A Promising Entry Point for New Players

It’s been a while since we last saw a mainline Mega Man; not since 2018’s release of Mega Man 11 has the blue bomber graced our screens. I’m admittedly a bit of a newcomer to the series myself, having not played one since Mega Man 8 in 97, so when I got the opportunity to go hands-on with the latest offering, Dual Override, I jumped at the chance.

After all, we’ve not known much about Mega Man’s latest offering outside of the reveal trailer at The Game Awards. So, donning my arm cannon once more, I set off to put Dual Override through its paces.

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Mega Man Dual Divide is a game full of vibrant visuals.

Chipping Away

For those of you who are relative newcomers to the series (much like myself), Mega Man works by selecting a stage from a menu. In this case, I had access to Twinkle Girl’s stage, and from there, you’ll proceed through a series of areas before you can finally take on Twinkle Girl herself. Much of the game takes place on a linear path with the typical hazards you’d expect to see in a platformer, such as dealing with pits and enemies while making difficult jumps and searching for hidden bolts.

While I had no access to difficulty modes directly, when you enter a stage, you are asked which Chip you’d like to choose, and these have an impact on the kind of difficulty you can expect. The first, a Defense-based Chip, will grant you the ability to use a shield that will protect Mega Man from a few attacks. This has a cooldown before you can use it again, and some enemies may drop pickups that refresh the cooldown. Beyond this, you’ll get a set of Support Chips that grant abilities like automatically activating Override if you’re close to death or the ability to use a healing tank from the menu.

The second one on offer is an Attack-based Chip, which, as you may have guessed, allows you to be a bit more aggressive. By nature, Mega Man can charge up his attacks by holding a button down, but with this Chip, it will automatically charge for you as you move about. You’ll also get the ability to fire off a double shot, which, like the shield, has a cooldown before you can use it again.

As you may have guessed already, these are essentially assists to aid players in getting through this new adventure, especially if you’re not familiar with how difficult the games can be at times. While it doesn’t trivialize everything (pits will still instantly kill you), it does give you a huge advantage. For those of you who want a greater challenge or would rather see the game play closer to the older titles, you’re covered there too.

The final Chip on offer is the Custom Chip, which will not bestow any support chips on you. You will still get a unique ability, Rush (on a cooldown), which can be summoned and used as a spring; this will let you reach higher places more easily. But beyond that, this is as true to the original Mega Man experience as you can get.

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Twinkle Girl’s stage takes place across three areas, each with its own boss at the end.

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There are three chips to choose from before the start of an area; the top two can be seen as accessibility aids.

Override

Beyond these Chips, I had access to the titular ability, Override. As you proceed through the stages, a gauge will fill up, and when full, you can unleash Override. This will transform and power up Mega Man, giving you stronger attacks and, if you decide to charge up your blaster in this form, you can use up all of your time in exchange for a lethal blast. There is a downside to this, however, as once the gauge is depleted, your regular shots won’t be as powerful or fire as quickly for a while. I found a lot of joy in saving this ability for when I had taken a boss down to around half health or less, and it seemed somewhat effective.

I had access to two weapons for the demo: the first, the regular Mega Buster that you’ve come to know and love from Mega Man is what you’ll use for the majority of the time. But the second weapon, the Jet Stinger, is very strong, if limited in the number of times you can use it. This will cause you to dash across with a punch and can even punt some enemies off the screen. I found this worked well in Override mode and against bosses, or if I needed to perform a difficult jump.

The stages themselves weren’t too hard to navigate. Outside of learning to jump and fire at the same time to deal with some enemies, I never had too many issues, and the game is generous with its checkpoints, especially before the boss encounters at the end of each area. While I quickly took care of the first two bosses, the main boss of the stage, Twinkle Girl, took me a few attempts to take down.

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The usual stage hazards are in place, but they’re more lenient with no lives to worry about.

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Each of the three bosses provided a decent challenge, such as Astro Man R here.

To begin with, when Twinkle Girl fires her weapon, the blasts will explode and splinter out (something that caught me out far too many times) before she attempts to perform a ground slam as a follow-up. She’ll also perform a spin attack when on the ground, an attack I was able to jump over and cause her to crash into the wall. More importantly, just like Mega Man, she can use Override when down to around half health, causing massive explosions and fireworks that are tough to dodge. If this was an example of just the first boss I can expect in Mega Man: Dual Override, I can’t wait to see what follows.

My time with the demo was short, and despite not having played the series in a long time, I was instantly sold on this latest entry. I enjoyed myself enough that I played through the demo several times, trying out all of the Chips and seeing if I could improve my score. After all of that, what more could I ask for?