What Do Our Far East Friends Think of Xover?

When Rockman Xover was announced about a couple weeks back, reactions to the news were… not terribly positive, to put it lightly. Not only fans, but even writers at gaming news sites like Destructoid and Kotaku put the game to shame. While little may be known about Xover so far, it’s clear it’s going to have an uphill battle to please fans in the West.

But what about in the East? After all, cell phone and other mobile games are much more popular in Japan, where less people drive cars and must make long commutes to get to where they need to go. Also, I think there’s something of a perception that Japanese fans take things better – for example, there was certainly disappointment and disbelief with the cancellation of Legends 3, but not nearly the screaming of bloody murder from notable Japanese fans who were heavily invested in the game.

However, the perception may not be so distant from local ones. I’ve been monitoring comments and reactions to Xover on a few BBS style game news sites in Japan, and, with a certain degree of randomness, selecting posts to translate. You can look over a number of these comments after the break, and compare them to your own feelings.

Article artwork by Press Start

-Yes yes, fees fees.

-Eh? An RPG… The times are changing…

-A social game?

-I’ve wanted them to make a continuation of the X series or something… but I’m glad something like this is being released too.

-On top of Legends 3 getting cancelled, this just depresses me.

-So now we’re getting into fees. Ho hum…

-I’m really not digging this.

-With how lame Battle Network, Star Force, Zero and such are, it’s easy to see the dissent.

-I loved the Battle Network series back in my high school days. This is fine and all, but when’re they gonna make a new Battle Network?

-This looks sooooo boring, hahahaha. A Mega Man that’s not Mega Manish at all. At this rate a Battle Network for cell phones would’ve been good.

-Touch screen action games are the definition of crap games.

-This looks heavily based off the iOS Mega Man X. Make X2 already.

-Capcom is a genius at killing brands. DMC, Onimusha, Lost Planet, Monster Hunter, SF, Mega Man… Looking at the sales for Revelations, seems like portable Resident Evil is over too. If RE6 bombs, it’ll be all over for Capcom.

-You can only charge, jump (slide?), and shoot; there’s no button to move. And it has SKIP on the boss battle screen. This is pretty awful LOL

-If there’s anyone who can play well on an iPad, they’re a pro. I think people who can play action games on smart phones are pretty amazing haha.

-The Mega Man brand is officially over lol. Sheesh… Well, the Mega Man games up ’til now are still fun, no?

-Put out an HD Legends and Legends 2 for Vita. I won’t bother waiting for any actual new games.

-I loved the world of this series; of Mega Man’s suffering and struggle, living in a world where robots and humans coexist, and has such incredible caring that, to protect humans, he must destroy robots that are like his own kind. And now this series I love is dead.

-The logo is so lame it shocks me.

-If you’re making new games for Mega Man fans, you ought to restart Universe and Legends 3, or continue the Powered Up series. How’d a project like this make the cut?

-RPGs are good themselves, and Command Mission was a fairly good game. And I think with cell phone games, putting out only abridged Legends titles and such is fine too. But, putting both sides together and making a series crossover and “creating your own Mega Man” is just… yeah. I only see a future of gathering series fans together for games with paid fees. I really don’t know what to think…

-You can tell sprite artists dropped off after the SD era… These graphics are horrible.

-I’m an idiot for having expectations.

-No, this is just… Make Mega Man 11, X9 and Legends 3 instead of this thing.

-At long last, I’ve wanted the original Mega Man and Zero to be pit against each other. I’ve waited around 15 years now.

-Make me an online Battle Network game. I’d buy that.

-Capcom: Kill Mega Man and you kill your company.

-I sighed at those fan game grade graphics.

-Please make this for 3DS! I have friends who bought a 3DS for Mega Man! Please!

-We got this over Legends 3? They really are crushing Mega Man… I thought I heard in a report something about new games being made for Wii U? If this were made properly for Wii U, it’d be incentive to buy a Wii U…

-Smart phone games are fine by me, and I relatively enjoy them. But even to me, action play on a touch screen is just busking. Why are they making a genre unsuitable for that kind of hardware?

-I’ve been waiting… but Capcom has just been a disappointment… I bought a 3DS at great pains, and was really shocked when I heard Legends 3 was canned. (;_;) (Right now Mario Kart 7 keeps me patient…) Please Capcom!! Please make a game for us Mega Man fans that can satisfy everyone!! I wish with all my life!! Please don’t let Mega Man end!! (>o<)

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Overall, the reactions are pretty similar. I did not have a very “scientific” method for picking comments – the majority are very quick notes of “What’s this?…” or “A social RPG?” or “This sucks.”, so I tended to focus on comments that had more meat to them. I also did omit some of the more harsh comments. Over the course of the week, I browsed at comments maybe a total of an hour and a half.

While I can’t say this selection of comments represents the overall opinion of Rockman Xover among Japanese fans, I will say I was hard pressed to find ANY comment that exhibited any kind of excitement or interest for the game (posters with a “wait and see” disposition were pretty rare, too). There were initial cries on at least one site, but I think that was people reacting to just the image and posting before reading the whole thing.

Comment sources:
Hachima Draft

My Game News Flash
Otaku News Flash