If you grew up in the eighties or even the early nineties, then you remember Mega Man in his heyday. The little blue guy is back with interchangeable parts and pops onto the Xbox 360 in the new Mega Man 9. For those new to the franchise, here is a quick refresher. Mega Man runs across the screen fighting baddies until he gets to a robotic boss. Once he defeats the boss, he can then use that bosses ability. Sounds simple huh? Well the concept might be easy, but this game comes from an era when simple game premises and difficult gameplay went hand in hand. So don't look at the screens or original release date of this title and assume you'll crush it in one sitting.

Mega Man 9 continues the trend of the classic side-scrolling shooter combined with weapon strategy. This title offers the player plenty of choices as to which weapons to use. And you'll need this wide selection of weaponry since Mega Man 9's difficulty is set on insane! This game may scare off rookies right away, but for those who dare spend some time with it, you'll be rewarded with some great classic gameplay. MM9 is a test in reflexes and instinct. On more than one occasion, you'll be thrown into situations where you're being attacked from almost every angle. This isn't a game where you simply have to worry about enemies. The environments seem to be out to get you as well. Ceilings will collapse, floors will have spikes jutting upward, and you'll still be avoiding fire from the baddies. One false step and you're dead. This may sound like too much, but once you succeed, it's all worth it because it was so difficult to begin with. Easy is for wimps, right? And just in case you are some sort of gaming freak of nature, Capcom has tossed in a couple extra levels of difficulty.

When playing this game, you'll often forget it's not an original NES title, but Mega Man 9 offers enough to remind gamers this title is new. Once you've conquered the main game, you'll have some more modes to run through. There are time attacks and challenge stages to give this flashback some extra replay value. Also, one of the bonuses of this new Mega Man is the ability to upload your records onto Xbox LIVE and comparing your Mega Man skills to the other robot pros out there. Capcom has also promised new DLC for the title in the future. So there's a lot going on in the first Mega Man game from the original series in over 12 years.

What Mega Man 9 comes down to is a game that's done a good job of showing that classic games stand test of time (even though this isn't technically a classic). The little blue guy still entertains and now offers even more to those who beat Mega Man 8 all those years ago. The graphics may not wow gamers raised on today's HD eye-popping visual powerhouses, but they still hold up - especially the little details like screen flicker to look like older titles. The 8-bit tunes also do a good job of keeping players in the game. So if you loved Mega Man back in the day, or just want to sit down and find out what all the fuss was about, this game is the perfect way to do so. Be warned though, 9 is as hard on the nerves as the classics and has a sharp learning curve for rookies. With that being said though, it's well worth every penny.

Final Score : 9.0

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