A Hilarious Romp Through Nostalgia and Masochism

The title is a nod to the classic Mega Man II intro

I Wanna Be The Guy! (henceforth abbreviated as IWBTG!) is retro throwback to the classic 8-bit games. It's chock full of references and parodies to such classics as Mega Man, Bionic Commando, and Metroid. It was made by a rag tag group of misfits so it's free to download at the above link.

But be warned. IWBTG! isn't just some lame game to cash in our childhood dreams. The following statement is not a hyperbole: You will die within the first two seconds of playing the game. Seriously guys, the game can make you go borderline insane if you seriously want to beat the game and become the Guy. Levels are made in such a way that you'll never see your death coming unless you've done some sort of trial and error. So here's a spoiler about your first death, depending on the direction you take in the game: an apple falls on you.

Yes, the traps engineered into this game is compounded by the old one-hit-kill game design philosohpy a la Gradius or Contra. However, you get a number of save points to save your progress (how numerous they are are dependant on the difficulty level you choose) and you get an unlimited number of retries.

This doesn't make the game anymore bearable. Many traps are teeth-grittingly difficult, so even if you know how the trap works, it's still difficult. Many times in the game, the margin of error is literally one or two pixels.

Believe it or not, it gets worse...

However, despite these problems, IWBTG can be a surprising joy to play through. Everything in the game are recycled sprites and music ripped from the original source games, so when Ryu suddenly shoryukens you out of no where, it's the actual sprite and sound from the actual Street Fighter II game. Even the background music is ripped straight out, so you'll be enjoying the tunes you heard when you beat Super Mario World or Mega Man II.

Make no mistake, this game is hard. But it can be an enjoyable experience for the truly hardcore, or as I did, watching a friend play it and seeing him claw and scrape his way to victory (after 350 deaths).

Manic depression as caused by IWBTG!