Discussion: Capcom’s Arcade Beat ‘Em Ups and Mega Man

A few weeks ago, Mike Matei over at Cinemassacre posted the following exploration of some of Capcom’s more offbeat arcade beat ’em ups from years ago:

The late 80’s and early 90’s were the heyday of the arcade-styled beat ’em up, and it still has something of a more niche audience today. Back in the 90’s, though, as the internet was just barely beginning to emerge into how we know it today, there were rumblings calling for Capcom to make at least one other.

The Mega Man fandom of the day, as one might expect, were all about getting as much of the Blue Bomber as possible, as the overall media/merchandise presence paled at the time compared to what we have even today. On the upside, at least we weren’t wanting for games — save for that brief period when there were those who worried Capcom was going to focus exclusively on Mega Man Legends and forget about Classic and X forever.

Man, that’s hindsight for you.

Anyway, the games we were getting weren’t enough — we wanted more. We wanted Mega Man fighting games, which we sort of got through the Power Battle and Power Fighters arcade games (kinda-sorta, not really?) and the Marvel vs. Capcom games. We wanted Mega Man role playing games, which we eventually got (though maybe not how we wanted it) in Mega Man X: Command Mission and the Mega Man Battle Network and Mega Man Star Force series.

And of course we wanted a Mega Man side-scrolling beat ’em up. Mega Man X was often the preference for these spin-offs, but many were fine with Classic as well. As seen above, Capcom was good at varying the style of the genre up to use more than fists and melee weapons, so something with Mega Man wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility.

That brings us to today. We’ve got four more potential series to draw from in the franchise than we had then, and basically 100 percent fewer new games coming out, so I feel this may skew the results of this somewhat, but I’ll ask anyway:

If Capcom, for whatever reason, decided they wanted to do a Mega Man side-scrolling beat ’em up, would you be interested? And assuming that you’re going to say “no, they should just focus on making regular Mega Man games first,” let’s say they do that, and all is well. Would you be interested then?

And if they did do one, which series would you want it to focus on? The Metal Heroes of Mega Man, Proto Man, Bass, and Duo teaming up once again? Maverick Hunters taking it to the streets? Diggers and air pirates beating on Reaverbots in an effort to score the most refractors and Zenny? Maybe something focused on Zero’s year spent wandering the planets between his first and second games?

Watch the video above to see some of the possibilities, then share your thoughts on whether or not you’d be up to such a game and what you’d like to see from it in the comments below, and maybe we can get a nice discussion going out of this.

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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