Capcom has just announced a compilation of remastered Mega Man games. The Mega Man Legacy Collection is from Digital Eclipse and will feature “faithful reproductions” of the first six Mega Man games.
Digital Eclipse Software, announced they will be using its new Eclipse Engine, which “rebuilds the original games from their source elements.”
Frank Cifaldi, Digital Eclipse’s head of restoration, compared the Mega Man Legacy Collection to a Criterion Collection reissue.
Movies have the Criterion Collection, but there hasn’t been anything like that for games. We’re living in the golden age of a brand new form of artistic expression, and we’re not doing a very good job of making sure our games will be available five years from now, let alone fifty. The more we can do right now to take video game preservation seriously, the safer our history will be.
The collection will also include:
Leaderboards, challenges, replays: Challenge Mode takes moments from each title and weaves them into a series of, well, challenges. So things like ‘can you do these six areas strung together with one life bar’ or ‘try fighting all six Mega Man 1 bosses in a row.’ And to keep the quest for the best time alive, the top performers in each Challenge will have their replay data uploaded and viewable to everyone. There will be many challenges to vex seasoned players AND help train newcomers in the ways of the Blue Bomber.
Database: Each Mega Man game will have a database that includes enemy lists. From here you can read details about certain enemies and hop directly to them for a practice session. For example, say you’re tired of playing all the way to Quick Man just to lose over and over. With the database, you can hop directly to him and practice that buster run until you get it down to a science. Then it’s off to the full game for the real deal!
Museum: MMLC will sport an exhaustive collection of sketches, art and other visual materials that help put you in that 1987-1992 time period. Part of this game’s goal is the preservation of history, and the folks at Digital Eclipse are scanning items at absurdly high resolutions to make them as clean and clear as possible.
While some people are happy about this announcement, others have become angered. Fans are in desperate need of a new Mega Man game and this collection seems to spit in the face of their desires. In addition to not releasing a new game, a remaster that leaves out Mega Man 7-10 just feels like it’s taking the short way out. If Capcom is going to remaster games, why not all of them? They need love too.
Mega Man Legacy Collection will release for Xbox One, PS4 and PC digitally this summer, with a digital Nintendo 3DS version following in the winter.
