The original “Mega Man” is arguably the hardest game in the series, but I’m hard pressed to believe that’s because Keiji Inafune and his team at Capcom intended to make something bitterly difficult to screw with players’ heads; that’s just how games were designed back then. Games of that era were ridiculously difficult and “Mega Man” was no different.

“Mega Man 9,” however, comes during an era of game features like a “no fail” mode in “Rock Band 2″ and regenerating health in “Halo.” “Mega Man 9″’s difficulty is intentional. Its deaths were engineered to be cheap. Every time you die and it feels like it wasn’t your fault, they were trying to make you upset. That’s one of the reasons we’re “Mega Man” fans, right? It’s just how they work.