Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 Looks Great, But…

Capcom recently confirmed the rumors that had been circulating with a full-blown announcement of Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, and the response has been… kind of mixed, to say the least.

Make no mistake about it, people are for the most part happy with what’s there. PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 owners will not only get to play Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 on their platforms of choice, but the preceding two games as well (legally, if nothing else). And with bonus content and features, to boot!

Ah, but that’s only half the story. In the comments here, on social media, and everywhere else on the web, people can’t help but take notice of what isn’t there when they look at the new collection. It’s not entirely without reason; after all, Capcom set the precedent themselves when they released Mega Man Legacy Collection and The Disney Afternoon Collection with six classic games apiece for the same price. Even if all of Mega Man Legacy Collection 2‘s titles are from latter-day platforms, they aren’t that different from their predecessors when viewed through a wide-angle lens.

The one on the right just doesn’t cut it any more — if it ever did. (via VGDECIDE)

Over at USgamer, Nadia Oxford (who, full disclosure, is my wife) has cast a critical eye at the newly-announced compilation, examining a few areas in which she feels that it could, shall we say, be improved.

One area she doesn’t tackle is something of an unknown quantity at this point, that being the SEGA Saturn content for Mega Man 8. With Capcom developing this one in-house, one would figure that if anyone is going to be capable of Frankensteining it together with its PlayStation counterpart to a satisfactory degree, it would be them.

On the other hand, if they were doing it, one might also think that they’d mention it in the announcement. Perhaps those exclusive boss battles will be among the bonus content? Either way, the consensus seems to be that this won’t be a truly definitive version of the divisive fifth-generation title.

Beyond Mega Man 8, however, there is an argument to be put forth that maybe Capcom is simply holding Mega Man & Bass and other titles back to form something of a Mega Man Legacy Collection 3 with the other non-mainline Mega Man Classic titles. Heck, with any luck, maybe it will join online-enabled versions of Mega Man: The Power Battle, Mega Man: The Power Fighters, Mega Man Soccer, and Mega Man: Battle & Chase? (Or maybe I’ve just set myself up for future disappointment.)

Just set a few of these guys up, they were made for this.

The other big elephant in the room is that, much like Wii U and Mega Man Legacy Collection and the Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch alike for The Disney Afternoon Collection, Nintendo owners are being thrown no bones here. We have no idea where the problem lies here (I can believe it’s due to Nintendo just as easily as Capcom), but one can only hope that an announcement will be forthcoming, but the opportunity to take these titles on the go is truly tantalizing, so the absence of such a portable version can only result in disappointment.

I realize this whole thing might seem to come off as rather negative, and for some people, it might be, I will admit. I think it’s just difficult as a longtime fan to see what feels like perfect home-run pitches being whiffed.

Still, I’m looking quite forward to getting this collection and, I hope, being able to review it for you kind lot here. The Schrodinger’s Tama of Mega Man 8‘s content aside, everything we’ve seen about what is here has me stoked to fire these games up and play them again — even more than the Virtual Console and PlayStation Network releases of the two earlier games. Meanwhile, I’ll admit that I never got to delve into the downloadable content of the latter two, so that’s going to be fresh for me.

Throw in the new challenge mode and the ability to stream (I haven’t done one of those in a while, have I?), and there’s still a pretty potent package of plasma powered playtime presented, and personally, I’ll definitely be looking forward to what is here when the game is released this August.

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