4/5 ★ – Kalle_Deimos's review of Mega Man 8.

TLDR: This game made me realize how up and down the Mega Man series is. This is an up, thankfully. This finally felt like they got past the rough limitations and mechanics of the previous generation and was just an overall nice experience. Gameplay: My biggest issue with 7 was bad boss fights and now the boss fights are a lot of fun. I think a big part of this is because they removed consumable items (besides once a level Rush ability) so boss encounters had to be balanced to reasonably be done on a single life bar. Using their weakness also doesn't change the entire fight and instead just grants you some opportunities to slam down. A huge change is being able to use the Mega Buster and a Robot Master weapon at the same time. Level design is pretty awesome, and weapons have lots of different uses throughout stages and are all functionally different. I don't really like the shooting sections very much and there's some weird quirks like swimming and such. There's also collectible bolts scattered through stages that help you get some pretty significant upgrades that change the way you play. Although you can't get all of them on one playthrough, which I guess that's supposed to encourage replayability but I'd rather just have them all in one playthrough honestly. Overall, a very fun experience. Story: Robots from SPACE and EVIL ENERGY, its like I'm watching a 4kids cartoon I love it. I like how Duo shows up and fucks off immediately. Graphics: A very appealing game visually. The playstations does some wonders on the Mega Man look. Everything is colorful, lively and vibrant. Animations have a stretch and squash type of effect to double down on a cartoony feel and overall fun vibe. Sound: The sparse voice acting throughout the game is unironically bad but ironically great. I really can't tell if they hired some random american VA's with no sense of tone or inflexion or if they just pulled the best coder who could speak english decently. Extra: Besides the bolts to collect there isn't much else to search for. Which is fine. I suppose it encourages multiple playthroughs to test built variety but I don't know...doesn't seem like there is a ton of builds to make. Favorite Thing: Robot Master weapons! This might be the best way they've used them so far. Not My Favorite Thing: There's one section where you have to snowboard in the first Wily Castle Stage and it is ridiculously hard but also not really fun. The only really hiccup of the game in my opinion. And Clown Man's stage is kind of annoying. Feels like a joke made just to mess with you. But I guess that's kinda the point.