Despite being announced a little before the Comic Con in mid-July, and despite the Comic Con passing with Capcom attending the event, we finally received our first look at Mega Man Universe today, on the advent of this year's Penny Arcade Expo. Actually, that should be "looks," because Capcom cleverly sent different gameplay videos to various websites, namely IGN, Gamespot, and 1up. They're all prefaced by an introduction by Keiji Inafune and tease Ryu (from Street Fighter), but contain different gameplay with different iterations of Mega Man. And the game looks...well, it's something, to put it lightly.
The game resembles what a lot of people feared Mega Man 9 was going to look like prior to its unveil: a cheap, low budget 2.5D platformer with mediocre animation. That's not to say I think the game will turn out bad, of course. Mega Man Powered Up for PSP had a similarly repelling art style with mechanics that weren't quite as tight as the original, but it was nonetheless a pretty enjoyable game with a great level editor. In fact, this game's art style is the complete antithesis of MMPU's. People made some good levels with that, and if this game is a spiritual successor to that game, then more power to it.
The Mega Man's used are the most hilarious aspects of the trailer. The Gamespot version uses "Bad Box Art Mega Man," an SD version of the dude shown on this cover. He's pretty hideous, yeah, but that's intentional. He could be a fun novelty to have as a playable character. 1up's version uses "Rockman" which is the Mega Man (Rockman in Japan) you've come to know and love. The IGN one uses "Mega Man" which I guess is the western interpretation of what Mega Man looks like, as evinced by Mega Man 3 and 4's NES covers, i.e. not taken to the extreme like Mega Man 1 and 2's covers. He also has some big eyebrows, which make him look pissed. Angry Kirby Syndrome lives on!
The appearance of Ryu (No way) is likely a hint that there will be plenty of selectable characters. How many there could potentially be is unknown, but Capcom has themselves a guaranteed sale of Morrigan makes it in. Heck, maybe they'll let you make your own characters.
Capcom's still being awfully secretive about what MMU actually is, so maybe they'll elaborate on it more either over the weekend or at the Tokyo Game Show, which begins in precisely two weeks. The first look here makes me a little pessimistic as to how it'll turn out, but I'd like to think Inafune has our best interests in mind. Then again, sometimes I don't know about him.
Image stolen from NeoGAF.
The game resembles what a lot of people feared Mega Man 9 was going to look like prior to its unveil: a cheap, low budget 2.5D platformer with mediocre animation. That's not to say I think the game will turn out bad, of course. Mega Man Powered Up for PSP had a similarly repelling art style with mechanics that weren't quite as tight as the original, but it was nonetheless a pretty enjoyable game with a great level editor. In fact, this game's art style is the complete antithesis of MMPU's. People made some good levels with that, and if this game is a spiritual successor to that game, then more power to it.
The Mega Man's used are the most hilarious aspects of the trailer. The Gamespot version uses "Bad Box Art Mega Man," an SD version of the dude shown on this cover. He's pretty hideous, yeah, but that's intentional. He could be a fun novelty to have as a playable character. 1up's version uses "Rockman" which is the Mega Man (Rockman in Japan) you've come to know and love. The IGN one uses "Mega Man" which I guess is the western interpretation of what Mega Man looks like, as evinced by Mega Man 3 and 4's NES covers, i.e. not taken to the extreme like Mega Man 1 and 2's covers. He also has some big eyebrows, which make him look pissed. Angry Kirby Syndrome lives on!The appearance of Ryu (No way) is likely a hint that there will be plenty of selectable characters. How many there could potentially be is unknown, but Capcom has themselves a guaranteed sale of Morrigan makes it in. Heck, maybe they'll let you make your own characters.
Capcom's still being awfully secretive about what MMU actually is, so maybe they'll elaborate on it more either over the weekend or at the Tokyo Game Show, which begins in precisely two weeks. The first look here makes me a little pessimistic as to how it'll turn out, but I'd like to think Inafune has our best interests in mind. Then again, sometimes I don't know about him.
Image stolen from NeoGAF.
Anyone who's a little tired of the usual third-person shooter doldrums might be looking forward to Vanquish, Platinum Games and Shinji Mikami's next title. The result, at least thus far, is pretty much what you would expect from a team that's clearly done their homework. It's a game whose style represents the best of what goes into western-developed cover system-laden TPSs and Japanese action games, culminating in something that's completely wild and fantastic.
There are plenty of weapons at your disposal, too. Four, in fact: heavy machine gun, assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle, the last of which can be located in the first stage. (There are five if you want to include the rocket launcher and disc launcher, but you only get to play with those in a short training session.) The first two weapons there use rapid fire, so you'll likely run out of ammo on at least one of them. If you do, there are crates around that contain extra weapons, and it only takes picking up one to fully replenish your ammo. If you already have full ammo for that weapon, you'll enhance the weapon itself.
Perhaps it's something I should have realized upon seeing that the file size was a mere 240MB, but it still felt threadbare after playing through it. The hypothesis that compression could have been the cause of the small file may have been adequate prior to playing it, but nope. My immediate reaction afterward was wondering whether I missed something, but again, nope. And part of that file size is reserved to having the choice of both English and Japanese languages.
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Meanwhile, Dormammu looks as great as you'd expect, and has a fittingly menacing voice. His music is, well, not as menacing. But it's possible the trailer version is using a different mix, so we'll see how it sounds in game soon enough. I hope it sounds more frightening.
Yeah, you'd be intrigued too.
Spot the Easter egg in this pic!
Don't you wish you had dreams like this?
For a game this late in the system's life, it...well, it's certainly not a looker. We're seeing games now that really take advantage of the system's 3D hardware like 
Radiant Historia takes place in the land of Vancool, and the main character, Stok (no, really) lives in the country of Alicetel. Alicetel is, unfortunately, not in a good state, with the country being in the heat of war and on the verge of becoming a desert wasteland. Stok eventually stumbles upon the power to travel through time, and is told that he and his power will be important for the fate of the world. It sounds generic on the surface, but how the story will be told will be the most important factor. You'll be able to see enemies on the field, and it uses a turn-based battle system.
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