March 6, 2010

Severe Lack of Old Skool Cred

I’ve been playing a bit of Mega Man 10. Is that surprising? Not really, especially considering how many points I still have from that Pepsi promotion. I’ve beaten a few robot masters, and a full write-up will probably come at some point. One thing is for certain, though.

I suck at video games.

I owned Mega Man 2 and 3 as a child. I couldn’t beat them consistently, perse, but I could get really damn close most of the time.
When Mega Man 9 came out, I played it and tried it. It was really hard to me. I eventually beat a majority of robot masters, but never got close to beating it. It was too hard for me.
When they announced that Mega Man 10 would have an easy mode, I was excited. Finally, I could just enjoy the retro goodness!

I still die all the time.

There are two modes of “easy.” One is the actual Easy mode, which adds platforms over many bottomless pits and spikes so you have less random deaths. The other is picking Protoman over Mega Man, who can use the slide, charged mega buster, and has a shield to block projectiles. I’m doing both of them, and I’m still dying to pits, platforming segments, and bosses.

It’s honestly just kind of sad.

I know that, in general, all that matters is if I am having fun. And I’m having a good time, sure. No worries. But goodness, especially compared to the people on Talking Time, which are probably destroying the game with their eyes closed on one life at this point, I feel kind of inadequate. That hasn’t stopped me from switching most games I play to easy nowadays, and it won’t in the future. It’s just… especially obvious on games like these, which are so much like hard games I used to not have a lot of problems with.

Yeah, I suck. I admit it. There you go.

You know, I always found Megaman to be a lot harder than other generic Nintendo platformers. I mean, I’m hell on wheels in your average Metroidvania game, but every Megaman ever will always kick my ass.

Therefore, I have decided that it’s not my fault; it’s Megaman’s fault.

Comment by Cris — March 6, 2010 @ 1:02 am

It’s funny, because I feel the same way. My younger brother, who is severely autistic, is somewhat of a savant when it comes to the Mega Man series. The releases of the games serve as markers of my childhood because the only reason we ever bought any game systems were for his therapeutic benefit, and Mega Man was one of the few series that he latched onto.

I used to be able to beat the games, but MM9 was just too much. It made me feel so ashamed. It’s probably why I don’t actually go to the actual games section of Talking Time all that often — in the end, I’m really not much of a gamer as far as skill, and I can’t help but feel small around a lot of them. Hand me a rhythm-action game, however, and I’ll usually be able to hold my own.

Comment by Luana — March 7, 2010 @ 2:45 pm

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