Play as Mega Man in his 11th installment of the series as he does battle with evil robots’ masters, take their powers and goingafter Dr. Wily. In this classic update with new graphics, sounds, online leaderboards, time trials and other game modes for the Mega Man series.
General Gameplay
At its core this is still the same Mega Man since 1987 when it made its introduction to the NES. The concepts are the same, play as Mega Man go to different stages styled as the robot master that controls it, defeat them, take their powers and go after the next ones. This is the same style of gameplay that made the series a classic. The Game Visuals are fantastic where everything from the level of detail is very high resolution to see on the screen. If anything, this is one of the best-looking Mega Man games in recent time. From Mega Man, to backgrounds, enemies, robot masters and everything in between is shown on the screen with incredible detail and can be easily seen. The game does not support any type of colorblind mode and it is not needed as the game colors are very bright and vivid. The game is in 4K for the Xbox One X, and PlayStation 4 Pro gamers out there and Mega Man 11 take full advantage of the processing power to showcase the game graphics. In our playtesting, we did not encounter anything that would be offensive to younger gamers as most of the action on the screen is very cartoon style in its presentation. The only issue that arise in the review was that there would be some action on the screen that would get to visually overwhelming, but this was a minor issue that did not affect gameplay. The Audio in Mega Man 11 is done very well. As you would expect in the Mega Man series all the sound effects from the Mega Man’s blaster to enemy sounds, even down to the voice over acting for all the characters from Mega Man, Dr. Wily, the evil robots and other supporting cast is presented very well. The game is in 5.1 surround sounds for those gamers that have a surround sound setup, Mega Man 11 sounds great and you feel right into the action. In our playtesting we did not encounter anything in the audio that would be too much for younger gamers, if anything the game is done like a cartoon episode with no language what so ever. There was no foul language in the game spoken dialog and that everything was family friendly. The Controls for the game are done as previous games in the series. There is the attack button, a jump button, and buttons to switch out special abilities and you can use the right thumb stick to choose defeated robot masters abilities in the game. For those that are used to the Mega Man games the controls are the same as before, for newer games the game controls are set up to be more towards the action/platformer style of gameplay. In our testing, outside of veteran Mega Man players, newer players were able to use the controls without any problems. The setup was easy for most gamers to get used to switching out abilities and play without any interruption. The game does not require a need of a special controller so the default controller if fine to use for the game.
“Mega Man 11 is a fantastic and must have game for any Mega Man fan in your gaming family, however as the difficulty of the game will make casual gamers shy away from it”
Family Friendly
You are asking why such a fair rating for a game that is reviewed as being a great game, and we will cover this in a second, but let me tell you a tale of two different gamers for a game. As the game is a Mega Man title and it is the same formula as before games in the series. However, in our playtesting we saw something that concern us and even some of our game testers that are veteran to the series, the AI and level AI. Now those that have played Mega Man games in the past are aware of how difficult the game can get from level to level and this is nothing new to Mega Man 11 but where this was a major concern was for even the casual settings, a setting that is meant to be very easy for newer gamers to break into the Mega Man universe is suppose to be forgiving to newer players and it is not. Now to the credit of Capcom the game does give you infinite lives and certain power ups to make it easy but when we were playtesting the game with newer gamers and our special needs gamers, they were getting frustrated with the game AI and some level designs where the gamer was punished for not getting the platforming or chase scene right. Again, for veteran gamers this is a normal formula for level design for a game series like this, however for a newer gamer this can be a very frustrating for them. In our playtesting we saw our testers get frustrated with the game and even at times we had to turn off the game and switch to another game. Even some of our testers that are veteran of the Mega Man series (including myself) saw some areas of the game that were just to hard for a newer gamer to pass, even with infinite life’s in their playthrough. Now again this is a major thing that we saw as the level of frustration that was setting in after multiple attempts was something that we could not ignore. To say that Mega Man 11 is a bad game would be a wrong review, if anything in my personal opinion it is one of the best Mega Man games that I have seen in a long while, however as the review is aimed for all family members to be able to play and enjoy the game, it is hard to give it a higher review as these faults in the game are the most concerning. If anything, we would highly recommend the game to any Mega Man fan but best as a rental or trying the demo for non-hardcore Mega Man fans. In our special needs game testing, outside of the concerns laid out in the review there was nothing that we encountered in the game graphics, sound, or controls. The game is beautiful to look at and all of our special need’s gamers loved seeing the game in motion.
Closing
Mega Man 11 does everything right for those that love the Mega Man series. However cheap deaths, unbalanced AI, levels can make it harder for newer gamers to play the game. This is a game more for veterans and fan of the series.
