Mega Man 11 Review

I’ve seen a lot of reviews that claim that Mega Man 11 successfully channels the “feel” of the old games. But I just don’t see it.

The best way to describe the problem is to describe the experience I went through:

  1. Started playing Mega Man 11. Got my butt kicked
  2. Fired up Mega Man Anniversary Collection 2 to try playing Mega Man 10 (which I never got around to playing, so this was my first time). Managed to beat several stages without much issue.
  3. Went back and tried replaying Mega Man 9 (which I played so long ago that I forgot all the stage layouts). Once again, I did just fine
  4. Loaded my unfinished saves from Mega Man 7 and 8 and found that I had beaten most of the stages

My point here is to say that I don’t seem to have trouble playing any previous Mega Man games - so why was 11 causing me so much grief?

The root problem, I think, is that some of the stages are too long. One of the secret sauces to traditional Mega Man games is that the stages are relatively brief. This limits the amount of really tough, white knuckle challenges that they can contain, and it also gives the player a better chance of memorizing the stage and/or gaining muscle memory.

I never actually timed it, but there were times where it felt like it took as long to get to the midboss as it would take to beat a full stage in an older Mega Man game

In contrast, some of Mega Man 11’s stages go on. And on. And on. Even if you memorize and avoid certain hazards, you’re liable to make mistakes simply due to mental fatigue. And when that happens, you may find yourself without enough lives to defeat the Robot Master at the end.

And I don’t think this was an oversight on the part of the developers. Rather, the game seems designed around having long stages. As in many other modernish Mega Man games, you can collect screws from fallen enemies, and then spend them in an item shop to buy extra lives, E Tanks, etc. As it turns out, not only are these items inexpensive, but you can buy more than one at a time. All of this together points to the notion that the developers want you to load up on these boosts to help keep you alive long enough to see the end, instead of, you know, making stages that can be reasonably conquered with three lives.

In Torch Man's stage, you have to run from an encroaching wall of fire multiple times. In an old Mega Man game, this would probably happen just once

There’s more - the game introduces something called the “Double Gear” system, which allows Mega Man to choose between temporarily powering up his shots, or temporarily slowing down time. There area a handful of instances where using these abilities is necessary to get past certain hazards, but more often than not they’re just optional features that you may or may not even remember to use. They just don’t feel like they’re well integrated into the game.

I also found some of the abilities to be fairly uninteresting, which is never a good thing in a Mega Man game.

And the soundtrack is unmemorable, which is even bigger faux pas for a Mega Man game.

The one positive thing I can say about the game is that the stages do a great job with environmental storytelling. They really feel like places - weird places, admittedly, but places nonetheless.

The frozen city in Tundra Man's stage tells a great story of what one slice of Mega Man's future world looks like - and what the Robot Masters are capable of doing to it

It didn’t take long for me to get to a point where I realized I could get through Mega Man 11, but that I simply didn’t want to. The game wasn’t challenging in a way that felt fun or rewarding, so there was no point to it. I’d say that I’m sad, but the truth is that there are plenty of older, excellent Mega Man games that I still enjoy playing. Maybe we’ll get a good one some day in the future, but I don’t necessarily need one.