5 Things That Are Easier Than Mega Man 9

agent b on October 3rd, 2008

I never really understood the appeal of a dominatrix. Why would I willingly fork over my money to repeatedly get the shit beaten out of me in areas that are usually associated with pleasure? Yet with that in mind, I couldn’t have been more excited to throw ten dollars at Capcom’s latest (and greatest) foray into retro fetishism, the absurdly difficult Mega Man 9.

The game meticulously recreates the NES-era Mega Man titles down to the pixel and routinely reminds you that your last 20 years of comfy save states, forgiving game design and bountiful checkpoints get left at the door. I consider myself a skilled, avid gamer, but my first hour with Mega Man 9 was a giant, humiliating kick to the dick. But like a submissive little miscreant, I kept returning to my dom, letting her punish me until I forgot our safe word. Between beatings, I would ponder if generations prior to mine had to endure such hardships. That’s when I realized there were plenty of things in history that humanity has overcome that in retrospect were easier than Mega Man 9. Well, five of them at least.

Many insane religious people believe that thousands of years ago, a very old man gathered two of every animal on earth and put them on a hand built wooden ship to save them from the wrath of planetary flooding. Animals tend to eat other animals, so this was probably quite the task. That shit sounds fucking difficult, right? Not unless there were deadly lasers shooting at you the whole time, so not as tough as Mega Man 9. Piece of cake, especially because Mega Man 9 really exists.

Chess nerd Garry Kasparov lost an epic battle to IBM’s Deep Blue AI in 1997. Mega Man 9 is based on AI from 1988. Deep Blue would still get its ass kicked by Mega Man 9. Even at chess. Call me when chess boards kill you instantly when you touch them because half the shit in Mega Man 9 does just that.

Impossible. This is the worst female name ever created. If your girlfriend’s name was Crabwarts McScabies it would still be an infinitely more fuckable name than Grunthilda. If your name is Grunthilda, you are legally required to carry a baby elephant’s weight in back hair and know at least three spells because you are a grotesque witch. Go to the name store and bring your receipt; you got ripped off. However, if I was truly desperate, I could take ‘Safe Search’ off my Google Image preferences and spend the night searching for “Grunthilda nude” and be proven wrong. Anyway, I will not finish Doctor Wily’s Fortress Stage 3 tonight.

And then there was like, this door and it turned into a portal, and my dead uncle was there and I was at work, only it wasn’t really my work it was like a portal and…shut the fuck up! Listening to somebody talk about their dreams is like living inside the world’s most popular fire alarm. When something happens during your painfully uneventful and overly medicated REM sleep cycle, nobody wants to hear about it the next day. There is literally nothing I can do to make sense of anything you are telling me. The only hidden subtext and metaphoric meaning behind your action packed imaginary night adventure is that you are a vapid dolt who was probably touched somewhere naughty at an early phase in your life. But as strenuous as it gets, I have yet to die during a dream speech. I died 13 times today on the spikes in Splash Woman’s stage and I bet her dreams are completely deranged.

No really - hear me out. It’s tougher than it looks. Sleeping four hours a night to entertain thousands of people a day for little pay and a dozen years removed from my lifespan is no picnic, especially when the only actual gaming time it leaves me with is to get manhandled by Mega Man 9. Even coming up with this caption left my mind weakened and numb. No energy tanks or extra lives and my only optional subweapons are a 32 ounce ice coffee and a 64 ounce vodka club. Maybe I’m wrong and Mega Man 9 has finally met its match. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep coming back for more beatings from both of them - I’m a glutton for this pixelated punishment shit.