Working Title 8.28.08: Working Change - Megaman (Part 1)

Posted by Jordan Williams on 08.28.2008

And it all comes down to this. We've seen changes before...but how many times have we seen so many good AND bad changes in one series? Let's sit down and talk about what changes have happened to everyone's favorite Blue Bomber in the last 20 years.

Welcome back to the #1 Column to survive a Tropical Storm and keep on rockin, WORKING TITLE.

Yes, I do know I missed last week and I do apologize...but for once I actually have a decent reason. For those of you who don't know Working Title HQ is in the wonderfully phallic state that is Florida. This is what Florida looked like this time last week.



Yeah. I have gone through some things to post this column before, but when the weather is that bad I think it's just a bit better to be on the safe side and be a hermit for a week. But that storm is gone and the next one doesn't look like it's going to come anywhere near us, so rejoice!

For all last month (and most of this month) each week I have been shining the spotlight on games and their sequels. Specifically, I have been shining the spotlight on games that have either made a very good change with their sequels or NEED to make a good chance with their sequels. All of the usual suspects are there as Resident Evil, Dynasty Warriors, and Def Jam Vendetta all got their time to shine, but for the final two columns of the series I decided that we should showcase a game that not only has been around longer than the three I just mentioned, it's also had more games than any of the others and more 'genre' changes than you can count on one hand. It's the only game that has simultaneously made a great change and still managed to mess it up. It's the one game series that has had a giant identity crisis for the last eight or so years, but everyone still knows what it is.

That game, ladies and gentlemen...is Megaman.


Working Change: Megaman



There really isn't a lot that can't be said about Megaman. As for as gaming mascots and memorable characters go, he is definitely up there. He might not have the recognition nowadays that he enjoyed back in the 90s, but he is one of the few franchises that have managed to stand the test of time and STILL make a lot of money with almost every game released. The Megaman series has gone through a lot of changes, some of them good, some of them bad, and some of them downright horrible. We've seen cutesy and bubbly to dark and brooding. We've seen gotta shoot 'em all to gotta catch 'em all and we've seen it go from 3D to 2D to PSP to Touch screen. But how many of these changes were worth it? Did all of these constant changes to the Megaman formula really help out the game in the long run or did it only just muddy up the blue bomber's waters to the point to where no one wants anything to do with the game anymore?

Well I (by way of Wikipedia) have broken down the 'phases' of Megaman. We're going to look and each one and define what was a change for the better, and what needs (or needed) to be changed in order to keep the series alive. Megaman games have always been criticized about a few things that do go into each game, so I'm not going to focus so much on the common sense things such as the difficulty, the bad translations, and (in games where it applies) bad voice acting. These are all things any Megaman fans knows exist in most of the games and it would get pretty bad if I had to repeat it every single time (I'm looking at you, X series.).

The Many Shades of Blue

Original Series - Where it all started.



In 1987, Megaman launched for the NES system here in the states and for the most part it was a success, this game later on spawned ten sequels (counting Rockman & Forte (released as Megaman and Bass on the GBA)). These are what started it all, from here the game was widely successful and once it started selling it never looked back. Of course, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly they CHANGED seeing as it was the first series in the franchises long life, so instead we'll look at what the original series brought to the table and what the other series' behind it could use.

The Weapon System. Innovative at the time, this is the system that Megaman becomes famous for. The idea of defeating an enemy and taking its power to use against the enemy that was weak against it was a novel idea, and an idea that carried across all of the games, albeit in less obvious patterns.

The Item System. When the previous enemies power wasn't enough, they also introduced an item system in Megaman 2 that allowed for the next series staple that was the E-Tank. For those poor souls that hadn't played the original Megaman games, just know that they were HARD. So having the extra energy was actually a good thing and not nearly as cheap as it sounds.

Rush, Slide, and Charge As the series went on, it slowly began to introduce more and more little game mechanics that would go onto be staples of the franchise. Rush being able to turn into objects to aid the player, the slide/kick that has now become famous as well as arguably the biggest addition, the charge shot were all introduced during the original NES games. The changes did continue onto the SNES and beyond, but all of the core gameplay changes that made the game famous happened way back in the 8-bit days.

Looking at these now, it's almost laughable that these are considered core game mechanics and features because you wouldn't dream of releasing a platforming/shooting game without these nowadays, but Capcom did and either they learned from the first few games that something needed to change, or they decided that they needed to spice things up. Either way it worked out for them and they managed to fight off being stagnant in its original series because of it. It's also worth mentioning that back then the industry as a whole was different, it was a lot cheaper to create a video game back then and back then almost EVERY sequel had to build towards something, be it a new mechanic or new style, it was almost unheard of to release a 'sequel' that was only a sequel in name value and offered nothing new. It's a damn shame that business model isn't as strong as it used to be. However, Capcom is trying to go back to this style of model and gameplay with the release of Megaman 9...more on that later.

X Series - All Grown Up



With the end of the original series already looming during Megaman 7, it was already time for Megaman X to take the stage. Megaman X was largely unchanged from its older series but the changes they were made were big ones. The series began to try to distance itself away from its cutesy and 'kiddie' art style in favor of a darker and more sci-fi look. The first three games in the series were released on the SNES, 4-6 were on the Playstation 1, and 7 and 8 were released on the PS2. Spin off games of the series (Command Mission, and Megaman X-Treme) were released on the PS2 and GameCube and GBC respectively.

The X series also came with its fair amount of change for the series; this was the first time the series had shown that it actually had the power in there to tell a story. As great as the original series was, the story was fairly interchangeable between the games with no real narrative or anything outside of what the instruction booklet outlined. This could be attributed to the fact that back when the original series was made, gaming wasn't necessarily used as a storytelling tool yet. A lot of games were still considered a 'hobby' and things you would do to pass the time, not necessarily an outlet of entertainment that could be used to tell a story.

So what exactly did the X series bring to the table, let's take a look.

Cast of Characters. Megaman had its own set of characters, but outside of Protoman, Megaman, and Dr. Light and Wily there wasn't much of a story. However in the X series each character got a bit of face time and some actual story. We had the considerably darker X and his boy toy Zero. We had the evil Sigma and his ever-growing cast of Mavericks. And even some side characters such as Dynamo, and Alia and love interests like Iris and...Zero.

Yeah, I'm going to get all the mileage out of the gay Zero joke as possible.

Story. I said it a few lines up, but it still holds true here. Where in the Original Series all we got was just a couple of pages in the instruction booklet, the X Series all seemed to flow together with a story. Each game felt like an actual continuation of the story rather than just another game with the same name. Even on the spin-offs like Command Mission they managed to keep the story going which I really liked about the series.

A REAL Villain. Not to knock Dr. Wily, but the dude wasn't that great of a villain. Sure, he managed to steal the original six robot masters and then great ten million more, but at the end of the day he was just some old fart with a painfully complex house and a new machine always waiting to ruin Megaman's day. Sigma, on the other hand, was a real villain. He never did anything truly as vile as killing off a character, but he had his fair share of asshole moments throughout the series. What set him apart was that he wasn't someone hiding behind a machine either; he was actually a villain that you fought against. In the final battle you didn't fight against Sigma piloting some giant machine, you actually fought against Sigma himself. I always like the idea of having a boss villain who isn't afraid to stand toe to toe with the hero.

These were something, like I mentioned earlier, that the game had to make to make the step into the next generation (which is what at the time), along with those also game better ways in how the games were played. We had the dash tactic, the use of melee weapons with Zero and an all around deeper and vibrant world. But for the most part the gameplay differences between the Original and X weren't all that different. The change was mostly in the way the story of the game was portrayed. The darker look and feel of Megaman helped propel the X series into history as a successful franchise, but it was all too relevant that at the end of the day it was starting to get a little stale, this is where drastic changes had to be made.

Legends Series - The Experiment



And then there was, so far in the franchises life, the most drastic change. Megaman Legends. Now this might've flown under radar for a lot of people because it actually wasn't widely released here in the states, nor was it advertised nearly as much as the other Megaman titles. However that doesn't change the fact that this was a BIG change for the series that went a lot deeper than a new story and characters. They had gone somewhere they had never gone before.

Megaman was in 3D.

This was the first time they managed to take Megaman into the hot new world of 3D, and at the time the timing couldn't have been any better. Mario 64 had just tea bagged damn near every other platformer, 3D or not, HARD and everyone all up on the 3D world of gaming's dick (or tits, in the case of Tomb Raiders recent success). So rightfully so Megaman decided to take it's trying at it with the often forgotten and praised Megaman Legends. This series actually did a lot of things different on top of adding in that 3D world, but unfortunately this was the first time the Megaman franchise started to do some questionable things that would painfully begin to haunt the Megaman Franchise well into the future.

But first, let's focus on the positive aspects.

New 3D World. If one tried hard enough, they could link the Original Series and the X series together into one big story (and trust me, there are MANY who have) but what set Legends apart was that it was the start of this new 'alternate universe' take on Megaman. You still had the familiar Blue Bomber but he actually had a real name, be it Rock, Trigger, or Volnutt. They also re-imagined some of the series' staple characters like Roll and recreations and new takes on villains like the now infamous Tronne Bonne. Note: At the time, Megaman Legends was tagged as being in an alternate universe, but this was eventually ret-conned. According to Capcom Megaman Legends takes place after the ZX series.

Fuck off, Spikes. Sure, it might be a minor gripe but if there is one thing that critics CONSTANTLY maligned OG and X for was its pitfalls and generally cheap levels. This is something they FINALLY did away with in Legends and it paid off. It left you exploring a lush (at the time) 3D world instead of getting from point A to point B and then destroying Robot Master C. You instead had some platforming action in full 3D.

The first taste of a possible Megaman RPG. While I already talked a bit about Command Mission earlier, at the time it wasn't even thought of and this was the first taste of what a possible Megaman RPG could end up like. Unfortunately it never really got a chance to take off due to Capcom dropping the ball (to be explained later), but it was a nice little glimmer of hope for those who wanted it.

Now, if Megaman Legends was a rare find, which made Megaman Legends 2 even rarer and actually the better of the two games. Things that had originally plagued the original game such as control issues and the lack of deep exploration were polished and fixed and it got some pretty damn impressive scores at the time. And no, that doesn't mean the scores were pretty impressive for a Megaman game, I mean that MML2 was considered to by a Game of the Year Candidate by a lot of people. This success was telling us that the 3D experiment was working, even Capcom started to believe it when they released a THIRD game in the series (which is actually the second because it came out before MML2), The Misadventures of Tronne Bonne. For a series that has been spun off and rehashed almost to death, Capcom found themselves with three real winners in a row and began to change critics mind on the series. They were riding pretty high, so there was only one thing left for them to do.

They cancelled it.

Yep.

After three pretty damn good games and building up a new track record that was tarnished a bit by the X Series, Capcom just let Legends fall into obscurity. It was never heard off again in a stand-alone game format. Tronne Bonne and her loveably Servbots would go on to make cameos in other Capcom games (most notably Marvel vs. Capcom 2) but outside of that Capcom just completely washed their hands of the series.

This is where the franchise committed one of its most grievous mistakes and sadly one of the most long lasting ones. For some reason or another Capcom had gotten in its mind that there's only two trains of thought when it comes to Megaman games.

A. Make a fuckload of them.
B. Don't make enough.

Before Legends, Capcom was riding high on plan A. They would simply just make a lot of Megaman games and hope something would stick. Legends came around and right out of the gate it caught on, but for some reason they didn't follow plan A, they jumped to plan B. And somehow during that an unholy new rule was born.

Ab. Make a fuckload of them, but don't give them enough difference.

If that sounds confusing, let me break it down for you. The OG series and X series were great, but between each sequel there were only minor changes. Each game came with a new increment that would give it a little bit of change, but not make the game perfect, thus Capcom would have an excuse (more or less) to make a new game to fix that one little problem. They forgot to do that with Megaman Legends. They fixed damn near all of the problems that the game had with MML2. This left them with nowhere to go. They of course COULD have just made a third game anyway and retooled the story and make a true sequel, but this is the same Capcom that made and released FIVE different versions of the same damn game instead of just making a third one. Yes, I'm talking about Street Fighter. They illustrated with Street Fighter II that Capcom are the masters of taking a game and stretching it out ungodly levels. Between those five versions of Street Fighter II we had enough new content to warrant a single sequel. But that alone took them SIX years to do, and they ended up making three different versions of THAT game, too!



Recently the creator behind the series has expressed views on making a new Megaman Legends game, but many are thinking it's too little too late. Now that the budgets for video games on a next gen console have gotten out of control I highly doubt that we'll ever see a Megaman Legends III unless a miracle happens or all of the sudden Cell phone gaming takes off in the states.

In short, Capcom began to realize that in order to stretch Megaman games beyond their original limit; they needed to go back to the old ways of nickel and diming the gamers by offering up small changes instead of drastic ones. This is where many believe the series began to hit its dark age.

Enter Megaman Battle Network.


Well, that's not entirely true. Megaman Battle Network won't show up until next week when I talk about the more recent Megaman series'. Needless to say at the end of the Legends Series there were a lot of problems going on with Megaman, and those problems might've come to a head in the Battle Network series, but did the Zero and ZX and StarForce series' save them? We'll see.

Working Feedback

that game was awesome, it was a ton of fun as a fighting game, the finishers were wonderfully ridiculous, and your trainer was HENRY FUCKING ROLLINS

then they made a sequel where you did weird stuff to the world and made it explode and that's when I stopped listening ~Drue

Don't worry, everyone else stopped listening too.

The MM9 flicker is optional. It isn't like you have to use it. It's there for fanboy purposes, to make them feel like they're actually playing a new installment on the NES. It'll be fun for gamers that grew up on NES Mega Man, although they'll have turned the flicker off within 20 minutes of their first play through. ~The Mysterious WankerX

I understand that it's an optional feature, but it just seems really arbitrary and well...lame. Graphics Flicker was a rampant problem in old NES games and I don't think one of your games highlights should be the fact that you can 'break' the game willingly. What next? Are they going to add Guile's Handcuffs back into Street Fighter IV or replace all voice acting the new Star Fox games with unintelligible animal noises for the sake of being retro? Retro is one thing, but recreating the BAD parts of retro is another.

And now we have an EPICCCCC EEEMAAAAAIILLL from Toddo regarding Smackdown vs. Raw. As with usual Epic Email type feedbacks, I'll just chime in with my thoughts whenever needed.

Epic Email: Smackdown vs. Raw changes

Elaborate on SvR needing to be changed up? Sure thing. First off, don't get me wrong, I love the games. I have bought them every year since they started the franchise. Most of these nitpicks are probably personal, but annoying none the less. And they are not so much areas that need to be changed dramatically, just improved upon.

1. Story mode:
- Every since they added wrestler dialog, and actual voice acting, it has really limited what your choices are in the very few branching storylines that they still give you.

No complaints here.

- On top of that, when you make your choices now, it doesn't change the story at all. For example, I was playing the 24/7 mode last night, and was being harrassed by the McMahons. Steph offered me a choice of giving up my title and being left alone, or keeping the title and the assault continues. For shits and giggles, I decided to forfeit the title, in hopes of getting into a different story arc. This changed nothing. The announcers still called me the champ. Shane and Stephanie still made my life hell, and no reference was made in game about me forfeiting the title, except for the fact that I didn't enter matches with the belt around my waist.

-Example #2: I was set to be in a six man tag match. The game gave me my choice of partners... one set being Mr. Kennedy & Rey Mysterio, the other being Mr. Kennedy & Gregory Helms. I chose Kennedy & Mysterio. The next day I had a message from Helms telling me he could not be my partner, and that me and Kennedy would have to go at it alone. Um... I picked Mysterio and Kennedy, and they still used Gregory Helms for the messages and the rest of that particular story.
- Example #3: I negotiated an opportunity for my character to be traded to a different brand. the story I was involved in at the time was dropped, but the trade did not go into effect, I finished the year on Smackdown, with no mention of the supposed "choice" I made.

Yeah, I agree there. I mentioned in the column that I didn't have too many problems with SvR outside of SvR08. That storymode was completely broken and I really didn't like it at all.

2. Moveset:
I may be wrong here, but it looks like move animations have not been updated since Here Comes the Pain. Again, a minor complaint, but with the new generation of home video game consoles, would it have been to much to ask for them to redo the animations to make them flow better and look better on the new systems?

They can redo the animations, and I think they are finally being forced to since the moveset is actually the star in 09. As far as them looking bad. I think you might want to go replay some of the older SvR games and the Day of Recknoning games. The animations might not look super smooth but they are a LOT better than what they used to be

Along these same lines, it would be nice if the actual moves available would change up from time to time. Again, you have had the same basic selection of moves available, pretty much since Here Comes the Pain. Sure they add a couple of new moves each year, but the ones available largely go unchanged from one iteration to the next.

I agree here. Certian moves could be added in and taken out but I think a big issue with that is that a LOT of wrestling moves are recycled and reused and you might catch flack for putting say, a TNA stars innovated move in a WWE game.

3. GM mode, and Career mode:
I was one of the people excited about the prospect of them combining the GM mode and the Career mode into 2008's 24/7 mode. But the thing is, they didn't really combine them. Sure you have to do all the daily training and stuff in the career aspect of 24/7 mode now, but that is where it stops. If you choose GM mode, you do not get to see any of the stories play out in cut scenes, like you get in career mode. GM mode offers a WM tourney to protect one of your stars from being drafted. There is no actual tournament, and there is no way of actually winning this prized draft protection.

4. Smackdown and Raw's little bitch of a brother, ECW:
It was good that they added ECW to the mix. But if they were going to add it, why not give it the same attention as the other two in the GM mode? I went through 2 years as the GM of ECW, and encountered all sorts of problems. It is common knowledge that the winner of the Rumble main events Wrestlemania, yet I didn't get that option either year.
The first year, a member of my roster won the Rumble, yet my show was not given the main event slot at the Rumble. The second year, I had guys that were supposed to appear in the Rumble, then when it came time to play the Rumble, it was all Smackdown! and Raw guys. There was only 20 and none of my ECW stars entered the Rumble, so I was once again denied the Mania main event slot.
There is a secret achievement for getting the GM of the year trophy, which again, you cannot get by playing through the GM as the ECW GM. I won it, got 100% on the GM of the year bar that appears at the top of the screen, and never got the achievement. Now I have to do it all again as GM of Raw or Smackdown in hopes of unlocking this huge point achievement.

I notice that a lot of your complaints are for 08...which sucks because it's the one game I agree with you on. GM Mode is a wash because that sucked even in 07, and I know someone who did the exact same thing with the ECW roster and he's PISSED about it

5. wrestler selections:
I'm not sure there is anybody in the world who would disagree with me here. The selection of wrestlers in a SVR title leaves something to be desired to say the least. I know the big stars are all there every year, but how the hell do they decide who else goes in the game? Snitsky? Vito? Psicosis? Orlando Jordan? Sylvain Grenier? Seriously who decides that these people go in the game? And what is with the E firing half the roster each year when the game is released, thus instantly outdating the roster on any given year's release?

I remember reading somewhere that certain wrestlers actually have clauses in their contracts to be put in video games because they did turn a profit from that as well. As far as the jobbers, just think of it this way. Would you rather have a wrestling game that only has the main eventers (think about it, it's only like 8 people) and that's it? Or would you just let them put the jobbers in and be content with it? I think a lot of people will go with the latter. And then you have to remember that the main draw of these games are the CAW and very rarely do people actually use the in-game wrestlers and there's also a very small minority who find amusement in using jobbers and making them WWE champion.

Well there you have a few things I would change... Don't get me wrong, I still buy the games religiously, and they are my favorite offline games. But these are the things that bother me the most about the system. Granted most of it is probably glitches with the story modes and whatnot, but it is still stuff that hinders the gameplay experience.

Once again Toddo proves that he's an awesome motherfucker. Thanks for the Epic Email.

Working Question

Keiji Inafune stated that he is interested in making a new Megaman Legends game, but the budget for a next gen system game would be far too much for Capcom. Instead he's opted to make it for Mobile Phones.

With that said, do you think Mobile Gaming is EVER going to take off in the western world?

Chew on that for a while.

Until next week, I'm Jordan Williams...and Tales of Symphonia is STILL one of the best GCN games made.