Mega Man Kicks It Old School

The 20th-anniversary issue of Nintendo Power (August 2008) offers up information on the next game in the original Mega Man series – the one that started out on the NES. Mega Man 9 is being developed by the Mega Man Zero team with those original six games in mind, and is going to have the same look, sound, and feel as the original games. As in previous games, Dr. WIly has unleashed eight Robot Masters on the world (including Magma Man, Tornado Man, and Splash Woman), and Mega Man will have to defeat each one in order to get to Dr. Wily, collecting their powerups in the process.

In trying to keep the game as close to the original series as possible, the game creator, Keiji Inafune, confirmed in the included interview that the game will feature no motion control, played with the Wii Remote tilted sideways like a NES controller; the game will also have music similar to the sound of the original games. Inafune noted that WiiWare was an ideal way to deliver an old-school game like this in "the grandiose and expansive world that the consumer gaming industry has become", and that Mega Man 9 will "get back to basics". Lastly, he notes that he would prefer to make many more games in this manner, and thus requests consumer support for Mega Man 9, which has no set release date. Check page 20 of the August 2008 issue of Nintendo Power for the full story and interview.

This is going to open the floodgates for gamers requesting sequels to all their favorite NES and SNES games, but I think it’s a pretty neat idea. Gamers are definitely going to appreciate this, myself included. It’s a fun use of WiiWare.