Mega Man is back with new adventures in Mega Man 11, but how does it stack up next to his tried n’ true titles of the past? Read on to find out…
It’s been eight years since Mega Man 10, seven years since Mega Man Universe was cancelled and two years since the absolute mess that was Mighty Number 9 taught us that Keiji Inafune might not have been the mastermind behind the Blue Bombers legacy. Fortunately, someone at Capcom decided that Mega Man could make some money now that its a kids cartoon and low and behold we have Mega Man 11.
As I just eluded, nowadays Mega Man is more known as a kids cartoon character, I assume? With this pre-school cartoon coming out in 2018 and this game coming out now, utilising a much more “My First Mega Man” aesthetic than the 8-bit look of Mega Man 9 and 10, I’ll be honest – when I first saw it, I did let out a sigh of “What is this?” and laughed the game away as I went back to playing Turtles in Time for the seventeenth time. However, morbid curiosity and a long love of horrifically hard games got the better of me, so I decided to go against my better judgement and boot up this latest offering.
One of my main worries was that this latest iteration would “baby” it up considerably because of the way it looked, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about in that department as the game is as rock-solid as any that I can remember; maybe even too hard because I’m old now and don’t want to get shown up by a video game that requires lightning fast reflexes!
And lightning fast reflexes are needed, because this is Mega Man. Like all before it, it’s a finger-killing experience that starts off relatively easy(ish) and ramps up how much you need to do, and how fast you need to react. Exponentially, to the point where you’re fighting a certain Yellow Devil for the millionth time, still trying to figure out an exact combination of jumps, while utilising your “slow down time” ability is actually going to get you past the stupidly hard monstrosity.
Now you may have read that last paragraph and thought “Slow down time? When has Mega Man ever slowed down time?” Well, humble reader, he actually used a power called “Time Slow” back in Mega Man Powered UP for PSP back in 2006 after defeating Time Man, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about the “Slowing Down Time” mechanic from this game which is part of the new “Double Gear” system. Double Gear, without breaking any real new ground in the spectrum of video games, allows Mega Man to switch between slowing down time and increasing his power of attack and by gum does it take some getting used to; often you’ll use the wrong button and accidentally slow down time when you were trying to increase the power of your acid shield, (not that I’m bitter at all…). Now, I’ve watched people master these mechanics to flow through levels like water down a mountain, but unfortunately I’m not one of those people.
Hopefully, one day I will be that good, and even though I’m still not a fan of the more rounded art style of Mega Man 11, I’m still having a whale of a time playing through it and will continue until I can beat Bounce Man without taking any damage.
Author: Hal, Plymouth store
