8.5 hours played
Written 15 days ago
I'm a bit torn on MM11. On the one hand, it's a bold new entry that shakes the formula up for the first time since MM7. On the other hand, it's far from the best game in the series due to important MM staples being underwhelming or missing outright. Regarding positives, the game looks pretty good most of the time. I believe this is the first 2.5D numbered entry. There are some cool visual effects from abilities with more depth to the animated backgrounds in levels. Bosses are much more complex even having multiple attack types and forms they take on as the fight goes on. The charged Mega Buster is back with an additional charge for a larger stronger blast and it's awesome. There are some great very challenging levels here as well with Torch Man's stage being my personal favorite. All the new abilities from bosses are awesome and even add additional movement options like the Pile Driver doubling as an air dash. The Double Gear system is cool and fun to use. This is a welcomed new addition. Being able to not only strengthen the classic Mega Buster even further, but also strengthen all other abilities.
The speed gear is where issues come up. It really REALLY mitigates a lot of the challenge of most bosses and platforming sections since you can upgrade it so you move at a normal speed while everyone and everything around you moves slower. This allows you to bombard enemies and bosses with attacks shredding them in seconds before they even have a chance to respond. That's not to say the game is easy. The challenge is fairly close to what you expect from a Mega Man game. Rumor has it, our Normal is their Hard mode just renamed. Not sure if that's true. My issue with the difficulty is that without using Double Gear, the game can stomp you hard. With Double Gear, the shop, and upgrade system it's one of the easiest games in the series.
Some stages absolutely stink with Bounce Man's being one of the worst in the series. It's incredibly annoying being bounced around constantly, but the general look of the level is just uninspired. What is the theme here? At one point it looked like I was in an indoor bouldering room. What does that have to do with bouncing? The boss was absurdly easy too. The Wily Stages were fairly tough, but the bosses left a lot to be desired. There's just nothing new here. Yellow Devil from MM1 returns. Then there's a boss gauntlet of all of the same bosses you just fought to get here. Then finally you fight the Wily Machine 11 which looks nearly identical to the Wily Capsule from previous games. There's no surprises here. I think they played it a little too safe with the final fortress.
The biggest issue by far is with the soundtrack. It's not that the compositions are bad. They just sound too soft and don't fit Megaman's usual style of rock and metal. It's a problem. It all just blends into the background. The mix sucks too. The music doesn't cut through enough to stand out even with turning down the two other volumes to hear it better. It's just not Rock Man. It reminds me of the awful PS1 version of MMX3's badass soundtrack. The voices and sound effects are too loud by comparison. At least the voice acting is adequate which is an achievement after the infamous "acting" featured in MM8.
It's nice to have new Mega Man and I hope we get more, but I really want to see something different in regards to bosses and levels with the return of the classic characters. Where is Proto Man? Where is Bass? There are no unlockable characters to play as like in MM10. More creative bosses than the typical lineup of fire-type, bomb-type, electricity-type and ice-type. And maybe it's time to move on from Wily. We've been fighting him for 11 games now and that's not including spin-offs. I like the new additions and I would recommend this to fans of the series. (6/10)
