In practice, the Double Gear system is one of many ways in which Capcom has made the devilishly hard Mega Man series slightly easier - or, for more skilled players, a new mechanic with which to optimize and perfect speedruns. Light, on the other hand, believed that robot progress lay in artificial intelligence, a disagreement that led to their decadeslong rift. Light’s younger days, we learn that Wily helped develop the Double Gear system, believing it to be the next evolution for robotkind.

Where Mega Man 11 deviates in its gameplay is with a new system called the Double Gear. Mega Man slides under Block Man’s punch in a boss fight. There are deadly spike traps, bottomless pits and a mechanized insurrection to put down. Mega Man can shoot, slide and call upon his robot dog Rush to scoot through levels. Mega Man must take out each renegade bot, acquire their unique ability, move on to the next, and then finally take down Dr. Eight rogue Robot Masters under the control of the evil Dr. So much about Mega Man 11 supplicates before the franchise’s carved-in-stone formula.

Its new game is faithful to the series’ classic gameplay, while adding a few tweaks that make Mega Man feel just fresh enough to revisit, 10 proper sequels in. Now, with Mega Man 11, Capcom seems to have finally figured out how to bring the Blue Bomber into the modern age. 9, a creation of former Mega Man figurehead Keiji Inafune. And in the void of a modernized Mega Man came attempts from creators outside of Capcom, like the second-rate Mighty No. Then there were Capcom’s infamously doomed projects in the 2000s: Mega Man Universe, Mega Man Legends 3 and Maverick Hunter, all of them scrapped mid-development. In our current millennium, Capcom has remade his original adventure in the adorable Mega Man : Powered Up, gone achingly retro with the 8-bit style of Mega Man 9 and 10, and repackaged his first eight games as part of an anniversary collection. Mega Man has struggled to find his place in the year 20XX.

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