9 was a major let down, in my opinion. Let's get that out there. Opinion. Got it? Okay.
That said, it completely infuriated me. It ignores the evolution of Mega Man to pander to a vocal minority. If I wanna play Mega Man 2, I'll play Mega Man 2, not a bad knock off. Stage design was also shoddy and it felt more often than not that the challenge came not from actual difficulty, but how many things they could throw at you at once. And spikes. Spikes [tornado fang]ing everywhere, to a ridiculous degree.
Overall agreed. 9 spends way too much time (and too many jingles) pretending it's 2, has entirely too many blindsided deaths (those helicopter claws do not belong anywhere near spikes), and those stupid potted plant missiles that laugh at your inability to gain any additional speed over your basic walk. Plus the game is over-dependent on Auto's shop, as there are virtually no pickup items.
I have to say, after all of that, 10 surprised me. I was expecting more of the same, but they clearly took the level design (and the sound) up a notch. And even though Rock still can't slide (boo), the MMK weapons give him something unique to the others. 10 isn't perfect, but it's an infinitely better game than 9.
I dont see why I would care if they played the same at all. The novelty is in the character you are playing as, not the way they play.
This, this, this, and this. Ruling out the cancellation of Legends 3 for a moment, quite possibly the next most infuriating thing that I can hear from a game developer is "we know players wanted such-and-such a character, but we didn't include them because we couldn't make them different enough". To someone who killed Mario off when he couldn't find a second person to play SMB3/SMW, that is the entirely wrong thing to say.
I'm also inclined to agree with giving ProtoMan the whole PU charged shot (but no boss-flinching, that's overkill)/MM7 shield approach. It would make him strong enough to justify his lack of defense. Another shield idea might be to not have it activate automatically at all. He could guard when you press down on the D-Pad. Could even give him a shield-dash instead of a slide, like in Power Fighters.
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