Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

The last Megaman game in the “true” Megaman series, this actually came after Megaman 8, and leans towards its slightly more realistic style, instead of the much more cartoony look that MM7 had. I mean seriously, compare the way Megaman looked in both games. Honestly, guys.

I haven't gotten into this game much, but my roommate has, and he tells me that Astroman is a total bastard. The cool thing about this game is that you can play as either Megaman or as Bass. Both have different characteristics, which makes playing each character a really different experience. Like, Megaman can charge his blaster, and Bass can fire in all (eight) directions. Pretty neat? Damn right it's neat.

Playing as Bass was great. His speed with dashes feels very good since Mega Man has been nothing but extremely slow in all of his games. Double jumps are pretty good too.
I did miss Mega Man's slide and charge shot but I get that each character should have their own special traits of course.
I didn't really like the stages that much though. Lots of annoying enemy placement kind of ruined most stages for me. I did like discovering the many secret areas however.
And I don't know why exactly but this game kinda feels like a fan-made game instead of an official game. It just feels... off.
Most bosses were alright. But there were a few extremely annoying ones like Dynamo Man and Burner Man. And of course the Plane boss.
When I encountered the Teleporter room, I was so glad that for once I didn't have to do a boss rush. The usual boss rush Teleporter room is something else entirely in this game. However, the devs just couldn't resist putting in a boss rush anyway. I did not appreciate that fakeout.

I know mega man games tend to have the problem of the endgames falling off hard, but holy shit, it's really evident here. Most of this game, while not that great, still is pretty fun to play, and handles it shop and part equip system in really neat ways, and I like at least half of the bosses. And even the ones I don't like still have cool designs. But holy shit man, every boss in the King Castle Stages just suck, for multiple reasons.

The stages they're attached to are pretty fine all things considered, it's just each fight in one way or another is way too annoying or hard for some really stupid reason, either because it's invincible for most of the fight and brings things to a crawl, tries to potshot you or trip you up in the worst ways possible, or just says fuck you to your health and tanks it.

If we're counting where I think it stands, I think it's about as good as 4, if not a bit worse without accounting for the King Stages, because I at least think Wily still has a good boss fight in this game, and I do like the normal stages and bosses enough to give it. But without it, it's only above 9 and 10 because they pissed me off more than just being annoying to play. I get this game is hard, but it's hard for bullshit reasons when you get to the king stages. And that's fucked up.

Btw, I should stress that I have tried both characters, a bit as Mega Man going to Burner Man, and then resetting as Bass for the game. I think it's pretty fun as both of them, but I like the Double Jump that Bass has. It's just pretty handy for a Mega Man game.

Anyways, this would be the last game I needed to beat for my Classic Marathon, so for one last time (for now), here are my Robot Master Boss Rankings:

8 - Burner Man
7 - Ground Man
6 - Astra Man
5 - Tengu Man
4 - Cold Man
3 - Pirate Man
2 - Magic Man
1 - Dynamo Man

First of all, I think it's strange that this game isn't in the Legacy Collection 2 giving the fact that it is canon on the Mega Man lore and somehow important to the classic series, especially MM9 and MM10 (although it's the classic series so the lore doesn't matter that much)
I know it isn't an numbered game on the series and there are many people who dislike it, but c'mon, it's still part of the canon and future main games mention, shows events or even uses elements of it, and if X6 and X7 are on the X Legacy Collection, this one could be on the classic collection too, even if it was on Legacy Collection 2

As the game by itself, I've heard some bad things about it, and not like it was with MM7 and MM8 (Just for have an idea, the way I've heard some people commenting about this game was giving an impression that this was at least the X6 of the classic games). Because of that, I've played expecting an terrible game with shitty level design, but it turned out that wasn't the case. I mean, for me at least it still bad, but not like I've heard some people say it is

I've played just the SNES version, but with both Mega Man and Bass, and I can confirm that the level design really isn't good. Most of it looks like that it was made with Bass in mind and then they did little tweaks on it to adapt for Mega Man, and even for Bass it still have some moments that you will take damage no matter what you do

Speaking of the stages, I have a little problem about them recycling some themes and enemies from MM8. Some enemies like the bats, the Sniper Joe and the Met I don't mind being reused since every game have them, but for common enemies I don't remember a single one that was original from this game, and the ones that got some type of tweak got worse since it spams the attack or just have one that insta-kills you. About the stage themes, basically every single one have the same theme from MM8's stages, some times even reusing gimmiks from those stages (Cold Man/Frost Man, Burner Man/Search Man, Pirate Man/Aqua Man, Ground Man/Sword Man, Magic Man/Clown Man and Dynamo Man/Grenade Man)
Not only that, but for some reason they decided to reutilize Tengu Man and Astro Man also from MM8. You could say it is because King is "reviving" old robot masters (just to be clear, this game got released after MM8), but the problem is besides those two and Green Devil, NONE of the bosses and mid-bosses came from another game, they're all made just for this game. I can get Green Devil since it's an variation of the Yellow Devil, and this boss keeps comming back every time (although the Green Devil from this game is very easy since it appears on the intro stage), but why Tengu Man and Astro Man?
Also, Tengu Man even have the exact same moveset and arena from MM8. At least Astro Man is completly different although having some similar attacks, but Astro Man is litteraly the same fight, only excluding his weakness
I understand that Capcom made this game because MM8 didn't released on the SNES or any Nintendo platform before the Switch, so I can forgive the stages having the same themes and enemies, but reusing Tengu Man and Astro Man really doesn't make any sense for me

The bosses got me a little divided. Most of them aren't bad, but there are some that really gave me a hard time because the attack was unavoidable or I couldn't see it (even when I was playing the SNES version)
King's second form is a special case btw, because playing as Mega Man it was very unfair since he destroyed some platforms that I needed to be on to survive, and the next one was too far away, but with Bass he was a joke because I've just spammed the upgraded "machinegun" buster that he have without worring about anything, and if the boss destroyed an platform, I could just use the double jump and survive. I'm aware that it have an exclusive attack when playing with Bass, but I was so broken that everytime he was going to use it I broke the crystal that would shoot it, so I don't even know what the attack was
The way the game does Boss Rush is also something that I don't like. Basically it's like MM1 and X1 where you fight an boss, then you proceed a little of the stage, then repeat this process until you defeat all 8 instead of going to a room with 8 portals and choosing freely which one you will fight. This is more an personal preference of mine than an real problem, so I don't think is that relevant, but I think it's good to at least comment about it

Last but not least, like MM8 it doesn't have Energy Tanks or Weapon Tanks
The only way you can refill your weapon is usning an upgrade where you will refill it by taking damage, but the ammo you get is fixed, so how much damage you recieve doesn't matter (unless the damage you take makes you die. In that case you don't refill anything)
Now energy with Mega Man is by using an upgrade and keeping completly still, but the problem is that it takes a long time to refill all your health because it regens one bar each 5(?) seconds, and since you can't jump, shoot or take damage if you don't want to stop, you cannot use it on an boss at all. And with Bass? Well, you can't. The only way he regens health is the traditional way with enemy drops or with items that are on the stage. At least the alternatives from MM8 are great substitutes, but the ones from this game are another story

With all that said, the game still have some positive points. The music is great like always, and the graphics are really well done. Although I miss some animations that the enemies had, it still a great conversion from it's PS1 counterpart, and it doesn't feel weird at all on the console

Not only that, but the gameplay itself it's fenomenal. Mega Man's controls are the same, but the moveset they gave to Bass with the double jump, the "machinegun" buster and the dash (that reminds me of X's dash) makes play with him a great time, even better then how it is on MM10.
I thought the fact he stops to aim when shooting would be a problem, but no, it actually helps a lot more since the level design was almost 100% made thinking about him, and when you get the upgrade with stronger shots or bullets that go through walls, it's even better and quicker to complete

The CDs are also an great addition. I got all 100 of them, and they're very well hidden and fairly challenge to get. The only two that I have a problem are CD 15 and CD 100, since you need to protect Rush for him to get the CD but sometimes it's impossible to do it because your shots doesn't reach the enemy or it spawns exactly where Rush is
I also like that you need to play with both Mega Man and Bass to get all the 100 CDs, and although your save with Mega Man isn't the same one that your save with Bass, the game remembers every CD you got with one of the characters. I don't know if it does that because it reads which CD you got on each save file or if just keeps on the game's memory, but it's a great feature

Lastly, although I think some upgrades that the game sells are useless, most of them (especially the permanent ones) helped me a lot through my journey. The energy balacer and S. Booster saved me a lot of time, both H. Charge, F. Shield and S. Shots made it more easily for me to kill enemies, Treble is great to use just like he is in MM10 and the CD Finder and Roll's W. Monitor and Scanner helped me a lot to proceed with the stages and find the CDs (although I was looking an online guide, so I didin't used W. Monitor).

It's sad that I can't see it as a good game, but at least it can still be fun (unless you play the GBA version). I dare to say that even being worse than MM9, I would probably go back to MM&B more since it's more unique and doesn't feel like an big downgrade from the past games

Logically speaking, this game is not good for the most part. It is way too unfair, essentially requires you beat the robot masters in a certain order, and also has insane screen crunch on the GBA(which is the only version I’ve played). But I love it, 33% for nostalgia reasons, 33% for “I get to play as Bass” reasons, and 33% for “Holy fuck this OST rocks” reasons(seriously the intro stage theme might be my favorite song from any MegaMan game). It being so unfairly hard makes me feel a weird pride that I ever beat this game at all, let alone when I was a kid.

This game fucks so hard. Notorious for some, I went in really expecting to hate it especially on my first playthrough with Mega Man but this really blew me out of the water with how good it is. It is challenging as hell, and definitely feels like a step up on difficulty from 7 and 8 before it, but it really hits that Mega Man sweet spot of feeling frustrating but still beatable. For most of the runtime anyway. The SNES Mega Man games really have a habit of being incredibly great right up until the final bossfights. This gauntlet isn't really as bad as Wily Machine 7 if I think about them, but I think I hated them a little more in the moment due to the sheer quantity of challenging bosses this endgame has. Two playable characters who both can get through the story with different strengths and weaknesses really gets a lot of points for me though. I haven't given 10 a fair shake as each character, but in my humble opinion right now this is the best multi-character setup in the classic series. One of the best, despite what people will tell you!