Rockman 8: Metaru hîrôzu

Mega Man 8 is a game released in the U.S. in 1997, which marked the Mega Man series' tenth anniversary. It would also mark the last game in the classic Mega Man series, as Capcom would focus on the Mega Man X series, as well as Mega Man Legends, with Mega Man 9 not being made until 12 years later.

In this game, Dr. Wily is back, and this time, he has found evil energy that crashed on his secret island base, just as Mega Man is investigating it on the orders of Dr. Light. Now Mega Man must stop Dr. Wily's plot to use the evil energy, which powers his new robot masters, and a mysterious robot found at the crash site, eventually teaming up with a alien robot named Duo.

Yeah, the game is basically the same as all the others, but Capcom did try to add some variety to each stage, like Tengu Man's stage having a segment where you ride on Rush Jet, and Frost Man's stage having snowboarding segments. Also, bolts are hidden through the stages other than the Wily ones, and when collected, can be exchanged for items that will enhance your skills (one will increase weapon energy, while another allows you to prevent being knocked back when hit).

However, the game does have flaws. Some areas can be extremely difficult (especially the snowboarding segments of Frost Man's stage, which have signals that require you to jump or slide, with the jumping parts requiring good timing to land safely), and the game does have FMV cutscenes, but the English dubbing is by far one of the worst my ears heard (especially Dr. Light pronouncing Dr. Wily as "Dr. Wahwee", which has become a sort of joke on the internet).

"Mega Man 8" was made in 1997 commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Mega Man franchise. This game is pretty much the same: Defeat the 8 robot leaders, and defeat Dr. Wiley again. The game's premise is pretty much the same, but in this game Mega Man can acquire special weapons like a laser beam (for an example) that he can use. I think the Mega Ball weapon is cool too. But overall, the game offers very little.

Mega Man 1-6 were definitive NES staples; anyone who owned an NES HAD to have at least one Mega Man game. That being said, it was basically a case of "if you've played one game, you've played them all", but this wasn't always the case with the first 6 games. They were all very entertaining in their own way, despite the similar approaches. The Super NES saw the release of Mega Man 7, Capcom's attempt at keeping the Blue Bomber alive when the NES was buried. This was met with limited success, as the improved graphics, sound, and delivery was a bit harder to swallow after seeing Mega Man X1 and X2 released a year or so earlier, but in it's own way was fun and worth another shot. With the release of Mega Man X4, Capcom took the original Mega Man to the PS1 and Sega Saturn with Mega Man 8, basically re-using the same cast and approach for a new title. Mega Man 8, though offering nothing truly new to the series, was in itself an entertaining, two-dimensional romp into Mega Man's old 8/16-bit world. No epic characters, no full-on 3D insanity, no problematic drudgery that dogs many new titles nowadays; just pure escapism. This time around, an actual storyline was used; two warring robots who descend to Earth, tangling Mega Man and Dr. Wily in their net. As each attempts their own ambitions, other forces are at work, either helping or conspiring against them, played out in the same dramatic anime styles seen on Mega Man X4 (though much less seriously). Mega Man 8 took this story into Mega Man's standard, "if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it" 2D style as if it never left. The only real issues I found with this game was, outside of some bothersome loading times, the game itself played a bit too slowly. Most Mega Man titles zipped by with a modicum of speed, not so with Mega Man 8 (except for a couple scenes of rapid snow-boarding action in Frost Man's stage). Standard walking and sliding were slowed down. Also, a few of the bosses seem a little thrown together, as if the makers didn't have that many ideas flying around (Search Man and Frost Man come to mind, with the latter being a slight rip-off of X4's Frost Walrus). However, whatever down-sides there are are overlooked by the game's colorful and action-packed delivery. I can say that this game also has a LOT more enemies in the stages than any of the other Mega Man titles I'd seen. They sometimes overwhelm. So in the end, while not being the most innovative, Mega Man 8 doesn't disappoint in delivering Mega Man the way the fans wanted. Very well done indeed.