Video Game Review: Megaman

Philip Colicchio, Staff Writer

I don’t know about you, but I love Megaman, from the awesome X series to the iconic classic series, this franchise is always a delight. And with Capcom’s newly released Megaman 11 we can take a trip downtown to memory lane.

If you didn’t know already, the Megaman series made its first debut on the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES in 1987 and has a long line of games grouped into multiple series, merchandise, and even a recently released TV show.

The story of this 11th installment according to the Megaman Knowledge base is, “The evil scientist Dr. Wily has completed a forbidden research to attack the peaceful robotic society again. While reflecting on his younger days when he studied alongside Dr. Light, he remembered a creation of his own: the Double Gear System, a device that dramatically increases the abilities of robots, but its research was stopped due to the danger caused by pushing robots beyond their limitations, and it is related to the conflict between Dr. Wily and Dr. Light. Finishing the Double Gear System, Dr. Wily steals eight of Dr. Light’s robots and increases their abilities to use on his plans to conquer the world. In order to counter the situation, Dr. Light reluctantly decided to install a prototype of the Double Gear System that Wily created when he was younger on Mega Man, giving him new abilities to help him stop Dr. Wily’s nefarious ambitions.”

The gameplay is like the others in the series, you have 8 robot masters to fight in any order you want, with specific weaknesses (for example, Impact Man’s weapon is strong against Bounce Man). After you beat them all you go to Dr. Wily’s castle and take the fight to him! This game is not for the faint hearted, as this series is known for its difficulty. You will find yourself dying a lot! Every loss feels like it is your fault not the game’s, which is really important because you never feel cheated out of. Also you could just choose the easier difficulties, but I believe you should always play on normal mode for the full experience.

The only cons I can think of for this game is it’s a little too short even with the challenge mode. Also, the soundtrack isn’t as memorable as the others in the series. The worst part of this is if you pre-ordered the game like me you get a superior instrumental soundtrack that you can turn on and off instead of the techno one. It is a a good thing, but they shouldn’t lock the awesome soundtracks the series is known for behind a preorder bonus.  

Overall, Megaman 11 is an amazing return for this classic robot.

Score: 9.0 out of 10 Amazing