RETRO REVIEW: Mega Man 8 (PS1)

The special weapons are really good this time around, something I never hear people mention when Mega Man 8 comes up at cocktail parties. Mega Man 9 gets all the praise for having the first useful weapon set, whereas Mega Man 8 had an amazing arsenal, more than 10 years prior. Also many of these weapons have a second usage, something that only Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 9 get praised for, despite this game doing it too. You have Flash Bomb that explodes on impact and can inflict several hits and can light up dark areas. Tornado Hold can damage enemies in the air and allow Mega Man to hover for a bit.  Astro Crush allows Mega Man to summon meteors and rain destruction on the field and destroy certain walls. Flame Sword gives Mega Man a flaming sword (surprise!) that can light fuses and destroy barrels.

What is nice with the weapons in this game is that they are mapped to a different button than the buster. This also means that you can dual equip the mega buster and a special weapon. So Mega Man can actually have the Flame Sword and buster equipped at the same time giving him both long and close range attacks! AWESOME. You can also switch weapons with R1/L1, which is also fantastic.  There is also a meter letting you know how much ammo is left of the currently equipped weapon. So you no longer have to just guess how many times you can use a weapon before running out of ammo.

Rush in this game operates differently yet again. In some of the stages you will face a giant mini boss. Defeat it and you will be awarded one of Rush’s abilities. You have the Rush Cycle in which Rush turns into a motorcycle and Mega man can fire missiles, Rush Bomber, where Rush drops a series of bombs throughout the screen, Rush Charger where the dog give Mega Man a random item or falls asleep if you are unlucky and finally, Rush Health, where he gives Mega Man various health restoration items.

Throughout the levels you will find screws to spend at the shop similar to Mega Man 7. However in this game there are a limited amount of them and you will not be able to purchase every item in the shop, so choose wisely. The upgrades have varying degrees of usefulness. One of them involved Mega Man climbing ladders faster (why?) another one eliminated knockback when you take damage! Finally, the accursed knockback that has plagued video game characters for years was put to rest here. The real reason you want to stock up on screws is so you can gain access to one of the new mega busters. One of them is a laser that pierces through enemies, and the other one, which is far more useful in my opinion, an arrow that on impact bursts into a Contra-style spread shot. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

The levels themselves are very diverse and have you doing something different in each of them. They are also split into two sections, with a brief load time in between sections. Some of you might find this annoying, but it is really not that bad. In Tengu Man’s level, you get to fly on Rush and even get access to Auto, Beat, and Eddie for support. This level plays somewhat like a shoot em up and is actually really fun. Clown Man’s level has a bunch of toys based off previous bosses from Mega Man, there are also trains that ram into each other. Sword Man’s stage has puzzles that require use of the special weapons to solve.

Probably the most infamous level is Frost Man’s. In this stage you ride a snowboard and at various moments you will need to Jump or Slide. The game warns you by having a sign and voice yell: “JUMP JUMP” or “SLIDE SLIDE”. You need really good timing to get past them, otherwise you are not making it past this stage. For a long time, I was really bad at this segment, but with enough practice I was able to overcome it. There are even people who claim there is a delay with the jumping, but it seems fine with my copy. Bottom line, practice! Seriously, there have been far more unforgiving obstacles in previous Mega Man games like instant death lasers, disappearing blocks, the crash bomb boss in Mega Man 2….

Speaking of difficulty, I felt this game was more difficult than Mega Man 7 or 6, but still easier than some of the earlier titles. You do not get E-tanks this time around, so that probably contributes to the difficulty. Ever since Mega Man X, many of the games in the series suffered from a rather annoying flaw: boss stunlocking. What happens is, when you use a special weapon against a boss that is weak to it, they go into a special hit animation. As soon as the animation ends, their pattern resets making them much easier and predictable. Mega Man 8 does suffer from this, but luckily, this game handles it much better than other games. For one, some of the bosses only go into the animation if the weapon is used under specific circumstances or after a certain attack. When they go into the stun animation, you can attack them with your buster thanks to the dual-equip system for increased damage. Also many of the bosses will have a way to retaliate as soon as they recover.  One of my favorite fights in the game is against Grenade Man, because you can reflect his attacks and when he is low on health, he destroys the ground sending you both to a lower level of the arena. The bosses do have a tendency to announce their attacks before performing them, making it kind of easy to dodge once you know what is coming.

The music in this game is good but not quite as catchy as previous titles. There are still some good themes like the intro level or Frost Man’s. The Saturn version’s music sounds slightly different and also has a completely different theme for Tengu Man. Maybe this is just me, but I feel the looping is slightly off in the Ps2 Anniversary edition.

The PlayStation version of this game is by far the most affordable one, not counting the Anniversary Collection. The Sega Saturn version can easily cost you over $100. Even the Japanese version is starting to increase in price. You know a game that is rare or in demand with collectors when that happens. The Ps1 or Ps2 anniversary versions of this game will cost you anywhere from$10-20. See, you can actually buy both of those, along with their respective systems, for less than a copy of the Saturn version. This game will take you about two hours to finish, however, finding all the hidden screws will probably add an extra hour or two.

Mega Man 8 has a reputation for being one of, if not the worst, Mega Man game in the classic series. Yes, this game actually gets more hate than Mega Man 6! The thing is, this game tried many new things and as a result ended up standing out to me, and for that, Mega Man 8 is definitely a respectable game. Sure there are some silly design choices but overall, I think it was a decent attempt at pushing the series forward and I would love to see Capcom try to make another Mega Man game in a more modern style like this one. Believe it or not, I was actually very disappointed when I heard Mega Man 9 would return to the 8-bit style *Unpopular opinion alert*. Mega Man 9 and 10 to me, felt like the developers were too busy banking on nostalgia instead of trying to really push the series forward in gameplay, look and feel *gets the flame shield ready*. In any case, this childhood favorite of mine is well worth checking out and if you can look past the voice acting, you will find a solid game.

Review Score
Overall

Review copy supplied by author.