Mega Man 10
What a massive disappointment. While Mega Man 9 felt like a labor of love from a team dedicated to bring Mega Man back to its roots, Mega Man 10 feels like an insult. With stupid Robot Masters, horrible weapon selection and an extremely bland set of levels, Mega Man 10 is a bore. In fact, the design is so lame and lazy that Capcom even goes as far as ripping off an older Robot Master, Turbo Man, with the creation of the much lamer Nitro Man. The entire affair screams of bad ideas and laziness. Fortunately, it does not reach the lows of Mega Man 6 or 8, and there is coherence to the level design compared to the theme of their Robot Master. Well, except Sheep Mans stage, which to this day I am still struggling to figure out.
This all said, the soundtrack is a very slight improvement over Mega Man 9, even if at times it feels a little too overdramatic. Although much of the music is wildly inconsistent, such as Solar Mans badass intro being ruined by an insanely annoying guitar impression, or the first 40 seconds of Blade Mans stage music being an incoherent mess, followed by a wonderful chorus. Its a mess, but when its good, its much better than Mega Man 9 overall, even if it does not reach the highs of Galaxy Man.
There is also a really cool challenge feature which puts you through little challenge mini-rooms such as making it through a room without getting hit. This was done in Mega Man Powered Up, and it was better there, but its really nice to see that really cool feature back in the series. Unfortunately, it does not save the entirety of Mega Man 10 from being anything other than extremely mediocre. If this is what the series became even with Inafune in the mix, I do not want to see what a Mega Man 11 would be like without him overseeing the project.
Grade: C
On a side note, and completely unrelated to the games quality, when the game was released, I always found the game to be immensely depressing. Specifically starting with the first Wily Stage, I always found there to be an odd sense of finality in the entire game, as though this was the final battle between Mega Man and Dr. Wily. The throw backs to old school Mega Man bosses, the dramatic, final battle sounding stage theme and more just screamed to me that this was, in fact, the final battle between Mega Man and Dr. Wily. Little did I know that this would quite possibly be the final true Mega Man title in quite awhile. With the information we know about the Mega Man franchise today, and with the cancellations of Mega Man Universe, Mega Man Legends 3 and Rockman Online, I cant help but look back at Mega Man 10 as something special. It might not be a great Mega Man title, it is a great game compared to most, and the fact that it elicits such feelings in me such as this says a lot about the quality and the amount of love I have for this franchise.