Megaman (9 is difficult)

I'm not sure if any Doomers enjoy the Megaman series. I've tried to play all of the games over the past 15+ years and Megaman 2, 3 and X always stand out for me.

Now for what prompted this topic. For the past few days I've been playing Megaman 9. It is controller destroyingly difficult. But its a difficultly that the more you play it, the better you get. What killed you dozens of times you will get through it with effort.

I also remember playing Megaman 2 a few years ago and breezing through that in a matter of hours after not playing for a few decades. Everyone seems to remember that one most fondly and I think I know why. It was very easy compared to the others.

What are your Megaman memories?

Mega Man 2 is only easy because its "normal" mode is actually an easy mode added when they localized the game. "Difficult" is the difficulty the Japanese original uses. Its level design definitely makes it harder than the later games in the series; I'd consider it second hardest after the first.

I found MM9 to be fairly easy, myself. Plentiful E and M tanks, buyable lives, buyable spike protection, etc. Decent subweapons that make getting through the levels a breeze, too, something the MM games almost never get right.

That is correct Sir. And yes you can buy E and M tanks. I have avoided that. The death traps are what is getting me more than getting beaten badly enough to need a tank. I think it was Plug man's level that I just used jewel satellite and breezed through it, but the challenge there was timing of the platforms, but nothing killed you.

Magma's stage was quite a breeze.

No bullshit: I gave myself a panic attack trying to get all of the achievements for this game. This requires you beating the entire game without getting damaged. You can save after each of the 8 normal stages, so those generally aren't a problem, but you have to do all 4 of Wily's stages all in one run without getting hit. The first 3 stages generally weren't a problem, but having to beat all 8 bosses again AND Wily without getting damaged = @(%^&@(%&2(&@%. It'd take 15 minutes or so just to get to that point where it's incredibly easy to fuck one thing up, and given how unpredictable some of the bosses are, that happened quite a bit. A couple times I think I'd take care of the more difficult ones, but the pressure would still get to me and I'd fuck up on one of the easier ones.

After hours and hours and days and days of that, it wore on me. A lot. Before actually succeeding, I stressed myself out so much that I thought I was having a heart attack. Turns out it was just a panic attack, which was about the most terrifying experience of my life. I still don't think I'm 100% back to normal.

Moral of the story: Don't sweat it. It's just a game. Also, FUCK YOU MEGA MAN 9! :(

I love the Megaman series! Classic and X are my favorite Megaman series. Zero series isn't that bad either. MM5 and MM3 are my favorites from the Classic series. MMX - MMX3 are my favorites from the X series.

As far as MM9 is concerned, it is pretty tough. So many spikes and pits in many of the levels. The weapons you get are pretty useful, especially Jewel Satellite. MM10 is pretty fun, check that out when you can.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Mega Man 2 is only easy because its "normal" mode is actually an easy mode added when they localized the game. "Difficult" is the difficulty the Japanese original uses. Its level design definitely makes it harder than the later games in the series; I'd consider it second hardest after the first.

Nah, the difficulty level mostly matters only if you try to beat all bosses with the blaster. MM2 has pretty much the most overpowered weapons when it comes to abusing the bosses' weaknesses (metal vs pretty much anything, leaf vs air, etc), and either the bosses have very easy patterns to abuse (crash man, heat man...) or have other glaring weaknesses (air, quick...).

The only truly tough parts in MM2 would be the jumping leading to the dragon and the boss of Wily stage 4 (wall cannons), and even the latter can be abused with multiple lives since the walls themselves don't respawn if you die. I'd say MM3 is definitely harder than 2, mostly due to the revisited stages where you fight MM2 bosses: The patterns are same old, but you don't have the overpowered weapons against some of the bosses and all of them have much bigger hitboxes that are nearly impossible to jump over.


Also, fuck SNES Megamans and their oversized sprites.

Mega Man X was okay.

Jodwin said:

Nah, the difficulty level mostly matters only if you try to beat all bosses with the blaster. MM2 has pretty much the most overpowered weapons when it comes to abusing the bosses' weaknesses (metal vs pretty much anything, leaf vs air, etc), and either the bosses have very easy patterns to abuse (crash man, heat man...) or have other glaring weaknesses (air, quick...).

The only truly tough parts in MM2 would be the jumping leading to the dragon and the boss of Wily stage 4 (wall cannons), and even the latter can be abused with multiple lives since the walls themselves don't respawn if you die. I'd say MM3 is definitely harder than 2, mostly due to the revisited stages where you fight MM2 bosses: The patterns are same old, but you don't have the overpowered weapons against some of the bosses and all of them have much bigger hitboxes that are nearly impossible to jump over.

You might be right on MM3 being harder; I was mostly commenting on the boss damage when I mentioned that being the reason for MM2 being easier. I still think MM2's level design is much more unforgiving than you give it credit for, especially if you don't already know the game. Those blocks in Heat Man's stage are hell, for example, the pattern is simple but you can't observe the entire course and the timing of them has always seemed "off" compared to later games. Luckily Item-2 lets you completely bypass that section.

Jodwin said:

Also, fuck SNES Megamans and their oversized sprites.

Never bothered me in MMX, outside of playing Zero in X3 (who was only useful as a second life bar in 1/3 of a stage), but MM7 and MM&B really sucked because of this. And then there was the GBA port of MM&B...

Dragonsbrethren said:

I still think MM2's level design is much more unforgiving than you give it credit for, especially if you don't already know the game. Those blocks in Heat Man's stage are hell, for example, the pattern is simple but you can't observe the entire course and the timing of them has always seemed "off" compared to later games. Luckily Item-2 lets you completely bypass that section.

Yeah, there are a few tricky parts in the level design of MM2, but like you pointed out some of them can be easily abused (Item-2 in Heat Man's stage, flash at Quick Man's beams, leaf shield at the moving platforms in Wily stage 4...). There's less abusable parts in later games, even if the "vanilla" platforming is a tad easier.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Never bothered me in MMX, outside of playing Zero in X3 (who was only useful as a second life bar in 1/3 of a stage), but MM7 and MM&B really sucked because of this. And then there was the GBA port of MM&B...

The biggest problem is that the more screen estate is being used for sprites, the less space there is for the level itself. For example, none of the disappearing block segments from classic Mega Mans would work in the SNES games simply because there wouldn't be enough room available. It also screws up boss fights since there's far less space to move around.

geo said:

Now for what prompted this topic. For the past few days I've been playing Megaman 9. It is controller destroyingly difficult. But its a difficultly that the more you play it, the better you get. What killed you dozens of times you will get through it with effort.

I'm not much a megaman guy at all, in fact I'm not sure why I even stumbled in to this thread. But that reason you posted is why I have such high appreciation for Doom. I get a ton of enjoyment out of deathmatches, speedrunning maps, playing in Nightmare mode, or playing notoriously difficult slaughterfest wads.

In fact I have tons of fun even after I die and have to start over. Because with such a high level of concentration while playing it, I can always learn from my mistakes. That whatever killed me could have been avoided if I had some degree of for-knowledge of what was going to happen, or if I had been more careful about taking damage earlier in the map, or if I timed my shots better, or whatever the reason may be. But in pretty much every single Doom scenario I've been put in, there is some way to win. And I'm gonna get it.

I think the lack of difficulty in many modern video games is why I have such a disgust for them. Everything is so slow paced and easy and doesn't encourage me to try my absolute best. It just wants me to get through the levels so I can admire their stunning visuals and cohesive plot. And then they depend heavily on basic multiplayer deathmatch in their already sluggish game as a source of replayability. I think these game designers have a lot to learn from games like Megaman and Doom. If players enjoy the basic premise of your game enough, they will do what they need to do to see all of it.

Megaman is one of the few side-scrollers I could never enjoy. I guess the difficulty always intimidated me.

But I am glad Capcom chose the right path and made a couple of old-school side-scrollers for the fans.

Unlike that pile of horseshit that is Sonic 4.

Jodwin said:

The biggest problem is that the more screen estate is being used for sprites, the less space there is for the level itself. For example, none of the disappearing block segments from classic Mega Mans would work in the SNES games simply because there wouldn't be enough room available. It also screws up boss fights since there's far less space to move around.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. MM7 had more in common with the GB games than the NES games, and where they did try doing NES-style level design, it felt really cramped. MM9 was the first MM game I actually enjoyed as much as the NES games, and the only reason why was because they finally had decent sized sprites in comparison to the full screen size again. Actually, I think MM9 is my personal favorite now, I really used to like MM3, but the last time I played it I just couldn't get into it like I used to, something is really odd about the controls in that game compared to the earlier and later NES games. I found MM10 to be a disappointment, but I wonder how much of that is due to MM9 being so good after ~10 years away from the classic gameplay (ignoring the PSP game I never played).

Technician said:

Unlike that pile of horseshit that is Sonic 4.

Heh, yeah, Sonic 4 was honestly wasted £10. Once I've beaten it I've never really gone through it again to college the emeralds or any other achievements.

Never played Megaman 9, but I've for some reason always enjoyed Megaman X 2 (which I should play on my Wii sometime). Not too difficult but very fun however, along with one of my favourite soundtracks in the series.

I'm at Dr. Wily's first stage and I appreciate the challenge. Never once was I not having fun. I sometimes wondered if the jump worked or not at some points, but that's okay.

I appreciated the challenge and enjoy the game. I feel good knowing that I'm a few hours in instead of oh what a fun and easy game that didn't take more than 2 hours.

Currently its free on PSPlus but I'd buy the double pack for whatever its worth.

As for the other Megaman games, after #3 I kinda moved on from that series, because it was another Megaman game.... good game.... I just feel that it was done so well nothing could be improved on it. There were improvements over the years, and I have gone back and played the ones that I missed.

MEGAMAN 7 >> I think I played that last year for SNES and beat it. Took me a while. I found it a lot of fun and an updated version of the old Megaman.

SONIC 4 >> Never played it. Don't want to play a $10 1/4th of a game. I can appreciate the step back to old school Sonic, but I have all the GBA Sonic games and while I live them I think.... why do I need more?

MEGAMAN X >> While I liked it, and completed it a few times it never felt the same as the originals. It lost its charm. And Jodwin is absolutely right about the bigger sprites mean less room for the levels. Such as Megaman Games you could have 3 if not 4 paths on the same screen.

geo said:

SONIC 4 >> Never played it. Don't want to play a $10 1/4th of a game. I can appreciate the step back to old school Sonic, but I have all the GBA Sonic games and while I live them I think.... why do I need more?

Sonic 4 is not old-school.

Eh sorry side scrolling 2.5D game? :-)

Jodwin said:

Yeah, there are a few tricky parts in the level design of MM2, but like you pointed out some of them can be easily abused (Item-2 in Heat Man's stage, flash at Quick Man's beams, leaf shield at the moving platforms in Wily stage 4...).

I wouldn't call those abuse, heck they were probably intended. Use all your weapon power avoiding the beams and you won't have much flash to use against quick man himself. Aaand although I've played through the game too many times I have no idea what the leaf shield thing is. Anything resembling game abuse is using metal mans weapon in lieu of your normal weapon.

I love Mega Man 9; it might be my favorite but I don't know... Music-wise, I usually find the games to be lackluster in that category with the exceptions of MM2 and MM9. Every single track is a masterpiece.

I actually find MM9 to be a bit better on the predictability thing... you can get good enough to easily beat it within half an hour starting from scratch, just plan a little strategy. Though the final Wily boss forms are a real bitch; if you drain the ideal weapons on him, you're basically SoL. I've done that too many times when I still have 8~9 lives left, just leaving me with almost a hopelessly difficult enemy to beat over and over again...

Mega Man 3 is up there as being a great game; even better than Mega Man 2 primarily because it has far fewer bugs that everyone always abuses. Mega Man 5 I liked, it kind of lost the charm of MM2/3, but it was fairly decently done.

Quast said:

I wouldn't call those abuse, heck they were probably intended. Use all your weapon power avoiding the beams and you won't have much flash to use against quick man himself. Aaand although I've played through the game too many times I have no idea what the leaf shield thing is. Anything resembling game abuse is using metal mans weapon in lieu of your normal weapon.

First, you can grind for extra weapon power in Quick Man stage before the boss. A bit annoying though, since the only enemies are those big jumping robots and their riders with shields. Second, in the later of of Wily stage 4 you're going downwards a few screens where you ride moving platforms (as seen in Crash Man stage), while floating enemies come at you from the sides trying to drop you in to spikes. You can just turn on leaf shield and not move at all, effectively removing any and all challenge: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100329002335/megaman/images/6/69/MM2WilyStage4.png

Can we all agree Megaman 4, 6, and 10 are the bottom tier games?

No, we can not.
2 > 4 > 5 = 6 > 3 = 1

I thought the bottom-tier games were 6, 7, and 8.

2, 3 and 4 IMO the best ones. I didn't like 1 5 and 6 that much. I haven't played Mega Man 9, but the music rocks at least.

Bro Megaman 4 sucks

Also 7 and 8 don't even count

Not much to say here, I enjoy the Mega Man games. The first three Mega Man X games are my favorite from any Mega Man franchise; I've played each one countless times.

Nostalgia's clouding when I say Mega Man 4 is really great. 1-4 are my favorites. I'm probably more forgiving of 4 because of the time when I got to play it.

Will someone please explain to me why Mega Man's jumping sprite is so goddamn stupid looking?

When it comes to Megaman 1-6 and X (just the first one) nothing is bottom tier. I spent my childhood playing through those games practically. I like all of them, difficulty and all.

I haven't played the new throwback ones, but hear they are sufficiently difficult. 7 and 8 are forgettable and anything after the first X was Capcom trying to get too much out of a good thing.

DoOmEr4LiFe said:

anything after the first X was Capcom trying to get too much out of a good thing.

maybe, but X4 still kicks ass.