As you might know, we at TMMN have a little something called The Megacast that we like to put out every month. And we do our best to keep the topics timely and relevant. Well, sometimes things have a way of lining up nicely…

On this upcoming episode of the show, we will naturally be discussing “Mega Man” as he was recently revealed in Street Fighter X Tekken. We want to make your voice heard, too­­­ – quite literally. We would like you to send in a recording of your personal thoughts this appearance of Mega Man, and your stance on things in general. Do you see this as a fun little tribute? Or do you think Capcom is intentionally messing with the fans?

Of course, we have to have some guidelines. We don’t want rants, we don’t want crying, we don’t want endless cussing. We want composed, well thought out views. Whatever stance you take is fine so long as you can back up your claims with strong reasoning and facts. This is not about venting, it’s about explaining. Be sure to introduce yourself at the start, and try to keep your recording under five minutes.

When you’re done, mail us your audio file or a link to it to us by next Friday, the 4th of February. We’ll go through them and select a few that we deem the most interesting and thoughtful to discuss on the show. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Apologies if the title seems a little melodramatic, but it’s the most concise way we could think of to sum up the Mega Man video game front in 2011. You know, following Inafune’s departure, the cancellation of Mega Man Universe, the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3, the character being ditched twice in two consecutive Marvel vs. Capcom releases, all that fun stuff.

Anyway, making this a separate post from this one, because we want to make sure as many of you see it as we can. You see, it would seem that the appearance of Bad Box Art Mega Man in Street Fighter X Tekken is not, among other things, a jab at former Capcom Producer Keiji Inafune. In fact, he actually helped to engineer it.

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Continuing from this:

Doesn’t Pac-Man look just awesome? I can’t wait for that!

Sigh… but seriously, NXT got interrupted for this?

It gets better, too. In addition to some screens, here is the profile from Capcom Japan’s website:

Mega Man
Middle Aged Hero!

Known as a Digger, a person who digs up relics from the past for research. He is a hot-tempered man, but has a strong sense of justice and is also very polite. His weak point is that he is easily rattled when backed into a corner. He is always running around in a hurry due to the demands of his partner Roll, and this time he’s been asked to travel to Antarctica to retrieve a mysterious box.

That’s it, I’m done. Go nuts.

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Some early reports are coming out in various places around the internet that Bandai’s planned May release schedule for Japan includes the followup to their previous Zero figure, the D-Arts Zero Type 2. A prototype of this figure was among those shown off at Tamashii Nations 2011 late last year.

The corresponding flavor text states: “Boasting the series’ greatest popularity, Zero Type 2 is a go! This figure comes equipped with the powered up buster that served him from Rockman X3 and on.”

This is a slightly surprising turn, if only because Ucchy-san revealed the prototype of Vile months prior to that of Zero Type 2. Nevertheless, it appears that Zero may have precedence.

Retail pre-orders are said to begin on February 1st, so chances are Bandai ought to officially have their release schedule up by then.

News via Tarbo (image via GA Graphic)

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H’ooooooh man. We’re not gonna need to install an age gate on this site are we? Here is the basic color cast of Yama Tai Koku’s Merti garage kit, commissioned by Rockman X manga writer Yoshihiro Iwamoto himself. If you could attend Wonder Fest next month and purchase the kit, this is essentially what you’d end up with without any additional painting. It’s not terrible actually; most garage kits come in plain gray.

Along with the photo, additional kit details were also revealed on figure site FG. The kit was essentially designed to match the proportions of the D-Arts Rockman X figures. It will include three facial expressions, three hand types, and Merti’s spear-like weapon. The joints, which are typical consumer figure joints, must be purchased separately. There is no word on whether or not the kit will come with decals for the finer details, such as eyes. If you do come to Wonder Fest, though, you can get an autograph from Iwamoto himself!

So if you’re really looking to grab this kit, you better be prepared for a bit of DIY work. On the other hand, your laziness is essentially being rewarded with more skin than Merti’s outfit normally features!

Thanks for the tip, Auto!

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Considering the infamy of the line, we’re sure some people will take this the wrong way, but here goes…

Capcom published a new Ask Capcom Q&A video yesterday at Capcom Unity, and as one might expect, the subject of Mega Man came up. More specifically, the subject of the 25th anniversary was brought up by one fan, while another asked about whether or not we have anything to look forward to at all in the Blue Bomber’s future.

Tackling these questions was Corporate Officer/Senior Vice-President Christian Svensson, who answered the first question “We are continuing to noodle what our plans and what our celebration should be,” adding “there’s a whole bunch of things that we know we kind of have to get in a row before we actually really divulge or start to celebrate Mega Man.”

As for the other, he said “I hesitate to say exactly what, because I don’t want people reading more into it than is there,” before adding “Let’s just say there are top men thinking about and actively discussing where we’re going to take the brand for the next ten years and how we’re going to do it.”

Source: Siliconera, via HeatPhoenix

Image Source: YTMND (click if you don’t get the joke)

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We recently got a look at the new tabloid-esque cover to the 13th issue of Archie’s Mega Man comic book, which sports all sorts of intrigue as to what happenings take place within its pages. From the arrival of Dr. Lalinde to the mystery of Emerald Spears to the issue of robot souls, this one seems poised to be packed with potential.

Of course, there is also something for longtime fans of the franchise as well– Dr. Cossack is revealed to make an appearance in the solicitation, and accompanying him seems to be Pharaoh Man.

And perhaps the Egyptian-themed Robot Master has a large part to play? That seems to be what the newest Villain Variant sketch cover by Jonathan Hill indicates, and you can see it exclusively at Destructoid. They also note that it will be arriving in May, but only comic shops will get this particular cover.

Thanks for the tip, Tony!

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For many months, Capcom’s Ucchy-san has been posting video segments of an interview with Naoya Tomita, AKA TOM-PON, a legendary Capcom staffer who was working on Mega Man back at the beginning. However, today things finally wrap up with Capcom Unity’s posting of translations of the final segments.

In the new videos (the latest one above), you can learn about things like TOM-PON’s stint in voice acting, the origin of enemy names, and developers’ love for American action movies. You can also browse down the list on CU to see all the previous videos in the series. Don’t forget to click the CC button to see the subtitles!

Many thanks to TOM-PON and Ucchy-san for all the info and laughs!

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by Glass Knuckle

Mega Man has always been the defining platformer for me, and as a kid there was no series I was more excited to buy a sequel for. Even now, they’re by far my most played games on the NES and I’ll run through them at the drop of a hat. However, I realized over the past few years that I’ve mostly been playing them on autopilot, and barely notice the things that once thrilled me or caused endless anguish.

As a personal experiment I wanted to go through them once more, setting my nostalgia aside for a moment and taking it slow, giving everything a hard look to see exactly what worked and why, what stood out and what was rough around the edges. In this series of posts I’ll give a quick review of each stage in turn with the help of screenshots and VGMaps.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to Ripot’s Round-Up!

Thanks to our readers, we receive quite a few tips here at MMN, and unfortunately, we don’t always have time to give them full coverage. So rather than sit on the items and allow them to get stale, we’re bringing a whole bunch of them to you at once!

First up, we have a story from GuardianZero, who informs us that IGN has posted a list of their Top 25 PSP Games. And despite the timing, that’s not for 2011, but apparently for all time. And Blue Bombers are out in force, taking up a whopping two spots on that list!

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National Public Radio put up this story covering the tenth annual Music and Gaming Festival (MAGFest), and although there is not the upcoming Mega Man Legends 3 campaign story we mentioned last week, in this particular story, it’s still a good one for Mega Man fans. NPR’s story (entitled “From Mega Man to Final Fantasy, Live Video Game Music”) features a group called ARMCANNON (one of the many band names with a Mega Man reference) and contains a video of them performing their Mega Man 3 medley from last year:

Video contains NSFW language.

While this is not the NPR story we’re really waiting for, it’s always good to see a Mega Man reference in a news story that reaches millions of people across the country and the rest of the world.

News credit: NPR

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The leader of the Bonne siblings three wasn’t going to let Blue Boy have ALL the fun. Last year you might recall the custom MegaMan Volnutt figure created by Ryan Showers which was sold in limited numbers. Well as you can see above, Teisel is next on the docket, and so far he’s looking real good!

Ryan has just recently published his first couple pictures of the sculpt, and other details are sparse at the moment. We’ll be sure to keep you updated though, since I imagine once this figure is ready to go, it’s gonna go fast!

Thanks for the tip, Auto!

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Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

No sooner than we post an interview with Ian Flynn discussing the prospects of post-Mega Man 2 events and original stories than we get a brand new cover and solicitation for the first issue following the return of Dr. Wily. And does this ever appear to break from the norm, as we seem to be getting a look at several of the elements spoken of during that exchange.

Here are the details we have, and click on the cover to your right in order to see a full-sized version.

“(W) Ian Flynn (A) Gary Martin & Various (CA) Patrick Spaz Spaziante
‘Spiritus ex Machina,’ Part 1. Mega Man joins Dr. Light at the Advanced Robotics Trade Show to address the future of thinking machines. New faces abound – who are Drs. Cossack and Lalinde? What sinister forces lurk behind the scenes? Meanwhile, Dr. Wily searches for something to give him the edge deep in the forbidden Lanfront Ruins. All this plus the debut of Rush!”

Thanks for the tip, Sockie!

Edit: Thanks to Merricks, we now have a much larger view of the cover; check it out below, and click to enlarge.

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Recently, we had the opportunity to interview Ian Flynn, the writer for the Mega Man comic book series, as well as Sonic the Hedgehog and other titles sold under the Archie banner. Knowing that there were some questions which went unanswered the last time we attempted this, we pulled some of those which were still relevant out of cobwebs, rewrote them a little bit, and the next thing we knew, we had an interview!

The Mega Man Network: Before the first issue was released, you had alluded in some interviews that you were not as familiar with Mega Man as you were with, say, Sonic, but that you had really boned up on researching the games and materials. How well would you say you have acclimated to writing for the Blue Bomber since then?

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Meet Chapit. This assistant robot developed by Japanese robotics company Raytron in 2007 has since appeared at various robotics and technology expos in Japan. But really, I can’t help but feel it looks a bit familiar somehow…

Designed to be small, simple, and easy to use, Chapit can recognize people, communicate via voice with a vocabulary of up to 10,000 words (which is programmable), and can remotely turn on household lights and appliances. No word yet if it can dance, start a fire in your kitchen, or back up your memory to prevent it from being scanned by an oppressive computer system installed in a dead artificial paradise.

Sadly, Chapit is still just a concept and awaits an investor or two before it can go into production. I think Legends cosplayers definitely ought to hope it does! Just needs hands and a little brown paint. You can see Chapit in action here.

Thanks for the tip, Auto! (via Akihabara News)

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