Will they be releasing Mega Man Legends 3?
Good day to you, Lusipeons! I appear before you once again to bring you words of doom and despair. Doom! Despair! Now that that is out of the way, I would like to discuss with you the subject of the company Capcom. Capcom, a gaming company from the early 1980s, is well known for game series such as Mega Man, Street Fighter, Ace Attorney, and Resident Evil. Recently, however, Capcom has left its normally enthusiastic fans with a great deal of resentment toward the company. The reasons for this rancor are twofold; Capcom has cancelled the Mega Man Legends 3 project, and the company is preparing to release Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Fans were incredibly excited when Capcom announced in September 2010 that they would be developing Mega Man Legends 3 for the Nintendo 3DS. The company opened a devroom blog to allow fans the ability to follow the development team’s progress and offer their feedback. They even announced that a beta test version of the game, Mega Man Legends 3 Prototype, would be made available through Nintendo’s eShop service. On July 18, 2011, the game was abruptly cancelled. The cancellation was announced through a post on the devroom blog, which stated that the game was cancelled because “it was not felt that the Mega Man Legends 3 Project met the required criteria”. The announcement further stated that the Prototype would not be made available, and that the level of fan-developer interaction that the devroom blog provided would not be pursued by the company in the near future. Understandably, fans were outraged. They had much to say about how they would be unwilling to buy Capcom products in the future, how they had lost faith in the company, how the companies’ executives should eat until they fatten themselves to the point where their culture would not accept them, how Japanese people are horrible and incompetent managers, and how Capcom’s executives should penetrate their bodily orifices with various uncomfortably large phallic objects.
Also, the game will have the Ace Attorney in it.
Wait…what? Anger with the company, I can accept. It is perfectly understandable that fans are angry and disappointed, and equally understandable that they do not wish to buy products from the company again. Blatant racism, though? Vulgar suggestions? Honestly, people, it is just a game. Many are complaining that they waited ten years for this game, but many of those years were spent listening to Capcom executives denying that they would ever make it. Some would suggest that this sort of behavior is typical of people on the internet, and I suppose that it is. But I certainly do not blame Capcom for no longer wanting fans to be deeply involved in the development of its games.
I do not profess to know the reason Capcom’s executives decided to cancel development of Mega Man Legends 3. My best guess is that the decision was either financial or legal. Executives do not make decisions for no reason. This decision may have been a poor one, but it will certainly not kill Capcom as a company. Capcom has almost a dozen other high-grossing brands, and I doubt that the end of Mega Man will spell the end of Ace Attorney, Street Fighter, or Resident Evil. Fan uproar will eventually subside and fans will then divide themselves into groups that will still buy further Capcom products and groups that will not. I think, disgruntled fans, that your energy is wasted heckling Capcom. The quicker you move on to bigger and better things, the happier you will be. There are other things to look forward to in gaming, like the ever-present and ever-free updates for the now-and-forever-free Team Fortress 2!
The second source of fan disillusionment with Capcom is the upcoming Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Announced barely a week ago at the 2011 Comic-Con, Capcom promises that the game will have 12 new characters,”enhanced gameplay”, and a fan-requested online spectator mode, which was not included in Marvel vs Capcom 3. It will retail for $39.99. Fans are very upset with this game and its price tag, stating that it is nothing more than a glorified DLC pack. I will, for the moment, disagree. Capcom has not yet announced what all of the enhanced gameplay mechanics that it is including will be, so it is very possible that Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 will feel like it is worth forty dollars. I think it would be best to wait and see what the game looks like when it is finished before judging it. I believe that the backlash for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is largely a byproduct of the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3. I predict that Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 will be a fine standalone game, and that fans will realize this once the uproar over the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 has subsided a bit.
What do you think, readers? Should Capcom, as its fans suggest, dismantle itself, kill all its executives, and destroy the entire culture of Japan? Are fans just overreacting? What are your thoughts on Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3?
