The joke’s on you, Capcom. I’m releasing a playable Bad Box Art Mega Man before you. And it was ridiculously easy to do it. Who is laughing now?
Ahem. To access him on Bass Abyss just select Mega Man and then Bad Box Art Mega Man. So, Mega Man is now a new page. I’m considering moving the other 8-bit characters, just because the main character page is getting too cluttered. But maybe later.
And here’s the sprite sheet edit I did. Please don’t bash it much, I’m not very good at pixel art.
Gameplay details
This was a really quick hack. Don’t expect anything exceptional about this character. No new weapons. Nothing. I didn’t even make a new opening for him because this concept simply didn’t exist a few days ago. Seriously, writing this post took a lot more time than adding the character to the game. Consider this an anomaly in response to current events, but I’m done with it and now I’m back to my normal schedule.
I feel like writing. Would you like to read more about this?
Spinning the idea
After the announcement of Bad Box Art Mega Man as a playable character for Street Fighter vs Tekken, I couldn’t help to ponder about it for several days. Even the iPhone Mega Man X remake didn’t incite any reaction from me.
Perhaps I should join the fad and draw Mega Man in an even more hideous way? But I didn’t feel like drawing middle-aged overweight guys.
Going the opposite direction and drawing a manly representation would be fine then? But that would take the time that I’d rather devote to other things. It felt forced, and it is not like I’m fond of this Mega Man version. I don’t know anything about him after all.
Whatever merits Capcom thinks this joke has at least they got people talking about it. That’s fine. Now that a new younger generation is taking over management of dear franchises, should I expect to see a Pantless Mario by Nintendo? Or how about a Homeless Hobo Sonic by Sega. Something tells me that’s very unlikely to happen. Hey, but I’m no one to tell Capcom how to manage their intellectual property. Have fun guys.
The good thing is that we can always pretend this is some alternate-universe Mega Man, and most likely that’s the actual case. In the end, this series is famous for its various timelines and universes completely disconnected, so there’s no way I will be concerned about the future of the franchise.
A New Hero!
Then it hit me. What if, under different management, or under a different universe if you like, 1987 Capcom of America were to take seriously the bad box art Mega Man (and all the bad box covers) and did a real game based on these concepts. A new series spinoff, with an original storyline, western sci-fi artwork, etc. And that’s how I got the idea that a fun response should be in the form of a game. I have the engine anyway. Yeah, I was ambivalent about how the game should be, parody or serious. Well, it would be a great parody to make a game taking these concepts very seriously.
So I started to sketch around. Of course, endless ideas came to me. But they were too ambitious and I really didn’t want to spend too much time on this. So to get that out of my system I decided to make Bad Box Art Mega Man playable in Bass Abyss.
But if I had the chance to make a game, to keep it true to the 1987 era, I’ll just use the same Robot Masters with palette swaps here and there. I’d set the history to happen in the space, kind of like Metroid. And Bad Box Art Mega Man would defeat the Robot Masters in some futuristic planet in another galaxy. How is that for some old school science fiction themed game?
Hope you got some inspiration from this and if you want to make your own Super Bad Box Art Mega Man Adventure TM, go for it!
As usual clear your cache to download the latest changes in the game. Have fun!
