Hello there everyone! Your friendly Ultimate Despair has arrived with a review of the long-awaited Mega Man 11. There will be a few spoilers,  such as a few images with power-ups, opinions on the robot masters, and stage scenery and mechanics you may be trying to avoid online so some are major and minor but other than that let’s get right into it.

I played this game on the Nintendo Switch and I’ve played the past 10 Mega Man games so let me tell you what they’re about. Mega Man is a game about a household robot turned into a super fighting robot to combat the robotic masters of the infamous Dr. Wily. Mega Man defeats these robots, copies their powers, saves the day like any other hero.

I absolutely love these games for their difficulty and demand to “git gud” by giving you insane jumps or even hordes of enemies. When I heard that the classic Mega Man was finally getting an 11th release after so many years, I was pretty ecstatic. Let’s kick off this review talking about the movement and the new gear mechanics.

The movement is incredible. They brought back sliding to dodge overhead attacks and quickly move out of the way. The jumping is handled very well and the whole game depended on Capcom getting this right. Seriously, there are jumps with huge gaps back to back that just keep on coming and the only choice you have is to pray you make that jump as you keep your momentum. I really don’t see any problems with the movement of this game aside from it being too precise where even a flick on the control stick inches you forward which could end you. 

This new addition to the series has also added gear mechanics. There are two types: Speed Gear and Power Gear. These powers run on a limited time-span and if they’re overused, you’re gonna have to wait a while (I died a lot because of this). They’re actually pretty simple, speed gear slows down time meaning boss attacks, enemy movement, and stage hazard movement, while power gear boosts your mega buster to fire a huge red blast after your regular charge attack (shown in image above) and it also powers up the abilities you get from the robot masters. You can also use both gears at the same time to power yourself up, slow down time, and fire a fused gear attack, but this can only be activated at very low health and when it’s done, you can’t charge your attacks or use gears so it works as an ace in the hole and a glass cannon. Being overly dependent on this new mechanic could very well be your downfall.

The scenery in this game is well inspired and has a really nice viewpoint from the 2-D perspective as it acts as a background and tells you the setting of the stage. Each level has a theme such as Block Man’s pyramid based level, Blast Man’s amusement park, and Impact Man’s construction site that goes deeper and deeper underground. Each level has a gimmick that stands out like Torch Man’s column of fire closing in on you acting like a chase scene. This inferno continues to trail behind you multiple times during the stage as the game gives you very tight jumps and enemies trying to stop you from escaping this flaming menace to the campsite. There is a lot of detail put into each stage and every time you replay a stage, you notice these details more and more which is a very nice touch by Capcom.

The robot masters, which act as bosses in these games, all have unique personalities and incredible voice acting that leaves you remembering them just by their voice. Some of them are a little out of this world like the child-like Bounce Man, or the hot-tempered Block Man. Some of them could have been better like Bounce Man or Impact Man and this is disappointing as they fall really short in the battles. Some robot masters also seem to be favored more in detail than others such as Block Man having almost 50 voice lines and a different transformation while the others have about 30-40 with minor changes to their forms with the exception of one other robot master. Basically, they were all pretty good personality wise but in a fight, about half of them don’t stack up to their mini-bosses.

Mega Man 11, despite its boss battle problems, is a worthy successor to the franchise. There are even difficulty modes for newcomers that grant infinite lives and make some portions of stage easier. I enjoyed playing this because it really made me feel like an accomplished gamer to have beaten it. All in all I give this game a solid 8/10 for its amazing game play mechanics, stages, and platforming. I’ll likely be doing more of these reviews for different games as I really enjoyed playing a game to tell a story as well. I have high hopes for the future of this series with its new revival and I hope Capcom takes what they learned from here to make the next Mega Man game even better. Thanks for sticking around and I’ll catch ya on the flip side :). Ultimate Despair out!