Many would say Mega Man 9 is a return to form after the first SNES entry with 7 and the wildly unpopular 8. The gap from 8 to 9 is pretty big at 12 years and Inti Creates manages to make a homage to the NES style of Mega Man (specifically 2) that works well with consoles from 2 generations ago but manages to bring back the old pains of the NES games with it.

I can safely say Mega Man 9 has the best tight control and feel of any NES Mega Man game, there's little or completely no lag to movement. The weapons here are easily the best of the NES here with every weapon fulfilling a niche well to a degree other than the Concrete Shot which was used for the bosh rush and occasional stage hazards. Also felt the music here had a lot more going on with Galaxy Man's stage track just being a bop.

With that said, reverting to the NES style of Mega Man was cool but I felt like they took it a bit too far here. The removal of charge shot and slide were mechanics I enjoyed and made certain boss fights more mechanically engaging than just jumping at the right time. Not to mention the abundance of spikes compared to the past entries with some NES titles included made for much more challenging and tricky jumps than before. This game is notorious for its difficulty and it shows. Much less room for mistakes here.

Despite the grievances I have with the game, mostly in terms of the difficulty and removal of gameplay mechanics from the previous titles. This game does manage to bring back some of the classic gameplay that fans of 2 might enjoy and all in all a very solid title. I can see why people why adore this one a lot.

Reviewed on Apr 28, 2021


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