Friday, January 6, 2017

Mega Man Mobile: The Rockman Corner Review


It's no secret Mega Man Mobile 1-6 are a mess. What isn't widely known though is why.



The truth is they are not the original NES games. Instead of using the original NES code, Capcom simply ported the 2008 Japanese mobile versions to iOS and Android. They aren't *exact* copies of those ports, but there's enough evidence to support it.

Therein lies the problem, friends.  For $1.99 a pop, you're buying ports of ports. Not good ports, either, mind you. These games were literally made for mid to late 2000s mobile hardware. I don't mean early smartphones; I'm talking legit flip phones. Capcom says the games have been "optimized for mobile devices with adjustments to game speed." Sadly that's not the case. There is no goodwill-optimization here: the games run slow and janky because the '08 ports themselves were slow and janky.

Little to no effort was made to ensure these games play "right" on smartphones.  Yes, you can tweak the location of the virtual buttons, albeit in a limited capacity. Sadly there is no alternative. You can't pair any of the six games with Bluetooth controllers. And hey, if you were hoping to play the games on the big screen, Android TV is out of the question too.

Mega Man Mobile 1-6 are a lazy attempts to further the brand's mainstream mindspace and break the ground for Mega Man's impending mobile future. If Mega Man Mobile 1-6 did anything right, it's laying down realistic expectations for that new, original mobile Mega Man game arriving this Spring.

I've always said you need should support Mega Man with your wallet. But you need to be picky. Don't buy something just "because it's Mega Man". By investing in these ports you're telling Capcom you're okay with low-quality Mega Man products. You're telling them you'd settle for anything. That is not the message we need to send.

Get your classic series fill elsewhere. Go out and buy Mega Man Legacy Collection. Hell, if you can find an NES Mini, get that for Mega Man 2. Whatever you do, don't settle for less.

23 comments:

  1. Nah. I am not getting that NES Mini for Mega Man 2. I will stick with Megaman Legacy Collection and JAPAN PSN versions, thank you very much.

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    1. ...That's what he said. Either that or MMLC.

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  2. I enjoy them hey at least I can play it on my tablet for fun the framerate is not too bad for MM6

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  3. Cheap cash in or an attempt to get more sales for Legacy Collection? Or both?

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    1. Get Legacy Collection for 3DS or PS4 or XBOX 1. Don't buy this!

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  4. God help me, I know it's wrong, but I legitimately wish serious physical, mental, and spiritual harm to whoever is ultimately responsible for these. They have stepped waaaaaay over the line on this one. How disgustingly lazy, undignified, and cash-grabby can you get? There is no excuse.

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  5. I hope CAPCOM will port the rest of the mobile games too.
    - Mega Man Rush Marine.
    - Rockman GP (a lite version of Mega Man Battle & Chase).
    - Rockman Tennis (X vs Mega Man in tennis game).
    - Chokkan! Rockman (I'm looking forward for this particular one, mini games).
    - Rockman X3 (Zero can fight the Maverick Bosses).
    - Rockman DASH Golf.
    - Rockman XOver (but this time is playable offline and full featured).
    - And others.

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    1. Not trolling, just because you people upsets by the ports of the mobile ports doesn't mean those of us can't look forwards to the rest of the already existing crappy ports that were optimized for the 2000s mobile phones. Stick to the real NES or emulations or just get one of those VC downloads or get the Legacy Collection.

      I'm talking about these man (terrible niche games alright, but it is what it is):
      http://www.rockmanpm.com/?p=keitai
      http://themechanicalmaniacs.com/articles/keitai.php

      Is it because I mentioned the widely hated XOver? Or are you one of those "not-a-Mega-Man-game-if-not-play-exactly-like-the-NES-games"?

      If CAPCOM is ready (willing to allocate funds again), we'll get our sequel of MM11, MMX9, ZX3, MML3, BN7 or SF4. Unfortunately CAPCOM is bussiness first, fanservice later. They'll port the same thing over and over (the Switch ports is coming).

      But I'm also agree with Joseph Collins post on January 6, 2017 at 6:10 PM. So the best thing you can do for now is to ignore all these crappy mobile ports so the selling unit counts are low.

      But if a never to be seen before and a new mobile game created for 2017 onwards is as bad as these, then it is the fault of the game developers at CAPCOM because they're the one that come up with the gameplay. And I don't expected any new mainline title would be created for mobile. So expected for the worst when it comes to Mega Man mobile gaming.

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    2. Don't forget:
      -Rockman EXE Phantom of Network
      -Rockman EXE: Legend of Network
      -Rockman DASH Five Islands Great Adventure!
      Please Capcom I always wanted to play those games.

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  6. See now, the situation is a ridiculously unfair Catch 22...

    If you do buy the awful ports, Capcom will think it's okay to cough up inferior products and keep pushing things like this out the door, expecting that people will happily buy them.
    If you don't buy the product, Capcom will assume there isn't enough interest in keeping their IP fresh and eventually let it die-out or be brought back as something that, quite frankly... wouldn't be for old fans in the first place. Not that I think ports like these are for old fans to begin with, of course... Really, it's more like... "they're there if you want them," for old fans.

    That being said, I firmly believe that if old fans want to play the Mega Man games badly enough, they will find ways. Productive ways would be supporting Mega Man Legacy Collection, as has been suggested, or even buying the games on the Virtual Console. Non-commercial emulation is also an option... but one that, sadly, does not give Capcom anything they can use. 12-million people can shout at the top of their lungs, "We like this thing!" but there's no guarantee that even a fraction of those people will do the one thing companies truly want: Put their money where their mouthes are.

    It really is a bit of a pickle for folks like us... A lose-lose situation, to be sure. But I guess in our case, there's always the ever-growing number of fan-projects to fall back on if we want something that's both brand new and of some reasonable quality.

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    1. Isn't that kind of what's already happening though? Fans have been as supportive as they possibly could be over the past 7 years or so, buying merchandise, virtual console re-releases, showing enough support for the character to get him in Smash, and even funding something like Mighty No. 9 were ways of showing support.

      Yet despite that, what's coming up for the franchise? A new mobile game besides these and a cartoon series, both of which aren't exactly expected to be for those long time fans despite the support.

      Maybe the new mobile game will turn out better than expected, but given the precedence of the series on the platform, there's no real reason to expect it.

      The cartoon we don't know enough about. It could be well done, though everything we've heard about it so far is reason to be, not necessarily negative, but certainly skeptical.

      I'm just not seeing much being done for long time fans of the franchise.

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    2. -Fans have been as supportive as they possibly could be over the past 7 years or so, Isn't that kind of what's already happening though?-: No.

      Buying merchandise: We don't know if they have been, it was assumptions like that that had people thinking Mega Man was a mega seller when it was releasing a bunch of games and stuff in the past.

      Virtual Console: I have no proof of those sales compared to other expected VC sales for rereleased games relative to a company like Capcom. Why are they being released so much? Ease of effort for generally greater returns is a possibility and my assumption.

      Smash: I don't get this example in context with the point you are trying to establish. Your point I'm extrapolating is that despite support the fans get a bad draw and not what they wanted, but you're using an example where fans supported something and got exactly what they wanted, specifically getting top ten in an old Smash Bros Brawl poll for guessed characters people wanted playable in the future(at least that's what I think you meant about showing support, can't think of anything else) and getting MM playable in the future.

      As for your opinions on not to expect much from mobile MM ... Agreed.

      As for the cartoon, you're being way too generous, everything we've heard and seen about the cartoon, from the dev's contradictory words and exposing that they don't really have a clue about the franchise time and time again, to the early premise/story boards and concepts and to the early visual designs all are enough to in my opinion form dislike for the project as of now, unless all those indicators were bluffs and the final team, concept and design choices contradict everything up till now.



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  7. Capcom continuing the Megaman Middle Finger trend since SFxTekken.

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  8. This surprises absolutely no one one. Of course it's a lazy port of a port cash grab. Crapdumb is just trolling us now, knowing we Mega Man fans (whom they consider nuisances) will jump at anything Mega Man. We need to make it clear that we won't just take whatever they throw at us. We're not hungry fish in a tank looking for every morsel of food they throw in.

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  9. I played them a little and this games are not made to be played in a touch screen, I hope the new mobile game is not a platformer.

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  10. And I was completely correct about these being port-ports.

    Good job Capcom. Like always, garbage ports or emulation. So now the latest two releases are

    1.) broken port-ports of 2007 cell phone ports with features missing from even those versions (Roll, also the "Records" feature, I believe) and

    2.) babby's first emulator+frontend wrapped in buzzwords (MUH AUTHENTICITY/PRESERVATION/LEGACY) and false advertising.

    I'll get my classic fix elsewhere, that's for sure.

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  11. The one thing that really, really bothers me is why Capcom didn't just do a Legacy Collection port. IIRC, these mobile versions weren't ever released on Android or iOS. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) So I would imagine that there would have been quite a bit of work required to make them compatible with Android/iOS. If that's the case, why didn't Capcom put that time/money into porting the shiny new Legacy Collection engine to mobile instead porting some older, inferior mobile version?

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    1. Because porting an older port would be cheaper.

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    2. "Because porting an older port would be cheaper."

      Really? I will have to disagree with that. Apparently the old code used in this release was based on BREW or similar, and that would strongly suggest to me that there would be a lot more effort required to port the old code than would be required to port the (assumedly) more modern Legacy Collection engine code. Do you have any info that would suggest otherwise?

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  12. Why was the last good collection of 1-6 the PSX games?

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  13. That'll be legacy collection for me.
    If i one day become bilionary, the first damn thing i'd do will be to buy megaman.

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    1. You can't just buy Mega Man, Capcom has to.. you know sell it.

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