I'm going to start off by saying everything here is my opinion, so please don't hate on me if you disagree. I've been thinking about Mega Man. You know Mega Man, right? He's been around for over 25 years now. I started thinking about Mega Man due to this fan game, Mega Man Unlimited. But we'll get back to that, lets step back a few years.
Mega Man had 6 games on the NES before jumping to the SNES. The Mega Man X series had started at that point, so perhaps they were moving on from Mega Man. Mega Man 7 was released, followed by Mega Man making the jump to CDs with Mega Man 8, and that was it for over a decade.
Then Capcom releases Mega Man 9, returning to Mega Man roots, with a retro style. Admittedly, Mega Man had never strayed far from that style in the first place. Only two of the eight games were on systems besides the NES, and two two games were still pretty basic side-scrollers, even if the CD versions added cut scenes with bad voice acting.
-12.jpg)
"Mega Man, dis space wobot might hab somtin to do wiff Doctuh Wiwee!"
So what about Mega Man 9? I thought it was a pretty fun game. I was a bit disappointed, though. I always thought that Mega Man 9 would be the game to link the Mega Man and the X series, what with X also meaning 10. It would be clever. Plus the Mega Man games seemed to be leading to something. Mega Man was tempted to just kill Wily twice, and after being infected by 'evil energy', perhaps he would have.
But we hadn't gotten a Mega Man game in so long, even the retro game was nice. This was followed by Mega Man 10. Now it feels like we're just spinning our wheels. 9 had the 'refreshing retro' thing going for it, 10 was.. just that again. Also, 10 just felt to me like they were trying too hard. It's a hard feeling to describe, really. 9 felt as if it were hard due to the level design and pacing. 10 felt like it was hard because they put unfair pits and spikes everywhere with the specific intent of killing you.
This is where we start getting into the idea of Artificial Difficulty. TV Tropes already has a page on this idea, though they call it Fake Difficulty. I'm using the word 'Artificial' because it sounds fancier. So what is Artificial Difficulty? To try and put it simply, it's something that's there just to kill you, so that you can keep retrying the stage. I will say most enemies in a game are there to add challenge. But an enemy on a platform you can't see until you've made the jump and can't go back? That enemy is there to kill you.
"I see you're trying to jump a pit, I think I'll pop up with perfect timing to kill you."
Now, while I'm using those pit enemies as an example, once it happens to you once, you should be ready for them. If they knock you down again, it's kind of your fault. But it's a cheap death until you've learned that. I feel Mega Man 10 was aimed more at 'killing you' than 'challenging you.' They added an Easy mode to the game, and what does Easy Mode do?
"I feel insulted."
It covers up most of the pits and spikes for you, as well as lowering the amount of enemies. If it had that many spikes and pits in the first place, maybe that's a clue. After Mega Man 10, Capcom seems to have abandoned Mega Man. Two planned games were cancelled and his only appearance was as 'Bad Box Art' Mega Man in a fighting game. Zero appeared in Marvel vs Capcom 3, representing the series, but neither Mega Man nor X did. Mega Man is finally returning in the latest Smash Bros. game, which is more about Nintendo supporting him than Capcom.
So, without Capcom giving us more Mega Man, it seems the fans have stepped up to fill the gap. We got the well made Mega Man vs Street Fighter, which Capcom allowed to be released, sort of glossing over that they didn't make it. But it seems that most fan games are leaning towards being very hard. This finally brings us back around to Mega Man Unlimited.
"This is not the title screen of a game that is messing around."
I am not saying this game is bad at all, I am saying that it is hard. It was designed to be hard. My first exposure was watching a playing on Screw Attack. They play the game for about an hour or so. During this hour, not one boss is seem, as they can't get through a single stage.
"Hah!" says I, metaphorically, "Clearly my skills are FAR superior to Craig's skills. I shall download this game and show them how it is done!" So I do and I start off with Comet Woman's stage. I have to continue once before Comet Woman is defeated. Feeling pretty good for myself, I decide to take on Yo-Yo Man. No one called Yo-Yo Man can be that hard. Unfortunately, his stage is full of pits, spikes, and enemies that will knock you into pits and spikes. Comet Woman's stage had it's fair share of pits and spikes as well. The stages are also very long with checkpoints set far apart, so your death will frequently have you back at the start of the stage.
Once again, the game was designed this way, it is supposed to be a challenge. "Yo-Yo Man can live.. for now.." I say in this hypothetical situation where I like to talk to myself. "They barely touched Rainbow Man's stage, lets give that one a go!"
Rainbow Man's stage is full of lasers. Anyone who recalls Quick Man's stage will be familiar with the insta-death lasers of death and redundancy.
"Run, Run, no time for the slinky!"
But it's not that bad. Hopefully I'm not hurting the feelings of too many people when I say that. The thing is, the way the screen scrolls in the Mega Man games, you get a second or so of a sneak peek before the action resumes. In Quick Man's stage, that second gave you a moment to plan your route before the lasers started.
In Rainbow Man's stage, the lasers are bouncing around corners and such. It's all too much to take in. It becomes more a matter of memorizing where the lasers will be, as well as trial and error as you try and figure out what to do.
With Rainbow Man safe behind his laser barriers, I decided to go after Nail Man. At a casual glance, this stage isn't so bad. There's the death pits, sure, but most of it's danger comes from the enemies. Then it keeps going and going, draining your health. Toss in a few vertical screens where you may fall down 3 screens or so and lose progress. Finally you see the boss door! You have reached the end!
"LOL, nope!"
You have reached the mid-boss, Hammer Man. The mid-boss who will probably kill you as you need to learn his pattern. And then you will find yourself all the way back at the start of the stage. This is the part where people might be tempted to throw their cart out the window. But this is a digital-only game. You could throw your computer out of the window, but that would be wasteful. You could delete it really hard I suppose, but that just doesn't have the same satisfaction.
So, I went along again, defeated Hammer Man and was rewarded with access to the rest of the stage, and a check point. "Oh, there's all the spikes." Yep. The relatively spike-free stage was too good to be true.
Where am I going with all of this? Well, most of you have probably fallen asleep or left, 'TLDR'ing or such. If so, how are you seeing this paragraph? For those of you remaining, I go back to the idea of Artificial Difficulty. This game isn't trying to 'present a challenge,' this game is trying to murder you. Some people enjoy the challenge and get a nice feeling of accomplishment when they win. Other people.. not so much.
If you have played previous Mega Man games, think back to them. Are there areas where you die over and over again? Not counting the bosses, just parts of the stage. When I say that, I imagine the main thing that pops up is those blocks that pop in and out, when they're over pits or spikes.
"And that sound they make will follow your to your grave."
What else? Quick Man's lasers? Maybe those passages where you have to weave between spikes as you fall? The point is, there's probably not that many spots you will repeatedly die at. The old Mega Man games were, for the most part, not designed to kill you, they were designed to challenge you. You will miss a jump here and learn your lesson, an enemy will pop out of a pit there, and you're more careful around the next few pits.
You can create difficulty without the game being out to murder you. But maybe that's what some people want. They want to climb forwards, limping and bloody, and stand on a mountain and say, "I did it!" These are the same people playing those Mario hacks where blocks are always placed to drop you into a pit.
Personally, I'm a little tired of seeing the 'Retro' Mega Man games. The ones that try and think up new, silly bosses and plot lines like 'Dr Wily is using the worlds biggest Boom Box to make all the robots in the world dance, he must be stopped!' I want to see Mega Man move on. Update the graphics, take all the lessons we've learned over the years. Lets see his story come to a climax so he can retire gracefully.
Even the best Mega Man fan games are only making you feel like you're in the 80's again. Mega Man is just spinning his wheels. It's not the fan makers fault. An 8-bit game is obviously easier to make than something more complicated. On top of that, Capcom set the precedent. And I happily admit, some of these games took a lot of work and are well done.
But is that all that's left for Mega Man? Are we soon going to see an 'I wanna be the guy' version where every block in the game is spikes? It might just be me, but I want Mega Man to finally complete his mission. I want him to fight and get that everlasting peace he's been after.
Until Sigma comes along, of course.
No comments:
Post a Comment