The Future of the Classic Series

I think Mega Man 9 did a lot of good for the franchise and the classic series in general but I really have to wonder what the next step is for the classic series. After Mega Man 8, the classic series was silent for a long time, featuring alternate time lines that were late to be released in the US, handing the series off to Bandai for a game, attempting to restart the series with Powered Up and milking the hell out of the character for the pseudo games on the cell phone. Lets not forget re-releases and collections. I don't think anyone really considered the classic series dead, but Mega Man 9 certainly was unprecedented and came out of left field. In a way though, it proved Mega Man in his classic form Mega Man will survive the generations of gaming for quite a while, and even if many find Capcom's handling of the character to be comical, he's still quite a presence to video game players.

Mega Man classic has the power to out live any other games in the series and indeed it could very well out live Capcom in the unlikely and unfortunate event that the company could one day not exist. If any character is going to be grabbed up by another company, it would be Mega Man and he'll continue on. Lets hope that doesn't have to happen though.

I'm still disappointed with the way Capcom handles Mega Man. He's really degenerated into a "B" franchise. In the old days of studio movie making, the studios would make many low costs "B pictures", generally at lesser quality, in order to fund their more expensive "A picture" which they would market a lot better and try to ring in more cash. Mega Man serves the function of the B picture to Capcom when it has the power to be the A game.

Capcom's US blog, Capcom unity has mentioned that there is a creative interest in making Mega Man 10 relatively soon and in the 8-bit style again. I think this is a bad idea because another 8-bit Mega Man game will stagnate the series further. When Mega Man 10 comes out, not if, it should be in up to date graphics, and I'd even argue put into 3D as long as it was handled with care. Everyone is afraid of another Mega Man X7 with going into 3D and the fear is well founded, but if done right, I think it could really push the series forward.

If they do decide to make another 8-bit Mega Man game, I would at least hold off on it for a while. Give some time for the retro phase gaming is in right now to circle around and come back in a few years and then it'll be the right time for another 8-bit game. If I were Capcom though, I would leave the 8-bit games to the fans.

With the 25th anniversary of Mega Man coming up, I expect we'll finally get a chance for a re-release of the game boy series in some form or another, maybe even a Zero collection. I think this is the next step this series will take more than creating a new game as this is how Capcom operates.

If they do make a new game, story wise they'll probably play around with Bass a bit more. They've kind of been setting him up to turn on Wily or be an anti-hero of some sort, but it's more apparent in the Battle Network and Star Force series (Solo is a bit of a homage to Bass), but this is speculation and Capcom may never decide to go through all the way with the change. Story isn't important in Mega Man games anyway, it's all about the gameplay, and rest assured, that is why Mega Man will never die.