By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Based on the pre-order trailer and E3 demo.
I have three Mega Man regrets over the past month: One, we had to talk about lame Pokémon announcements instead of the Mega Man 11 pre-order trailer (embedded below); two, we were busy watching Nintendo Treehouse Live on E3 Tuesday and never watched CAPCOM's concurrent stream of Mega Man 11 (though there was absolutely no reason why Mega Man 11 couldn't have appeared during Nintendo Treehouse Live); and three is something I couldn't control — Mega Man wasn't in the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate E3 demo. (All he did was get killed by Ridley in his trailer.)
At least I can address the Mega Man 11 stuff right now, which is good because I haven't talked about Mega Man 11 since it was announced. Here is the pre-order trailer from the end of May 2018:
To break down what was shown there, Dr. Wily isn't trying to disguise his villainy and is just outright stealing Dr. Light's robots and giving them "Double Gear" abilities. These serve multiple functions, but they basically power-up a robot to go beyond its capabilities. Mega Man convinces Dr. Light to give him Double Gear abilities too, and the two gears in the double gear are Speed Gear and Power Gear.
These are basically Mario Tennis Aces's Zone Time and Zone Shots in that Speed Gear makes time flow slower around Mega Man (allowing him to survive easier because of significantly improved reaction time), while Power Gear increases his damage output for both his regular Mega Buster shots, as well as any Robot Master abilities he may have gained. Like the Zone abilities, enemy Robot Masters will have access to them and use them against Mega Man, and they are also resource-constrained.
These Double Gear abilities not only help ease the game for newcomers, but there appears to be some enemy and level design considerations built with the gears in mind. This is pretty exciting and I think a welcome change, and it can lead to some really cool moments in the game that I can't wait to experience for myself.
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| Robot running around in a mostly-protected wheel giving you trouble? Use the Speed Gear to be able to direct your shots into the open hole with ease! (Screenshot from this video on demand of CAPCOM's E3 2018 stream.) |
As for CAPCOM support, the game is releasing not only in both digital and physical purchase options, but there is also a pre-order bonus of in-game piano arrangements of the themes (boo in-game content pre-order bonuses) and a special GameStop-only amiibo edition for the Nintendo Switch, though I don't know why you'd get it. But at least these are options. In fact, CAPCOM is even holding a Tokyo Game Show contest where a lucky American can fly to Japan and play Mega Man 11 at the Tokyo Game Show! (If you're interested, click here to enter. You have two months from publishing to enter.)
...Hopefully that's where the next Ace Attorney will be formally announced. If not sooner. And hopefully CAPCOM sees the value of physical game releases and applies that to Ace Attorney?
Mega Man 11 releases October 2, 2018, with an MSRP of $30.
If Ludwig is pretty sure he won't sleep on Mega Man 11 and he'll buy it, does that mean he shouldn't be concerned about the pre-order bonus and he should go ahead and pre-order the game now? Alternatively, is Ludwig way too easily impressed with how Mega Man 11 is looking because he wants to be proven right about the things he wrote about CAPCOM while Mighty No. 9 was getting people's attention? KoopaTV would love to know your comments.
While Mega Man 11 looks great, how does it play?
The next Ace Attorney game wasn't announced at Tokyo Game Show 2018, by the way.
The pre-order bonus is actually a LOT more important than it was made out to be in this article. Specifically that soundtrack.
I managed to preorder the Gamestop Mega Man 11 bundle before preorders closed. Cute things like a patch, stickers and a microfiber cloth really appeal to me.
ReplyDeleteThe microfibre cloth just seems incredibly random to throw in.
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