Mega Man 9 seemingly came out of nowhere as an excellent addition to the Mega Man series that felt like it would start the ball rolling to not only appease fans of the old games, but also bring in new younger fans. Mega Man 10, in my opinion, put a quick and sturdy stop to the proverbial ball. 

Mega Man 10 is the only game in the series that brings nothing new to the series. Mega Man 1 obviously started it all. Mega Man 2 added more bosses, a password/save system, and E Tanks. Mega Man 3 added Proto Man and Rush as well as sliding, Mega Man 4 added item purchasing, the charge shot, and, for a minute. a new "main villain." Mega Man 5 is by far the closest to Mega Man 10 with really only adding beat, which is a nuke bird so still pretty cool. Mega Man 6 added new rush adapters and energy balancer. Mega Man 7 added bolts to collect to use as money for a shop you can go to between levels, changed the bosses from 8 to two sets of four, ushered in the 16 bit era, and most importantly introdeced Bass and Treble. While I'm not a fan of eight they tried many new things with cutscenes, voice acting,  much improved graphics, and improved sounds. Mega Man 9 is a super polished NES style that introduced playing as Proto Man and time trials. Mega Man 11 came with new graphics and the double gears system.

Mega Man 10 not only added nothing new at all but it followed the polished Mega Man 9 and instead of continuing in its footsteps he ditches the amazing level design and instead sacrifices all level design for set pieces. The doubled down on the bad level design with terribly placed traps and enemies that jump out of holes that will stop you in your tracks so that you fall into a insta kill hole. Let me give you an example of both of these things. The worst level in the history of Mega Man is, in my opinion, Commando Man’s stage. There are several rooms with instakill spikes, insta kill pits, where in most of them are enemies that shoot up out of no where while a sand storm will randomly pops up and blows you forward or backward. Doesn’t sound to bad. Here comes the set piece over level design. When the sandstorm comes you can’t see anything. On top of all this the if you run against the wind you won’t stay in the same spot so you can’t just run in place to fight out the sandstorm. You basically have to guess if you’re in the right spot and if you’re not you will find out immediately because you’ll be dead. It’s maybe the worst level design I’ve ever seen in a competent level game. The game is littered with this nonsense but this level is the most egregious by far.

As big of a fan as I am of the Blue Bomber and as sad as I am to report this I just can’t recommend this game.

My Mega Man Rankings:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/my-mega-man-rankings/

My 2024 games ranked:

https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/games-i-played-in-2024-ranked-1/