As you may have noticed, I’m a fan of the Mega Man X series of games. I love the gameplay, the overall concept, the level design, the story, the art, and they just seemed to arrive at the right point in my childhood.
Mega Man had his 25th anniversary last year, which Capcom rightfully made a big deal of, considering it’s one of their most profitable properties. What we got was rather underwhelming. Yes, we got Street Fighter X Mega Man, and the poor bot doesn’t even get top billing. Sure, it’s a clever game, but all Capcom’s hype left us with was a crossover game. No Mega Man X games in almost 8 years and no original series Mega Man games in almost 3 years, but hey, we’ve got a crossover with Street Fighter.
Fortunately, the entire Mega Man Franchise represents one of Capcom’s largest fan bases, second only to Street Fighter of course. Many fans stepped up to essentially fill in the cracks left by Capcom’s rather poor showing for the Blue Bomber’s 25th anniversary, my favorite being the following fanimation from Shane Newville, one of the animators behind Red vs. Blue. I can only hope there will be more of these in the future.