Continuing their monthly 2012 tradition of counting down to the 25th anniversary of the Blue Bomber by playing through all of the Classic series games, Capcom Unity will be playing through Mega Man 5 for the month of May this Friday the 18th. Tune in to Twitch TV for all the fun at… er, sometime (their last began at 2pm PST, but as of this writing, Unity has no time posted).

And the prizes this time? IF you live within North America, then you will have two chances to win a copy of the Japanese version of this month’s game, Rockman 5. One is a copy we have donated, courtesy of Heat Man, and will be won by the person who can count the number of times Brett dies, make note of how he died each time (pit, Robot Master, etc.), and be the first to comment with that information in the stream’s Unity post (which goes up Friday) with that information.

The other prize will feature not only a copy of the game, but a plush Proto Buster as well. “This will likely be trivia,” they note, “with the first correct answer posted in the Twitch TV chat receiving the item.”

Now, you can see such awesome images as Mega Man squaring off against Crash Man, the tabloid-esque cover to issue #13, or Rush and Mega Man being illuminated by the light from the Mega Buster without such things as logos, bar codes, and other comic book cover necessities being in the way!

…and if you’re a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog? Then there is oh-so much more waiting for you there. So don’t hesitate; check it out now!

Get ready to drop asterisks like it’s hot (though this track contains no NSFW language, as far as I can tell). This is a remix of “Endless” from Random’s Mega Man 9 album, done by J1Studios. Pretty cool if you ask me, and although I’m not a big rap connoisseur, the Endless Attack theme from Mega Man 9 lends itself really well to the style. Always good to give new things a listen!

Via Random

As noted in the video, the marathon will include the core games fromMega Man Classic, Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, and Mega Man Legends. For more information on the marathon, its participants, and how to donate, be sure to visit their website. Good luck to all the teams!

After sacrificing itself to protect its friends, The MegaCast appeared to be gone forever. But after scouring the Earth, we were able to find and piece together the various parts and rebuild it. Now The MegaCast is back and better than… well, at least as good as… well, it’s back anyway.

This month Heat Man, Tabby, AWD, and myself (mainfinger) assemble to talk about the 10th anniversary of the Mega Man Zero series. But it wouldn’t be The MegaCast without us taking a really long time to actually get to the main subject. What exactly is Project X Zone? Will it be any good? Will it even come here? We compare it to similar looking games of the past to find out!

Also, we talk about a whole bunch of random crap that has nothing to do with anything because that’s what we do. But hey, maybe you know what we should be talking about. If that’s the case, feel free to leave future topic suggestions in the comments below.

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Graphics! We got robot trees, trees behind those trees, grass, wood patterns in the ground and…whatever is covering the top of it! Not bad at all.

Anyway, this is Batton and Robbit. Battons wake up after a couple seconds and can’t be damaged until they do. After that, they’ll move toward you like a slightly faster Telly, and they take two hits to kill. Robbit alternates between taking one hop forward and shooting three carrots in your general direction. They take ten hits, and work well as a roadblock allowing any nearby Battons to catch up with you. This whole section is much more combat intensive than usual, with Battons filling the trees and three Robbits evenly spaced throughout. The enemies work very well together along with the minor terrain variations.

The next screen below has three more Battons, this time in a more confined space. An interesting tidbit about this one is that by starting in the top corner, leading them upward and running under is a valid alternate strategy.

And then a giant robot dog teleports in and starts spitting fire at you. This is Friender (he’s not your friend), and he takes twenty hits. This is the first example we’ve seen of a mini-boss, which becomes a staple of the series. He’s also much more animated than anything we’ve seen before. He paws at the ground, wags his tail, and opens his mouth wider when shooting, which was pretty impressive back then. We have to shoot at him while jumping over the fire, and the terrain works to our advantage this time.

Not so for the next ones. The second forces you to fight him while he’s above you, allowing him to cover your whole standing area with fire. The third also includes a piece of the ceiling that makes jumping forward more difficult. It’s a good progression of difficulty and keeps fighting three of them in a row from getting too boring. It’s also possible to take down the third by jumping up from farther back and sneaking pot shots in, assuming you can jump out of a two-block high space.

The next room just has two more Battons. We’ve dealt with more than that in every previous encounter with them already. They’re great as a place to heal after what we just dealt with though.

Along with a nice change of scenery (we’re above the trees now), we meet a new enemy. Monking jumps up to grab the platform as you approach, then jumps on top of it if you get closer or enough time passes. He’ll continue jumping toward you until you kill him. He’s easy enough to deal with once you know what he does, but then…

Pipi’s back! They fly overhead frequently, and we have to shoot the eggs as they fall or things get messy fast.

The next three screens are individual fights with Robbits under different terrain conditions. This is really just a breather between the good stuff, but you’ll have to get right up in the second one’s face if you don’t have a special weapon.

The last set of screens introduced Kukku, who runs forward and jumps every few steps. They move too fast to kill with normal shots before they reach you, but they’re timed to jump just as they get near Mega Man if you stop moving when they appear.

This is easily the most combat intensive stage we’ve seen so far. The Batton/Robbit combo, Frienders, and Monking/Pipi combo are all solid challenges, and the last couple sections can still be problematic. The scenery is well designed and changes throughout, and the music is great. As an action-focused stage, I can’t find fault with it at all.

It is the latter which ScrewAttack has chosen to focus on in their latest Two-Bit Review. Of course, if you’ve already obtained the first issue or the first trade paperback (collecting the first four-issue story arc), then you probably won’t find much new here.

Despite being a fan of both comic books and Mega Man, it seems that the writer is new to the series, being introduced to it by this very issue… go figure. Just the same, it’s great to continue seeing the book receive positive press from all over. And as the book continues to find its legs and voice, it will hopefully grow to become even better still, and continue to help the Blue Bomber’s overall image for years to come.

I’m heading out of town next week to visit some friends and family; with any luck, I’ll be able to continue my updates while I’m away from home, save for when we’re traveling on the road. Of course, as I’m sure those of you who make long visits on rare occasions know, things don’t always go according to plan, but I’ll try to keep things rolling.

Now, some of you may be wondering what this means for a couple of things we have going on. As of this writing, I’ve not heard back yet from Matt at UDON about when we’re going to get to the “A” part of our Robot Master Field Guide Q&A, I’m not sure when that will take place. Between that and the recent resurgence in some questions being asked, I’m just going to say “keep them coming” for now. Maybe that will be handled while I’m away, too?

Update: The answering process has begun, so we’ve closed the question submission for now. Stay tuned!

And finally, there’s the t-shirt raffle. First, we’ve got all the entrants and their choices of anniversary representative locked in. As I alluded to previously on Twitter and here, the turnout was far beyond my previous expectations, and I want to make sure I do this right. Things have been a little hectic as of late, and as a result, while I might get to work on it while away, I’m currently penciling it in to be finished and posted after I get back (that would be the 23rd, so probably the following day or two).

I just hope you’ll enjoy the finished product as much as I did reading through them all. And, so as not to break the whole thing up (and perhaps add a little suspense), the winners will be announced in that same article.

So, that’s basically it. Things kind of got squished up against the timeframe for the trip, and I apologize for that.

There will no doubt be a fair number of Mega Man cosplayers this year, as there usually are every year, with inspiration being drawn from the Classic series, the arguably more mainstream Battle Network, and even Star Force, which has not had a new release in the past three years.

For those who would like to capture the look of Star Force hero Geo Stelar, cosplay supplier Cosplaysky has these unofficial replicas of the glasses he wears throughout the series (click the link to see more angles and close-ups). However, they are anything but cheap– these high-tech shades will set you back a cool $139, to say nothing of shipping.

If Geo isn’t who you’d most like to emulate in the busy halls of a convention center, then by all means, tell us who you’d like to be in the comments below.

In a new article on ComicsAlliance, Chris Sims talks a bit about Archie’s Mega Man comic book, lavishing it with praise as “one of the best comic books on the stands today.” He drives the point that it’s all the more impressive even further by pointing out that not only is this book not from the big two (Marvel and DC), but it’s not even a character who originated in comics.

“[A]s crazy as it seems, Mega Man has spent the last year showing pretty much every other book on the market the right way to do thrilling all-ages adventure,” the article says. “Mostly because it’s a book made for children that’s not afraid to have a five-page debate about the morality of creating artificial life.”

Incidentally, you may want to hold off on reading this if you have not received issue #13 yet; the article seems to emphasize that issue in particular, including several images not found in the recent preview, so beware of spoilers.