Mega Man 10 - Thoughts
Mega Man 10 (NOT Mega Man X) released in March 2010 on WiiWare, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live Arcade, arriving as the follow-up to Mega Man 9 and once again committing fully to the old-school 8-bit look. Developed by Inti Creates and Capcom, the game doubled down on the retro approach by keeping the NES-style graphics, music, and challenge level that had made its predecessor such a hit with longtime fans. This time around, though, Capcom threw in a few more modern quality of life improvements, including an Easy Mode for players who weren’t interested in getting repeatedly dropkicked by old-fashioned difficulty. The story itself is pure Mega Man nonsense in the best way, centering around a robot flu called Roboenza that causes robots to go haywire, which gives Mega Man yet another reason to start blasting his way through a fresh lineup of Robot Masters.
Nerd Central has 200+ subscribers! Click the button below to get a free month of paid content!
Critically, Mega Man 10 was received pretty well overall. Reviewers praised the Mega Man-esque tight controls, strong level design, and the fact that the game still understood exactly what made classic Mega Man work. At the same time, some critics felt it played things a little safer, more like a really good encore than something new and innovative. Still, the general consensus was that Capcom had delivered another strong entry in the classic series.
Sales-wise, exact numbers are a little murky, but Capcom indicated that it was happy with the game’s performance. It doesn’t seem to have reached the kind of headline-grabbing sales that some of the bigger entries in the franchise managed, but it clearly did well enough to justify the experiment and keep the classic series alive a little longer.
What I Liked 😃
Robo Flu
Dont’cha hate it when your robots come down with the flu? When your robots have the flu, all hell breaks loose. At least that’s what Mega Man 10 tells us. This horrible virus is called Roboenza (like Influenza….clever) and it has started infecting helper robots, causing them to malfunction and cause problems. About a month into the crisis, Mega Man’s “sister” Roll contracts the virus as do eight of the Robot Masters built by - you guessed it - Dr. Wily. Wily, ever the helpful scientist, offers to help Mega Man cure the robots but he needs to recover a machine he created that can do the job. The always gullible Mega Man agrees and he is able to defeat four of the Robot Masters, recover the machine and is able to cure Roll.
Mega Man then proceeds to defeat the remaining four Robot Masters only to discover that Dr. Wily created the virus in the first place. Oh yeah, and Mega Man has contracted Roboenza as well. Roll, ever the selfless robot, gives Mega Man the prototype cure. Mega Man with the help of Proto Man, defeats Wily for the umpteenth time and save the day. Funnily, Wily comes down with a flu of his own and is hospitalized, but of course escapes at the end. Hmm, was he ever sick in the first place?
It’s a wacky story and makes no sense whatsoever, but it is a Mega Man game so what do you expect? I enjoyed the attempt at some sort of drama with Roboenza. It was fun because you as the player knows that Mega Man will succeed and that Wily has been behind it all along even though everyone else in the game never suspects him (even though he’s done this 9 TIMES before!!!).
Block Rockin’ Beats
As with Mega Man 9, the 8-bit chip tunes are solid and well done, harkening back to the quality and style of the original 1-6 tracks. The tracks fit the stages, enhancing them and complimenting the platforming and gameplay. The stage select music is a great mini loop, I enjoyed the fast paced Solar Man’s stage music. Nitro Man’s stage music was really great as well.
There’s nothing like a good soundtrack to go along with jumping, blasting and getting hit by enemies in a Mega Man game. It’s a critical part of the games and why I was kind of bummed at the lackluster music tracks in Mega Man 7 and 8. I think the upgrade to CD quality audio in Mega Man 8 removed lots of audio limitations. This can be a good thing but in the case of Mega Man 8, it wasn’t in my opinion. So, I am happy that those limitations - albeit self enforced - have come back with Mega Man 9 and 10.
Level Design
I’ve talked about the level design in all of the Mega Man games up to this point. I’m honestly running out of things to say about all of it that doesn’t feel redundant, but I’m going to say stuff anyway. In this case I thought the level design was well done, on par if not better than Mega Man 9. The levels aren’t punishingly difficult like in the older Mega Man games, but provide enough challenge that you’re palms will be sweating at times. There are sections where I was scratching my head and many places I had to die several times to eventually figure out a pattern or a specific jump. But, such is how Mega Man games are meant to be played. I mainly wanted to talk about this because I find it impressive that the developers are still able to come up with good level design 10 games later in the same series.
What I Didn’t Like ☹️
Wily is Losing His Touch
The battles with Dr. Wily throughout the series have ranged from fairly easy (Mega Man 5) to some of the hardest fights in video game history (Mega Man 7). In Mega Man 10, I’d say the fights are definitely on the easier side. In the first fight with Wily, he is in a large battleship vehicle thingy complete with a skull wearing a pirate hat on the front of course. After fairly easily dispatching that thing, Wily shows his face. The Water Shield is actually very OP in this fight. Once Wily comes down to meet you face to face, have Mega Man slap him with a round of water bubbles and he is toast.
Now, following this fight there is another stage up in space. The elevator up into space harkens back to the Jakob Elevator from Mega Man X8 but I’ll talk more about that game when I review it. Back to this stage, even though there are mini drills everywhere, they all tend to drop items and so even if you get hit or need to use some weapon power, you can generally get it back if you want to farm items.
At the end of this stage, with a scenic view of the Earth behind you, Mega Man and Wily face off one more time. Wily is in his trusty space pod, but this time there are two of them. So, it’s the same kind of battle as Mega Man 7 but there are now 2 Wilys to deal with? This is going to be hard! Well…not quite. For one, Mega Man is in low gravity and so he can jump higher, avoiding most of the attacks that Wily throws at him. Secondly, Wily’s attacks are more predictable and not as random as in Mega Man 7. Thirdly, Mega Man’s weapons actually do a nice amount of damage to Wily.
All in all, pretty easy fights for this penultimate outing in the main Mega Man series.
Overall Thoughts 🤔
Mega Man 10 is another solid entry in the Mega Man series. It has great level design, wonderful stage music and a neat - if silly - story about machines catching a cold. Mega Man 10 released in 2010 and we didn’t get another entry in the series for 8 long years (more on Mega Man 11 later). I believe Mega Man: Dual Override is going to be the next game in the series canonically but I expect it to be quite different from what we got with Mega Man 9 and 10 (and even 11).
Where Can I Play This? 🕹️
Pretty much the only way to play Mega Man 10 today is through the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2. The good news is that that collection is available on all modern platforms either through direct release or backward compatibility.
I played Mega Man 10 via the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2. I beat the game and destroy Wily again x 10.
Up Next 📅
Dipping back into the Final Fantasy series with Final Fantasy VI (or Final Fantasy III depending on who you are and where you live) for the SNES!