More than eight long years after Mega Man 10 was released for the Wii, PlayStation 3,
and Xbox 360, the beloved Blue Bomber is finally stepping back into the spotlight later this
year on October 2nd, when Mega Man 11 is scheduled to release on all current-generation platforms.
That’s right: not only was I fortunate enough for Capcom to invite me to their offices last
week to get some early hands-on time with Mega Man 11, they were armed with a release
date almost as soon as I walked in the door!
Unfortunately, while this October 2nd release date was supposed to remain a secret and I
was excited to start this preview with such an exciting morsel of information, PlayStation
Singapore had other plans and accidentally leaked the date — as well as some basic
gameplay details — a few days ago.
If you familiarized yourself with those basic gameplay details, then you may have already
heard of the “Double Gear System” that plays such a key role in every aspect of Mega
Man’s latest adventure.
Indeed, it’s that same Double Gear System that governs those mysterious new red and
blue gears that can be seen underneath Mega Man’s life bar in the reveal trailer for
Mega Man 11.
But now that I’ve gone hands-on with two full stages from the game, I can finally go
into detail about how those gears work.
But let’s back up a bit.
As little as Capcom has revealed about Mega Man 11’s gameplay or lineup of Robot Masters
so far, they’ve said even less about its story, so let’s start there.
As it turns out, the Double Gear System is the long-forgotten subject of research Dr.
Light and Dr. Wily did during their days at university together, way before Rock was even
a glint in Dr. Light’s eye.
However, because any robot that utilizes the Double Gear System must be overclocked beyond
their normal limits in order to handle it, it was ultimately deemed to be too risky to
use for the obvious dangers it posed to robotkind.
Of course, Dr. Wily — fresh off of yet another defeat at Mega Man’s hands — recalls this
research and decides to use it toward the creation of a brand-new batch of overclocked
Robot Masters equipped with the Double Gear System.
As you might expect, Dr. Light soon realizes that overclocking Mega Man and equipping him
with the Double Gear System is the only way the Blue Bomber will have a chance at putting
a stop to Wily’s latest attempt at world domination.
Naturally, Dr. Light is hesitant to do this because of the dangers posed to his beloved
creation, but Mega Man, ever the self-sacrificer, is having none of that: if there are innocent
people in need of protection, he’s ready to do whatever it takes to save the day.
And thus the stage is set for the Blue Bomber’s latest adventure.
But only super diehard Mega Man fans like myself care about the story — and indeed,
one of the Capcom reps I spoke to said that even though the story plays a more prominent
role here in Mega Man 11 than it did in 9 and 10, neither should we necessarily expect
a significant amount of narrative focus.
Which brings us to the most important question of all: how does it feel to actually play
Mega Man 11?
After all, sitting down to play a brand-new, current-generation Mega Man game in 2018 is
not an experience very many of us thought we’d ever have.
On that note, I’m happy to report that Mega Man 11 feels great.
The controls are as immediate and responsive as ever, with Mega Man running, jumping, and
shooting on a dime like he pretty much always has.
If I had to make a general comparison, I would say everything feels a lot — but not exactly
— like Mega Man: Powered Up, which is definitely a good thing by any measure.
And because this is the first and only truly contemporary mainline Mega Man game since
the PS1’s Mega Man 8, Capcom has seen fit to utilize some of the same modern design
sensibilities in order to further streamline Mega Man 11’s controls: for example, Rush
abilities are now assigned to a dedicated button — in my case, the Triangle button
since the demo I played was running on a PS4 — and instead of scrolling between special
weapons using the shoulder buttons, you now select them simply by moving the right analog
stick in one of eight directions.
Speaking of the shoulder buttons, they serve a far more important purpose now: activating
and deactivating the Double Gear System!
I’ve already talked about how the Double Gear System serves as the anchoring point
for Mega Man 11’s story, but it’s also the chief new mechanic that sets Mega Man
11’s gameplay apart from prior entries in the series.
The Double Gear System, represented by the strange, new red and blue gears underneath
Mega Man’s life bar, can temporarily enhance Mega Man’s abilities in one of two different
ways.
The red Power Gear strengthens Mega Man’s buster fire, making his signature Mega Buster
weapon capable of doling out a ton of damage in a short amount of time if you find yourself
in some immediate need of major firepower.
The blue Speed Gear, on the other hand, makes Mega Man so fast that it actually slows down
not just the enemies, but the entire world around him.
This has the obvious effect of slowing down fast enemies and making them more vulnerable,
but it can also make stage hazards like falling blocks, moving platforms, and intermittent
electrical charges easier to deal with.
It’s almost like bullet time that you can activate whenever you want, which is REALLY
cool.
Both of these powers can be switched on or off at will with a press of the left or right
shoulder button, but there is a catch.
Anytime you use either Power or Speed Gear, a red bar appears over Mega Man’s head and
quickly starts filling up.
If this bar fills completely, Mega Man will temporarily overheat and be unable to use
the Double Gear System at all for a short period of time, forcing you to literally switch
gears on the fly.
But the Double Gear System’s impact on gameplay doesn’t end there.
When, and only when Mega Man’s health drops into the critical range, at about 4 ticks
or so, you gain access to a super-powerful Overdrive Mode that is activated by pressing
both shoulder buttons simultaneously.
As you might have guessed, this Overdrive Mode combines the effect of the Power and
Speed Gears, strengthening the Mega Buster while also slowing down everything around
Mega Man.
But it also unlocks a super-powerful charge shot exclusive to Overdrive Mode that can
absolutely tear through anything in your way — including bosses.
But there’s a catch with Overdrive Mode, too.
If the bar above Mega Man’s head fills up completely during Overdrive Mode, Mega Man
will begin sparking and overheat so much that not only is the Double Gear System temporarily
off-limits, even regular charge shots become unusable for awhile, meaning you’re limited
to basic, single-fire buster shots.
And in case you thought Overdrive Mode might magically restore Mega Man’s health, think
again.
On the contrary, Overdrive Mode leaves you with just one tick of health — which may
be manageable in the middle of a stage if you can find a health pickup, but is downright
lethal during boss fights — unless you want to burn an E Tank, that is.
In these ways, the Double Gear System elegantly folds a new element of constant meter management
into Mega Man’s tried-and-true gameplay formula, differentiating Mega Man 11 from
past titles in a genuinely interesting, meaningful way while staying true to the series’ roots.
But it’s not all about the Double Gear System; Mega Man 11 also serves as an important reminder
that Mega Man’s slide and charge shot can coexist with well-balanced difficulty.
Mega Man 9 and 10 removed these options as part of their back-to-basics approach, but
less isn’t always more, and Mega Man 11 proves to be sufficiently challenging while
once again giving Mega Man access to his full repertoire of moves.
And speaking of difficulty, Capcom plans to make Mega Man 11 approachable for players
of all skill levels in the form of four different difficulty settings that change things up
beyond just modified damage values.
For example, the easiest setting — called Newcomer — gives the player unlimited Beat
Calls, ensuring that Mega Man’s faithful bird will swoop in and pull you out of any
pit you may happen to fall into.
As a long-time fan, I defaulted to the Veteran difficulty — the second-hardest setting
— and was met with a stiff challenge that, in true series fashion, lessened considerably
as I became familiar with the ins and outs of the two playable levels and got a feel
for enemy placement and boss patterns.
Speaking of enemies and their placement, the Capcom reps I demoed the game with both confirmed
that one of the development team’s major goals for Mega Man 11 is to actively encourage
players to experiment with the game’s special weapons and not lean too heavily on the Mega
Buster.
I could definitely sense this as I played, but because there were no special weapons
available in the demo I played, I had to settle for brute-forcing my way through with the
Mega Buster while imagining how I might use Block Man and Fuse Man’s weapons to deal
with inconveniently-placed enemies more efficiently.
That’s right, Block Man and Fuse Man are officially the first of Mega Man 11’s Robot
Masters to be fully revealed.
Fans got a sneak peek of Block Man back when Game Informer published their Mega Man 11
cover story, where he was tentatively identified as “Brick Man,” but we now know his real
name as well as how the boss fight against him plays out.
I don’t want to go into too much detail about that since discovering each new Robot
Master and figuring out how best to overcome them is part of the fun of any new Mega Man
game, but suffice to say, one of my very favorite moments of the demo came when Block Man overclocked
himself — or is that overBLOCKED himself?
— and turned into a huge, golem-like monster.
Fuse Man, on the other hand, is an entirely new reveal, with his stage taking place in
what seems to be a power plant or some other electrical facility.
Again, to preserve that joy of discovery for Mega Man fans I’d rather let the footage
speak for itself here rather than provide moment-by-moment details on how I eventually
finished the stage and defeated Fuse Man.
There is one other thing I want to mention about Fuse Man, though — or rather, his
stage.
In a twist, the music for Fuse Man’s stage is the same song that can be heard in Mega
Man 11’s reveal trailer — not an earth-shattering factoid on its own, to be sure, but certainly
an interesting bit of context as Mega Man 11 begins to take shape.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a solid feel for the rest of the music in the demo
I played because the sound effects were so loud, but I will say that nothing I heard
quite grabbed me in the way a Mega Man soundtrack should.
Still, that doesn’t mean a whole lot when the music was so hard to hear in the first
place, so any concern here should be taken with a grain of salt.
One thing that did grab me, though, is just how nice and polished the game looks.
This is definitely not a low-budget effort; Mega Man 11 looks even better now than it
did when we first saw it in the reveal trailer, with the various explosions and hit effects
looking particularly great.
In another cool touch, Mega Man’s shadow is realistically projected against various
background elements, and Mega Man himself looks super cool with his updated design.
Unfortunately his running animation hasn’t changed from the reveal trailer and still
leaves something to be desired, and that’s a minor flaw that I still hope is fixed for
the final game.
Even though it’s past time for me to wrap up this preview, there’s still so much more
I could talk about — such as the surprising confirmation I got that Mega Man 11 will come
with the Japanese voice track included, as well as Evil Eddie.
Yes, you heard me — Evil Eddie, which is not a character I thought I ever wanted or
needed, but my first time encountering him in the demo was a delightful surprise that
left me with a huge smile on my face.
But that’s a topic for another time, and I think the fact that I can’t stop talking
about it just underscores how exciting Mega Man 11 is shaping up to be.
If the two stages I’ve played so far are any indication, long-suffering Mega Man fans
have every reason to be excited for October 2nd.
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