In 1987, company Capcom was creating ideas for a new company mascot.  At the time, the only games they made was ports of their arcade games.  They brought in young blood to help design their mascot in the form of Akira Kitamura, and Keiji Inafune.  Thus Rockman was created, however the U.S. side of Capcom didn't like the name Rockman and changed it for American audiences to Mega Man.  For 30 years he's been the front runner of Capcom, along with franchises like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Devil May Cry.  However after the release of 2010s Mega Man 10, Keiji Inafune left Capcom, and for the past 8 years their hasn't been a new Mega Man game. Until now.

2015 saw the release of the Mega Man Legacy Collection, a compilation of Mega Man 1-6, with some bonus features, on modern platforms.  2 years later they released the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 which included Mega Man 7-10.  With the rerelease of the entire Mega Man series on modern platforms, it'd be foolish to not think they had something in mind for the blue bomber.  To the joy of many, on October 2, the long awaited Mega Man 11 was released.           

Mega Man 11 starts out with a difficulty select, which seems common for todays standards, however would you beleive this is only the third time a classic Mega Man game has had a difficulty select.  Newcomer gives you infinate lives and plentyful checkpoints, casual gives you 5 lives at the start and plentyful checkpoints, normal only gives you 3 lives and maybe only 2 checkpoints per stage, and superhero is normal, but the bosses do more powerful attacks, you take more damage, and enemies no longer drop health or weapon ammo.  For my first run, I beat the game on normal, then beat it again on superhero.           

At first glance for a person who has played any of the classic Mega Man games, 11 might look familier to you, and thats because it is.  Everything you'd expect from a Mega Man game up to this point is here.  8 new Robot Masters whos weapon you gain upon defeating them, which can also be used as a weakness against other Robot Masters.  There's a shop where you can buy powerups to make traversing a stage easier, along with lives, E-Tanks, W-Tanks, and the M-Tank.  You can slide by holding down and pressing jump, or for the first time ever, can map slide to a seperate button, and you can charge your normal buster shot to 2 different levels.  Once all 8 Robot Masters are defeated, you go through 4 Dr. Wily castle stages which will put your skills to the test.

Mega Man has always had an element of rock, paper scissors when it comes to finding out what Robot Master is weak against what weapon.  Starting with Mega Man 3, they started to get confusing with the weakness order.  I'm happy to say Mega Man 11 can be figured out rather easily.  Its logigical things like, the ice weapon is good against the fire boss, and the fire weapon is used against the bomb boss, and the bomb weapon can be used against the rock boss, and so on.

What does Mega Man 11 do thats new for the franchise?  The biggest selling point of Mega Man 11 is the Double Gear system.  Using the L and R buttons, or whatever you map them to,  you can either slow down time, or increase the power to your weapons, including giving you a third level of the charged up buster shot.  The double gear system does have its own meter which us constantly increasing while in use.  It'll decrease when not in use.  However if you fill up the guage all the way, the decrease time will double and you won't be able to use either gear.  I really like the double gear system and thinks it adds a lot to the gameplay.  I'd love to see it return in future games.           

Another small detail Mega Man 11 adds that I rather like is that when you get a new weapon, and you equip said weapon, it'll change your helmet and mega buster.  In previous games, when you equipped a weapon, it'd only change Mega Man's color pallette.  Instead of being blue, he'd be grey, or green.  Adding that little detail though seems really cool to me, and gives each weapon a more distinct look so it can't be confused with other weapons.             

Another thing I'd like to praise is that the weapons in this game are all really fun and practical to use.  With the exceptions of Mega Man 2 and 9, most Mega Man games have weapons that really are not useful in the stages, and only end up being used as the bosses weakness.  In this game however, I found myself using most, if not all the weapons at somepoint in the game.  When using the power gear, some of the weapons become overpowered.     

With all of the praises I'm singing to Mega Man 11, you might be thinking that I think this is a perfect game.  Not so.  My biggest complaint with Mega Man 11 is that the stages are too long.  In a standard mega man game a stage might last 3 minutes at most.  There are stages in Mega Man 11 that have lasted me up to 9 minutes.  With limited check points in normal and superhero mode, it's really disheartning to die near the end of the stage and get sent 2-3 minutes back.  What's even worse is when you lose all your lives and have to go to the begining of the stage.

  Another complaint I have is with the sound design.  Mega Man games are known for their catchy stage music that really get you in the mood for the stage you're about to go through.  The music in Mega Man 11 isn't bad, Concrete Man stage being the stand out track and the most memorable.  Every other song though, I couldn't hum if you asked.  It might be better if the sound effects weren't so loud.  I'd recommend turning that down some in the settings.      

Overall, Mega Man 11 is a great time.  The controls are as tight and responsive as ever,  the Robot Masters are fun to fight as well as having some really fun weapons, the stages, though a little to long, are still alot of fun, and well designed with memorable set pieces, and the double gear system adds a layer of gameplay that I really enjoy.  Highly recommend to play it on either casual or normal.  Mega Man 11 is available on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.