Air Man’s Theme, as Played on a Piano

The Robot Master known throughout the world as Air Man has quite the memorable theme, one which has been played and remixed numerous times. Today, Robert Kovacs dropped us a line to let us know that he has taken his own stab at performing the classic 8-bit arrangement via the piano:

In addition, he’s produced a version with a slightly-different alternate ending:

Excellent work, Rob! But can you handle the theme from the first leg of Wily’s fortress?

Those interested in obtaining the sheet music for this piece can contact Rob by e-mail at rob[at]returnofsimple[dot]com. And if you have a similar performance you’d like us to feature, feel free to drop us a line at the.mega.man.network[at]gmail[dot]com, and we’ll try to bring your work to the masses. Who knows? Maybe someone at Capcom will even catch wind of it (no pun intended), and bring it to their audience as well!

The Angry Video Game Nerd Reads Mega Man 2

Indeed, you did not misread that headline; James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd, known for his vulgar and sometimes grotesque (albeit humorously so) reviews of some of the worst games the hobby has to offer, is not performing his regular run-of-the-mill duties for the Capcom franchise’s best-selling hit.

Rather, he is reading the Scholastic “Worlds of Power” novelization of Mega Man 2, without his usual brand of commentary, as the game’s music plays softly in the background. So unless I’ve missed something, this is safe for work, and only recommended for someone who has not read the original publication. The only other point of interest is at the start of the first video, where Rolfe briefly covers the concept of games in print:

Here is an admission: way back when the book was published in 1990, there was virtually nothing else in the way of media for Mega Man. Well, except Captain N: The Game Master, which I’m sure many will agree doesn’t quite cut it. I got this book and, in lieu of anything else, was a big fan as I was amazed at the stuff not seen in the games.

“Oh, so Mega Man is a robot that was turned into a human?” Yeah, I was pretty accepting. I even remember being upset with magazines of the day which continued to refer to him as a robot. Moreover, I was upset there was never a novelization for Mega Man 3, or the original Mega Man, for that matter.

Of course, things have changed quite a bit in the intervening years, with the Ruby-Spears cartoon and other things waking me up to the Blue Bomber still being a blue bot. I would also come across far better fiction from fans, and after that, find out there was a lot of stuff that Capcom had been holding out on us in Japan.

At least today, it’s easier for someone to get into the franchise and find out new facts about everything. And of course, we will continue our work (with your help) to make sure those facts are readily available to anyone who needs them.

News Credit: Cinemassacre, Mega Man Maniacs, RyanThunder in the Community, Pureauthor of the Penny Arcade forums, and probably some other places.

Madness? THIS. IS. MEGA MAN. 2!

If you spend any good amount of time on the internet, then there is a good chance you’ve come across the “Sparta!” meme which sprang from a movie which shall remain nameless, suffice to say that it came out more than three-hundred days ago.

The meme has since died down somewhat, but that wasn’t enough to stop Newgrounds user “ShadowWhoWalks” from taking the joke and using it as the foundation of a parody of Mega Man 2. However, in Sparta Man 2, things work a little differently…

This is a megaman clone, but here’s the twist! YOU ARE SPARTAMAN, ARE YOU READY FOR YOUR EXTREMELY MANLY ADVENTURE?

Use direction keys to move, space to fire, plays like a real megaman game.

Also, this game is designed for real men. It is hard, it is CONTRA HARD, if you lack the manliness to complete the game, I suggest you find something else to play with.

In actuality, the challenge might be over-hyped, if only a little. Click here to go to Newgrounds (warning: portions of the website contain some NSFW material) and test your might with the awesome power of Sparta Man.

News Credit: Capcom Unity

A Look Back at the Classic Openings of Mega Man

The classic 8-bit opening sequences of the Mega Man games for the Nintendo Entertainment System are some of the most memorable in video games, especially among fans. Who doesn’t get a little excited when they recognize the music which plays as the camera pans up what appears to be the largest tower in the city, atop which stands the Blue Bomber, ready to spring into action as his high speed theme song kicks in?

1up’s Retro Blog takes a recalls these opening sequences in 8-Bit Cinema: A Look Back at Mega Man’s Motivations, from the rather blunt title screen which appears when you turn on the first game to the eye-rolling revelation that Mr. X was the true mastermind behind Wily in Mega Man 6.

By the time Mega Man 4 rolled around, the NES was capable of some pretty heroic graphics. A little movie explaining the origin of Mega Man preceded the title screen, and it was epic for my ten-year-old mind to behold. Suddenly, the little blue robot had humanity, purpose, and a history.

Of course, he had all that in Japan from day one, while America just got box art starring the Chupacabra. Nevertheless, I still love the train-riding bit, complete with tunnel lights whizzing by. Tickets? Mega Man’s on a mission to save the world. Shove your tickets.

To this, Capcom responds “Chupacabra indeed. Of course, we can’t all be perfect and there are some bad apples in the bunch (Mega Man 3, where you at?).”

That said, which Mega Man openings are your favorites? I’m partial to Mega Man 2’s, though Mega Man 4’s origin story was delightful.

Personally, I’d love to know what might have been for Mega Man 3, had they opted to create one for it.

Mega Man 2 Makes GameSpite’s List of “Greatest Games of All Time”

Over on GameSpite.net, the second issue of GameSpite Quarterly features the staff counting down their favorite games, those which “have made lasting impressions on their gentle souls.”

Naturally, there has to be at least one Mega Man game on there, and surely enough, there is. Philip Armstrong takes up the task about writing about Mega Man 2, only he chooses to do so through somewhat less-conventional methods than those utilized by his colleagues.

It’s a fun little read (and perhaps a touch risque’), but one thing bothers me: it more or less begins with the question of why Mega Man 2 should be considered better than Mega Man 3, and while it goes on to detail some of what makes the game great, it doesn’t really address why Mega Man 3 is any less deserving.

Mega Man vs. Metal Man… er, Metal Men

Once upon a time, almost a year ago (and before we widely employed the use of tags, apparently), we brought you a video which showed what would happen if Dr. Wily were to wise up and send all of his Mega Man 2 Robot Masters after Mega Man at once. Unfortunately for Wily, it still doesn’t go in his favor.

But… what if he were to instead send a whole platoon of just one Robot Master after the Blue Bomber?

Hardly a flawless victory, but I would imagine it would be good enough for Albert’s liking.

StopMotionMan

Remember that cool stop-motion Mega Man 9 “Rockin in Paper” video we brought you a while back? Well, it seems that someone else had a similar idea about a year ago.

“Evil88″ produced this video, which was recently posted to GameTrailers, earning the site’s honor of “User Video of the Week.” And now, we’re presenting it here for you to enjoy as well:

Video Games | | StopMotionMan

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

An interesting use of sound effects, though I did appreciate the one used for Dr. Wily’s “alien” transformation, of course. And whoever knew it was weak to junk?

Air Man Figure, v2.0

We’ve seen Jin Saotome’s previous efforts to create an action figure of Robot Master Air Man with a real working fan before, and the results? Not bad.

Now, he’s at it again with a new working figure that is to scale with his custom G.I. Joe/Mega Man figures, and it too has a working motor, as well as perhaps a slightly Ariga-ish look to it:

You can find more pictures of this figure in action here.

News Credit: Protodude’s Rockman Corner

Mega Man’s Worst 2s

Running on nearly 22 years now, there are a lot of Mega Man games out there. A lot are good, some are legendary, and some just kind of stink. However, there is an unwritten rule, so to speak, that Mega Man gets better the second time around. The most obvious of these examples is Mega Man 2. Mega Man likely would not be Mega Man without Mega Man 2. Another example is MegaMan Battle Network 2, which brought many improvements to the battle system, had better designed maps and even more interesting characters.

But there are exceptions to the rule! Not every number two in Mega Man is gold, but is more of a… number two. Yes, we may be Mega Man fans here, but it’s not all milk and honey.  We’re discerning! Thus, I’ve picked three Mega Man successors that just don’t live up to the original that came before it, starting with the one I feel is the most abhorrent.

The winners!

Mega Man II
For: Game Boy
Released: 1992

Mega Man II (we use Roman numerals to denote the Game Boy titles) is possibly the first example of a truly awful Mega Man game in the series history, but since action platformers were so popular at the time, people may not have realized it right away. Granted, I can’t see anyone arguing that Mega Man II is awesome. Even Keiji Inafune admits that the game was outsourced to people who just didn’t “get” Mega Man, and apologizes for its awfulness.

Man, where to begin on this one? The game controls feel strange and sluggish, even compared to the rest of the Game Boy titles which could not be as fast paced as the NES games due to the restricted screen size. Hit detection is a bit off, making it impossible to avoid enemies sometimes. And this despite the fact that a lot of the enemies and bosses are oddly shrunken down in size, although Mega Man himself remains the same size. On the other hand, some oddities work in your favor: power up items restore more of your health than before, and bosses don’t have any period of invincibility when damaged. Many of the bosses can quickly be slaughtered with the Mega Buster. You can even shoot through Wood Man’s shield!

One of the worst points of the game is its sound. Almost none of the music is from the games Mega Man II borrows its content from, and all of it is high pitched and grating (though the melodies themselves aren’t horrible, and can be done more justice). Many sound effects suffer the same fate. They’re much too high pitched, or just sound otherwise lame.

However, the thing I despise most about Mega Man II is Quint. He is, in my opinion, the worst character in the entire Mega Man franchise. I could write a whole article just on how stupid I think Quint is. But instead I’ll just explain the story behind Quint. He’s actually Mega Man from the future, who Dr. Wily kidnapped by using a time machine and modified him into his own battle robot. Oh, and he uses a pogo stick to fight. Who honestly thought this was a good idea? Mega Man from the future? A pogo stick? I can see what it is they were going for. They wanted to make another enigmatic character with a surprising background to mirror Proto Man’s role in Mega Man 3. But seriously, a POGO STICK?

And if that weren’t enough, Bandai later made their own Mega Man game for their Wonderswan handheld where Quint is actually the main enemy. Except he’s not Quint, but the rejected robot Dr. Wily produced while trying to modify the future Mega Man. In other words, he’s the robot that was too crappy to be Quint. This makes Mega Man II worse by association.

The only good thing I can say about Mega Man II is that it ended up being the first Mega Man game I ever beat, and increased my confidence toward beating the others.

MegaMan Star Force 2
For: Nintendo DS
Released: 2008

The Star Force series really got it rough. It was rejected by many classic Mega Man fans for being different, and because so many classic fans are cynical, crotchety old men anymore. But it was also rejected by a good deal of Battle Network fans for simply not being Battle Network, even though the series is very similar. However, I thought the original MegaMan Star Force was a delightful game. It had an interesting storyline, a battle system that let people set up attacks more easily compared to Battle Network, and it still had vestiges from Battle Network such as Navis and being able to go inside of machines. Say what you will about Star Force, the game still managed to sell nearly a million copies worldwide, and that’s pretty good for a first time.

But then came MegaMan Star Force 2. What I dislike about Star Force 2 is how much it disregards what came before it. There are no more Navis, but instead weird, cartoony looking material wave things. There’s also no more going inside of machines – everything takes place on the wave road. While this might not seem like a big deal, it takes away from the game’s theme of how advancements in technology can also be dangerous.

Moreover, though, it disrgards its own predecessor. One of the neat things about the first Star Force is how we could watch Geo grow as a character as he helped other characters. They all came off as pretty integral characters, but now suddenly they’re either gone or unimportant. Remember what a big deal it was for Geo to start going to school? Well there is no school in this game! What about Aaron, who was a close friend of Geo’s father’s and the remaining link Geo had to his father? He just stands around now and offers little bits of advice. Oh, and then there’s Sonia. She wanted to create music from her heart, not to be a part of the industry. She was inspired by her mother, who had passed away. Geo showed her that that was alright. Well, now she’s fully back in the industry, and even appears on advertisements all over the place. Good going, you sell out.

Instead of characters which Geo had close relations with, we get dopey villain characters who like to be bad simply for the sake of being bad. And while the UMA angle was interesting, ultimately they’re characters no one’s really going to care about or remember. Even Rogue, who’s just a rip off of Bass, who wasn’t terribly interesting to begin with.

That aside, everything else just feels mediocre. They removed most of the touch screen aspect to game missions that the original had. The music is bland and cartoonish. There’s nothing really even space themed about the game. What happened to the satellites that governed the Earth? What happened to connection with the FM planet?

If there’s one thing I can say in defense of Star Force 2, it had a good battle system. Being able to combine the Tribe transformations was a neat idea, and it’s also the first game that lets people play wi-fi battles together. Furthermore, Star Force 3 would eventually come along and pull the weight of practically all of Star Force 2’s shortcomings. It was that much better of a game, and yet it failed to attract people to the series, probably because of how bad Star Force 2 was. Many stores didn’t even sell Star Force 3 because they still had copies of 2 sitting around in the bargain bin. It also doesn’t help that Capcom of Europe decided not to localize Star Force 3.

I truly believe Star Force 2 is what killed the series.

Mega Man ZX Advent
For: Nintendo DS
Released: 2007

I’m certain I’m going to catch some flack on this one, and truthfully ZX Advent isn’t a horrible game. But it does nothing to go beyond being medicore. Besides that, I feel like the ZX series was little more than a haven for die hard Mega Man X fans who weren’t going to join the Battle Network/Star Force crowd, so they took what they could get.

Yet, ZXA’s major let down is similar to that of Star Force 2’s: a lack of continuity. Rather than expanding on what happened in ZX directly, ZXA takes place years later and stars all new protagonists. And rather than use the new characters and settings to explain more about ZX’s history, it just adds more questions. At what point did Axl become a Biometal? How is it that Albert’s data got into the other Biometals? Weren’t they created by the original leader of Guardian? And why are the other Biometals working with Albert’s henchmen? When and how did they get stolen?

The boss copy feature was also kind of a letdown. While a neat idea in theory, many of the boss characters were no fun to play as. Their only real functions were for getting across specific areas made specially for them. Outside of those parts, I’m pretty sure everyone played as Model H or Z the rest of the time.

Everything else about ZXA is just meh. It’s music was good, but coming 20 years into the series it has a lot of other great Mega Man music to stand up against. The characters were interesting, but outside of Vulturon perhaps, none of them are very memorable. What probably stands out the most about ZXA is its Mega Man a minigame, which would serve as a harbinger for Mega Man 9.

But ultimately, ZXA’s major failing is that it didn’t do enough to warrent its continuation. It’s clear Inti Creates intended to continue on with the series, but the game was too bland for many people to care enough. Thanks to this, ZX takes the crown from MegaMan Legends of being the shortest lived Mega Man series.

Honorable mention

Mega Man X2
For: Super Nintendo
Released: 1994

No, Mega Man X2 is not a bad game. But is it any better than Mega Man X? It doesn’t really feel like it. The music isn’t quite as good. Sigma’s new henchmen aren’t as cool as Vile was (arguably the coolest of the three ends up turning into a hot dog). Don’t get me wrong, X2 is very fun, and is certainly way better than a lot of the more recent X titles, which really jumped the shark. But I don’t know if I can find anyone who thinks it’s better than the first X. That’s all I’m saying.

Game Center CX Vs. Rockman: The End of Arino!?

As I’ve mentioned before, Game Center CX is one of my favorite television shows about games. Starring Shin’ya Arino, a Japanese comedic personality, who does various game related segments such as talking to game developers and visiting game centers. But the most popular segment, which became the focus of the show, is Arino’s Challenge, which involves Arino clearing a set goal in an old game, usually clearing the game and seeing its ending. While the show appears meagerly produced, its main draw, which I believe sets it apart from so much other gaming related programming today, is that it prominently features the responses of Arino, the player. He shows the sudden and impassioned joy and despair one feels while playing a game, especially a fun game. Arino constantly comes up against difficult struggles, which the show presents in a tight-rope walking, “will he make it?” style. This is what I think is so great about gaming, the fun of playing, and those sudden moments of not knowing if you’re going to make it. Phew, rather than describing more, feel free to learn more about the show on Wikipedia.

Anyway, challenging numerous “retro games” in the show’s six year run so far, Arino has of course had his hand with Mega Man (Rockman, of course). He faced Mega Man 2 in the second season, the original Mega Man in the seventh season, and Mega Man 3 in the latest 11th season. Today I would like to share his challenges against Mega Man 2 and 3 with you (unfortunately footage of the original Mega Man is not currently online, that I’ve found). The episodes are purely in Japanese, so they may not be fun to follow along if you can’t understand anything, but I think you still feel a very strong understanding with Arino’s trials. Furthermore, TV-Nihon is working on subbing season 2, so the Mega Man 2 episode should be out before long (not to mention, you can always go on YouTube and see subbed episodes for other classic games). Anyway, without further ado.

Mega Man 2:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Mega Man 3 (a challenge so great, it takes two episodes!):
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Incidentally I also want to mention, Game Center CX has spawned two DS games, the first of which has been localized in the west as Retro Game Challenge. If you don’t have it already I highly recommend it!

Much thanks to Auto for cluing me in on the videos.

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