5/5 ★ – Jumpmanryan's review of Mega Man 9.

10 out of 10! Mega Man 9 is Classic Mega Man at its' pinnacle. The team at Capcom and Inti Creates made the wise / correct decision to throw the series back to its NES roots in both look and feel. And I mean that literally, as Mega Man 9 is developed completely in 8-bit and Mega Man controls identically to Mega Man 2’s blue bomber, minus the slippery-ness. Again, this was absolutely the right call by the development team. Mega Man simply *belongs* and thrives in 8-bit. And while I liked the addition of the slide in Mega Man 3, I thought the charge shot addition in Mega Man 4 onward led to mixed results. Mega Man 9 retains the infamous structure of the series by allowing the player to choose their pathway through 8 initial robot masters. And each one of these robot masters’ stage is meticulously designed with great enemy placement and platforming challenges. Mega Man as a series flourishes when it finds the balance between difficulty and fairness. And Mega Man 9 seems to strike this balance perfectly. There aren’t any ridiculously random enemies to knock you into the abyss of a pit. There aren’t ever *too many* enemies stacked in a single corridor. And the platforming is difficult and precise without feeling near impossible. That’s not to say that Mega Man 9 is an easy game, though. On the contrary, Mega Man 9 is very tough and sits in the upper-half of Mega Man games in terms of difficulty. It’s fun, challenging, and extremely satisfying the entire way through. The robot masters are genuinely interesting and well-designed. There are several standouts here including Galaxy Man, Magma Man, Splash Woman, Hornet Man, and Tornado Man. All 5 of these robot masters have incredibly well-designed stages, fantastic music, and fun to use weapons. The greatness isn’t limited to these 5 either. Every robot master in Mega Man 9 is *at least* good. None of them feel like they’re detrimental to the quality of the overall package. One of the largest improvements in Mega Man 9 in comparison to the rest of the series is the weapons. So many of them actually feel distinct and worthy of your time. Galaxy Man’s Black Hole Bomb weapon magnetizes enemy projectiles into its core. Tornado Man’s Tornado Blow spins propellers and covers the screen in mini tornadoes. Hornet Man’s Hornet Chaser literally sends out hornets that can pick up out of reach items or hone in on enemies. Plug Man’s Plug Ball attaches to the ground & walls to allow you to damage enemies without charging to their front. The important thing here is that all of these weapons feel like they can be effectively utilized outside of just their respective boss weakness. The music in Mega Man 9 is top-notch. It doesn’t top the tracks of Mega Man 2 or 3, but it certainly comfortably stands next to the great Mega Man OSTs. Which, of course, means it is substantially good. Magma Man’s stage has my absolute favorite track in the group. But nearly every stage has an outstanding soundtrack to go along with its impressive and entertaining design. Mega Man 9 also features a story with text-based cutscenes. Per usual for Mega Man, the story isn’t anything remarkable. But it’s still enjoyable as Dr. Light gets framed by Wily. The absolute best part of the story comes at the end when Wily begs for forgiveness and Mega Man shows him all of the times he’s done this before. It’s just a really fun callback to the previous games in the series and it’s always fun to see Wily exposed for the coward he is. It’s hard to find the words to truly encapsulate my feelings on Mega Man 9. The announcement of the game was a fever dream in and of itself. But for it to surpass all of its prior entries to become my absolute favorite in the series? That’s absurd, but it’s also reality. I adore Mega Man 9. It’s exactly what I wanted from this Classic franchise.