Retro Gaming Australia

It’s Mega Man’s 25th anniversary next Monday, so enjoy a week’s worth of ads featuring Capcom’s ubiquitous mascot. This particular ad is for the original release of Rockman in Japan.

Capcom has announced that they have approved the release of a fan made Mega Man and Street Fighter crossover game in celebration of each series’ 25th anniversary. The game will be released on December 17, drawing the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary celebrations to a close, and kicking off the Mega Man series 25th Anniversary celebrations. Yes, Capcom has actually decided to do something for Mega Man’s anniversary.

As you can see from the trailer, the game essentially plays like your bog standard Mega Man game, but replaces the usual robot masters with eight of the finest fighters from the Street Fighter series.

Capcom’s Christian Svensson says they have more planned for the Mega Man anniversary, and that celebrations will take place over the course of the next year. On a post on Capcom Unity, he stated “I don’t know that there’s more substantial [things] for me to talk about but there’s a TON more things we have in the works, only some of which will be shared on December 17th.”

At this stage, the only other known Mega Man anniversary plans are the Virtual Console releases of Mega Man and Mega Man 2 for the 3DS in Europe in Q1 2013. Get to it, Capcom!

Mega Man X is set 100 years after the end of the classic Mega Man series, and focuses largely on the conflict caused by Mavericks (or Irregulars for the fans of the Japanese series), robots who feel that their kind is superior to humanity and wish to take over the world. You play as X, the original reploid created by Dr. Light and locked away for a century, who is tasked with the job of hunting down Sigma, X’s former Maverick Hunter commander who has joined forces with the Mavericks.

Mega Man Legends was Capcom’s first attempt at bringing their mascot into 3D. The result was a bit mixed – some Mega Man fans don’t particularly care for it, but others are obsessed with it. Just look at the reaction to the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 for the 3DS last year for proof.

It’s Mega Man’s 25th anniversary in December, and although Capcom is mostly focusing on the earlier Street Fighter series anniversary, they’re not leaving their most prolific character in the dark.

The first piece of merchandise for the anniversary to be revealed is the Rockcan, a 10 disc soundtrack bringing together the original tracks from Rockman/Mega Man 1 through 10, as well as the arranged tracks from the PlayStation Rockman Complete Works re-releases in the last 90s. It’s packaged together with a small booklet in a case that’s shaped like an energy tank.

The Rockcan will be out September 19 and will set you back 14,700 yen (~$AU184). You can order it here.

Source: Rockman Corner

UDON’s latest Mega Man book, the Mega Man Robot Master Field Guide was finally released into stores in the United States this past week after months (possibly years) of delays.

The book features a detailed biography and art for every character in the “classic” Mega Man universe (i.e. Mega Man 1-10 and associated spinoffs). UDON’s website has a free six page sample.

If you were hoping to snag a copy off Amazon, you’ll have to wait another month or so, but it’ll only cost you a piddling $US9 (plus shipping).

Whether you think it was a neat tribute or a cruel joke, the “classic” interpretation of Mega Man featured in Street Fighter X Tekken happened.

A new book, Street Fighter X Tekken Artworks features a detailed breakdown of many of the different concepts that were devised during the creation of the game. The book is currently only available in Japanese, but there’s a remote chance that it might see an English release through Udon like many of Capcom’s other artbooks.

However, if you can’t wait until them, the Mega Man Network has posted a few scans from the book.

It’s always Dr. Wily.

Mega Man: Dr Wily’s Revenge is the first of five outings on the original Game Boy. Capcom had intended to do an enhanced port of these five games for the Game Boy Advance in a pack called Mega Man Mania, but the original source code had been lost, and the attempt to rebuild the games from scratch was not pretty.

Mega Man Legends is a bit of a sore spot with fans of the series following the recent cancellation of the 3DS sequel. In fact, you could say that fans of the Mega Man series are not particularly happy with Capcom in general, particularly after the awful port of Mega Man X to iOS.

Indie developer Tarbo-san has published this concept video of a demake (i.e. remake on more primitive hardware) of Mega Man Legends (or Rockman DASH), now reimagined as a NES game. Apparently a full game is planned, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

The best Mega Man? I don’t agree, but many feel that way.

Mega Man 3 might not seem that different from its predecessor on first impression, but the addition of the slide move and Mega Man’s side kick Rush prove otherwise. It sold over a million units worldwide – a heck of a lot more than any recent Mega Man game.