At E3 2010, Nintendo unveiled the Nintendo 3DS, offering attendees their first chance to experience the handheld in action. The show floor featured a selection of interactive tech demos built to demonstrate the system’s glasses-free stereoscopic 3D capabilities. Among these was the Arika-developed Classic Games, a proof-of-concept auto-demo that reimagined several NES titles—Mega Man 2 included—with stereoscopic 3D display.
While only a few of the titles featured in Classic Games were eventually released as part of the 3D Classics line on the eShop, Mega Man 2 was not among them. However, thanks to the preservation work of the 3DS Challenge Team and video documentation by James-Money, the Mega Man 2 tech demo, alongside several other E3 2010 software, has been recovered and can now be launched on actual hardware. While Mega Man 2 is not playable, it offers a glimpse of what a 3D Classics version might have been.
You can find and download the files from the Internet Archive. To play these demos on a real 3DS, you’ll need an EmuNAND setup and a few other essential files to get things running smoothly. All of that is covered here!
Yet another version of Mega Man 2, riveting
ReplyDeleteIt's Mega Man 2... IN THREE DEE! Truly amazing.
DeleteA novelty I turn off most of the time.
DeleteBut doesn’t LC1 have 3D too? Is this really that different?
ReplyDeleteEh, still neat.
Arika's 3DS ports were super ambitious, new features, newly drawn backgrounds and sometimes just remodeling the entire game. The tech demo in the video probably looked a lot better in the stage show but from what I remember LC only had the emulated screen put in front of a blue background.
DeleteShame nothing came out of it but it's super cool we have this tech demo now.