I just finished the Mega Man 11 demo. If the finished version is anything like what I just played, I think I'll find a smarter way to spend my forty dollars. Like a cheese grater I can scrape against my knuckles, or a roll of poison oak toilet paper.
I can't say it's worse than Mighty No. 9, but I didn't come into that game with high expectations. However, Mega Man 11 was supposed to be the genuine article... a revival of the blue bomber for the latest generation of consoles, with graphics that demonstrate the power of today's cutting-edge hardware. And the graphics are, well, they're certainly authentic. Despite the transition to 3D, the characters have the cartoony look the series has sported since Mega Man 2, and the backgrounds are crisp, with mock Aztec architecture in the far distance of outdoor scenes.
But then you get to the gameplay, and it's a blend of the stale (ooh, falling blocks! I never Dust Man saw that Junk Man before) and the senselessly infuriating. There's one particularly sadistic scene which I lovingly call the rat maze... you're trapped on a conveyor belt with instantly fatal grinding blades on the left, and labyrinthine structures dropping on the right. The trick is to blast the vulnerable stone columns and charge through the openings you've created. Unfortunately, sometimes the blocks are tiny, forcing you to slide through the gaps they leave behind, and sometimes Mega Man would rather get ground into blue dust than weave through the twisting passageways you've blasted open for him. I lost a half dozen lives to this section of the stage, and that was on Casual, a difficulty setting apparently designed to insult less skilled players rather than accommodate them.
By the way, forgive the crappy quality of this image, which was taken with my phone because taking snapshots on the Xbox One is a sick joke. Unlike the Playstation 4, where a quality picture is just a touch of a key away, you have to press the guide button, then the Y button to record a still image. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it brings up a pause menu, which is most likely not what you were hoping to save. Yes, I tried voice commands as a workaround. No, that doesn't work either, and as an added "bonus," you have to talk to Cortana, who should have been named Miss Interpret for all the luck she has understanding you.
I got through the rat maze on my second playthrough... and another one later in the stage, because the design team wanted to make it clear that they not only hated making another Mega Man game, but they hated the player for making them make another Mega Man game. Just to drive home the point, they included a gauntlet of falling blocks and conveyor belts in a section close to the end of the stage. Although getting hit with a block isn't instantly fatal, the collision will lock you into a lengthy hit stun, forcing you to lose your footing and possibly plummet into a pit at the bottom of the screen. Gee. Fun.
Mega Man 11 isn't completely devoid of good ideas. I'm not in love with the "double gear" system, but it does add a new dimension to some very familiar gameplay, and the slow motion comes in handy... provided you don't let it run for so long that Mega Man overheats. It's especially useful against the robots trapped in metal hamster wheels... you can squeeze your shots into a small gap in the wheel, but the Speed Gear is the only way you can reliably exploit this vulnerability. There's also a Power Gear ability which strengthens your shots, but it doesn't seem to juice up your standard blasts all that much, and doesn't do anything to your special weapons that couldn't already be done by charging them in the Mega Man X series.
I was trying to find good things to say about this game, wasn't I? Okay, the Rush Coil has been given its own button, which is a time saver. Also, the voices are passable... Mega Man doesn't sound like a prepubescent wiener, which is a blessing after the dreadful performances in Mega Man 8. Beyond that, I'm struggling to come up with anything in Mega Man 11's defense. It's just a demo and the full game isn't available yet, but what I've seen so far makes me think I'd be better off sticking with 20XX, or a previous Mega Man release. Lord knows I have enough of those already.
Oh yeah, one other thing before I go. If you're in the market for a Playstation TV, I've got sour news for you. The price for Sony's failed micro console has gone into the stratosphere, selling for one hundred dollars or more on auction sites. What explains the sudden demand for a system Wal-Mart couldn't give away two years ago? Maybe it's the Henkaku Enso exploit which has made the entire Vita line open to homebrew apps. Personally, I think there's a certain kitschy appeal in owning the one Sony console that was an unqualified disaster. It's the same reason the Virtual Boy, which gamers wouldn't touch in 1998, is such a big hit with collectors twenty years later. It's weird, it's rare, and it's profoundly uncomfortable for the company that made it.
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