Mega Man 8: Metal Heroes

When I first played Mega Man 8, I hated it.  I was initially put off by the terrible story and laughably bad cutscenes.  I finished it once and didn't pick it up again for a long time.  After a while I picked it up again.   Each time I play this game, I've enjoyed it a bit more each time, and it's actually grown on me.  That's far from saying this game is without its problems.  There's more than a couple of parts in this game that are fucking insane in regards to level design, but the crux of why this game isn't well liked, I believe, has to do, not with Capcom's effort, but with the local teams effort.

This game received some of the shoddiest localization ever seen, and the majority of the problems people seem to have with this game come from Capcom's lack of effort.  I don't expect perfection in translation.  Mistakes happen, Wily gets changed to Wiley, Dr. Light becomes Dr. Right, and Crash Man becomes Clash Man.  Those games however, didn't take the extra steps in production values that this game did, and it feels like the localization team just did not give a shit.  We'll cover where they fucked up later.

This game was released for the Playstation and Sega Saturn.  Rumors hold it that the game was originally only planned for Sega, but Sony demanded to get a version as well so Sega wouldn't have an unfair advantage.  Sony would get really bi-polar here though as SCEA (the US branch of Sony's Playstation department) didn't want Mega Man 8, X3 or X4 because the games were in 2d.  After a threat to not release Resident Evil 2 to the Playstation though, SCEA caved and quit being a bitch about it.  It's alright though, Sony would get their 3D Mega Man game soon.

Their are two versions of this game, the Saturn and the Playstation version.  The Saturn version was released later and contained a number of extras the Playstation didn't, including an art gallery and extra boss fights.  The Anniversary Collection version of Mega Man 8 contains the PSX version, because it was easier to convert, and because PSX version has better compression on the animated cutscenes.  Still, the Saturn version is the one to own, it just requires the rather poor investment of a Sega Saturn to play it (yeah I went there).

New Features

• Fully animated Cutscenes
• The Official introduction of Duo
• Rush, Beat and Eddie have taken different roles here.  Rush no longer has Rush Coil, Rush Jet, Rush Marine or any of that stuff, he'll mostly be used for one thing, healing you up.
• There's no E-Tanks in this game, the reason you will use Rush.
• Mega Man can swim now.  Why didn't Doctor Light install this earlier?

Story
The game begins with two mysterious robots fighting each other in outer space.  Their fight leads them to crash land in to the earth.  Meanwhile, Mega Man and Bass are fighting in the city (typical day in Monsteropolis), when Roll flies in and tells Mega Man it's time for dinner and he'll have to play with Bass again tomorrow.  Actually she tells Mega Man Dr. Light wants him to go check out a strange meteorite that crash landed into the Earth.  Bass gets his buster stuck in a cable (this looks so god awful), and he can't pursue Mega Man.

Mega Man arrives at the beach to check the meteorite, but Dr. Wily got there first, because apparently the meteorite landed by his beach fortress by coincidence.  He takes off with the meteorite, and Mega Man finds a wrecked, but still functional robot.  Dr. Light picks him up and Mega Man goes after Wily.

Wily releases four robot masters, and Mega Man goes after them.  After defeating them, he finds a strange energy source upon them.  He takes these energies back to Dr. Light, who has finished repairing the robot.  The robot wakes up, flips out and smashes through the ceiling and runs off.  "Awftah him Mega Mahn. He culd be danjawus!" says Dr. Light, and Mega Man takes off on Rush.

Mega Man catches up with him, and the Robot tells him not to interfere with his mission, then they fight.  "I sense a strong amount of justice with in you" says the robot, then he takes off.  His justice radar must have been on the fritz, since he didn't bother trying to talk to Mega Man in the first place.  Proto Man shows up and tells Mega Man to watch his back.  Thanks for the useless advice Proto Man!

Mega Man comes upon Wily's tower and gets ambushed by a giant robot.  Wily nearly destroys Mega Man, when the mysterious Robot shows up and saves him at the last second.  He introduces himself as Duo, a member of the Intergalactic Space Police thing.  He's on a mission to eradicate something known as Evil Energy, which he followed to the Planet Earth.  Dr. Wily got a hold of it and fused his robots with it.  Now, Duo needs to get into Wily's tower to get the last of the Evil Energy, unfortunately the Tower is sealed by a force field.  He tells Mega Man he'll have to disable it so they can get in.  Yeah, thanks for not helping Duo, you worthless piece of shit.

To disable the force field, Mega has to go after four more robot masters.  Taking them out, the force field goes down, and Mega Man and Duo enter the tower.  In the tower, Mega Man comes across Bass, who fuses himself with the evil energy to defeat Mega Man.  Of course this doesn't work, and Mega Man basically calls Bass his bitch and moves on to Wily.  That's right Bass, eat it.

Wily charges a large cannon at Mega Man, but Duo shows up and destroys it.  Unfortunately, he's spent his energy and Proto Man gets him out of there.  Mega Man and Wily have their battle, but Mega Man gets consumed by the Evil Energy.   Duo gets him out of there, and says to an unconscious Mega Man that he's dying.  He extracts the Evil Energy from Mega Man, and says he'll be alright now.  He leaves Mega Man to Proto Man and takes off.

Mega Man wakes up in Dr. Light's lab, and they tell him Proto Man wants to talk to him.  Proto Man tells Mega Man that Duo wanted to thank him.  Mega Man smiles looking at the sky and says "Me too. Thank you Duo."  Credits roll.

This is the worst Mega Man story ever, and that's quite an accomplishment considering how terrible some of these stories are.  Don't let it hold you back too far, the game is still decently fun.

Aesthetics
Mega Man has been upgraded to 32-bit graphics, and given some fully animated cutscenes as well.  In game everything is very well detailed and much shinier than previous games.  The sprites have all been shrunk down a little, dealing with one of the major complaints of 7 in the area of screen real estate.

The bosses and the stages all look great, each presenting a variety of environments and gimmicks.  The bosses are designed well enough to give off their personality in the relatively little time you actually face them.  Definitely a step from some of the previous games.

The animated cutscenes have their strong points and bad ones.   In general the animations alright, if a bit typical for anime.  You know, weird ass camera angels covering up two frames of animation, a picture being panned across with those streaking background lines, lots of the screen flashing.  The extra effort is appreciated to attempt to give Mega Man an interesting story. bad as it is.

One scene that looks horrible, is the scene where Bass gets his buster stuck in a wire, oh it looks horrible, and makes Bass look like a gigantic pussy.  Another weird thing is that all the characters have had some slight redesigns for this game.  Mega Man is a bit lankier than we're used to and a bit less cartoony.  Compare these animations to Super Adventure Rockman, and you'll see what I mean.  It's not horrible, but I prefer Mega's traditional look.

Sound
Let's talk about the good things first.   I really like the music in this game.  While not as good as previous entries, it has its own nice flow and it is a pretty mellow track.  It's extremely ambient, and easy going, but fits the mood of the levels it presents.  The sound effects are pretty good too, Proto Man's whistle is fantastic.  These are the in game things.

The animated cutscenes however... fuck...

Let's start with the voice overs, they're horrible.  Normally I'm not one to get all in a tizzy about dubs, and complain that everything not from the "glorious land of Nippon" is inferior, and generally I don't give a shit about small deviations from the source material, but this is fucking terrible.

First there's Mega Man's voice.   He sounds like a little girl and younger than he looks.  His shrill voice might just pierce your ears the first time you hear them, and he's the best voice actor in this game.  All the other voice actors just sound completely bored, and not at all in to their character.  Then there's Dr. Light, who makes Elemer Fudd sound like an English professor.  "Megah Mahn, you must stahp doctah wahwee!"

As bad as the voice actors are, you can hardly even hear them most of the time.  The audio levels are so off in this game, the only way to hear them is to turn up the volume has high as possible, then cover your ears for when Mega Man is speaking, because he'll be as loud as fuck compared to everyone else.   The original Japanese version is much, much, much better than this shit in regards to quality, and it's obvious the localization team just did not give a fuck.

I mean, I understand changing the J-pop introduction song.  Not being Japanese, I can't say I care for "Electronic Communication" Mega Man theme, and the translation comes out to near complete gibberish (although the rhythm is a bit catchy).  I understand that doesn't work for an American audience, and I am glad they didn't just subtitle the whole thing, but put some fucking effort into the dubbing!  God damn!

Mega Man's voice will carry with him to in the game, but you'll get used to it after a while.  It doesn't bother me near as much as it used to.  I still hate the animated scenes though.

Design
Mega Man 8 has a lot of ideas put in to it.   Some work decently well.  Sword Man's stage has some teleports that lead to various trials requiring the first four robots weapons.  Aqua Man's stage is mostly water as you would naturally think, but it has a really kick ass mini-boss fight down a waterfall.

Other stages suck.  Astro Man's is a maze.  Note to aspiring game designers, Mazes SUCK.  Frost Man has one of the most infamous levels in all of the Mega Man games.  Basically you ride a snow board, and a message pops up telling you to Jump or Slide.  This section will take you ages the first time you play it, and you have to do two of them this level, and then again on Wily 1, which is even harder.  This is the bane of many players.

The design went a bit different with the weapons this time.  Since most weapons through out the series have been getting more and more useless as the series went on, these weapons are decidedly less combat related.  Just about every weapon has a side benefit of exploration added.  Tornado Hold helps you jump higher, Thunder Claw allows you to swing across platforms, Astro Crush opens up new areas.  This method of design keeps the weapons from being wasted slots in your select screen, without making something game breaking.  You'll mostly use your buster for the majority of combat, but that's ok this time, as the upgrades to the buster are just fucking awesome.

Dr. Light's lab has Mega Man collecting bolts again, but this time there is a fixed number of 40 of them.  There are 17 total upgrades you can buy, but you can only hold a max of 8, and some times you can't even afford that.  However, you can power up the buster to be a real monster, to the point where you won't want to switch weapons.  Back tracking is required to get all the bolts, but depending on how you play, it's probably unnecessary.  I wish you could buy all the items, but it does give you a reason to go back and try new things.

Even though the tough parts of the game are so difficult it's asinine, I like the design overall.  It pulls the game past its flaws, that mostly exist from a low effort localization team.

Playability
Mega Man moves a bit slower and slides that way too, even with the upgrade to his slide.   Watch out on the snow boarding sections, some of the jumps reeeeeally need you to make the most out of it by jumping as far to the right of the screen as possible.  Other than that you should have no problems.

Extras

• Boss order:   I wouldn't worry about back tracking in this game as much as the other ones.  Start with Tengu Man. His weakness is a pain in the ass to hit him with anyway, so it won't be a big deal to use the charge shot on him.  Then go Clown Man, Grenade Man and then Frost Man.  Round 2, I like to start with Astro Man, but some people have trouble with him so you might consider Aqua Man instead.  My order is Astro Man, Aqua Man, Sword Man then Search Man.
• You can use the Mega Ball to jump higher.  Just shoot it at the apex of your jump and move Mega into it.  Use this to get through Astro Man's maze about a million times quicker.
• In Duo's stage, there is a ladder at the start.  Use the Mega Ball or Tornado Hold to get up there.  There are bolts up there, and Cut Man if you have the Saturn version.

It's a good game with it's flaws, but cutscenes are skippable, and those annoying snow boarding sections do get easier with practice.  It's better than Mega Man 7, and tries new things with the series.  The biggest problems the game media has with it, is that it's another Mega Man sequel, but you know what?  It's still a decent addition, and it's aged a bit better compared to a lot of other similar platformers around the same time.

Playthroughs
Speedrun by Patrik 'Cremator' Salonen