Mega Man (classic series)/Real-World History/
Origins[edit | edit source]
The Mega Man series was created in part by Keiji Inafune at Capcom, Inc. in 1987, with the first game being Mega Man on the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Since the game's original release, the gaming community went into an uproar over it, and thus Capcom released a sequel to it called Mega Man 2 in 1988 (NES), which some consider the best NES game, which was followed by Mega Man 3 (NES) in 1990. Although the Super Nintendo was released in 1991, Capcom realized that more people owned the NES, and thus Mega Man 4 was released that year on that console. 1992 featured the release of Mega Man 5 (NES), which although the console was showing its age in the shadow of the SNES, the game was pushing the console to its limit. In late 1993 Capcom released its final game on the NES in Japan, but realizing that the system was outdated in the US, it decided not to release the title outside of the island nation. However, Nintendo picked up the license and in early 1994 released Mega Man 6. Finally, the "Blue Bomber" made his way to the 16-bit world on the SNES with Mega Man 7, showing the world what he could do (though the world had already seen Mega Man X, X2, and X3). In 1997, Capcom, in honor of Mega Man's 10th Anniversary, released Mega Man 8 on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn, which included anime cutscenes as well as bonus art. Fans submitted designs for the Robot Masters for MM8, and Cut Man and Wood Man were seen as hidden bosses in the game. In 1998, Capcom released Rockman & Forte on the Super Famicom (SNES) in Japan only, which was ported to the Gameboy Advance as part of the Mega Man 15th Anniversary in 2003.
Besides the "core" set of games, however, Mega Man made appearances in Mega Man: The Power Battle, an arcade game released in 1995 featuring Mega Man, Protoman, and Bass versus many of the Robot Masters in previous titles. In 1996 a follow-up title called Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters was released. These two games were ported to the Neo-Geo Pocket Color handheld system in 2000 in the title Rockman Battle & Fighter. Mega Man also made a run in the 1998 anime-adventure title Super Adventure Rockman for the Sega Saturn.
Mega Man was the star of his own TV series, Mega Man, that started in 1995 and also appeared on the show Captain N: The Game Master, which aired in 1989.
Since then, Mega Man made his jump to the Mega Man X series in 1992/93 on the Super Nintendo, the Legends series in 1997, and then the Battle Network/EXE series in 2001 with the Gameboy Advance as well as the Zero series...What lies ahead? Only time will tell!
Mega Man Hiatus and Revival[edit | edit source]
In the early 2000's the Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, and Mega Man Battle Network series were going strong, but since the 2004 release of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection compilation for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube, there have been no major Mega Man releases for some time. Since the 1998 release of Rockman & Forte on the Super Nintendo, which was ported to the Gameboy Advance in 2003, there have been no original games in the classic series produced by Capcom. Some fans had feared that the series was dead. However in 2008 Capcom revived the series with the release of Mega Man 9. 2010 saw the release of Mega Man 10. 2018 saw the release of Mega Man 11.