Mega Mega Man Thread

[Azure Dragonius]

Oh god...that left my wallet feeling REALLY masochistic. I like it.

*cry* I wish I didn't have to spend my money on something else.... I want that statue, too...

[Apothem]

It's not a statue, it's a fully posable figure, which makes it about 1000x more awesome.

[DarkMetroid]

*KA-BUMP*

Well, I like Mega-Man 2 and X. Bite me.

My favorite Robot Master will always be the fire ones:
Fire Man and Heat Man.

And for music, I will always love Mega-Man's 2 Wily 1 music.

Bite me.

[Cosake_Solrac]

Lol, not many would disagree w/ you there.

MM2 and X1 are definitely amongst my favourites as well, and many others.

[Apothem]

*KA-BUMP* (again)

It's probably old news, by now, that any Mega Man fan will have likely already heard of, but Mega Man Legends 3 was officially CANCELLED Monday of this week, bringing 10 years of hopes and dreams and a year of unprecedented community involvement in development to an abrupt, unceremonious end. With the cancellation of Mega Man Universe and Rockman Online having gone silent for the past several months, it would seem Capcom has all but given up on the Blue Bomber.

Needless to say, I'm hurt. I've internalized this far more than I should have, regardless, it's painful to see something you've looked forward to for so long, that you've been tantalized with for over a year suddenly disappear, inexplicably, and without proper reasoning. I'm not here as some whiny, self-entitled gamer looking for consolation, I'm here as a long time avid consumer and supporter of a franchise suddenly axed without reason and I'm pissed. So, before I rant further; Context, for the benefit of understanding.


Mega Man Legends 3 was, more or less, officially announced at last years Comic-Con, by non other than Keiji Inafune himself at Capcom's panel, for the 3DS, making it almost ironic that Capcom would bring the axe down just before Comic-Con this year. The game was to have an unparalleled and unprecedented level of both transparency and community involvement in it's development, almost entirely demolishing the typical closed-doors/top-secret style of development permeating the industry, directly involving community members by way of the "Mega Man Legends 3 Project Devroom" to make important decisions concerning character names, appearances, various aesthetic designs, even weigh in on gameplay mechanics through community voting and various contests. The project was ambitious, to say the least. All was going well, or so it would seem, until the unthinkable happened.

In November of 2010, Inafune left Capcom to form his own development company, Comcept. At first it came as quite a shock, especially with the then recently revealed Mega Man Universe still ramping up and Legends left in development. Upon further inspection, however, it was hardly surprising. Keiji had been outspoken against what he perceived as stagnation in the Japanese marketplace and an almost habitual lack of attention to Western markets, and although he never outed Capcom specifically, considering the company's own stagnation and repeated mishandling of it's various franchises, it's easy to see where contention would have arose. Supposedly he left Capcom on good terms, such however was thrown into question when Mega Man Universe, Inafune's pet project and personal attempt to appeal directly to a more global demographic, first went conspicuously silent for six months and then officially "died" in late March. Perhaps a direct correlation between these two happenings is a bit of a stretch, but Universe had been both a promising and critically touted project, to simply cancel it for "various circumstances" doesn't make sense and that lack of context invariably leads back to Keiji's departure. True or not, it was unfortunately a sign of things to come.

The "Mega Man Legends 3 Project" was to be trialed, by fire, in the form of the "Prototype Version" to be released alongside the launch of the 3DS eShop on its intended date before the whole thing was pushed back to June. Not so much a demo as a prequel, players would control Barrett, a unique protagonist to the Prototype Version, in what was meant not only as a sampling of the game proper but also a lead-in to the greater story at large. It was also intended to be responsible for "green-lighting" the full game. The entire Legends 3 project had been developing more or less in limbo for nearly a year with it's tenuous fate tied inexorably to the financial success of the Prototype Version. Should it sell well, Capcom would give the go ahead and Legends 3 would shift into full swing, should it falter, so too would development. However, Capcom jumped the gun, and after weeks of agonizing silence following the unjustified disappearance of the Mega Man Legends 3 logo from the Capcom homepage, despite Mega Man Universe's logo still present, the proverbial bomb was dropped Monday, July 18, that the whole of the project would discontinue indefinitely. No justification, no reasoning or understanding has since been offered, only that Capcom professes that keiji Inafune's departure had no bearing on the decision, a fact few if any can take seriously, and that despite royally screwing their community out of not only two potentially great games but a year of investment that they still "loved" both Mega Man and their "fans" a sentiment I'm sure more than makes up for the loss of what was to be one of the 3DS' premier titles.


Those are the facts, clear and verifiable, now, we speculate: The 3DS has not met Nintendo's sales expectations, falling only just short of the projected 4 million units with a present total of 3.61 million units sold. That's not bad, certainly not terrible, but it seems to have developers in a tizzy as in recent months multiple 3rd party titles have either been postponed or flat out cancelled. Further more, the delay and general poor reception to the 3DS' eShop, the principal means of conveyance for the Prototype Version, likely played a pivotal in the projects cancellation. Regardless, the Mega Man Legends 3 Prototype Version was finished and ready to ship whenever necessary, yet Capcom never gave the game a chance. What would have been a nearly cost-free launch, to at least recoup some of their otherwise wasted capital investment was, what seems deliberately, thrown out the window with nary a warning nor reason. It. Makes. No. Sense. One can only assume that they did so out of sheer stupidity, I, however, may have a far more disturbing assumption.

I see this panning out one of 3 possible ways, not the only possible solutions to this quagmire, but certainly plausible possibilities:

1.) Capcom is pulling a PR stunt. It's becoming ever more popular for Publishers/Developers to pull what amounts to outlandish pranks in an effort to promote their products by way of sensationalism, and where as I don't think Capcom's done such before, purposefully rallying the fan base to gauge potential consumer reaction has been done before, rendering such action well within the realm of possibility

2.) Capcom's gone "West-Crazy" again. "Westernization" has become a dirty word as of late, and with partially good reason. Castlevania was bastardized to attempt an appeal to the Western audience and Konami certainly didn't do the series any favors with Lords of Shadow. Capcom is trying much the same with the upcoming Devil May Cry reboot, though at a glance they would seem to be gradually making concessions in favor of the series already established aesthetic. Still, it has been posited elsewhere that Capcom may intend for the Mega Man series to lay dormant for a while, and I posit their intention may be to reinvent Mega Man, unnecessarily, so as to pander to a potentially new demographic, who would likely reject the Blue Bomber regardless unless he was some faceless, bland armored protagonist in a derivative FPS clone.

3.) Capcom's lain him to rest. Terribly unlikely, but a far more preferable alternative to #2, Capcom leaves the Mega Man franchise dormant, at least for now, much the same as Metroid, oh so long ago. The two series now seem to share something of a kindred spirit, their respective creators now apart from their creations and parent companies at a loss as for what to do with the IP. Like Metroid's 8 year absence than sudden excellent reincarnation, perhaps Capcom one day far from now will invest it's own renewed talents, or those of a new and promising development studio, to revive the iconic series as something new and spectacular. I'd much rather have Legends 3 forthcoming, but I'd also prefer to spare Mega Man the butchery of Japan's slanted view of Western interests, as a such, dormancy may be ideal.

No matter how you slice it, or interpret it, without a doubt, Capcom fucked up. Bad. I'm looking forward to what is hopefully a very negative reception at this years Comic-Con, not so much out of spite, rather that I believe these decisions are all to frequently made with little to no repercussions, and for Capcom, or rather their unfortunate surrogates, to be proverbially torn to shreds by their rabid fans strikes me as delightfully karmic.

[Zeroº]

'Tis a shame that they killed Legends 3, but it's not too surprising... Legends was always one of those niche games that few people really took a shining to. I would say that a lot of the blame should also be placed on the consumers that originally overlooked it. Legends was a game that I always thought would be a good basis for a Metroid 64 game, but alas, that just never happened...

And if you look at the overall master plan that Capcom has been reading from recently, they don't look so hot anymore. It looks more like a company that's flailing its arms, not knowing what to do these days.


Brainstorm: Let Retro have a shot at Mega Man...

[Infinity's End]

An assload-long post which I'm never going to read.

Seriously dude, I know you're upset, but chill. You'll hate me for saying this, but MML3 was a bad idea to begin with. It's a niche series and it would have made jack-diddly-squat in terms of sales for Capcom. And sadly, that's all that matters anymore for them.

[Emperor Ing]

For some more salt, Capcom Europe says it was the fans' fault.

Yeah, Capcom, you guys can go eat a dick. Plenty of folks I know bought a 3DS JUST for Legends 3.

[Apothem]

@Emperor Ing: Capcom Europe is full of it, there were thousands of people registered and actively participating in MML3's development. If that's a "cool response" to a game that hadn't even been in development for a year then their expectations are simply outlandish. Furthermore, that's to say nothing of the thousands more who participated by proxy of the greater Mega Man community. It's a bullshit excuse in a vain attempt to shift blame and focus away from them.

@Infinity's End & Zeroº: The entirety of the Mega Man franchise could be considered niche, depending upon your perspective. The games have never been multimillion unit blockbusters and we don't have the genre full to bursting with derivative knockoffs but the series as a whole is not only iconic but also very successful. Mega Man Legends 1&2 were received poorly at launch but have since gained a tremendous deal of popularity. The original series had dropped off the face of the map at around the same time, yet Capcom saw fit to fund the development of both Mega Man 9&10. The whole intention of the completed prototype version was to gauge the market's response to Mega Man Legends 3. To not release the game completely invalidates the argument that MML3 would've proven to "niche" to succeed. Nothing is too niche to succeed in this industry, titles far more obscure than Mega Man Legends regularly sell hundreds of thousands of copies, this is simply Capcom yanking support in favor of a slightly safer, derivative "update" to something they already have on the market. And I agree with Zeroº, this behavior is hardly surprising, coming form Capcom, but it doesn't make it any less infuriating.

[Infinity's End]

Still not convinced. I played MML1 and thought the gameplay sucked ass. "Ahead of its time," pffsshh. The game would have probably gotten sub-MM10 sales, which is clearly why they're not working on MM11. I'm of the mindset that the only reason MM9 did so well is just because of the hype - that Capcom was releasing the first "8-bit" game in like 20 years... it was just the excitement, not whether it was a good game or not.

Still not convinced. I played MML1 and thought the gameplay sucked ass. "Ahead of its time," pffsshh. The game would have probably gotten sub-MM10 sales, which is clearly why they're not working on MM11. I'm of the mindset that the only reason MM9 did so well is just because of the hype - that Capcom was releasing the first "8-bit" game in like 20 years... it was just the excitement, not whether it was a good game or not.

Basically, this-regarding MM9 and 10. To me, these games seemed just like the usual, run-of-the-mill 8bit MM games we played on NES and there was nothing special about them. Only MM game I'll ever care about is MM2.

[kronoridley]

For some more salt, Capcom Europe says it was the fans' fault.

Yeah you guys can go eat a dick. Plenty of folks I know bought a 3DS JUST for Legends 3.

And eat it good! Dang game was the only MM game I've ever hyped, and they say the fans weren't involved enough?! MAYBE IF YOU RELEASED THE GODAMN PROTOTYPE EDITION IN THE FIRST PLACE, THEN YOU WOULD HAVE GOTTEN "ENOUGH" FAN SUPPORT! *rages*

[Emperor Ing]

Still not convinced. I played MML1 and thought the gameplay sucked ass. "Ahead of its time," pffsshh. The game would have probably gotten sub-MM10 sales, which is clearly why they're not working on MM11. I'm of the mindset that the only reason MM9 did so well is just because of the hype - that Capcom was releasing the first "8-bit" game in like 20 years... it was just the excitement, not whether it was a good game or not.

While I initially called MM9 a MM2 rom hack (and that's all it really is- though a really good rom hack), it still is a pretty fun game, mainly because of the great weapons you can use in it. That and the game is challenging.


If there IS a Mega Man 11, I'd prefer to see the hand-drawn graphics of Mega Man 8 (which is a beautiful game, voice-acting notwithstanding)- or perhaps something even better, like the fantastic treatment Wario World Shake It! got.

It's hard to say that the only MM game you'll care about is MM2, when there is MM3, MM4, MM7, and like, X1-4 out there. While I flip between 2, 3, and 4 being my favorite, MM7 is like that game I know isn't the greatest, but it's one that's colorful, bright, fun, and I can't help but love it.

And I will definitely admit that if we're talking about Mega Man Legends 64 yes that was a pretty bad port.


EDIT:

It is also possible that Capcom Europe's twitter was hacked, as there have been some very odd posts coming out of there recently.
That or they are terrible at PR- who knows?

[Zeroº]

And I will definitely admit that if we're talking about Mega Man Legends 64 yes that was a pretty bad port.

It wasn't just bad, it was... horrendous. That port actually turned me off of Legends until I got a chance to try it out again on the Playstation.

[Apothem]

Feelings about Mega Man Legends aside, the point I was trying to make is that what Capcom did was a colossal dick move. Any question about the validity of the series in general or MML3 in particular could've been answered, for good or ill, with the release of the Prototype Version, which by all accounts is complete and ready to ship, but Capcom denied THEIR community the opportunity to PURCHASE their game. At this point I honestly don't know which baffles me more, that they'd lead their fans on for over a year knowing full well that they never intended to commit to the project, or that they pulled the plug just before it would have made them money.


Capcom's horrible business practices aside, you're entitled to your own opinions regarding Mega Man legends, I'm not here to argue otherwise, but to those of you who argue that the franchise hasn't moved beyond Mega Man 2, at the very least MML represented something different, which is (ironically) why it most likely didn't initially sell well, and at most it represents a significant step forward for the franchise, in that it was the first Mega Man game to attempt to add genuine story and character to a series that up to that point had been little more than the same 2 formulaic games perpetually re-released time and again. Mega Man Legends 3 could've capitalized on it's predecessors 10 years of increasing popularity as a cult classic and the community's, in general, want for anything Mega Man. It wouldn't likely prove a massive hit, but I find it hard to believe that even released on the 3DS, which isn't doing nearly as terrible in way of sales as everyone seems to believe, that it couldn't be just as successful as most of the tripe Capcom has out at the moment.