@zeroraveson: Same here. Sure some of the challenges are major pains but the game isnt very hard.

Jindujun

There can be a sense of triumph, yes, or a lot of broken controllers. I just hate it when a game decides to go from 'hard' to 'cheap'. I'm sure the Angry Videogame Nerd has a lot of great examples on how a game can go from hard to downright cheap, frustrating, and a myriad of other things that makes you wanna take a band saw to the game.

Salen

MM9 was a lot easier than I expected.

But then again, maybe I'm just remembering the difficulty of the old MM games through the eyes of an elementary school kid.

zeroraveson

Mega Man 9 is friggin' frustrating. MM 1-3 don't even compare to it in difficulty! Been throwing my wiimote around for a couple of days now, always ending in a press of a powerbutton.. :D I need practise!

apemon

Crap. Sorry. I thought my first comment got eaten.

DarthVegan

I think it has to do with proper game design.

Link to the Past and the Phoenix Wright titles have that "a-ha" moment, where you "get it," making you feel like you are rather brilliant. It's the proper way of presenting a challenge, inviting you to keep trying, rather than just making it difficult to hide crappy gameplay design.

DarthVegan

I only lasted for 31 minutes on mega man 9 before I gave up.

I don't mind challenges, but thats not a challenge, thats just not fun.

I hadn't played any of the previous mega man games so I guess I wasn't prepared.

aden.exe

I think it has to do something with good game design.

I play a crappy game that is difficult, due to either design or incompetence, then I stop playing.

But if I play something clever like Link to the Past or a Phoenix Wright title, there's an unspoken element of feeling proud of yourself when you "get it." It's the proper presentation of a challenge rather than "just making it hard."

DarthVegan

@StormdragonBlue: No, I think you might have had it right the first time.

Gossy

I think the only Mega Mans(men?) I ever beat were 2, X, and X5. Rest I just couldn't beat with my skills (or patience) back then. I'll probably get 9 just because I can turn on the system and have it right there to play. You know, without having to blow into cartridges or setup RF adapters.

wolfeditor

Ikaruga, re-released in April for Microsoft Xbox's Live Arcade, is so tough that some fans post their best performances on YouTube.

Um…Jamin, that is hardly a unique phenomenon - people do this for most games where you are judged on your performance these days, with games that are really considered to rather casual such as Boom Blox, Guitar Hero 3 and Wii Sports.

lighten up, morrissey

Can't wait for my dosage of Mega Man 9 =D Even if it's difficult. Then again, Duke Nukem 3D is taking me 30mins at a time to complete a level...

infestedDemon

@Reetesh: It wouldn't be the first time ether. Back in the NES days Castlevania 3 was made quite a lot harder compared to the Japanese version.

I never understand why they do that myself.

StormdragonBlue

@theblur3419: Have to blow stuff to advance? Sounds like certain people in management positions...

Reilaos~

Mega Man 9 is ridiculously difficult. I downloaded the demo and I don't know if I made it even halfway through the stage. Mega Man 2 was probably the biggest game I played on the NES but playing 9 took away any nostalgia I might have had for those 8-bit days.

Leftoverz

lol! I meant KICK it's ass :P Talk about a horrible typo.

StormdragonBlue

Actually I always considered the NES slowdown at times to be a life saver. Especially on hard moments you get just that little bit of extra time analyzing the situation and make the right decision. Or if it does kill you gave you a bit more insight.

Megaman 9 been awesome to me. Beating the stages and bosses makes you feel great. The game has a lot of moments that just make me say out loud how pure evil it is but in a good way. No matter what they'll do to you you'll kiss it's ass eventually!

StormdragonBlue

@Kenofthedead: yeah, Same doubt here, coz the Japanese version was nothing that hard.

Reetesh

I hear alot of people say that Mega Man 9 is hard or even too hard but come on. Have gamers really stooped so low that they cant handle a game with a challenge nowadays?

Jindujun

Yeah, that sure is the biggest factor why People play hard games..
I just completed the Demo of MM9, and did the way how I figured out how to cross half of the game (cross the 3 elephants) without getting hurt in under 5 continues, made me extremely happy!

But WoW, the "challenges" in the challenge list are a bit ridiculous, I have no idea who will do it, and if they do, capcom should give some kind of prize! Just look at those challenges, they are pretty crazy for anyone.

Reetesh

Well also games are so much easier now than they were then that hard games are rare and thus have a sort of marketing appeal that normal games don't.

Also, at least with mega man here, it has to have been a pretty damn cheap game to make (it looks it anyway)

Mahale

Just played mega man x for the first time. Was elated when I finished.
I am now onto Ultimate Ghosts and Goblins... Not too sure I'll be able to deal with that.

Demonbird

This just in: people feel a sense of accomplishment when overcoming something that they'd been having a hard time with! News at 11!

There's a balance, you need to make a game hard enough to get people snagged, but not so frustrating that people quit all together. People need that glimmer of hope.

Balius

Games are supposed to be hard, otherwise it's no fun playing them because you won't feel satisfied when beating them.

zigurat

The sense of triumph you get beating a really great but hard game is brilliant!

Or maybe we just love punishment? That would explain my dominatrix fetish

excel_excel

I keep hearing Bangai-O spirits is extremely tough or impossible, and so forth. Did they increase the difficulty from the Japanese version to Western version?

Kenofthedead

Some of these "hard" games aren't that hard, but when I do beat them, I still feel jubilant. I just can't hide my joy when I triumph over that cartridge I just blew to make work.

theblur3419

@Jindujun: I think that people have become used to being able to aim their gun in more than 2 directions. I certainly have, and replaying some of the NES Mega Man titles recently took a heck of a time getting used to.

Actaeus

@Jindujun: Yes. Basically.

Games like Mega Man 9 are challenging, not impossible, it isn't like a Final Fantasy 12 where you just breeze through and finish it without really trying, just enjoying the ride. This actually takes a bit of effort compared to that.

Ashura

@Reilaos~: badumpcha

theblur3419

My friends and followers....let me be (hopefully) the 1st one to tell you...that there is no greater rush ...than beating a robot master in Mega Man 9 in a nail biter.

I'm talkin' when the game is brand new, and you REFUSE to peek online for clues as to who to go for 1st. So you pick one, and that stage just kicks your ass. So, you end up trying them all, and finally decide on the one that seems to agree with you the most.

So for a while, the stage is wearing you out. Cheap deaths. Spikes you couldn't have possibly avoided unless you knew they were gonna be there. Then finally, after all of this trial, error, skill and pure luck, you finally get to the boss.

Just you, him, and your trusty Mega Buster. Mano e Mano. Near the end, it looks like...

Him = little health. You = a little less than that. I mean, it's where it could go either way, and somehow, he doesn't break pattern and you GIT 'EM!!

WHOOOOOO!!

TAKE THAT MAGMA MAN!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!

^_^

It's the best feeling ever! It's like a warm fuzzy that won't quit! All of your synapses are firing and the europhia won't STOP! THIS is WHY I PLAY VIDEOGAMES!!

Knoxximus (XBL/PSN)

Well, determination and minor success every so often is certainly what got me through I Wanna Be the Guy. I haven't played a game tougher then that one.

I'm looking forward to the release of Mega Man 9 this week on xbla. If it's really that tough it should be quite the challenge.

Sir_Crocidile

Anyone else notice this new little trend of intentionally 'crippling' a game to make it feel more natural to the original players? The slowdown and whatnot.

Happened with Starfox 64 on the Wii also. People complained they didn't like the new steady-frames-per-second version, so Ninny patched the lag back in. This time, with Megaman 9, they made it part of the gameplay right off the bat.

I rather like it, personally. Makes me feel more at home with the games. But I can see where it would lose the business of new players who weren't around for the original.

I've already had people over at my house before who didn't like MM9, and pointed out how they hated all the flashing and slowing, when it was a 'new game'.

Komrade_Kayce

It all comes down to the fact that gamers today expect to beat a game within 3-4 days. The ending is a right. If they don't get it? It's the game's fault and it's "broken". 20 years ago we didn't have that kind of ADD because we weren't inundated with games vying for our attention.

I suck terribly at Mega Man 9, yet I'm having a great time hammering away at it. I almost forgot what it was like to have to remember patterns while inching forward a little bit each time. The trick is monogamy, not freakishly unrealistic skills. Hang in there for a few days like you don't have 15 other games on the backlog. That's how it worked when we were kids and that's how it works today.

You don't have to be particularly talented. You just have to be tenacious.

futurebiblehero

@Knoxximus (XBL/PSN): EVERYONE READ THIS POST!!

dowingba

Harder usually just means that I won't be able to beat it. I don't have the free time to donate hours to playing one level dozens of times.

TSlade

@Komrade_Kayce: Well you can turn it off in the options. Problem solved.

Roto13

@Jindujun: Have you played the game? It's damn hard. In fact, Ninja Gaiden (NES) is often considered one of the hardest games; but in my opinion, Mega Man 9 is way harder. Most people also agree that this is one of the hardest Mega Man games, and Mega Man is a series renowned for its difficulty.

dowingba

was bangai o spirits too easy for any one else?

francoamerica

@Ashura: Oh, Final Fantasy XII has some challenging parts. It's harder than Final Fantasy X, anyway.

Roto13

i didnt play megaman 9 yet but the harder games i have played are fun to get though esspecially with friends

Anitoon

When I was 9 my dad used to beat some NES games that are a lot harder than most games of today. Now nearly 20 years later he doesn't even want to look at a controller.

I tell him: "You'll be fine, games are a lot easier now", then he tells me: "You call THAT easy? There are too many buttons, I even had trouble memorizing 2 buttons back then."

TheContender

@StormdragonBlue: I think what they mean is that the slow down is kept to allow more complex levels and a lot of shots/enemies on screen. In SHMUPS that's been the trend over the years: make the games barely playable on the hardware at hand so when enemies abound the player has enough time to look around and find scape routes.
rRooTage is a great example of this philosophy, if you want to explore it.

EloraHRanma

@DarthVegan: Exactly! Hard due to unfair situations, crappy hit boxes, lousy controls or deus ex machina/insta-death machineries is stupid and time consuming. So is having to repeat stupid levels and cut-scenes one time after another.

Currently I have 3 challenges: Perfecting the Bionic Commando Rearmed challenge rooms, Mass Effect playthrough on Insane and Bioshock on hard without using vita chambers.
BC:Rearmed is awesome. It's annoying having to do the challenge rooms 200 times to get those 5 stars or the eagle rating, but it's perfecting the timing, the moves, etc. Mass Effect and Bioshock on the other hand are plain stupid, since the only thing that makes them harder are mobs that take a million hits to die, deal out massive damage that almost kills you instantly and you have to do a lot more hit and run tactics. So the games are not harder per sé, they're just longer and way more annoying.

Poison

@Leftoverz: It actually... (the demo) wasn't that hard... like.... at all... The first couple of times yeah but...

Glass_bomb

@Komrade_Kayce: I think I should sort of be required, specifically if the intent is to re-release a classic game or create a new game heavily based in the old style.

Technology has a huge effect on how hard or easy things are. Everything now can be tweaked and modified to various configurations and sensitivities... to the point where one combination will give you an edge that will allow you to blaze through a game.

Sometimes the only way to maintain the quality and authenticity is to keep the features that were once considered flaws.

ChaoticInfinityX

@Reetesh: Oh, really? I'm so hardcore, I already got one- beat 100 enemies.
Of course, this is due to how often I died, and had to replay the very first level, but still!

Okay, they're obscene

Ad-hominem

I love Bangai-O in general. Spirits was actually better than I thought it would be...the work around Treasure came up with for multi-direction shooting was brilliant, and the special weapon charge mechanic augmented the classic timing based it always had, rather than replacing it, so that was a pleasant surprise. It wasn't gimped at all I felt.

As far as difficulty goes...since I cut my teeth on the Dreamcast version so many moons ago, I knew what I was getting into. It is a BLAST! Plus all of those user created levels? I'll be playing this game forever!

Oh, and those who don't know, IGN had a contest for actual industry game designers/programmers to create the best Bangai-O stage.

Here's the link!

[ds.ign.com]

Awesome stuff! ^_^

Knoxximus (XBL/PSN)

@Salen: Cheap games aren't always bad games... but they suffer from their poor design. A case all to common with everyone rushing their products out well before they've been thoroughly tested.

ChaoticInfinityX

@TSlade: That's exactly what I'm talking about. How is finishing a game that gives you an ending any more rewarding that one that denies you one? Am I growing too old and out of touch on this stuff?

It's hard for me to grasp how a credits roll is a validator for the experience. It's like deciding to play Chess only if you know you're going to win.

futurebiblehero

@dowingba:
Done and done.

misc.insanity

@Knoxximus (XBL/PSN): EXACTLY. For me it was splash woman and an E can.

Ganji

It's one thing for developers to make games that are easy for core gamers and slightly challenging for casual gamers, but I'd hate to see a developer pad the difficulty of a game just for the sake of widening the target audience, especially for a game known for it's difficulty level.

Having not played a true Mega Man game in a while, I found MM9 surprisingly difficult at first and that made me happy. While dying over stupid things like poor timing or taking too many hits wasn't the most pleasant experience, I was definitely inspired to try harder and the payoff makes you feel 10x better. I managed to go from barely clearing any level to having cleared all 8 bosses in a single night (workin on Wily's level atm).

I'll take clearing a challenging and difficult game over some pushover game with a decent story any day.

ChaoticInfinityX

@aden.exe: Give it another try. It must have taken me a good hour to finally crack a boss with the mega buster, and after you get one new weapon, then you can go ahead and use logic/guessing/chance to find the boss weak to it. And if all else fails, farm for screws, get some E-tanks and muscle through the bosses with what you have.

Ganji

@infestedDemon: I had to quit Duke, and really regret the nostalgia factor that led me to buy it. Getting lost in those corridors, everything looks the same... ick.

Castle Crashers to me is the perfect marriage of old-school mechanics with modern graphics, unlockables, etc. I'm currently playing it with my brother online and absolutely loving it. Now if only Konami would release some of those old-school Turtles games on VC or XBLA.

Jonaconda

@Leftoverz:

Really is not that hard. You have to play the level a few times and learn how to fight the different enemies. Once you learn where enemies spawn and timings, you can breeze through it with ease.

The only really hard part in the demo is the 3rd elephant, and that's only because of the pits that you'll accidentally fall into. Man up.

CaptLtrl

@Knoxximus (XBL/PSN):

Full Disclosure: I wrote on the 23rd as a message on my profile for friends/followers and at Wii60 to read...then I remembered that I wasn't that popular so I felt it went unnoticed. So when I saw this topic, I knew I finally had a venue, spruced it up a bit and posted it here. I figured a lot of gamers could relate, and I seemed to have struck that chord.

So thanks everyone for taking the time to read and comment.

Seriously tho, Mega Man 9 is the game you love to hate. I mean, when you finally see the outer gate to a bosses' lair, you literally exhale a sigh of relief or exclaim something like, "I'TS ABOUT FUCKING TIME!!". haha!

Knoxximus (XBL/PSN)

I haven't played Mega Man 9, but from what I've seen, it's easy as pie (that expression makes no sense). Maybe not easy as pie, but at least easy as cake. Compared to previous Mega Man games anyway. I think gamers are just worse now days. They expect to be able to beat any game in 6 to 8 hours, maybe dying a few times, and then move on to the next game. It's no wonder people consider so many games to be hard now when they would only rank average back in the day. Whenever I think a modern game is too hard, I just start up Ninja Gaiden for the NES. Puts things in perspective.

nickymouse

@zeroraveson: Yeah, I don't think it's as hard as some of the older ones. Playing MM2 on the regular difficulty is still pretty insane, and MM1 is ridiculous. I hope Capcom releases MM3-MM6 on Virtual Console.

Wreckoner

@Knoxximus (XBL/PSN): I totally read guides because that's the way I roll (I was never too cool to tackle a game without a stack of Nintendo Powers in front of me), but I agree. Well said.

futurebiblehero

@Poison: There's Bionic Commando, there's Mass Effect and then there's Alone in the Dark 5. It's difficulty is set through bad (horrible) controls (please, fix them for the PC), instant deaths, bad physics implementation...
Balanced, unfair and absurd. Are there other kinds of difficulty?

EloraHRanma

@apemon: See, I found MM2 and MM3 harder than MM9. I've cursed up a good storm playing MM9, but I did it. I still doubt my ability to pass Quickman's stage in MM2 whenever I play it, and I've played it a lot.

Wreckoner

@Reetesh: Yeah, that one achievement, "Clear the game without getting damaged"?! WTF is that?! My roommate and I were deliberating as to how possible that is. Also, the achievement about making sure you never miss with a shot from your Buster?! Insanity.

Wreckoner

@Kenofthedead:
They increased some parts of it. My theory is that people just kind of suck at games now.

nickymouse

I'm pretty sure that it's just to make people feel better when they do the tiniest thing. Ninja Gaiden 2, for example, every time I manage to drag my way from one save point to the next with the luck of not using every one of my recovery items, all my ninpo, and all my exploding weapons, it's a great feeling.

Talleh

@Knoxximus (XBL/PSN): This, my good sir, is worthy of a nomination

Glass_bomb

@Demonbird: Please try the ultimate difficulty before breaking the umd to little pieces with a chainsaw.
At least i could beat the game on standar.. only to find out *spoilers maybe*... i missed several rings and that i needed to restart the game even harder!

Marduk

@Wreckoner: it took me one night to beat MM2 on hard, and three to beat MM9, but I did get the no E/M tank challenge.

Torgen got his apology faceplate but not his fixed GH3 disc

I beat MM9 in 4 hours of game time. I think it was both easier and harder than MM2 and MM3 in various respects. The traps are certainly more frequent and more clever in MM9. They require thought to finish, and come off sometimes as more sophisticated than anything you've seen in MM games past.

MM2 and MM3 take the cake for sheer brutality, though. In MM2, certain sections required just perfect timing. Heat Man's disappearing block puzzle was LONG, Quick Man's laser falls had to be handled just right, and Wily area 2 required you to fall precisely, screen after screen, to avoid instant spike death. MM3 also had the hardest bosses to Buster in the entire series (Shadow Man! arrrghhh!), and sections in the pre-Wily stages that required the Rush powers and didn't give enough refill. If you died ONCE during those sections, you normally didn't have enough weapon energy to make another go at it, and you'd have to game over to try again.

I think MM9 did things right. The puzzles require thought, the bosses have ponder-worthy patterns, and the game requires a fair amount of technical ability. Once you have something figured out, you don't have to worry about total BS like the weapon problem (sections that require weapons to proceed have farming areas beforehand). MM9 is a pure skill fest, testing your abilities in observation and execution, only punishing you when you do something wrong (which can be often). The game definitely lets you know when you're doing a good job, and that gives a hefty sense of accomplishment.

For its balance of play, I say, MM9 deserves recognition as one of the best in the series. Buy it. Play it. Now. What are you doing still reading this?

jmaster14656

@Wreckoner: The buster shot is not as bad as it might seem... you have to be able to complete one level with nothing but the buster, but then you can use (and miss) with special weapons as much as you want. Once you get splash woman's trident, that can almost replace the mega buster.

As far as the "Mr. Perfect" challenge... yeah, it's nightmarish, but not impossible. You can keep trying a stage until you finish it without getting hit, and then save. The real challenge is when you get to the Wily levels... you have to beat those four in a row, since you can't save midway without starting the castle over. I don't think it's been done yet, but I'll bet someone has it done in a week or two, at most.

ninjafetus

Playing the ps2 shin megami games and etrian odyssey I get a great sense of acomplishment and worth beating hard games and I like the challage period.

artraider

I was thinking that they didn't make that many truly hard games any more. It seems that most of the really hardcore games are also the really old school games. Most games today have all the save points and stuff. Hell, I remember even the save codes being difficult. How many times did I meticulously write down a code to a game only find out later that I couldn't tell my 1 from my l or my O from my 0. Damn it!

Eltigro

Overcoming a difficult task is fun and kind of the point of the game, but when I play a level 50 times and still can't pass it it is just plain irritating. Developers need to find the balance between passable and hard, so that it doesn't become an infuriating experience.

realjas

@jmaster14656: I'm playing old Mega Man ROMs with my PS3 controller on my computer, as I have "insufficient funds"

Damn me and my not money

Glass_bomb

@excel_excel:
Yeah, Mega Man 9 is brutal. I struggled mightily through the demo level -- loving every minute of it.

SnakesSolids

I am going to have to say that Mega Man 9 is a challenging game, not necessarily a hard one. After knowing the patterns of an enemy robot master or the layout of a level, it becomes a breeze. I beat MM9 my second time in under the 60 minute mark simply because it had already become second nature. The first time however, clocked me in at almost 4 hours. Jewel Man can die with his momentum propelled platforms that lead directly into inconveniently located spikes.

GKFinns

I agree that Mega Man 9's difficulty is right in the league of other old school classics such as Contra, Ninja Gaiden, and Battletoads. I also would like to put out an interesting thought for whomever is interested to discuss. Nowadays such games that possess ridiculously insane amounts of difficulty and require a certain degree of such as Ninja Gaiden II and Halo 3 (multiplayer for the most part), we find ourselves cursing out to the nth degree only to find ourselves playing them more and more and MORE until we've had our fill of anal rapeage and proceed onto our next challenging feat. Now, amongst yourselves I ask you...Why do we do this? Is it for the inevitable defeat, or a sense of prolonged victory down the road? I personally am baffled by this, and cannot construe a formidable answer. Hopefully some of you can enlighten this subject.

acez2087

I've gamed all my life so many games that are more difficult to other players will be easier for me. Because of that I need a difficult game in order to challenge me. That and I've acquired a hell of a lot of patience over the years.

Diamondblade

I totally agree with the nail bitter moments that make the game.. I think some of the new players play it for maybe 60 mins and die about 30 times and just give up and really lose out on what the game is all about.. I downloaded the game the other day and watch my friends kids play it and didn't like it. Then after I went through about 4 robot masters they where hooked seeing some one that can handle a NES style controller. I'm about 3 or so hours in and on the first part of the last part.. I tell you what I might be stuck on the second magma flow section.

xpnet

what is the appeal of a really hard game?

well, think of it like this... hockey is a game, how hard is it to play in the NHL?

and yet, don't all hockey players aspire to play in the NHL?

i think the point is that it takes REAL skill... to beat a really really hard game. it takes a LOT of practice, but once you learn those skills, in that world, you are amazing.

i enjoy the game N (and more recently N+)... and that game takes a LOT of work to master... and even still i've seen replays of people so much better than i am at it. i think that although some of the levels in that game are incredibly tough, i enjoy the frustration of their difficulty by feeling the drive to improve my reflexes, knowing that if i just play the game right, i will be able to beat the level. and i always end up beating the levels, which is enough to make me play it again later.

so, i guess why tough video games are played is the drive to truly acquire skill at a masterful level. to achieve something great.

joeloliol

@nickymouse: I think it was originally 'easy as eating a piece of pie'. And got shortened because it was too hard to say. (ironic)

Ganji

Mega Man 9 didn't give me much trouble ..although I have yet to sit down and go through all of the Wily part xD
Sooooo....once I do that I'll be a master haha.

evilralphwiggum

@Kenofthedead: Interestingly enough, they did that with the first release of Devil May Cry 3. When it was brought over to the US, the JP version's Hard mode was the NA version's Normal mode, which meant that you started the game 3 hits away from death. Maybe Bangai-O's the same way.

GhostWhoWalks

It boggles my mind at how some people are having such a hard time with Mega Man 9. I got through it in a few hours, and I thought that i was slow at beating it, only to find that most people haven't even gotten past all of the Robot Masters yet.

Bururian

@GKFinns: "Jewel Man can die with his momentum propelled platforms that lead directly into inconveniently located spikes."
I still haven't even reached that boss (and had 3 Game Overs in the process) due to that! frustrating.

Alex_Mexico

Baseball bat makes Bangai-O Spirits easy.

YuniYoshi

@infestedDemon: With that Snake avatar one would think you would have MM9 on PS3 or at least Wii, lol. Waiting for the 360 version on Wednesday, huh?

topic: I just bought it today from the PS Store and Im having a blast. At least 2 bosses (Splash and specially Galaxyman) were very easy.
The stages? lol, those were HARD. All of them.

Alex_Mexico

@Sir_Crocidile: I really dont want to sound like a hater or troll but Good Luck playing this hard-as-nails retro game on the 360's D-pad. Hopefully you can adjust yourself to the thumbstick (hard for me in these kinds of games) or have a 3rd party controller in hand.

Alex_Mexico

@DarthVegan:

That is the exact reason why I love to play the Phoenix Wright games. Sure, it's fun having your reflexes and skills put to the test in most games, but games that reward a person for using their head are few and far between. Whenever I'm looking for a contradiction I always make sure that I KNOW why I'm selecting a particular answer. No process of elimination for me.

Zack & Wiki is by far the best mental beat down I've ever had in a game. No other game has made me feel like a complete moron, but it's that feeling that makes solving the puzzles all the more satisfying. I love how it records the time for your first completion so you can see that it took you 1-3 hours to figure out a stage. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering I never used the Oracle and I never checked for answers online :).

golguin

Okay this may be a tiny bit off topic but--what the heck is a videogame "researcher" and why is he at MIT? Do they even have programs where you "research" videogames there? WHERE DO I SIGN??

Back on topic: One cannot have a "reward" without a "challenge," it seems fairly obvious to me. If you're given "rewards" without a "challenge," it's no longer a reward at that point...it's a useless gift.

EloquentZen

"'It's not just difficult for difficulty's sake,' says the game's producer Hironobu Takeshita."

I take issue with that. :P

Oh, I can get through it, sure. I've been playing Mega Man games for the last fifteen years. I got through the lunacy of X6 and X7, after all. But Mega Man 9 is often difficult for all the wrong reasons. Specifically, you have wildly unbalanced stages. The stages of Galaxy, Concrete and Splash are a breeze. But Tornado and Plug are off the charts.

If I had to pinpoint a reason, I would say it's because some Inti designers don't know how to restrain themselves. Consider that Plug Man's stage is almost entirely built of vanishing blocks. You never saw this many vanishing blocks (or this many ways of foiling the Rush Jet) in the other NES games. At the very most, this was reserved for the castle stages. Likewise, in Tornado Man's stage, is it not enough to have the pushing rain once? We have to do it twice, in the opposite direction? Again, save that for the castle. You don't need to use every single permutation in a single stage. And you really don't need this many spikes. Good gosh, Mega Man 9 has more spikes per stage than others have across all eight robot masters.

Maybe in weeks I will master it as I have the others, but it bothers me that Mega Man 9 treats every stage as though it was part of Skull Castle.

Kyouryuu

@futurebiblehero: Not a validator for the experience- AN experience. I want to be able to enjoy a story all the way through to the end and see how everything ties up. When you work as much as I do you have little to no free time/energy and I'd rather enjoy a complete story than have a half-way trip through memorization land with cheap-death-man. Just my opinion.

BTW, how'd you know about the chess thing?

TSlade

@Kyouryuu: I feel like something must be wrong with me. I've had more problems with Concrete Man and Splash Woman's stages than anything else.

I beat two others with no problem....

Solaricide

I've never beaten the final form of Sigma in MMX... :(

I have decimated two robot masters in 9 though, the hornet guy and the flame guy. Holy crap, that jump onto the very very edge of a ladder in the magma stage was absurd, but I got it on my first try and died once after the checkpoint. I then cleared the stage mightily.

I'm pretty adept at Ikaruga and I like hard games.

CoD4 is really fun on the harder settings, and RE games play better the harder they get, but I think in recent times "hard" has begun to mean "cheap death" instead of just being a challenge.

Solaricide

i love challenge, so megaman, monster hunter, tekken, and alot more games is always my fist priority when a new one come out. but as for bangai-o-spirit, i cant really stand you lose in 2 second after you start the game =S, may be i should give it a better look

Heartless141

Its true, it really is. I spent days trying to beat Galaxy Man and Splash Woman, and they were the easy stages. I felt like the man when I beat Splash Woman... and it took FIVE E-Tanks to beat her...

There are times when you just want to lose yourself in the game, like Sonic and Mario, but then there are games you just want to piss you off with their difficulty, like Mega Man. Its cathartic to finally beat a level that previously made you smash a controller into the wall.

I'm looking at you, Yellow Devil.

Fats_McRobot

The thing with some of these hard games, there only hard once. I remember the Zero games kicking my ass, now i can blow though them in a day no sweat.

CorinneMaynard