First off. Best Mega Man EVER.

But it feels wierd. I don't miss the charge Shot or the slide at all. The Music is what it should be.

This game is challenging and it'll kick my ass for years to come. BUT....

the Degression is a bit odd as amazing as the game is......it feels out of place. As if everything before 3 never happend yet clearly they did. You have a robot revolt going on which makes me think of the mavericks.

How about the stages?

Galaxy Man- I have played through this stage SO MANY TIMES I can do it blind folded. The Warping is a neat touch and the ode to the Devils is nice as well. the saucers are cute those things that grab you are a pain if they do. Galaxy man isn't a tough boss fight but I needed me some E tanks. Good Classic style stage feels like a good middle ground between 1 and 2.

Concrete Man- Feels like a Mega Man 4 stage. Also the begining is where there are the most enemies on screen at once in the game thus far. IF not for the well animated elephants This would be the easiest stage int he game.

Magma Man- Right out of Mega Man 2. A pure Mega Man 2 reject stage. VERY well layed out unique enemies and ode to quick man (yet not as hard as that section) a Fun boss fight Great stage

All of the above 3 I beat with Just my Arm Cannon.

Hornet Man- Difficult stage Very Mega Man 3 looking the flower is a PAIN Fun if not challenging send half and the part just before Hornet man is easy. Weirdly balanced stage.
The Magma dealy actually works well against him.

Plug Man- Not the lesson in torture I thought it was. Another Mega Man 3esque stage with hints of 4. only 2 or 3 enemies types in this stage as well including the first non boss mega man clones. I have not reached plug man yet.

Tornado man- Guts Man, Air man, Gyro man, and Cloud man's stages all rolled into one with a hint of mega man 5 style design in the 2nd half a 2nd half I DID NOT see due to my sucking at timing my jumps int he first part of the stage.

Jewel Man- It's Crystal Snail's stage. Not so much in Layout but in apearance. It's also maddeningly evil in it's design. like it came out of an X game.

Splash Woman- her stage is easy.....until the very end. then it pisses me off. Alot of mega man 2 with a dash of homage to Wave Man.

One thing I noticed....there are seldomly more than 3 enemies on Screen besides Galaxy man and Concrete Man's stages. Yet.......I die alot You know what else......Only 1 stage 1 STAGE doesn't DOESN'T have spikes and that's Magma Man's stage. INSANE

There's no Mega Man Fan bigger than I. I might not have all the merchandise The t-shirts and such but As far as emotional attchements to a 2d pixel sprite/rendering/bitmap. There's no fan bigger than I.

Yet I feel like Mega Man 9 is too far a step back. It's great that they made a game that Mega man 3 should have been but Mega Man needs to move forward. It was my criticism from the beginning Mega Man deserves better than this. Yeah it's Mega Man in HD alright
but not detailed. It was Great to see Mega Man return to his roots after 3 Subpar games
(well 8 is fantastic but it doesn't FEEL like Mega Man as it should) But Mega Man as a series should move forward now. If we take the stages designs from this game and a few from the past and make detailed HD sprites of anime quality I think Mega man 10 could be something AMAZING.

Inafune just needs to be willing to do it. the 8-bit throw back was fun it was a nice welcome back for Mega Man but when they do 10..... make it detailed HD. I'd like to play that drawing I see all the time.

That said at the same time I'm playing 9 I am going through 7 again. 7 did ironically enough alot of the same stuff 9 is doing. Only in reverse.

We'll see how things go when Proto man is Downloadable

So how do I rank the series now?

1. Mega Man 2
2. Mega Man 9
3. Mega Man 3
4. Mega Man 6
5. Mega man 7
6. Mega Man 8
7, Mega Man 4
8. Mega Man 5
9. Mega Man 1
10. Mega Man and Bass

Yeah 7 is a much better game than I remember it. Finding things is a pain in the ass but it adds to replayability what sucks though is that many of the awesome fuck with the game passwords......don't work in the Anniversary collection