The rumors, the rumors

There’s been a lot of discussion about a new Rockman title in the works lately. Unfortunately, it’s a lot of discussion based on smoke. I haven’t seen much of anything that proves the accuracy of what’s been going around, including small snippets taken from Japanese gaming magazines.
First of all we have this image that’s made the rounds a bit. The legible text does read “hot battle” and “series newest,” but what do those things really have to do with anything? Because so little is shown, there’s no context to attach anything to. “Series newest” likely refers to Ryuusei no Rockman 3, which currently is the newest game of the series. The different Rockman heads, some have suggested, refer to that Scramble Battle rumor. But again, there’s nothing actually available to make this connection. If I had to make a guess, without being able to see the whole page, I’d say the head graphics are there just in promotion of Rockman’s 21st anniversary.

Next we have this image mentioning a new Rockman boss character contest. This is indeed one of the lines, although there are no other details. From my own research it appears the boss character contest is starting next month. The immediate conclusion to make is that it’s for Ryuusei no Rockman 4. But reviewing trends from the past years, it seems odd that Capcom would begin to promote RnR4 this early. After the first EXE title, every following EXE and RnR title has released in November or December. Thus, promotion for these titles would start around April or May. Of course that’s not to say it CAN’T be RnR4, it would just be out of the ordinary if it were. Be that as it may, we won’t know be able to judge anything until we know what kinds of boss characters they’re looking for.

And now most recently, this rumor pops up. I have to say, a lot of information has been apparently coming from 2CH, but I haven’t seen anyone make an effort to link to the thread, or make a copy of the supposed text. Furthermore, I regularly check blogs of Japanese Rockman fans, and occasionally even correspond with them. However, none of them have been talking about anything relating to a new Rockman game besides the announcement of the upcoming boss character contest. You’d think if something was going on there’d be a little more discussion, but I haven’t seen any besides rumor propagation based on nothing. To just put in my two cents, an actual successor to the RnR series releasing in the summer would be out of the ordinary. I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but there was a year between EXE and RnR, and a year and a quarter between Zero and ZX. Now RnR’s successor is supposed to come out in as little as six months after RnR?

Taking all of this in, all I can say for certain is that a new Rockman game is in the works (they wouldn’t announce a boss contest otherwise). That isn’t a terribly interesting discovery. After all, there’s always a new Rockman game in the works. Despite all the rumors going around, I do think we’ll hear about this game pretty soon. As to those going around reporting rumors, I’d just say do your due diligence and try to find some substance before throwing things out there.

LanceHeart