Mega Man 11 (A Review)

(Don't worry, you're getting a Halloween marathon post today. I just wanted to review this since I really liked the game. It's more formal and less gonzo than other things I've written, but I like being straightforward sometimes. Enjoy.)

The 2010s have been quite the turbulent time for a classic Mega Man fan. Following 2010's Mega Man 10, a perfectly okay game in its own right, the series sort of went silent. Eventually the so-called father of Mega Man, Keiji Inafune, left Capcom for greener pastures and made many wonder if Mega Man had any sort of future. For a time, it seemed like Inafune was going to keep the torch going independently, crafting a Kickstarter campaign for a spiritual successor to Mega Man: Mighty No. 9. The development, release, and reception of that game is an essay in its own right, but suffice it to say that Mighty No. 9 failed to be the spiritual successor it set out to be. Nevertheless, IP is a jewel in a dragon's treasure hoard, and Capcom pulled out the jewel that was Mega Man for a good old post-Inafune polishing. The result was a brand-new classic Mega Man game, after 8 years of ups and downs and side trips. How does Mega Man hold up without Inafune's personal touch and guidance applied to it? Let's kill the suspense: Mega Man 11 is a mighty fine game, and a worthy successor to the 10 games before it. Its new innovations give the game a refreshing take on jumping and shooting, and it manages to have its cake and eat it too; it's a traditional Mega Man game that will please the purists, but the new mechanics keep it from feeling like it's just an NES game with fancier graphics and sound. This is... Mega Man 11.


There is a plot, such as it is, but this being a Mega Man game it's incidental justification for fighting eight themed robots in eight stages. In their youths, Doctors Wily and Light went before a committee to propose radical new ideas in the fields of robotics. Dr. Light pitched research into creating robots with independent thought, while Dr. Wily pitched an invention called the Double Gear System which would increase a robot's strength and speed to allow them to better perform tasks for the good of humanity. Dr. Light thought the Double Gear System was too risky, and Wily was furious about his dismissal of his invention. Years later, Wily remembers his old invention and decides to put it to good use. He kidnaps eight robots who are getting tuned up at Dr. Light's lab, installs his Double Gear System in each, and reprograms them to be baddies. Dr. Light, knowing Mega Man can't beat the robots as is, reluctantly installs a Double Gear System into Mega Man to allow him to save the day. As I said, the plot is incidental. This kind of thing used to just be relegated to the manual, but these days we can play it out in voice-acted cutscenes. They're very good cutscenes, but we're concerned with how the game plays. How does it play? Masterful.

A Mega Man veteran firing up this game will be intimately familar with how this all works, but for the rest of you here's what Mega Man is capable of. Being a sidescrolling platforming action game, jumping and shooting will be your main form of conveyance throughout the stages. The slide move from earlier Mega Man games is back, which is a real treat; 9 and 10 didn't have them unless you played as other characters, preferring to be retro throwbacks to the earliest Mega Man games. You also have the ability to charge up a blast of your Mega Buster, creating a large projectile that will do a lot of damage to anything you hit, as well as stun shielded enemies for a moment to allow you to counter attack. You can pick each of the eight stages in any order you choose, and at the end of each one you battle the Robot Master in charge of it. Defeating them gives you their special weapon, and you can switch to it at any time as you see fit. Certain Robot Masters are weak to certain weapons, so you have the freedom to play however you choose. Do you try and guess which bosses could be weak to the weapon you just recieved? Do you power through with just your Mega Buster? It's your choice to make, and having that choice has been a series mainstay since the very beginning. Mega Man 11's new gameplay innovation is, of course, the Double Gear System. You have two modes, each controlled by one of the inner shoulder buttons. Power Gear will power up your attacks, including the special weapons you get from the Robot Masters, and its Mega Buster charge shot fires a second blast that pierces through enemies. Speed Gear slows down time around you, allowing you to weave through difficult obstacles or dodge attacks that would be very difficult or impossible to dodge in normal time. You only get a few seconds to use a gear, however, as a meter very quickly fills once you do activate it. Letting the meter fill will overheat Mega Man, preventing you from using your gears for a short time. The Double Gear System has to be used sparingly, and it adds a real tactical element to the game. Pattern recognition and quick reflexes have always been needed to excel at these games, but using just that alone will result in a frustrating experience while playing Mega Man 11. The bosses are quicker and tougher than ever before, so strategic use of the gears is almost required. This adds a whole new dynamic to the boss fights, one in which you have to judge when to best use your gears. Do you go for Power Gear, charge up a Mega Buster shot, and hope you get it off before the boss's counterattack? Will you then have enough Speed Gear energy to dodge whatever that counterattack is? In a pinch and at low health, you can hit both shoulder buttons to activate both gears at once, but once the meter fills you're totally burned out for a short while. It's a desperation attack with risk and reward; can you defeat the boss before you run out of gear power?  The gear system's nuance ends up creating a different sort of challenge from the older games, but one that's more than welcome.


Challenging though it may be, there are plenty of ways to tweak said challenge to your liking. For starters, you can choose your difficulty setting before you begin the game. Mega Man veterans will no doubt gravitate towards the "Normal" difficulty which is about on par with the older games, but for those who haven't been playing Mega Man games for 20 years or those who just want a less challenging time, there are easier settings which tweak how many lives you have, how much damage you take, and how many enemies there are. On the flip side for the masochists among us is a harder difficulty setting. As for mitigating the challenge at your discretion? In the stages, you'll find screws either laying around or as drops from defeated enemies. These can be spent in a shop between stages for extra perks and buffs. Most of them, like extra lives or health-restoring E-Tanks, will make things easier for you. There are plenty of upgrades as well to give you an extra edge and a sense of progression. For those of you who'd want to make it harder, there's an item that will start you off at low health so you can use the desperation move at your own discretion. You'll need all of this, too. Speaking as a Mega Man veteran, I found Mega Man 11 on Normal difficulty to be an above average challenge. Replaying it again on one difficulty lower, I breezed through it... but that first playthrough was a little rough. If you let it, Mega Man 11 can be a vicious little sucker of a hard game... but it's a challenge that was more than welcome for me personally. Your mileage may vary, of course, but there are enough options and items that you can find the level of challenge that's just right for you and have an enjoyable time.



Aesthetically, Mega Man 11 is mostly on point. The visuals are bright and colorful, and the sound effects are on point. The music goes for a more atmospheric approach, rather than the older games with their upbeat and catchy earworm chiptunes. This is fine, and even though I can't hum any of the tunes yet, I'd remember them if I heard them again. It may be a disappointment for veterans who are used to the more iconic and catchy soundtracks of old, so it's worth bringing up here for those of you if that'a a dealbreaker. My only real complaint with the game is that it's short and over in a flash; even my first playthrough which had a lot of deaths and retrying of stages in their entirety clocked in at 4 hours flat. The replay on an easier difficulty was done in half that time. The game could, perhaps, have used an extra stage in the final gauntlet; of the four final levels, two are basically minimal difficulty leadups to a series of boss fights, rather than challenging stages like the two which precede them. There are some extra challenge modes and online leaderboards, if you want to test your skill and play competitively with other folks. You also have "records" which are basically achievements; challenges to overcome in the normal game to test your skills further. It's not packed to the gills with extra features, but you know what? What is here is a genuinely great little Mega Man game. There's something for everyone here. Mega Man veterans will enjoy the return to classic form and the added challenge of learning how to best use the Double Gear System. Anyone who wants something a little easier can tweak things to their liking. As it stands, Mega Man 11 is a rock solid little platforming action game; one that both follows up on its predecessors and adds enough new things to not feel like you're just going through the motions again.