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?
somnambulance | Posted 7/25/2011 5:43:53 PM | message detail | quote music in nine just had some intros that homaged 2, not ripped.
No, 10's the one that had songs that homaged 2. 9 takes its menu/password theme, stage intro theme, boss beaten theme, and wily stage intro theme all directly from 2. Copy and paste.
Mega Man X is good and I'd definitely put it among the better MM games, but it's too easy. I prefer X2 by a slight margin, although it doesn't have as good an atmosphere as MMX.
From: Paratroopa1 | #010 Mega Man X is good and I'd definitely put it among the better MM games, but it's too easy. I prefer X2 by a slight margin, although it doesn't have as good an atmosphere as MMX.
X1-X3 are probably my favorite games in the franchise, although a couple of the Classic installments and Zero titles are close.
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
No, 10's the one that had songs that homaged 2. 9 takes its menu/password theme, stage intro theme, boss beaten theme, and wily stage intro theme all directly from 2. Copy and paste.
oh, yeah, but those are only heard for a moment; though I agree they should have made new ones.
I was specifically thinking about how the intro of concrete man's theme is a clear homage to wood man's intro, for example.
Honestly, I really didn't like MM10 at all compared to 1-3 and 9. 9 was my favorite mostly because I loved the weapons in the game, every single one was useful. MM10... Not so much. The robot masters also felt a little less interesting for whatever reason, and I didn't enjoy the stages as much either. Honestly, I can't explain it exactly, but I much preferred 9.
-- BrunomasterX SHINE: The man killed an entire kingdom by pissing into their water supply. If that isn't development I don't know what is
I don't like X3 much at all, I think it's kind of a mess. The bosses have really dumb patterns, the stage design feels empty, and the music's just ugly.
Most of the X games after X2 don't do it for me. X4 and X5 are okay, but I find them unremarkable. X6 wasn't terribly good. Haven't played X7 and I don't need to. X8 was solid, but doesn't really feel like a MM game to me.
From: Paratroopa1 | #015 I don't like X3 much at all, I think it's kind of a mess. The bosses have really dumb patterns, the stage design feels empty, and the music's just ugly.
Most of the X games after X2 don't do it for me. X4 and X5 are okay, but I find them unremarkable. X6 wasn't terribly good. Haven't played X7 and I don't need to. X8 was solid, but doesn't really feel like a MM game to me.
X3's fine for me but I can't really bust out the rationale until I replay. It's been a long time. X4 and X5 are alright... decent, even. X6 I really couldn't stand. Same goes for X7, the most commonly hated and for fairly good reason. X8 is solid and does feel like a MM game for me, personally.
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
I agree that one of the things that 9 did best was to make all of the weapons actually useful. This has been a problem in pretty much every other MM game up to this point, where the weapons simply don't stack up to your pea shooter - this problem becomes twice as bad when you get the mega buster in 4 on and it just blows everything away (taking it out of 9 and 10 is an idea I back 100%). The weapons should be rewards and they should complement gameplay, being a good alternative to use to your default weapon in certain situations, and pretty much every weapon in 9 has its uses. Some of them are too good, even - jewel sattelite is a little ridiculous.
10 did another thing with weapons that I like though - make them powerful, but hard to use. Many of the bosses in 10, even if you use their weaknesses, still require finesse - managing to hit Blade Man while he's leaping from wall to wall with the Commando Bomb, setting Chill Spike traps for Nitro Man, trying to hit Pump Man in vain with the Thunder Wool because it's such a terrible weapon. Most of the weapons in 10 are still pretty good, my only complaint is that most of them eat up too much ammo, especially Commando Bomb and Rebound Striker.
10 has real-time weapon switching like in X, though, which no other classic game ever had, and that's a big deal for me. Being able to just switch to other weapons or Rush without going into the menu is really nice, even if you sometimes have to scroll through a few things to get what you want. It's still more convenient.
10's weapon switching is a major knock against it imo. Never ever ever use it, and thanks to the button position on the Wii remote I sometimes switch by accident. Give me pause menu switching any day, because when I switch weapons I want it to happen instantly, I don't want stuff to be going on while I try to cycle through weapons.
Another knock on 10 is the graphics. 9 looked terrible on PS3 and 360 because they used that terrible "HD" smear filter, but the Wii version looked just as sharp as an actual 8-bit game. But in 10, all three versions seemed to be smeared.
It's not a BAD Mega Man game, but it's definitely below 2, 3, 4, and 9 for me.
JeffreyRaze posted... Honestly, I really didn't like MM10 at all compared to 1-3 and 9. 9 was my favorite mostly because I loved the weapons in the game, every single one was useful. MM10... Not so much. The robot masters also felt a little less interesting for whatever reason, and I didn't enjoy the stages as much either. Honestly, I can't explain it exactly, but I much preferred 9.
GenesisTwilight posted... Also, I STILL don't see why everyone hates MM7 so much.
Agree with both of these
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Mega Man 7 has some problems. I think the biggest one is Mega Man himself - he's too big (a lot of games at this time had a problem with making the characters too big to give them more detail), which means the room you have to maneuver and for the developers to put stuff shrinks. His pellets also move too slow for my tastes. It just kind of feels awkward. Besides that, 7's boss fights are some of the worst jokes in the series, up until Wily where there's a sudden brutal difficulty wall, and I don't like most of 7's music much, aside from the first couple of Wily stages. 7 also has some of the all time most worthless weapons in the series.
The best thing about 7 is that there are a lot of secrets and easter eggs hidden around. I appreciate that part about it.
Every single aspect of the level design is filled with purpose and meaning, that purpose being to piss you off.
this is awesome
And I was really digging this topic until you started trashing MMX3, which is one of my favorite Mega Man games. And you didn't like the music, of all things? Dude.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpfwpOPXNc&NR=1&feature=fvwp I watch Planet Chasers Starlight Excellent all day, every day.
Yeah X3's music... well I think it's terrible, to be quite honest. I don't think I'm in a minority on this one either.
Yeah I don't like 7/8/R&F's thing where you have to beat bosses in a certain order - it seems to totally go against the whole concept of playing the stages in whatever order you want. In 7 at the very least, you can use a password to have all eight unlocked from the start, which skips the needless intro and middle stages.
I played a fanmade NES demake of MM7 once, and I think it's actually far superior to the real MM7. It plays exactly like if MM7 were actually an NES game, so I consider it good enough to be canon, but I haven't played it enough to be familiar with it or know exactly where I'd rank it. I think I'd rank it higher though, it's just a more fun game to me. It doesn't fix all of the problems I have with 7, but it does fix many of them, such as Mega Man looking and playing correctly, the boss order being semi-predetermined, and the music being bad (it's still not great but it's better). The bosses are also improved, too, since they no longer reset their attack patterns stupidly when hit by their weaknesses. They're still pretty easy though and the weapons are still bad.
The Zero games are good but I always felt a little unfulfilled by them, and I don't really know why. Like I guess they just don't stick out as memorable to me. I couldn't tell you which Zero is my favorite, 1's the worst but 2-4 are all about equally good. Zero controls really fluidly, which is definitely the best part, just running through stages at full speed and slashing everything up is fun as hell, but there's nothing about the games that just really makes me remember them after I'm done playing.
Alright, that's fair. The best part about the Zero games (aside from the rock music, if you're into that thing) is the ranking system, and that along with the nasty level design lets it cater to the hardcore crowd.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpfwpOPXNc&NR=1&feature=fvwp I watch Planet Chasers Starlight Excellent all day, every day.
The ranking system is pretty neat as a way to make the levels more challenging, if you really want to go for 100s. I could never get 100s on every level in any of the games. I didn't really like how some things were tied to rankings in some games though. I also didn't like how you were basically barred from using cyber elves until... zero 4, I think? It just seemed sort of weird for the game to give you upgrades but then slap you on the wrist for using them.
I also think the Zero series has pretty good music, but not amazing. It's mostly like if X3's music were good, I think. There's a few tracks I really like but most I don't remember that well.
Zero is also the only MM series to get a complete and official musical remastering. If you haven't already, you should check it out, particularly Z4's music (best in the series):
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpfwpOPXNc&NR=1&feature=fvwp I watch Planet Chasers Starlight Excellent all day, every day.
[and when i say Z4 is "best in the series," that's not just music, either; it's my favorite MM game! a bit of an unpopular opinion, but man, if you get a chance, take the time to 100-point every level to get a feel for the design; top-notch]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpfwpOPXNc&NR=1&feature=fvwp I watch Planet Chasers Starlight Excellent all day, every day.
From: BoshStrikesBack | #043 [and when i say Z4 is "best in the series," that's not just music, either; it's my favorite MM game! a bit of an unpopular opinion, but man, if you get a chance, take the time to 100-point every level to get a feel for the design; top-notch]
Z4 is fantastic.
-- Sir Chris Police ~Ace Detective in Homicide~ http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png "Thanks Punny!"
Now that I recall some things about Zero 4 I remember it being my favorite in the series. I remember it having the most polished game mechanics and level design mostly, and the best music too. I haven't played it in a while though so a lot of stuff about it doesn't stick in my head that well.
Man the only thing I don't like about these remasters is that they always insist on doing really noodly solo sections that aren't in the original song. I'd like it if it just looped normally like the originals do.
I feel like 9 was really made for speed running best, which is something I really go to games for when I replay them. 10 had a lot of enemies that slowed things down with armor, or sitting on the edge of platforms, or whatever, and really hindered speed running. The real time weapon switching really helped that out, but the stage design was and weapon usefulness really pulled away from that. I figured after MM9, they could've done better with that. I've probably been a bit hard on 10 as a result just because I experienced that right after 9, but I still don't think I can put it above 2 or 9 when looking at it positively. Maybe the others, yeah.
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