Part 9: Dynamo-ic Entry
It’s time to face King’s final Robot Master. The final Robot Master who is… an old robot with a new generator that’s way too strong for him to handle. That’s, a, uh… well that’s probably not the best guy you could have on your front lines, King.
Part 10: King for a Day
King’s rebellion is nearly at an end, as Bass rushes in to his base of operations. But the eight robot masters weren’t King’s only heavy-hitters, and actually reaching King might just be Bass’s greatest challenge yet.
Part 11: Dr. Wily’s Fourth to Last Stand, For Real This Time
King is down, and Dr. Wily is trying to work in an evil plan off the rebound. But as it turns out, Bass has lost his patience with his master, and now it’s time for the anime rival to take down a Wily Machine (and capsule.)
The world has been Wily-free for just a little too long, it seems. Once again, robots have started wreaking havoc out of nowhere. However, for the first time in a while, it’s Dr. Light’s robots that are to blame! And with a timely news broadcast, Dr. Wily has managed to shift the blame from himself to his rival. But Mega Man knows the truth of the situation, and must now fight his turned companions to clear Dr. Light’s name.
Although the Mega Man series had continued its stride since the releases of Mega Man 8 and Rockman & Forte, the Classic subseries had fallen by the wayside. That is, until the Wii rolled around and Capcom decided to give the Classic games another chance. Only this time around, they were aiming to bring the series back to its roots. That’s right, Mega Man 9 forgoes the advances of the SNES and PS1 games, and puts the Blue Bomber back in an 8-bit style. How well did that go? Well, if there’s one thing for certain: they managed to nail the aesthetic just about perfectly. Mega Man 9 isn’t literally an NES game (it couldn’t actually fit a cartridge that size,) it plays almost exactly like anything that came before Mega Man 6. Or even Mega Man 3, because “returning to the 8-bit games” mostly means “let’s try to be Mega Man 2,” because Mega Man has lost his charge shot and slide abilities in addition to his pixel count. Thankfully, Mega Man 9 is a solid enough game that the loss of fairly useful game mechanics doesn’t ruin it.
Part 1: Pull the Plug
Part 2: UFO Catcher
Next up on Mega Man’s list 'o Robot Masters is Galaxy Man, Dr. Light’s space-research robot. His space-research robot who, terrifyingly enough, now has the ability to create miniature black holes. That’s probably not a Light-original, but if you’re going to equip a robot for battle, that’s a pretty effective weapon to go with.
Part 3: Weather or Shot
It’s Tornado Man! Does he look like any robots that might exist in the future? Perhaps, but that’s not the important thing right now. The important thing is that Tornado Man is doing something threatening, and we’ve gotta put a stop to that right now!
Part 4: Splash Dash
Here she is, the single female robot master in the numbered series.
… Well, that was fun. Next week it’ll be back to our regularly scheduled x-Man boss.
Part 5: Hornet Jail
Mega Man has defeated half of the Robot Masters. You know what that means? It means we unleash the bees.
Part 6: A Concrete Idea
Wily’s running low on Robot Masters, but next on the list is probably his favorite: it’s Concrete Man! As the resident “guy who kinda looks like Guts Man” of Mega Man 9, Concrete Man was a construction robot, who has now turned his powers over cement to evil uses. I guess the strong jaw aesthetic is a must for construction robots.
Part 7: Never Say Diamond
Let’s take a dive, in the jewel mine! It’s always been a jewel pit and will continue to be so, though today it’s going to lose its themed robot inhabitant. And as the resident “boss with a shield weapon,” it’s really just a surprise we didn’t fight him sooner!
Part 8: Magma-nanimous Doctor
Only one Robot Master remains! So hopefully with this one we’re able to get to the bottom of whoever made these robots malfunction, because we certainly couldn’t just assume it was Wily all along. I mean, we could. Mega Man won’t, because he’s nice.
Part 9: Mega Man Calls A Cab
Fittingly enough for part 9 of Mega Man 9, this is the episode where Mega Man fights a cop! This is the special stage, which was available as DLC on WiiWare (and just included in Mega Man Legacy Collection 2.) With all weapons available to him, Mega Man must overcome a collection of obstacles from the rest of the game if he wants a showdown with (one) Fake Man.
Part 10: Shark Tail for WiiWare
We have now fought the police, so it’s time to move on to Wily’s Castle! Mega Man’s on a mission to save Dr. Light, but as always Wily has an entire fortress full of traps and powerful robots. How does he always build these things so quickly? Who knows, we’re just here to wreck them.
Part 11: It’s Really Dr. Wily’s Third to Last Stand
Once again, it’s time to fight Wily and his horde of revived robots! But hey, maybe the ninth (+2) time’s the charm and we can get him to give up villainy for good? It’s unlikely, but it would be nice to get something good out of a fight with a large robot and the capsule hidden inside of it.
A sudden and dangerous disease has hit robots the world over! But Roboenza doesn’t just cause a bad fever for automatons; after prolonged infection, an infected robot will run wild, going on the typical rampage you’d expect any time Wily has a new plan. Except Wily definitely isn’t the villain this time, you guys. He’s just as bothered by the infected robots as anyone else. In fact, it’s while Mega Man and Dr. Light try to figure out a cure that Dr. Wily makes a crash landing in their yard. He had been close to developing a cure for Roboenza, but was attacked by a robot before he could finish it. Go figure. So in an effort to save robots the world over, including his sister Roll, Mega Man rushes off to get Wily’s medicine-making machine back in safe hands. Also, Proto Man is there this time. As is Bass, but he’s DLC so he doesn’t get to show up in the intro.
Welcome to Mega Man 10! It’s the first game in quite some time that I’ve disliked! After the massive success in 9, it’s not the biggest surprise that the developers wanted to try another retro-styled Classic game. And so we got… more of that. But while most of the Classics beforehand typically improved on the previous game, and were usually pretty solid in their own right, Mega Man 10 doesn’t really do anything new or exciting. And that would be fine if the level design and special weapons were on point. Which they’re not. So really all it has going for it is that it’s still 8-bit, which I guess does go over well with the crowd that likes to complain about 7 & 8.
Part 1: Strike While the Fever’s Hot
Once again, it’s time to fight some Robot Masters! Proto Man takes the lead and heads to a local sports stadium to beat up Strike Man, who I can only assume is the mascot. Either that, or baseballs are far too large in the year 20xx.
Part 2: Pump Up the Bass
One Robot Master’s down already, and Bass isn’t one to dawdle when there are other robots to fight. He may be missing his double jump from his past adventure, but a dash and a machine gun seem like more than enough to get him through a simple sewer.
Part 3: Break and Enker
We’re taking a break from the main eight Robot Masters, and taking a look at the first DLC stage with Mega Man! Because the bosses of these stages are the Mega Man Killers, and that seems like a problem Mega Man should deal with himself. First up is Enker, the cool guy whose ability is to get shot a whole bunch so he can do a slightly bigger attack! But before we can reach Enker, of course, we must first pass a really bad stage.
Part 4: Night Row
It’s time for the greatest threat Proto Man has faced so far: the freeway. Nitro Man, (who is completely distinct from Turbo Man what are you talking about,) is on the loose, and Proto Man must overcome the very specific peril of “getting hit by a fucking truck” if he wants to take on this Robot Master.
Part 5: Laconic Commando
Finally, a Robot Master whose gimmick is “large and strong and filled with explosives” that Bass can fight. It seems like the kind of guy Bass would love to beat up. But before homonym-of-a-normal-sized-fish can take a shot at the bigger fish, we’ve got to trudge through the desert. Hope you like sandstorm gimmicks!
Part 6: Punk’s Not Dead… Yet
Two more stages are down for Proto Man and Bass, which means it’s time for another DLC stage with Mega Man! This time, he’ll be going up against the second Mega Man Killer, Punk. And while this stage is marginally better than Enker’s, I still have no qualms having Mega Man ride his dog over obstacles.