Mega Man 8

Colefam, alongside Reploid REVO and ShadowRockZX, have done an interview with Ruth Marie Jarman (the voice actor of Mega Man in this game) if you're interested.

Las personas que hayan creado el Stage 1 de la torre del Dr. Willy probablemente sean misántropos.

There comes a time in a person's life when they are forced to take inventory of their tastes and realize they like shitty things. For me, it was in finishing Mega Man 8, and more or less thoroughly enjoying it, despite a general lukewarm reception.

After six games on the NES, Capcom moved Mega Man to the SNES, but only briefly, the console otherwise being used to launch the Mega Man X [ロックマンX] franchise. With the advent of 32-bit consoles, Capcom jumped ahead to PlayStation for Rock's eighth big adventure. The most notable advancement for the series is in its graphical updates, as indeed everything Capcom put out that generation looks amazing to this day, or at least the 2D stuff (while I like how it looks, I can forgive others for turning away from Resident Evil [バイオハザード]...). The sounds are pretty decent as well, though the music is maybe inferior to the NES games', and the addition of voice-acting didn't age well, the game coming out in a time when Japanese developers exclusively used shitty English voice-actors (Drs. Light and Wily both sound drunk, and Duo and Proto Man both sound extremely Canadian...), but... I guess it's at least a technological achievement to have voice-acting in the first place...?

Anyway, the main thing for this series is its gameplay, which features some notable changes. The Bolt/Shop system from Mega Man 7 [Rockman 7 宿命の対決!] returns, but with a "collectathon" feel; there are only forty Bolts available, often in tricky spots, and you are unable to purchase everything in Auto's shop, meaning you must choose a "build" for Mega Man's upgrades. My first run, I went with a build focused around the Robot Master weapons, and had a great time spamming Homing Sniper and Flash Bomb against everything. Generally, I stick with the Buster against regular enemies, unless I'm up against something really annoying and which is weak to a special weapon I will not need for an upcoming boss (or, in Mega Man 2 [Rockman 2 Dr.ワイリーの謎], I exchange my Buster for the Metal Blade almost immediately...). A major game-changer is the lack of E-, W-, and S-tanks, meaning you can't just tank hits and get away with a reheal during tough boss battles. As if to balance this, it feels like the game is a good deal easier than its predecessors, the only "problem" I had personally was losing too much health bumping into the Wily Capsule at the end because I'd whiff my Flame Swords, which I got over by just using Flame Sword when he's closer to the ground and Flash Bomb when he's too high, making it "safer" for me. The game does have health boosts in the form of a Rush Item, where Rush flies back and forth across the screen dropping health and energy capsules of varying sizes, which has its ups and downs: it's easy to get to full health using this Item, but after that Rush is just wasting health drops, and I don't know if there's a way to conserve his energy by turning him off or not, making it a one-time use that goes on for half a fucking minute.

The most notorious additions to gameplay are the JUMP JUMP SLIDE SLIDE snowboarding and the rail-shooter Rush Jet sequences. The pacing for Frost Man's stage is killed by one or two annoying fucking parts ("or two" because I never had trouble with the second) where you jump on a sled and have to suffer the game shouting at you when to jump or slide, on account of how big the sprites are and thus how localized the "camera" is, the prompts giving you a heads up for upcoming hazards. The struggle here is that the auto-scrolling is against you, conspiring alongside the speed of your sled, so you'll soon find yourself at the right-most edge of the screen, unable to see ahead to when exactly you must jump or slide, especially when you are hopping along slimmer platforms and don't have enough time to scoot further left. The first such JUMP SLIDE sequence takes some time getting into, as you must accustom yourself with this bullshit that never existed in previous games. The second in the level is relatively simpler. Unfortunately, you aren't free, as the very fucking beginning of Wily Stage 1 begins with an even more annoying sledding sequence, which crescendos into a clusterfuck of the game shouting "JUMP" at you repeatedly (you barely SLIDE SLIDE in this sequence). Less annoying to me are the Rush Jet sequences, one of which is in Tengu Man's stage and another in a Wily Stage (I think #2?). You get large item balloons hanging about, which drop character portraits that summon Auto, Eddie, or Beat to assist. I never would have considered these sequences too bad, but I mention them because I've seen others complain. The Wily one does suck for pitting the auto-scroll against you through a couple minor turns in level geometry, which killed me once or twice because I wasn't expecting such nonsense, but I think the biggest issue there is getting hit by the Battons and stunned into the inability to move fast enough, which is remedied by just killing the bats faster.

The Robot Masters here are somewhat neat to me, mostly because they feel more "unique" as some lack NetNavi counterparts and others are limited to Mega Man Network Transmission [ロックマン エグゼ トランスミッション] which I've not yet finished (and I got into Mega Man firstly through the Mega Man Battle Network [ロックマンエグゼ] sub-series). Aqua Man looks nothing like his future Navi self, which makes sense because the boss contest submission had him as "Bio Man," who seemed to be more a toxic-waste dude. Tenguman.EXE actually joins Aquaman.EXE in Mega Man Battle Network 6 [ロックマンエグゼ6], which is cute. I have no idea whether Coloredman.EXE or Circusman.EXE are based on Robot Master Clown Man, but the second is in BN6 as well. Search Man is notable for his two heads, quite different from his Navi version. In my head, I have a vivid image of a Frostman.EXE who looks like an igloo version of Stoneman.EXE, but apparently this doesn't exist, and I'm insane. Swordman.EXE in Network Transmission looks very different. I assume Planetman.EXE may be a relative of Astro Man, inasmuch as Clown Man has his two Navi cousins that aren't direct adaptations. There's no Grenademan.EXE, but maybe Bombman.EXE took some visual influence alongside the original Bomb Man.

As far as actual relevance to this game, most of the Robot Masters are fun fights. Aqua Man is shitty because I always used Astro Crush to kill him before he can do anything. Astro Man's satellites get in the way of my Homing Sniper, which is annoying as fuck, and I almost died in the Wily Stage rematch. I actually can't remember what Frost Man does, because I usually kill him too easily. But it's fun dodging Tengu Man's attacks, as well as Sword Man's split body, and I like knocking Clown Man down from his trapeze with Tornado Hold, even if I'm not great at dodging his other stuff. I like how Grenade Man carpet-bombs his stage partway through and makes you fight in a trickier arena. I respect how there seems to be no way to tell which bush Search Man hides behind, as lucky hits have a "Skinner box" feel to me, but I wish there was a reliable way to find him (unless there is, and I just haven't looked hard enough).

This game introduces a plot-point about "Evil Energy" that can corrupt a person/robot, expand the evil in their heart, and spread to take over the world. Kinda silly. But we have Duo as a robot of justice, in eternal combat with some sort of robot-shaped energy-being. The two crash-land on Earth, with Wily stealing the Evil Energy for his uses, and Light repairing Duo. This hardly matters in-game; Duo reactivates after you beat the first four Robot Masters, and he attacks Mega Man as a mid-boss because he's confused and... the game needs a mid-boss (I guess?). Bass is later seen in Wily's Fortress absorbing some Evil Energy while combining with Treble, but it doesn't make him significant stronger than he was in MM7. I think we can assume the Robot Masters are possessed by the Evil Energy, but I don't remember any purple shit coming out of their exploded carcasses. The Wily Capsule is apparently fueled by Evil Energy, so Duo comes in to help you after the battle, but he gets his ass kicked and bailed out by Proto Man, who was otherwise absent the entire game. I fail to see the point of all this, though I did enjoy the anime cutscenes (poor voice-acting notwithstanding). More significant to me personally is how Duo is used in Mega Man Battle Network 4 [ロックマンエグゼ4] and a concept similar to Evil Energy is used with Nebula Gray in Mega Man Battle Network 5 [ロックマンエグゼ5], but, like my writing on the Robot Masters above, that has little to do with this game on its own.

At the end of the day, I quite liked this game, though I think mostly for its visual aesthetic than anything else. And I guess the build based on special weapon spam, so I'm interested in replaying for a Buster-focused build. But I have to dock points for the JUMP SLIDE shit, because it gets tedious, and I don't want to have to spend another half an hour trying to do it in the Wily Fortress again.

I've had no problems with the classic Mega Men so far, and my understanding is the ninth and tenth mainline games are much better than this, so I just have to make sure I can enjoy Mega Man & Bass [ロックマン&フォルテ]. But, if I like that as much as I do 7 and 8, it's probably just true I have questionable taste. Let's just hope for my sake I won't enjoy Mega Man X7 [ロックマンX7] too much, if I ever get around to it....

For goodness sake, who thought those Jump/Slide and Rush Jet sections were a good idea? They take so much away from the game’s core verbset and they are frustrating, especially with those Jump Slide sections where the punishment for failure is usually death. Imagine long sections devoid of Mega Man fun stuck across more than a couple levels in this game.

The levels of Mega Man 8 just don’t feel as involved as the other games, which is made worse when they are extremely long and function as two levels basically. This makes it a pain to return to levels to look for bolts. Other Mega Man games have that problem but with 8, the problem is relentless. Every level feels like that. Maybe it’s because Mega Man’s movement is slower? I don’s mind Mega Man’s slower movement but it is kind of weird.

The music is weird as well. It’s very ‘light’ but that might not be a bad thing. If this was your first Mega Man game you could probably get into its laid-back electronic vibes, although I find a few songs completely lacking in energy. The graphics are splendid as well, sporting off that PSX power to show off lots of sprites and effects. I don’t like how uncartoony Mega Man and Rush look. I wish their features were exagerated more like in 7. They look bland.

The bolt system is decent, I guess. Looking for specific collectibles in the levels instead of grinding for currency drops like in Mega Man 7 is an improvement. The powerups you can purchase are pretty nifty but I have mixed feelings about how you cannot buy everything. There are builds to this game. Weird for a Mega Man title.

This is one of my least favourite Mega Man titles, the Prime series or otherwise. I like some qualities about it but will avoid it in the future.