Mega Man 11 - Review

One-Time Man.

Console: Nintendo Switch

Mega Man 11 marks the 3rd time that I bought a game because of SommecallmeJohnny. I've mentioned him once or twice before. He is a YouTuber who has been reviewing games for over 17(!) years and has been a big influence on this blog, but I digress. The point here is that after Shantae and Metroid, Mega Man is another gaming series I am now giving a shot because of him.

I liked what I saw in Johnny's reviews of the Mega Man games, with this one in particular catching my eye. Thanks to a New Year themed sale (no doubt done to ride the coattails of Mega Man: Dual Override's announcement, Mega Man 11 came in at such a low price that I knew such a bargain would not present itself again anytime soon. And, with an opening in my schedule for a shorter game, I booted it up immediately.

So, without any more ado, let's talk about my first, proper, Mega Man experience and see if it can convince me to give more games in the series a shot.

One night, mad scientist Doctor Albert W. Wily wakes up in a sweat. He dreamt about the day he presented the robotics university with his 'Double Gear' system that would allow robots to, albeit temporarily, break through their limits. This spooked his then friend, now enemy, Dr. Light so much that he convinced the university board to halt Wily's research, setting the Doctor on to the path of villainy he is today.

Digging up his old invention, the doctor goes to work. He steals eight Robot Masters from Dr. Light's laboratory who are there for maintenance fitting them with the Double Gear system so they can wreak havoc. It's now up to Mega Man, also fitted with the double gear system, to defeat the eight Robot Masters and halt Wily's nefarious scheme, whatever it may be.

I'm not going to spend much time on the story here, as the game itself doesn't spend much time on it either. We have the setup, a quick check-in in the middle, and then the ending cutscene. None yield any narrative depth or such things. It’s there to give the main mode ‘a spine’ and not much else. I am pleasantly surprised by the voice acting in these cutscenes (and menus), but that is about it.

No, like many 'classic' action-platformers, Mega Man 11 is all about the gameplay. About running and jumping through stages, but with some of its own tricks. In Mega Man you can choose in which order you play through each stage, giving some welcoming freedom in how to approach these challenges. Having trouble with one stage? Just go to another one and circle back to it later. A great way to prevent players from putting down the controller because they can't get through that one level.

Quite literally, jumping and gunning through a stage.

Speaking of challenge: this is where a big part of the crux of my, less than stellar, experience with Mega Man 11 lies. When booting this title up for the very first time,I chose the 'normal' difficulty without much thought. It’s the 'normal' one, you know. The standard difficulty is where the game is designed around and offers the 'best' experience for the regular gamer. Boy was I wrong…

I got my teeth kicked in for nearly 1.5 hours trying to beat the first stage I chose: Block Man's. What I did not know about classic Mega Man was that this series is designed to be a lot tougher than your average platformer. In Mega Man, precision, timing and memorization of the stage are key elements to making it to the end. Those are elements I'm pretty poor at. My timing and reflexes are below average, and when things get tense, I'm more likely to fumble than anything else.

Combine this with Mega Man taking quite a bit of damage on this difficulty, giving you fewer lives and having only very few checkpoints and you end up with me struggling and getting frustrated to the 10th degree.

After getting off on the wrong foot, I restarted the game on the 'casual' difficulty and found myself having a better time. Read those descriptions kids, as I would've saved myself so much trouble had I done so! Sure, it still took me 4 attempts to beat Block Man but with more lives to start with, Mega Man taking less damage and knockback and a checkpoint after every transition screen, it was a lot easier to do.

With how Mega Man actually gets easier over time, with you earning upgrades and new weapons, the greatest challenge very much lies in those first two-three stages of the game. The farther I got along, the easier my time with this game became.

A bit too easy, if I’m frank. I went from having to restart each stage 3-4 times before beating them, to beating them at my first try. I even deliberately went against the recommended stage order (each Robot Master’s weapon is super effective against another, ala Pokémon) to make it all a bit harder by putting myself at a disadvantage.

Going from 'I find this game too hard' to 'I find this game too easy now' makes me feel somewhat like a spoiled kid, but that is the experience I had. I couldn't find that 'golden zone' where the game was both challenging and fun at the same time. Now that I have more experience I could, in theory, go back to the normal difficulty and try and see if that is now a more rewarding experience. With how many mistakes I make on average, I would be exposing myself to a lot of frustration and I don’t feel that would be worth it in the end.

The same goes for that bit of extra content packed into this game. Aside from just beating the game on higher difficulties there is a range of challenges to complete. From your basic 'speedrunning' to stuff like 'finish the stage with as few jumps as possible'. With how the main mode will only take you about 5 hours, it's good that they give you other things to do, even if I don't have any interest in them.

Let's move to something that isn’t how hard, or not, this game is: how Mega Man controls. Mega Man can only really gun, jump and slide. That's all the movement options he has and I can't help but find this to be a bit lacking. There were so many moments in which I instinctively wanted to, say, crouch like in Shantae but of course I couldn't. I also still don't quite understand how Mega's floaty jump works. How to properly control it and get either very long or very short jumps.

Mega Man's becomes expanded by the upgrades you buy and the special weapons you get from defeating the Robot Masters. These weapons you get are pretty fun. For instance, I don't often get to work with a weapon that shoots bouncy balls of doom all over the screen. The last time that happened was in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart believe, and it’s as much fun to do here as it was there. It's also really nice that you get to practice with these weapons in a 'tutorial' environment when you first get them. Let's you get to know what they do exactly in a consequence-free environment.

Some are clearly more useful than others, though. I barely used the piledriver, but the bombs + power gear combo is such a great weapon against bosses that I wish I had gotten it sooner. I also wish that more weapons had uses outside of battle. Some, like the ice blast, can be used to temporarily freeze the wall of fire closing in on you, but most weapons are solely combat-focused. Something for Capcom to consider for Mega Man: Dual Override perhaps.

Now that I have brought the Double Gear system up, let's actually talk about what Wily's old invention means for the gameplay. I quite like it. I didn't use it as much because, like the dunce I am, kept forgetting it existed in the heat of the moment, but whenever I did remember activating it, it was very useful. The speed gear especially, which slows down time. This gave me just a bit more time to make difficult jumps or outrun hazards. The power gear isn't as useful as it just makes your weapons more powerful, but like with those bombs, that too can be helpful. I imagine that people more skilled than I will use the double gears to pull off some very impressive tricks.

Use the speed gear to, say, run over exploding platforms.

Another aspect I need to touch on is the overall level design. I’m sad to say that this, too, I don't find it very invigorating. It focuses a lot on precision but not a lot on making them memorable. As they are designed to be tackled in any order, I feel that they are all homogenized in a sense. You never know which one will be once first so tying level design into specific power ups or upgrades isn't something they can do, aside from the superficial.

I do like the final boss world, divided into three parts, specifically because they don’t have this restriction. They do combine multiple gimmicks to neat effects while introducing some new ones. I also, surprisingly, didn't mind the boss rush. You can shred through the bosses with the proper weapon advantage but by fighting them one after the other you make it a fun challenge.

Lastly, the theming of each stage is fairly neat. The large forest fire and flying bouncing playground come to mind, but aside from some specific background scenes such as the Block Man Pyramid, they are very generic. That doesn't do the 3D (2.5D) graphics justice, sadly. This style is really pleasant to my eyes. Colourful and easily digestible in terms of what is what. What is the foreground, background, enemy, hazard etc. Combined with lots of animations, different looks for each weapon Mega Man gets, and an attention to detail. Yeah, the look of Mega Man 11 is definitely a highlight of my time with it.

Conclusion

If I’ve learned one thing from playing Mega Man 11, it’s this: classic Mega Man isn't for me. Its emphasis on challenge by precision and the art of memorization and repetition doesn't mesh well with how I like to play games. It's not a type of challenge I enjoy and dropping the difficulty down to casual pushed the game to the other side of the spectrum: it became too easy. Even so, I liked the boss fights, and some stages were fun to complete, especially when I remembered to use the Double Gear system.

This is a competently made game, but if a challenging platformer that requires a lot of practice and memorization is not your cup of tea, then stay clear.