Mega Man 9 has been released on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii online services with much fanfare. If you haven’t bought it yet, get off your ass and do so! It immediately became my “Game of the Year.” Yes, it’s that good. Sorry, all of the high-definition nonsense hitting this year just doesn’t come close.

However, this wouldn’t be an angry blog without some good-natured ranting, now would it? My Mega Man 9 rants are going to make me sound like a senior citizen, because almost all of them are grumbling about how things were different “back in the day.”

While the game is a true masterpiece, it’s not perfect. There’s a few jarring aspects to Mega Man 9, and one of them is the addition of challenges. These are the equivalent of achievements on the Xbox 360 (in fact, on that platform, many of them are linked as such), but Mega Man 9 is supposed to be a retro 8-bit-ish NES-style game through and through; challenges/achievements/whatever didn’t exist back then, and they definitely should have been left out this time. If people are buying this game for achievements (like many Xbox 360 gamers are wont to do), they’re retarded. Though I do find it funny that the developers included a “loser” challenge, as it were; to earn the “Gamer’s Day” challenge, you need to beat Mega Man 9 five times…in the course of a single day. If you do that, you’re a loser, plain and simple. For the love of all that’s holy, put down the controller, and go outside. I’m a ridiculously obsessive Mega Man fan, and even I wouldn’t sit on my ass beating a game five times in a row!

Anyway, my beef with the challenges also applies to the time attack modes. Here, you try to beat a stage in the quickest amount of time possible, without dying. The results are then uploaded to online leaderboards. While the very concept of a time attack is rough enough on its own, as Mega Man 9 is a difficult game…the online aspect detracts from the retro experience.

Speaking of online, another big frowny-face is downloadable content (DLC). NES games didn’t have downloadable content back in the 1980s, so adding it to this game is a strange choice. Furthermore, it’s a nickel-and-diming scheme that I’m not particularly pleased about. They’ve never pulled that bullshit with a Mega Man game before, and there’s no reason they should start now. There’s at least five add-on packs planned, which will run about $2-3 each. That means Mega Man 9 is really going to cost around $20, not $10. (Yes, you could argue the point that you don’t need the add-on packs, but at the same time, you could argue that the game’s incomplete without them.) Capcom’s other lauded downloadable title, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, was the same price and had a lot more content available from the get-go. If all of this DLC is getting thrown at us, then Mega Man 9 should’ve been $5 on its own, not $10.

Enough about the extras; is there anything in the game itself that’s not-so-hot? Well, yes, but it really boils down to personal preference and continuity issues. Mega Man 9 takes place after Mega Man 8 (and Mega Man & Bass), as you’d expect. Certain Rush modes are no longer present, but that’s not a big deal, as those changed from game to game anyway. What’s shockingly absent are Mega Man’s sliding ability and charged shots. From a continuity perspective, their exclusion makes no sense whatsoever. These weren’t weapons or skills earned from past bosses; these were built into Mega Man’s hardware a long time ago. Where’d they go? No explanation is given. From a development standpoint, I’m sure they were removed to make the game harder…but do you honestly think the developers couldn’t have made a flawlessly designed and tough game with the sliding and charging abilities intact? Having Mega Man “forget” how to slide or charge is like someone forgetting how to run. (Note: While Mega Man can’t slide or charge, his brother Proto Man can. How can you play as Proto Man? You have to pay up and download him, of course!)

There’s something else I’ve noticed about Mega Man 9 that’s a longstanding cliché in the Mega-verse: each of the bosses (with the possible exception of Hornet Man) is essentially a duplicate of a boss from a previous game in the series. Now, that could be an understandable gripe for longtime fans, but I’m willing to let it slide as the phenomenal level design and tight gameplay of Mega Man 9 overall more than compensates for it. (Besides, you know you love the 853rd iteration of a fire-based robot.) I’m also giving a free pass to the save system; for the full retro experience, Mega Man 9 should’ve had the ol’ password saves that the NES games used. Understandably, this has been ditched in favor of save files, but that’s a very minor concern. I think even the most dedicated Mega-fans would flip the fuck out if they ever saw a password save screen again!

Last but not least, there’s the issue of music. All of the new tunes created for this game are nothing short of brilliant. However, in an obvious effort to cash in retrogamers’ love for the classic Mega Man 2, there’s several musical selections that are ripped directly from that game and dumped into Mega Man 9. We’re not talking common themes rearranged, as is common in many game franchises; these are the exact same themes, with no changes or rearranging whatsoever. In fact, they’re even credited to the original programmers on the official soundtrack! I love Mega Man 2 as much as the next fan (though Mega Man 3 is still my favorite), but there was no need to cut corners and just copy the music like that.

I need to reiterate my love affair with this game. I may have pointed out plenty of little problems, but believe it or not, all of these flaws are far outweighed by the overall quality of Mega Man 9. However, there’s one aspect of this saga that’s absolutely unforgivable. It’s not the game. It’s not the extras. It’s the self-proclaimed “hardcore gamers” who bitched up a fucking storm when this game was unveiled. Their primary complaint? The graphics, of course. There were a flurry of message board posts with users screaming that they wouldn’t buy this game because it’s not HD. (Well, technically, it can output up to 1080p, but that’s only so that it wouldn’t look like crap on an HDTV, as most standard-definition material does.) Furthermore, there were even complaints about the lack of online multiplayer. Online multiplayer…in what’s essentially a fucking NES game?!

Oh, and on an extremely ridiculous note, I actually heard a few Mega Man diehards griping about Splash Woman. “It should’ve been Splash MAN!” Um…really? That’s what you’ve found to complain about? Robots are technically sexless anyways, jackass! Leave her the hell alone.

I swear, this kind of anal-retentive behavior is yet another reason why the populace at large sees gamers as a bunch of douchebags. Capcom and Inti Creates went out of their way to produce a real labor of love with Mega Man 9, and a vocal contigent of graphics whores and game nerds permanently jacked into the fucking Matrix had to go and shit all over it. The game may have its problems, but they’re minor ones, and in no way deserving of the rabid hate that’s popped up in some quarters.

Despite my old-man ranting, trust me: Mega Man 9 is an absolute masterpiece. All of the stuff I grumbled about above? 99% of players won’t even notice or care. No matter which of the Big Three platforms you own, it’s available for it, so you’ve got no excuse not to own Mega Man 9.