1/5 ★ – Jrdotan's review of Mega Man 8.

Mega Man 8 was released at the new uprising of a new generation of consoles. Capcom was, at the time, both trying to bring Mega Man to the 32-bit era and do something that felt a bit more original compared to its predecessors. The end result, however, was a bit messy. Mega Man 8 doesn’t do a whole lot new mechanically. Mega Man can still slide, shoot, and charge the buster, which will instantly kill most enemies (more on that later). This time, we have no Etanks, and the shop system from Mega Man 7 returns so the player can get useful items that can help with progressing through levels. Rush Coil and Jet aren’t available, but some utility items can be found during stages so Rush can do shit like dropping items in levels or becoming a motorcycle that shoots missiles at enemies... yes, it’s weird. Graphically, the game looks amazing. Beautiful artwork, even if some animations may be a bit wonky (Mega Man’s head keeps bouncing as he walks, for example). Backgrounds are incredibly animated, enemies look amazing, and generally, it’s one of the best visuals in the entire series. Even particles are good to look at when shit explodes or is destroyed. Music is also great. This time, the soundtrack has a much more atmospheric vibe instead of the more "8-bit/16-bit rock n roll" the series usually has. Guitars are not as predominant, and the soundtrack loves drums. It’s unique, but it sounds amazing. Frost Man and the stage select theme, in particular, are fantastic. When we transition to more gameplay heavy subjects… that’s when things get a bit messier. To start with the good stuff, the weapons are decent this time around. Not only did they keep the more interactive elements introduced in Mega Man 7, such as weapons being used within the scenario to find secrets and such (you can, for example, use your bomb weapon to explode a barrel and find bolts in Clown Man’s stage), but they mostly have proper damage tables and more utility for movement. Thunder Claw is awful, and Water Balloon is outright useless, but outside of that, weapons come in handy and are fun to use. While some boss fights end too fast because the charged buster deals an IMMENSE amount of damage, and as such, fights never get to shine so much, the bosses mostly have good patterns, and they are quite fun to learn IF you desire to no damage them. They can be good fights if you self-impose restrictions. Using weapons or not caring about HP will result in fights that end way too fast to be fun, though. That’s where the pros end… yes, music, weapons, graphics, bosses if you handicap yourself... that’s all. As for the cons: For starters, the level design sucks. The game is far too gimmicky for its own good. The main difference between gimmicky levels and simply having gimmicks to shake up progression is that gimmicky levels will often present an idea that is far too removed from the original gameplay loop and then milk that idea for far too long, making it the entire stage's identity. That’s why when people talk about Battletoads’ autoscroller, they refer to it as "the motorcycle stage." That’s all the stage is, without anything else to make the experience more intriguing. Mega Man 8 follows this trail. It often has some few ideas at the start of a stage, then it presents a new idea that is very far from what makes Mega Man, well… Mega Man. And then they simply milk the same idea for the entirety of the stage with very few moments in between. Tengu Man’s stage, for example, starts out by presenting a neat idea of platforms that rise up as you come closer, while the wind pushes the player back. Something similar to the rain effect in Toad Man’s stage from Mega Man 4. However… after that, and a short challenge revolving around moving a bubble to reach safely at the end of a vertical section, the game presents a shoot 'em up sequence, which not only is very lackluster mechanically (lacking any in-depth skill ceiling gameplay or anything substantial to learn about enemy patterns or progression system/resource management), but worse than that, it takes FAR too long to end. You see, this game has an idea of trying to lengthen stages by adding a two act system. When you reach what normally would be the end point of a stage in any prior Mega Man game, act 1 ends and a second half of the same stage begins. For once, this means you have 2 checkpoints before the boss gate instead of 1 (which used to be the standard), so the game is generally far too easy. But because they reuse gimmicks for so long, it’s extremely exhausting to keep doing the same thing for extended periods of time. It neither fits a Mega Man game nor is it well paced. While every stage suffers from that problem, the first batch of levels is far more playable than the second batch. Oh, I forgot to mention? They brought back MM7’s system in which they split levels into two batches for the sake of difficulty progression. Here, that’s actually not the reason this was done. The true reason why the system was used is because they wanted to make some weapons required to progress through stages. WHAT? Do you even know what Mega Man is about? The whole idea is replayability by having the ability to start with any robot master, get their weapons out of order, and use the weapons in other stages as you desire. The experience is shaken up depending on how you tackled the bosses, and player expression is what made those games what they are. When you force players to use weapons to progress during long stretches of a level, you kill the one thing that makes those games what they are. One of the levels in this second batch is a good example. Its an entire stage in which you need to use all the weapons from the first batch in order to tackle down some puzzles. Thanks! Once you finish this stage once, EVERY playthrough will be identical because you have no space to have your own agency. The issues with level design won’t simply end at those things either. Enemy design is something this game does terribly. From a pure individual design standpoint, enemies have very little health, which is not good. Some enemies might be killed easier, this I do get. However, once most of the enemies have 1-2 health, not only does the game discourage weapon experimentation, but it often incentivizes the player to keep charging the buster and shooting at every chance. The charged buster ruined a lot of Mega Man experiences and sadly, this game is borderline Mega Man 5 levels of this issue. So many times I barely had to think, instead only shooting my Mega Buster at everything I saw. Giving enemies more HP is certainly needed, look at Mega Man 7 and take a clue at how enemies should be designed. The second big issue with enemies in MM8 is the sheer variety. Different from Mega Man X3, the issue here isn’t that there’s little enemy variety in the actual game. actually, this game has 40+ enemies, which is a pretty neat amount. What most people often don’t think about is how those enemies are used. This game has a big amount of generic enemies that were solely made to be put in every stage as placeholder robots when others wouldn’t fit a certain stretch. This means that every robot that isn’t thematic can be spread throughout levels with little to no thought. Of course, some enemies have to be used in more than one level. The challenge regarding that is to use your brain to think where some enemies might fit and properly place them where they make sense to be. Games like Mega Man X or 7 did this brilliantly, while 8 failed. To give two examples of the issue, let’s use two enemies that are far too common in Mega Man games and compare their usage in Mega Man 7 and 8. the Mets and Battons (bats). Mets are an iconic Mega Man enemy. You can change their designs at times or make them more properly thematic, but the classic one or a variation of said classic design is always present in any Mega Man game. In Mega Man 7, Metall FX is the standard version of Mets. They are used in the intro stage, Junk Man’s stage, and Wily 3. That’s all. Since the game didn’t want the combat experience to feel monotonous, they spread Met usage in smart places and restrained the team from simply putting Mets in every level. Common sense was used, and as such, you never feel like you are fighting Mets way too much. In Mega Man 8, the default Met is the Metall SV, which is used in the intro stage, Tengu Man’s stage, Clown Man’s stage, Astro Man’s stage, Search Man’s stage, Frost Man’s stage, Aqua Man’s stage, and the third Wily stage. Instead of thinking where the enemy might fit or be interesting to place them in, devs simply spammed the same enemy in not one, two, or three but 8 stages. 8 out of the total 14 Mega Man 8 levels. more than half of the game’s levels have Mets in them. It lacks creativity, thought, or anything resembling sanity. The default Battons in Mega Man 7 are the M48 type, which exist in Shade Man’s stage and Wily 2. In Mega Man 8, those are the Batton M64, which are placed within Grenade Man, Frost Man, Sword Man, and Wily 2 stages… and so it goes. Can you see how monotonous the experience becomes? Mega Man 8 has no imagination behind enemy usage, and therefore, stages lack identity. Where are the creative air-type enemies in Tengu Man’s stage? Birds? That’s all? After that, you’ll find Mets, Shield Attackers, Tellies, and a whale from Aqua Man’s stage??? Endgame is pretty awful too, probably the worst castle in the classic series. What often makes interesting castle stages? Instead of reusing ideas, having new enemy types or platform ideas to show, having themes that make each stage unique, and making enemy usage more logical? Weapon usage and the ability to feel like levels were designed to accommodate different weapons and test your skills with them properly? Forget all that. They just reuse the weirdest gimmicks from other stages, barely give you options to use your weapons, don’t bring anything new to the table, and lack themes within any of the stages. It’s terrible. The game also got new sound effects and VAs alongside FMV animation. While the animation quality is ok, the American dub is AWFUL. Some of the most iconically bad moments in VA history revolve around Dr. Light talking about "Dr. Wiwy," or Mega Man’s long-ass scream sequences that almost made me deaf. Even when you play the game, nobody will shut up, and it’s extremely annoying to hear Mega Man screaming at every single shot or jump. Sound effects are also pretty damn cheap, and that’s something you can’t fix even in the JP version. When you use your weapons, the explosions and effects are so damn messy and loud that I’d rather mute the TV, which is sad since the soundtrack itself is so good. I often don’t mention Mega Man plots here, because they are pretty bad and barely have any well constructed personal stakes, internal characterization, or anything that would make the story progression interesting. But this game does try a lot harder to have a story and well… it’s awful. Wily gets access to an alien energy, which is simply "evil energy." No plot explanation of how this came to existence, what it implies, or how it morally judges what is evil or not. it simply exists. Then, a robot coming from space tries to destroy the sources of said evil energy because if they fall into the wrong hands, the world could be in danger. Obviously, because it ends up with Wily, Mega Man and Duo (the space robot) join forces to try and stop Wily. Everything and I repeat, EVERYTHING in this story is unoriginal, boring, extremely lazy, and barebones. Capcom should stop trying to make more elaborate stories. they are not good at it. Even Sonic games had better plots than that, and they all are also pretty bad. With horrendous enemy designs, placements, level design, pacing, bad sound effects, and awful writing, Mega Man 8 is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to Mega Man. It’s a game that should be forgotten, and if somehow you wish to play it just because of the graphics, I would rather recommend you Mega Man and Bass because that one is at least a game. This, however? That’s a concept and a very crappy one at that. Rank- 2/10