UPDATE: Mega Man Universe Details from PAX

Update: It appears we’ve had a bit of a mixup. The character designs are not done by Masafumi Kimoto. Instead, they are done by Takenori Kimoto. The rep on the show floor remembered the “Kimoto” part, but couldn’t remember the artist’s first name.
As mentioned earlier, both Gelg and myself were able to attend this year’s Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). Unfortunately, Mega Man Universe is not playable on the show floor. However, we were able to glean a few details from the helpful rep at the Capcom booth.

First off, when asking about the nature of the gameplay, we were informed that what we’ve seen only represents “one gameplay type” and that this is just the “tip of the iceberg.” He couldn’t elaborate any further on that comment, but it does lead me to wonder, just how different will these other types be?

Everybody (myself included) seems to think that there is a stage editor. While the rep couldn’t confirm it, he very strongly hinted at it. He then added that customization is a large focus of the game.

As far as characters, Ryu is confirmed as playable as well as the three versions of Mega Man we saw in the trailers earlier. While he didn’t give a number, he hinted at a large roster of playable characters. The various Mega Men are not just aesthetic changes either. Bad Box Art Mega Man can only fire 2 shots at a time, and while he didn’t go into detail, he confirmed that all the various incarnations of Mega Man have different play styles.

While Rockman retains the design we’ve come to know and love, Mega Man looks new. The rep informed me this redesign was made by Masafumi Takenori Kimoto. I attempted to squeeze some info as to the motivations of the new “angrier” look (including other differences such as the Tron-esque torso lines), but he just replied that it was simply the style Kimoto chose.

Having mainly seen content referencing Mega Man 2, I asked if we’d see content from other Mega Man games. To that he said there is a “very good possibility” of that.

As far as why the game isn’t available on the Wii, since it is a downloadable title they could not fit the game within the file size limitations allowed on the WiiWare service. He said that they would like to be able to support Wii, but couldn’t make it work at this time.

I couldn’t get a specific release date out of the rep, but he did tell me it would be available “Spring 2011”. He also confirmed that they will reveal much more info in 2 weeks at TGS. “Everything we’ve shown will make more sense then,” he assured me.

So there you have it. While there is still a lot we don’t know about Mega Man Universe, we now have enough info to tide us over until TGS, where we will supposedly learn what the game is really all about.

LanceHeart