Reviews from

in the past


Refer to my Mega Man 5 review

First finished on Wii, later began achievement-hunting on Switch via Mega Man Legacy Collection 2. I still have yet to beat the game 30 times, clear it without taking damage, and defeat every boss with 1 pixel of health left, but once I do, I will have officially mastered the Challenges page and earned 100% completion. Mega Man 9 is my favorite game in the franchise, so I believe it deserves nothing less.


Thanks to my big brother's game collection, I was quite the retro gamer when I was little, so despite being only 12 when it came out, I was really excited for Mega Man 9 and bought it right when it came out back in 2008. It's been more than 12 years since I last played the game, so I had forgotten just about everything about it except for sorta what order to fight the bosses, but I was super pleasantly surprised by what I found. I knew people said Mega Man 9 was good, and I went in ready to be met with just a middling game, but heck am I glad to have been wrong. It took me around an hour and a half to finish the Japanese version of the game.

Eight robot masters are once again trying to take over the world, but this time it's allegedly Dr. Light controlling them! Dr. Light is thrown in prison, and it's Mega Man's job to help prove him innocent! Mega Man 9 was made some 12 years after Mega Man 8, and it was quite the event back when it was announced. The story is very well aware of the twisted, awkward road that Mega Man had stumbled through (such as the later Mega Man X games) and the somewhat Sonic-like reputation the Blue Bomber had gained over the years, so this game is quite tongue-in-cheek with its story quite often (down to the point where they even made deliberately awful box art for it just like the American game boxes for Mega Man used to have X3). The news anchor is dressed like Chun Li from Street Fighter, Wily uses a Swiss bank account, Roll rides around dangerously on the Rush jet, and the animations on some of the stills used for narration and cutscenes are hilarious. Sure it turns out that, of course, Dr. Wily is behind it all, but it's a lighthearted return to the good old days as you remember them being, and not just in the 8-bit graphical style.

Mega Man 2 is a game that's really tightly designed for the time, but it's got a lot of problems when you look back at it with some two or three decades of hindsight. However, Mega Man 9 is how good you REMEMBER Mega Man 2 being. Mega Man is back to only his pea shooter and Rush (no ground dashing or charge buster), but despite that this game is still just so well made. Traps and enemies are almost always in places they can be reasonably dealt with, and though there are a couple places where things feel less than fair, just how well put together the rest of the game is makes the odd blip in fairness that much more noticeable. It might take you a bit of trial and error to get enemy or platform patterns down, but every challenge can be gotten through with the right timing, patience, and use of special weapons. The special weapons in this game are especially worth mentioning because so many of them, like the concrete shot, have uses outside of combat for getting rid of enemy platforms, grabbing out of the way items, or just a little boost to get you through a tough spot. It's hard to put into words exactly how Mega Man 9 is so tightly designed, but those wizards at Inti Creates only heckin' went and did it.

Another place the quality of the design extends to is the boss design, and they're easily a handful of the best fights in the series. Again, despite having no charge shot or ground dash, you always feel super well equipped to take on these bosses with only your mega buster, and I had a blast taking them down without their special weaknesses in a way I've never had in the older entries. All of the bosses are really well designed, technical fights that vary in difficulty (Concrete Man is definitely the hardest out of the first eight bosses) but never in quality, and it makes the boss rush time attack mode a blast as well.

The presentation is also top of the line. Sure, the graphics are great and in a very 8-bit style (though they're of a quality that they probably wouldn't've run on an actual old NES), but plenty of Mega Man games are pretty. What plenty of Mega Man games are NOT is full of awesome music, and that is where Mega Man 9 shines. It's like we're back to the old days of Mega Man 2 and 3 with just how heckin' great basically every track in the game is, and I am all here for a return to basics like that.


Verdict: Highly Recommended. Throughout my marathon of playing Mega Man, I was thinking a lot about which entry in the series was my favorite, but that thinking stopped with Mega Man 9. This takes all the best things of the old games and of games made since and uses them to absolutely masterful effect. As far as the classic style is concerned, this is the Mega Man game without peer. Perhaps someday Capcom will put out a better one (and I haven't played 11 yet, so perhaps they've already got something good going on), but damn if they haven't set themselves a VERY high bar to clear.

Remember Mega Man 2?

A game too nostalgic for its own good, Mega Man 9 tested the waters to see if anyone was interested in a new Mega Man game after a while. It was also seemingly made for those Mega Man fans who had played so much Mega Man that the previous 8 games were Too Easy. I'm not sure if they wanted people to jump right into 9 as their first Mega Man or they wanted them to go back to the first one, but considering how bare bones this game is, it's a strange approach no matter what.

Mega Man 9, in an attempt to be like only a quarter of its past, removes Mega Man's ability to slide or charge his buster (two things i'm very fond of doing in a Mega Man game). This makes traversal and combat a more pure and challenging experience, but also, potentially, a pretty limited one. Your jumps have to be Perfect.

Your movement is not entirely limited though. While a whole lot more clumsy and scarce than the Mega Ball, the Concrete Shot allows you to scale walls and quickly jump off of frozen enemies, and the game demands you use it in some pretty creative ways. I love the Concrete Shot, i would love to have infinite ammo for it. Speaking of ammo, Magma Man has more health points than you have ammo for Tornado Blow, his weakness. What were they thinking.

I have beaten Mega Man 9 twice and hated it the first time because i was young and dumb. The second time, as a wizened sage, I appreciate it so much more. It's a decent time that rewards a really (emphasis on really) skilled player. There are better Mega Man games out there.

I can really only recommend Mega Man 9 for people who like Mega Man and have played the previous games in the series, and know full well 9 takes all your toys away and still expects you to play.

yes yes, Splash Woman is cute.

suffers from trying too hard to replicate mega man 2 to the point of removing the charge and slide that had become standard by this point in the series and going for a few unfair traps especially in the wily stages, however it still stands on its own merits and did wonders for reviving the dormant series and bringing it back to its heyday


This game feels the most middle of the road for Megaman games, two of my friends really like it for how 'challenging' it is, but I feel like that's not completely worth the higher rating. Its fun though, not as bad as some of the ones I don't like, but also not as good as the ones that I think are better.

MM9 is fine. Heh.

Voltou à estética clássica da melhor maneira possível, bons bosses e niveis interessantes, sou capaz de rejogar.

In my opinion, the best classic series game. The only problem is that the game design will deliberately to things to kill you when you don't know they're there rather than giving you any chance to react or deal with it, but even then I understand that because this was a "return to form" and most people think of Mega Man as the kind of game that did that. Level design is otherwise fantastic, the enemies are really fun, the boss fights are the best in the series, the music is great, and this is the best set of weapons the series has ever given us. The endless mode existing is just icing on the cake.

probably the mega man game i have the most conflicting feelings on

Un buen juego para los fans de las primeras entregas, pero se echan en falta muchas buenas mecánicas, pudo ser mejor.

dont tell nicoevaluates that i didnt rate it 5 stars

It’s like going back in time

This game is like a huge love letter to the original series and it’s great, the soundtrack is great Galaxy Man’s stage theme specifically goes incredibly hard
Plus you get to play as Protoman!! Love that guy

Damn, I did not expect to walk away from Mega Man 9 expecting to call it one of my more least favorite games in the series so far, because I heard mostly good of the game. And you know what, some of that good is really good. I do like the bosses, I like the weapons, I even really like the Wily bosses, they're the most consistently good (though not the absolute highest) they have been yet. I even like the story because it's point about an expiry date for robots is an interesting point I kind of wish was expanded on a bit more.

I just don't like playing this game. And I'm admittedly a bit upset to say that, because i knew some of stuff to expect. I knew this game removed some key tools like the slide and charge shot, and also the ones unique to 8 that I really liked. I heard a lot of good things about the weapon variety and bosses of this game, and a lot of that made me excited to finally see why people like it. I just wish the level design wasn't so dickish.

Each and every level of the game to varying degrees is filled with enemies with annoying patterns that love to potshot you, a plethora of death spikes and other insta-kill obstacles all across the game, and some really frustrating platforming sequences stringing these aspects as well as annoying mini-bosses that just make some levels really not fun. Jewel Man's is the worst, but I don't like Magma Man or Hornet Man's stages either. Pile all of this ontop of feeling overly limited from a lot of the stuff prior games had, especially 8, and you can kind of get why this game just doesn't do much for me.

I do know Proto Man has some of the stuff i'm looking for, like a slide and charge shot, but pile on the level design issues I have with his tendency to take double damage from everything, and no. I'm not doing it.

I'm not saying Mega Man hasn't had hard moments or bullshit level design. I think even some of the games I like a lot like 5 and 8 have some cases of it that you can point to. This one is just more consistently frustrating for all I described.

Don't get me wrong, I think this game does have some cool gimmicks here and there for it's stages, either revisited ones like the bubbles in Splash Woman's stage, or the weather changing in Tornado Man's stage, but also the enemies that create fake blocks you have to remember to stay away from in Concrete Man's stage, the shielded enemies you have to shoot to clear a path in Hornet Man's stage, the Teleporters in Galaxy Man's stage, and kind of the grabby dudes in the same stage. I think there is cool stuff, but not enough to erase the tedium.

This game feels too stripped back for me. I don't think it's intended to be an "evolutionary step forward", more to appeal to people who just wanted a new mega man game, especially those that liked 2 a lot, but even as that, I think it's just let down by how frustrating it is to play overall. Which again, sucks. I love a lot of the characters and bosses in this game, and a mega man game peddling a really interesting point with it's narrative is surprisingly welcomed. But... I dunno.

Either way, here's my boss rankings if you're curious.

8 - Concrete Man
7 - Plug Man
6 - Hornet Man
5 - Tornado Man
4 - Magma Man
3 - Jewel Man
2 - Galaxy Man
1 - Splash Woman

There are a lot of cool design decisions in this game that do a good job evolving the formula of Classic Mega Man, and I really respect it for being an 8-bit 2D platformer released by a AAA studio in 2008. That said, I think it goes a little too hard on the NES difficulty; the game's too in love with death spikes for me to consider it a personal favorite, even if I can see why so many other people do.

Oh gawds. They removed the slide and the charge buster so we're really back to origins, including some cheap ass stage designs that seem made exclusively to infuriate me.
The bosses are really easy, some of the mid stage bosses are harder than the actual robot masters. Willy was a pushover as well (after figuring out his pattern, that is).
Gonna try the proto man run sometime later but this was not as good as I remember it being when I first played it.

I think if 2 is your favorite, then 9 is definitely a perfect game. This feels like a direct sequel to 2. But in many ways, this game frustrates me. Both because a handful of the stages are often really challenging in a way that annoys me, and because this game had so much potential to be more than what it is.

I understand that, at the time, the idea behind this game was to play it a little safe and go back to Rockman's roots as a franchise. Enough of the spinoff series and random gameplay changes that seemingly overtook the franchise for a while, just go back to NES Rockman style in gameplay and graphics. I used to dislike that this game used NES graphics instead of evolving with the hardware like 7 and 8 did. Seeing the game in motion now, I think it's fair to wish that maybe they could've done something a little different, but the game looks very nice as is. Retro nostalgia games then weren't as abundant as they are now, so this was very ahead of its time in that regard. With the sprite flicker option enabled, the game is almost indistinguishable from an actual NES title. Jewel Satellite's rotation being extremely smooth is the only thing that reminded me I was playing a WiiWare/XBLA game

My main issue is that this game takes away the Charge Shot and the Slide for literally no reason. I don't care if Rockman 2 is the most popular one in the series, stripping away the gameplay improvements later games introduced makes it feel like the devs only valued 2 as a source of inspiration rather than building upon the previous game(s). It's like if you took away Sonic's Spin Dash or Tails being able to fly in Sonic Mania. But what's weirder is that they still have Rightot & Roll's shop from 7/8/Forte, and they brought back the classic un-nerfed Rush Coil and Rush Jet. So the game seems to almost randomly pick and choose what it deems worth keeping from later titles. Where's Dr. Cossack? Where's King? Where's Forte (he has one cameo on a screen in the ending but nothing else)? I get this seems SO nitpicky, but the Slide and Charge Shot just add so much to making these games more fun to me that it negatively affected my enjoyment. I try to appreciate games for what they are rather than what I wish they would be, but this is such a glaring problem for me that I can't ignore it.

I still give it 3 stars because I'd argue this game has the most useful weapons in the whole series (so far). Out of all the ones I've played, I used all of the alternate weapons the most in this game, rather than just using them for weaknesses. Hornet Chaser, Black Hole Bomb, Jewel Satellite, and Laser Trident were all really fun to abuse.

Last thing I'll mention is that I loved the ending cutscene and the montage images during the credits. I'm glad that all the Robot Masters were redeemed at the end, because this is another set of bosses I love the designs of. 6, 7, 8, and 9 probably all have my favorites in the series.

This review contains spoilers

What a game. It was difficult, but it felt fair, even with multiple deaths. I loved the areas' art style, the bosses and the music. Each boss weapon felt unique and useful in different scenarios.
Playing as Proto Man felt a little more challenging, due to the Double Damage, even with his abilities.
The DLC modes are a nice and challenging addition.
Overall a very solid experience. I highly recommend it!

REALLY good, until the wily stages where the difficulty goes from challenging but fair, to challenging, but fuck you

هي و 9 أفضل لعبتين ميقا مان كلاسيكية بالراحة
جزء قوي قوي جدًا
لكن 9 فيها جالكسي مان ( روبوتي المفضل ) لذا أفضلها عن 10 بشوي

Shawty Cute And Her Circle Too !!

Tries too hard to be like Mega Man 2 imo (by also NOT including sliding and charge buster. Why). It's alright, it has some pretty cool stages but some were really dreadful to me.

A clear love letter to the Mega Man franchise, that feels like it was made for fans who have been playing since the very first release in 1987 (i.e. not me)

Mega Man 9: Too Hard? or are the players Too Bad?


9 and 10 are both very complicated. I think the design of these two works MUCH better in 9 than 10, at least with my limited experience of these games. They tightened and limited the move set for this one back to Mega Man 2 mode. It works, as the levels are designed around this idea, but playing all of the games in a row made this one stand out a lot less to me. It is definitely frustrating in parts, and I think that is an homage to 2 as well, which is alright with me. I was able to clear it without any major hang ups, and it was well designed, just doesn't come to mind when I think of the best games in this series, but that may change with more replays.

Disappointed with the removal of the slide but the rest of the game more than makes up for it.

Un très bon Mega Man à l'ancienne, j'ai par contre pas passé un très bon moment dans le niveau de Tornado Man.

Absolutely stellar retro throwback. Each level feels so good. The weapons are especially very effective. Probably in the top 5 games in the franchise.