9th time's the charm

[Shadow Hog]

Not at all how I saw it. MM4-6 could be considered "Mission Pack Sequels", but the first three were damn fun, and different enough from each other to be relevant... and Mega Man 2 was probably one of the best titles on the system. Mega Man 7 didn't really float my boat that much, but Mega Man 8 was incredibly good (again, barring the hokey voice-acting), and that's when they just kind of dropped the whole series.

Now, I am a bit disappointed that we're not getting a continuation of the style depicted in Mega Man 8, yes; they really nailed the style there, honestly. But, Mega Man 2 is one of my favorite titles in the series, so if the game is anywhere near that good, I can dig it. As long as the game looks GOOD for an 8-bit game, I have little qualm with them trying to make it look like one.

[K2J]

Hey, Zeta?

Code: Select all

[url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MissionPackSequel]Mission Pack Sequel[/url]

gets you Mission Pack Sequel.

[Locit]

Fuck Megaman, give me 4-player online Power Stone 3 on the 360 or PS3.

Can't we have both?

[K2J]

All right, here's the pic everyone's using to say it's more than 8-bit.

[gr4yJ4Y]

That still looks amazingly 8-bit to me...

[Isuka]

Nice hack... why is it there in NP again?
Here's waiting for Mega Man 9, along with Street Fighter [non-EX] IV, Capcom!

[Crazy Penguin]

Bryan Lee O'Malley must be some kind of prophet.

http://destroyerzooey.livejournal.com/181246.html

May. 28th, 2008 at 12:14 PM

I have decided that what the world needs now is a new Megaman game using the original Megaman sprite - but setting him loose in a world of current pixel-technology. You know, huge bad guys, fancy visual effects, all that, but the same little guy running and zapping with his dot eyes. I just feel like he stopped being Megaman when he got more than 32 pixels high or whatever.

Hey, close enough!

[Zeta]

Shitty graphics for the sake of nostolgia is as bad as everyone in the PlayStation era wanting everything to be 3D simply because it was new technology.

[Esrever]

You know, I'm really starting to think that some of you people have absolutely no sense of fun at all!

If this was entirely about laziness, Capcom has billions of more modern Megaman sprites and graphics that they could have reused. Instead, someone thought it might be neat to make one Megaman game -- one out of the five billion Megaman games that get released every year -- with a deliberately retro graphic and play style, and you guys are acting like the pits of hell have opened up!

I think it's a cute idea, especially for a budget-priced downloadable title.

[Green Gibbon!]

I think it's a cool idea, at least until it becomes a trend (and it will). I've been predicting this for years, not Mega Man specifically, but I figured it was the next logical step in this retro craze. I'm sure I'll download it.

Now if they actually released it on a proper Famicom cartridge for play on an actual Famicom? That would be awesome.

[Team Mecha]

It's not that I think it will be a bad game. I think it looks like it'd be a decent game by the standards of 1989. But seeing as how that's almost 20 years ago . . .

I'd have the same reaction to say, Nintendo stopping the production of Mario games for 10 years and announcing a brand new Mario game in 2018 and playing it up as the successor to Mario Galaxy only to find out it's nothing more than the original Super Mario Bros for the NES with hacked levels.

Except they didn't stopped production on Megaman games. They've been making Battle Networks & ZXes & so many spin-offs of spin-offs of spin-offs that nobody can keep track of it all. A straight up normal sequel is very welcomed by this point.

To me the closer Mario analogy is New Super Mario Brothers coming out after years of Mario sports & party games that no one gives a fuck about.

[Zeta]

I thought New Super Mario Bros was uninspired nostalgia-milking that foolishly totally ignored improvements made by past sequels as well. I was all pumped about it till I actually played it, and instead of getting a 2D sequel to Super Mario World you get Super Mario Bros 1.5 in 2.5D.

[Ngangbius]

Which improvements do you mean? The power of flight or dinosaurs?

[Locit]

All right, here's the pic everyone's using to say it's more than 8-bit.

Dude, have you ever played Kirby's Adventure? It looks a hell of a lot better than that.

[G.Silver]

Which improvements do you mean? The power of flight or dinosaurs?

I am pretty sure it's the riding on dinosaurs. Something more games should be doing today!

[Green Gibbon!]

New Mario had design flaws beyond any obvious lack of creative new elements, though. That shrinking mushroom is the worst thing to happen to the series since blue coins.

[Isuka]

I understand Esrever's point, but I'm looking at it the other way around; what's the reason to use such awfully dated graphics in a supposedly official sequel? I mean, I'm all for going back to the series' very roots and hacking some new shit in here and there, as long as it is marketed as some kind of gaiden or side-stuff, but if Inafune is serious about naming it Mega Man 9 and he really doesn't want to put any significant amount of technical effort into it, I at least expect to see a hacked and improved 8's engine, nothing less. I want to have fun, yes, but what's the harm if it is fun and looks good in the process? I'm tired of the "looking good"/ "actually worth playing" ratio almost scratching zero for new titles in old franchises.
And, please, don't come with the tired, Dasher-esque "the original creator knows what he's doing" line, we know he's a human being and he can and will screw up more than once in his lifetime.

[Ngangbius]

^Dude, there are people who think MM7 and 8 has unappealing aesthetics compared to the first six MM games. There were folks who disliked the cute Chibi-anime look of MMPU. For them this is an improvement in graphics.

Also regarding that image with MM on the platforms, I don't recall the NES having the cpu power to do that.

[Isuka]

What kind of weak and sad excuse for old graphics on an already dated franchise is that? (and here I'll ignore every other Mega Man series other than the original) Some people didn't like 7 and 8? Well, guess what, some people didn't like Street Fighter Zero and III styles, too.
And it's not like the anime look wasn't always there, to begin with, in one way or the other.
It's almost the same as with Sonic Chronicles, taking the game's mechanics discussion aside, both are butt fugly, and this one is more aggravating given that they're calling it 9. There's just no way around it.

[Esrever]

You kind of remind me of the people who complain about my comic being in black and white. I mean, don't I know that colour is FREE on the internet? After all the progress comics have made since leaving the newspapers, why would I deliberately take a huge step backwards and go back to making ugly black and white comics again? I must be lazy.

[Zeta]

Well, is your comic the sequel to an earlier comic you did that was in color and had better art?

[Crazy Penguin]

I only just got around to playing through New Super Mario Bros recently. It's a bit of an odd duck. Graphics aside it feels like a lost game released some time shortly before Super Mario Bros 3. The issue of the game not being as rich, creative or well designed as 3 (and furthermore World) has been brought up countless times and is absolutely valid, but what really surprised me is that it isn't streamlined enough to have the raw simplicity and nostalgic appeal of the original Super Mario Bros.

It's a decent enough game, but in failing to please either the fans who wanted something along the lines of SMB3/World or those who wanted a return to the simplicity of the original I'm left wondering what the point of the whole exercise was, considering that it brought nothing new to the table either.

[Crazy Penguin]

I'll be very surprised if this keeps the "Mega Man 9" title.

[Locit]

Also regarding that image with MM on the platforms, I don't recall the NES having the cpu power to do that.

I'm confused as to what exactly is so impressive about those platforms.

[Isuka]

Unless there's some special animation to them that just doesn't show up on that still image, the only interesting thing I see is that Mega Man's sprite is rotating over said platform into the background, which then would loop out of it and end up in the starting positon, affecting your jump and therefore adding a new layer of timing... I guess.

In respect to Es' comic analogy, I think it's not entirely precise. I like black and white comics, I even like black and white cartoons, movies and games. I haven't taken the time to watch Sin City, but I sure will and probably like it as much as 300, which is in color.
But think about the possibility that you had started your comic as some kind of cave painting endeavor which happened to tell a pretty interesting and exciting story back in 1986. People may have seen better stuff, but yours didn't look particulalry bad and it showed originality and passion. Just when people were getting more or less tired of your cave painting, you strike back with actual comic-style panels, graphical onomatopoeia and such stuff, though people may have moved on to some other kind of narrative or genre, then you just stop doing the comic, leave it on a hiatus, and go on and do other stuff with your life you may feel interested in.
Then, all of a sudden, you feel like doing it again, but just for the sake of it you do it in good ol' cave painting style with just one or two techniques you learned during your "true comic-style" period, instead of expanding over your past experience and developing a more elaborated and fresh style.
See where I'm getting at?

Plus, this isn't NiGHTS or Rez or Psychonauts or some other profound game with underlying concepts, it's friggin' Mega Man. It's no thoughtful comic at all, it's more like a pure action comic with many side-stories.