Mega Man 8

The gameplay of Mega Man 8 is similar to that of its predecessors. The player, as Mega Man, must complete various stages that contain side-scrolling action and platforming elements. The player can run, jump, slide, shoot, swim, charge the Mega Buster, and change weapons. Enemies can be destroyed to reveal items used to refill Mega Man's health and weapon power.

Like Mega Man 7, the player first completes an introductory stage and is then presented with four Robot Master stages (Tengu Man, Frost Man, Grenade Man, and Clown Man) to tackle in any order. At the end of each stage is a boss battle with a Robot Master; defeating the Robot Master earns the player its Master Weapon. Most Robot Masters are weak to either the Mega Buster or one or more Master Weapon, allowing for some strategy in the order the stages are completed. An additional four Robot Masters (Aqua Man, Sword Man, Search Man, and Astro Man) become available once the first four are defeated and an intermission stage is completed.

Taking place in the 21st century (the ambiguous year 20XX) and after the events of Mega Man 7, two alien robots engage in a battle in the depths of space. Ultimately, both of them plummet towards Earth, critically injured. On Earth, humanoid robot Mega Man and his robot canine companion Rush are caught in a skirmish with his rival Bass, who still wants to prove himself to be stronger than Mega Man. Thanks to the timely intervention of his sister Roll, who was bringing a message from his creator Dr.

Light, Mega Man manages to subdue Bass long enough to leave. Bass swears that he will get back at Mega Man for his "cowardice". Dr. Light asks Mega Man to investigate strange energy readings on a nearby island.

Tokuro Fujiwara, who had been the producer for previous Mega Man titles, had left Capcom, so Keiji Inafune, who had previously played the role of artist for many titles in the series, became a producer for Mega Man 8. He handed off many of the main responsibilities to Hayato Kaji, an artist he often considered to be his student. Inafune recounted, "This allowed me to take a very different approach to creating a Mega Man game. 'Seeing Mega Man from a distance,' I guess you could say."

Illustrators including Hideki Ishikawa and Shinsuke Komaki worked under the two veterans. Inafune recounted that the development team was often overwhelmed during the game's development because it involved some unfamiliar elements such as coordinating releases on two new systems and the use of anime cutscenes. The team enlisted the help of animation studio Xebec to produce the animated cutscenes for the game. Inafune had wanted to include animated cutscenes since the very first game in the series, and stated that he was pleased with the outcome.

Initial sales of Mega Man 8 were good. Major gaming retailers in North America including Electronics Boutique and Babbage's reported selling 55% of their stock within three days of the game's release. Electronics Boutique additionally noted having sold 75% of its stock within ten days, and many locations of Babbage's being sold out in similar period of time. Capcom's president Bill Gardner later announced that the response they got from retailers was so overwhelming they had to allocate product based on orders being greater than anticipated.

Mega Man 8 received moderately positive reviews from critics. One complaint involved the game having virtually nothing in terms of gameplay or features that had not already appeared in previous installments of the series, and very little change in the gameplay formula that had been used since the first Mega Man game appeared a decade ago. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot commented that the robots seem to be clones of enemies from earlier, while Matt Rubenstein summarized his reviews, "this whole premise has been done seven times before and [...] it's starting to get old."

In 1998, Capcom released Mega Man & Bass on the Super Famicom with many of the same sprites, animations, and backgrounds as taken from Mega Man 8. Ten years later, Capcom announced another follow-up, Mega Man 9, which changed the graphical style of the series back to its 8-bit appearance similar to the first six installments. Capcom did not replicate any of the gameplay mechanics included in the eighth installment for this sequel, save for the shop and bolt currency system.

In 2002, the PlayStation version of Mega Man 8 was re-released as part of Sony's Greatest Hits label of bestsellers, confirming that it had sold at least 350,000 units. In Japan, the game received budget re-releases as part of both the PlayStation the Best for Family and the Sega Saturn Collection. The PlayStation version was ported to the North American Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube in 2004 and the Xbox in 2005. The PlayStation version was later ported again and released as part of Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 on PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in August 2017, with a later digital version released on the Nintendo Switch in May 2018.