Due to the intensity of the markets draining my emotions, I turned my big executive leather chair towards the Wii and play some Mega Man 9. As I read places on the Internet about Mega Man 9, and how people were reacting to it, I came across some comments directed at my Mega Man 9 post. Since this blog’s comments are closed, and I’ve been unable to go into my email lately, it was a little surreal seeing such a serious response to my Mega Man 9 commentary. I mean, it isn’t like the stock market is crashing and the global economy is in full meltdown. Oh no, Mega Man is much more important.
I’m joking, of course. This is why I love gaming. The entire world can collapse around them, and they will still be debating, with full intensity, why Super Mario Brothers 3 is superior to Super Mario World or vice versa or why SNES is better than Genesis or vice versa. Such quibbling over video games is quite an extreme breath of fresh air when dealing with countless people in panic as they realize they will never retire or send Johnny to college.
Let me start this off by saying that I really enjoyed Mega Man 9, I really liked the weapons, and I think the game will ultimately be near Mega Man 1 regarding favorites with Mega Man 2 and 3 still ahead. So, to me, it looks like it will be: 2 and 3 by far the best (you can argue about whether 2 or 3 is better but we know they are both damn good), followed quite a ways with Mega Man 1 and 9 (both are really good, but both have too many ‘annoying areas’ which make the games inconsistent in quality), and then 4, 5, 6 following with 7 and 8 somewhere on the end side.
Here is the first one: (His comments are italized, mine are in regular text)
In regard’s to the Maelstrom arguments (I don’t even know who this guy is so I don’t know why I care but….), I think he is overlooking quite a few things in his comparisons.
“But the reason why I think we can conclude it is bad design is because of the total lack of enemies. Mega Man has a health bar for a reason. Many older stages were designed around no holes or spikes at all. The player would just be destroyed by all the enemies in that stage. But there is none of that in Mega Man 9.”
I’m no game developer, but I don’t understand how using spikes or holes to increase difficulty is any lazier than just adding more enemies. In fact, I think intentionally combining pits and spikes with a an enemy or two can potentially strike a better balance of well thought out design and challenge for the player. I don’t know about anyone else, but I love the platforming of MM games just as much as the action if not more especially when they work well together. I can understand some of the frustration with instant kill areas; however, in most cases I find these areas alot less frustrating than then some of the enemy placement in MM2 (which is his primary comparison).
I didn’t say ‘add more enemies’. I mean it feels the Mega Man 9 stages are designed around the instant death. The enemies feel more like things to be dodged, and they are strategically placed to accentuate the instant death. For example, the hole jumper things in Concrete Man’s stage are clearly designed to knock the player in. The hard hat thingy that shoots three shots are placed in areas to knock the player off. Now, none of this is new in Mega Man games. However, it feels like the enemies are designed and placed entirely around the purposes of instant death. Magma Man’s stage is a good example. The enemies there feel more like they are moving parts of the stage rather than being robotic enemy craft to be taken out. The flying flamers are shielded and must be dodged. The little guys that run on the magma appear interested in knocking you into the lava. It feels when I take out enemies, I am simply lessening my chances of instant death.
As much as I hate to use a ‘Super Mario Brothers’ metaphor, the Phobos jumping fireballs in Koopa’s castles or the bullet bills in other parts of the game feel more like the ‘stage’ itself than actual enemy characters as the goomba and koopa troopa represent. Mega Man 9’s enemies feel like elements of the stage rather than… unique and kickass enemies. From playing Mega Man 9 constant times, I cannot think of one memorable enemy except for the cute balloon bot in Tornado Man. In Mega Man 2, I can come up with robotic shrimp, latern fish, robotic bats, and those strange jumping things that fall from the sky in Heat Man’s stage. In Mega Man 3, I can easily come up with those bunny robots (that are hard to shoot), the strange tadpoles in Gemini Man’s stage, or those flying Magnet Bots that were so fun in Magnet Man.
Inafune said that, in getting back to the basics of Mega Man,
Mega Man 9 will be much closer to Mega Man 2. As mentioned earlier, in the process of going back to our roots, we came to conclude that those fancy moves were unnecessary. There are many gamers who claim that Mega Man 2 is their absolute favorite. I took it as an indication that Mega Man is not all about the moves. The beauty of Mega Man actually lies in its simplicity and a fine mixture of simple gameplay, puzzle-like thrill of maneuvering tricks at the last minute, and battles. Instead of new moves, we’ve tried to find an excellent balance in the game design and to achieve “simplicity and fun” in the very detailed-oriented age.
Mega Man 9 nails the thrill of maneuvering tricks at the last minute. This is what I always refer to as ‘arcade type gameplay’ which 8-bit and 16-bit games were the ripened fruit of the arcades. Mega Man 9 has those qualities.
But there is more than that. Mega Man 2 was consistently fun in one part due to how varied the levels were and how interesting, and fun to fight, the enemies were. One enemy I loved was the Sniper Joe riding a hopping mecha. It was fun sliding around Flash Man’s stage and you had three or four of them chasing you. Metal Man had those wonderful drills which was fun to just sit there and just shoot the hell out of everything. Wood Man had those crazy metallic chickens that would jump over you. My favorite was fighting the lantern fish that spit out robotic shrimp in Bubble Man’s stage. The enemies really matched the stage’s theme and were fun to fight.
Sometimes Mega Man 9’s enemies match the theme of stage. However, most of them come across as generic. And most are placed in areas to supplement the instant deaths. I would like enemies more interesting than Giant Red Gun or Electric-Spark-That-Could-Have-Come-From-Super-Mario-Brothers-2. The best enemy, and the type of thing I am looking for, was the balloon bot in Tornado Man’s stage. He wasn’t really there to knock you into a spike or a hole. And he was fun to shoot down.
This is why I say Mega Man 9 has the fun of a shmup. Now, I love shmups. But I don’t want Mega Man to have the fun of a shmup. Shmups match Inafune’s recipe of simple gameplay, puzzle-like thrill of maneuvering tricks at the last minute. Everyone knows that shmups are games of instant kills. Run your space ship into a wall and kaboom! Mega Man 9, being filled with instant death, matches that to a degree. Worse, many shmups are not that ‘hard’ but require memorization in order to succeed. In other words, die many times until you learn the pattern. Mega Man 9 is like that. Mega Man 1 and 2 are not (or 3, 4, 5…).
With a stage like Plug Man, there is absolutely no way anyone can beat it on their first try. No one knows the appearing block pattern over the floor-less part. There are some tricky jumps, but there is one part where Mega Man has to literally fall a certain way to land on an appearing block. If someone has to die to learn the pattern, I consider it a problem.I don’t want ‘more enemies’. I want stages to not revolve around instant death. I want some stages that revolve around the enemies with no instant death. And I want the enemies to be more interesting and fun to fight. Some stages, like Tornado Man, has few enemies but the stage works fine. Quick Man has few enemies and that stage worked fine as well.
I am not against instant death stages and only for enemy filled ones. I am against every stage revolving around Instant Death with the enemies being placed to serve the stage’s cause of Instant Death.
Let’s take Crash Man’s stage as an example. Malstrom points out that their are no instant kill areas in this level. Well, that is true, but it does have an obstacle that is truly more frustrating: The birds. Malstrom wants more enemies, well here ya go buddy. Climbing up ladders while birds are vertically dropping eggs that break and unleash around 6 targets that attack me at annoying angles. The only solution (at least that I know of) is to use metal blades or air man’s weapon, and even then they are not always guarantees. If I don’t have either or I’m not on the ladder that causes the eggs to just fall off the screen, I’m in for incredible amounts of frustration because I can’t fucking jump and the mega buster just shoots in a straight line. I would much rather be killed instantly, and learn my lesson for the most part, than be completely be uncertain of how many times I will be knocked off the screen even though I have pretty much perfected all of the “troublesome” instant death areas in the other levels. So what is better design? An area that boils down to random variables the majority of the time, or one that the player can recognize patterns, and condition their timing and hand-eye coordination (which is pretty much the foundation for all MM games, right?)?
Crash Man’s stage is interesting because it was ENTIRELY vertical just like Quick Man (for the most part). While Quick Man’s stage descends, Crash Man’s stage ascends. It is similiar to Elec Man’s stage in that regard. What is cool is that when you get hit and fall off, instead of dying, you just fall back further screens until you land.
Mega Man has a variety of weapons to take out the little birdies. But the most obvious is Wood Man’s Leaf Shield as that totally makes Mega Man invulnerable to the little birdies. Most people easily just climb through the damage. It was clear the goal was to climb up with the game trying to make you fall. That said, Crash Man’s stage is the weakest of Mega Man 2 which probably is due to how slow paced it is and waiting for those moving platforms.
The vertical climbing stages can be grueling. Elec Man’s stage was tiresome. But it was unique to that game to just have a vertical stage.
You forget my complaint is not that there is instant death in Mega Man 9. It is that instant death is in every stage. The flaws (which I consider extremely minor and non-frustrating) of Crash Man’s stage are confined to Crash Man’s stage.
I don’t have a problem with Instant Death in Quick Man, Air Man, Heat Man, or Bubble Man, for example. My problem would be is if EVERY stage was Instant Death. My problem with every stage revolving around Instant Death is that it denies us stages revolving around enemies or something else. I really got tired of seeing spikes in Mega Man 9. I was saying, “You’ve done the spike thing! Do something else!” Instead, the game delivered more spikes and holes. Too much of one thing is never good, no matter how good that thing is. Mega Man 9 needed more variety from the Instant Death.
He also goes on to complain about the disappearing block section in Plug Man’s stage. As most of you have already stated in this thread, this section is cake compared to MM1’s and Heat Man’s stage in MM2. The pattern in the former is much more complex, and the timing leaves little room for error than that of Plug Man’s IMO.
This is BS. Internet, do your thing: roll the tape!
*Projector turns on. The tape is reeling.*
As you can see, gentlemen, here is the stage of Ice Man , which is the appearing blocks, from Mega Man 1.
Note that all the appearing blocks do not appear in ‘Instant Death’ areas. There is a ground bot that might hit you but falling doesn’t kill you.
Now, let us look at this level. This is Heat Man’s stage. Heat Man’s appearing blocks, at first, appear in singular areas to knock Mega Man into lava only if he didn’t jump at all. Later, the appearing blocks go over the lava and then a bottomless pit. However, the pattern is extremely simple.
Let us look at Plug Man. Not only are the appearing blocks over a bottomless pit, the pattern is not simple and the level is largely blacked out to misdirect the player in places.
And sure, you can pretty much plow your way through a good portion the enemies and not die at all some of MM9’s stages. But what do you do about the robot masters when you only have 1/5th of your life left. There is a good chance you’re still gonna die. Besides, you can do this in the majority of MM games. I’m really not buying this whole “lack of enemies” argument at all. Either count them or don’t use it for your argument’s convenience. And leave Tornado Man’s level alone, it’s fucking awesome regardless of how many enemies are there.
This is because Capcom realized they messed up and injected mini-bosses or other absurdly strong enemies to not make the stages feel hollow. Some stages even it out decently like Jewel Man and Hornet Man with their enemies. You don’t have reason to shoot much in Magma Man until the dragon appears. Aside from the octopus bots that are right stuck in your path, you have very little reason to shoot in Splash Woman. Most of the enemies, such as the fish, are there to knock you off. No real enemies in Plug Man. Neither in Tornado Man (which I think is fine as it is). Galaxy Man’s enemies were the most pathetic in the series. Much of Concrete Man’s stage is based on dodging or destroying the rocks before they hit the ground. Very little ‘enemy fight’. So Capcom threw in the absurdly strong elephants.
My argument of ‘lack of enemies’ is why many stages are completely uneven with the enemies that are there. You shouldn’t have to go long stretches of a stage, with no enemies, only to face one absurdly strong one and then continue on another stretch of no enemies. I bet the ‘absurdly strong’ enemies got injected there because the designers were having too much fun with spikes and holes. The game feels so uneven dodging the stage and the enemies used to bump Mega Man into ‘instant death’ only to walk into a mini-boss to go into ‘super fight mode’.
This is why I say not every stage should have been designed around ‘Instant Death’. There should have been some stages that were designed around the enemies like Flash Man or Wood Man.
Also, look at all the unique platforming sequences there are in MM9. You have the portals in Galaxy man’s stage, the swinging platforms in Jewel Man’s, the gravity shaft in Wily 3, the extending platforms in Hornet Man’s stage, and the rotating cylinders in Tornado Man’s just to name a few. The level design of MM9 seems to be more well thought out than the previous iterations. It’s not always flawless in execution, but you can tell the game isn’t just a copy and paste MM formula.
These are gimmicks.
There is nothing wrong with gimmicks in themselves. But my complaint has more to do with the over-reliance on Instant Kill. Every stage was ‘Instant Death’ with a new gimmick.
“Welcome to Concrete Man’s stage. Here, the gimmick is invisible trapdoors! Don’t fall into the hole!”
“Welcome to Jewel Man’s stage. Here, the gimmick is swinging platforms! Don’t swing your platform into the spikes!”
“Welcome to Hornet Man’s stage. Here, the gimmick is guns that eat away part of the stage. Don’t eat away the blocks above the spikes!”
“Welcome to Tornado Man’s stage. Here, the gimmick is rotating magnets and wind. Don’t fall into the bottomless pit!”
“Welcome to Plug Man’s stage. Here, the gimmick is appearing blocks. Don’t fall into spikes or the hole!”
“Welcome to Galaxy Man’s stage. Here, the gimmick is hyper warps that transport you somewhere else and robots-from-the-sky that pull you to the right end of the screen. Don’t run into spikes or fall into the hole!”
“Welcome to Magma Man’s stage. Here, the gimmick is falling magma that makes instant kill. Don’t touch it or fall into the magma!”
“Welcome to Splash Woman’s stage. Here, the gimmick is jumping on platforms that come from the wall. Don’t fall onto the spikes!”
Again, the gimmicks aren’t the issue. What is the issue is that everything revolves around Instant Death. I would have liked to played a stage that didn’t feature instant death. It is called variety.
Malstrom also complains about the cool weapons and not having anything to shoot them at. Well, I guess thats a purely subjective statement but the weapons are put to greater use than ever before IMO. Every weapon has more than just one use and it’s not always just shoot enemies, but rather environmental uses as well. I don’t need to list the examples, because most people already know and have expressed the same opinion, but the diversity and application of the weapons in relation to the entire range of levels is amazing. Being able to tackle any given situation with multiple solutions is a testament to this game’s level design; something that isn’t nearly as strong or even present in the 1-6 (I haven’t played much of 4-6 so this could be argued). Also, even though MM2 is just barely my favorite still, the overpowered metal blades kills what I believe to be it’s intentional design (I wouldn’t have it any other way though). Also, in MM9, situations that solely depend on how much energy you have for a particular weapon are close to zero. Compare that to earlier installments and then talk to me about cheap design. You could debate what game has stronger or tighter level design, but it all boils down to which one provides the most fun. Even though I still can’t decide if MM9 has taken the top spot over MM2 and 3, it is currently the one I find the most enjoyable to play.
He doesn’t list examples because he can’t think of any. The Robot Master stages have to be designed in such a way so a mega buster only Mega Man can beat them. Sure, the mini-bosses might have a weakness. But there are very few times to use the weapons during the stages in fun ways (as was Mega Man 1,2, and 3’s weapons). Who didn’t have fun running around trying out Metal Blades or quick Boomerangs on things? Or playing with the Flash Timer? Or playing with the Gemini Laser or Magnet Missile?
Outside the mini-bosses and enemies that might as well be mini-bosses (elephants), there is very little sandbox to play with the weapons. What would you use weapons on in Splash Woman’s stage? Maybe the Hornet Chaser to take down the gun? Galaxy Man? Yeah, the enemies are so pathetic in that stage there is no point. Magma Man is the same as is Tornado Man. Plug Man has the Jewel Satellite be put to good use. Hornet Man and Jewel Man, which are the only stages that appear to have some sort of enemies in it, come across the best.
One thing I loved about Mega Man 2 was how un-puzzle-like it was. You didn’t need the right weapon for *that* situation. Other weapons could apply. Some Robot Masters were weak against multiple weapons. Mega Man is an action game, not a puzzle game outside Wily’s Castle.
There simply aren’t many enemies to fight. Show me where in Mega Man 9 where Mega Man can go hog wild shooting constantly at an enemy in a battle that isn’t the mini-bosses (includes the elephants). Almost every enemy is a one hit kill. There are no enemies like the Sniper Joe mecha, the flying drills of Metal Man, the strange wormy generating thing in Quick Man’s stage, the Robotic Shrimp of Bubble Man, etc. As I said before, enemies feel like they are accessories to the stage rather than enemies of themselves. Take any Mega Man 9 enemy and pluck it from its stage. Notice how generic and boring it is?
“But let me ask you this: are there ANY memorable bosses in Wily’s castle? In Mega Man 1, you had Yellow Devil.”….”People have shouted in ‘horror’ and ‘glee’ about the Wily 3 boss of the blobby Yellow Devils, but are blobs really that memorable? The boss was more annoying than anything. Yellow Devil was actually fun.”
Okay, I can see your point with the lack of original and memorable bosses in Wily’s Castle, but using the Yellow Devil is a horrible contrasting example. Now, I have only played the MM:Powered Up iteration of MM1 (the original version of MM1, not the remake). I have mostly mastered the pattern and can consistently beat the yellow devil without taking a hit. I’m not sure if there is a way around this or it’s different than the NES MM1, but I can only hit the yellow devil once every cycle. This is tedious as all hell and at least I can beat the Wily 3 boss in under a couple minutes. The yellow devil is not fucking fun.
Yellow Devil really is a devil in Mega Man 1 and he moves fast. The reason why Yellow Devil is in MM: Powered Up, and various other games, is because he became famous. I want enemies that would become famous or memorable. The only one I can think of is the balloon bot in Tornado Man’s stage. None of the enemies will transcend Mega Man 9. I consider that a big problem.
MM9 isn’t perfect, and it definitely isn’t without it’s shortcomings, but I firmly believe the level and enemy design is not anywhere near the top of most people’s lists.
Most people agree that MM9 favors the ‘Instant Death’ challenge too much. There are other ways to make a game challenging than littering it with ‘Instant Death’. This behavior of decorating a stage with spikes and strange jumps is the behavior of rom hack. When the game goes that route, such as the underwater parts of Wily 2, I feel like I am playing a rom hack.
Let’s try another responder. Here is a ray of sunshine:
That still doesn’t make Yellow Devil, it’s just the cheapiest and more boring boss in the entire series. Thanks god there is no shitty boss like that in 9. There’s still Wily Boss #3, but it’s not as long and boring as the original, hell, they’ve tweaked the stuff as soon as MM3. Anyway this Maelstrom article is so full of shit, it makes me angry just thinking about it.
Then why is the cheapest and most boring boss of the entire series get remade in Mega Man 9 and reappear constantly throughout the Mega Man series and lore? Yellow Devil obviously transcended Mega Man 1.
It is amazing how my blog post on a Mega Man game can get people so angry. Seriously guys, why do you give me so much power over your emotions? Why do you give me the power to make you angry or not? And over Mega Man nonetheless!
Let us try another responder. This one refers to the music.
You didn’t even touch on his idiotic arguments about the music. Magma Man and Drill Man sound nothing alike, and the only thing Bright Man and Plug Man have in common are like the first two notes.
Why is it when we hear ‘Magma Man’ and ‘Plug Man’, everyone is saying, “This sounds familiar”? It is because it is not coming across as fresh. The notes are different but the songs have similarities. I couldn’t say that about, say, Tornado Man’s song.
And while it’s subjective, I’d say the MM9 tracks clearly win out over those MM4 tracks. The MM4 tracks sound like stuff I used to make by randomly clicking notes on a music making program. He says his issue with MM9’s music is that it doesn’t “flow” as well, while I’d say the MM4 tracks feel extremely stilted with really poor transitions between sections.
You find tons of remakes to Mega Man 4 music. You don’t see that with Mega Man 6.
2 and 3 obviously have the best music. But 4 has some very interesting tunes. I think it blows Mega Man 9’s music out of the water personally.
He’s got a point with the similarities between Concrete Man and Wood Man, but then they branch off and become completely different tunes. He says it starts to sound like an NES Wily battle, but doesn’t even say which one.
How many Wily songs are there? Aside from around 4 for each game, there are the additional castles as well as the Gameboy Mega Mans. It sounds to me that some of the Wily music is in these ‘frankenstein’ songs. I am saying this as someone who has played the older games for decades. When I hear some of the Mega Man 9 songs, I think, “Man, that sounds like a Wily stage from the first few games…” or “Was that a flash of Skull Man there?”
The fact that MM2 music is recycled in MM9 and that Concrete Man’s song starts off exactly like Wood Man should point out that the question of other music being recycled in much less obvious ways is a considerable probability.
But then he says that MM4 has “grossly underrated” music, which makes me really question his taste. No, Malstrom, MM4’s music isn’t less recognizable because the game was less intense or because of the buster charging sound. It’s less recognizable because it just wasn’t that good. There are a couple of awesome tracks in Pharaoh Man and Dive Man but it’s for the most part very weak.
MM4 had its problems, but music wasn’t one of them.
You want grossly underrated Mega Man music, look at Mega Man 6. Of the eight levels, I’d say the only weak one is Wind Man, and that’s just because it’s a bit slower and doesn’t have much in the way of a melody; it’s still nice to listen to in the stage, though. The rest are all unique, energetic, and catchy. Plus there’s the really nice Mr. X music.
Now this is just laughable. Mega Man 6 music!? The only people who like Mega Man 6 music were kids who played the game and held on to the music in nostalgic memory (everything that reminds you of childhood is good). Mega Man 6 music is slow and none of it is catchy. Mega Man 6 is rarely remade for a reason.
Here is my favorite one:
I agree with everyone about the shit that Malstrum (who is this guy anyways) is talking about. Some of his arguements are just plain stupid, not to mention the extreme stupidity at the end about the weapon names possibly being sexual. Really? I think some people just like to complain to get attention and be different. My friends and I are enjoying the hell out of this game(especially with endless mode) and this is by far the best $10(15 now) that I have ever spent…
On the Internet, you literally can read whatever you want things to be. I said I enjoyed Mega Man 9 and thought of two issues with it which were holding it back from my opinion. Yet, some people want to think I trashed the game. And I didn’t complain about the weapon names. I actually like them, and I suspect they were put there on purpose. I was having fun with it.
But, apparently, Mega Man is SERIOUS BUSINESS, and you cannot have fun with it. If you say, “I think they over-relied on the ‘instant kill’ for the challenge”, you are interpeted as trashing the game. If you say, “This music doesn’t sound fresh. It sounds like bits and parts of other Mega Man music,” you are deemed as a crazy fool. even illustrating that Capcom did reuse Mega Man 2 music and did cut pieces of it up in obvious places like the beginning of Concrete Man’s stage. My hypothesis is that some of the music doesn’t sound fresh, that causes the “I’ve heard this before”, because it is a frankenstien of other Mega Man music parts. Why else doesn’t it sound fresh or new?
Another morning, another stock market crash. I think I’ll prefer to listen to people get angry who have something worth getting emotional about. Some people are very sensitive about their Mega Man!