“How to Fail a Kickstarter” and Other Red Ash Musings

While I had my fun last night, I’m far from the only person who has been talking about Red Ash since its unveiling last weekend. Here is some other talk and bits of info surrounding the whole shebang.

First up is GameTrailer’s Kyle Bosman, whose latest episode of “The Final Bosman” looks at what has been going wrong with how Inafune has approached things this time.

According to Bosman, the biggest thing that Red Ash lacks versus Mighty No. 9 is the lack of the “Screw You” factor. Sure, as we’ve discussed before, some of the designs are certainly amazing middle fingers in and of themselves, but I think what Bosman means is that Mighty No. 9‘s Kickstarter video seemed to be an open act of defiance towards Capcom, whereas this one… is much easier going.

Capcom of Japan axes they’re doing that involves the color blue (shy of mobile, of course)? “Screw you, here’s Mighty No. 9.” Konami seemingly kills off Castlevania after their reboot didn’t pan out? “Screw you, here’s Bloodstained.” Microsoft ties Rare’s hands in making 3D platformers? “Screw you, here’s Yooka-Laylee.”

But the response to what might be considered the greatest slight that seemingly kicked all of this off in the first place? It seems considerably less defiant and more “yeah, things are cool. Here’s what we want to do next.” Whereas the rest seemed like they had a point they were trying to make, a statement against the triple-A obsessed games industry that “yes, there is still a market for this kind of game,” Red Ash‘s Kickstarter pitch feels less like it’s trying to say that.

And I think I just editorialized this whole bit without meaning to. Ah, whoops?

Anyway, Bob Mackey of USgamer also has a bit to say, noting a lack of momentum in this Kickstarter and the question of whether or not there really is enough of a demand. It also points out that whereas some of the other Kickstarters, such as Bloodstained, had a degree of hype running before they were announced, Red Ash came almost out of nowhere — never mind that the worst time to appear out of nowhere for a public display is when no one is looking.

Finally, as one might expect, Get Me Off The Moon has been fairly on top of things with some unique bits of information spread across several posts.

Of particular interest would be this post, which compiles information taken from live tweets from the Anime Expo panel presented by Comcept and Studio 4C, some of which isn’t found on the Kickstarter itself (not that I could find, anyway). Most notably is Inafune’s statement that the primary reason for doing another Kickstarter is getting funded there somehow locks the intellectual property (IP) with Comcept, even if they make another deal as they did with Deep Silver. “Inafune states that this is the biggest benefit of Kickstarter.”

Another post highlights some interesting information showing that some of Red Ash‘s concepts were originally unused ideas for Mega Man Legends itself. In this instance, the mobile citadel of KalKanon bears a resemblance to a floating city conceptualized way back when. They also dug up one of our old posts which shows other unused ideas which might be ripe for the picking.

Finally, they point out that the announcement seems to have lit a fire under our old friend Kobun20 of the Reploid Research Lavatory. Actually, it seems that he’s been updating even before Red Ash was announced, but in addition to addressing that and talking Mega Man Legends, he’s also got some Classic, Mega Man X, and more on tap. Rather than linking to every article he’s made, I’m just sending you to his front page and you can swim in and soak up all the Japanese Blue Bomber goodness on display.

TMMN Staff