Just because you have a design that works doesn't mean it's okay to purposely rip out any innovation or progress that's happened in the last 20 years.
You can say Super Mario Brothers or Zelda has a working design model but people would rightfully feel wrong if the next Mario or Zelda game went back to the 8-bit gameplay and graphics.
Consider the staggering amount of people worked on MM9, and the fact that they actually have to artificially come up with worse graphics and stuff to emulate the shortcomings of the 8 bit system, it's pretty safe to say you could have at least had SNES+ level graphics for essentially free. Had Megaman looked like what he looked like in the SNES era (more detailed), it would not have taken anything away from the game.
I came across this http://www.dzarchive.com/iragination/il ... p?pos=-455 that pokes fun of how the MM9 guys happened to look like the Guardians of MMZ. The thing is I'm sure they could have actually looked about as good as the Guardians in MMZ if they wanted to, but were not. Would that add anything meaningful to the game? Probably not, but why would you want something to look worse than it could have been just because you can?
You don't need the carry the crucifix of ghetto graphics to make a good game. The game could have look completely up to date to modern 2D expectations and still play exactly the same. The game didn't somehow become better by using backward graphics. It's just as ridiculous as saying a fighting game can be illustrated by stick figures and that will keep the gameplay pure, or have a side scrolling shooter replaced with dots as graphics. From a level design and gameplay point of view, there's no difference between a dot equal to your ship's hitbox compared to some actual graphics, but people actually like to look at things that look reasonably up to date.
You can say Super Mario Brothers or Zelda has a working design model but people would rightfully feel wrong if the next Mario or Zelda game went back to the 8-bit gameplay and graphics.
Consider the staggering amount of people worked on MM9, and the fact that they actually have to artificially come up with worse graphics and stuff to emulate the shortcomings of the 8 bit system, it's pretty safe to say you could have at least had SNES+ level graphics for essentially free. Had Megaman looked like what he looked like in the SNES era (more detailed), it would not have taken anything away from the game.
I came across this http://www.dzarchive.com/iragination/il ... p?pos=-455 that pokes fun of how the MM9 guys happened to look like the Guardians of MMZ. The thing is I'm sure they could have actually looked about as good as the Guardians in MMZ if they wanted to, but were not. Would that add anything meaningful to the game? Probably not, but why would you want something to look worse than it could have been just because you can?
You don't need the carry the crucifix of ghetto graphics to make a good game. The game could have look completely up to date to modern 2D expectations and still play exactly the same. The game didn't somehow become better by using backward graphics. It's just as ridiculous as saying a fighting game can be illustrated by stick figures and that will keep the gameplay pure, or have a side scrolling shooter replaced with dots as graphics. From a level design and gameplay point of view, there's no difference between a dot equal to your ship's hitbox compared to some actual graphics, but people actually like to look at things that look reasonably up to date.
I was actually going to make my next reply the last one because I know that there's no point in discussing it with Don any further.