Mega Man 10 was developed by Capcom and Inti Creates, which is a development company made up of ex-Capcom staff. It was released as WiiWare March 1, on the PlayStation Network March 11, and will be coming out in the XBox Live Arcade at the end of the month.

Mega Man 10, much like its predecessor, is done in the 2D, 8-bit, NES-era style. If you've ever played a Mega Man title besides titles like Battle Network, Mega Man Zero or Mega Man Soccer, you know the gist already, but I'll give a quick review of the structure for those of you who have no experienced the joy of Mega Man.

You play Mega Man, of course. You are a robot, you are blue, and you have an arm cannon that shoots bullets, called the Mega Buster. Your nemesis is the evil Dr. Wily, who always comes up with some scheme to take over the world, leading you to fight a number of evil robots, called Robot Masters.

In Mega Man 10, the plot involves robots becoming infected with roboenza, which causes them to become sick and then turn violent. Dr. Wily insists he can invent a cure, and you agree to help him. You can probably see where this is going.

As you defeat Robot Masters, who all have a specific theme and set of attacks, you gain their powers, which in turn help you defeat different Robot Masters. Think of it like an elaborate game of rock, paper, scissors, or elemental weaknesses in RPGs. Mega Man can't do a whole lot. He runs, he jumps, he shoots, and he shoots other enemies' weapons. It's simple, and it's the way Mega Man is supposed to be.

But that's just my opinion.

The main thing to say about Mega Man 10 is that it is hard. Harder than Mega Man 9 for sure. Robot Masters with patterns that are hard to pin down, surprise enemies that come out of pits, and quite a few enemies capable of swarming you and damaging you, making it hard to defeat them all and move on.

Even the mini-bosses present large challenges. And as always, the game has a few nearly pixel-perfect jumps.

Luckily, it's also a ton of fun. So, while frustrating to the point of cursing the very name of Capcom, you don't want to quit. As hard as the game is, there is strategy involved. There are specific ways of dealing with every enemy, every obstacle, every boss, and every level gimmick. Sometimes, there are multiple ways.

The game comes with a challenge mode, giving you a growing list of tasks to get through. Obstacle courses, enemy rushes, boss fights, each one with win conditions. And that's in addition to the series of game-spanning challenges in place, like not dying once or using only your main weapon throughout the entire game.

What's really nice about Mega Man 10 is all the ways to play through the game. Sure, you can play as Mega Man, but you can also play as his brother, Proto Man. This changes the gameplay dynamics quite a bit. You suffer twice as much damage and knockback, but can charge your shots to make them more powerful, slide, and reflect enemy shots back with your shield when jumping.

And if you download him, you can play as Bass, Mega Man's rival from Mega Man 7. Bass can fire in 8 directions, has rapid-fire, can dash, and can fly for short periods of time, but his shots are much weaker and he can't walk and fire at the same time.

In addition to giving you three characters to play with, the game also has three levels of difficulty. Normal mode is already challenging enough in its own right, and then there's a Hard Mode. Enemies are faster and more plentiful, puzzle elements are harder and more frantic, even the bosses have new attack patterns. It can be torture to get through at times.

And on the flip side, Capcom even included an easy mode, which has drawn a lot of heat from hardcore Mega Man fans who feel the mode is just a bit too easy. Floating platforms block off a lot of bottomless pits and death spikes, bosses are rendered pretty simple, and puzzles are hardly even puzzles anymore. To get 100% completion, you pretty much need to play it, but unless you've never played Mega Man or aren't very good at 2D action platformers, it's a bit on the too easy side.

Not only does Mega Man 10 have all this, but with the wonders of downloadable content, besides being able to get Bass, you can also get an endless attack mode like in Mega Man 9, seeing how many randomly picked screens and bosses you can get through without dying. Then there are the special stages, based off of the old Game Boy Mega Man games, even including bosses and special weapons from them. The weapons, once obtained, are even usable in the main game.

Now that I am done gushing about the game itself, let's talk about how it stands up in terms of disability. It's the kind of game I'm so fond of reviewing for the Wii, the kind where if you can play an NES game, you can play this, just requiring a D-Pad and two buttons. Oh, and one more button to change weapons.

It's a game where sound isn't needed, everything explained via text, and even lacking in any enemy patterns that are really sound based. Now, for those unfamiliar with the series, Mega Man and the other characters change color schemes based upon which power you're currently using. But this also wouldn't be confusing to people with colorblindness, as each power also has an accompanying symbol displayed on both the menu and the screen itself upon choosing.

The only real challenge the game presents is that you need to be able to have quick reflexes and know that the game isn't forgiving when it comes to badly-timed jumps or shots.

In summary, Mega Man 10 is one of the best games I have played so far this year, and something I would readily recommend to anyone with a Wii, PS3, or 360. It's simple in design, but provides hours of gameplay and challenge.

Even more than Mega Man 9 did, Mega Man 10 really salvages and saves the classic Mega Man franchise. Now, if only Capcom would do something similar for the train wreck that is the Mega Man X series.