Mega Man and Mega Man 2 were two of my favorite games released one the NES - Megaman 2 is still quite possibly my favorite game of all time. Level design was perfect, and the soundtrack can put John Williams to shame. I didn't play nay Mega Man games after 2, so when I heard Mega Man 9 was coming in true NES Rom style, I went and bought the Wii Classic Controller and counted the days.
Speaking of the Classic Controller - I hate this thing. The controller doesn't fit in your hand well and the response time between button press and seeing the action can be frustrating. Mega Man 9 doesn't support the Game Cube controllers, and your only other option is using the Wii remote held sideways. After 30 minutes of gameplay I really wished I could hook up my NES controller to the Wii.
Level design in Mega Man 9 borders between lazy and sadistic. You either find yourself mindlessly running by a stage waiting on timed gates to open or dieing over and over again because the level designer is having fun at your expense. You will not make it through multiple areas without dieing just to find out what you are supposed to do. If you remember the appearing block puzzles of the old Mega Man games, these are back but this time blocks will appear just to kill you. In the classic Mega Man games, all the blocks appear because they are part of the path. This pattern repeats itself multiple times throughout the game; you must spend a few lives to see what is expected of you.
Some may call this level design challenging, but i disagree. There is no challenge in simply dieing to find the answer then moving on - i haven't solved anything and I've wasted a good deal of time (because of the NES style, you have limited lives and will start over form the beginning of the level each time). More to the point, this isn't fun.
The music in 9 is pretty bland - no memorable themes. Not that I put too much into the music for my rating, but it's sad knowing just how good the classic music was.
Mega Man 9 adds in an achievement system and an item shop. Both of these feel out of place in a Mega Man game; the first time I unlock an achievement I was confused about the message on screen. This may also be due to the Wii not having an achievement system itself, adding to the feeling of displacement. To buy items in the shop you use screws that you collect in game - which for the longest time I thought were small energy power ups (the look almost identical). The shop interface doesn't explain what the items you can buy do, so I've mostly ignored this aspect of the game.
About the only nice thing I can say about 9 is that it has cut scenes between the levels. This is a nice addition and helps pull you along.
Overall, this title feels like someone at Capcom decided they could make a quick buck off of rehashing an old franchise. If the price was $5 instead of $10 I'd have given it another star, but even then I would only recommend this game to hardcore fans of Mega Man who want to play everything in the series. Anyone else, there are far too many games out there to waste your money and time with this one. It gets two stars mostly because I didn't encounter any bugs while playing.
