I felt like I needed my own topic to talk about this issue, one I've left unaddressed for some time, because I wasn't sure if I really wanted to make this leap. But Mega Man 10 is the best Mega Man game. In both the classic series and among every series, and I don't care if I'm the only one to hold this opinion.
Mega Man 2 and 3? Yeah, they come really close, they're great f***ing games to which I pretty much attribute my entire childhood experience, and I can continue to play them over and over again even today, they never get old. But not every game design choice in 2 and 3 are absolutely perfect. There's still a lot of stage design that's rather thoughtless and a lot of boss fights that are painfully easy.
Mega Man 10 has none of that. Maybe people who aren't looking for a blisteringly hard MM game like I am can't get into 10 as much, but for someone who's grown up with the MM series and was looking for a game to really challenge me, 10 was everything I wanted.
Every single aspect of the level design is filled with purpose and meaning, that purpose being to piss you off. Not one platform or enemy is wasted. Wily stage 2 on hard in particular is probably the most difficult classic Mega Man stage, just because everything in that stage is placed so perfectly. Yet the whole thing never quite feels unfair or cheap. It's just good stage design.
Every boss fight is well-designed to actually present a threat to you. Mega Man games have sort of had a problem with this for some time. Even the ones that do this well most of the time, like 3, have their problems. I mean what the f*** is up with Top Man? And don't get me started on the entirety of 5 and how much of a joke they are (which is a shame because everything else about 5 is so good). Even Pump Man and Sheep Man pose a reasonable threat, and Solar and Strike Man on hard still just about kick my ass every time I try to kill them with the buster. I can do it, but it's far from being an easy task. But again, they're not unfair or cheap. They're just a challenge, and blasting the hell out of them is so much more satisfying than some of the other jokes in the series that telegraph their attacks painfully obviously and just stand there while you shoot them.
Even the music, which at first I wasn't too sure about, ended up being one of my favorite soundtracks. I think it became a lot cooler when I learned that each stage theme was composed by a different composer from the old games (all of the first 8 except for 2, plus R&F), which is probably why the style of each song seemed to clash so much, but that gimmick made it cool. There's a lot of great stage themes in this game, especially in the Wily stages.
So yeah. 10 has the best level design, the best boss fights, and close to the best music. 2 and 3 might win me over on nostalgia, but they can't quite compete.
Also, 10 is way better than 9. I liked 9 a lot, but some of the boss fights are still total clunkers (Galaxy Man, Splash Woman), and it always bothered me that several of the game's tracks were ripped directly from MM2 - it left the game with a weirdly unfinished feeling, somehow. 9 still has some great bosses and a lot of very well-designed stages, but it just doesn't quite match up to 10, and I don't know why. 10 is just friggin' flawless.
I have no idea why people don't like 10. I'm genuinely curious. What is it that keeps people from loving 10 as much as I do? Why do people prefer 10 to 9, even?