Mega Man 9 was to be ‘hardcore’ and ‘old school’ which apparently meant setting players to fail (e.g. jump over a hole and enemy flies up and sends you into instant death spikes) causing Mega Man 9 to flop (thus ending the Mega Man franchise forever).”
You’ve been known to twist history to serve your article’s needs before, but this is a lie and you know it. Not only did it sell well enough to get a sequel, Mega Man 10,
a sequel to Mega Man Legends (a series that actually DID sell poorly) was put into development (and yes, was cancelled, but was pretty far into development by that time).
Even if Mega Man 9 did “flop”, it couldn’t been the cause of the franchise’s doom so much as Keiji Inafune’s departure was.
When you make up shit like this, I wonder I even read your blog anymore. Your predictions about the 3DS were correct, and you more than likely will be proven right about the Wii U, but when you get into your “old-school gamer rant” mode, it’s a whole different story. Capcom gave you classic Mega Man gameplay with new stages and new bosses (you’ve complained about how they were recycled “element” bosses–water,
flame, electricity, etc..but this has been the case since at least Mega Man 4!), and you still couldn’t be happy.
You complain about games these days straying far from their arcade action roots, but you don’t seem to acknowledge the fact that the arcade itself has been dead since the late 90’s. More and more arcades are closing every year in America; in a few years there will probably be no arcade game industry. What then?
What are young video game developers supposed to hearken back to? Something they have had no experience with themselves? You’ve painted such a bleak picture with your blog, it might as well have been named “Malstrom’s Doom Blog” all these years. If you look at your own demands for Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Mega Man with *realistic* expectations, then there is no hope for any of those franchises, is there?
So what is the point of “Malstrom’s Articles News”? Because your assessment of Mega Man 9 makes me think that Capcom is damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
The official Capcom representative at the official Capcom website replied to a fan’s question (on their forum) about the possibility of a Mega Man 10. What he said was that while Mega Man 9’s sales weren’t that hot, there was creative interest in a Mega Man 10. In other words, there was no business interest. If Mega Man 9 was a business success, there would be more than ‘creative interest’.
And why was there ‘creative interest’? I get the impression that Inafune was behind designing all the robot masters for Mega Man 9. With Mega Man 10, they were designed by the people on the team (and we got robot masters like… Sheep Man… sigh). Every kid who grew up with Mega Man has dreamed of designing their own robot masters. Those that went to work on Capcom probably did so because they were fans of Capcom’s classic games. Mega Man 10 was made as a vanity project. The development team wanted to make their own robot master too!
In some interview, Infafune said that Mega Man 9 sold very well “at the beginning” but then its sales must have fallen off a cliff. So this is where I am basing my information that Mega Man 9 didn’t sell too well.
Unlike others, I do not see Mega Man 9 as a successor to classic Mega Man. The game feels more like a parody than anything else (such as the ending with the 9 screens of Wily bowing for forgiveness).
I was there when Mega Man first came out. Mega Man did not become popular with Mega Man 1. It became popular with Mega Man 2. Everyone knows this. So what is the difference between Mega Man 1 and Mega Man 2?
Mega Man 1 is a very uneven game. Some parts of the game are extremely frustrating. The beginning of Gutsman stage is quite annoying.
Mega Man 2 is consistently fun. The only frustrating part might be the beams in Quickman’s stage.
Aside from this consistency of fun, a huge reason why Mega Man 2 exploded on the scene was because it gave players a choice. The most obvious choice was which stage you wanted to pick. But there were many other choices. Quickman’s beams were frustrating to new players, but you had the choice of using Flash Man’s ability to completely stop the beams making the stage easy. The best example of this concept of choice was with the appearing and disappearing blocks that appear in every Mega Man game. Including Mega Man 1, every Mega Man game has allowed the player a way to bypass the block pattern. The Magnet Beam in Mega Man 1, the rocket sled in Mega Man 2, Rush Jet in Mega Man 3, etc. Mega Man 8 failed so hard in Frost Man’s stage because there was no player choice in handling the mechanics. “Jump. Jump.” “Slide. Slide.” With the appearing blocks in Plug Man’s stage, there was no choice involved. In this way, Mega Man 9 was more like Mega Man 8.
“But what about things like the Spike Shoes?” That’s not a choice. That is a band-aid on broken game design. By using a rocket sled to get past the disappearing blocks, you felt clever and smart. But by using something like the spike shoes, you felt idiotic and bad.
Mega Man 2 also had a sense of adventure I never saw duplicated even remotely with Mega Man 9. For example, in Crash Man’s stage Mega Man starts on the ground and does nothing but climb his way to the top where he is in the stars. Bubble Man’s stage starts with Mega Man leaping from block to block near a waterfall only to jump down the waterfall to an underwater cavern full of robotic shrimp. Mega Man eventually gets out of being underwater to leaping platforms over the waterfall again. Air Man’s stage is all sense of wacky. Wood Man’s stage has Mega Man travel a forest to eventually enter a giant tree where he eventually ends up jumping from branch to branch in the air.
Old School doesn’t mean ‘setting the player up to fail’. Mega Man 2 never did any of that. None of the classic Mega Man games did to such a degree. Mega Man, on the NES (and SNES), was played primarily by children. Children are not playing Mega Man 9.
Aside from how Mega Man 9 turned out, another reason to question whether Inafune “understands” why Mega Man was popular was in how he keeps dismissing Mega Man 3. Most Mega Man players love Mega Man 3. Some may love Mega Man 2 more, but there is no hatred for Mega Man 3. Yet, Inafune doesn’t like it for some reason (perhaps because he wasn’t much of a part of its development?).
Another Mega Man flop was the PSP game of ‘Mega Man: Powered Up’. It was a remake of Mega Man 1. Why was this game even made in the first place? Everything about Inafune’s decisions scream ‘vanity’.
Mega Man Legends didn’t sell. I couldn’t possibly believe Capcom would ever make Mega Man Legends 3. There was absolutely no business incentive to do so. But there was creative interest. So it was no surprise to me that Mega Man Legends 3 got canned so fast right when Inafune left the building.
Just because a game has a sequel doesn’t necessarily mean the previous game sold well. 3d Mario doesn’t sell anywhere near 2d Mario but Nintendo keeps pumping out 3d Mario games. Why? Because the creative side (Miyamoto) demands it.
The Japanese game industry has its troubles in large part because of allowing the creative side to do whatever they want.
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I hear you on the ‘not wanting to read about doom and gloom’. This is a large part of why I shouldn’t continue this site. People do not want to read about bad news. This is why writers become millionaires by writing books about ‘How to Improve Your Mood’ and ‘Optimism: How to Smile and Laugh All Day’. People want to laugh. People want to have fun.
But I would be lying if I said Nintendo’s future is rosy. I’d rather be damned as ‘gloom’ instead of being damned for inaccuracy. Keep in mind a few years ago, people refused to read this site because I sounded like a Nintendo fanboy. “Everything he says about Nintendo is so positive!” It was because Nintendo was on the ascent. It’s not that way today. But maybe, years from now, that could return.
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