The Shrine

First, the essay: http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/ind ... RightAgain

I've linked to Parish's site a lot from here. And with good reason! It's an excellent site. He writes insightful essays on videogames - sometimes more insightful than the games and perhaps the medium itself deserves. A while back, he started asking for contributions, and now he has a quasi-monthly publication of game essays often revolving around some theme. While sometimes inspired by particular games or series, the essays tend to hit on ideas and themes beyond the games themselves.

In short, it's some of the best videogame writing you'll find.

I link to this essay because it's one of the best he's written. He argues that despite being old-school in design, MM9 is actually progressive: game design that pays more attention to what works than what's cutting edge.

Seriously, read the essay. You might not agree with it, but it'll cause some neurons to fire.

Parish is a god. I just wish he enjoyed doing Retronauts more, and more often.

Sounds like he's just the right kind of sucker they're looking for make a NES level graphics game and hope people will buy it on nostaglia, except he never actually finished Megaman Zero series so his opinion on the Megaman series is invalid anyway. I know this guy always try to sound like he's some kind of hardcore old school Megaman guy, but it's laughable to be pretending to be one such guy while missing out the only Megaman games that had both great gameplay and a good story. Not that I think respect should be given for an 'old school Megaman guy', but he sure tries very hard to pretend to be one. About the only thing that he got right was that the next ZX game will be a shameless sellout, assuming it even happens. But I mean it's not that hard to figure this out when every interesting character in the ZX game is directly related to someone in MMZ. It's pretty obvious Inticreates exhausted all their creative juice when making MMZ and they have to make something that will sell copies, so instead of going in a new direction and almost certainly failed, they just recycled every interesting character from MMZ instead. If MMZ is roughly 50% sell out to compromise for better sales (MMZ4, Copy X, Dark Elf) then ZX is probably 100% for better sales over integrity. Ironically since he mentioned about "If Capcom was going to take it safe". See ZX: Advent failed to sell 100K because it has 0 integrty, which is why it is not safe to make ZX:Another Game when it has exhausted the patience of its core 'old school Megaman fans' by flirting with the promises of guys who mysteriously look like Ciel, Zero, Alouette, Dr. Wily, Dr. Light, and the Guardians that do not get explained in any meaningful way. ZX is basically a series running solely on Megaman's legacy, and I think the legacy is just about ran out at the rate they're selling out.

And it's not like investing in at least SNES level graphics somehow degrades the rest of the game...

Don wrote:
And it's not like investing in at least SNES level graphics somehow degrades the rest of the game...

According to him it does, thanks to sprite size and animation.

Don wrote:except he never actually finished Megaman Zero series so his opinion on the Megaman series is invalid anyway.

I stopped reading there.

Black Lotus wrote:

Don wrote:except he never actually finished Megaman Zero series so his opinion on the Megaman series is invalid anyway.

I stopped reading there.

I'm guessing you don't fall under the 'old school Megaman fans' category because if you do you'd have realized the reason why ZX series was discontinued was because it sucked and couldn't sell enough as opposed to any loyalty to the Megaman name itself. Pretty much all his meaningless rants on the Megaman series have been answered in the MMZ series, something he refuses to play because it's too hard. It might be a valid assessment, as MMZ1 is really too hard, but it doesn't change the fact that he's ranting about stuff that has long been addressed, quite succcessfully, in recent games, and instead goes into a Zeus like denial ala 'Everything was awesome back in Megaman 2 and then nothing good has ever happened since then.'

It's probably because of guys like him that MMZ ultimately had to make some sacrifices in the name of generating better sales, and the reason why ZX3 is going to get axed unless ZX2 meets its sales quota, which is looking increasingly more unlikely.

Don wrote: and instead goes into a Zeus like denial ala 'Everything was awesome back in Megaman 2 and then nothing good has ever happened since then.'

Yes, I despise new stuff being tried in any new games and have a particularly distaste for the Zero series. I have never regularly praised the series or beaten the first 3 games and, IMHO, no MM game since MM2 is any good. I can't believe they're releasing MM9 after so many years, I have zero intentions of getting it......

Really, you can't be THAT dense.

Zeus wrote:

Don wrote: and instead goes into a Zeus like denial ala 'Everything was awesome back in Megaman 2 and then nothing good has ever happened since then.'

Yes, I despise new stuff being tried in any new games and have a particularly distaste for the Zero series. I have never regularly praised the series or beaten the first 3 games and, IMHO, no MM game since MM2 is any good. I can't believe they're releasing MM9 after so many years, I have zero intentions of getting it......

Really, you can't be THAT dense.

I said like, because it's a popular thing to take that stance if you want to score some hardcore points with the Megaman community. It's not like you can't enjoy the newer game, but you got to remind people how hardcore you are and things are better 20 years ago than they are now. BTW the whole article is based on the fact that MM9 is supposed to be like MM2 which is why is going to be good. Even Inafune said so himself, though I don't take his words seriously anymore after seeing how his ideas constantly gets denied by Capcom bigwigs (and he says that too about how he's not allowed to do certain things with Megaman probably because they want to keep the cash cow going forever).

The MMZ interview with the producers gives good insight to how vigorously Capcom protects this series to the point of stagnation. It's basically like we had this great idea and then Capcom said no because it might hurt the image of Megaman. I picked up Capcom vs SNK the manga from Hong Kong, the land of intellectual piracy where Chun Li can turn into a man, but they're actually not allowed to use Megaman Zero in Capcom vs SNK the manga because Capcom threatened to kill the artist or something extremely drastic to actually stop the wholesale looting of its intellectual property. But it sure didn't care about what happened to Street Fighter or any of its other characters.

I don't know anyone in the hardcore Mega Man community other than you or maybe Eric. And I think that MMX4 was the pinnacle of all MM games and that the Zero games reinvigorated all of Mega Man (well, the first two more than the others). And after all of this time, you honestly think that I care what others think of my views?

As good as MM2 was, it definitely is NOT the pinnacle of the MM games. That for the idiots who never bothered playing anything after X came out and never got to see the series' have evolved (we'll forget X7 and X8 even exist). You can't even compare MM2 to MMX4, X4 is WAY more advanced. Hell, MM7 is a better game than MM2. Maybe not as groudbreaking, but it definitely kicked ass. As did Mega Man and Bass (what should be MM9).

What I was trying to point out is that your ideas of my views were completely wrong. I wasn't referring to all the other stuff. I haven't read that article yet

My bad then. You always strike me as a 'thing are better in the good old days' guy though. Maybe that's because of FF6.

Don wrote:My bad then. You always strike me as a 'thing are better in the good old days' guy though. Maybe that's because of FF6.

Oh yeah, FF6 is the pinnacle of the series. Only FF9 has come close since IMO...very close.

There are series' which should have stayed in the past, no doubt. But if we keep getting games like Bioshock, Mass Effect, Gears, Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros. Brawl....that's where the evolution of the medium lies. I luvs my old stuff, for sure, but you can't live on that forever.

I just want the older style stuff to survive well on the handhelds so we don't have a drought of them. I was praying to see the MM and MMX remakes on the PSP, the first two were incredible. And I love a lot of the remakes and the fact you're getting New Super Mario Bros and Metroidvania games. But if that's all we had it would suck

Zeus wrote:

Don wrote:My bad then. You always strike me as a 'thing are better in the good old days' guy though. Maybe that's because of FF6.

Oh yeah, FF6 is the pinnacle of the series. Only FF9 has come close since IMO...very close.

There are series' which should have stayed in the past, no doubt. But if we keep getting games like Bioshock, Mass Effect, Gears, Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros. Brawl....that's where the evolution of the medium lies. I luvs my old stuff, for sure, but you can't live on that forever.

FF6 was a game I very much enjoyed, but I am curious as to what it is about FF9 that you liked? I found the pacing of these two games to be MUCH different from one and other. While FF6 was a long story with many shorter side-stories, and therefore a lot of high points, FF9 was much more slowly paced without as many side stories.

I liked the point he made, at the end, that its the downloadable games option for your console that makes something like retro MM9 possible. For the PS1 or PS2 you would never see a company invest on packaging and materials for a game that would sell for $10, but for a download they have no problem doing it.

We've seen so many crappy graphic, yet great gameplay, computer games online over the years that its nice to finally be able to play those on a console, especially since the big boys (Capcom and Square for example) are getting in the mix.

Dutch wrote:

Zeus wrote:

Don wrote:My bad then. You always strike me as a 'thing are better in the good old days' guy though. Maybe that's because of FF6.

Oh yeah, FF6 is the pinnacle of the series. Only FF9 has come close since IMO...very close.

There are series' which should have stayed in the past, no doubt. But if we keep getting games like Bioshock, Mass Effect, Gears, Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros. Brawl....that's where the evolution of the medium lies. I luvs my old stuff, for sure, but you can't live on that forever.

FF6 was a game I very much enjoyed, but I am curious as to what it is about FF9 that you liked? I found the pacing of these two games to be MUCH different from one and other. While FF6 was a long story with many shorter side-stories, and therefore a lot of high points, FF9 was much more slowly paced without as many side stories.

Not sure what about it I liked. There was definitely a nostalgia factor, particularly with all of the references to the first 6 games (especially #1), but it was much more than that.

A big part of it was the return of the class system I would think. I'm a huge proponent of having to balance your party when you're in a battle. Each has their abilities and it's up to you as the player to use the abilities as required to have an even team. Most of the good RPGs I've played have a good sense of this. One of my biggest gripes with FF7 was that Cloud was the best at everything for me. Before Aerith died you had a healer, a fighter, and a specialist of some sort. Once she died, Cloud was my best healer, fighter, magician...everything. As neat as I thought the materia system was, it ultimately made the game unbalanced. Giving the class characters names and personalities does not give you leeway to make the game unbalanced.

I've been watching a bud of mine go through Oblivion the last few weeks. Even when you don't have a team you have class limitations. Choices you make give you advantages and disadvantages, that's an important part in balance.

Another thing is the storyline and the ATEs in FF9 that I liked. It was an old-style story but up to speed with the other JRPGs at the time in terms of character development, depth, etc. That was the best of the PSX stories to me. The ATEs gave those of us who like story above all else an extra little bit to the story, gave you a way to expand the world. Another game which did something very similar is Bioshock. I loved the audio diaries, I used to find them not as a way to get the achievement but rather to expand the world of Rapture and the storyline in the game.

Also, coming off of the jumbled mess of FF7, FF9 (I didn't go through FF8, mostly due to my loss of faith in Square at the time) was to me a step back to building on what works and forgetting about what didn't. There was no foul-mouthed stereotypical black tough-ass swearing just because, there was no "trying to be cool" moments, there was no huge mess-up of the battle system (after FF7 and Xenogears, it was nice to go back to a system that wasn't supremely flawed) it was just a game that tried to add on to what FF6 did, even if it was very small.

Flip wrote:I liked the point he made, at the end, that its the downloadable games option for your console that makes something like retro MM9 possible. For the PS1 or PS2 you would never see a company invest on packaging and materials for a game that would sell for $10, but for a download they have no problem doing it.

We've seen so many crappy graphic, yet great gameplay, computer games online over the years that its nice to finally be able to play those on a console, especially since the big boys (Capcom and Square for example) are getting in the mix.

The simple 1500 series would suggest there's plenty of market for budget games. I'm pretty sure the Megaman games do have a considerable budget. They always had Rie Tanaka as Ciel in the MMZ series (they even advertise it) and I assume she doesn't work for free. The magical girl Aile transformation Anime stuff in ZXA probably didn't happen for free. In fact the fact that ZXA needs to meet a 100K quota (which it did not) suggest you need the profit of selling 100K DS games for the budget of ZXA. Now this indicates whatever money Capcom/Inticreates is spending on the MM games isn't producing the results they want, but there is no guaranteed that by going smaller or bigger it's going to be any better. We have had the handheld market since forever for games lower on the firepower spectrum, but that doesn't mean everything on the handheld is a good idea.

FF9 is a great game, my only major gameplay complaint being that it takes three discs before you actually get to choose your party members, and that skills can only be learned through equipment.

Don wrote:I'm pretty sure the Megaman games do have a considerable budget.

Considerable....for a handheld game, maybe. I doubt their breakeven point is more than 100,000 units. They have a core audience they cater to, I imagine it's more of a limited budget based on that core audience which has shown it will buy them.

They won't have, say, a FF3 on DS budget

They have already said ZXA needs to sell 100K for it to warrant the cost of making a sequel to it. If it's not the breakeven point, it still has to be pretty close.

Well, I tried.

Edit: I suppose I should explain myself. The essay is not about Mega Man. Mega Man street cred has no bearing on his point. Don, your throw away line about SNES style graphics is the only comment you made which addresses Parish's thesis, and I don't think that even registered.

Sometimes when I'm coding, I'll make several changes at once, and my code breaks. It's either no longer functional or too slow. I made a bunch of changes, so I can't deduce from first principles why it no longer works. So I'll go back to the original and incrementally add changes until I understand what broke it.

Parish is saying - or hoping - that there's a similar trend in game design right now. They're not sure what it was that changed how the games fundamentally played (notice that's not a value judgement of quality), so maybe start over and work from there. And if that's true, then maybe designers will use what works instead of what's current. That's what the essay is about, not why old-school Mega Man games are better.

That's just a very convoluted and verbose way to say things were better back in the old days, and they are not. The Megaman franchise has been around for 20 years. There's no stroke of genius that's preventing Megaman franchise's return to fame. Basically every time there was a Megaman game that didn't look like a complete sell out 'send money to Capcom please' effort, it has been received well by the fanbase. If looking at monetary success, Battlen Networks is obviously at the top, and if we only include Megaman-like action games, it'd be either the Zero series or one of the mid X series (probably X4 or X5). This is basically advocating the same throw away everything that's ever made Megaman good and start over theme that Inafune himself argues, which is why the father of Megaman hasn't been doing anything meaningful with Megaman in the last 10 years or so, and has very little to do with probaly the best recent Megaman series.

The article, and you obvious try very hard to have a discussion without bringing up any actual issues with Megaman, since it is not able to address any of them. There are obvious gameplay issues with Megaman series that need to be fixed, but I'm sure you don't know about them and I'm pretty sure Parish doesn't either because he doesn't play half of the game where they're most obvious. It is meaningless to talk about what a 'return to roots' would solve in terms of gameplay without knowing what issues are involved:

1. The dash. Introduced in MMX1, even though Super Mario Brothers can run fast in its first incarnation. This move also simulates the effect of the slide when it comes to versus enemy projectiles, even though you cannot tell this by the animation. The ability to dash increases the pace of the game signifciantly, and lessens the requirement on absolutely precise jumps. The drawback is that the dash-under move is overabused in some of the later games. Originally as something cool for experts to do, you end up having a game where you got to either be a dash under wizard (ZXA, Z3's 2nd form on Omega) or you die horribly. To a lesser extent, too many attacks become dependent on having absolute mastery of the dash jump to avoid. The most notable example of Z3 Omega's triple hit combo that requires 2 nearly perfectly timed dash jumps to avoid. However despite all this, it'd be hard to find anyone who actually thinks having the ability to dash hinders the game as long as the game doesn't assume you spend your life learning how to dash through things.

2. The wall jump. Also from X1. This reduces the need for random stupid Rush whatevers to get anywhere, and also makes it more likely you'll survive an ill fated jump instead of slipping to your doom. The abuse for the wall jump is obvious in X1 where bosses can be defeated without taking any damage if you hug the upper left corner of the room. Many attack patterns are renderd trivial when you can hop on the wall, which defeats the purpose of Megaman game as Megaman is a game about memorizing patterns and avoiding them at its heart. While this is mostly a design issue, as later games generally give bosses good anti-wall move (X2 Zero's ground smash is a good example), I don't think most people feel too strong about this one way or another. If they keep the wall jump it won't be bad, but if they get rid of it no one will miss it either.

3. The double jump. Introduced in X4, this allows anyone who is not an action gaming god to actually have a chance avoiding some of the tougher patterns in the game without resorting to the wall jump (see #2) or the dash (see #1). For example Z3 Omega's triple hit combo is easily dodged with a double jump. The Megaman games generally are very well balanced around the double jump. It does not render the difficulty nonexistent, and truly diehard guys can simply not use it.

4. The everything else. This can be the duck in X5, the biometals in ZX series, collecting armor in X series, Cyber Elves in MMZ, the EX modes in MMZ, and way too many other things to list. Like Inafune mentions in his interview related to MM9, no one denies that some of the later Megaman games have become hopelessly bloated with moves that do not serve any meaningful purpose. It is painful to watch a video of ZXA when a battle looks like a RPG with someone pausing the screen every 3 seconds to switch to a different form (usually to access the double jump!).

As far as anyone knows, MM9 will have absolutely none of the innovation in the recent games, so you get rid of 1, 2, 3, and 4. You don't even have the slide, which is sort of like a #0 as it is a precursor to the dash. Now #2 is somewhat harmful to a game if used incorrectly, but I blame the designers for having a game where you can hop on a wall and negate the entire game's difficulty. Z series is quite fond of using the 'no walls' approach and it is an excellent way to fix this. #1 and #3 are strictly improvement to the game engine itself, unless one argue lesser players should not be allowed to beat Megaman games, which is what happens if #3 is removed.

Now #4, which the article doesn't go over, but Inafune does in his article, is a big one. The extraneous moves that serve no purpose really does ruin the Megaman games. But any competent designer should be aware what is bad in #4 and avoid these especially after seeing fiascos like ZXA's RPG-like battles. If Inafune lacks the ability to tell that something like Zero's EX moves (Z3, X4, X5, possibly the 3 most well received Megaman games in the modern era) is a very good thing then he is a poor designer and should not waste people's time with another game.

As far as I can tell MM9 is going to have a quasi-wimp-out mode like the Z series's cyber elves or the shop system in Megaman & Bass, so even after all this talk about going old school we still managed to inherit some of the worst features in the recent Megaman games. Megaman game players, by definiton, are not RPG players. They have no interest in going into an area over and over to get X energy crystals to buy this new powerup (Legends 2's spectucular failure should be a reminder never to have a RPG system in a Megaman game). The truly hardcore guys do not need it, and the normal guys don't have the patience to put up with an obselete game design yet they lack the skills to beat the game without. As a result you get a game that's hated by both the diehard and the normal guys.

Of course, Parish's article seems to be just all about 'death traps are good' even though he spoke very strongly about X5's biker stage which is like a moving death trap. It seems like MM9 is headed down the same path as Legends 2 where the game can be nearly unbeatable and the only purpose it serves is for the ego of the few action gaming gods that can beat it, and most likely it won't be you or me.

Edit: I went over the article again to make sure I didn't miss anything. It basically starts with the completely unfounded assertion that MM2 is the bestest Megaman game ever because he and his five friends think it is, and dismisses anyone who might think of it otherwise as kids that grew up in the X series age. Of course he doesn't even mention the Zero series because he never beaten them. In the comparison between MMX and MM7 again it's based on a random unfounded basis (MMX is good, but when applied to old school MM7, it sucks). I don't particularly think highly of Megaman 7, but it doesn't suck any more than most of the filler Megaman titles.

There's also some unfounded jab on MM Legends as a 'disappointing sequel' even though MM Legends and Tron's Misadventures were the games that gave hope Megaman might not be stuck in medicore 2D forever (and Parish had some pretty good reviews about these 2 games). Legends 2 utterly botched it with the nearly impossible Sera fight that is more likely to make you break your controller from frustration. Of course if you apply the Sera mechanism to any other Megaman game, it'd be like getting to the last stage, entering the boss room, and fall into a pit and immediately die (and 1 out of 1000 times you might not, but it also takes 20 minutes to just get to the door). At any rate the failure of Legends is 100% attributed by a bad design as opposed to any inherent badness of the 3D platform.

About the only thing he could argue that'd make sense is that if X4, which is one of the top candidate for the best Megaman game ever, and you can certainly tell Capcom made a genuine effort to polish a game, ended up with merely okay sales, then maybe the fans don't really appreciate a well polished game. After all the next game, X5, removed all the voice acting, the Anime, and any semblance of a story, and still sold nearly as many. Even the game after, X6, usually viewed some kind of abomination where Zero hide himself in a cave and mysteriously returned from death, only sold a little bit worse still compared to X6. So maybe you can say that fans don't really deserve polish if it's not going to generate sales so maybe 8-bit sprites are all we needed. Even in that case, Inafune's own interview says he told his artist to draw sprites and then they have to dumb them down because no one makes sprites that simple anymore, so I really doubt it'd have taken any meaningful effort to at least make the game look 16-bit, say on the level of MMX1.

Well Kupek, you asked for it.

Haha!

Don Wang's post is the longest rant I've ever seen that completely fails to actually respond to the original post.

Don: IT'S NOT ABOUT FUCKING MEGA MAN. It doesn't matter WHAT they implemented in later Mega Man games (and personally, I liked being able to dash. Fuck that slow-ass Mega Man business.) The article is, as Kupek said, simply saying that returning to the source, the original material that sold games and franchises in the first place, will allow developers to rediscover what made them work in the first place.

Personally, I'm half and half on the issue. Innovation drives every industry, and I feel that newer games have better technology that can, potentially, create a lot of new, genuinely better gameplay experiences, and as a young gamer who was weaned on the late SNES games and more on the N64/Playstation Era, I have no problem with new games, except for the fact that, because the market is so competative now, new games often have to copy established formulas in order to succeed. There's a lack of risk-taking that is prevalent--look at first person shooters. Almost every FPS nowadays basically wants to "be like Halo". JRPGs haven't changed at all in the past 15 years, and Western RPGs, while oftentimes being more innovative than their Japanese counterparts, are oftentimes more cumbersome due to reasons I can't really fathom. The Elder Scrolls Oblivion dumbed down the Morrowind formula and is a BETTER game for it--because it is more simplistic, and lets us get right into the fun.

Which leads me to my next point--simplicity. The best games, generally speaking, are the simplest ones. Games are meant for amusement, and the ideal type of amusement is the kind that is instantly accessible. Super Mario Galaxy did this perfectly--it's incredibly easy to just pick up and play, and it is one of the best games ever made...but, that may be because it is emulating OLDER games. Mega Man 9 is an example of a major company (Capcom, who is famous for driving franchises into the ground, i.e. Resident Evil) going back to the roots, and using the Wii's vast appeal to try and reconnect gamers to what made games great in the first place--simplicity.

Personally, I don't think that new generation technology and innovation cannot live hand-in-hand with simplicity. I'm not saying every game should be like Super Mario Galaxy, but Galaxy itself--and the Wii, for that matter--are excellent examples of what can happen when old-school meets new-age, and what Parish is saying is that if developers start revisiting older games, they might find that they can make a better game by emulating the spirit and the SIMPLICITY of those first-generation games.

Kupek wrote:I suppose I should explain myself. The essay is not about Mega Man.

It's kinda hard to argue that when the word "MegaMan" is mentioned no less than 30 times in the article, and every screenshot is a MegaMan game.

Don wrote:They have already said ZXA needs to sell 100K for it to warrant the cost of making a sequel to it. If it's not the breakeven point, it still has to be pretty close.

Soooo...I was right. Thanks for backing me up

SineSwiper wrote:

Kupek wrote:I suppose I should explain myself. The essay is not about Mega Man.

It's kinda hard to argue that when the word "MegaMan" is mentioned no less than 30 times in the article, and every screenshot is a MegaMan game.

Not if it's used as an example to prove a point, where the series is used to showcase the point he's trying to make.

RentCavalier wrote:Don: IT'S NOT ABOUT FUCKING MEGA MAN.

Is it at least about taking him to dinner and a movie and then making sweet, sweet love to him?

Lox wrote:

RentCavalier wrote:Don: IT'S NOT ABOUT FUCKING MEGA MAN.

Is it at least about taking him to dinner and a movie and then making sweet, sweet love to him?

RentCavalier wrote:Don Wang's post is the longest rant I've ever seen that completely fails to actually respond to the original post.

Don: IT'S NOT ABOUT FUCKING MEGA MAN. It doesn't matter WHAT they implemented in later Mega Man games (and personally, I liked being able to dash. Fuck that slow-ass Mega Man business.) The article is, as Kupek said, simply saying that returning to the source, the original material that sold games and franchises in the first place, will allow developers to rediscover what made them work in the first place.
games.

Except that the source wasn't what made the Megaman franchise. The Megaman franchise was made, financially, in the Battle Networks era. Its fan base is made in the X and Zero era. The original Megaman is merely an artifact of the past, and the latter games only resemble the original because the titled is called Megaman XYZ. The thing that most people care the most about original is when is Zero going to come and kill Megaman as foretold/speculated in the X series.

And simplicity? Ever played MMZ on hard mode? You only get a dash, single hit saber slash, no charged buster, and your standard 2 useless extra weapons that no one actually uses for anything besides on certain bosses. It doesn't get more simple or hardcore than this. The only weapon that can impart elemental damage is the boomerang, which makes you unable to dash while charging up. It'd be like playing the original Megaman without using any boss powerups, so it's like even simpler than what Megaman was.

You are also very naive about how Capcom works with Megaman. Megaman exists as Capcom's cash cow machine. Like I mentioned, they went back to the old ways because the latest Megaman game, ZXA, failed to meet its sales quota. It is more likely they figure if we're going to spend all this money on the DS and still fail to sell, then we might as well go the completely ghetto way, since nothing good we have tried has worked. The best selling Megaman games, after all, are the Pokemon clones Battle Network series (and now Star Force). This might be a valid business trategy, but it's not an innovative attempt to revitalize gaming.

The franchise was made in the BATTLE NETWORK days?

I'm sorry, that makes no sense to me. Mega Man has been a big deal since, like, just about forever. Mega Man X was huge, for cryin' out loud. The Battle Network bullshit is NOT what created the franchise, beacuse there were, like, twenty Mega Man games before those ones came out.

And for the record, I'm not saying that Capcom is really trying to innovate anything. I'm saying that Parish's essay seems to believe that is/should be the case. Personally, I don't care what Capcom does because, personally, I've never much cared for the Mega Man games. However, I do hope that Parish's prediction is right, because I want games to be more about the fun and less about the fancy graphics.

Don wrote:The Megaman franchise was made, financially, in the Battle Networks era.

You're kidding me, right? You tryin' to tell me they just scraped by for 15+ years, barely making enough money to keep the entire idea of Mega Man alive until they got to the Battle Network series? Yeah, I guess they bought their way onto the PSXs Greatest Hits collection with X4 and 8.......

Just because it was easily the most successful Mega Man series don't mean they weren't doin' shit before it. You don't have 30+ games released for every imaginable system in existence without having solid financial success. Remember, there's NOTHING without the strong success of the original series on the NES. Mega Man 2 is what made the series huge and even if none of the others sold as well after it (I may be mistaken, but I think MM3 was the best selling one in North America). And they're not going to make up to #8 without some solid success. We are talking about Capcom here, they're the masters of repackaging and evolutionary gameplay