/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8117637]

what went wrong with the mega man series?

[Anonymous No.8117643]

Shitty american dubbing, though that's not the fault of the games themselves. Also X5 and X6 were messy and X7 was a bad idea, but otherwise the series is fine.

[Anonymous No.8117646]

>>8117637
They tried to put a story in it.

[Anonymous No.8117661]

>too many games being released
>big numbers in the titles scaring newcomers away
>8, X5-7, BN4 and SF2 being subpar
>Mega Man Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X were stuck on PSP despite how awesome they (especially PU) were
>a really unfortunate string of game cancellations (only MML3 one is really a Capcom's fault)

[Anonymous No.8117698]

They changed the graphics after 3

[Anonymous No.8117701]

>>8117646
Agree to a certain extent. The barebones story of X1 made it stand out for me at the time, even the attract mode before the title screen is exposition of sorts and it set the tone for the game.
I think they just repeated the same story beats in later games with no real payoff
>X doesn't want to fight
>He comes around and does it for "good" reasons
>X doesn't want to fight in the next game

Megaman Zero story on the other hand I think is generally liked or I haven't seen many criticisms around it like with the X series

[Anonymous No.8117704]

They stopped making them.
Or I should say they stopped making anything but classic, which has been tired since 9.

[Anonymous No.8117757]

>>8117637
>what went wrong with the mega man series?

It lost its way in the early 00's. Battle Network was huge, but everything else started to veer farther and farther away. I like the Zero series but they're barely mega man. Then the NDS games killed the series. MM9 was a brief revival. we should have gotten MMX9 instead of MM10.

[Anonymous No.8117785]

>>8117704
>they stopped making anything but classic
9 was made after 10 years of no classic games at all.
And since then there were only 2 classic MM games, the latest one being released with a big pause in releases as well.
11 is also pretty good, especially with how it modernizes the formula. My only complaint is the lack of alternate characters, like Protoman, Bass and Roll.

[Anonymous No.8117805]

Honestly, nothing really went wrong with the franchise as a whole because Capcom had the foresight to spin it off into several different directions each time they wanted to experiment with it. For example rather than forcing OG Mega Man into 3D, they created Legends. This allowed each sub-series to do it's own thing and any failings of one wouldn't poison the others.

[Anonymous No.8117810]

>>8117757
>I like the Zero series but they're barely mega man
Play them buster-only, like a real man.

[Anonymous No.8117846]

>>8117785
Yeah, but those are the only Megaman games we've gotten since then, when they really should have at least taken the opportunity to make a SNES style X9, or maybe a decent followup to Battle Network.

[Anonymous No.8117858]

I’m genuinely curious what leads to translations like this? How much do you have to be rushing to not even glance over the lines and see these obvious mistakes?

[Anonymous No.8117868]

>>8117846
Yeah, more or less.
But can you blame them? Classic is the most iconic still.
>to make a SNES style X9
Fuck no. That's the beef I have with MM9 and 10 too. They stuck too hard to MM2 instead of pushing the series forward.
>or maybe a decent followup to Battle Network.
Too little, too late, but Star Force 3 was pretty good.

[Anonymous No.8117880]

>>8117701
They also stuck to Classic's format of using the same villain repeatedly.
It worked fine there since Dr. Wily was like a Saturday morning villain, but the MMX games wanted to be taken more seriously and have a larger focus on story.

I think Sigma should've been used sparingly and in different roles, as opposed to always masterminding the game's events. Take a page out of MMZ's book and give the antagonists different motivations and views on Reploids and humanity.

[Anonymous No.8117881]

>>8117701
>X doesn't want to fight
Slight correction: X doesn't want to kill. He fights for peace but he prefers to try diplomacy before pulling out the gun.

[Anonymous No.8117904]

>>8117881
Only in theory. For all the shit it gets, Mega Man X4 is an excellent allegory for police violence.

[Anonymous No.8117965]

>>8117904
X's ideals don't perfectly align with the Maverick Hunters. He works with them because he trusts Cain's judgment that they're fighting the good fight, not necessarily that he agrees with them 100%.

[Anonymous No.8117987]

>>8117661
This, mostly.
There was a muck period in the mid 00s that was just the perfect storm of Megaman getting thrown under the tracks.

[Anonymous No.8120492]

>>8117637
X sucks

[Anonymous No.8120507]

Sony values did. Would love to see a return to form with X like Mega Man 9.

[Anonymous No.8120523]

>>8120507
Yea. But would it mimic the artstyle of the SNES games or the PSX games?

[Anonymous No.8120524]

>>8117637
They made games that weren’t for NES/FC.

[Anonymous No.8122328]

>>8117661
This. Battle Network, Zero, and X were running at the same time, alongside remakes and rereleases of the Classic series.

People have speculated that Megaman helped save Capcom when they had to finally depend solely on their home division after the 90s, but there were just too many games.

[Anonymous No.8122335]

>>8120507
A Switch release of Powered Up and Maverick Hunter would be fucking amazing.

[Anonymous No.8122379]

>>8117661
facts here anons
/thread

[Anonymous No.8122392]

They didn't create a proper 3D game. Never cracked that formula

[Anonymous No.8122410]

>>8117661
Absence was really the best thing to happen to Mega Man because it really made the heart grow fonder. feels like all through out the 2000's people were considering Megaman washed up and too repetitive. 9 brought back a ton of good will but maybe that was too little too late. the games were never even that bad, its just that they cranked so many out they just became an expected thing instead of getting people excited.

[Anonymous No.8122460]

>>8122410
They kept asking Inti-Creates to pump out low budget sequels. Frankly, Inti aren't that great but only a budget studio. And the games were so samey but also so far removed from Mega Man they eventually lost steam and failed to garner a new audience.

>>8122392
This is the main reason. I even think that Legends should have not been assoiciated with Mega Man at all. MM fans hated it and many others who weren't MM fans ignored it.

A 3D MM in my mind should play a tiny bit like MML, but better controlls full 3D aiming, jumping and shooting. If you do Dark Souls bow only it feels a bit like what i feel a MML should be a bit like.

[Anonymous No.8122702]

>>8117646
fuck off millennial

[Anonymous No.8122735]

>>8117661
>Mega Man Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X were stuck on PSP despite how awesome they (especially PU) were
If you say so. I've been trying to play them recently and they're pretty awful. Maverick Hunter X absolutely butchered the dashing wall jump mechanic which ruins the game entirely. Like not even a chance of enjoyment because not only is that the single most important mechanic in the entire game, it was also the most fun one in the original.

And Powered Up gets by a little better since the mechanics of original Megaman up were so simple it's hard to screw up, but they still manage to do so on level s like Ice Man and the most bizarre and awkward Ice physics I've ever seen in an industry full of bizarre and awkward Ice physics. It makes me wondered how a single QA player could have played the level and not raised their hand.

[Anonymous No.8122768]

>>8122392
They shouldn't. It just doesn't work well with Mega Man, the only way I can see a proper 3D Mega Man game would be as an FPS like Mega Man 8-bit Deathmatch

[Anonymous No.8122781]

>>8117858
>I’m genuinely curious what leads to translations like this?
Probably ESL translators

[Anonymous No.8122895]

>>8117637
Mega Man crashed and burned in the console ecosystem for multiple reasons but the biggest culprit is the way Capcom works culminating into one big mismanaged clusterfuck. Mega Man Zero followed into how if you bought a newer platform there was a brand new take on the MM formula and it was awesome, both Battle Network and Zero were arguably the perfect handheld RPG and action games. The success of the handheld transition and a whole new RPG style proved the MM franchise could take risks while still being a "must play" kind of game.

Any other game company would have moved on from MMX games after the PS1 to put more money on the new ideas that are actually working, but this is Capcom we're talking about these motherfuckers never move on and care a lot about quantity even when the series isn't a mega best seller. The worst part is that their shitty ways of handling a series work because they do have good devs, even X6 could have turned out at least decent if they had more time because it's the same old song and dance of taking past gameplay and adding more content, too bad X7 ended up feeling like a shitty reboot because that's exactly how it was handled.

Capcom wanted more X games, the devs wanted to make an X game, except it could not play like an X game because that wouldn't be very Next Gen, it needed to feel different otherwise what's the point of putting the 2D sequel to MMX on the GBA? Legends/64 was the definition of an acquired taste so that couldn't have carried the franchise into the 6th gen so who knows what was going on in the console division that resulted in one of the most annoying to play and ultimately pointless 3D debuts ever made, right after a game like X6 of all things, only Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 06 surpassed this streak as far as I'm concerned.

[Anonymous No.8122905]

>>8117637
oversaturation

[Anonymous No.8122985]

>>8122735
Is everyone larping? Mav X was so fucking trash I had to stop playing immediately. A disgrace of a remake

[Anonymous No.8123002]

>>8122768
Vanquish + Prince of Persia platforming mechanics. There's your 3D Megaman X.

[Anonymous No.8123006]

Digimon Cyber Sluth really makes me want to see what a new Battle Network would look like.

[Anonymous No.8123017]

>>8117661
>Mega Man Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X
they were not very well received when they came out, but the retrospective consensus now is they are good games on their own.

[Anonymous No.8123030]

>>8122895
You're probably right about that. Megaman really needed a new sub-series that was built around being a 3D action game, as opposed to the RPG experience that Legends is, or the unnecessary half steps we got with X7 and Network Transmission.
I think Maverick Hunter X actually did show some potential, as much as I don't really like the fact that it's an X reboot, or the art style, and would rather it were in third person. It's a fast paced action experience, and very much a 3D game. They got that much right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olYCsHuqjOo

[Anonymous No.8123042]

>>8123017
Huh?? They were extremely well received when they came out, and routinely made PSP best-of lists.

[Anonymous No.8123061]

>>8123042
I still remember fans of the series getting angry over music, gameplay changes and retcons. This was also the time when anything classic Megaman but not 8 bit was bad.

[Anonymous No.8123075]

>>8123006
I've never played that game and Digimon in general but I fucking love that 'cybernetic' aesthetic

[Anonymous No.8123098]

X and its fucking storyshit.

[Majapahit !Ms4IYf6J5Y No.8123113]

>>8117646
>They tried to put a story in it.
But that was one the main selling

[Anonymous No.8123170]

>>8122735
Not going to excuse MHX. Awesome was a bit of an overstatement.
Powered Up was fucking great though. It got original campaign and a remixed campaign with a shitton of characters to play as. Also included a level editor and a way to share them. Don't really remember the issue with ice physics, so it's likely not that big of a deal..
>>8123061
Yeah, NES Classicfags were cancer and hated pretty much everything else in the series.
Seriously though, despite how I love PU, I'm not really fond of the chibi artstyle, but it's probably better than possible alternatives that would give the player roughly the same dimensions in 3D as NES games. Well, that and the fact that English version decided to dub Rock - Mega, but it's a minor issue.

[Anonymous No.8123189]

>>8122895
>Legends/64 was the definition of an acquired taste so that couldn't have carried the franchise into the 6th gen
Funnily enough, I think that a game like that would do wonders in bringing Megaman hype back now, after BotW was made.

[Anonymous No.8123381]

>>8123189
If you think about it Nier Automata is pretty close to being a Megaman Legends game. A few generations worth of improvements to 3D game design, and there's no reason it couldn't be a big hit.

[Anonymous No.8123403]

>>8123381
>Nier Automata is pretty close to being a Megaman Legends game
Might as well be called a rip-off in terms of story.

[Anonymous No.8125315]

>>8117637
X series is what killed mega man

[Anonymous No.8125330]

>>8123170
>Don't really remember the issue with ice physics, so it's likely not that big of a deal..
It's pretty bad, but not a deal-breaker. You just have to learn what you can't do (stop) and you get used to it. Mostly just highlights how these game's weaknesses were in their implementation, not their concept. I don't know if that's why they didn't succeed, though. I think the world just wasn't ready for classic remakes yet and saw them as either pointless re-releases of games people already owned or travesties besmirching the sanctity of the real games.

[Anonymous No.8125335]

[Anonymous No.8125469]

>>8117637
Adding chinese cartoons and voice acting. Overall decline in quality, starting with X3.

[Anonymous No.8125506]

>>8125469
X3 was a good game and soon after we got peak Megaman with X4. Retard.

[Anonymous No.8125571]

>>8125506
X3 might have been a good enough game on its own, but as a Mega Man game it was a letdown considering its predecessors. Bosses started feeling way too familiar (i.e. recycled), too many levels feel empty and artificially padded with long stretches of basically nothing, and they royally dropped the ball on the one genuinely new and interesting mechanic, playable Zero, by making its use so limited the feature might as well not have been there. Granted, there's since been rom hacks fixing that, but in its original state it's just sad. Can't pick up armor upgrades, can't fight bosses, and if you fuck up once you can't use Zero for the rest of the game.

[Anonymous No.8125953]

>>8125469
>Adding chinese cartoons and voice acting.
That is what went right.

[Anonymous No.8125979]

>>8117646
>>8117698
it's these, and a side effect of the graphical change in X4 is that it made them fuck up the feel of the movement and hitboxes, the characters just feel fat after X3

X4 is bad, you all just need to accept it. you can't hate X5 and love X4, it makes no sense. tell me how X4 could be the "last good one" and then the next two games emulate it and suck complete ass?

[Anonymous No.8126001]

Is mega man 8 good?

[Anonymous No.8126002]

>>8126001
yes

[Anonymous No.8126164]

>>8125979
X5 is bad for additions to the formula and small levels padded with dialogue.
X6 is simply just a broken game.
Neither is hated for the elements that they inherited from X4.
That said, I prefer SNES Megaman style to PS1 era one too, including MM7 to MM8(&B) and not just X.

[Anonymous No.8126692]

>>8125979
X5 has bad level design that constantly stops you moving forward. Tidal Whale is a tedious autoscroller, Burn Dinorex constantly has you constantly hiding for lava to pass, Dark Necrobat has this moving platform segment, Volt Kraken has the fucking electric barriers everywhere.
X4 also has bad and overly simplistic level design but it doesn't interrupt you nearly as much so it's easier for a brainlet to think he's having a good time.

[Anonymous No.8126768]

>>8117637
>Classic
Capcom too dumb to continue releasing them yearly in Classic style (or a Mega Man Maker)
>X
Doesn't build on last game's weapons/armor naturally, have to use cheats to unlock what you should already have, inconsistent plotlines
>Zero
First two games stumble all over the place, series is cancelled when 3+4 finally ramp things up. Best combat and movement system never used again.
>ZX
"Let's take the best combat system and make it retarded!"/play as Omega, but he controls like shit!
>Legends
Actually good series with lots of potential, doesn't sell like SF2, cancelled
>Battle Network
Make perfect game in 2, continue to make sequels that force the player through the same tutorials and act like last game(s) didn't happen, while having ungodly levels of grind
>SF
"Let's take a nearly perfect battle system and make it retarded!"

[Anonymous No.8126839]

>>8125979
Just because sequels are bad doesn't mean the one they're copying is bad, you retard.

[Anonymous No.8126848]

>>8126768
They stopped releasing Mega Man classic games yearly for a reason. It leads to fatigue pretty quickly.

[Anonymous No.8126906]

The series is kind of in a situation where it doesn't have enough budget/scope to get good sales and doesn't have good enough sales to get better budget/scope.

[Anonymous No.8127180]

>>8126906
There's absolutely no way a sidescroller requires a big budget. People just burned out on Mega Man due to Capcom releasing millions of them.

[Anonymous No.8128130]

[Anonymous No.8128927]

>>8117637
this shit, Capcom diverted the budget that could have been for X5, forcing the X series to end with a really poor game

[Anonymous No.8129121]

ive tried getting into megaman countless times yet I never found myself into it and never saw the appeal, what do you guys like about the series and which games would you recommend?

[Anonymous No.8129128]

>>8129121
Start with 2. If you get filtered by that, you should just give up on the series.

[Anonymous No.8129139]

>>8129121
Two points:
1. Classic Mega Man and X and X-inspired Mega Man are really two completely different archetypes. If you don't like classic, try X, and vice versa. The original Mega Man games are very much precision platformers, but the X series with its dash and wall jump has a much quicker pace and is far more fluent (remember, if you play X first, start with Penguin so you actually get the dash mechanic).
2. I'd honestly start with 4. You got both Charge Buster and Slide, the combination of which really bring the formula together. Which isn't to say 2 and 3 are bad.

[Anonymous No.8129165]

>>8129128
ive played it, it was my first except maybe the original one but I would've barely played it
anyway 2 was fine and seems to be a good game from its time period, its decently difficult but I haven't beaten it, not from being filtered but because despite being fine to me, it really wasn't anything special and I just didn't feel like continuing

[Anonymous No.8129987]

>>8129121
I like the robots mostly, and Zero gameplay.
>>8126848
Just Maker then. If they'd taken another look at Universe after Mario Maker came out, and revamped it to look like an actual Classic game instead of that 2.5d shit, I think people would have jumped at the opportunity. Especially if they'd kept the idea of different Capcom characters being playable and unique from each other.

[Anonymous No.8129993]

>>8129139
No, start with 1. It is the easiest and most straightforward.

[Anonymous No.8130347]

>>8123017
Why Crapcom dont made a remaster of PU and Maverick X hunter?

[Anonymous No.8130351]

>>8130347
Didn't sell well on the PSP.

[Anonymous No.8130354]

How did Maverick Hunter X flop? I was under the impression that everyone who had a PSP had it.
While regular X on SNES is better, subsequent Maverick Hunter games would absolutely have improved the later, weaker entries in the series that actually needed a remake.

[Anonymous No.8130389]

>>8129121
>what do you guys like about the series
Personally? All of them are straight to the point and just 'get from point A to point B'. I fucking hate video games that have tons of optional shit and unlockables. Besides they are challenging and therefore satisfying to beat. And damn, all in all almost all of them are just fun fucking games, you know.
Also they have charming art styles, stories, characters and banging music

[Anonymous No.8130780]

>>8130354
Sadly, it just didn't take off. I think a lot of those early-ish PSP games didn't sell too well in general. I do wish Capcom had given them a second chance somewhere. Even Switch ports could give them new life. Though I guess Capcom still isn't even sure what it wants to do with the franchise.

[Anonymous No.8130801]

>>8117637

Too hard for normies.

[Anonymous No.8132108]

>>8117637
The games are good, but I think they used to rush the projects too much, so it becomes harder and harder to make a good game with such a small deadline.

[Anonymous No.8132123]

>>8117810
>shooting from afar like a coward is more manly than getting in close for slashes

Get real.

[Anonymous No.8132125]

>>8117880
>Take a page out of MMZ's book
None of Mega Man Zero's bads are memorable except for original body Zero.

[Anonymous No.8132182]

>>8126001
awesome

[Anonymous No.8132193]

>>8132123
Zero deals more damage than X and some of his moves outright break the game (like the mid-air spinning attack that can last longer if you literally turn left and right repeatedly when doing it).

[Anonymous No.8132241]

>>8123002
Classic would be 3D Mario Plus Ratchet and Clank

[Anonymous No.8132682]

>>8132125
Copy X and Elpizo were memorable.

[Anonymous No.8132683]

>>8132123
Might as well just use bare hands, rite?
I'm not a beast. Like a smart man, I use the tool.

[Anonymous No.8132926]

>>8123113
Incorrect

[Anonymous No.8132962]

>>8117637
It went from "Old man makes robot to fight his old partner who's gone evil" to "What if Robots had like super duper emotions and their own sub society with rules and love and betrayal and the overtaking of the world and the emo BULLSHIT"

[Anonymous No.8133330]

>>8117637
Could it be for the same reason there's barely any MM-inspired game that isn't a romhack? "here's 4 to 8 stages you can do in any order, when you complete one you get an upgrade that helps with the rest" shouldn't be that different to "here's a massive map, as you progress you get upgrades that let you explore further for more upgrades, but if you know what are you doing you can skip the upgrades entirely" yet the latter is so common there's a name for that genre
Funny that the metroidvania genre is thriving expect for the 2 series that gave it a name to begin with

[Anonymous No.8133493]

>>8130389
why is she looking at me like she wants me to put my penis in her mouth bros?