The game has been out for a bit now, so I think it would be good to give it a quick evaluation. Overall, I think it does sit with some of the best Mega Man games. I wouldn't rank it higher than MM4, my favorite and the one I think is the best, and probably not even above MM9 as of right now, but the fact that I'm comparing it with those games means that it sits with good company.
The positives? There are a lot. Most aspects of the game were handled very well, and there are only a small handful of things that irk me. The stage design, boss fights, weapons, and gears are really good, and those are the essential fundamentals of a good Mega Man game. The stages are really long, definitely the longest of the series since each stage has an additional checkpoint, but I think I do like this decision because all of the stages are very well put together. The boss fights now use the double gear system, which in general makes the boss fights more fun, but I have always been skeptical of boss fights that take too long in a series like classic Mega Man. The weapons are really useful on their own, but having the power gear to upgrade them makes them some of the most practical and fun to use weapons in the whole series. The double gear system is a ton of fun to use and fits in perfectly with the game's design. The speed gear is useful in almost every situation. The power gear is great with the weapons, but its usefulness is iffy with only the buster. I've been experimenting using the power gear with the buster more often, and I think it's good when charged, but pretty ineffective with just the pellets.
My BIGGEST complaint with the game is the end. The first two Wily stages are awesome; the first is ridiculously difficult, but a lot of fun, and the second is just a good, standard fortress stage. It kind of falls apart from there, though. The third stage is just boss refights. The fourth stage was basically just the final boss fight, with a little bit of lead in. This is really disappointing because: a) every Wily stage had been really good up to this point, b) the game has made an effort to make every stage really long up to this point, so the last two being this short just feels jarring, and c) there are only four fortress stages in this game, and every other game that had only four fortress stages had an actual level for the third fortress stage. Another flaw is with the controls. This doesn't happen often, but if you turn around and attempt to jump at the same time, it won't register the jump input. This doesn't trip you up too often, but when it
does at the worst time, it feels stupid.
The music is fine. My favorites are the Wily Stage theme, Fuse Man's theme, and Acid Man's theme. Everything beyond those songs are either good or average. A nice thing I can say about the soundtrack is that even though there aren't a ton of stand-out songs, none of them are bad. Even some of my favorite Mega Man soundtracks (MM&B, MM5) have songs I don't like. I'm not a huge fan of the instrumentation in MM11, though. It's serviceable, but it's comprised of mostly generic synths, which makes a lot of the songs interchangeable and blend together. Compare this to Mighty No. 9, a game whose soundtrack uses primarily synth instruments, but has a good variety of them, and also isn't afraid to use more traditional instruments like guitars and pianos (this is the only aspect of MN9 that I will give over MM11
). My opinion on the game's graphics hasn't really changed since I first talked about them. They're fine. I like the character and enemy models along with the particle effects, but despite the backgrounds being decently well detailed, they never stood out to me much.
OVERALL? If you like Mega Man, you should definitely get this game. If you want to get into Mega Man, this is not a bad place to start, especially because of the various difficulty settings. If you aren't much of a fan of Mega Man, this will definitely not change your mind on the series.
