Virtually Overlooked: Mega Man Soccer
I'm in official PANIC MODE EXTREME over Mega Man 9. I basically freak out every time I see it or am otherwise reminded of its existence. A brand new 8-bit-style Mega Man game, that isn't a spinoff of any kind, is both far too good to be true and the weirdest thing Capcom's done in years. And it reminded me of other weird Mega Man games Capcom's put out over the years.
I can't decide what's weirder: an 8-bit game made in 2008 for all three of today's home game consoles, or a game in which robots built to shoot at each other face off in soccer matches.
Of course, there's some cover story about Dr. Wily invading a soccer game and replacing all the players with robots or whatever, but even as a total Mega Man crazy, I'm not about to take the storyline of any Mega Man game seriously, much less one that motivates Wood Man playing soccer against a team of Mega Man clones.
The teams in Mega Man Soccer are composed either of Mega Men or groups of Robot Masters. In the single-player mode, Mega Man must face different teams on his way to facing teams with Protoman, Dr. Wily, and Enker from Dr. Wily's Revenge. Each Robot Master has different stats including speed, kicking power, tackling ability, and defense. You know, basic sports game stuff. But, of course, these robots are known less for their athleticism and more for their ability to shoot crazy elemental projectiles out of their arms. And, luckily, while the rules of soccer discourage use of normal hands, there seems to be no such restriction on the use of gun-arms, even when they turn the soccer ball into a robot snake. Mega Man himself has his Mega Buster, which he fires at the other players during the game.
As far as seeing this on the Virtual Console: we'll be well into the Wii 2 era, after Nintendo has stopped bothering to update the Virtual Console, before it ever crosses a mind at Capcom to release this. Mega Man games on the Virtual Console are treated like a big deal, released (in the US, at least) as a special leadup to Mega Man 9. It's nice to celebrate the series and all, but if Capcom is going to wait until special circumstances to release a Mega Man game, it'll take years to get all the NES and Super NES games. And this will be the very last one, even after the import version of Mega Man & Bass.
