Making a game that’s simultaneously difficult and accessible is a difficult task. There should be a safety net for struggling players, but it should be unappealing enough to where it doesn’t become the dominant strategy. A good example of this is Ratchet & Clank with its RYNO superweapon. It costs a whopping 150,000 bolts, compared to your standard weapons which require about 10,000. It takes so long to farm for it that players will fill out their standard arsenal and do the best they can before resorting to such tactics. Mega Man 11 on the other hand makes circumventing the difficulty incredibly easy. You can buy an E-Tank which completely refills your health for 80 bolts, dropped by enemies in increments of 100. You can also buy lives, weapon recharge tanks, rescues for when you fall into a death pit, a helper character who brings you whatever item you need, or a powerup that reduces the damage you take by half, along with various upgrades like reducing how much you slip on icy floors. The hardest part of the game will be your first stage, before you have enough bolts to stock your supplies. After that, it’s entirely possible to brute force your way through the game and miss out on its finer qualities. The stage design in this game is fantastic, and the amount of unique challenges and screen gimmicks really blew me away, but there isn’t much point in patiently mastering them when you can essentially give yourself infinite health. What’s a shame is that this problem was already solved in the games before Mega Man 7, where getting lives and E-Tanks required repeating a stage. Just like getting a RYNO, it was viable, but a pain in the ass. If you wanted to regulate difficulty by playing in this classic way, you’re not even allowed to, given that these special pickups are now limited to one per save file. You’re stuck in a position where you want to use some E-Tanks because they were always a part of Mega Man, but you don’t want to use a lot of them because it cheats the difficulty. I couldn’t even presume to suggest how exactly you should limit yourself, given how everyone’s experience with platformers is different. I guess the only thing I can say is that along with my recommendation to play this game, I give a recommendation to challenge yourself a little bit.

Capcom has been on the quite the reimagining spree so it’s only natural that Mega Man saw some sort of new awakening. Or maybe it isn’t quite so natural, give how the Blue Bomber has been the publisher’s blue black sheep. Over the years, he’s failed to get much outside of a few recent collections and an appearance in the most recent Super Smash Bros. games. But its publisher has shown a willingness to give him a chance and afforded him the opportunity to return to players begging for a nostalgic Buster blast. Mega Man 11 is that faithful return to form but with a few welcome contemporary upgrades.

Read the full review here: https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/437937-mega-man-11-review-back-in-blue

Mega Man for the NES was made by 7 people. 3 people worked on the game's visuals, 2 people worked on the game's sound, 2 people designed and programmed the game. Mega Man 11 was made by almost 300 people. 300 divided by 7 is a little less than 43. Mega Man 11 is not 43 times as good as Mega Man for the NES. It's probably not even twice as good. It's not bad, but you should play something else, literally any other platformer, a Mega Man romhack or fangame. If you feel a need to Support the Mega Man Brand, a t-shirt would probably be better.

This game is everything I wanted from a modern megaman game. The voice acting is a bit grating at times, and I wish I could disable Roll's shop dialogue with how repetitive it is, but the performances of the bosses is great and adds a lot of charm to them.

I love the power-up try-out system. A great addition that needs to be in every game going forward.

The Double Gear system is a strange addition, it seems to be added as both a safety net for newcomers and a difficulty raiser for hardcores. I like it but I hope it doesn't become a series mainstay.

Speaking of difficulty, I LOVE the varying modes. Being able to play an intensely hard run and gun or a casual infinite lives run for killing time, gives the game tons of replay value. Challenge mode is a bit ridiculous but I could see myself 100% this game someday.

Mega Man 11 is (original) Mega Man's 12th game. It consists of 8 main levels which are capped off by bosses, which are followed by an extra 3 levels (ok, in this game it's actually 2), which are then capped off by a boss rush and a final boss fight which will go through two phases. Stop me if you've ever heard this before.

Mega Man 11 is in the awkward position of being the revival game for a series that already had two revival games that preceeded it, so it's understandable that they wouldn't go the same route as 9 and 10, but at the same time their decision to stick to formula this strictly makes everything really bland. The level design is fine, even though I notice that in this game levels last a bit too long, and the basics of Mega Man gameplay are still fairly fun, just like they were 30 or so years ago, but considering that the only curveball thrown into the mix is the Double Gear gimmick, which is kinda interesting in theory but broken at best and a non-factor at worst, it makes the game feel very by the numbers, which is never a positive feeling.

At the end of the day Mega Man 11 is a game for the diehard fans that stuck through the complete drought in content that the series has gone through for almost a decade, and they will be satisfied to see that Capcom hasn't (yet) screwed up anything about Mega Man gameplay, which means that ultimately it does its job. I just wish they aimed for slightly more than "passable game that will be completely forgotten about as soon as we announce/release the next Mega Man game", but beggars can't be choosers. I guess.