The Future of Legends

I probably should have wrote this update after Legends 2, but honestly I didn't think about talking about the futures of each series until well after writing about Legends 2. So I decided to wait until after the last official entry in this series, Great Five-Island Adventures!

Legends is for all intents and purposes is dead in the water, at least for now. All the cell phone games, the re-releases, the appearances in other Capcom games, all of it doesn't mean a thing right now. Keiji Inafune says that Legends is his personal favorite Mega Man game and he has promised the fans that he will make Legends 3 one day even if he has to fund it himself. That might be the only way however, as Capcom is afraid that Legends will costs too much to make for too little returns.

The fan base keeps pressing for a new Legends game though and occasionally Capcom makes use of their online community websites to poll the fans on it. If Capcom feels that they can make a profit on Legends 3, it'll happen, but they've been toying around with the series for nine years now and I wouldn't take any cameos as a hint of an upcoming release. However, the Dead Rising/Lost Planet engine was designed with Mega Man Legends 3 in mind, so the ground work has a foundation, but it might never be utilized.

Awareness for the series is rising though. The game got re-releases on the PSP in Japan, and odds are good the series will make it's way to the PSN store, and if we're really lucky, the X-Box live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console, though I wouldn't hold my breath there. I think it's now or never with this console generation if we're going to see a new Legends game before Inafune retires, but that's only wild speculation on my part.

If a new Legends game is to be made, it must have tighter controls than the original games. I think it would also help to add more Mega Man elements. Weapon selection, better boss fights, open ended dungeon selection. Basically less Castlevania, more Mega Man. Oh and for god's sake, tone down the money grind.

Story wise, we've gotta get Trigger off the damn moon and get him dealing with the remains Elysium. The old system is supposed to reactivate and start killing all the carbons any time. Potentially that means endless sequels as they never mention any specific number of systems, or they could just scrap that and have Mega Man continue his Diggers quests for any number of reasons. The best part of the games are the Bonnes and the Servbots though, and hopefully if the series continues we'll get the old voice actors back, but don't count on it.

There is one way to help get Legends 3 off the ground, although it's not guaranteed to work. That is to straight up fund Capcom by buying all of their Mega Man products, regardless of quality... which most Mega Man fans are doing anyway, so I guess you'll have to convince your friends that Operation Shooting Star is the next coming of Ocarina of Time, as well as every other future title. Hell, go back and buy the Star Force and ZX games even if you don't like them. If Mega Man gets more support, Legends is likely to get more support too. That might not work anyway though, so don't get your hopes up for Legends 3 unless Inafune starts taking hostages to get it made.

Next up, The best selling Mega Man game in years.