This whole thing was a lot of fun to do, and I look forward to playing many more Mega Man games as they come. Some of it was a bit tedious here and there, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend everyone to try most of these games, even if I was a bit too nice to some of them.
Mega Man is a character and game franchise that has personally affected me, and so many others lives. Sure, it's a bit sappy to say the Blue Bomber may have changed anyone or something, but he certainly has helped gamers developed their tastes in video game playing and even new generations of video game players are becoming fans as they are getting acquainted with the character. My six year old cousin was introduced to the series by me through Mega Man The Power Battle, and even though the majority of games are too tough for him, has shown an overwhelming interest in the series. He loves Mega Man Powered Up, as he can beat the first stage of it, and he's learned to stand up for himself and face his fears with Mega Man Legends, he finds the music and dark dungeons to be really scary. If Mega Man can be brave, so can he!
To those of us who are jaded from the years of poor quality works in this series, perhaps the above statement really sounds warped, but trust me, Mega Man still has a profound affect on the newer generation. I'm sure he'll develop his own sensitive tastes as he gets older, but I hope one day he decides to take a stab at Mega Man X6 for all his interest in seeing me play the game "Where Mega Man has a sword!"
I've even shown him bits of the cartoon, and as stupid as it really is, he was completely entranced by it. He was entranced by all of them really, from the comically bad Ruby-Spears production, to the incredibly stupid Mega Man NT Warrior, to the actually very good Mega Man Star Force series. When he grows up, I hope he takes some time to revisit this stuff like I have.
When I started this project, it initially was a way for me to talk about my fascination of the Mega Man franchise without bugging my friends constantly about it. I think everyone has some subject or interest for which they have some irrational love of. Take my friend Chris who loves Monster Hunter, or the Persona games. My other friend Andy can't get enough of Nine Inch Nails. Other people I know have gone out of their way to catch every episode of Dr. Who, or every Zelda game. I know fanatics of Sonic games that are just as vocal about their appreciation of the series as I am about Mega Man. And trust me, I am not the only one who loves Mega Man games as there are about a million fan sites of which I have personally used to help learn more information about the franchise. Let me show some gratitude by linking all the ones I have used now in no particular order.
- Protodude's Rockman Corner
- The Mega Man Network
- Mechanical Maniacs
- The Mega Man Knowledge Base
- Rockman Perfect Memories
- Mega Man X9
- DATS (Translated Mega Man Star Force animes and is working on some NT Warrior)
- White Wolf Productions (Translated NT Warrior Movie and some of the anime)
- Mega Man PC: Doctor Cossacks Lab
- Sprites Inc
- Georockman
That's not even counting the hundreds of fan games, rom-hacks, and bootlegs out there. There is no possible way I could review all of those (and let's be frank, most of them are not worth checking out). There is so much more stuff out there too, comic books, action figures, tv shows. I tend to stay away from fan content myself as so much of it is horrible, not even speaking about Slash-Fan-Fiction or stomach churning fan-art, but I'm sure there is a tiny bit of fan content worth checking out, at least parts of it.
I'm constantly surprised by the dedication of the fans of these games, and I've learned a lot about not only Mega Man, but the entire game industry from them. Whether it be the more casual fans of an internet forum like Something Awful (who has many users content I've linked to such as Oyster, VPrisoner, Kefkafloyd, Kung-Fu Jesus, Golden315), hardcore gamer fans such as those from Speed Demos Archive or Tool Assisted Speedruns, or even the actors of the games themselves. I'm liking Lucas Gilbertson more and more each time I hear from him on these games, and that's a bit unexpected from the guy who did the voice of Zero. Check the guy out, he's a contributor to a Mega Man fan site, how cool is that?
So I guess this is my credits page, and I'd like to thank all of the people that helped generate so much of the content that helped me in this project, I'd like to thank Udon Entertainment for translating the Complete Works series of art books that helped a lot in the research of these games, and I'd especially like to thank Keiji Inafune and Capcom for helping create a series so dear to my heart. Hell, I'll even thank the GameFAQ contributors for some of the screenshots I "borrowed" for the games I couldn't capture screenshots of. No thanks to GameSpot though who gives terrible reviews unless your an advertiser.
When I started this project, I thought I would get Mega Man out of my system, but honestly, all it's done is add fuel to the fire. Now that I'm out of Mega Man games, what next? Well how about we take a look at some of those cartoons. My next project is going to be reviews of all the Mega Man cartoons (with the exception of NT Warrior Steam, Beast and Beast+ which aren't finished yet, but I'll review them when they are). This includes the classic Ruby-Spears cartoon, Mega Man NT Warrior/Axess, Star Force and Tribes, and even the lowly known Mega Man Upon A Star OVAs. There are only about 200 or so episodes so... oh god... what am I getting myself into?
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