Mega Man

Mighty-ish No 9

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I deliberately waited a few months after Mighty No 9 was released before I played it. I wasn’t so much put off by poor reviews, I’m able to form my own opinions even after hearing others. It was more that I didn’t want to participate in the dogpile that was going on. I contributed to Mighty No 9’s Kickstarter, at a low tier, and I consider it money well spent. It was an invaluable look at how the sausage was made, though the process can be messy. It was also a valuable look into the seething black heart that makes up a vocal portion of the gaming internet, the overriding ugliness that was fully revealed in a certain well known blow up of hatred and misogyny that started a few years ago. Mighty No 9 was such a great learning experience that the quality of the game was an afterthought. In the end, Comcept and Keiji Inafune delivered exactly what they promised – an action game made in the model of Mega Man – though it wasn’t quite as good was it could have been.

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There were clearly a lot of problems right from the get go, problems that were built into the Kickstarter. Comcept was in trouble the moment they promised to release the game across so many platforms: PS3, PS4, VIta, Xbox 1, Xbox 360, WiiU, 3DS, PC, Mac, and Linux. Compare that to the highly successful Kickstarter project Shovel Knight, which launched on WiiU, 3DS and PC. Only three platforms, not ten. The testing and porting seems to have been an insurmountable task. Then there was the fact that they started development on Unreal Engine 3 shortly before support for that engine was dropped for UE4. These are things I never really thought about before this Kickstarter.

Nearly everything about Mighty No 9 has been the target of intense criticism. Like the graphics. They do look bad in still screenshots. The models are blocky and the backgrounds are often sparse. The thing is, it is clearly an aesthetic choice. The game looks exactly like it is intended. It is much like Earthbound, a game lambasted for its simple graphics in its day, going for a simple charm instead of flash or detail. Honestly, it looks pretty good in motion. The characters designs are strong, even if they didn’t make the translation to 3D models perfectly. And the sparse backgrounds help make the action more clear.

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The game does a lot of things well. The controls are impeccable. Beck is a lot of fun to move around. The music is good, with enough excellent tracks to offset a few lackluster ones. Most of the stages are solid challenges, though there are a few duds and nearly every stage has a spot that seems unfair rather than hard.

What sinks Mighty No 9 is an astonishing lack of polish. A lack of polish that permeates the entire game. Largely pleasant graphics are undone by some barren backgrounds and garbage effects textures. Cutscenes with dull dialogue and numerous gaffes and typos. Fun levels derailed by rough screens with too many instant death traps or poorly placed enemies. Then there are the loading times, a problem that may be exclusive to the WiiU version, which border on criminal. And I am given to understand that the patch that installed with the game supposedly helped with load times. It is a death by a thousand cuts scenario, where none of these problems are enough to ruin the experience on their own (actually, the level designs ones might be) but together it makes the game feel inordinately ramshackle. While I am far from an expert, I would guess that many of these problems stem from their attempt to launch on so many platforms at once. They were testing for consoles, computers and handhelds (though those last versions have yet to materialize), and too many things fell through the cracks.

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Technical problems aside, there is one big thing that hampers Mighty No 9. For all that the characters look like original flavor Mega Man knock-offs, the game that Inafune and company are trying to recreate here is not Mega Man 2 or even Mega Man 3. This game was made in the mold of Mega Man X4. With its emphasis on dashing, MN9 plays a lot more like a Mega Man X game than a game from the original series. Also, X4 is the game where the story stuff takes something of a front seat, like it does here, to the game’s detriment. I am not opposed, in theory, to MN9’s use of Star Fox like banter mid-level, but the banter needs to be more interesting that what is on display. If I went in expecting Mega Man X, this wouldn’t really be a problem; but I wanted, and thought this was intended to be, more like original flavor Mega Man. That it is what it is is not necessarily a flaw, but it does take a realignment of my expectations.

I am running out of steam here, and don’t really have it in me to go after the asinine elements of gaming culture that coalesced around outright hate over the last few years, with the moronic controversy over a community manager for this project was one of the preludes to all of that contemptible bullshit. I can’t help feel that the fallout from that helped fuel the backlash this game has faced. This post isn’t really about that, but it is hard to ignore that chapter of this game’s development. Someday, I might write out my thoughts on that subject at length, or I would if I thought anybody wanted to read it or thought it might help the people whose lives had been hurt by it.

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In retrospect, the sad fate of Mighty No 9 seems almost inevitable. It was never going to be all the things people wanted it to be. That is how Comcept could deliver exactly what the Kickstarter promised, though admittedly it was not as good a game as people had hoped, and still have people feel ripped off. The Kickstarter promised a game inspired by Mega Man and other old school action games and that is exactly what we got. It turned out to be the Gobots to Mega Man’s Transformers, but it could never be anything else. And aside from just the seeing the sausage get made aspect to it, it also illuminated the startling entitlement that is endemic to the gaming public.

For all of its high profile and long delays, Mighty No 9 feels like the rough draft of a good game, a feeling not dissimilar to the feeling from playing Mega Man 1. A sequel that takes some of the legitimate complaints to heart could have a jump in quality not unlike that between MM1 and MM2.

Biweekly Comic Reviews 8-22-11

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Time for another set of comic reviews, though only 4 reviews this time. Most of my stuff didn’t ship and I’m saving the Flashpoint stuff for the end of the month.

  • Mega Man 3. Ian Flynn and Patrick Spaziante.

This has been everything a person could want in a Mega Man comic. It is a brightly colored action packed all ages comic that also touches on themes like the horrors of war. Mega Man nearly loses himself to robot killer he has become, but he is pulled back from the brink by Dr. Light and Roll. I could read this book forever.   [****1/2]

 

  • Kirby Genesis 2. Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross and Jack Herbert

It is not often I wish a comic contained less than it does, but I feel that way with Kirby Genesis. It seems like Busiek and Ross have lost control a bit trying to flood all of these Jack Kirby characters onto the page. The mass confusion appears to be intentional and I have faith that they can rein it in or explain it sufficiently to ease the confusion and construct a satisfying story. It’s just that after 3 issues the plot is still lost in the cacophony of noise color and Kirby Dots. Still, this is a comic where a Sasquatch is abducted by aliens. That’s hard to top.  [***1/2]

  • Justice Society of America 54. Marc Guggenheim and Jerry Ordway.

I never learn my lesson with the JSA. The Johns/Goyer run is my favorite comic, ever. The relaunch was good even when it meandered. Then Willingham and Sturges took over and it took until they split the team for them to find their footing. Then came Guggenheim, who was terrible. Every time I picked up the book, it was terrible. But every three months or so I would try it again and it would still be terrible. Here we have some nice Jerry Ordway art, some actually snappy dialogue and as brain dead a plot as was ever thrown in the garbage in disgust. I’m a little sad that the JSA is not coming back (immediately) with the re-launch, but if it is going to be like this then good riddance. [*1/2]

  • Daredevil 2. Mark Waid and Paola Rivera

Continuing from last month’s stellar issue is another stellar issue. Few can craft a superhero comic like Mark Waid does. The fight with Captain America to start is a joy, and it is followed by advancing the other plots introduced in the first issue. The art by is as good as you can find on the shelves right now. Even for a Daredevil hater like me this book is an absolute delight. [****]

Quick Shot Reviews:

  • Superman 714.  Chris Roberson made some fine lemonade out of some rotten lemons. [***]
  • War of the Green Lanterns 2. Utterly pointless. A waste of time and money.  [**]
  • Xombi 5. Ethereal and odd, it is sad that there is only one more issue. [****]

Video Games as Anti-Depressants

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I’m feeling nostalgic. And also kind of depressed. Mostly about video games. For some reason, I can’t seem to bring myself to actually turn any of my systems on right now. I don’t want to play any of my currently in progress games, I want to play something old and comforting. However, I also cannot bring myself to go to the bother of scrounging up any of my old favorites. Usually the Wii’s virtual console is the perfect solution to this problem, bringing many of my favorite classic games to my fingertips, but even it is currently unavailable to me.

I am not unfamiliar with this kind of funk; it have spells like this several times a year. And I know just the games I need to snap me out of it. Some are old, some are fairly recent, but all of them turn the controller into a livewire that zaps my brain and jolts me out of my fugue.

Foremost on this fairly exclusive list is the Mega Man series, mostly the NES games, but some others also do the trick. Mega Man 2 and 3 are the absolute pinnacle of NES action games, and all the games in the series are designed to provide the maximum amount of fun as soon as the game is turned on. One of the best ways they achieve this is the level options. There are sure to be parts of even great games that the player doesn’t like and Mega Man at least allows the player put those off as long as possible. Another is the music, which alone is enough to perk me up significantly.

River City Ransom is a game so full of charm that is goes without saying that it is on this list. But I’ve made my case for it already.

Also on my list of picker-uppers is a select number of JRPGs. For anyone who grew up on a steady diet of SNES, the trio of Final Fantasy 3(6), Chrono Trigger and Earthbound should be familiar. Anyone of those is sure to plant a smile on my face that sticks for at least a week. FF3 is the one side of the tipping point of that series, foreshadowing the changes that were coming while still fitting seamlessly with what came before. Chrono Trigger is the genre’s purest expression and has the perfect snappy pacing to cheer one up. Earthbound is a slower burn, but it’s unequalled charm is immediately apparent. The only non-SNES RPG that works for me is Suikoden 2, another case of a game with fast pacing and one of the best looking 2D games around.

There are some newer games that also fit the bill. While not especially new, the Metal Slug series, played on the flawed but sufficient Wii collection, is the perfect game for a quick jolt. With infinite continues there is no stress, but it still provides a player with gumption a chance to challenge themselves. Every time I try to cut down on the number of continues I use, though I am not always successful.

And lastly there is the Phoenix Wright series for the DS. Playing that series again is like watching re-runs of your favorite TV show. There is absolutely nothing new or different, but the characters you love are always there.

The most important thing about these pick-me-up games is that they provide me with a quick, if not necessarily easy, sense of accomplishment. I can beat Mega Man 2 or a Phoenix Wright case in a short amount of time, giving me the sense that I’ve accomplished something. Which the lack of is usually what has me down to begin with. The RPGs are slightly different. Playing them is like listening to my Grandfather talk about fighting in World War II. The accomplishment was a long time ago, but by going over the tale again the sense of worth his brought again to the forefront.

The games listed aren’t the only ones that fit in this category. But they are my most used ones. Do you readers sometimes need to use a video game as a pick-me-up? What games are your feeling down cures?

25 Years of NES: Mega Man 3

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In the last 25 Years of NES I gushed about how Mega Man 2 is nearly perfect.  With that in mind I start with this premise; Mega Man 3 is better.  Mega Man 2 was almost perfect, and there was no way that Mega Man 3 could match it in game play and expect to be considered as good.  But Mega Man 3 does not attempt to match its predecessor.  As good as Mega Man 2 is, Mega Man 3 attempts to expand upon it in nearly every.  Fortunately, for Mega Man 3, and for the players, it succeeds as often as it fails.
MM3 maintains the perfectly tuned controls of MM2 with one change.  It adds the slide.  That is a fairly significant change.  The slide gives Mega Man an added touch of mobility and allows for more intricate level design.  Unlike the new move added to Mega Man 4, the charge shot, the slide actually enhances the game.  Sliding makes Mega Man move faster, or at least appear to move faster, while not changing the baseline game play.  The charge shot from 4 is the reason that Mega Man 3 will be the last Mega Man game to appear in my series of articles.  Not that the later Mega Man games are terrible, but the charge shot changes the flow of game play significantly, and not for the better.  Instead of the smooth run, jump and shoot game play of the first three games, where the special weapons are used throughout the level and not just against the bosses, in Mega Man 4 through 6 the game is stilted charge and wait with sub-weapons used only as boss beaters.  Again, not terrible, but not the high quality of MMs 2&3.  The slide, rather than a drastic change, merely allows for more intricate levels and greater movement.  Though the level design does not really pan out, as the levels in three are not really improved, but they also are not weaker.  The slide is necessary because without something different the levels could not be as good two’s levels.  Mega Man 2 had already taken that move set as far as it could go.
Another more minor change is the greater fleshing out of Mega Man’s world.  Instead of the generic “Items” from 2, 3 has Rush, Mega Man’s faithful robot dog.  Rush transforms into the Rush Jet that, like Item-2 from MM2, allows Mega Man to fly through the stage.  There’s also the Rush coil, a spring that catapults Mega Man to great heights.  And the largely useless Rush Marine, an underwater rush jet that is usefully at most twice.  Rush is not greatly different from MM2’s Items, it is a more colorful, memorable version.  The other addition to the Mega Man Universe is Proto Man, the scarf and shades wearing mysterious rival to the protagonist.  Sure, he’s just Racer-X from Speed Racer, right down to secretly being Mega Man’s brother.   Proto Man shows up in several levels to impede or assist Mega Man’s progress. (Incidentally Proto Man is much more awesome than the X series Zero)  Plus, before you fight him, Proto Man gets his own awesome whistling theme song.  While the story and its twists will never be a reason for playing Mega Man (hint Dr. Wily is behind it.  Always) the mystery of Proto Man is a welcome addition to Mega Man’s world.
As far as Robot Masters go, Mega Man 3 is somewhat weaker than it is predecessor.  Sure, there is Shadow Man, Gemini Man and Magnet Man, who are all interesting enough.  Plus Snake Man, one of the coolest bosses in the series.  But there is also Needle Man and Hard Man, both whom are dick jokes.  And the single lamest boss in Mega Man history: Top Man.  Top Man doesn’t even give you a useful weapon.  The only use for the Top Spin, other than a couple of specific enemies, is to get a look at the Blue Bomber’s paunch.  Overall Mega Man 3’s bosses are good.  They have mostly interesting levels and good sub-weapons.  While they are not quite as good as Mega Man 2’s bosses, at least none of the weapons are as stupidly overpowered as the Metal Blades.
If the game would have simply went from its 8 bosses to Wily’s Castle, then it would have been a slight drop from MM2, but MM3 ups the ante.  Before the castle, there are four more stages to beat.  Each level has 2 of the eight bosses from 2, now in the body of the Doc Robots.  But now the player must figure out their weaknesses with the weapons from 3 instead of those from 2.  Later games in the series would attempt similar tricks to this, but having already seen it in 3 the shock of 4 more levels was just not there.  With no great effect, the games just got 4 levels longer.  But the Doc Robots in MM3 were a shocking new challenge before the final showdown with Wily.
Mega Man 3 succeeds by taking all that was good about its predecessor and giving the player more.  Rush, Proto Man, Doc Robots, the slide.  Mega Man 3 simply gives the player more than Mega Man 2 had.  MM2 is a great game, and all things being equal MM3 could not be better.  But things are not equal.  MM3 has all that its predecessor had plus more.  It is not quite excessive in its growth, but it does hit the tipping point.  Mega Man 3 added all that could be added before the additions stopped improving the game and started muddling it.  In fact, it slightly passes that point.  Capcom was clearly running low on inspiration for bosses. (Hard Man, really?)  The signs if the excesses and stagnation that would doom the rest of the series to mediocrity are present here, but MM3 just avoids those traps.  It is a clear response to its predecessor.  Mega Man 2 is about perfecting a limited skill set.  Mega Man 3 is about adding all that they could to that skill set in an attempt to one up it.  And it succeeds, barely.

images courtesy of the VG museum

25 Years of NES Part 3: Mega Man 2

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So Yeah I’ve been gone a while.  I guess a month of not posting is not the ideal way to start a blog.  But between my new job and increased time being spent on my side job I have had little time for writing lately.  So instead of posting maybe once a week I’ve been saving them to get a few post ready so I can provide a continuous stream of content.

Next up in 25 Years of NES is that classic of classics Mega Man 2.

The biggest character to come out of the NES is undeniably Mario.  25 years later, he is still going strong with the recently released masterpiece Super Mario Galaxy 2.  But on the NES, the greatest star was Capcom’s Mega Man.  Mario had 3 great NES games, all of which will be covered in my NES celebration, Mega Man had 2 great games and 4 that were not quite as great but were still very good.  After the NES Mario continued to shine and has never stopped shining.  Mega Man, however, faltered.  There was the Mega Man X series that started great but quickly faded.  There was the GBA Zero series that had its heart in the right place but was more frustrating than fun.  Also on the GBA was the Mega Man Battle Network series, originally a fun Pokemon flavored action RPG but soon degenerated into soulless cash cowing.  On the PS1, there was the truly delightful Legends series.  It had three great games that, while extremely good especially for their system, but were more Zelda than Mega Man.  But despite his troubles after the fall of the NES, on it the pudgy little robot was king.

While the first Mega Man game was good, Mega Man 2 took all that was good about 1 perfected it and expanded upon it and became one of the best games on the system.  The controls are perfect.  Perfect.  There is no possible improvement for them.  The way Mega Man handles is the best ever on the NES.  All other games must be compared to it and all are found wanting.  Much of this has to do with the simple move list: jump and shoot.  Later games added stuff like the charge shot or the slide that marred Mega Man 2’s perfection.  Graphically MM2 is why people remember 8-bit graphics fondly; the graphics here are simple and colorful but clear.  The music is unparalleled.  Some of the best chip tunes.  Mega Man 2 is the NES.

Wood Man's Leafy Stage

So starting with that great base MM2 only gets better.  The best thing about MM1 was the ability to choose the order in which the 6 levels are played.  MM2 kept the choice but gave 8 initial levels instead of 6.  From each of the Master Robots, as the bosses are called, defeated the player receives a new power.  Each of the powers is useful against another one of the bosses.  Half of the fun of the game is trying to find the “correct” order in which to beat the levels and get the power-ups.  Unlike most of the later games, in MM2 the weapons are actually useful in the levels and not just against the bosses.  In the case of the Metal Blades, they are overpowered.  But you gain one for each level; the player gets more and more powerful.  Parts of the game at the beginning that were unbeatably hard become trivial.  Not the any Mega Man game is actually that hard.  They are unforgiving and force the player to play its rules, but once the player submits and lets the game shape the way they play then the games become easy.  The weapons are what makes Mega Man great.  Though Mega Man can only jump and shoot, the differing shooting abilities makes Mega Man a formidable force by the time the player hits Wily’s Castle, the 4 level gauntlet that ends the game.  The feeling you get at the end of the game of having become so much more powerful is one of the greatest feelings in any game and it is particularly great in Mega Man.

Mega Man getting equipped

One of the last great things about this game is the eight master robots:  Quick Man, Flash Man, Wood Man, Air Man, Crash Man, Heat Man, Metal Man, and Bubble Man.  Each one has a good design and the levels fit what each boss is supposed to be.  You can tell which one is weak to which without resorting to trial and error.  Flash Man’s time stopping power is obviously the weapon to use against the speedy Quick Man.  Heat Man decimates Wood Man, etc.  Each Master Robot has a themed level that is wildly different from the others.  Bubble Man’s underwater level makes the player adjust to the different physics of jumping underwater.  Flash Man’s ice level forces the player to carefully control their movements.  Quick Man’s stage’s killer bars keep the player on their toes. (I for one have never beaten it with out the Time Stopper) The levels have a perfect amount of variety and challenge.  And then there is the true test of the game:  Wily’s Castle.  First of all Music.  These stages force the player to use all of the techniques they have learned throughout the game in increasingly difficult challenges.  The game ends with the one bad thing about Mega Man 2, the final boss.  To beat it the player must use the most useless weapon, the Bubble Lead (Pronounced leed not led) to take one bar of life away from the boss until it dies.  It is not actually that hard, just tedious.  And if you die, then you have to spend ten minutes or so farming the weak enemies outside the boss room to get enough weapon energy to defeat him.

The Source of all hate

Despite that one complaint, Mega Man 2 is one of the best games on the system, which is not true of all the games I will be reviewing.  The ability to choose your starting level means that not matter how hard you find the game you can still see the majority of the levels.  But it also keeps the game from being to hard, because any level could be the first level none are that difficult.  Mind you that is not that difficult for an NES game, those weaned on the mollycoddling of newer video games will probably still have some trouble.  But even for them there is an easy mode.  The great graphics, music ,and stellar game-play makes Mega Man 2 one of the greatest games ever, let alone just on the NES. The Blue Bomber shines as brightly here as he ever did.

The end of the fight for everlasting peace?