So, in a move that will surely breakdown the fabric of all we hold dear as gamers, I decided to lose my spine and give in to the corporati machinations of the machine. I've purchased the Proto Man DLC for Mega Man 9. Surely, the new regime and the downfall of man will follow shortly.

But until that time, I'm reveling in two of the coolest dollars I've ever spent.

A while back, I wrote an article about what I would change in the Mega Man series. Along with hot swapping weapons, and implementing a system of combining weapons, I thought it would be pretty cool if Mega Man has a shield with which to block and fend off the attacks of his would be destroyers. Going further, I even went on to suggest the shield play a part as the jet item.



Come now to the present and what do I find? Proto Man as a playable character in Mega Man 9! So. Freaking. Awesome!

While I would have wanted a more decidedly stationary, take-all-comers type of Proto Man, with heavy shield ability, I've ended up with a character that can jump and reflect any projectile shot. The results are satisfying. After years of getting pegged by those guys with shields, I can deflect his shots back into its stupid cyclops face. Eat it, Shield Bitch!



Proto's got a good amount of style. He even teleports in to his familiar theme whistle! On top of that, there's visual flare added to the original sprite. His scarf flows in the wind and his "Weapon Get!" pose is too slick. And on top of *that*, Proto Man comes right out of the box with his own little modified Proto Coil and Proto Jet. The really cool thing about the Proto Jet: Its his shield! The fact that I came to the same conclusion as some guy that actually makes things in the industry is, for lack of eloquence, really fuckin' awesome!

Playing as Proto Man is just a little surreal. The effect is not unlike when Knuckles was introduced to the Sonic series. If you don't remember, the cartridge for Sonic and Knuckles for the Genesis actually opened up to have a cartridge input at the top of it. You could then insert either the original Sonic 2 or Sonic 3 cart and play those games using Knuckles. The mash up was ridiculous, but frankly pretty amazing. Two games that were never designed to have a thing that can punch and glide now had this bright red echidna wrecking face in ways his blue hero friend could not.



The Proto Man game is fundamentally different from the core game. There's no story elements, which would have been a nice touch. And further, Proto Man has no access to the shop what so ever. No Beat. No Eddie. No Balancer. No Purchasing E Tanks. Yep. If you're going to play as Proto Man, you're essentially retro-fitting Mega Man 9 to be an offshoot of Mega Man 4. Its the same Mega Man 9 stages, but the experience mixes up a bit. If you pride yourself on some mastery of the later Mega Man games, you'll find a solid and familiar skill set in Proto Man.

I've beaten a few bosses and played a bunch of levels. I've done the slide, I've blocked shots and I've charged mah lazer repeatedly. For just a couple bucks, I've picked up a new level of replay for this already replayable Mega Man title. Say what you will about nickels and dimes. The end result of pennies a day has presented me with a special type of fan service that I had only dreamed of.



Did anyone else pick this up? Is anyone a little more interested than they were before? Aside from the pit falls and hate of DLC, does this type of post-release character experience excite anyone else?