Is Mega Man 11 going to give the people what they want?
Well...IS IT?
Ok, so obviously you're aware that Mega Man 11 is now a thing -- Capcom celebrated the 30th anniversary of the birth of the Blue Bomber this month with the announcement of a brand new Mega Man game on Monday, due for release in late 2018. And it's not an X game, a Zero, a Battle Network and it sure as hell isn't a Legends -- it's a proper, bonafide Mega Man filled with Busters, Robot Masters, Dr. Wily and all those other things that you know from your childhood (Well, if you're American anyway. The first Mega Man didn't even come out here until late 1989).
The general response to the trailer has been pretty good on the whole, even if this particular revitalisation of Mega Man is somewhat different to ones that have come before (and let's face it, there's been a lot of them). Nearly 10 years ago, Mega Man 9 was released to an almost universally rapturous reception -- a game that was utterly faithful in both style and presentation to the original NES games. It received a sequel in pretty short order -- however, the reception for Mega Man 10 was nowhere near as positive, with people largely thinking that the game lacked something compared not only to the games of the past, but also to the previous game.
In this regard, Mega Man is something of a trailblazer -- the utterly authentic retro style of Mega Man 9 is something that would play very well now, when we see a lot of other game series or games in general sticking firmly to the old ways in the same way that Capcom did 10 years ago -- however, they've obviously been down that well already and so they had to come up with something different this time. The result is a modern-ish 2.5D effort, complete with hand-drawn sprites -- the gameplay will most certainly be the same as ever, but the look does differ greatly from any other Mega Man game before it, seeing as hand-drawn has never really been a path that the series has taken to this point.
And of course, many people are thinking back to that other game from a couple of years ago -- Mighty No. 9, the Kickstarter-backed title that promised to be what a Mega Man 11 should have been, but ultimately did not deliver. In the wake of Mega Man 11's announcement and trailer, one common phrase is the inverse to that -- Mega Man 11 looks like the game that Mighty No. 9 should have been. Kenji Inafune's Kickstarter made the unspoken statement that, as the original creator of the series, he had been frozen out by a company that no longer cared for his creation. But now, with this new game and the upcoming release of both the Legacy Collection for the Switch and an all-new X Collection on multiple platforms next Summer, the shoe may well be on the other foot.
Speaking of X, some have also speculated if this may finally be the title to bring the regular series and X together, and indeed where the game fits in the utter mess that is the Blue Bomber's canon, a Gordian Knot that refuses to be untangled. Seeing as there's almost a year before Mega Man 11 comes out on all the usual platforms, there's plenty of time for speculation. For now, the response is positive -- considering Capcom's history, people were probably not expecting to ever see another official Mega Man game at points, therefore it's nice to see the Japanese veterans choose to go back to their beloved classics.
