TMMN Archive: MEGA MAN CELEBRATES TENTH BIRTHDAY WITH A 32-BIT BANG

I’ve made no secret that I’m a firm believer in video game preservation. I believe a part of that preservation involves not just the games, but the culture, the media, and just the entire environment around when a game was released.

To that end, a project I’ve been looking at undergoing on The Mega Man Network for a while now is what I dub the “TMMN Archive.” This is the category in which I intend to post what press releases and assets I can find for a Mega Man game from when it was released, and that may expand into other things as well. We’ll see how it goes.

From a historical perspective, this might also help us track differences in how a game had been promoted to the public early on versus what ultimately wound up on retail shelves (and eventually, digital marketplaces).

To kick things off, here is the oldest press release I have available to me: Mega Man 8. In the interest of said preservation, I’ve opted to eschew my normal formatting tendencies between the centered asterisks in favor of keeping everything here as true to the original, as it was found, as I can. (That’s also why there’s no blockquotes; it screws with it too much.)

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Capcom’s best-selling character, Mega Man turns ten years old and Capcom celebrates by launching Mega Man 8 for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn.

Sunnyvale, CA, January 23rd, 1997 — Capcom Entertainment today announced that their long running, blue action hero, Mega Man is celebrating his tenth birthday by premiering on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn with Mega Man 8 Anniversary Collector’s Edition. Mega Man is an icon among video game players and Mega Man 8 is the most advanced Mega Man ever. It catapults the “Blue Bomber” into the next generation with Japanese-anime style intros, cut scenes, cinema screens, new robots, cartoon-quality action and new innovations in game play.

In honor of his anniversary, Capcom has added special bonus to Mega Man 8 by packaging a 12-page Mega Man anthology collector’s Book packaged inside each game. This series retrospective Collector’s Book charts the history of the Mega Man’s first seven games and exhibits Mega Man art previously unreleased in the United States. Purchasers of Mega Man 8 will also be able to take advantage of an additional special offer to own a numbered, limited edition resin hit model of Mega Man in action stance. Capcom also plans to announce other Mega Man special offers to its web surfing fans through the Capcom website. Mega Man 8 Anniversary Collector’s Edition will be available in March.

“Mega Man is one of Capcom’s most successful and recognizable characters,” says Simone Seydoux, product marketing manager at Capcom Entertainment. “Mega Man has now appeared in dozens of titles across multiple platforms, is starring in his own hit cartoon series, has generated a popular toy line, and has firmly established himself among gamers. With Mega Man celebrating his tenth birthday, the timing is perfect for Capcom to present his new adventure on the 32-bit platform.”

Celebrating with Mega Man in his 10th Anniversary Edition is his entire supporting cast of characters including Roll, Protoman, Rush, Bass, Treble, Flip-Top, Auto, Dr. Light and the nasty Dr. Wily. Mega Man 8 retains all the classic qualities that have kept the series a hit for over ten years while adding new and enhanced power-ups, weapons, moves and secrets. Mega Man 8 features 14 huge stages with eight all-new Wily-bots for Mega Man to battle. The game also provides players a way to upgrade and customize Mega Man to their own specifications each time they play.

In Mega Man 8, a gigantic explosion sends two strange meteors plummeting on a collision course with earth. Mega Man investigates the crash and finds his arch-rival Dr. Wily fleeing from the scene clutching a mysterious metallic package. Soon a new breed of super-powered robots begins to terrorize the countryside. What could Dr. Wily have learned from the mysterious alien artifact? It’s up to Mega Man to find out.

Players are able to customize Mega Man by finding bolts throughout the various levels that they can trade in between stages for additional items. Bolts can be used to purchase items that reduce weapon energy consumption; make Mega Man shoot faster, farther, or with more damaging shots; allow Mega Man to recharge his shots faster; increase his speed; make him invulnerable for a short while; balance his energy distribution; find hidden items; plus many more. The number of bolts the player can retrieve in a single game is limited, so the player will have to choose their parts wisely.

Mega Man’s robotic canine companion, Rush, returns with all new abilities. Once Rush’s pieces are found and assembled, Rush can be transformed into several different forms. Rush Bike allows Mega Man to quickly speed through areas of danger; Rush Barrier creates a force-field around Mega Man, protecting him from harm; Life Recovery brings Mega Man assistance when he’s low on life; while Rush Weapon Recharge does the same thing for his weapon systems.

# # # Capcom, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Capcom Co., Ltd., is a leading force in the multi-billion dollar interactive entertainment industry. The company develops, markets, and distributes both coin-operated arcade games and home video games for the Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation. Capcom Entertainment, Inc. is based in Sunnyvale, California.

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This press release was sourced from the now-defunct (but barely hanging in there) video game news website Coming Soon Magazine, which has not updated since the year 2000. Hope they don’t mind.

Now, I don’t know if there were any screenshots or other materials available at the time of this press release; the version shown above did not feature any. However, just so you aren’t left wanting, it seems that long ago, Video Detective on YouTube shared an early trailer of the game for all to see:

It isn’t the highest quality, but if you’re able to help supply a better version, I would love to be able to share it for the benefit of the community on my YouTube channel with others I intend to add there as time goes on. If you’re able to help, give me a shout out on social media, or drop me a line at the.mega.man.network (at) gmail.com! The same goes for any other ancient press releases, assets, and the like!

Thanks for reading! And in case you haven’t heard, re-upping our hosting for the next few years took a big bite out of our bank account, so if you like what we’re doing here, would like to see us expand our breadth of content (such as with projects like this post), and can kick in a few bucks to our Patreon or buy us an E Tank on Ko-fi, we’d greatly appreciate it!