OK, it’s time to go on a rant. This time I’ll be looking at the Megaman/Rockman series, but we’ll stick to calling it Megaman as it’s the name the majority of us use in the English speaking world. Now I’m not talking about Megaman X, Megaman Zero, Megaman NT, or any of the other variations out there. I’m talking about the original Blue Bomber himself.
For those who are unfamiliar with the series, Megaman was a robot designed by Doctor Light. He battles the evil robots created or adapted (depends on the storyline) by Doctor Wily. He has a mysterious brother called Protoman, a dog called Rush, & a “sister” (I suppose you could call her) called Roll to name but a few of the game’s supporting cast. The original platform series spanned 9 main games with some spin off titles. Most notably there was a poor soccer game & 2 decent arcade games. The games are extremely difficult platformers but they can all be beaten with a bit of perseverance.
The original Megaman series debuted on the Famicom / NES & eventually transitioned to the SNES, the Playstation & back to the SNES again before going on a long break. The first 6 games were NES releases, number 7 was on the SNES/SFC, 8 on the Playstation & the final game Rockman & Forte or “Megaman & Bass” (which is not called Megaman 9) was released on the Super Famicom (it was later localised for the Gameboy Advance). The first 3 games were updated & released on the Megadrive / Genesis under the title “The Wily Wars”. All the Famicom games were updated & rereleased on the Playstation in Japan in limited quantities, & they fetch a fairly high price on Ebay these days. The most notable rerelease was on the Gamecube/Xbox/PS2 which received the Megaman Collection. This contained the first 8 games in their original form & was followed by the Megaman X collection.
Throughout the series Megaman has always evolved & developed new ideas. Though the gameplay has always remained the same, the graphics & sound have gotten better with the newer machines. This is where I fail to understand Capcom’s decision to use the old 8-bit Megaman graphics in Megaman 9 & 10.
Firstly let’s have a look at Megaman & Bass which was released in 1998:
It looks like a good game, nice graphics, excellent playability. It added some new things like Bass being able to shoot in multiple directions. It’s a nice solid game. This is where Megaman was left in limbo for 10 years.
Now let’s look at Megaman 9 released in 2008:
It’s hardly a step up & seems to try too hard to be retro. There’s nothing wrong with Retrogaming, as that’s what we’re all about here.
To me the game feels like a way to cash in on:
a) The retro craze that seems to be popular these days
b) The fact that Megaman fans have been craving a new game since Megaman & Bass
I appreciate the fact that they have created new bosses & new levels, but I can’t play the game without feeling like it was one step forward & two steps back. There’s a very “cheap” feeling to the game, & with Megaman 10 coming out shortly (at the time of writing) I think I can see why.
The game feels like it was made with a Megaman level editor, & thinking about it, it probably was. They say Megaman 9 was made from the ground up, but I’m sure they would have made a level designer of some description that could have been used should a sequel need to be made.
Many games over the years have had level designers made for them & if ROM hacking sites have taught us anything it’s that with the right tools you can modify a game very easily with enough time. Check out www.smwcentral.net & see some of the amazing designs that were made using Super Mario World hacking tools. Fans can knock this sort of stuff out easily, & with a 16-bit platform game no less. Capcom didn’t even give us that much.
Megaman 10 is advertised as “keeping with the 8-bit theme”. I’m sure it is, as the engine is built & all they need to do is to design some bosses, maybe a couple of new enemies & add in Protoman & Bass as playable characters which wouldn’t be very difficult at all. Sure I couldn’t do it, I admit, but for a good programmer working in a big studio with decent resources it would be very easy.
Had Megaman never left the Famicom / NES platform I wouldn’t have a problem with this. It would have been how we left Megaman & the gang, & more of the same so long after the last release would have been very welcome. That’s not what happened though, & the world got a healthy dose of 16-bit & 32-bit Megaman. I like to see any series of games I play evolve, not be made to look old because it’s cheap & gimmicky. Essentially that’s what the issue here is, using a cheap gimmick. Maybe if they made the game look like Megaman & Bass, but incorporated an “8-bit mode” that would have been a novel idea. I would have played it through on 8-bit mode just for interests sake.
What about Megaman & Bass you may ask? Megaman 8 was an the Playstation, a 32-bit system. Wouldn’t putting the sequel on a 16-bit system be considered a step back? Well Megaman 8 didn’t exactly push the Playstation to its limits & the graphical style was easily carried over to the SNES.
Now I did download Megaman 9 & it’s sitting on my Wii right now, so I can honestly say I’ve played it. I’m not one of those whingers who complains about a game that they’re never played because of how it looks or what they’ve heard. That’s not me & it never will be. I always try things out before forming an opinion. I admit I was reserved about Megaman 9, but I gave it a shot & was disappointed.
I’ll probably get back to Megaman 9 eventually & finish it, but I don’t think Megaman 10 will be on my “must download” list anytime soon. They’re not bad games, don’t get me wrong, & I don’t have a problem with them because they’re not “pretty”. I just think Capcom did them on the cheap & didn’t put in the effort that a Megaman game deserves after a 10 year hiatus.
Back in the 80s/90s AV was the way to go when playing consoles. Instead of sitting there for hours tuning in the TV you could plug in the AV cables & spend those hours playing games. That’s why AV was the way to go when it came to connecting consoles to a TV. Then Nintendo & Sega decided to change the rules…
Let’s look at the first generation Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) & the Sega Master System (SMS):
Seeing these 2 machines would bring back a few memories I’m sure. These 2 machines started what is now known as the “Console Wars”. Yes there were other consoles back in the day that were competing for marketshare, but it was with Nintendo & Sega that things started to get nasty. These days Nintendo, Microsoft & Sony fight for marketshare, but it’s not as much “fun” as the “console wars” of the late 80s/early 90s. Off topic, here’s something to think about, as of 2010 we are still in the first generation where Sega hasn’t had a console release. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.
On the back of the SMS & the side of the NES we see AV ports. In Japan the Nintendo Famicom (NES equivalent) did not have an AV port but the Sega Mark 3 (SMS equivalent) did. Anyway, the NES & SMS can be easily connected to your TV without any troublesome tuning. Let’s look at the second generation models of these machines:
Here we have the NES Toploader & the Sega Mastersystem 2. Both sleeker looking machines in their own way to appeal to the late 80s/early 90s gamers. Very nice machines, you cannot deny that. Let’s look at the back:
That’s right, NO AV OUTPUT. The only way you can tune in these modern-second-generation-up-to-date versions of these machines is to go it old school. Plug in the RF adapter & sit there either pushing buttons or turning switches to find the right tuning. I won’t mention the lack of card port on the SMS2, but I know that annoyed some people at the time.
The question I have to ask is why? These machines came out at a time that more & more TVs had AV input as standard. Why would you not include that as a feature? Japan had a slightly different set of circumstances with their machines. The Sega Mark 3 didn’t receive an update (Japan just received the Master System instead), but the Famicom AV had just that: AV. So their upgraded model really was an upgraded model.
The thing is, I can’t think of another company that has taken this backwards step. NEC, the other main 8-bit condender in Japan released the original PC Engine with RF output only, but the later Coregrafx 1 & 2 models introduced AV & SCART output. It just seems very strange of Sega & Nintendo to do this. It is widely known that these were cheaper models to produce, but what a thing to leave off…
Throughout 2 generations of the SNES (except in PAL territories) & 3 generations of Megadrive/Genesis (3 in the US, 2 everywhere else) AV was present. Did Nintendo & Sega learn their lesson? Who knows? Will we ever know why they did this? Well we can speculate, but this is probably going to remain one of those mysteries of the console world & a bloody annoying one at that.
Super Mario Brothers 2. When I say it today 2 games might enter your mind: Super Mario USA & The Lost Levels. Mario USA obviously being the game released in the Western world as SMB2 & The Lost Levels being the Japanese SMB2. Most Western gamers were introduced to the Japanese SMB2 via the Mario All Stars collection that was released on the Super Nintendo in 1993. In the Western world opinions were always divided over SMB2, but the knowledge that we didn’t even get what has been since referred to as the REAL SMB2 did not help matters.
My question is, why the hate over Super Mario USA?
Firstly, the gameplay is very different from the other games in the series. Jumping on an enemy no longer kills them, you pick up vegetables from the ground, you have flying carpet levels, & Bowser isn’t even in it. It’s just not Mario to a lot of people. By now almost everyone knows the game was a modification of a Japanese game called Yumi Kojo: Doki Doki Panic which explains why the game is so different.
The main theory behind the reason why we got such a different game instead of the Lost Levels is because the Lost Levels is a VERY difficult game. Infact it was said to be too difficult for Western gamers. Was this the only reason though? I believe there may be more to it than that, but be aware that this is only my opinion. I could be way off in my assumption, but to me the following argumemt makes sense & has been rumoured to be one of the reasons for the differing releases. Let’s have a look at this lesser known theory which is often written off by members of the gaming community as ridiculous.
To put it simply I believe the game is too similar to the first. Well, not even too similar, the Lost Levels basically is the original Super Mario Bros with new levels. It’s like someone at Nintendo played around with a level design kit & this is the end result. Sure there are a few differences in gameplay, Luigi now jumps higher than Mario, there are poisonous mushrooms & a few other changes. Is it enough though?
Who remembers Boulderdash? A lot of people have fond memories of the game, you play the little ant (dubbed Rockford on some ports) & dig your way to the diamonds avoiding boulders. On the Amstrad CPC several Boulderdash games were released, & while the original game was rated very highly, this was not true of later games in the series. For the record only the first few of those games were official, the rest being designed independently with the Boulderdash Construction Kit. The problem was that every single one of those games played exactly the same as the others. Sure there were a few minor cosmetic differences, but did you really need to buy the same game so many times?
So let’s look at it from a Mario point of view. Would a Mario “construction kit” designed sequel have been accepted by the gaming community at the time? Let’s look at other Nintendo games of that era: the first 2 Zelda games were completely different to each other. One was an overhead quest style game & the second was more of a platformer. On the other hand the second Bomberman game was widely criticised for being too similar to the first. My theory is that Mario could potentially have suffered the same fate which could have seriously affected his popularity. Remember, this is Nintendo’s mascot, the figurehead for the company. If Mario had a game that received negative reviews this early in the piece he could very well be sitting on the sidelines with Alex Kidd while Nintendo ran with a new mascot.
Let’s take a look at Alex Kidd for a second. Miracle World was a brilliant game that received excellent reviews at the time. Most of the sequels on the other hand were absolute flops. The series was redeemed with Alex Kidd in Shinobi World which received a decent score from C+VG magazine which was one of the main authorities on gaming at the time. The problem was there were 4 crap games inbetween Miracle World & Shinobi World. It really didn’t help that Sega’s new console the Megadrive/Genesis received the horrible “Enchanted Castle”. Compare this to Super Mario World which still is in my opinion the finest game ever. Both mascots laid their 16-bit cards on the table & Mario won. Alex Kidd got replaced by Sonic & it was all over.
If Mario the Lost Levels had been released as SMB2 in the Western world would this outcome have been the same? Sure, Mario 3 was a great game, but might it have been too little too late? Now I’m not saying the Lost Levels is a bad game, that’s a matter of opinion. You could argue that in Japan Mario was still successful there inspite of the first & second games being so similar. At the time Japanese audiences were a very different breed of gamer to their Western counterparts. Sure, this has changed in recent years & the Internet has certainly helped gamers from all over the world experience games they may not have had access to in the day. I could use other examples to back up my argument, but ultimately it’s a question we may never know the real answer to. The argument however will carry on for years to come.
In summary I believe Nintendo America took the best course of action by making the second game a very different beast from the first.
Today when looking at the Mario games you have 3 options:
Accept the Lost Levels as Super Mario Bros 2
Accept Super Mario USA as Super Mario Bros 2
Accept both games & place them between Super Mario Bros 1 & 3
I’ve been known in the past to complain about games & systems that Australia never got & how much better the Americans (& the Europeans in some respects) have it than us. Yes I am somewhat of a whinger, but let’s look at the history. When I think of games that never made it to Australia I think of:
Final Fantasy 2 & 3 - SNES Megaman Collection - GC Cubivore - GC Megaman 64 - Nintendo 64 Hey You Pickachu - Nintendo 64…
… actually that last one isn’t a bad thing… My girlfriend still has nightmares about yelling into that microphone & having the little electric puffball do either nothing or something else. ANYWAY, let’s save that for another review. As it happens, there were a few English releases Australia did get that the American’s did in fact NOT get. Sounds strange I know. Traditionally games come out in Japan first, then get translated for North America, then if they feel like it we might see a PAL release. That was not the case for Ufouria, which for some unknown reason was released in Europe & Australia, but not the US.
Ufouria is a platformer that is similar to Wonderboy 3. It offers one big world to play in rather than individual levels & includes different areas that only certain characters can access. Seeing the similarities so far? The only real difference is that Ufouria features 4 seperate characters & Wonderboy 3 features changes to the 1 character, but from a gameplay perspective that hardly matters. For those not familiar with Wonderboy 3, let’s have a look at what makes this a great game.
The game starts with Bop Louie (I’ll get to the names later) who has been transported from his homeworld of Ufouria to this mysterious world with 3 of his friends who he has been seperated from. Bop Louie has the ability to bop his head into enemies to defeat them. All the characters start off with one ability, but upgrades for each character are available. For example, later in the game Louie can gain the ability to climb calls.
The first thing Louie needs to do is to rescue his friends. The problem is that when you find one of Louie’s friends they start to attack you. I’m probably giving away part of the storyline here, but each of Louie’s friends has been brainwashed & must be defeated to knock some sense into them & have them join your party. Freeon Leon is the first candidate for some brain wash bashing. He has the ability to swim on top of the water & walk on ice, which will lead you to Shades who can float, then Gill who can swim underwater. You can change characters are any point in the game which you will need to do on a regular basis.
Aside from battling your friends, there are also bosses in the game who each offer a different challenge. While they can be difficult (particularly the one in the submarine) you never feel like they’re impossible to beat.
The music is very boppy & enjoyable. At the recent Ultracade event I got to hear a remix of the main tune which surprised me as I didn’t think the game was popular enough for that sort of attention. Sound effects are your standard Nintendo platform affair, so there’s nothing that really stands out.
The controls are brilliant. One thing Nintendo systems are good at is platform games & this is no exception. All the characters move just as they should. You feel the bump as a character slips on the ice & falls over. You feel the inertia as you slowly start moving in the water & progressively speed up.
Now onto the names. In Japan there is a series of games based on a character called Hebereke. Ufouria is one of the Hebereke games rebadged for the Western market. Not only the names have changed, but the character sprites have been modified from the Japanese original for some strange reason. Bop Louie is actually the “Westernised” version of Hebereke himself. This doesn’t affect the gameplay in any way shape or form however.
To make things even wierder, the Australian & European versions differ slightly. The main character sprites look the same, but the health status & a few other minor things were changed. The bulk of the game is the same, which begs the question: why?
If you have difficulty the handy password option is there to allow you to continue your game. The only problem with this is you always start in the same spot, so if the boss is a fair distance away you have to go all the way back to them, but everything you’ve done up to that point is unlocked.
Overall if you owned a NES but loved Wonderboy 3, this was a great alternative. The controls are outstanding, there is minimal sprite flicker with the graphics & the music is brilliant. So it’s time to be patriotic people. Put your hand on your heart & declare to the world just how proud to be Australian. After all, we got Ufouria & the US didn’t. 5/5
