Gears Of Fate Grinding Toward New Mega Man Game?
December 08, 2014
Capcom's Mega Man has largely sat on the sidelines since his last adventure in Mega Man 10. His latest appearance since is as a newcomer in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. sequels for Wii U and 3DS. Are we really doomed to continue living a life without new Mega Man sequels? The USgamer crew doesn't think so. As part of an article looking at dusty franchises in need of an adoptive financier, Mega Man comes up as one of Nintendo's possible interests. The evidence that the company could possibly be working with Mega Man's corporate masters at Capcom on a new title piles up quickly.
Of any combination on this list, the Nintendo/Mega Man connection doesn't just seem possible — it seems practically inevitable. The Big N has more or less taken Mega Man in off the streets as its own personal charity case. They put him in Smash Bros., making him relevant to kids for the first time since anyone cared about Battle Network/NT Warrior. Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console are basically Mega Man machines, stuffed to bursting with almost every Mega Man title ever made for a classic Nintendo platform. We're still down some GBA titles, but they put Battle Chip Challenge on there, of all damn things. Mega Man Zero 3 can't be too far behind. And then as the tasty little cherry to top off this sundae of true-blue inexorability, Mega Man is the one and only non-Nintendo-published series to have its own 3DS Street Pass puzzle. I mean, you can practically hear the gears of fate grinding their way to a hot-sclusive Mega Man for Wii U announcement at E3 2015.
Nintendo does seem to recognize that there is a demand for the franchise and is doing its darnedest to fill it. I'd love to see the company adopt the franchise and make it one of its own as part of a Capcom co-production (as in, Nintendo makes all of the creative decisions and Capcom gets a royalty check in the mail each month). Turn the blue bomber over to one of Nintendo's talented in-house teams and let them reinvent him for modern gaming but still maintain all of the great core basics that make the series so much fun. If anyone could make Mega Man relevant again, I believe that it's Nintendo. For more on how I'd like to see Mega Man reworked, be sure to listen to Episode 156 of the Power Button podcast.