Looking Back: Mega Man 9
As part of our celebration of the Mega Man series hitting its 25th anniversary, we are featuring a look back at many of the games of the Classic series. For this entry, I’ll be looking Mega Man 9, the best 1988 game released in 2008.
Once upon a time there was a site called Pixelboy’s Mega Man Mainframe (née Corner). It was here, back in the late 1990s, that its curator posed an idea to the then GeoCities and WebRing-bound Mega Man community that started quite a bit of discussion. His game idea (beyond Mega Man VI GB) was that Capcom ought to remake the old NES games with Mega Man 8-style graphics and extra features similar to that of The Wily Wars.
When Capcom announced Mega Man 9 in the summer of 2008, it led to an instant explosion on the many message boards across the internet. Pixelboy’s Mainframe was long gone (as was Mega Maniacs, Dr. Light’s Lab, ZeroXGold, and many other sites), but suddenly those who loved the Classic games were reengaged on the internet. And as amazing as this may sound to some, there was definite apprehension in some corners. Many thought that the 8-bit graphics were a poor decision, wanting a more modern take on their beloved series. Others thought it was a genius decision, loving its embrace of the growing retro chic that was consuming the gaming world.
In the end, Mega Man 9 was a stroke of genius. While many proclaimed it the spiritual successor to Mega Man 2, that was selling it too short in many important ways. It is simply the melding of a lot of the best elements of the dozen platforming games in one solid package, improved by modern technology and influenced by new attitudes in game design. MM9’s producer, Hironobu Takeshita, stated around the time of its release that ridding Mega Man of his Mega Buster and slide are necessary steps to rebalancing the game, aiming for the tighter experience of the very first games.
At the same time, the weapon versatility lifts a page from the latter half of the Mega Man series. Weapons interact with the environment in a way that resembles more closely to Mega Man IV and Mega Man 7 than the games developed in the 1980s. And in an under-appreciated move, MM9 carries over MM8’s love of mini-bosses, featuring once again another set of four more challenging enemies in the middle of half the Robot Master levels.
In a similar manner, MM9 jettisons the level design decisions made the last three NES installments less enjoyable. By introducing level design innovations in a less risky environment and then putting pressure on later by melding innovations together and throwing spikes, pits, and enemies at the player, the game never puts the player in unfamiliar territory with no room for error.
Going with the zeitgeist of retro games like Pac-Man: Championship Edition, Mega Man 9 plays with the fundamentals of the game to create a new experience with its Endless Mode. For the first time, Mega Man goes super retro. But it is also of the modern age, as Mega Man 9 introduces challenges to the player, embracing the achievements zeitgeist nuts and bolts with as much gusto as the retro chic surface. Capcom and Inti Creates ironically crafted a new experience in a series broadly seen as trapped in a design cul-de-sac by at once going back to the days of kill screens and playing for high scores on one hand and embracing the modern desire for Achievements on the other.
Mega Man 9 also gives fans something they have been clamoring for since before they shared game ideas on UseNet–- the use of Proto Man in a full platforming game. It also provides an incredible challenge with Hero and Superhero Modes and the first Time Attack in the series. Perhaps most notably, Mega Man 9 embraces online connectivity not just in its distribution method but in showcasing the high scores on Endless and Time Attack modes, bridging a gap between the actual games and fandom for the first time since Mandi Paugh’s Mega Man Home Page first helped define the online Mega Man fan experience eighteen years ago.
Looking back on it all, the Mega Man fandom sometimes has to go through a rough patch to get something truly amazing. Despite the amount of discussion generated by Pixelboy’s “Mega Man All-Stars” proposal, Capcom was completely silent and the closest we got to new Mega Man 8-style content we got was that awful Anniversary Collection selection screen. But perhaps that was for the best, for it’s hard to imagine a better return to greatness than what Mega Man 9 delivered. Everything wrong is right again–- the guts of MM9 was built upon years of experience and a period of reflection. It is not a stretch to imagine that we are in that period once again.
It is an understatement to say that Mega Man 9 is a great game. Mega Man 9 revitalized interest in the Mega Man series and has come to define this modern age of being a fan of what has proven to be one of the most resilient and iconic franchises in gaming history.
Screenshot credits: GameFAQs/Gamespot
James is TMMN’s Features Contributor and world traveler. He is currently in a faraway land, but he occasionally sends messages in a bottle. If you require more of his love, he left behind a sentient Tumblr account that updates all on its own.
The views expressed here reflect the views of the authors alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mega Man Network.
Tags: 25th anniversary, editorial, Mega Man 9, Mega Man Classic
Filed under: Editorials
“that was selling to short”
that was selling it short?
Good article.
MM9 is my favorite game in th classic series
Hrm…I guess I’m still in the group of folks that didn’t see this as an amazing step forward but just another step back into what the gaming community as a whole sees as Mega Man. Which is bascially Mega Man 2, for some reason.
I don’t see the removal of the slide and Mega Buster as “rebalancing” the games, honestly. The slide especially added another option for mobility and sped the game up considerably. The Mega Buster (while something I didn’t always utilize) also added some strategy that is missing when you only have jump and shoot as your action options. If you create a Mega Man game around the fact that you’ve got the slide, then it won’t feel unbalanced.
‘Course I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy Mega Man 9. I bought it, played it, beat it, loved it! Sad thing is that it seems to have erased that “update the games” idea you mentioned early in the article. “Everything wrong is right again” is not the true way of looking at this…to me, anyway. I love the early Mega Man games as much as the next guy, but I want to see what else they can do more than simply going back to basics. I didn’t really miss the basics all that much.
So really Mega Man 9 made Mega Man 10 happen, and as much as I enjoyed that one, it also makes me feel like: “Ha…okay, cool guys, we can move along from the retro look now, okay?” But hey…who am I to say we should quit something that is apparently working? It’s popular, so they’ll just do it again. And heck, if it hadn’t been popular, they would have shrugged thier shoulders and said “OH WELL, I guess people don’t like Mega Man anymore!” because they can’t seem to look around all that well with the blinders on.
“By introducing level design innovations in a less risky environment and then putting pressure on later by melding innovations together and throwing spikes, pits, and enemies at the player, the game never puts the player in unfamiliar territory with no room for error.”
I’m curious, where did you find a version of MM9 that doesn’t have those F@%#ING! helicopter claws, or the blind spike drop with absolutely no warning in Splash Woman’s stage, or the potted plant seeker missiles that very nearly match your walking speed just to piss you off over the whole no-more-sliding thing?
MM9 is a “good” game, but it is NOWHERE NEAR the level design equivalent of 1-3. “Teaching through level design” was indeed a strong point of those games, but it was extraordinarily weak here.
“…the game never puts the player in unfamiliar territory with no room for error.”
I distinctly remember a section near the end of the game where you had to float up in a bubble and avoid spikes. After numerous tries, I had finally made it near the end only for a helicopter claw to come out of nowhere, grab me, and force me into the spikes for the crime of being on the right side of the spikes instead of the left.
It was just so much of a bulljive move on the level designer’s part that I wasn’t even mad; I laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it.
I’m also reminded of how I got through the demo version of Concrete Man’s stage after much trial and error only for the demo to end after the boss’s life meter filled, as if mocking me for entertaining the idea that I was entitled to fight the boss I had worked so hard to reach. Just like in the former case, though, I wasn’t mad; I just laughed.
MM9 was alright, but a little overrated.
I never liked the lack of a slide, or the lack of the mega buster. If you thought those elements made the games unbalanced, don’t use them. Simple as that. (aside from areas where you absolutely need to use them, of course)
In many ways, it felt like it was apeing MM2 too closely (Skull Castle, the music, etc). While MM2 is a great game, it’s not the only one they should’ve looked at.
The game is fun, and the weapons can be used in creative ways (rather than boss-only useage), but I don’t think it’s the masterpiece that some makes it out to be.
Mega man nine is too difficult. I spent two weeks tfying to beat tornado man
Wasn’t a huge fan of MM9. Kind of tired of the obsession with MM2, which was a good game.. but not the best in the series. Removal of charge shot and sliding were a bad idea. If people think they made the game too easy, what about the bosses having weaknesses? Those make the game much more easy than charge shot ever did. The design of the game felt like it was lacking from the previous games. It felt a little dull and more in line with the first couple of games.
actually, before MM9 the closest we got to new 8 bit content was Mega Man a, an NES style minigame from ZX Advent.
Pixelboy? Oi, you guys are making me feel old.
People are arguing here too? Geez.
I like 9 for what it is: nostalgia grabbing.
But as a game itself it was somewhat dull and obnoxious. It is no secret that I absolutely HATED the removal of the slide and charge shot.
For me, one of the biggest appeals of the Mega Man platformers is that they were fast paced but you could react in time to things and if you got hit it was totally the player’s fault. The slide allowed a quick and effective way to dodge incoming attacks on reflex and the Charge Shot gave patience, timing, and a risk-reward sense to boss fights. If you hit a charge shot, it was very satisfying and if you miss you were vulnerable for period of time.
The Slide and charge shot complimented and accentuated the stage design and enemy placements while also empowering the player and expanding the options available to them.
MM9 & 10 dropping those exceptional designs purely to reference MM2 yet again just makes me sad. 9 and 10 are nice, but I’ll always think of them as the “other” MM games.
Lastly, I hate Inti-Creates use of death traps. I cannot stand having to memorize stages and instant death enemies. It has always struck me as incredibly lazy to resort to an abundance of spikes and pit enemies over clever stage design. MM9 doesn’t do this as much as 10, but 9 does it enough. There’s a reason the gameplay style of Dragon’s Quest never took off.
It’s called “a discussion”, Omar, not arguing.
Megaman 9 is what killed the series for me. I want new Megaman games, not half-assed romhacks designed to appeal to hipsters who still get tight pants when they talk about “old-school.”
I didn’t drop hundreds of dollars on modern video game consoles just to play a game that would have looked like crap ten years ago, nor do I want to waste money on a game that actually *takes away* features that have been standard since Megaman 4.
This game is why I will never waste another penny on anything developed by Capcom. I look forward to seeing it fade into quiet, unprofitable obscurity.
Megaman belongs to the fans now. Period.
@Magnet_Man
I agree with most of what you’re saying, but I think 9&10 had clever stage design and many death traps. I just wanted to add that little bit…
All I’¡¡ know is, I loved MM3 and 2 with a passion.
But then Megaman 9 and 10 came along.
LOVED the fact they went back to 8-bit, as that’s where in my eyes the original blue bomber belongs.
The small sprites gave me a lot of room to work with, while the more detailed and bigger sprites meant everything was bigger, making me feel a tad claustrophobic.
I found the cheap deaths to be hillarious. I laughed my ass off at the helicopter claw the first time (and everytime it happened to my friends.
The spikes in Splash Woman’s stage were predictable to me.
Power slide and mega buster.. Missed a bit indeed, but that’s what Protoman is there for.
So I’m still not sure why this continues to tick people off.
I want more 8-bit Megaman games. In fact, I’m still crossing my fingers for Megaman 11 with Proto, Bass, and Roll playable.
I still think that making MM9 an 8-bit like game, consuming resources as a demon was a stupid idea… but the design of the stages is priceless.
Megaman 1-6 all had that “level teaching” mechanic. 7 did it as well. 8 was interesting because you had to use the previous robot master weapons in the latter master stages. 9? Good game, but… not very interesting. They even reused a few tracks from MM2. I mean you can tell it’s like a total clone of it. 10 was a little more exciting, but I really would have preferred, y’know, a NEW game.
I love Mega Man 9 and,well…all of them for that matter. Yeah,9 reuses some tracks,but the new ones are phenomenal…Galaxy Man,Concrete Man,Flash in the Dark,Strange World,etc…fantastic tracks.
Although I could play 8-bit Mega Man games forever,I do think if they want to bring the franchise back to prominence,they need to find out a way to incorporate today’s gaming technology while still maintaining the feel of what made the original series of games so great.
@gutsman004
I agree. I’d easily play all 8-Bit games forever (in fact in my last marathon I just got bored with 7, and skipped right till 9)
But they need an approach similar to Rayman Origins, perhaps.
Current-gen 2D art (though 3D cel-shaded would work really well for Classic Megaman).
Up to 4 players playable at the same time.
Lots of hidden rooms, and extras.
I’d still want chiptune music though.. Megaman without chiptune music just wouldn’t be the same. It’s like a part of his own pop-culture.
I disagree completely with “the game never puts the player in unfamiliar territory with no room for error.” There were plenty of ‘Gotcha!’ traps in this installment.
Combine that with the overuse of spikes instead of enemy placement and the inability to switch weapons outside of the pause menu, and that made 9 a little more on the frustrating side back when I played it for the first time.
I will give 9 credit where it’s due, though, as it has the best all-around set of weapons in a Mega Man game I can remember. I used all eight of them at points in this game quite regularly.
I just wound up liking 10 more, but then again, I prefer the 3/4 school of design over 2 any day. This really did feel like the new Mega Man 2 to Mega Man 10′s new Mega Man 3/4 to me.
At first I was annoyed they took out the slide and charge shot, but I realized that they do make things much easier, almost too much easier. For some of the games, it was like the charge shot replaced the need for boss weapons, kinda defeating one of the main elements of Mega Man. BESIDES, Proto Man. He can charge and slide. Don’t forget that.
Anyway, Mega Man 9 is good, good fun. It doesn’t really feel all that Mega Man 2-ish to me, really. Sure, lots of similarities, but MM9 has got a lot of uniqueness to it.
I still have not played Mega Man 9 yet, but I just want to say I really appreciate this Looking Back series of articles. They’re lengthy, well written, and provide all sorts of info and different perspectives on the games that I love. Thanks for all the hard work!
I felt this way when the game came out, and I still feel this way now: I am completely on board with the 8-bit gameplay and graphics featured in MM9 and MM10. Mega Man had been dormant for a while before MM9 was announced, and this was just the thing to at least get people talking about Mega Man again.
And you know what? MM9 is a fantastic game. Is it better then MM2, or even my personal favorite, MM3? I don’t think so. Is it better then most of later titles? I believe it is.
I give credit to the designers for a powerful group of Robot Master weapons, as to me, this made up for the loss of the Charge Shot. After the Medal Blade, the Laser Trident and/or Jewel Satellite may be the most dominant weapons in MM history.
I agree that certain aspects of the game were “cheap,” such as the aforementioned section in Wily Stage 3. That being said, I enjoyed the slightly increased difficulty, and the long, labyrinth-esque Skull Castle stages.
My biggest complaint about this game was that I felt it tried TOO hard to be like the older classic games. I preferred MM10 over 9, partly because to me, 10 felt more like a “new” game in terms of it’s graphics and level design.
A few tidbits I forgot to include in my first post:
The inability to quickly switch weapons using the top buttons can be very uncomfortable in this game, especially since there are points in the game that require frequent special weapons use.
Does anybody else find the controls a little sluggish on the Xbox 360 version? I have the Wii and 360 versions, and the Wii controls a lot more smoothly. It always felt like there was a slight delay on the 360 version. Is it like this on PS3 as well?
I love the shout outs to the old Mega Man fan sites in this article. And in general, I’ve enjoyed reading these looking back/recap articles greatly.
I don’t see why & Forte is being skipped, as well as the GB games. :/
@Amir
Because they almost always are when people do these retrospectives, which is a shame.
In any case Mega Man 9 is one of my favorite games in the classic series. It was a refinement of the old games with a level of difficulty satisfying to old fans (cruel but not unbeatable and very rewarding). The Robot masters all had personality by the bucket-load and the weapon set is arguably the best in existence.
Despite the fact that I’d like to see the games move forward in HD, MM9 was what the franchise needed to get people talking about it again during a time old had become new again.
It also shows how good a Mega Man game can be when the developers take time to analyze what makes a Mega Man game good.
I like 9. It has great level design and fun weapons. The music is also pretty great at times.
However, I dislike the fact that this marked the point where Capcom realized that Mega Man should not progress. 8, which took some daring steps and was an “AAA” game for its time, didn’t light up the charts. I guess 9 did, since 10 was out shortly afterwards. But while pulling off a nice “throwback” for once (9) is a legit move, seeing it as the future of the franchise, and as a cheap “business model” ultimately has a very stale smell to it.
And yeah, I liked the slide. The mega buster I can live without, but the slide added a lot of dynamics. My favorite classic game is also 3, not 2, so that might have to do with it.
I like MM9, but it seems more like Capcom and the fans wanted to make MM2.1 instead, right down to gimping Mega Man just to make it exactly like MM2 was.
Yes, I know that MM2 was the definitive game, but the series has since evolved and developed in new directions. We don’t need regression simply because of a rabid fanbase who wants every new game to be like MM2 (heck, if they got their way, we’d have the Metal Blade in every game). The charge shot wasn’t a bad loss, but removing the slide took away a lot of Mega Man’s pace.
Also, Proto Man was a waste of a playable character. You get the charge shot and slide (shouldn’t he have a MMX-style dash), but you also have to put up with his horrible defense, a semi-useless shield (only gets put up when JUMPING?!), and his complete lack of storyline.
What about megaman 7? If anything, they should make megaman 11 have SNES style graphics and music, and give back rush adaptor, power slide, charge shot, etc. maybe even add something new? megaman 7 is the most underrated game of the classic series. Seeing a ps1 styled megaman game again would be nice, or a remake of megaman 3 with a proper intro and the background planets in gemini man’s stage and the rush drill and anything else missing. Give it achievments, time mode, endless mode and a way to play it with SNES or different graphics as well and remixed music and that would be cool. Also, I like megaman 10 better than 9 because it was somewaht easy, but it was not reliant on memorization like megaman 9 was. I beat all 8 megaman classic games before playing 9, and when I played it, I thought it was cool but was surprised at how often I died and did not think it was my own fault. After beating it once after 8 hours, I found the game really easy and never struggled with it again. Strange. With 10, it felt like when I died, it was because I did something stupid, not because I did not have something memorized.
What about megaman 7? If anything, they should make megaman 11 have SNES style graphics and music, and give back rush adaptor, power slide, charge shot, etc. maybe even add something new? megaman 7 is the most underrated game of the classic series. Seeing a ps1 styled megaman game again would be nice, or a remake of megaman 3 with a proper intro and the background planets in gemini man’s stage and the rush drill and anything else missing. Give it achievments, time mode, endless mode and a way to play it with SNES or different graphics as well and remixed music and that would be cool. Also, I like megaman 10 better than 9 because it was somewhat easy, but it was not reliant on memorization like megaman 9 was. I beat all 8 megaman classic games before playing 9, and when I played it, I thought it was cool but was surprised at how often I died and did not think it was my own fault. After beating it once after 8 hours, I found the game really easy and never struggled with it again. Strange. With 10, it felt like when I died, it was because I did something stupid, not because I did not have something memorized.