Mega Man 10

 It's been a while since I've discussed Mega Man and, hey, I'm always looking for the excuse to do so.

I've talked at length about my love for the series and I even spent a month covering some of its more obscure entries in the early days of the blog. Mega Man 3 is on my 10s list, and it's the game that's essentially responsible for me picking up video games as a hobby to begin with. But for as much as I love the series, at least the original and X series, I had yet to play Mega Man 10 until now. It's not that I never had the desire to, I just never got around to it. I loved Mega Man 9, I consider it to be one of the best games of the 7th generation. This was the early days of the whole "new old-style games" trend, and Mega Man 9 and 10 were huge when they came out. It didn't hurt that it had been almost 15 years since a new title in the series came out. But while Mega Man 9 was met with near universal acclaim, the 10th entry was a little bit more divisive.

When you have a series as long running and iconic and Mega Man, its a given that not all of its titles will be created equal. I will say I don't think any of the original series (the numbered entries and Mega Man and Bass) are truly bad, it may very well be the most consistent video game series of all time. But even within a series like this, fans and members of the gaming media tend to like to rank the titles or put them into tier lists. I am no exception. As such a consistent series, those rankings/tier lists tend to be pretty consistent themselves. It's the general consensus that 2,3,4 and 9 are top tier titles, while 8 and Mega Man and Bass are kind of at the bottom. I... can't say I disagree with that. I gave Mega Man 8 a pretty good score, but the fact that it's thought of so lowly by fans is more indicative of how good the series is as a whole. It seems like Mega Man 10 has always been thought of as a mid- to lower-tier in the franchise. After 9 was able to live up to its unbelievable hype, 10 was seen as something of a letdown. It wasn't bad, it was actually quite good, but not all-time great like 9. After finally playing it myself, I would say that's about right.

First, lets get the easy stuff out of the way. The game looks great, sounds great and controls great. That's to be expected, because so do all of the Mega Man games. MM10 doesn't have quite as good a soundtrack as its predecessor, but it still has some nice tunes. Who doesn't love chip music? The moves that were removed from 9 are still nowhere to be found, so there's no slide or charge shot once again. I have mixed feelings about that, the charge shot is a tad overpowered but I think the slide opens up a lot of different gameplay options and allows for new challenges. It would have been nice to have it back, but I understand they wanted to keep it as close to the original as possible. But they also added a shop like the one in Mega Man 7 (they actually added it in 9, it returns here). So why not just include the slide? Either way, that's a nitpick and I don't really have any gripes with any of the technical aspect of the game. I also appreciate that they included additional challenges and other extras to add a little variety.

As with every old school Mega Man game, the robot masters are likely the first thing that players notice. The list for Mega Man 10 is as follows:

-Blade Man (How can a robot made of swords not be cool?)

-Solar Man (Kind of like a goofier version of fire man)

-Sheep Man (We'll get back to him)

-Chill Man (A pretty generic ice robot)

-Commando Man (Kind of reminds me of Napalm Man from Mega Man 5)

-Nitro Man (Kind of looks like a transformer, which I think is awesome)

-Strike Man (Is he a...baseball?)

-Pump Man (Interesting idea but kind of poorly executed)

I think it's a pretty decent list, not my favorite but a solid selection. Blade Man and Nitro Man are cool, Pump Man was at least an interesting idea and Commando Man is solid, if uninspired. Chill Man isn't bad, he's just generic, Solar Man is goofy looking but interesting and Pump Man is a good idea in theory but he kind of looks ridiculous. The robot masters were supposed to be designed to have some level of usefulness, so what is Strike Man supposed to be for? But perhaps the most divisive robot master in the history of the series is Sheep Man, people love him or hate him. I kind of think he's okay, he's a bit funny looking but he's unique. His stage and power are based around electricity and once I got the joke I came to appreciate him a bit more. Sheep Man is supposed to be a reference to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Phillip K. Dick. That's the second Phillip K. Dick reference of the year, which is weird.

The powers are also solid, with only Sheep Man's being a complete miss. Chill Man's Chill Spike isn't bad, it's just boring and Solar Man's power is pretty limited. But the rest of them are great and surprisingly unique for a title so late in a series. Blade Man's is kind of like a spread fire weapon, which spreads up or down depending on whether you are standing or jumping. Commando Man's Commando Bomb can be aimed and do splash damage on walls. Strike Man's Rebound Striker gets more and more powerful as it bounces around, which leads to some fun gameplay situations. Pump Man and Nitro Man may have top 10 powers of all time, Pump Man may be poorly designed but his shield weapon is incredible. But I would have to give Nitro Man's Cutting Wheel the title of best in the game, it's powerful, versatile and fun and you can even use it to climb walls. Overall, it's a strong set that has a lot of variety. Most of them are effective against the appropriate bosses, but only a few make those bosses an afterthought. That's a good thing.

The biggest problem here is the level design. 10's level design is relatively bland overall and while it retains much of the challenge that was a hallmark of part 9, it lacks the pacing and appropriate curve of its predecessor. Many of the levels have huge, open rooms one after another before coming to one section that's brutally difficult. Stages with challenge throughout are few and far between, Strike Man probably comes the closest. Nitro Man's stage is cool in theory, forcing you to both dodge robot trucks and use them as platforms, but its challenge is almost completely nerfed by Chill Man's weapon. Speaking of Chill Man, I don't remember a damn thing about his stage and I played it the night before I wrote this. Pump Man's stage might be the least visually appealing Mega Man stage in history and while it has some good ideas, it really fails to capitalize on them. The same is true of Blade Man's stage, though it at least looks cool. Who would have thought, a medieval castle looks cooler than a sewer pipe? There are some really cool mini bosses, but most of them are either too easy or too hard, and every level seems to have some sort of crazy jumping hazard. Having this in some of the levels is just part and parcel for the series, but they are everywhere here. For my money though, Commando Man has the worst level. I hate limited visibility gimmicks, they are up there with escort missions to me. And this is straight up no visibility, it's not something you can mitigate with a weapon.

At the end of the day, I think classifying Mega Man 10 as a mid- to low-tier entry into the franchise is fair. That's more a function of the series' overall quality than anything else. Off the top of my head, I would definitely say that Mega Man 2,3,4,6 and 9 are definitely better, while 1,5,8 and Mega Man and Bass are definitely worse. I've never played 11, so that leaves 7 and 10 in the middle together. I'm not sure which of those I would put above the other, maybe I will have to play 7 next. Either way, Mega Man 10 is absolutely worth playing, just like all the original series Mega Man games. It's good, solid 2D platforming action that's easy to pick up and play, but difficult to master. I do think the difficulty of the series as a whole is overrated (If I can beat it, it ain't that hard), but Mega Man 10 still provides a reasonable challenge with its interesting bosses and varied powers, even if the level design leaves a bit to be desired.

8.5/10