DISQUS

Wow, the music from Super Mario Land was already awesome (though underrated, despite being a Hip Tanaka soundtrack), but this remix is pretty sweet too.

That's a pretty bizzare looking controller. For a second I thought it was supposed to be a packaged version of Ben Heck's one-handed controller.

Not a huge loss, so long as it's confined to the multiplayer mode. Prime 2's multiplayer mode always felt a little tacked-on to me, since not only did it fly in the face of their claim the series was a "first-person adventure," but it also highlighted the weaknesses of the game's control scheme in twitch-based shoot out.

Fortunately, the latter concern will be fixed (to a degree) by the new control set up. I still don't see it replacing anyone's console FPS of choice, but it will make it more then a five minute distraction.

That is utterly terrifying.

Saw this a couple weeks ago on Capcom's blog, but it still cool to see. I really hope this gets released in America, because since the DSi is region locked you could only use it to play Japanese games on it.

I was kind of the opposite. I actually liked the show back then and thought the figures were cool.

I never did get any, and I'm quite grateful in hindsight.

Nice, I hope that if/when Nintendo releases this game over here they do something similar.

Those look quite bizarre. I would like one just for kitsch value, though those cartridges seem very poorly designed.

Wow, that art is amazing looking.

The reason for the 8-bit graphics is both financial and creative choice.

The former is pretty easy to understand, as Mega Man has not been popular with the general gaming audience for years. That's the reason why all the recent Mega Man 2-D games are on handhelds and why Keiji Imafune won't make Mega Man Legends 3 even though he would like to. By going with the 8-bit art style, they dramatically reduced the production costs of the game. In fact, it's pretty easy to be completely cynical and cite this as the only reason why Capcom went this route, but then you're missing the latter argument.

I have yet to meet someone who says that either Mega Man 7 or 8 is their favorite title. Part of the reason for this is the graphics of those two games actually get in the way of the game play experience. In the seventh installment Mega Man has this huge character sprite that might look cool, but makes it much harder to dodge things. Mega Man 8 may look nice, but the animation seems exaggerated and it just doesn't feel like Mega Man. So for many fans, the 8-bit graphic style is the true essence of Mega Man. So with that in mind, why try and create a new graphic style that may or may not win over the fans when you can instead give them exactly what they want?

As for some of the other complaints mentioned in your review, such as the lack of later series features and the difficulty level, you seem to lack perspective about them. The fact is almost every fan of Mega Man cites either the second or third game as their favorite game, and view the following games with an increasing amount of scorn and disdain as they feel they dilute the overall Mega Man experience. Chief among their complaints are the Mega Buster and the decreasing difficulty level. They are happy that the charge is gone (even though the game still call it the Mega Buster) and they are happy the game is hard. Besides, while the game it is not particularly cheap. I would not consider myself a Mega Man expert, but given enough time (and a couple lives) I could navigate most of the normal stages pretty easily.

I will agree with you that had this come out on the NES back in the day it would have been ignored, but that was because at the time most people were moving on. Most of the long-time fans had been burned by Mega Man 5 and moved on to other games. People have actually gone back to Mega Man 6 and realized that it actually did introduce some new and interesting elements they never noticed because they passed it over as "just another Mega Man game." Warm nostalgia certainly helps Mega Man 9's case, but if the game wasn't as well-designed as it is, then there would have definitely been an Internet backlash. The fact is Mega Man 9 while Mega Man 9 does bring a lot of familiar elements to the table, it brings a ton of new ones as well. Best of all, its success will prove that not every game needs to be made with the cutting edge in visual technology and that there is a market for older-style games.