Rockman Xover is Over… Like, Really Over Now

The time has finally come. Actually, the time came a few days ago, but I’ve been busy, so I didn’t quite get around to talking about it until now.

But I digress; the news first dropped back in October, with in-game sales wrapping up on Christmas Eve. From there, it was just a matter of letting the time on the clock tick down until it ran out on March 31st as players strove to get the most bang for their buck out of Capcom’s free-to-play Japanese mobile-exclusive role playing game, Rockman Xover.

The time has finally run out for those players, with refunds for unused Crest balances being offered until September 30th, 2015. Now, if anyone attempts to log in to their download of the app, they are greeted with this screen, provided by Blind Nova on Capcom Unity:

Rockman Xover had its fans, to be sure, and in some ways, it’s a shame to see it go. Yes, some of the production quality was a bit low and the gameplay was far from what’s expected of a Mega Man game, but we did get to see some interesting and cool ideas and concepts. New original bosses, for instance, and some great original art and in-universe story details, such as OVER-1’s numerous armor designs, a slightly older Kalinka Cossack, and interesting tidbits regarding the nature of beam weapon technology and the workarounds necessary to get such weaponry up and running a hundred years before it was really a thing.

That said, while we never received the game here in the west and– as far as I know– the story never really quite wrapped up, I don’t know if I want to see the whole idea completely written off just yet…

Er, no… not quite like that.

Rather, I can’t help but think it would be kind of cool if they basically did for Rockman Xover what they did with Dragon Ball Online in bringing some of the concepts to consoles. A “Mega Man XenoVerse,” if you will.

The Korean/Hong Kong/Taiwan-exclusive Dragon Ball Online massively multiplayer online role playing game ran for only a few years, from 2010 to 2013, before its servers were shut down. Rather than let some of the concepts and ideas from that languish in relative obscurity, unknown to most of the world at large, they instead revamped it into a fighting game that was released on PCs and home consoles the world over.

Quality of the game aside (I’ve not played it yet; it’s currently sitting in my review queue, though I’ve heard good things), I can’t help but look at it and wonder “Why not Zoidberg? And why not Rockman Xover, too?” Between the timey-wimey shenanigans and the semi-customizable characters (“semi” in Xover‘s case; people have made some pretty incredible stuff in XenoVerse), I feel like there is some common ground between the two games that could be explored and, dare I say it, exploited.

Whatever the platform (mobile aside, obviously), whatever the distribution method, whatever the genre, I do think there is enough there to salvage, retool, and even bring actual closure to (unless I’m mistaken on the ending thing).

Of course, those are just my thoughts. While I know that Rockman Xover has some fans of it out there in one form or another, I’m sure there are a good few who would also love nothing more than to burn OVER-1 at the stake. Nonetheless, those are my thoughts and what I would personally love to see.

Besides, it’s not as though we’ve got much else going on the video game front, you know?

News Credit: GeminiSparkSP

Art Credits: Press Start, miniMEGA

Side note: When I did the link about custom characters in Dragon Ball XenoVerse, I was hoping to plug in a pic of a Mega Man character created in the game. To my surprise, I couldn’t find anything. If you have or know of any such creations, send the screens to the.mega.man.network at gmail.com and if I get enough, I can put together a gallery sometime soon!

LBD "Nytetrayn"

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

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