Maverick Hunter: The Megaman FPS that could have been

[luigiman1928]

Out of all the things Capcom has canceled in recent years, this one stands out among the others, being a First-Person Shooter with the Blue Bomber strapped on it.
Have a quote:

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.
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.

Source:
http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/9/4179628/mega-man-fps-maverick-hunter

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Holy fuck they made Megaman look not like such a stupid anime character for once.

I kinda want this now.

 

[Gahars]

I never got the hooplah over the Mega Man Legends cancellation, but this? Created by the same guys that handled Metroid Prime?

Damn, Capcom. The franchise has been Mega Mangled.

 

[The Catboy]

I wish Capcom would just sell Mega Man already. They clearly no longer want to work with it anymore and should let someone new work on it.

 

[raulpica]

Oh gawd, I'm SO glad this horrible thing got cancelled. It's an insult to Megaman fans just as "XCOM - The FPS" was to X-COM fans.

Only that they got an awesome reboot, instead we get NOTHING. *insert classic Wonka pic here*

 

[luigiman1928]

I never got the hooplah over the Mega Man Legends cancellation, but this? Created by the same guys that handled Metroid Prime?

Damn, Capcom. The franchise has been Mega Mangled.

[v] Have a thread punned by Gahars. Thats one off the bucket list.

But yeah, this is a great FPS concept and the mechanics on it are great, but the fact that it's a "Megaman" game makes me wonder what is going on in Capcoms head. Atleast Metroid Prime was faithful to it's roots.

 

[J-Machine]

Looks great but why he has no blaster capcom? seems odd

 

[Rydian]

This... looks cool, but yeah it doesn't look very Mega Man.

 

[Eerpow]

I'm so happy this piece of shit got canceled, it's such a desperate cash in and there's no one to blame other than the brain dead gaming market overcrowded with FPS titles.
This title was literally the equivalent of emigre's "I would by this game if it was a hardcore FPS for hardcore gamers" joke.

Holy fuck they made Megaman look not like such a stupid anime character for once.

I kinda want this now.

Really? Think about it, what's more generic, sprite art in various styles or something that tries to emulate the bland "mature" look 99% of all FPS's has?

You don't like Mega Man so you obviously don't care, but for everyone else it's really damaging to see the direction they're taking it. It's obvious that they're trying to market it towards an entirely different audience. So why even keep the Mega Man name in the first place? Sure you can compare it to Metroid and the success that title received but the thing is that this is even more of a departure than what Prime ever was. Everything from design, music and gameplay is completely different from what the series is known and loved for. I and a lot of other platformer fans simply don't enjoy FPS to the same degree as most others do and actually feel insulted by how Capcom is trying to label the American and European markets in their entirety as stereotypical CoD gamers.

 

[Rydian]

I know, right? They need to keep Mega Man to it's core, fuck trying to make it into CoD.

I mean that 3D game for the N64? That was a pile of shit and killed the series, we all know it didn't continue to thrive after that and nobody ever played it and liked it because it was made for WoW fans instead of Mega Man fans. This is Mega Man, not WoW.

And what about that Battle Network shit? What do they think this is, Yu-Gi-Oh or something? Gotta' collect the cards/chips and make decks... that game was colossal failure, it's not like it spawned five more entries in the series and some of the most common complains for GBA emulators have been sound issues with these games or anything. This is Mega Man, not Yu-Gi-Oh.

And shit man, don't even get me started on Mega Man Zero. It doesn't even star Mega Man! They just kept the name to TRICK AND ABUSE us! These were obviously not original mega Man games at all since they didn't have Mega Man, and also you had to walk and find your way around maps instead of getting simple stages from the start to the end whixch was totally different. This is Mega Man, not a maze game.

Did you ever see Mega Man ZX? That shit didn't even star robots! It was about humans who could merge with biometal to become... get this, MEGA MEN. That's right, PLURAL. There was one that was fashioned after X that you played as, but that was obviously just to appease oldbies since all the other models were called "Mega Men" as well. And this dared to do the whole map-wandering thing that the Zero series did too, they didn't even have the stages. And do you know what else? You didn't even collect weapons from bosses! You just copied their forms! That's not how Mega Man is played!

But no, forget all those others, this shit will obviously kill mega Man because it dares to change things into an FPS this time.

 

[Eerpow]

snip

I'm not saying that this will "kill" Mega Man mso please don't put me in the same boat as people that are crying for a new Maga Man game saying that he's dead and whatnot.

I'm only saying that it's sad to see them trying to grab a piece of the FPS cake with this instead of making it an original entry. Mega Man has obviously had a ton of shit titles before that even suffered from not selling at all. But it's so obvious that they're trying to go the "make a FPS, instant profit" route that it's borderline laughable. While there are many Mega Man titles that share little in common at least fans of the series actually enjoyed many of them.

 

[Rydian]

I'm not saying that this will "kill" Mega Man mso please don't put me in the same boat as people that are crying for a new Maga Man game saying that he's dead and whatnot.

I'm only saying that it's sad to see them trying to grab a piece of the FPS cake with this instead of making it an original entry. Mega Man has obviously had a ton of shit titles before that even suffered from not selling at all. But it's so obvious that they're trying to go the "make a FPS, instant profit" route that it's borderline laughable. While there are many Mega Man titles that share little in common at least fans of the series actually enjoyed many of them.

My point is what's so different about this one? They've made a lot of spinoffs that changed a lot of the mechanics, and they did just fine.

Is this one somehow inferior because it's an FPS?

 

[Rizsparky]

This probably would have flopped just like the gritty bomberman reboot.. that was awful

 

[mad_gamer_jad]

I don't really mind the design besides that it's capcom catering to western audiences again, but it doesn't look as insulting as DmC
On the other hand, gameplay looks generic as fuck, and the "Metroid Prime Talent" at Armature is just Mark Pacini, one of the environmentalists, and an engineer. Most of the talent are either still there or departed to 343/stopped working all in all.
Finally, while I admit the MP series is fucking awesome, it succeeded because of Retro being huge Metroid fans, and this doesn't seem like it's a true "3D Megaman X", and more like a new thing all in all
I honestly wouldn't mind that, especially considering how stagnated Megaman got later on, but everything I've seen looks generic as fuck, and seriously stop this trend with cutscene animations for every take down.
Also, obligatory "Yeah, but you can call me X the Maverick Hunter, has a nice ring to it don't you think?"

 

[Rydian]

Yeah it needs the original buster design, lack of cutscenes, smaller machines, etc. if it's trying to be a first-person version of the original games.

 

[Eerpow]

My point is what's so different about this one? They've made a lot of spinoffs that changed a lot of the mechanics, and they did just fine.

Is this one somehow inferior because it's an FPS?

A lot of Mega Man games are inferior. Personal views on FPS's aside the difference here is that this seems to be a forced attempt in order to sell the games in the western market. The Japanese had no clue what to do and this is a result of that. I can understand a spinoff with a change of gameplay and overall style but accomodating the title so it's acceptable among the "hardcore" gamers isn't exactly bright news for fans of the standard games. Worst of all is that despite all this I don't even think the game would have sold well, or be good even for the reasons mentioned above.

It's like how they change kirby's eyebrows whenever we see a kirby game here but to the extreme.

 

[Rydian]

I can understand a spinoff with a change of gameplay and overall style but accomodating the title so it's acceptable

Battle Network. Played nothing like the originals, still had the title, spawned five later games.

 

[raulpica]

My point is what's so different about this one? They've made a lot of spinoffs that changed a lot of the mechanics, and they did just fine.

Is this one somehow inferior because it's an FPS?

But you can't take something like Pokémon, add uber-muscular guys fighting with ultra-realistic dinosaurs 'n' crap and call it Pokémon anymore.

This "thing" just subverted Megaman to an extent where it doesn't have anything to do with the original franchise anymore.

 

[Rydian]

But you can't take something like Pokémon, add uber-muscular guys fighting with ultra-realistic dinosaurs 'n' crap and call it Pokémon anymore.

This "thing" just subverted Megaman to an extent where it doesn't have anything to do with the original franchise anymore.

From what? It's still a guy with a blaster arm blowing up robots, from the clip I saw.

Seriously, look at the other mega man spinoff games, and how much they changed. I listed and linked, and most of them did fine.

 

[Eerpow]

Battle Network. Played nothing like the originals, still had the title, spawned five later games.

That's not what I'm complaining about, it's the fact that this seems to be a wannabe FPS that bugs me. As I said, a forced title in order to sell games here.
Do you really think this game was planned with the slightest intentions of trying out new ideas? I mean the game would probably never had been released in Japan at all.
What's negative about all this is that they're seeing the western market as if FPS's are the only thing they want. They're stereotyping us, which is my main point I'm trying to get across.