Mega Man 11 (for PlayStation 4) Preview

Mega Man (Rockman in Japan) is one of the all-time classic video game characters.

Since 1987, he's been in dozens of video games, including 10 main "Mega Man" games and loads of spin-offs.

Capcom has put him on the backburner for a few years, though, doing little directly with Mega Man or any of his spin-off series besides releasing Legacy Collections since Mega Man 10 in 2010.

He's returning in Mega Man 11, the first new main series Mega Man game in nearly a decade.

This $29.99 Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC game comes out in October, but I got to try it out at E3 2018.

It features 3D graphics and Mega Man gets some interesting new tools, but what I've played so far still looks and feels like a proper Mega Man game.

Move Like Mega Man

Mega Man's core abilities are all here.

He mostly runs, jumps, and shoots, as he has since the first Mega Man game.

He can slide under gaps and enemy attacks by pressing down and jump at the same time, as he's been able to do since Mega Man 3.

He can charge his Mega Buster for a more powerful shot by holding down the attack button, as he's been able to do since Mega Man 4.

His robot dog Rush (who also debuted in Mega Man 3) also returns with his signature Rush Coil skill that lets him serve as a springboard so Mega Man can jump higher.

This time he's easier to summon, appearing and disappearing with a button press instead of selecting him like a separate weapon or item.

Jumping on Rush Coil still uses Rush's energy as if he was a weapon, so you can't simply use Rush as a permanent high jump for Mega Man; he should be used judiciously.

Some of the more esoteric abilities added to Mega Man's repertoire from Mega Man 6 and onward are absent.

He doesn't have the Rush Adaptor to give him a jetpack or a powered punch, and he doesn't have the Mega Ball to kick into enemies.

I saw collectible nuts (metal, not snack) in the demo, which indicate that some upgrades and extra items can be bought between levels from a store.

The newest trick in Mega Man's arsenal is the Double Gear system, which is the most significant shake-up to his skills since he could charge his Mega Buster.

Regardless of Mega Man's active weapon, he has a separate Gear energy bar he can use with the left and right bumpers.

Holding the left bumper down spends Gear energy to power up his shots further, letting them break through armor.

Holding the right bumper down uses Gear energy to slow down time, letting him get through obstacles and fight enemies that are otherwise too fast to avoid or attack.

The Double Gear system is a big change, effectively giving Mega Man limited bullet-time at the push of a button.

The levels I played were clearly designed around the Double Gear system, with lasers that were unavoidable and spinning barriers there were impenetrable without slowing down time.

Certain enemies were also built around the Double Gear powered shot, requiring me to use a gear-enhanced blast to break through armor and destroy robots quicker.

The gear-powered shot can greatly change the pace of certain levels.

A classic Mega Man enemy, the Met, has an indestructible hard hat that requires waiting for its head to pop up before you can damage it, and avoid its attack in the process.

Regular and charged shots don't affect the hat, but a gear-enhanced shot destroys it easily.

Mega Man has always been about carefully waiting for the right time to attack, and spending gear energy to simply break through is an interesting new ability.

Gear energy slowly regenerates as you use it, but you can refresh it by picking up gear-shaped items that drop from enemies.

The energy drains quickly when you activate either gear power, so you can't use it for every problem.

On the flip side, when Mega Man's health is in critical condition, you can press both bumpers at the same time to activate both gears in an emergency mode to get through difficult spots.

These are a lot of things to juggle when running through levels, and if enough enemies are built around requiring using the Double Gear system, it could make the game feel more complicated than a Mega Man game should.

I saw a few hints of this fighting a mini-boss that felt like it took too many hits to destroy, but otherwise the system felt unobtrusive when I played through the demo levels.

3D Graphics and 2D Platforming

While the action is two-dimensional like classic Mega Man games, the graphics are fully 3D like Mega Man X7 and X8 and the attempted spiritual successor to the series, Mighty No.

9.

The later Mega Man X games and Mighty No.

9 both suffered from awkward design choices that lost some of the personality of their origin series.

Their 3D graphics also made platforming feel less precise than the sprite-based Mega Man and Mega Man X games.

Fortunately, those problems don't seem nearly as apparent in Mega Man 11.

Despite the 3D graphics, Mega Man 11 looks like a proper Mega Man game.

Mega Man looks on-model, easily recognizable as the same robot we've watched in 10 previous Mega Man games' gameplay, cutscenes, and (with a few early exceptions) box art.

Classic enemies and stage elements look exactly as they should, keeping their decades-old designs and proportions while transitioning to clean, colorful 3D graphics.

The change feels more like the evolution of the sprite-based Mario games to New Super Mario Bros.

than the lurch from Mega Man X6 to Mega Man X7.

It also feels like more than a sprite remix of the 8-bit Mega Man games, like Mega Man 9 and 10 were.

Mega Man takes a step forward instead of staying in its comfortable, decades-old sprite-based form.

More importantly, movement and hit detection feels accurate, even with 3D models.

Mega Man has a very clear hit box for both avoiding enemy attacks and landing on platforms, and he moves with a precision that keeps the feeling of classic Mega Man games.

Keeping precise platforming while moving to 3D graphics is very difficult, and Mega Man 11 seems to make the leap much better than the Mega Man X games.

E3 2018 Demo

The E3 demo let me play through two levels: Fuse Man's stage and Block Man's stage.

Fuse Man's stage is electricity-themed, with electrified walls and lasers that fire as they run over them.

Block Man's stage is a factory or mining facility, with conveyor belts and giant stone blocks.

Both stages were pleasantly challenging in the Normal difficulty setting.

Enemies and hazards were constantly present but not overwhelming, and several tricky sections required me to muster some actual platforming skill to get to the next checkpoint without dying from damage or falling into a pit.

Fuse Man's stage in particular forced me to get used to slowing time down to get through lasers on conveyor belts.

I fought through most of both stages, but was only able to get to the end of Fuse Man's stage and fight him (I died too many times in Block Man's stage and ran out of time in the demo).

Fuse Man is an electric boss who can send sparks running along the floor and teleport directly above Mega Man for a rapid, wide-area attack.

Like most Mega Man bosses, Fuse Man's manageable once you learn the patterns of his attacks, but his teleporting downward stab is tricky to avoid.

If your timing isn't perfect, you're better off saving your gear energy to slow down time before he drops, to slide out of range of the electric blast he creates when he lands.

Mega Man's Coming Back

Mega Man 11 feels like a return to form for the Blue Bomber.

He's taken a long sabbatical, but now he's coming back with a new game that looks modern and plays classic.

The two stages I played feels like proper Mega Man stages, and Mega Man looks and moves like Mega Man should.

The Double Gear system is an interesting addition, but it might add a few too many extra tools for Mega Man to juggle when getting through levels.

Still, it's a step forward that keeps that Mega Man flavor and doesn't simply look like a retread.

We'll take a closer look at Mega Man's comeback when the game launches this October.