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Mega Man 10 Game Review

Mega Man 10 is a 2008 platform video game developed by Capcom for the Wii among other platforms. It is the tenth numbered entry in the mainline Mega Man series.

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“I guess I’m not powerful enough to defeat him“

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This game was released on various consoles, but I played the WiiWare version myself on the trusted Dolphin emulator. Coming in after the success of the ninth entry, this game had a lot to prove, but ultimately it came out rather disappointing. It’s a solid and expectedly diverting gaming experience, but it’s one of the lesser Mega Man games due to its lack of originality.

In terms of the plot, this is another standard entry in the series that is somewhat differentiated with the addition of this robot virus storyline. This plot was okay, though it was odd seeing robots get infected with a virus. This entry was also plagued with an overreliance on box dialogue that was only serviceable at the end of the day.

The gameplay remained exactly the same with this installment as it was with its predecessor. There are once again eight robot masters to destroy and you can again do it in whichever order you like. Then, the fortress levels conclude the game with the eight robots returning as consecutive bosses and the final boss having three forms as always. It’s all the same formula that still works well, but a few tweaks and new additions would have made it more exciting.

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I did not play with Proto Man myself, but it was great that he was added as a possible choice for the entire playthrough. The included special stages and the additional gameplay modes were also nice and refreshing, but I personally did not care to play those myself, so I cannot comment upon them more insightfully.

As is usually the case with the later entries in the franchise, the stages in Mega Man 10 are much less interesting than the bosses themselves, though there is some level design variety present in a couple of stages, most notably the train sections were very interesting and quite demanding in difficulty. The sand stage was also very authentic in the sand storm areas that were surprisingly unique and fun to play.

Sheep Man isn’t too difficult to defeat as he only uses a couple of moves that are rather easy to evade. Similar to this one is Commando Man, a boss that is simplistic and not too hard to get through. Pump Man is a lot of fun. It’s rather hard to beat this boss without the special weapon, but to me the game is always much more entertaining to play with the regular Mega Buster, which is why I pursued that path for myself most of the time.

Nitro Man is too difficult and not in a good way as you cannot really predict his moves or where his weapons will go, making it difficult to beat him even with a special weapon. I did not like this fight at all. Chill Man is quite fun and it’s difficult enough that it’s a solid, but not too annoying of a challenge.

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Blade Man is my favorite of the eight Robot Masters. He acts like a spider or a ninja in his moves that include jumping diagonally all over the screen. Killing him involved careful memorization and that process was very rewarding. Solar Man is annoying in his overly powered attacks and only possible to finish off with the water weapon. Strike Man is forgettable and rather easy.

Crab Puncher is pretty good as one of the last bosses. It requires a lot of jumping back and forth and careful planning to beat him, but it’s manageable nonetheless. Block Devil I strongly disliked as I’ve never cared for this type of Mega Man boss. It felt too random and just not as fun to play. Both Wily Machine No. 10 and Wily Capsule disappointed me. They are solid, but surprisingly normal in difficulty when I am used to these two final battles being extremely hard. I expected more.

There are two sets of bosses that are mini-bosses spread around different levels. One involves this machine that spews out little machines, all containing different movesets. These were pretty fun and were actually more interesting than the main bosses. Same praise should be directed toward those sets of fire birds. These are so much fun to play against and rather resilient, leading to surprisingly prolonged battles.

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Graphically speaking, Mega Man 10 is more of the same. This old-fashioned 8-bit style made for a charmingly retro experience, but even though the bosses and stages are well designed, nothing here was authentic in any shape or form. It’s more of the same. The score fared even worse as it is surprisingly devoid of any memorable themes, which is a rarity for this franchise.