Mega Man 11

It only took them THIRTY YEARS, but they finally made an unconditionally good Mega Man game. It brings me great pleasure to say that Mega Man 11 is a triumph, because after the 9 and 10 duology left me very underwhelmed, I was kinda starting to lose hope for this series. Finally no more nostalgia and misunderstanding the series like 9 and 10, no more atrocious gimmicks or ♥♥♥♥♥♥ levels and bosses like 7, no more awful Wily Castles like 1 or 2. Even the previous peak of the series, the stretch of games from 3 to 6, were brought down by simple NES jank/design that isn't really present in 11. We can start with something unique to 11, the visual style. As much love as I have for the NES visuals of the series, I have always wanted it to progress (which is one of the few things 8 did right), but 9 and 10 made it appear as if the series would be stuck in the past forever. I'll admit I had my reservations about having the series be in 3D, but those pretty quickly melted away once I got into actually playing the game. Once I got in the groove, the only time I really thought about the visuals was when I was thinking about how clear they were. Again, I like the look of the NES games a lot, but I can't get over just how much CLARITY 11 gives you over the rest of the series. Animations move consistently, ambiguity has all but disappeared from hitboxes and attacks, even things as simple as enemies taking damage don't have to solely be conveyed with a sound effect anymore. I'm a pretty big 2D guy, but aside from making a hand-drawn Mega Man game, I'm not sure I actually WANT the series to go back to 2D visuals if future games will look as good as this one. Then there's one of the few mixed elements of 11, that being the story. Firstly, while I appreciate the game taking time to establish Light and Wily's backstory, as someone who's read the Archie comic, it's hard to see this version as anything but inferior. This is partially because in the comic, Wily's reason for becoming a villain is consistent with his actions: he wanted to make robots for the military and Light disagreed. Here, the two only have a falling out because Light's CONCEPT of thinking robots was given funding over Wily's double gear, which is not only a strange decision to make from an in-world perspective, but I also don't think it's really in Wily or Light's characters to break up over ONE invention, especially one so innocuous. Secondly, 11 seems to be following 10's lead on building up to a redemptive Wily, or at the very least one who is more of a goofy recurring villain than a "I'm gonna take over the world and kill people" villain. In 11, Wily only seems to vaguely gesture at the idea of taking over the world, since his main focus appears to be getting back and Light and Mega Man specifically. Light even tries to make up with Wily by praising his invention, with Wily seeming to consider the thought but blasting off again anyway. This isn't necessarily a BAD thing, just that there's not much juice to work with here given how sparse these games tend to be story-wise. In terms of gameplay, the most obvious thing to note is the addition of the double gear system, which is the first time in a long time Mega Man has added a system-wide mechanic. At first glance, the speed gear seems pretty overpowered once you get the upgrade that allows you to move normally while using it. Not only does it make a lot of enemy types a joke (Sniper Joes will now be begging on the streets for cash), but even a lot of the more hectic platforming sections are made pretty simple with the speed gear. However, the more familiar I became with the game, the more I realized just how much of it is designed around the speed gear. The game is VERY eager to remind of situations where getting the chance to slow down an enemy or obstacle animation is helpful. So the speed gear's use ends up balancing out throughout the game. There's also the fact that it will be WAY more beneficial to Mega Man veterans like myself. The power gear seems next to useless at first. The shots you take while in it don't present you with a meaningful increase in damage, and you'd be better off slowing an enemy down to just take normal shots or charge shots at it. This is because the power gear becomes more useful the second you get your first robot master ability. All the power versions of master abilities range from "objectively better in every way" to "downright busted". I'm of two minds about this. One the one hand, I've praised Mega Man games before for having unique abilities, and this game does that twice over by giving each one a second attack. On the other hand, I want to criticize the system for being redundant since you only need to have the gear active when you press the button, meaning you can turn it off between uses and the timer ends up not mattering. I think the only time I DIDN'T use a powered up version of an ability was when I simply didn't feel like it. For now, I'll leave my conclusion at the idea that the game is pretty well designed around the speed gear, but the power gear might have needed a little more reworking. I doubt the system is going to return in the future, but I do applaud Capcom for giving 11 a unique mechanic that didn't dominate the whole game and was implemented pretty well all things considered. This is one of the few Mega Man games I can say fires on all cylinders when it comes to level design, because the weakest stage in the game is Bounce Man's, and that's just because of the unintuitive controls and general tomfoolery. 11's worst stage is better than 7's best, certainly beats out the worst stages in other Mega Man games, and is even on par with some of the better stages across the series. Even the Wily Castle ranks among one of if not the best across the series. Stage 1 in particular strikes a really nice balance between tense and engaging and I love going through it. The only real problem I have with the Wily Castle stages is that I think they get a bit long. This isn't necessarily a problem when going through them by themselves, but it makes fighting their bosses a bit of a chore. The Yellow Devil and the shield boss are both pretty fun, but they're no pushovers either. And assuming you didn't lose any of your lives on the way to the boss and get to them with full health, you only get 3 tries to learn their patterns, which is barely enough for the shield boss, and certainly not enough for the Yellow Devil. This means that if you game over to either boss, which is pretty likely, you've got to make your way through a pretty lengthy Wily stage to get back to them, assuming your remember their patterns well enough by the time you even make it back. The robot masters and Wily Machine are also pretty great this time around. This is the first time since Mega Man 5 that I felt confident in beating masters without their weaknesses, which I know is the case because that's how I fought half of them. I could not figure out the logic of who was weak to who for the life of me, so I ended up doing most of them with the buster and it was fun anyways. The only real problem I had with the masters is that they each use a speed or power gear, and the game occasionally caps the damage a robot master can take before they use their gear so that they are guaranteed to go though it over the course of a fight (the most egregious example is Block Man, who is coincidentally also the worst one). Clearly there's a lot to say about Mega Man 11, which will happen when you make a grand return after eight years following a regressive game. Given that we're not getting the next Mega Man title until NINE years after this one, I certainly don't like the trend of dev time going up, but if they cook as well on Dual Override as they did on 11, then maybe the wait will have been worth it. You finally did it Capcom, you finally made a great Mega Man game.