Still hate the idea of Mega Man being an NES game in 2010 instead of evolving, but this is a lot better than MM9. First off, the insane amount of bullshittery has been toned down significantly. Obvious "gotcha"-moments are few and far between instead of littered throughout every stage. Additionally, the level- and boss concepts of MM10 are creative and well-executed. Sheep Man, for example, is a lot more interesting as a typical electricity themed robot master than, i don't know, a fucking plug. Unfortunately, instead of being frustrating and unfair like MM9, 10 is just kinda...not fun? In every one of my play sessions I remember at least one moment where I thought to myself: "Damn...I wish I was doing literally anything else.", and I'm not exactly sure why. It might have something to do with the fact that I already beat seven other Mega Man games that play very similar to this. It might also be the fact that I can't charge or slide, both mechanics that served only to make prior games more fun and are still missing here. What I do know is that in the end, Mega Man 10 is juuuust short of being enjoyable, but doesn't quite get there.

I know in my last review (Mega Man 9) I said that was my new favourite Mega Man game since 6, but this one absolutely takes the cake for me. A lot of what I can say about 9 can be said here. I love how creative these levels were with their gimmicks and it added so much to the regular Mega Man experience. Most of these stages had really cool visuals like the backgrounds or unique Robot Master designs like Sheep Man, Strike Man, and Nitro Man. These Robot Masters are also a lot of fun to fight too. They don't feel too easy, but most of them put up a pretty good fight while feeling fair. This also goes for the weapons, none of them feel overpowered or too situational, but I needed to switch between them every so often since they all had pretty good uses. The Wily Castle stages also feel difficult, but not overbearingly hard like Wily Stage 2 in 9 for instance. I would say this game is definitely easier than 9, but it has a lot more going for it in terms of gameplay. Plus, the multiple playable characters and difficulty settings are a pretty nice touch, though for the run I did for this review, I stuck with the default Mega Man on Normal difficulty. Overall, I'd say this game has tons of great levels, great bosses, and other great aspects that make it one of my favourite Mega Man games out of the 10 I've played so far.

Despite being so excited for Mega Man 9 when I was younger, Mega Man 10 was so much less of an event (it was back to being "just another Mega Man") that this was the only one of this marathon I'd genuinely never touched and knew nearly nothing about. I had heard it was definitely not as good as 9, which is at least partly why it took us so long to get Mega Man 11, but I'd still been looking forward to tackling this total unknown the whole time I was playing through the other nine games. Well, now that I've seen it to its end, I can definitely see what all the lack of hype had been about XD. It took me around two and a half hours to complete the English version of the game.

In a pretty serious tone shift, Mega Man 10 goes for a much more serious tone in its story. A computer virus is ravaging the globe, and this Roboenza virus sends any robot who gets it into first a fever, and then into a violent rage. Even Dr. Wily has been put out by this, and he comes to Dr. Light and Mega Man begging for their help in both developing a cure and subduing some robots who stole the parts of his old cure machine. It's largely the plot of Mega Man 3 again, but there's a lot more dialogue to the story, especially when Roll gets the virus. But the more serious story isn't just super wild whiplash compared to the rest of the series (not to mention Mega Man 9), but it's also just not very well done since the visual still communicate something silly and happy despite the more heavy way the cutscenes play out. It's very sloppily done, and I'm not sure why they did it, and that sorta sets the tone for the rest of my issues with the game.

Mega Man 10's stage design is reminiscent of, if anything, Mega Man 5 in just how empty they so often feel. The gimmicks at play in them are often somewhere between frustrating or overly simple, and while they're not bad, per se, they're definitely far weaker than Mega Man 9's were. Now the reason for this, I believe, is that the game launched with not just Mega Man playable, but Proto Man too (and Bass came later as DLC). While Mega Man 9 also had Proto Man added later, what that game didn't have were easy and hard difficulty modes like this one has. These difficulty modes aren't like Mega Man 2's modes, however, and they affect the platforming as well, giving you more or less enemies to fight and platforms to land on depending on what difficulty you're on (instead of largely just damage rebalancing like Mega Man 2 had). This really restricted what the developers could do with level design, and it really shows in how plain and uninspired the stages feel compared to what came before. It was a noble attempt to try and add some accessibility features to the game like this, but this was definitely not the right way to go about it.

The bosses are thankfully still pretty solid, but also still not as well done as Mega Man 9's were. They're still technical and fun in a way most of the earlier games weren't, but they are much harder than 9's were, and often for not great reasons such as difficult to read patterns or requiring some pretty damn great reaction time. While they thankfully aren't outright bad, they are a decidedly firm step backwards from where the series was just one entry ago, and they really could've used some more polish.

The presentation is quite conflicted in the graphics department, as was discussed earlier in the story section, but thankfully the music helps make up for it a bit. One area where this game is just about on par with Mega Man 9 is that the music is pretty damn good the whole way through. While it certainly doesn't make up for all the other problems I have with it, it's a nice consolation given every other way this is a step back from Mega Man 9.

Verdict: Recommended. At the end of the day, Mega Man 10 is far more disappointing than outright badly done. If this had been Mega Man 9, I think people would've been relatively happy with it and it might've gotten a sequel, but being a disappointing sequel to SUCH a strong revival just wasn't what the doctor ordered at the time. I definitely don't think there's much reason to pick this game over something like even Mega Man 4 or 6, let alone Mega Man 9 if given the choice, but it's certainly a nice addition to round out the second Legacy Collection.

Now that my marathon is over, I guess I'm ready to give my overall ranking on the series.
While some of these could change depending on how I'm feeling on the day, today's particular ranking is:

9 > 4 > 6 > 8 > 3 > 2 > 10 > 5 > 7 > 1

I really enjoyed playing through them all, and am looking forward to the GameBoy games (or rather at this point, reviewing the rest of them, as I actually played through the other two I hadn't gotten to yet earlier today, at the time of writing ^^;) as well as the X series~. If I've learned anything from this, it's that at the end of the day, even the worst of the classic Mega Man games are still pretty good games, and each one has something to make it stand out from the crowd with its own appeal (even if that particular thing might not actually be all that appealing to a lot of other people XD).

One last special shoutout once again to my friend DogStrong, but also to my friend Fii, for sticking with me and sharing in the celebration of Mega Man as she watched me play through all of these ^w^

This one's a bit weird for me. The levels are all a bit too long for my liking, or rather they're just pretty slow. I felt like there was a lot of waiting in them. The weapons all kind of suck. I pretty much just used Blade Man's weapon as my main weapon the moment I got it. The stage theming was pretty cool, but the whole game feels like it lacks a certain kick that most of the other games do. I originally played as Proto Man, but I wasn't able to get through the game before I didn't really want to play it anymore. I tried again a month later as Mega Man and was able to get through it, but it lacked that oomph. This one does feel a lot like it would be the last Mega Man. The lack of power, I can't really think of a better word, makes this one never seem to stand out. I really got the feeling that this is the last one when I listened to the Wily Boss Battle theme. Yeah, I don't know. I think its a fine game, it just doesn't really stand out to me.

Another great classic Mega Man game. I love these clean, polished and (mostly) well-designed Mega Man games.
I just wish there were more Mega Man games like 9 and 10.
The stages were of similar quality as in the ones in 9, although I didn't really like Solar Man stage. Other stages were pretty good though. Still some bullshit as is par for the course in these games.
Also, the Robot Masters in this game might be the weirdest yet. One's a sheep, another is a fucking pump and yet another is a baseball player (okay I have to admit, that one is kinda cool). Even though some of these bosses were a bit silly, the boss fights were good. I liked their powers as well.
I somehow had more trouble with this game than with 9, even though I heard people say that 9 is the harder game. The Chill Man and Commando Man stages took me quite a few tries to get through.
Overall, I liked this one a lot. Maybe just a tad below Mega Man 9.

First played on Wii but never finished, later restarted on Switch via Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 and reached the end. In time, I eventually completed the second page of challenges, and got gold crowns on most of the first page's, silver on the rest; by the time I called it quits, I had achieved an A rank with 90.5% of the challenges completed.

While its predecessor is still my personal favorite, Mega Man 10 is a fantastic game and current peak of the classic series, with excellent level design, fun bosses, and plenty of bonus content. With three different difficulty settings and the option to also play as a non-nerfed Proto Man and Bass, it is the most approachable entry of the 12 mainline games, and my first recommendation for those looking to get into Mega Man.

It's good to finally put this one to rest. I've owned it since its Wii release in 2010, always started it, but never finished a playthrough. Now that I've finished it, I can safely say I like it a little more than 9. I've never agreed with Inti Creates stripping Mega Man of his charge shot and slide, but this one isn't bad at all. Whereas 9 sometimes feels like a gauntlet built on the groundwork of its inspiration, 10 feels a little more balanced around their interpretation of the Blue Bomber. Great sprite work, interesting level design, and some fun boss fights make this a solid entry point into the Mega Man games (though 11 is a better one). Not quite as fun as the late NES releases, but still worth your time, if you're a fan of the series.