Here’s one impression that went under our radar and one that’s hot off the presses.  Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft took a small peak at MMU while Joystiq’s JC Fletcher is back from the Tokyo Game Show with his own impressions of Mega Man Universe. With all of the information that trickled down from TGS last week, what did Brian and JC think of their time with the game?
Kotaku’s preview gets right to the point of the matter.  Of note is the control scheme, which seems to have some freedom depending on which configuration you prefer:

Weapons can be toggled through by pressing the bumper. There was “A.Shooter” (Air Shooter), “L.Shield” (Leaf Shield), “B.Lead” (Bubble Lead) and B.Shoot (buster shot). The default is B.Shoot.

[…]

Control-mapping is flexible, giving players the choice to choose between the Dpad or the thumbstick. “Shoot” is mapped onto two different buttons, giving the players to pick the one they feel most comfortable with.

Joystiq goes into the detail of the concept, which seems to affect more than just abilities and stats. One of the more noticeable gameplay changes being jump height, which seems to have thrown him off his game.

I chose “Metto Man,” a weird Metool-headed guy with extreme jumping ability. I’m sure, over time, I’d appreciate having greater-than-Mega jumps, but in practice it was utterly disorienting. After 25 years of learning the Mega Man mechanics, having a jump even one pixel higher than normal was like picking up a cardboard box that you think is going to be full, but isn’t. I won’t say this is a problem for the game, because it was only a problem for me. It actually adds welcome variety to the formula .. if you can handle it — which I couldn’t.

Next up is the controls themselves, which seem to echo what Jeremy Parish from 1Up had to say about them.

I have some concerns about the general movement, as well, which don’t pertain to the specialized attributes. When other Joystiq team members played the Universe demo, they pointed out to me that Mega Man can’t really take just one step anymore. You can hold a direction to run, but tapping just a bit to precisely position yourself results in … nothing. It’s a minor gripe, especially considering how spot-on most of the motion feels […]

This can definitely be a concern if the game delves deeply into the pixel-perfect jumps that were very popular among Mega Man Powered Up custom stages.  Since the game can be played by using either the D-Pad or the Joystick, the issue might be fixed before long.

For more on each preview you can look them up on Kotaku and Joystiq, respectively.

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