Coming to console this Autumn is Capcom’s action platformer Megaman 9, also known as Rockman 9: The Ambition’s Revival!!. This new sequel to the popular Megaman franchise will be available for download on WiiWare, Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.
Of particular interest to retro heads is that the entire game will be developed to resemble a NES game. Megaman debuted on the NES in 1987 and although it appeared on many platforms including the SNES and Megadrive, it was during the NES era that the franchise hit its height of popularity. Megaman 9’s producer Hironobu Takeshita explains the decision to go retro:
“Mega Man is a simple game, but it’s one that you can get into quickly and really enjoy playing it. We wanted to bring that to a new generation of gamers.
Fortunately, now we have download services where we could bring it back. So we thought, “This is the opportunity to do this. Now that we have a method for delivering the game, we should try and see if we can do it – go all the way back to the retro style.”
Especially now, retro games are being evaluated as good games. Not all of them are good, but some of them are being evaluated as good games.
Since the generation now may not be as familiar with those games, we thought it’s time to introduce them to that style of gaming. Mega Man is just the perfect game for doing that.”
Retro style means more than just low-res graphics and beeping music, it also means screen flicker and bugs:
“Yeah, there were some things, like you couldn’t have more than three enemies on the screen at once, so we had to make sure that that’s how it stayed in our game. In the part with the dragon with the flame, [there should be] flickering, and whatnot.
In the options of this game, you can adjust that, unlike the old games. We purposely put some of those old-school bugs into this game, so it does recreate that feel.”
To match the retro style sequel the marketing campaign will make use of promotional material that resembles the dodgy boxart of old U.S releases. It’s so old it’s cool.
4 Comments
First off there is nothing Retro about the NES. The NES is wayyyyyy from the pong. Second off most games is the ones from the 90’s then the fact people is buying newer games is a joke. There is mostly there children.
Megaman Nine is a joke. They could put this on the GBA people and even so this is a joke.
I spit on the people who think playing this on Wii is a real Megaman game.
Stoopp calling the NES retro. Retro is 1970’s for gaming. Just stop it, it is not funny.
There is no such thing as Retro Style so just stop it.
RegalSin – I managed to decipher you comment. You seem very uptight if anyone calls anything retro other than Pong. Retro covers many decades and can be more personal than people realise.
Lol.. 70’s is retro but 80’s isn’t? isn’t the c64 and spectrum retro? Vectrex? Retro is whatever you want it to be.
Btw ‘Retro style’ were words the producer used.. even so there IS such a thing as ‘retro style’. Surely it just means anything that mimmicks an old style.
Exactly…well said Lawrence.