Editorial: And then he was gone…

Like most fans, I’m more than concerned about the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 and shelving of Mega Man in general by Capcom. The blue bomber was a huge part of why games initially appealed to me (Mega Man 2 was the first game that actually made me want a home console) and why I’ve stuck with them throughout the years. However, as rotten as the situation is, I can’t help but feel a sigh of relief. Why? Just like anything else it’s a complicated story, but a story that can oddly enough be traced back to the demise of Media Vision’s Wild Arms.

Out of the six (ok, seven) games that make up the Wild Arms series, the first two are the only ones I’ll ever truly care about. It wasn’t always that way. In the early going, I’d make up just about any excuse to prove the remaining games were of value. Wild Arms 3 was boring as hell but it was “an extremely well crafted title” I’d tell myself. The story and characters were lame (don’t even get me started on how much I dislike Virginia) but it didn’t matter, it was still “well crafted.” The plot in Wild Arms 4 had parts that even the most brain-dead player could see right through as the game added plaforming elements in an attempt to stay relevant. Still, it was “well crafted” despite its low budget. By the time Wild Arms 5 was released in time for the series tenth anniversary, I was pretty much done lying to myself. “Well crafted” my ass. Wild Arms 5 delivered a heaping helping of fan service but offered little else. To this day I wish I could go inside that game and punch the worthless Chuck Preston in the face. There are very few characters that make me wish I was a series of zeroes and ones, but Mr. Preston is more than your typical, self-righteous tool; he’s a typical, self-righteous tool that’s completely worthless in a fight.

In the end, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, Wild Arms needed to die. It just needed to, it had outlived it’s usefulness by a couple of games easy. Does Mega Man deserve the same treatment? Not in so many words, but there are certain things that make me think believe a break could be a good thing. Heading that list is developer Inti.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say every internally created Mega Man game was gold. Hell, I think games like Mega Man X6 and X7 are enough to prove that to be a falsehood alone, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that Inti’s Mega Man Zero and ZX games weren’t part of the problem either. I’m just simply astounded how you can take an interesting character like Zero and make him so flaccid and uninteresting. When faced with this criticism, fans usually point towards Zero’s application of drama. Whoop-de-damn-do-do! Zero’s overreaching drama and stiff challenge are touted as the series calling cards but ultimately mean nothing, especially when you have to put an “easy mode” in the DS collection to make the games more attractive – a losing proposition. So what do I consider the calling card of the Mega Man Zero series? Despite that fact the GBA games usually have crappy audio (really, for a system that was more-or-less on par with the SNES couldn’t Nintendo have opted for better on-board sound for this thing?) music is Mega Man Zero’s claim to fame, the only thing keeping it from being a total waste. Those remastered albums sure were nice, weren’t they? It got even better when Ryo Kawakami joined their team and gave us stellar anthems like ZX’s “Rockin’ On” and Mega Man 9’s “Magma Burning,” “Plug Electric” and “Title.” This man knows Mega Man my friends, at least musically.

Regardless, all of this brings me back to Mega Man Legends and the perennial argument that Mega Man games have no story. Do I need to draw a freaking diagram! Mega Man Legends had a story beyond the buster gun bang bang Wily defeated thing. Give people the one thing they complain about not being there and all of a sudden the end result isn’t a “Mega Man” game. Cripes. Why isn’t Mega Man Legends a Mega Man game? Because it’s 3D? I guess that means X7 isn’t a Mega Man game either (although I wouldn’t go around bragging about that one). Because it has light RPG elements? That’s something I found refreshing. Is Mega Man Legends 2 less of a sequel because it *gasp* answers the questions set fourth by it predecessor and ratchets up the overall difficulty a respectful notch? You know those things other Mega Man games are just so good at doing.

I’ll never understand the hand that fate dealt the Mega Man Legends series, but for me it’s all about the big three: original, X and Legends, even if there will be no new games. To be honest, my hopes for new games weren’t that high to begin with. I mean look at Mega Man X8. Really, I’ve been playing this convoluted saga for over a decade and this is what you’re going to leave me with, the nonsensical babbling of the self-deluded Lumine? Nice going away gift Capcom. Mega Man Legends 3 had me sobering over what could have been, but the minute I discovered Mega Man would be sharing face time with a new character I have to admit my enthusiasm was cut in half. Regrets aside, I guess the point I’m trying to make is I rather they quit making games than dilute the Mega Man brand any further and that’s all Capcom and Inti seem capable of doing at this point beyond simple throwbacks like Mega Man 9 and 10. As the sagging sales of the 3DS pretty much proved to Capcom about Legends 3, this is probably not a risk worth taking. I wholeheartedly agree, albeit for much different reasons.