Mega Man X... er, I mean, 10

Man. And I thought 9 was hardcore. Been playing for 20 minutes so far and haven’t even gotten to a boss yet. This will be a true test of my gaming mettle!

Bought it, finished it, was fun.

Still have to do Hard Mode + Proto Man run.

Good game. Muuuuuuch better than Mega Man 9, which was a cheapdeath fest. Still could use more clever enemy placement, and I still think that Mega Man with no sliding makes the game definitely less fun. Still, I’m glad to see that this was an improvement over its recent predecessor, which to me epitomized everything wrong with retro games.

Could you elaborate on how Mega Man 9 was a cheapdeath fest and 10 wasn’t? I mean, the final stages are still mostly pits and spikes.

We (and I mean specifically, you and I) went over this in the Mega Man 9 thread. MM9 has a bunch of stuff which, if you don’t memorize it, have advance knowledge of it, or do it with perfect precision, you just get to die. Mega Man games in the past had maybe 2-4 obstacles like this in the entire game; MM9 had about 2-4 per level. MM10 has maybe one or two. Yeah, there are a lot of spikes, but I pretty much never died to any of the spike obstacles.

The majority of my deaths were thanks to clever enemy placement, and the bosses actually being difficult to beat (I suppose I should also clear this up: I use the Mega Buster, and that’s it. No special weapons, no E, W, or M Tanks, and nothing that can be bought from the shop (Eddie, Beat, Shock Guards, etc.). The bosses overall were way more challenging than MM9).

Also, even then, there was pretty much no cheapdeath at all in the robot master’s stages. When I try really hard, I can think of only one trap in the entire game that necessitated memorization. I guess there’s two, if you count the stupid Block Devil…although I bet the memorization on that one can be superseded if you use E Tanks and special weapons.

I just completed Hard Mode. Those final stages are devious in this mode.

Also, SG, someone on another forum I go to made an interesting observation about MM9 and 10 which might explain some of our specific disagreements. Basically that MM9 is about platforming challenges while MM10 is about combat challenges. The platforming stages in 9 are hard (cheaper, whatever), while the boss fights and enemies in general are hard (cheaper, whatever) in 10. Both offer different flavors of challenge, and if one isn’t your cup of tea it’s easy to think of it as cheap.

That’s true enough, but I think ‘combat challenge’ has been more of Mega Man’s flavor since the beginning as well. If you want a platforming challenge, I think games that have less of a focus on actual fighting (Mario games, LittleBigPlanet) are where you should be looking. In a game like Mega Man, pits should be there as something to pay attention to in a fire fight - something which, if you’re not mindful of it, could cause you to get knocked off.

Eh, I disagree. But there’s no point in beating a dead Horse Man. I enjoy both MM9 and 10. 9 a bit more, that’s all.

Anyway, this youtube channel has some previews of the upcoming DLC content. Mostly BGMs, but bear in mind the BGMs for the three special stages give away the bosses for each stage. Beware of the spoilers, though longtime fans should be pleased. There’s also a video trailer of the third character.

Y’know, I don’t mind paying for DLC. I just wish we didn’t have to wait for some arbitrary date to get it when it’s already in the game when we first buy it.

I’ve already had the DLC bosses spoilered for me when I got a look at their weapons as well as the third character kinda (the person playing the character in the video had no fucking clue to what he was doing). That said, I lol’d at the absence of a boss in the same league as the DLC bosses on account of him and his weapon both sucking and blowing.

Let’s see if that narrows it down without giving it away.