not insurmountable. No, that came from the next elephant. Not only are we missing a ladder, but there are two gaps in the floor that will kill Mega Man if he falls into them. Even worse, he has at least an inch of platform to stand on while in front of the first bottomless pit. Now factor in the ball crashing into Mega Man's head, and this portion of the stage is downright mean.
Actually, "mean" perfectly describes this game. Not challenging or even difficult. Just mean, like the developers intended to torture you. Oddly enough, we kind of like it. We dig the old school vibe and the brutal artificial intelligence. Yeah, we died within minutes, but we grew so infuriated that we refused to stop playing until we progressed a little bit further.
That said, we're not sure casual audiences will react the same way. Many gamers will download Mega Man 9, get pissed and never play it again. For the hardcore, however, it's a welcome challenge and a worthy sequel. Prepare to get destroyed when the game releases as a download for Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 later this year.
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