It's far past time that we all admitted it. Inti Creates has ALWAYS been better at Megaman than Capcom ever was.
The common sentiment that I've heard is that Megaman 9 is "the best one" and while I'm not quite willing to commit to such a claim, it's absolutely in the highest tier of Classic Megaman. The only things holding it back are things consciously done to assume parity with the old games. I would rather just not repeat what I consider to be mistakes, but it does complicate the criticism somewhat when everything I can complain about is clearly intentional.
I don't think we needed to get rid of the charged shot or the slide. I don't think that there needed to be (admittedly hilarious) player traps sprinkled throughout, and I don't think the game needed to be tuned Too Hard on purpose. There are some screens in Megaman 9's Wily stages that are more satanic than anything else in the whole franchise. They are things that an experienced player CAN respond to, but even if you know what you're doing, certain things just feel like too much to ask from a player who is trying to have any kind of good time. The shop is back, which is something I've never been terribly fond of, but it's very inobtrusive here. It's mostly just a way to pile up consumable E-tanks and lives.
Megaman 9 also has a somewhat surprising amount of content, with a bunch of challenges included, some of which are... rude to even SUGGEST to the player if I'm being honest. Suggesting that somebody beat the hardest Megaman game without ever once taking damage is either going to get you laughed out of the room or make you an enabler of someone's complete self-destruction.
The common sentiment that I've heard is that Megaman 9 is "the best one" and while I'm not quite willing to commit to such a claim, it's absolutely in the highest tier of Classic Megaman. The only things holding it back are things consciously done to assume parity with the old games. I would rather just not repeat what I consider to be mistakes, but it does complicate the criticism somewhat when everything I can complain about is clearly intentional.
I don't think we needed to get rid of the charged shot or the slide. I don't think that there needed to be (admittedly hilarious) player traps sprinkled throughout, and I don't think the game needed to be tuned Too Hard on purpose. There are some screens in Megaman 9's Wily stages that are more satanic than anything else in the whole franchise. They are things that an experienced player CAN respond to, but even if you know what you're doing, certain things just feel like too much to ask from a player who is trying to have any kind of good time. The shop is back, which is something I've never been terribly fond of, but it's very inobtrusive here. It's mostly just a way to pile up consumable E-tanks and lives.
Megaman 9 also has a somewhat surprising amount of content, with a bunch of challenges included, some of which are... rude to even SUGGEST to the player if I'm being honest. Suggesting that somebody beat the hardest Megaman game without ever once taking damage is either going to get you laughed out of the room or make you an enabler of someone's complete self-destruction.