I had to double-check how long it had been since a new Mega Man game came out, as 2018’s Mega Man 11 felt both closer and farther away than that when I played a series of levels from Mega Man: Dual Override earlier this month. As I bashed my head against the colorful metal wall Capcom had put in front of me, I realized that, despite the Blue Bomber being filed away in my mind as a “classic, ever-present video game icon,” Dr. Light’s greatest creation has been gone long enough that Dual Override could easily be written off as a throwback game for The Olds among us. Still, Mega Man’s brand of tough-as-nails run-and-gun platforming has been the blueprint for many an indie darling, and Dual Override lends some flourishes to the decades-old formula that make it fit comfortably into the modern pantheon.
Dual Override is exactly what Mega Man fans want and anyone who’s ever been intimidated by the series probably fears. I used to play through earlier entries as a kid and I must have had more steely resolve than I thought to have not angry-cried trying to get through them. Dual Override immediately reminded me of how Mega Man can feel like a collage of contradictions. Its constant rotation of obstacles and incoming fire from enemies makes you instinctively tense up as you feel like you have to be on the move at all times, but getting through a boss battle or obstacle course requires a much higher level of patience and pattern recognition than you can pull off by simply running and gunning your way through.
One of the bosses I faced in my demo was a robot that wielded a pair of floating orbs that move across the field in what seem to be set patterns, but even these small balls move around in such a way that there really isn’t any safe spot on the screen. If you stay in one place, hoping that the orbs will pass you by, odds are they’ll be coming back around to move through the exact place you’re standing. But if you try to jump over the first, the second one is probably positioning itself right where you’re going to jump. They’re slow-moving, but the way Capcom anticipates every attempt to dodge to safety means that the fight is a constant game of trial and error, memorizing every attack and orb path until you’re successfully able to maneuver your way through and shoot until the enemy is a blown-up bucket of bolts.
Dual Override is classic Mega Man, but it makes a few changes that could, in theory, make it easier for those intimidated by the series, though they also introduce new complications that, in all likelihood, will more or less balance out their benefits. Players can choose between builds that give Mega Man different perks, such as a shield to tank some incoming damage, helping you out but also adding another bit of resource management to an already demanding game. The titular Override mechanic, meanwhile, lets Mega Man power up his attacks and let loose, but using it can also have the drawback of burning you out and opening you up to more danger. Even when Dual Override is giving you an edge, it’s not without a trade-off.
The sickos who want a Mega Man game to beat their head against will no doubt find what they’ve been waiting for in Dual Override, and those who have historically shied away from the series because of its unrelenting challenge probably won’t find a much more approachable experience here. We’ll know for sure when Dual Override comes to PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S next year.