Most of us may not remember exactly how hard Mega Man games used to be. The same can be said for nearly any NES game of years' past. I mean we were just kids and didn't know any better. We had the patience to put into this masochistic work and developers-well they weren't bothering to cater to any wide audience. But who remembers the good old days, right? Well, at least Capcom remembers how to infuriate masses of gamers.
The playstyle is simple. You're Mega Man, one of gaming's greatest heroes, and you've got to once again save the world from another one of Dr. Wiley's nutty plots to destroy or take it over. Armed with a single-shot blaster, you take on bosses which you can select at your leisure, and run through the deathtrap of a level just to get blown away at your first, second, third, and ongoing encounters with each one's boss. Fortunately there's at least one checkpoint in each level to prevent you from breaking your shiny current-gen controller, but just know that if there's anything that'll kill you in a video game, it's the entirety of Mega Man 9.
Of course, upon defeating each of the eight themed bosses you'll earn special weapons to help you along and exploit the others' weaknesses, which is one of the things that was really cool about the series in the first place. However; the brilliance of the whole setup isn't in the archaic structure of the game, but in Capcom's faithfulness to completely dig up the series' grave and reconstruct a full-on love letter to old times.
This leads to the only few complaints which could be warranted against at least the PSN version. As cool as it is that the game's look stays so true to its roots, it also means that the game isn't widescreen in any sense. Anyone with an HDTV will find trouble in using much of the screen's real estate, which kind of sucks because it would be really awesome to have a supercrisp Blue Bomber standing as tall as possibly the console you're playing this game on.
The other matter isn't so much a complaint as it's simply going to put players off. Obviously we're talking about the difficulty level here. And while the PSN version has little accomplishments to try and achieve-they're nearly impossible to reach. It's as hardcore as you're going to get with a 2D platformer, and so it was at least a smart move to release it as DLC on the consoles of choice because of how small the actual userbase is going to be.
If you know Mega Man, you know whether or not you'll be happy with this iteration. It is as true as possible to the franchise's humble beginnings, which is a good and bad thing. In my opinion, it's a good thing because I love a game that can put me through the wringer and back-but still be fair about it. If you loved the first few NES games, take a chance with MM9. I can only half-guarantee you won't regret it, but I can assure you that your controller will.
