How Mega Man 11's Levels Do More With Less

Now that Mega Man is on his 11th major entry, I thought it was about time that we looked at the blue bomber’s level design - and see how his stages are put together. And after playing through this latest game and taking a close look at the design of each robot master’s level, I was surprised to find that each stage only has a tiny handful of unique elements. I’m talking about things like platforms, hazards, and enemies that you won’t see in any of the other levels.

In Blast Man’s stage, for example, there are crates, lasers, kamikaze bombers, bots with barrels, and sniper joes in mechs. And in Tundra Man’s stage it’s just these snow flakes, these snowball storks, and the wind. And in a game with only eight major stages - before heading off to Wily’s castle - that seems like a rather small amount of stuff for each level. And I’m left wondering: how come Mega Man levels don’t get boring?

How does Capcom keep up a sense of variety and surprise, when they’re only playing with a few different elements per level? Well, it’s down to good level layouts; some ideas we’ve seen in our analysis of Mario, Donkey Kong, and Rayman; and some design patterns you might want to use in your own platforming games. So let’s pull this game apart and look at its innermost workings to see how Mega Man 11 does more, with less.

Something that makes Mega Man special, and much easier to analyse than most other platformers, is that levels are split into discrete rooms, with obvious camera transitions between them. There’s about 15 to 20 rooms per stage in Mega Man 11, and Capcom can immediately get a lot of variety in a level simply by using rooms of different shapes and sizes. So for starters you’ve got your classic, horizontal side-scrolling level, which is perfect for platforming sections.

This can go left or right, which sometimes creates new challenges - like walking away from, or walking into this floating junk. Then you’ve got vertical levels - either ones where you climb up, or ones where you drop down. This already makes a huge difference: an enemy like Pick Man is reasonably easy to fight when you’re on the same level, but he’s much harder to dodge when he’s above you. The other type of room is a basic one-screen box.

But even these come in different versions. A staircase set-up adds a little verticality to deal with. And a zig-zag room can give you a moment of safety to see how an enemy moves, or force you to deal with a foe where there’s not enough room to jump over them. Almost every room in Mega Man is one of these seven types, with a few special exceptions like a room in Bounce Man’s stage that is horizontal, but is also much taller than one screen.

And a room in Block Man’s stage that is a total zig zag, but then opens up into a horizontal room. Throughout the course of one stage, you’ll see a whole variety of different rooms to mix things up. Here’s all the room shapes in Acid Man’s stage, for example, and this makes for a level that’s constantly going in different directions and feels like a unique space from room to room. Next, you can’t forget the hazards that are used in multiple levels throughout Mega Man 11.

Enemies like Sniper Joe, Mets, these rolling shield enemies, and spider bots, plus hazards like bottomless pits and nuisance spikes are regular foes and dangers that can show up between the unique stage elements to mix up proceedings. But as for the original stuff, this is given immense variety because of the way that they are scattered throughout the stage. So each level has a main mechanic, or two, that is showcased in that stage.

Like acid in Acid Man’s level, or these explosive crates in Blast Man’s level. And they show up in different forms and ramp up in complexity throughout the course of the stage, just like in Mario. But instead of seeing them show up in every room, over and over again, they get interwoven with other challenges to keep things varied - a lot like the stuff we saw in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. So let’s look at Impact Man’s stage, for example.

These platforms that run on wires show up in room 2. Then with loads more enemies in room 10. And then in a windy maze of rockets and Pick Men in room 15. But between those appearances, you also get these drills which race across the screen. They are rather easy to dodge in room 5, but much harder to avoid in room 11 where you’re going down, navigating a zig zag, and the drills now come at angles. And then, just to neatly tie the level’s bow, these mechanics appear at the same time.

In room 18, you’re now dodging drills while riding on moving platforms. That would be really difficult, but because you know exactly how these two things work on their own, its quite achievable to face them together. Those drills then appear one more time in room 20, and even show up during the boss fight against Impact Man himself. Nicely done. Mega Man levels also have special rooms to keep things varied. You’ll find a mini boss in every stage, to really change things up.

You’ll go from making real forward progression, to stopping entirely to fight a reanimated mammoth skeleton. These can also interweave with the main mechanics of that stage. The mini boss in Bounce Man’s stage - which is a giant inflatable toad - comes back later in the level, but now you've got to face it while bouncing on balloons. There’s also often an empty-ish room after the mini-boss. It’s a checkpoint room, depending on the difficulty you’re playing at, and also gives you a second to catch your breath before moving on.

One other type of room you’re likely to encounter is what i call the secret test. Here, a useful item like an extra life or an energy tank is on display, but difficult to get to. You’ve got to solve some small puzzle related to the mechanics (or just cheat and use rush) to get it, or you can choose to simply move on if you’d rather not risk it. Now while pretty much every stage Mega Man 11 has these aspects, there’s no exact formula that every level follows.

So all we can do is look at how it all comes together in an example stage. And for this, I want to look at the level layout for Torch Man. This level has 15 rooms. And we start, in room 1 - a horizontal stage that shows off a number of different elements that will appear in the level. That includes these tents, enemies that materialise from thin air, rabbit robots, mushrooms that spout fire, owls that drip flames, cannons covered up by shields, and tanks that fire out carrots.

Some are unique to this stage, others are not. Room 2 has the stage’s main gimmick: a big wall of fire that chases you from left to right. You’ve got to fight enemies and squeeze through gaps, while running away from immediate death. Room 3 is a box, and a bit of a breather. Those mushroom enemies from before are back, but they now have a second attack: they can heat up these metal tiles from below to hurt you. Room 4 introduces us to another mechanic: those owls are now the only light in the room and if you blast them, you’ll have to play in the dark.

It becomes a game of being careful with your shots, instead of shooting recklessly. Room 5 is kind of a secret test. If you want to get this extra life, then you’ll need to figure out that if you shoot these mushrooms once, you can turn off their flame and leap harmlessly on their head. Remember this, it will be important for later. Room 6 is a mini-boss, against a barbecue chicken. Hey, you can’t say they don’t keep to the level’s theme.

And room 7 has no enemies, because it’s just a checkpoint, and a breather after that mini-boss. Room 8 has us fight the carrot tank again, and maybe figure out that we can just push it into a pit with enough shots, if we’re too lazy to go into slow-mo and shoot out the driver. And room 9 brings the flame chase back for a second outing, now with much tighter platforming. Room 10 has those mushrooms and tiles again, only this time, the mushrooms spawn more quickly and you’ve got to fight these spiders at the same time.

Room 11 is a proper secret test. To get this energy tank you need to figure out that you can shoot one of these mushrooms to turn it off, then use your speed gear power to jump on its head and get to the e-tank. Or just use rush jet. Rush is such a cheat i swear to god Room 12 revisits the “don’t shoot the owl” mechanic, but now with bottomless pits for extra challenge. Room 13 is a staircase level, and gets us ready for the final rush.

Which is room 14: one more final fire chase gauntlet. First, you’ve got these mushrooms - and you might just remember this pattern from room 5. Which is a huge help to get you over the first hurdle. And then, other enemies show up too, like the carrot tank, tents, and shield guys. iI’s just a shame that the hot metal tiles don’t reappear one final time. Finally, you’re at the boss’s front door and can go off and fight Torch Man.

So if you think about how the flames show up in multiple rooms through the level. As do the owls. And the heated tiles. And even that staircase of fire-breathing mushrooms, we can see how one level of Mega Man 11 is an interwoven web of different ideas. It almost has a musical quality, like a symphony where different sections get repeated. And Torch Man is not the only stage where this happens. In Block Man’s stage, room 6 is a mini-boss.

room 7 is a breather, room 8 is a frantic escape, and room 9 sees you climbing up a vertical shaft. Then, rooms 11, 12, 13, and 14 are the exact same - just more complicated versions. The mini-boss is now fought on a conveyer belt, for example, and the escape sequence is much harder. So it makes this really nice echo through the level. It gives the whole thing a really elegant symmetry. Now, Mega Man is of course a long-running franchise and some previous games have had terrific level design too, like the upside down antics of Gravity Man in Mega Man V, and unravelling garden hoses in Hornet Man’s stage in Mega Man 9.

But they haven’t always nailed it quite like Mega Man 11. Sometimes, an attempt to have lots and lots of variety has meant that ideas aren’t explored properly - leading to things like these wheels in Yamato Man’s stage that only show up in one room. Or these tops in Top Man’s stage, which are introduced to the player at the very end of the level, forcing you to learn their weirdo movement while jumping over bottomless pits.

Other games don’t mix things up enough. In Wood Man’s stage, you’ll face the same fire breathing dog robot in three rooms in a row. I think he’d be much better if he was spread out across the level. So Mega Man 11 might not always have the most memorable or exciting level designs, and there are still bits that have me smashing my controller in frustration, but they are really smartly put together. They all introduce new mechanics responsibly, explore their ideas fully, and - most importantly - get a lot of mileage out of a few elements.

Hey! Thanks for watching. This is part of my, sort-of unofficial platformer level design series. There are plenty more games I can look at, like Sonic and Shovel Knight, but I don’t want to just say the same thing about escalating challenges every time so I’m looking for games that do something quite unique from here on out. Any ideas, let me know in the comments below! GMTK is powered by Patreon.