Video Game / Mega Man 9

"My name is Mega Man, and I'm finally out of retirement."^note L-to-R: Galaxy Man, Magma Man, Hornet Man, Splash Woman, Plug Man, Jewel Man, Tornado Man, and Concrete Man

After Mega Man 7, Mega Man 8 and Mega Man & Bass that were featured in 16- and 32-bit graphics, respectively, the ninth installment of the Mega Man (Classic) series saw its return to its 8-bit roots.

Just when people forgot about Dr. Wily, robots all over the world begin going crazy. It soon becomes apparent that these robots were all created by Dr. Light. As phone calls come pouring in to Dr. Light's laboratory, Dr. Wily not only announces that these robotic riots aren't his doing, but shows video evidence that proves Dr. Light's involvement in the recent violent outbreaks. With the world at risk once again and the finger pointed at his creator, Mega Man quickly volunteers to clear Light's name and sets out to investigate the source of the problem.

Robot Masters:

• DLN-065: Concrete Man, weak to Laser Trident, gives Concrete Shot.
• DLN-066: Tornado Man, weak to Plug Ball, gives Tornado Blow.
• DLN-067: Splash Woman, weak to Hornet Chaser, gives the Laser Trident.
• DLN-068: Plug Man, weak to Jewel Satellite, gives Plug Ball.
• DLN-069: Jewel Man, weak to Black Hole Bomb, gives Jewel Satellite.
• DLN-070: Hornet Man, weak to Magma Bazooka, gives the Hornet Chaser.
• DLN-071: Magma Man, weak to Tornado Blow, gives the Magma Bazooka.
• DLN-072: Galaxy Man, weak to Concrete Shot, gives the Black Hole Bomb.

This game is part of Mega Man Legacy Collection 2.

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Tropes:

• American Kirby Is Hardcore: Spoofed here◊ with the virtual box art created in homage to the first two games.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: The most expensive item in the shop, at 200 screws, is an alternate outfit for Roll (who's not even playable this time), changing her into her Mega Man 8 duds.
• Bag of Spilling: Mega Man has lost both his charge and slide abilities in this title. The reason given in-universe is that it's been quite a long time since he last had to fight, implied to be years, lampshading the decade-long hiatus the series had been on.
• Bee-Bee Gun: Hornet Man's Hornet Chaser fires mechanical hornets that home in on enemies, and have the additional use of picking up items and bringing them to Mega Man.
• Blow You Away: The Tornado Blow creates a wind updraft that covers the entire screen. Any enemies it defeats will be blown into the sky.
• Call-Back: During the ending, Mega Man points out all of Dr. Wily's past failures^note Or at least, those of the main console games and Mega Man & Bass, with the Game Boy games and other side games going unmentioned with an 8-bit holographic slide show, in which Dr. Wily is shown to be kneeling for forgiveness over and over and over again.
• Call-Forward:
  • Tornado Man, Magma Man, and Splash Woman are similarly designed to Sage Harupia, Fighting Fefnir, and Fairy Leviathan from the Mega Man Zero Series. ^note  It could likely be speculated that Harupia, Fefnir, and Leviathan were created and based on them via ancient data.
  • Likewise, some of the enemies and bosses are based on or the predecessors of various Sigma Maverick Minions or Neo Arcadia/Wiel robots, such as Bunby Catchers for Sky Claws, the Mega Mech Shark being based on the U-555, the Twin Devil's "eye" resembling the head of a Pantheon similar to the Rainbow Devil, and the Smaplar enemies being based on the MagneMines.
• The Cameo: The woman delivering the news during the opening is Chun-Li from the Street Fighter series.
• Cassandra Truth: Proto Man attempts to warn Mega Man that the Dr. Light imprisoned in Wily's castle is a robot designed to resemble him and was used to film the news video incriminating him. Mega Man doesn't heed the warning, takes his chances, and pays the price after he is disabled for attempting to rescue the fake Dr. Light, forcing Proto Man to return and bail him out of the castle.
• Challenge Run:
  • Several of the achievements. Want to try beating the game without using any special weapons? How about without shooting anything except bosses and mini-bosses? Without dying? Without getting hit??
  • If you thought the regular game was too easy, there are two extra difficulty levels available via DLC; "Hero Mode", and if that's still not enough, "Superhero Mode".
  • The Book of Hairstyles costs 20 screws and removes Mega Man's helmet, increasing the damage he takes until he dies.
• Charged Attack:
  • The Magma Bazooka can be charged for a more powerful shot.
  • Mega Man himself can no longer charge his Mega Buster, but that function has been given to Proto Man's Proto Buster.
• Chest Monster: The game introduces the Camouflametall enemies, Met-like robots that disguise themselves as 1-Ups.
• Clear Their Name: While Wily does accuse Dr. Light as being responsible for the robot rampage this time, Mega Man and friends don't believe a word of it (probably because of how many times it was Wily's fault all along anyway). Part of Mega Man's stated reason for going back out to stop the Robot Masters again is to get evidence to prove Light's innocence.
• Creative Closing Credits: The end credits feature a slideshow of all of the enemies and Robot Masters by the stages they appear in, and are accompanied by artwork of the Robot Masters hanging out with the main cast.
• Cruel Elephant: Paozo is an elephant robot that appears as a series of mini-bosses in Concrete Man's stage, as well as the Special Stage. It attacks by launching a large ball at Mega Man, then sucking air into its trunk to bring it back, while simultaneously pulling Mega Man toward it. There are two versions of Paozo; the red ball version, which rolls its ball across the floor, and the green ball version, which bounces the ball forward before rolling it on the rebound.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: Dr. Wily tricks the Robot Masters by telling them that their expiration date is approaching. He then offers to protect them from being scrapped in exchange for their loyalty.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the end sequence, Mega Man's palette corresponds with the one used for Wily's weakness (or, in the case of the games like Mega Man 1, one of Wily's weaknesses) in the images shown from Wily's Villains Want Mercy moments from the previous games (except 6, which for whatever reason does not match the Silver Tomahawk palette).
  • Dr. Light's laboratory has the machine which was used to turn Rock into Mega Man, as seen in Mega Man 4's intro.
• Developer's Foresight: If you get just close enough to a magma beam so that you're touching it but not so close that it'll kill you, you'll see little sparks coming off of your character.
• Downloadable Content: The game has several pieces of DLC, ranging from a playable Proto Man, a unique Time Attack stage, and two harder difficulties. The Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 re-release bundles all the DLC in with the version of Mega Man 9 included with it.
• Dragon Their Feet: One of the downloadable Time Attack stages features a robot that was briefly seen in the main game, but never fought: It's the fake police robot Wily used in his framing of Dr. Light, called "Fake Man". Apparently it takes a bunch of the mini-bosses and goes running rampant in the city, and Mega Man has to clean up the loose end.
• Drum Bathing: The ending shows Dr. Light bathing in a barrel, with a reformed Magma Man providing the heat.
• Dual Boss: Thought the Devils from previous games were tough? Enjoy fighting two at the same time...Subverted, as it's only just one boss. Only one "eye" to shoot between the two of them.
• Flying Saucer:
  • Fitting for a Robot Master created to work in a space research center, Galaxy Man's head is designed to resemble a stereotypical alien spaceship.
  • Galaxy Man's stage contains an enemy called Adamski, which resemble smaller versions of Galaxy Man himself, which also make the same sound as the Wily UFO, only a little more quieter.
• Gemstone Assault: Jewel Man fights by surrounding himself with jewels that not only protect him, but can be fired at Mega Man. Similarly, when Mega Man uses the Jewel Satellite, it damages any enemies that make contact with the jewels that surround him, and he can fire the barrier straight ahead of him.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: Hero mode and Superhero mode increase the difficulty of the stages by increasing the number of enemies an giving them more dangerous placements, but the boss fights are all completely unchanged from normal mode.
• Homing Projectile:
  • The Hornet Chaser fires hornets that chase any enemies currently on the screen.
  • During Galaxy Man's boss fight, the Black Hole Bombs he fires will follow Mega Man as they descend, before they detonate.
  • The first part of the Mega Mech Shark fires missiles that home in on Mega Man's position.
• Invincible Minor Mook: Bokazurah is a pitcher plant-like enemy that appears in Hornet Man's stage. It cannot be destroyed using any of the game's weapons, as the ball projectiles it fires when attacked are required for Mega Man to break through the floor whenever they appear.
• Magma Man: One of the Robot Masters is the Trope Namer. He lives in a geothermal power plant and attacks by shooting compressed balls of magma out of his bazooka.
• Monster Protection Racket: Dr. Light's first batch of Robot Masters he made without Wily's help run rampant on the city under Light's command, with Wily "promising" to bring these robots to justice with his own, though they require generous donations to his Swiss Bank Account to be built, which the populace does. Of course, Wily reprogrammed these Robot Masters since they were going to be scrapped past their expiry date and pinned it on Dr. Light to have him arrested, with the robots that were built by Wily to "stop" his former colleague's creations being new recruits to his army, as well as Fortress bosses that Mega Man must fight.
• Mythology Gag: The official cover artwork◊ is a throwback to the infamous◊ cover Mega Man got in North America.
• Nintendo Hard: Probably the hardest classic Mega Man game ever, on par with the original Mega Man. Anyone who played 2 to 8 will be in it for a nasty surprise.
• No-Damage Run: One achievement, "Mr. Perfect", requires the player to clear the game without getting damaged.
• No Ending: In Proto Man mode, the game simply cuts to credits after the player beats the final boss.
• Not Me This Time: Wily claims during an interview that he's completely innocent, and that the recent rash of robot rebellions is Dr. Light's fault. Each Robot Master even has a "Dr. L" logo outside their lairs similarly to the "Dr. W" logo used by Wily and his Robot Masters in the past. Unsurprisingly, it's all a setup and Wily is absolutely behind it.
• Overly Long Gag: After the final boss is defeated, Mega Man shows Wily screen shots of previous games to list each and every single one of his previous defeats.
  Mega Man: "This is where you first went wrong! And this time! And this time! And this time!..."
• Play Every Day: The "Daily Dose" challenge requires the game to be completed every day for three days.
• Promoted to Playable: Proto Man, via DLC. Unlike Mega Man, he retains his charged buster and slide ability, and can block projectiles with his shield (while jumping). The tradeoff is that he takes considerably more damage than Mega and has a greater Knock Back. He also can't access the store to buy items.
• Prongs of Poseidon: Splash Woman is designed to resemble a mermaid, and her signature weapon is the Laser Trident. Mega Man himself can use it after he defeats her.
• Rock Beats Laser: Galaxy Man, the most futuristic looking of the Robot Masters that can float and create black holes, is weak to wet concrete, arguably the most primitive of the 8 weapons. In fact, the concrete itself seals up his black holes.
• Sequential Boss:
  • The Mega Mech Shark in the second Wily Fortress stage is so big that it has three different parts that Mega Man has to destroy. First, he has to destroy a missile launcher on the shark's tail, then two hatches on the underside that dispenses miniature shark torpedoes, before finally finishing off the front of the shark while avoiding the laser beams it fires from its mouth.
  • Wily Machine 9 has three phases. The first has Mega Man break the machine's face by reflecting the eggs it fires back at it, after which Wily takes on a new strategy of trying to crush Mega Man from above. Once phase two is destroyed, the final phase is the tried-and-true teleporting Wily Capsule, just like in previous games.
• Shared Life-Meter:
  • The Spike Pushers all share one health bar that goes down each time one of them is defeated.
  • The Twin Devil, while consisting of two entities, is controlled by a single core, and that core has only one health bar.
• Shock and Awe:
  • Plug Man attacks by firing electric sparks that travel along any solid surface. The Plug Ball weapon Mega Man obtains after defeating him works the same way.
  • Smaplars are enemies that appear in Plug Man's stage. They are electric sparks that travel along walls and floors, much like the Plug Ball itself.
• Shown Their Work: In the ending, where Mega Man shows Wily a bunch of clips of all the times he beat Wily and had him begging for mercy, Mega Man is colored in the appropriate colors of the weapons his final form is weak against.
• Smart Bomb: Tornado Blow damages all enemies onscreen, though it consumes a large amount of weapon energy upon using it.
• The Smurfette Principle: Not only is Splash Woman the only female of this batch of Robot Masters, she's the sole female boss of the classic series.
• Spread Shot: The Magma Bazooka is a chargeable weapon that shoots three balls of magma; one in front of Mega Man, and the other two diagonally up and down.
• Stylistic Suck: 8-bit visuals aside, there's a setting to emulate the sprite flickering from the NES games.
• Swiss Bank Account: In the intro, Wily puts the number for his one on the news for donations to build robots for countering Light's rampaging robots. Amusingly, it's 19-871-217, the Japanese release date of the first game.
• T. Rexpy: Wily Machine 9 resembles a large T-Rex with Wily's signature skull for a face.
• Tennis Boss: In the first form of the Wily Machine, the "eggs" it spits out are the only things that can damage it, and must be deflected into its mouth with buster shots.
• Tornado Move: Tornado Man launches miniature tornadoes upward from the floor, which also boosts the player's jump height due to the updrafts. Mega Man can do the same thing when he uses the Tornado Blow.
• Updated Re Release: This game is available to play as part of the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 with all DLCs intact.
• Utility Weapon:
  • The Hornet Chaser can be used to retrieve items from afar.
  • The Concrete Shot creates a cement block that can be then used as a stepping stone, cement lethal magma beams in place (absolutely crucial for the first fortress stage), and as a way to block laser traps (essential for the final stage).
  • The Tornado Blow enables you to jump higher while the wind is in effect. Certain enemies will also be blown away whether you intended it or not.
• Villain Has a Point: Wily does raise some good points about the morality of scrapping sentient robots, even if it's just to get slave followers to smear the name of his rival.
• Villains Want Mercy: As usual, Wily drops to his knees and begs for mercy after being defeated. Mega Man responds by showing a montage of Wily doing the same thing after all of his previous defeats.
• Visual Pun:
  • Tornado Man has a helicopter-Blade Below the Shoulder.
  • Concrete Man's stage is a forest. It's a literal "concrete jungle".
• Wham Shot: If you didn't pay any attention to promotional materials or the cover art, it was a huge surprise to many players anyway for one of the Robot Masters on the Stage Select screen to be named Splash Woman.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The status of the robot expiration law that kicks off the game's conflict, and how it affects past characters or even Mega Man himself, is never revealed by the end, and all future games to date have quietly ignored it. That the Robot Masters in this game and the ones in 11 were ultimately never scrapped implies the law was nuked, but we never see how nor if the repeal applies to robots beyond Light's.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Part of the plot explores this a little bit. This game reveals to us that, by law, robots are assigned an expiration date, at which time they are to be disposed of and scrapped. Dr. Wily took advantage of this by convincing Dr. Light's recently-expired robots to allow him to "fix" them so they can live on. Despite his ulterior motives, Wily still made a compelling argument. One that the heroes end up agreeing with, even.
• Wolfpack Boss: The Spike Pushers at the end of the first Wily Fortress stage are a series of stationary robots that attack by firing shots to push spiked balls toward Mega Man. They attack four at a time, but each time one is defeated, they get replaced by another one until their health bar runs out.
• Your Days Are Numbered: It turns out the Robot Master attack happened in part because of a law mandating that robots be scrapped after a certain period; one that all eight have outlived.

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