Details, though incredibly scant, found here.

The nature of the interview linked in the link itself seems to hint it's an entirely new thing they got going, rather than another sequel. This means not another 8-bit Megaman (to which I say "Yay!"), but it also closes the door to stuff like a Legends sequel (Sad face, but it was pretty unlikely to begin with). So what say you?

I wish I could say I was excited. Like I was telling my friend today, while I honestly didn't have any real qualms playing through Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X on the PSP recently, there was this part of me that couldn't help but feel like "really, who cares anymore?" Hate to admit it, but Capcom's misteps (mainly with the X series but it probably goes a bit deeper than that) have done so much damage towards my feelings towards Mega Man.

Still, if there is any positive spin from this story it's that they basically admit the Star Force series isn't really raking in the numbers they want. I don't find that a shocker.

If it's not 8-bit Mega Man or Mega Man X, then chances are I won't bother. It does sound interesting though. I mean, "Mega Man Universe"? What could it be? Wouldn't be some sort of fighting game would it? XD

That.

I hate how Capcom killed Mega Man.  Almost as bad as Sega's homicidal tendencies with Sonic post-Dreamcast.  Sad to see our little blue friends getting mistreated.

I wouldn't say that exactly. I can't exactly speak for everyone else, but out of the seven subseries (Classic, X, Zero, Legends, Battle Network, Starforce and ZX), the only one I truly don't care for is Starforce, which I admit I haven't given a full, fair chance yet.

Keyword: almost. I don't think Mega Man will ever have it as hard as Sonic; a name a (former) console company used to sell systems. At least Mega Man will never have that under his belt. Don't get any ideas Capcom... seriously, don't.

Classic, X and Legends: my big three. Capcom seems to be done with these for the most part; if they are, I'm as well. As for StarForce and ZX, I can't even look at the freakin' artwork and take it seriously; it screams "notice me younger players, I need a new audience!" Zero has the opposite problem - "look at me, my storyline is so dark and brooding, I'm awesome and challenging!"

Additionally, how old is Mega Man now? 23? Can anyone imagine playing new MM games twenty years from now if they're at a negative point already? Well, that's kind of a loaded question. Personally, I can imagine still being interested in Castlevania games at that point more than Mega Man, but there's another series that is somewhat on a ponderous slope. Lords of Shadow is going to be important game, good or bad.

Wow, talk about hugely overreacting.
What's with all the negativity in this thread!?
Mega man isn't NEARLY as bad off as the tripe Sonic has had to go through.

In fact, I wouldn't say he's bad off at all.
He's most definitely NOT been killed.

MM9 and 10 were great, and pretty much every spin-off series (with the exception, yes, of Starforce) has been great too. (I also need to point out I LOATHED the Legends series. I really don't know what all the fuss is about. Goddamn frustrating as all HELL those games were.)

The word Universe would imply they're throwing several series (or several games in 1 series?) together, which might point at a fighting game of some sort, which would be cool. A sequel to Power Fighters perhaps? Or a proper 1 on 1 beat-em-up?

Some people seem to think it's going to be an MMORPG, which would be a really stupid idea if you ask me...

I'd also have no trouble accepting a compilation disc with HD remakes and remixed music of as much as they can throw on there, but I don't think that's what it's gonna be.

I'm sure it'll be good whatever it is (except for an MMORPG)

Seconding this. I admit my biases, but I can't think of any franchise I've been more consistently pleased with over my gaming 'career', and the only thing I want is for them to get back to series they've been neglecting. There's rumors bubbling that the PSP games might be getting sequels, which is a good start, but the proverbial pot of gold would be ZX3 or Legends 3. In contrast to Boco, I'd be sorely disappointed if this were either another 8-bit title or an X title (mainly because Inafune seems hellbent on ignoring everything X8 did to make up for the terrible X5-7 - see the MMZ Collection timeline).

I remember hearing that Inafune made the Zero series strictly to mend the meddlings Capcom made when they greenlit X6-X8. Maybe there is a ring of truth to this after all.

As for another ZX, I don't know. Thinking retrospectively, the only issue I had with ZX was the shitty map system. Did they make it more readable in Advent?

Outside Mega Man 9 and 10 (which where kind of "easy button" projects based off nostaglia) really, what has there been?

Legends is a series that has it's share of problems; however, I'm totally capable of overlooking that when presented with the game's world, characters and plot. Really, can anyone name another Mega Man sequel (MML2) that answered so many questions from the previous game? I guess I'm an idiot because I played a Mega Man series for a storyline.

Really, with so many more questions than answers, did anyone find Mega Man X8's ending gradifing in anyway? Additionally, didn't X8 come out in 05' along with the last Zero game? I wasn't expecting the Zero series to fix the MMX series continiuty although it would be nice to know what happened to a certain character.

As for X5, I don't find that game as terrible as X6 or X7. At least X5 had a point that was unfortuately ruined by X6. X6 and X7 has so little to do with the overall plot you can honestly not play them or remove them and you're not missing much. I also blame Capcom more fot this mess than Inafune, X6 was not his idea and was Capcom's way of squeezing the last bit of money out of the PS1 crowd. Greed, pure greed over artistic vision. Not surprising, but at least Inafune siad he was sorry in the Official Complete Works.

With "Universe" in the title, the first thing I thought was...
"they might be taking a Mario Galaxy approach".

To me, "Mega Man Universe" suggests a MMO. Not something I'd really want, and not terribly likely in my opinion, but I could see it. Imagine the character creation to be had!

I don't know, man. It sounds like horrible fanfiction fodder to me. A Megaman MMO would probably be a sound business move for them, but it's a direction Megaman as a series is probably better off not taking

I totally agree; that's just what the name brings to my mind.

There's always this to play in the meantime. It's a very nice looking Megaman game done by some dude in the vein of the 16-bit titles.

What didn't you like about the Star Force games?

I can't speak for Ashley, but the Star Force series felt like nothing but Battle Network for Dummies to me.
The battle system is a lot less strategic and fun, you get a lot less space to move around in, you can home in on enemies, and you get a free shield move.

Cards don't have codes anymore, so no P.A.s, no clever combos, just use whatever happens to be on the same line together.

It felt too simple and empty, but that's just my 2 cents.

I'm still going to wait on Ashley's response, but I'd like to say that I recognize and appreciate your criticisms of the Star Force battle system (which in such a game will often make or break your experience).

I'm a fan of both Battle Network and Star Force (well, I admit, I've only played the first Star Force game so far). I recognize they both have a number of flaws that never seem to get fixed (my biggest pet peeve being how teeth-gnashingly annoying the "danger" themes quickly become). For me, however, Star Force felt like a huge breath of fresh air in the combat department.

I found the original Battle Network an interesting effort (although exploring the internet was a pain in the ass, and the only reason I would ever want the DS remake), and I quite enjoyed Battle Network 2 and especially 3. The fourth game, however, took a lot out of me (as it did many people) - after years of playing JRPGs, it was the first game to make me really hate random battles. After a break, I found enough enthusiasm to tackle 5 and it's promising Liberation Missions, but I couldn't hold my interest. I still haven't gotten around to even thinking about playing the sixth game.

When I first saw Star Force, I looked at the ugly 3D battles and how you only had a single line to move on and I thought "geez, they really dumbed it down, didn't they?" And I ignored the series for several years. When I finally got around to playing it, however, I was amazed by how much fun I was having, even though I had gone in expecting an inferior retread of the Battle Network formula.

I never really felt comfortable with the combat in the Battle Network series, though I admired the innovation of it. I couldn't reconcile the way people talked about strategy and building special folders with the random dealing of chips and my personal need to have a diverse line-up of attacks. I understood the concept of combos, working with things like environmental objects and elemental properties, but it never clicked, no matter how much time I set aside to play with the chips I had. I went through all the games with a jack-of-all-trades folder, taking heaps of damage and occasionally running up against enemies who were like brick walls in my path.

Maybe it was because I have very poor pattern recognition skills, or just preferred brute berserker force, but I never became good at Battle Network combat. Just good enough.

With Star Force, that changed. I'm not saying I became a master or anything. I still got my ass kicked on a regular basis, especially when experimenting. But unlike Battle Network, I felt like I actually could experiment in Star Force - the relationships between different elements of the battle system seemed far more obvious, the way things worked sliding into place with a previously unrealized ease. Maybe the lessons of Battle Network were finally penetrating my thick skull, but I think it was more that the design decision of simplifying the combat changed the way I thought about fighting.

Reducing the movement range actually made me feel more in control of my movement - perhaps because I've always been poor at spatial reasoning. Dumbing down the way chips were linked to each other let me more quickly and clearly figure out what my options were. The lock-on system let me expedite battles but left a risk of taking damage if I timed the attack poorly. Adding in a simple free shield move rounded the whole thing out. I no longer felt like I was playing some odd card game which required a range of uncertain reflexes. Now the game felt snappy and responsive, more action than RPG. More like what I actually expect from a "Mega Man" game.

(additionally, I liked the ability to equip different busters as a simple method for getting a status ailment attack or raising the chance of getting Zenny/chips)

So yeah, making the game easier/dumber made it a much more enjoyable experience for me. For the first time in the series, I genuinely did not mind the random battles - sometimes I looked forward to them, just to experience that quick burst of adrenaline as I plodded from puzzle to puzzle. I stopped freaking out when I saw new enemies and started watching them to understand and exploit their patterns. The changes may have upset a lot of other people, and it's obvious why, but for me they made the games playable again.

Yeah, exploration can be a bit of a pain, and there tends to be a lot of backtracking as well, especially if you bother doing sidequests.
And that's another thing, sidequests were much more rewarding in BN than in Star Force.
You actually got some good stuff, like rare chips, large amounts of Zenny and the like in Battle Network, but all I ever seemed to get in Star Force was some extra HP...

Anyway, BN4 was hell to play, I think everyone agrees on that.
I liked 5 to an extent, but it really pissed me off in both 4 and 5 that you had to UNLOCK stronger enemies, instead of just automatically running into them as the story advances.

I was very happy to see BN6 going back to its roots though. No superfluous BS, just the same great gameplay that made 2 and 3 so much fun. I can see why you wouldn't want to think about 6 after playing 4 and 5, but you really should, cause it goes back to where it's supposed to be.

As for the DS remake of BN1, I was greatly disappointed.
The only real advantage is that you have a map this time, but the extras are paper-thin.
No improved music or graphics, and the extra scenario doesn't even involve a dungeon of some kind, it just has you running around the "real world" to find some objects, and then you get 1 lousy new boss. Bleh.

News about Megaman Universe is next to nothing right now, but there is this blurb right here

The suspense is killing me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KK3ejYRauo

OK, that last part making fun of some of the series art was awesome.

The best guess I've seen online is some sort of hybrid between Super Mario Crossover and LittleBigPlanet, which is an idea I could get behind.

Also, thank goodness it's not just another name for that Korean MMO. They can keep that all to themselves.

So characters from other series will be appearing? Sounds like a gimmick to get the last drop out of an nearly empty bucket.

First Gameplay footage!

http://kotaku.com/5628720/our-first-loo … e-gameplay

Looks surprisingly...generic.

I don't think I could but it any better....

A few thoughts:

1. It's not 8-bit! Yay! But MM's jump pose looks awkward as all hell.

2. The Mario-Crossover-meets-LittleBigPlanet guess is looking more likely. If the game focuses on level creation we'll know for sure.

3. Crossing my fingers that Capcom actually does something interesting with the character roster. I don't give a sideways spit about Ryu, but it'd be fun to see more unique characters get in on it (Firebrand, Lord Raptor...Zack & Wiki? Pipe dream, I know).