deKay's Gaming Diary

Firstly, I should come clean and say that I completed Mega Man 10 on it’s first-for-a-Mega Man-game Easy Mode. It adds barriers to stop you falling down some holes and removes some of the enemies.

Not that it was a walk in the park. There were still a few difficult bosses, tricky sections with spikes to avoid, and some pixel-perfect jumps to manage, but still – it was waaaay easier than Mega Man 9, which I never did complete.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mega Man 10 was released on Wii Ware yesterday, and having loved the new-retro MM9, I leapt on it. Unsurprisingly, it’s more of the same stuff Mega Man 1 to 9 gave us, but that matters not. It’s great old fashioned platforming, the sort you don’t get any more. Er, except for 9, of course. And Castlevania Rebirth. Um.

After completing it, I went and tried some of the challenges (complete special stages with certain weapons, or with limitations on your abilities), then started the game again as the slightly gimped Proto Man.

I downloaded the Proto Man and Endless Mode content for this during the week, but didn’t really get a chance to try it out until today.

Endless Mode is great. You get random sections of the game, tweaked a bit, one after another with no break, one life, and no shop. The idea is to get as far as you can without dying, with your record recorded in number of rooms. I managed 24. The current online leaderboard says the person at number one has managed over 3900. So… no chance of me even nearing that, then.

Proto Man is just Mega Man in a different suit. Or so I thought, until I realised he has a useless slide move, and takes twice as much damage as Mega Man. Needless to say, I was rubbish with him.

I was very pleased with myself when I managed to get past the magma on Dr Wily’s level, only to find I hadn’t – I needed to pass it again in a different way shortly afterwards. And, of course, I couldn’t. Gah!

JEWEL MAN BEATENED!

PLUG MAN KILLEDED!

Hurrah! Of course, now I have to kill Smarmy Smiley Dr Wily. Or even just get to him, as his fortress is clearly impossible to penetrate, what with the magma streams you can’t get through. Gah!

OH I AM BEST NOW!

Not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR bosses defeated today! First up was Splash Woman, who was very easy to get to (but quite hard to defeat). Then came Concrete Man, who was both tricky to reach and hard to kill – until I used Splash Woman’s weapon on him.

Next came Hornet Man, who was a nightmare to reach (that flower clock bit was a real pain) but was killed on my second attempt – partly due to Splash Woman’s weapon again, but also because I’d found there’s a shop so had half-damage and health filling power-ups.

Finally, Magma Man, who was really easy to reach, and with Tornado Man’s power you can blow his flame out making him a walkover. I killed him first time.

Jewel Man and Plug Man, however, remain impossible.

Grrr! I got to Concrete Man (after finally figuring out how to defeat the Evil Elephants without dying), but he’s too hard. Neither of the boss weapons I have are effective against him, and it’s all to easy for him to turn me to stone, then jump on my head, then shoulder-charge me, wiping out half my energy in one go. Gah.

I beat another boss! After $hlmun attempts at Tornado Man’s level, I finally got to the boss. Then promptly lost all bar one of my lives, before managing to beat him on my final life with just two bars of energy left. Phew!

Oh, and Galaxy Man’s weapon on him is more than useless.

Hardest. Game. Ever!

Tried to get to Tornado Man today. Failed. Lots. Bah.

So! Very! Hard!

I know Mega Man games are supposed to be hard, but this? This is impossible. Maybe. I did, after many, many attempts, manage to beat Galaxy Man. Actually beating him wasn’t an issue – I did it first attempt. No, the difficulty was getting to him in the first place. Hard? Like a diamond.

Yes, I know I bought the Wii version this morning. I just thought I’d try it and see how it fares on the 360.

Of course, it’s virtually identical. I’m glad I did buy the Wii version though, as the 360′s pad isn’t designed for digital control – the dpad is in the wrong place, and the stick has too much dead-area. As well as that, the added XBLA bits on the menu break the retro-game illusion too.

With Xbox Live down, the 360 dpad being crap, and Nintendo finally announcing that from next year you can store downloaded Wii games on an SD card, I bought this.

And oh my god is it hard.

After many failed attempts at all of the first four stages, I gave up (for now). It’s a bloody nightmare!