Quote Originally Posted by Electroshock Therapy View Post
I just don't understand it, really. We've already had those types of games, so why go backward when you can go forward. That's why I like 7 and 8. They felt fresh and new. I do agree with many people that Mega Man does go crazy with it's sequels, but they usually always add some new feature to make it different from the last. I think that's why I like the X series so much. They're always changing. That's what keeps me playing them.
Mega Man 9 and 10 had a lot of new stuff in them. There were shops where you could buy new kinds of power-ups, you could unlock new playable characters, the bosses were obviously all new and some of the weapons were pretty unique (a gun that shoots bees!)

The idea is to start with the things that are good, don't change those, and build on them. I'm talking about the 2D early-NES graphic style, the 8 robot masters + Wily game structure, the precise controls, the high difficulty, the unlockable weapons with limited resources, the focus on platforming and timing and pattern-recognition to get through the hard parts. When you start messing with those things, you've got a different game.

More generally: Restrictions can breed creativity. What ways can you make a new Mega Man game? You could start with the idea of the old NES Mega Man games, and then make the very best game of that kind that you can. All Mega Man can do in Mega Man 9 is run, jump, shoot and pick up power-ups. And yet he has a bee gun that can fetch items for him from across the screen. He has a concrete gun that can build temporary steps. He has a tornado gun that can raise platforms that he's standing on. He has a black hole gun that sucks up all nearby enemies.

There are enemies that pick you up and rush you across the screen and slam you into spikes. There's an underwater level where you have to float up the screen on bubbles, and the small ones pop faster than the big ones. There are platforms where your feet stick to them and they rotate, so half the time you're upside-down underneath them. Look how much room for creativity there still is within the framework of the original game!

Many things are same-old-Mega-Man in MM9/10, yet there are still tons of surprises in every level. I'd rather the developers explore that design space to its fullest extent than just randomly add stuff to the game. I don't want crappy pod-racer or side-scrolling shoot-em-up levels. I don't need a bunch of cutscenes and movies to try to shoehorn some kind of terrible plot on top of it. I don't want the graphic style to be radically different. Those things are unnecessary.

Let's say you let Mega Man do wall-kick jumps like Samus in 2D Metroid can do. Suddenly all the platforming becomes way easier. You don't need Rush Coil to get to high platforms. You don't need ladders so much. You don't have to think quite so much about how to access hard-to-reach places. Maybe it's way easier to avoid enemies, and so the enemies have to be faster or more difficult to kill now. Maybe you have to reorient a bunch of levels to be more vertical than horizontal. The whole game is different. Is it a better or worse game? Who knows, but it's not the same game.

I don't mind trying new things. They took Mario from 2D to 3D, and it turns out the 3D ones are super fun. But they also made New Super Mario Bros. for DS, because the classic 2D Mario style of game has strengths of its own and is fun in its own right, and that game was insanely popular. I don't mind trying new experimental Mega Man ideas, but I also want 2D classic Mega Man, because it's a fun kind of game in its own right.