What if the Mega Man 3 theme had lyrics? What, you’ve never asked yourself that question? Hmm. I think after watching this video you’ll agree the theme song was simply screaming for lyrics. In addition to being mind-blowingly well-done, this video and song has made my desire for more 8-bit original titles in the “HD era” all the more insatiable. [Thanks, brentalfloss]
OK, I totally lied. Here’s more Mega Man 9 goodness in the form of the official English intro and the item store, which has a retro look but was actually inspired by Mega Man titles post-Mega Man 2.
I’m excusing my broken promise about no more Mega Man 9 posts with a new justification: Hopefully all this neo-retro coverage inspires other big name publishers to revisit old 8-bit titles with a similar treatment. Basically anything from Konami’s 8-bit catalogue would do fine. An explainer for the store can be found at WiiFanboy in the link above.
A post over at MyGamerCard did more than reveal the Xbox 360 Achievements for upcoming Rockman title Mega Man 9, it also revealed all the Boss Robots. This here image is a ’shop job from WiiFanboy. Puts them in perspective pretty nicely.
More from Hironobu Takeshita, who talked a bit about purposely putting bugs and flicker into Mega Man 9:
As we talked about, [Castlevania] features design that hasn’t been done for some time. Do you think it’s important to keep the classic style of designing games alive? Do you feel there’s something intrinsic to that that is important to preserve and continue alongside things like next-gen games?
HT: I like to think of it not as an 8-bit style, but more of an artistic choice, if you will. It’s another type of creative expression, because nowadays, everyone wants surround sound and 3D graphics and things like that, and they get too caught up in that. I don’t think it should be that way, because you could do an 8-bit game. You can do a 16-bit game. You should do whatever is creatively expressive and what you want to do. I think that will open up the whole gaming world in general, by being able to have these creative outlets.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how Mega Man 9 was a much bigger deal than people realized. Hopefully this stellar quote goes a long ways toward showing what I was getting at. Good games are good games. Graphics will always complement a game’s accessibility and playability, not define it. Unfortunately that dynamic has been ass-backwards for some time. No longer.
Once upon a time, finding a bug in a game didn’t crash your console or require a firmware update, it just caused some slowdown or sprite flicker. Those were the days, and they were due more to limitations of the system than lazy development. Thankfully, Capcom is going to include them in the upcoming Mega Man 9 WiiWare title, thereby completing its rise to retro awesomeness utterly and completely. Also thankfully, these bugs, which are features, are completely optional.
“Yeah, there were some things, like you couldn’t have more than three enemies on the screen at once, so we had to make sure that that’s how it stayed in our game. In the part with the dragon with the flame, [there should be] flickering, and whatnot,” said Mega Man 9 producer, Hironobu Takeshita. “In the options of this game, you can adjust that, unlike the old games. We purposely put some of those old-school bugs into this game, so it does recreate that feel.”
I can see my Wii Classic Controller flying through the window already. Sweet, sweet challenge.
Infendo pet project Mega Man 9 is scheduled to arrive in the US in September, the Capcom Unity blog confirmed today.
Mega Man 2 will also arrive that month, courtesy of the Virtual Console service.
Mega Man, as you know from reading Infendo, arrives tomorrow.
Looks like I’ll be spending at least $20 over the next two months.
We first saw this on the Capcom crew at E3, and now it’s coming soon to a store near you. WIN.
And, the reason he’s carrying a pistol and an arm cannon is explained by the curious, but equally badass, Mega Man 2 original box art (someone had asked in the comments before).
Look it up.
No words. To describe…
Who kidnapped me, and slipped me into a time machine? Veterans, you have to love the look and sound of Mega Man 9, and you younger guys need to find an emulator or a crusty old neighbor with a working NES and get playing Mega Man 1 and 2. The difficulty of this title apparently led several E3 attendees to contemplate suicide. It’s not about game length at all, it’s about accomplishment and challenge. Yum.
While skimming the paper in the Infendo HQ penthouse this morning I happened to glance at my television, my laptop, and Shigeru Miyamoto all in the same instant (he occasionally makes us breakfast).
On Infendo there was Derek’s superbly written expose on the most anticipated Nintendo E3 announcements; on my TV was the Opera Wii Browser, with Malstrom’s news page pronouncing the end of close-minded gaming; and on Shiggy’s face was the devilish grin of a man who had something wonderful up his apparently bottomless sleeves.
It could be the extra Nintendo gene I was born with talking, but this morning I can’t help but think that the Mega Man 9 WiiWare news is much bigger than it initially appears.
Sure, this is a major coup for Nintendo’s infantile WiiWare service, and it’s incredible news for anyone who grew up playing Mega Man on the NES (or other, *cough* CD-ROM systems in the 1990s), but there’s something more to it than that.
On its face, the decision to go backwards in time with Mega Man 9 could be seen as a hat tip to the 8-bit generation (me, and others like me), in the same vein as Super Dodge Ball Brawlers and the entire Virtual Console collection to date. It is, but beneath those primitive pixels is a conscious decision by one of the biggest publishers in the world to buck the trends and, gulp, take a risk. (more…)
Need a targeted audience of devilishly good-looking adult males to sell your goods and services to? Advertise on Infendo today! We (heart) our sponsors.
