On release this felt like, hey it's not Mega Man 9 but then what is? That's still basically true. I sort of thought of 10 as being considered easier than 9 and I'm sure it is for some but the bosses are certainly tougher.
There's an interesting design philosophy difference between 9 and 10. In 9, the weapons each boss are weak to also have some other property that would make them the best choice even if all the weapons had the same DPS. For example, the concrete shot being able to destroy Galaxy Man's black holes. In 10, you need to use the weapons correctly to get the real damage out of them, the easiest example for me being the fact that you do piddling damage if you hit Sword Man with the missile directly, but good damage if you hit him with the explosion. Even with the right weapon, the bosses will still be tough. Of course, the bosses are very much designed around the right weapon being interesting to use, and you can always buster duel.
The music is a bit weirder and less catchy but there's some great tracks, the weapons are not quite as satisfying though they do all feel different. It's just... not really on the same level as the previous game. That's not all bad, though. 10 isn't a "lesser version" of 9, it's a game that was clearly approached with the desire to make something different from 9. It's easy to ignore the differences between entries in this series from a distance when they all look the same, but a game that tries some totally different ideas of how Mega Man can flow and achieves mixed results is just nice to see!
I played as Bass this time which at least lets you cheat some encounters and that's fun. I put the game down for a while and when I picked it back up I forgot he can't double-jump in this one and fell right into a pit so enjoy that.
There's an interesting design philosophy difference between 9 and 10. In 9, the weapons each boss are weak to also have some other property that would make them the best choice even if all the weapons had the same DPS. For example, the concrete shot being able to destroy Galaxy Man's black holes. In 10, you need to use the weapons correctly to get the real damage out of them, the easiest example for me being the fact that you do piddling damage if you hit Sword Man with the missile directly, but good damage if you hit him with the explosion. Even with the right weapon, the bosses will still be tough. Of course, the bosses are very much designed around the right weapon being interesting to use, and you can always buster duel.
The music is a bit weirder and less catchy but there's some great tracks, the weapons are not quite as satisfying though they do all feel different. It's just... not really on the same level as the previous game. That's not all bad, though. 10 isn't a "lesser version" of 9, it's a game that was clearly approached with the desire to make something different from 9. It's easy to ignore the differences between entries in this series from a distance when they all look the same, but a game that tries some totally different ideas of how Mega Man can flow and achieves mixed results is just nice to see!
I played as Bass this time which at least lets you cheat some encounters and that's fun. I put the game down for a while and when I picked it back up I forgot he can't double-jump in this one and fell right into a pit so enjoy that.