03-12-2015, 03:02 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-12-2015, 07:15 AM by JadePharaoh.)
![[Image: 798px-Capcom_logo.svg.png]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Capcom_logo.svg/798px-Capcom_logo.svg.png){kind=logo}
It seems like there was once a time when Capcom could do no wrong. One of the best, if not THE best, third-party developer during the 8 and 16-bit eras, they have given us some amazing franchises throughout the years; Megaman (and its numerous spin-offs), Street Fighter, Ghosts & Goblins (including its Gargoyle's Quest spinoff series), Final Fight, Breath of Fire, Resident Evil, DarkStalkers, Ace Attorney, Devil May Cry, as well as the multiple Disney licensed games for the NES, GameBoy, and SNES. Few other developers can claim such tenure.
Then in 2010, everything would change, and in the following years "Crapcom" would join the likes of EA and LJN as one of the most despised game developers out there.
In October of 2010, just a few months after the release of Megaman 10, Keiji Inafune, Capcom's Head of Production, and the man behind many of the company's most beloved franchises and characters, announced his resignation. Many of us wondered at the time what that would mean for Capcom, and as the father of the Megaman series, we wondered what that would mean for our favorite blue hero.
(Side note: While Inafune is often credited with being the creator of Megaman, that's not fully true. From his own words in an interview, taken from his Wikipedia page: "I'm often called the father of Mega Man, but actually, his design was already created when I joined Capcom," he explained. "My mentor (Capcom senior member Akira Kitamura), who was the designer of the original Mega Man, had a basic concept of what Mega Man was supposed to look like. So I only did half of the job in creating him. I didn't get to completely design a Mega Man [protagonist] from scratch until Zero (Mega Man X, SNES). Back when the SNES was coming out, I was asked to give Mega Man a redesign, so I created this character. But I realized that this design wouldn't be accepted as Mega Man, so I had another designer create the new Mega Man, and I worked on Zero to release him as the 'other main character' that would steal all the good scenes!")
And thus the biggest internet temper tantrum is about to begin...
A few months later, we got our answer. On July 18, 2011, Capcom announced that development of the highly anticipated Megaman Legends 3, the first sequel to the Legends spin-off series since 2000, was cancelled. Outrage from fans was immediate and it was vicious. And the flames would only rage hotter and more intensely as the year progressed. Megaman Universe, another spinoff, would be cancelled as well, and the sequel to their ever-popular mascot fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, would come to pass without an incarnation of Megaman in its roster (Zero and Tron Bonne were in it, but to the enraged fans, they didn't count). Shortly after the Legends 3 cancellation, the new roster additions for the updated rerelease, Ultimate MvC3, would be announced, still with no Megaman.
As far as the fans were concerned at that point, Megaman was dead, Capcom killed him to spite Inafune for leaving the company, and they were gleefully rubbing it in the fans' faces every chance they got in the form of easter eggs and other Megaman references in non-MM games.
A short while later, Street Fighter x Tekken was announced, with an added bonus; one of the fighters in the game was the hilariously off-model "Bad Box Art" Megaman, as pictured on the infamous box art of the first Megaman game. Fans did not take it well... Rather than seeing it as an amusing reference to the classic era, they took it as a slap in the face and the internet rage continued to swell... Until word got out that this was actually Inafune's idea... then the fans shut up almost immediately. (There is also the whole on-disc DLC controversy, though that's another beast entirely.)
And when I say rage, I mean RAGE. I had never seen fans more angry about something until then. Not just calling for boycotting Capcom, but actual threats of physical violence against Capcom employees! When the company's financial woes became more evident, there were "fans" hoping Capcom would die for daring to cancel a Megaman game!
2012 marked the 25th anniversary of the Megaman series, which came and went without any announcement of a new game. All we got was a crappy iOS crossover game, which only came out in Japan, Rockman Xover (pronounced "crossover", but fans were quick to refer to it as "Rockman's Over" instead), and Street Fighter x Megaman, a PC game pitting Megaman against the Street Fighter cast in classic 8-bit MM-style gameplay (though this "didn't count" either because it wasn't developed in-house by Capcom; by that logic, Megaman 9, 10, and the Zero games don't count either because they were developed by Inti Creates).
In 2013, I believe was when the first trailers for the new Super Smash Bros. game were released, and with it, the announcement of every fan's wet dream; Megaman would be joining the cast!! Fortunately, most of the anger I was seeing before had cooled down by this point. But with this announcement, however, came new disappointment toward Capcom, the sentiment that Nintendo cared more about the series than Capcom did, and that they should just sell the franchise off to Nintendo and be done with it.
Okay then... Now that the lengthy history lesson is over, I thought I would discuss my own feelings about the whole situation.
Even back when this whole internet temper tantrum first began to unfold, I felt the fanboys were being incredibly immature. Yes, it sucks that Legends 3 got cancelled (though I do admit I wasn't as much of a fan of Legends as I was the original and X series), but the way everyone was reacting to it I found far more upsetting. Two games get cancelled, and that constitutes the death of a franchise? That warrants boycotting all of Capcom's other games (because obviously Megaman is the ONLY good series they ever made...)? That justifies physically assaulting any Capcom exec we encounter in public (yeah, I'm sure Capcom will get right on a new game; clearly these are the fans they want, right?)? More than Capcom for cancelling Legends 3, I was angry at the fanbase for acting like a bunch of whiny, entitled, spoiled-rotten babies, and at the time, I felt it an embarrassment to call myself a Megaman fan.
I really feel a lot of fans got spoiled on Megaman releases. Up until recently, Capcom was releasing at least one new Megaman game every year since the beginning. I guess people have come to expect it and got an overdeveloped sense of entitlement as a result. Capcom is OBLIGATED to release a new Megaman every 6-12 months; no exceptions!! How pessimistic is it that failure to meet this arbitrary deadline means the series is dead? Much less to jump to the conclusion that is is out of pure malice on Capcom's part? How suicidal would Capcom have to be in order to slaughter one of their biggest cash cows just to spite one guy??
Truth is, I'm not even sure Megaman IS their biggest cash cow anymore. Clearly it has a vocal and passionate fanbase, but it's very possible that it's not the bread-winner it used to. Remember when they tried to reboot the original series and the X series (MM Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X, respectively)? I hear they bombed in retail. Maybe it's because they were made for the PSP rather than consoles, but that still might have been an indicator to Capcom that the series wasn't as hot as it used to be, and it prematurely closed the door on any follow-ups there. Megaman 9 was big at the time, since it was the first new original series game in about 15 years, but I didn't hear nearly as good things about MM10 (I heard many people compare it rather unfavorably to 9).
Indeed, up until the Legends 3 cancellation, the biggest criticism against the Megaman series was its Sequelitis! Megaman was the co-trope-namer (with Street Fighter) for Capcom Sequel Stagnation, thanks to how quickly sequels got released, with little variation between each installment (I never minded this myself, though; if it's not broken, don't fix it is what I always said). Funny then how the series is finally given a break, and everyone loses their friggin' minds.
And therein is my feelings about this whole thing. Megaman is NOT dead, he's taking a well-earned vacation. Capcom has been making it clear that they have not forgotten the Blue Bomber. All of the merchandising in their online store is evident of that, as well as the massive rereleasing of his back catalog on the Virtual Console with much fanfare. Then there is the excellent Archie comic, which is extremely well done and it is quite obviously a labor of love. And then the previously mentioned appearance in Smash Bros. Wii U/3DS, which would obviously not have happened if Capcom didn't want it to. Yet fans still feel this guest spot undoes 25 years of awesome games from Capcom that they feel Nintendo "deserves" the franchise more. (Do you want more sequel stagnation like the "New" Super Mario Bros. games have fallen into?)
The last official Megaman game was Megaman 10, which came out in 2010. That's five years. Looking at other franchises, that's really not a long time. Let's check out some of Capcom's other franchises. The last Breath of Fire game, BoF5: Dragon Quarter, came out in 2003. Granted they are finally working on a BoF6, so maybe that's a bad example. DarkStalkers 3 was the last real game in the series before they just remade it over and over and over and over. It came out in 1998. Power Stone? Gargoyle's Quest? Sure, Capcom has neglected some franchises, but Megaman is far from receiving the short end of the stick. Now let's look at Nintendo, the company that "deserves" Megaman more because they put him in Smash; they'll treat him right! The last Metroid game came out in 2010, the same year as MM10; Nintendo has teased a new game, but nothing concrete and official yet (the Metroid series' 25th anniversary also came and went with no new gameand very little acknowledgement). StarFox? StarFox Assault in 2005 (I'm not counting the remake of SF64 for the 3DS), although we may finally be getting a new game for the Wii U within the next year or so. F-Zero? GP Legend in 2004, with nothing new being announced yet. Mother/EarthBound? Mother 3 in 2006, and only in Japan; the fans' pleas for an international release continue to fall on deaf ears, and we only just recently saw a VC rerelease of EarthBound after years and years of petitioning. Kid Icarus had been on hiatus for, what, TWENTY years until they did Uprising? I think you get the idea; my point is, other game franchises have seen far longer lapses between sequels than Megaman and their fans are nowhere near as angry and hateful at their parent companies because of it.
So in closing, I'll say the same thing as I said way back then; let's just enjoy the games we have now and be thankful to Capcom for bringing us such a great series, rather than be angry, bitter, and vindictive toward them because they haven't put out sequels as soon as we would like.