Mega Man 8: A Review

Mega Man 8 was the first Mega Man game in the classic series in the series timeline not made with Nintendo. It is available on the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation. A funny story about this game was that I didn’t know it happened until I got it years back. That meant that there was a Mega Man 7, which surprised me and I had for some time assumed that it ended at Mega Man 6 while Capcom was putting more focus on the Mega Man X series. Well, anyway this one was different and was I guess historic in not having a classic Mega Man game made for a Nintendo system.

My only gripe with this would be the voice acting to a degree. I did not have a problem with Dr. Wily, Bass, Roll, Proto Man or Duo’s but there were two that could have been better honestly. I felt Mega Man’s voice was just out of place and Dr. Light sounded like he had trouble with his l’s and having them like W’s. I am not kidding on this as you can listen for yourself on that. To be honest, it’s fine to have animated cut scenes but if you’re going to have some pretty decent voice actors, it would be better.

Anyway, let’s get to the plot of this story. It takes place sometime in the past where Duo is fighting Evil Energy. Obviously, this as first doesn’t seem like a Mega Man game but it does tie into it. You meet Duo, whom is on a quest to rid the world of evil energy. Of course, by now you know what Mega Man must do, the same thing that he does all the time, stop Wily from winning. There is only one palace and a mid stage between the first four and last four robot masters. I should also point out that this one doesn’t require a password to be saved. In fact, it uses a memory card and there is a difference between the Saturn and PS1 versions.

In the Saturn Versions, there are bonus battles with Cut Man and Wood Man whilst the PlayStation version doesn’t have that at all. I only have the PlayStation version however and don’t own a Sega Saturn but that’s another story for another time. Those are just bonus battles and that’s about it.

The way the boss battles are set up would be that you would be facing off with four robot masters each located in a part of the world. This was different as you didn’t use a world map and there’s always an area to go back to the intro level and of course there’s Dr. Light’s lab. Look below that and you see a World icon and can go to the other four robot masters but that’s only after completing the first four of course.

There is the mid-stage with Duo and it’s not too hard once you figure out Duo’s pattern. He doesn’t know if you are good or not and then finds out and it leads to a cut scene. After all of that, you face the rest of the robot masters and then get ready to go to Dr. Wily’s castle. Like Mega Man 7, there isn’t another palace to go to before the ultimate battle.

There is another difference as there are 39 bolts from what I counted in this game and can only buy limited items. It’s a bit of a downgrade and makes bolt hunting seem like a challenge to say the least. There are items like the laser shot, exit button, arrow shot, and others. You also have a limited usage of Rush and don’t use it much except for the Rush cycle, Rush Bomb, Rush Charge, and Rush Item/Search.

After you defeat Dr. Wily, you get a little reference to how Wily always apologizes and it’s the same thing over and over. This time however the evil energy gets inside Mega Man and I don’t know if anyone caught it or not but did Dr. Wily look somewhat concerned? I mean it’s not a big deal but just an observation. Then you get an animated ending and then there goes the credits with robot master drawings.

As far as what did I think of this game, outside of some of the voice acting, the game play itself made up for it overall. While it isn’t better than the NES Mega Man games, this one is acceptable again if you can get past the voice acting. If you’re going to do animated cut scenes, that’s fine but don’t screw it up. This isn’t better than the other Mega Man games but probably for Hardcore Mega Man fans. By that I mean, the ones that like Mega Man that much and would play it and probably enjoy it so there’s no confusion. The closest outside of the actual game I believe is the Anniversary Collection and this is not likely to get a Virtual Console release. I’d say if you can look past some of the cut scenes, then this game will work out for you just fine.