Greenalink reviews Mega Man 11

Developers: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Release Date: 02/10/2018 or 04/10/2018 for Japan

Average Price: US $30 or £25

Filesize: just over 2GB

Website: http://megaman.capcom.com/mm11.html

Eight and a half years since the last Mega Man came out, a lot of new gems such as Shovel Knight were released along the way and some big flops such as Mighty No. 9 which wasn't received well at all, does the 11th entry of the long-running series has a spark of life to a popular genre or is that spark a complete dud?

Features

8 Robot Masters turned bad

2 gameplay altering gears

3 pellets on the screen at once

2 voice acting options

1 robotic dog

Not 8-bit man?!

The team took a big risk and gave another shot at the non 8-bit atheistic approach which hasn't been done since Mega Man 8 (PS1 1997) or the 3D Graphic 2.5D Mega Man 1 remake: Mega Man Powered Up for PSP.

A certain fan base from another franchise tend to have a universally positive track record if it stuck to the 16-bit Genesis atheistic, nearly the same can be said for Mega Man in 8-bit, that said the nostalgic style had some limitations and by removing it allowed the team to implement more/new ideas to the series.

Graphics

Powered up by MT Framework 2.x, Mega Man series isn't the most taxing game to run than say Monster Hunter World, I was initially concerned when watching the debut trailer last year during the 30th Anniversary event due to the 30fps cap on the video itself but the final build has changed my mind completely thanks to some decent visual effects that couldn't be pulled off completely if it stuck to the 8-bit approach including shadows, light glow from giant flames and detailed gear attacks sequences (2 of the main bosses will transform), heck destroying Sniper Joe will have its shield flying away from the destruction for a few seconds. It's the first new Mega Man game to be played in a widescreen ratio (PSP doesn't fully count) which in a way does affect the level design for boss fights since the in-game camera is fixed during those parts. When Mega Man equips to a different weapon, not only his colour changes but his physical appearance too, especially the helmet piece which is based on the Robot Master he took out to obtain it.

"You're skating on thin ice!"

Sound

To describe the background music it used a limited soundfont/instruments but it's not the original chiptunes back in the day although part of Fuse Man's theme is very close, it kinda reminds me of the in-house, dance-friendly style used in EX Troopers but minus the vocals. There were some complaints about the default volume settings as bgm tends to be washed out by other effects, so during my playthrough, I set music a few points higher and lowered both voice and sound effects, this did allow me to listen to the melody of each track much more easily. Sound effects were done by foley work which simply means that it was re-created sound from real life, retro sound effects wouldn't be as effective with the new visual approach to this game, noticed how the 1up Mushroom Power-up in Super Mario Galaxy for example used modern sounds rather the classic Super Mario Bros sample.

There's bonus (pre-order) DLC which plays an alternate soundtrack during the main stages, they are very pleasant to listen to and made me wish that it was treated as an unlockable bonus for beating the game. The English voice actors performance against Mega Man 8 is a huge step up with Mega Man sounding more like a teenager rather than a female sounding eight year old, Robot Masters have a variety of accents and personalities that adds a lot of character than bosses featured in previous games, even if some of them sound pretty cliche, such as the angry, short-tempered Blast Man and the playful friendly natured Bounce Man.

Mega Man unleashing Double Gear which only works if the user is at low HP

Gameplay

The structure is identical to Mega Man 9 as players start off with stage select and afterwards complete 4 final stages, part-way through the game you can unlock Rush Jet. For Mega Man's abilities, however, he regains the ability to slide and charge shot which were passed over to Proto Man in 9 & 10, the charged Mega Buster has a bit of extra utility thanks to a guard break mechanic against opponents wielding some kind of shield, they become vulnerable to other attacks after blocking a powerful Mega Buster shot. His new mechanic and main feature to the game thanks to Dr. Wily's prototype called the Double Gear system allows him to increase his attack power and/or speed by slowing everything down for a couple of seconds. The amount of inputs from Mega Man 9 -> 10 -> 11 is quite staggering as all 4 shoulder buttons and the right stick have use in the game. By not using the 8-bit aesthetic, level design has a bit more freedom and creativity by removing the restriction of using the camera's Y Co-ordinates.

Power Gear is effective against mid-bosses and end of level bosses mainly because you can quickly activate the gear, use an effective weapon and then deactivate it, this is vital against end of level bosses because some of them die after taking 4-6 hits from a power gear boosted weapon they are weak against.

Speed Gear is handy for tough platforming segments and most importantly study and dodge powerful attacks from enemies. I tend to use this for moments where I would have a better chance to avoid it by slowing down time. I like these additions because it adds a lot more depth and most importantly for speed gear, makes boss fights more manageable if used correctly. The gears add a breath of fresh air.

For the actual levels, both Fuse Man and Bounce Man stood out the most during my playthrough because in a level design perspective it took advantage of what the new engine can do over the retro style engine, MM 11 is also notable for featuring mid-bosses in every regular stage, some of them share the same weakness as the end of level boss, some do not and after taking them out you are rewarded with a checkpoint and some small energy pellets.

Similar to Mega Man 7 - 10, you can pick up parts to buy upgrades and/or consumable items to make a tough level easier to beat, the best upgrade I got was a refined speed gear upgrade where the Blue Bomber is completely unaffected by speed loss during his speed gear activation.

Top button and right button are dedicated to Rush Coil and Rush Jet respectively which is fantastic because it no longer slows down the pacing of the gameplay. Single button slide and Rapid firing are additional commands but involve sacrificing other 2 buttons. Top players set the gears to the rear shoulder buttons (L2/R2s) and map slide to front left shoulder and rapid fire to front right shoulder, changing weapon can be done by using the right stick which does take some time getting used to.

The game feels 80% old school and 20% new school by adding voices (again), realistic sounds and new game mechanics

Spoilers alert!

I played the entire game on the normal difficulty which is the ideal challenge factor to compare it to previous games as the easier 2 difficulties have some notable tweaks to make it more accessible to lesser skilled players. There were some cheap deaths in some of the areas for Impact Man, Acid Man and even Wily stage 1 due to either pits or lots of instant kill spike traps. Wily 1, in particular, had an odd difficulty spike because nearly every room that had platforming either had spikes or pits which can be a concern if Mega Man gets hit by an enemy. That said if you're dying a lot in Wily 1 then practically you are not using every weapon available. Then Wily 2 didn't have the same issue and I will say that Wily 2 is somewhat nowhere near as brutal as the first Wily level. Wily 3 and 4 had a bigger focus on boss fights and kept platforming to a nearly absolute minimum which I felt was a bit of a step back as nearly any other Classic Mega Man game had at least 3 platforming focused stages. The only other criticism is that there was only 1 theme for Wily Castle and not 4 (Mega Man 9) or 5 (Mega Man 10).

Superhero mode is the highest difficulty in the game and it's treated very differently to Inti Creates' Mega Man games. For starters the level design enemy placements are exactly the same, what is different are the lack of 1UPs, E-Tanks and HP/Ammo Energy refills, to make things worse, Mega Man takes slightly more damage than usual. The only source of recovery are E-tanks (+M-tanks) and extra 1UPs bought from the shop, then the bosses themselves are enhanced in various ways! Block Man, for example, unleashes a Power Gear boosted block dropper making it very hard to dodge the falling blocks without slowing down time with speed gear, Torch Man's dive kick comes out ridiculously fast, simply put they are a lot faster and have (slightly) enhanced versions of their attacks. This is not for the faint and hearted, it's the definition of unfair hard mainly aimed towards veterans of the series.

Block Man is easily the most memorable Robot Master in this game

Spoilers ends here!

Value

Taking notes from the recent 2 games, Mega Man 11 has a decent amount of content for not only completionists who want to beat every in-game challenge for Gold but also the speedrunning community too to get very good times. There are some silly modes where you have to move the oven robot as far as possible within a certain time limit, every platforming level has a challenge focusing on low shots (attacks), low jump count, balloon attack, medal collection, score attack and time attack. Some of these modes encourage the player to think differently when trying to aim for the gold medal. Balloon attack and Medal Collection are both identical as they involve collecting but the gameplay differences are night and day as one has to avoid red balloons and destroy the blue ones by touching or shooting at them, the Medal Collection mode has enemies on the screen as usual and the medals are found in hard to reach areas and require using either Rush Coil or Rush Jet (in some cases Speed Gear to slow down falling blocks).

Score attack is probably the most disappointing as it has a few flaws due to game design such as respawnable enemies to grind for more points. To obtain the gold medal in Block Man and get over 50,000 one player decided to exit and re-enter the final room before the boss doors to respawn Anti-Eddie for roughly 200 points per kill.

Lastly, there's Dr Light's challenge which is a series of 30 tough rooms to playthrough and dying even once is game over, I haven't gotten past room 10 yet which shows a lot of practice is required.

I managed to reach number 1 for fastest Medal Collection in Block Man's stage for at least a day.

Version differences:

Nintendo Switch highest resolution is 1080p but has amiibo support to obtain free items.

PS4, Xbox One and PC (with good graphics card) can be played at an even higher resolution. 

Load times are all decent, even on the Nintendo Switch. 

I played a lot of Azure Striker Gunvolt on the PC a few years ago with an Xbox 360 controller and by complete surprise had nearly no issues with Mega Man 11.

Conclusion:

The 11th entry might not be the best Classic Mega Man ever but it does get accepted to be part of the good games club. The biggest selling points are its unique features to classic Mega Man, ranging from modern game engine tech to "practice makes perfect" level design that are for the most part a step into the right direction.

Mega Yes

+ Custom Controls

+ Rush Coil + Rush Jet buttons

+ Speed Gear to help study boss patterns
+ Executing a really good speedrun is rewarding to watch back thanks to replays.

+ A lot of achievements to encourage multiple playthroughs.

+ Nearly all of the weapons are useful and Power Gear helps take out bosses very quickly.

+ Some pretty good music tracks, including the Instrumental DLC variants.

Mega No

- Acid Barrier is almost useless.

- Fewer platforming levels and less background music tracks than usual in Wily's stages

- Odd difficulty spike for Wily 1 -> when Wily 2 is not as hard... casually at least

- Controls can feel wonky if using the right stick and trying to select the correct weapon.

- You are an 8-bit loyalist and would rather wait for a fan demake of Mega Man 11.

- Not all of the tracks are as memorable as the previous games 

Grade: B+

 PC Steam Review code provided by Capcom UK