Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Relish In The Memories Of Old Mega Man Sites

Don your nostalgia goggles and take a trip back to the nineties with the WayBack Machine. At long last, the Internet Archive's crawl has hit Capcom the front, subsequently churning up a plethora of old, official Mega Man webpages.

The uncovered sites are a treasure trove of long lost assets, images and media from a number of late 90s - 2000s Mega Man titles. For example, when was the last time you saw these full color, 3D Legends 1 renders? And that's just the beginning: ancient press releases, old release dates, flash games and wallpapers... it's all there. Below, you'll find a small sampling of what the archives have to offer.  For the rest, you'll have to navigate around on your own!
Because there is so much to look at, I've only glimpsed at few of the hundred or so recently recovered sites. There's still quite a lot to go through and I'm certain you'll find a few things that bring back some fond memories. For example, it's funny now, but just look at how many times Mega Man Mania had its release date bumped. Fond memories with that one. And that 15th Anniversary site? Hours wasted playing that silly little flash game.

For the sake of preservation, I highly advise fans and other Mega Man fansites to save as much content from these pages as possible. WayBack Machine isn't glitch-proof, and many archived sites do go down from time-to-time. Better safe than sorry!
    On a personal note, I grew up on these sites -- they were my stomping grounds as a child. These meager little sites helped solidified my love for Blue Bomber, providing me with screens and news on the then-latest games. Their return to the world wide web may not be a big deal to you, but for me, it's a blast from the past. Have a look around and enjoy!

    23 comments:

    1. hooooly crap. These take me back!

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    2. This takes me back indeed. Look at the mispelled Legends names!

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    3. http://classic-web.archive.org/web/*/http://megaman.retrofaction.com

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    4. Wow. It used to be blocked by Robots. Now I can finally see the old pages from before they updated.

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    5. We've gone from looking towards the future to reminiscing about the past... Is this all we have for Rockman now? Remembering how great it used to be?

      Please, PLEASE let Legends 3 breathe new life in the series... Let's hope Capcom can start focusing seriously on the franchise instead of pulling an activision...

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    6. Man. I would do anything to relive those times ANYTHING.

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    7. Wow i remember all these from way back that then :D thank Proto for the memories

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    8. What's really weird is on the Legends page if you go back to the earliest date (May 10th, 2000 only ~5 months after release), the game is already down to $20. Either games got cheap quickly back in the day or it really did sell as bad as Capcom claims.

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    9. Ah, the Mega Man 8 statue... The X4 site... Wow.

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    10. Man I wish they had a log of how Capcom's site looked like back in 1998/1999. I remember the front Mega Man page when Mega Man Legends was called Mega Man Neo! I even used the save the images on the sites, but now they're gone.

      Somewhat off topic, but I also remember how brown the Rival Schools page was too lol.

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    11. Ahh... memories of better times for Mega Man. I miss these days. Mega Man fans will likely never have it this good again.

      It was an awesome ride while it lasted, that's for sure.

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    12. Wow, this brings back some memories. Figures this stuff would come after my last check of Wayback. :P

      Still, great find... I wonder if there is anything useful there...

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    13. Wow, I printed that old Legends site out for my scrapbook back when it was still up! I'm proud to say I actually have a hard copy of it! XD

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    14. Well all I can say is... I'm glad the Legends official art has improved. :D

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    15. Is there perhaps a way to recover the English ZX site, or the old Zero Collection one, which were both since taken down?

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    16. Ah man, the old Megaman store had cooler stuff than the newer one. :(

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    17. I love visiting early 2000 websites. Thanks for posting these

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    18. @Zan:

      I looked for the ZX site, but nothing loads. It's there, but that assets are broken.

      Haven't looked for the ZC page yet... totally forgot about that one.

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    19. it kinda sucks that the 15th anniversary site looks better than the currenn one...

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    20. Where is Jello Man?

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    21. Ten years late to the party, but here goes — I had the honor of building the 15th Anniversary site. It was so cool having access to all of the old Megaman assets and imagery. Man, it takes me back. Security issues aside, I miss Flash. It was perfect for creating immersive web experiences that were an extensions of the console games. Glad to hear people enjoyed the site ��

      PS: I also built the Viewtiful Joe site for Capcom which was another fun Flash experience.

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