Unless it is something universally known, like NPD console sales numbers or product announcements, I wish site s would put a link to the source of their story. In this story, there is no link to the source. A source is important is you want to find out what the context of what was being said. Here is the source to Sven’s comments on Mega Man 9. Svensson even follows up his comments by, himself, complaining about the difficulty.
“I don’t think we were disappointed by it. I can’t say right now whether or not you’ll see more in this style but I know there’s creative interest in doing so.” – Christian Svensson, Corporate Officer/VP of Strategic Planning & Business Development
Svensson likely doesn’t know. This is the original question:
I am wondering how well you guys did with Mega Man 9? I was personally blown away by this game and I am wondering if has been successful enough to open some new doors or not. Do you think we might see more games along these lines in the recent future?
The questioner was very upbeat. Svensson using the word ‘disappointing’ indicates that sales for the title weren’t what they could have been. Capcom likely doesn’t know what sales level of a digitally download game only are good or bad. But more interesting is that Svensson said there is ‘creative interest’ in making more like that. ‘Creative interest’ is another way of saying ‘non-money interest’. If the game had big sales, believe me, there would be far more than ‘creative’ interest. There would be a financial interest.
Svensson’s comments don’t really tell us much except that Mega Man 9’s sales were not ‘mindblowing or ‘spectacular’. He could not say what he did if Mega Man 9 was this ‘massive hit’ some forum dwellers like to pretend it is.
If you remember, a few days after Mega Man 9 came out and (after playing through it), I wrote two big problems the game had. The first was that the music was nowhere near the standards of Mega Man 2 or 3 or even 4 and 5. It sounded as if someone has listened to the old 8-bit songs and tried to rearrange them from old parts resulting in Frankenstein type songs. The songs didn’t really flow. There were a few really good songs like Tornado Man’s theme.
Tornado Man’s theme was pretty much the only good song. No wonder it became the theme for Mega Man 9.
The title theme is very mediocre. I could compare it to Mega Man 2 or 3, but you know how sexy those title themes are. So I will compare it to Mega Man games that aren’t known for their title themes.
Mega Man 4’s theme song. Mega Man 9 sounds like a toy trumpet in comparison.
Hell, let’s put all the title themes up:
Ignore the comments in that video at the end.
Those who think Mega Man 9’s title theme is any way, shape or form, matching up to the earlier Mega Man games is sadly mistaken. Mega Man 1’s music that was used was more of the stage select theme, I don’t believe it had a title theme. 4, 5 and 6 sounded pretty sophisticated. 2 and 3 were heavenly. 9 is good only compared to 7 and 8.
The good tunes in Mega Man 9 were the Stage Select Theme, Tornado Man, maybe Splash Woman and perhaps Concrete Man. The worst were just a mess. They were like old Mega Man tunes remade. This is why they didn’t or couldn’t “jump out” like Tornado Man’s theme could.
Music is very particular to one’s tastes. I suspect those who think Mega Man 9’s music is “awesome” are those who haven’t had much experience with the earlier Mega Man games for the NES or even Gameboy. Living through those years has one with the music seared in one’s head. Much of 9’s music sounds like a combination of earlier music and even stuff like Battle Network.
Mega Man is Rock Man. I expect to hear some Rock. The tunes weren’t rocking for the most part.
The other complaint I had about Mega Man 9 was its poor level design. Evidence of it being poor is shown by the presence of the shop. “Buy spike shoes and more!” Good game design doesn’t need such a shop. It was put there as a band-aid to the serious problems.
When I reviewed the game days after it came out, I pointed out how Mega Man 9 relies on cheap ‘one hit kills’ and was nothing like earlier Mega Man games. Mega Man 9 is filled with spikes or holes or units strategically placed to hit Mega Man to make him fall in a hole or spike. Mega Man 9 is full of Ninja Gaiden’s birds. They just keep re-appearing, over and over.
People will memorize everything just to beat the game. But are you having fun replaying the game? I doubt you are.
Aside from not having EVERY stage filled cheap one hit kills and parades of spikes, the earlier Mega Man games also presented ways to go around such obstacles.
Enter the forum dweller who says that any criticism of Mega Man 9 means you are not a true Mega Man fan. Listen! He says:
“How can you complain about one hit kills? Remember Quick Man’s stage? I thought so!”
Remember Flash Man’s Time Stopper? Apparently you forgot. You could use it, and it would stop those beams from coming entirely. And most people could get through it without the Time Stopper after a couple of tries.
“What about Heat Man’s stage? It had tons of disappearing blocks!”
What about the Jet Sled? You could just ride on that past the appearing blocks. You see, the game gave you a CHOICE! In Mega Man 9, there was no choice. In Plug Man’s stage, you could not ride a sled to get past. You had to go through it. The game took choice away from the players. And Plug Man’s blocks were far more convoluted than the straight-forward nature of Heat Man’s stage.
Games like Mega Man 2 were consistently fun. Mega Man 9 is not consistently fun.
And this brings up the point of this post: it is what I call the Retro Game Disease.
The Retro Game Disease is when developers, when making a ‘new’ retro game, believe that retro means ‘dying tons’. If the player is not dying all the time, then the game is not sufficiently retro. They literally believe old school means frustration and throwing controllers at the wall. Actually, old school means arcade-like gameplay. The frustration and throwing controllers at the wall is due to everyone’s inexperience at making games. Once people had more experience, they learned not to do certain things like place cheap one hit kills all over the place.
Many ‘new’ retro games are suffering from the Retro Game Disease. Mega Man 9, of course, is a prime example. Contra 4 is another. The game simply isn’t fun as the earlier Contras were and that is why it suffered so bad in its sales.
I am curious as to whether New Super Mario Brothers will suffer from the ‘Retro Game Disease’. Perhaps that is why there is the ‘Demo Play’. But I can’t imagine Miyamoto doing something like, but he did make Japan’s SMB 2.
The antidote to Retro Game Disease? CONTENT!
Companies are fearful in part of making a ‘retro’ type game because they do not need much time to complete. Will the customer feel ripped off? So this is likely why these games are being filled with cheap one hit kills and other such immature game design.
The reason why I have been very excited about video games maxing out in graphical ‘growth’ is that game companies can turn their attention more towards the content. With something like Mega Man 9, something that was in 8-bit style, there is absolutely no excuse as to why there couldn’t have been more content.
Instead of spending development time and money on better textures and other parts of the graphics, why not spend it on perfecting and expanding the content?
What would I propose for Mega Man Ten? Simple. Make it the same classic style, though it doesn’t have to be 8-bit (style here is referring to gameplay). Instead of having Mega Man go against 8 new robot masters, have Mega Man go against ALL the robot masters of previous games.
All previous nine games. (Some new robot masters could be thrown in, of course).
That’s right. All seventy nine robot masters.
People would say, “You can’t do that! It would be impossible! Too much work!” What work would you have to do? All the robot masters are already designed, are they not? Capcom owns the rights to the old music. They can just use their old themes already. All they would have to do is make some new stages (for Mega Man 7 or 8, just say those Masters exist in some other dimension which is why they look so different). But the general design principles and idea behind the stages are already made.
Say if Mega Man fought Bubble Man again (Bubble Man was defeated in Mega Man 2 so maybe this guy would be Neo-Bubble Man, a remake of the old version). Spiritually, the stage would resemble Mega Man 2’s Bubble Man. It would have the same music. And Bubble Man would be remarkably the same. And when he is beaten, you get the Bubble weapon.
Why is it limited to 8 bosses? Why not all of them? It would be tons of fun and a massive headache (hehehe) of mixing and matching weapons to the robot masters. Like Mega Man 2, obviously some masters will be weak to more than one weapon. And it would be glorious to be able to pick from 79 different stages. No other game has ever done anything like that. This is what I would call the content centric approach.
For the difficulty, save that stuff for Wily’s castle if at all.
What impressed about the Mega Man originally was not the ‘difficulty’, but it was the content. Each Mega Man game was stuffed with content (from the perspective of other games). Fantastic music? 8 stages to choose from? Most games wouldn’t let you choose stages. After Mega Man 2, the Mega Man games added content like several levels between the masters and Wily’s castle. In this regard, Mega Man 3 remains special because its additional content was not in some joker’s castle like Cossak or Protoman’s.
How do I know this idea will work? It is because of Mega Man 3. Do you ever hear anyone complain in Mega Man 3 about the Doc Robot stages? There are certainly some complaints that can be made. One could say that it was ‘lame’ to beat the Mega Man 2 bosses again (no one says this. They all thought it was awesome). They could say that the Doc Robot stages weren’t really new stages but retreads of the master stages they replaced (which is true in part. But most people loved revisiting those stages and seeing what had changed.)
My Mega Man Ten idea is only far fetched because no one has had the balls to try something like it. By putting in all the robot masters, you will find various fans of different Mega Man games all attracted to Mega Man 10. It would be a thrill and a delight to kill old Quick Man or Snake Man or even Pharaoh Man again. And can you imagine playing the game with their old weapons? Imagine a new Mega Man game where you get to play with the old Metal Blades again.
It would be a content challenge to do this. But it isn’t that difficult to do. The Master design is already done. The music is already done. The theme and general design of the stages are already done. The weapons are already done. All that is left is someone to put it all together.
It would be the greatest Mega Man game ever made.