Dcubed Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 Surprised that this hasn't been posted yet! There are vids of the cancelled prototype in the link. http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/9/4179628/mega-man-fps-maverick-hunter In 2010, Capcom tapped the talent behind Metroid Prime to bring Mega Man into the modern age — only to have the game suffer the fate of similar recent attempts to find a new audience for the 8-bit hero. Codenamed Maverick Hunter, the first-person shooter had the blessing of Mega Man's creator and a talented team tasked with attracting a new generation of fans. But the departure of Keiji Inafune likely killed the most interesting take on the 25-year-old character to date. Mega Man's foray into the first-person shooter genre looked, at least on paper, like a formula for success. One of a handful of collaborations with Western developers kicked off by Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune, the Mega Man first-person shooter was in development at Austin-based Armature Studio, the promising developer founded by Metroid Prime's creators. The new Mega Man would have been redesigned by the concept artist responsible for adapting Iron Man's armor for Marvel's successful film franchise. Thematically, the game would have built upon the mythology of Mega Man X, a series that was a darker, more mature spin-off of the cuter, classic Mega Man franchise. The game would have stayed true to core Mega Man X gameplay concepts, re-imagining his X-Buster arm cannon, his dash and his ability to appropriate the special powers of his fallen enemies. Platforming elements, including X's wall jump, and classic Mega Man X characters would have been re-imagined in new ways. Unfortunately, Armature's Mega Man first-person shooter, Maverick Hunter shared the fate of the Blue Bomber's other recent projects — Mega Man Legends 3, Mega Man Universe, Mega Man Online — and was canceled before the public ever had the opportunity to see it. According to a number of Capcom sources, Armature's Maverick Hunter was prototyped and playable. It had a short lifespan, only about six months in the first half of 2010. It showed promise, sources said, but was deemed a significant gamble, and quietly killed before Inafune publicly exited Capcom in late 2010 Err... Wow! It really is Megaman Prime with a huge dollop of Bomberman Act Zero slathered on top! Not hard to see why this one got cancelled...
Kagato Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 This kind of thing makes me really fearfull for the future of our favourite genres, for every Metroid Prime or Maximo we get there is a Bomberman act Zero or a Bionic Commando. We dont need them to take our classics and make them all grimey and realistic, we just need them to give us the natural progressions (Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda series).
Captain Falcon Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 (edited) Having just watched the footage of it, I have to say that a) I'm not remotely surprised it was canned and b) I'm not remotely bothered by it as a Mega Man game. If someone hadn't told me that was supposed to be Mega Man, I wouldn't have even noticed beyond thinking the main guy bears a passing resemblance to him thanks to his color scheme. If anything, watching him punching the other robots reminded me of Casshan - paint him white and it would job done. His dashing reminded me of Vanquish but then that was also based off of Casshan so it makes sense. It all looked very generic which could be a result of placeholder art but I'm not convinced that it wasn't part of the style they were going for. It looked Mega Man in name only. I'd take a 16-bit X9 (which was apparently in development before being canned) or Maverick Hunter X style remake of X2 (they had intended to remake the series but low sales of the first game put them off) over that. Edited April 16, 2013 by Captain Falcon
Retro_Link Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 Although I've never played Mega Man, that's just lol worthy to do that to the character! They've just made him so generic looking! A sort of Samus/Raiden hybrid! It almost belongs in the 'Video Game Rip-Offs' thread in terms of being a re-skinned Metroid Prime. It would be great if someone could find a solution to the future of Mega-Man, aside from the 8-bit style games and really surprising us; like Retro Studios did with Metroid, but just copying it isn't the answer seemingly! p.s. I'm so glad we finaly got round to implementing the forum reshuffle and actually having this board to discuss this sort of stuff in now!
Dcubed Posted April 9, 2013 Author Posted April 9, 2013 (edited) This kind of thing makes me really fearfull for the future of our favourite genres, for every Metroid Prime or Maximo we get there is a Bomberman act Zero or a Bionic Commando. We dont need them to take our classics and make them all grimey and realistic, we just need them to give us the natural progressions (Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda series). If I didn't know any better, I'd assume that it was a fan made tongue in cheek gritty reboot parody (like that awesomely bad/funny gritty Tetris movie trailer ). It's just... wow. How could you look at Bomberman Act Zero and think "yep! This is the direction we need to take Mega Man in"!? The funniest part of this whole thing though is that the core gameplay mechanics, like the jumping and exploration actually look really quite fun for the most part! (save the snooze fest falling sequence) - with it being very reminiscent of Metroid Prime . It's just that it's attached to the wrong franchise and the dudebro/roid rage presentation with QTE finishers is just... Edited April 10, 2013 by Dcubed
Grazza Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 I honestly think it looks brilliant. Shame it won't get made, because I'd definitely buy it if it turned out as good as it looks now. In particular, I love the demonstration of using the enemies' weapons. Before we scoff, are we confident a Metroid Prime 4 would be as good as this...?
Jonnas Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 Man, that thing was so laughable. I'd rather see Megaman take a rest than see it become this. Sure, Megaman X was based off Casshern, and the setting is gritty enough for it, but making an Axl spin-off would've been enough. Still bearing the franchise's name, but not compromising the original's image or spirit. The most surprising thing is, this window of development actually falls in line with the now-cancelled Megaman Universe, a game that actually looked like it was following the spirit of the franchise.
EEVILMURRAY Posted April 11, 2013 Posted April 11, 2013 I honestly think it looks brilliant. Shame it won't get made, because I'd definitely buy it if it turned out as good as it looks now. In particular, I love the demonstration of using the enemies' weapons. Before we scoff, are we confident a Metroid Prime 4 would be as good as this...? Yes, it doesn't look half bad. But trying to market that as a Megaman game (of all things) is just stupid.
Mokong Posted April 14, 2013 Posted April 14, 2013 I didn't think it looked that good. Had I seen the vids and not read bout what they were meant to be I wouldn't even have thought of Megaman and thought it was some new Sci-Fi FPS. The changing of the weapons...making his gun like a machice gun, charged shots being missles instead of energy blasts.... that's not Megaman. Doesn't feel it it was trying to stay true to the original character/games certainly not in a way that Metriod Prime managed to do it so well.
Captain Falcon Posted April 16, 2013 Posted April 16, 2013 I didn't think it looked that good. Had I seen the vids and not read bout what they were meant to be I wouldn't even have thought of Megaman and thought it was some new Sci-Fi FPS. The changing of the weapons...making his gun like a machice gun, charged shots being missles instead of energy blasts.... that's not Megaman. Doesn't feel it it was trying to stay true to the original character/games certainly not in a way that Metriod Prime managed to do it so well. Pretty much. The redesign for Zero in the Zero series does have him use an actual handgun (still fires lasers though) but X still uses his arm cannon. The idea is that X is special because he can copy powers unlike other robots. If he's just literally prying the gun from their hands, what's stopping any other robot from doing that? And the answer is nothing as Zero does the same thing in MMZ4. And at that point, you're no longer doing what Mega Man does so why does it even have to be Mega Man in the first place? Plus first person jumping tends to be pretty crap and the accuracy required for typical MM level design doesn't leave much room for error. I know they said they had ideas for wall jumping but frankly I'm not convinced. Wall jumping in the Prime games is pretty pathetic and wasn't particularly player friendly in Mirrors Edge either if they were looking there for hints. If anything, instead of seeing these guys to make Mega Man Prime, they'd have been better off going with Team Ninja to make Mega Man: Other X as the third person platforming/shooting gameplay seems a much better fit and it can't be any worse than the horror that was X7. At least the story sounded good though, so they can have a point for that - you play as X over two games who becomes powerful and corrupt and then you must take him down as Zero in the final game of the trilogy.
Hogge Posted April 17, 2013 Posted April 17, 2013 Looks very odd. The question going through my mind is: that IS the Metroid Prime engine. Did they "recreate" the code, or did they actually somehow license the engine from Retro? And if it was licensed, was this going to come out for non-Nintendo machines. Considering it was made in ca 2010, it could very well have been planned to be a Wii U launch title.
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