Getting a tip from FOH shows that Mega Man 9 has been announced for WiiWare! This may be the drive needed for me to play the Wii again. After doing some internet snooping, it turns out that Nintendic has the latest issue of Nintendo Power, which has a bunch of screens and the inside scoop on the latest game in the Mega Man series.

Personally, I couldn’t stand most of the GBA games. The Mega Man Zero series was confusing as hell, tried to integrate some kind of choose-your-own-adventure stories, not to mention frusteratingly difficult. The Battle Network series was okay, for some kind of Pokemon-esque RPG, but it sure as hell wasn’t a Mega Man game.

Give me something from the original Mega Man series, or from the SNES spin-off into the future Mega Man X series, where each game had 8 Robot Masters (or Maverick Hunters!), clear objective of getting to the “end of each level”, and sling yellow pellets everywhere to downright awesome music. Unfortunately, the later episodes in the X series were made on the PSX and PS2 platform and were pale shadows in comparison to the strong robot fist of X, X2 and X3, and the later games in the original series shared the same watering-down fate. So what am I expecting from Mega Man 9?

Well, apparently Mega Man 9 is being done in “retro-style”. Lead man of the game, Keiji Inafune of Capcom says this game is for the old school fans.

From Nintendic,

Inafune claims that the simple fun of a classic Mega Man game “doesn’t fit into the grandiose and expansive world that the consumer gaming industry has become, and so you have to make games that match the current expectations.”

And thus is the reason for the Virtual Console and WiiWare being a perfect fit for the latest Mega Man game. It’s about time; there hasn’t been a new game in the series since 1999. And now it’s back, with old school graphics and old school music, with new bosses, such as:

• Magma Man
• Galaxy Man
• Jewel Man
• Concrete Man
• Horney Man
• Plug Man
• Tornado Man
• Splash Woman (Wat!?)

If you know me at all, you know that I am currently going insane over this news, smashing my head against the wall, with a hand holding my cell phone high, screaming along to my Mega Man X2 ringtone. I don’t know how else to show my anticipation.

Inafune says:

“The moment you’ve been waiting for is here! We’re not just giving you Mega Man 9, we’re giving you a new NES game. This is a game that brings back the fun of the old games, and I hope you all enjoy it!”

Sweet chipset music to my ears.