Sadly, I wasn’t able to complete Mega Man 5 before my Inafune interview. I breezed through the game right up until Gravity Man, whose constant orientation-flipping absolutely crushes me. I’m not sure why this one boss is so hard! Maybe I will have to use a subweapon after all.
But as it turns out, no harm/no foul — we didn’t actually interview Inafune. Instead, we spoke to Hironobu Takeshita, who I think is probably quite a bit more hands-on with the game than the series’ creator anyway. I think it was a pretty decent interview, given that we hadn’t been able to play the game ourselves yet. All I’ve seen so far is the fact that there are only two bosses to fight in the demo version, and that the attract mode graphics channel Osamu Tezuka more vigorously than anything I’ve ever seen.
I’m happiest that Takeshita echoed some of my own thoughts and comments on the game. It’s always nice to know that you’re on the same wavelength as a developer, especially when that person is working on a game that’s piqued your interest so. And let it be known that Shane Bettenhausen, who joined in for a portion of the questions, came away from the interview willing to reconsider his negative opinion of the game. See, Mega Man is love.
And yes, I asked for Takeshita’s opinion on “Air Man Ga Taosenai.” If you’re gonna do an interview, you gotta do it right.
I was hoping he’d call the composer by name. I’m praying for Ryo Kawakami like anything; he’s got the MM sound cold.
I’m hoping for a contribution from Yuki Sakaguchi. She can finally follow in her Papa’s footsteps.
no… no slide? :(
it’s not a deal breaker or anything, but man, I want to slide.
MM5 stuff: I always go after Gravity Man first, because he’s stupid easy to kill without taking a single hit once you get his pattern down. plus, his stage is the high point of the game, so if I make it that far and then turn the game off I still came out on top!
Was Shane responsible for the question(s) related to reverting back to 8-bit? Only possible explanation.
Kinda gauche of him to bring up copyright issues when talking about a fan song on the internet…
Gauche? Not at all. You missed the point — he was saying that as an official representative of Capcom he can’t officially support things like that… but personally, he loves them.
Oh good. Maybe Shane can have his Official Mega Man Fan card back now. He’s still on probation though.
I wholeheartedly support a future in which more frustrating accounts of fighting difficult bosses and heartbreaking tales of childhoods long past are told via video game music. Let us hear now the lament of the Shy Guy.
The real measure for Mega Man 9 – will it manage to be better than Stinkoman 20X6? Only time will tell!
Uh, two things.
1: That was a really good interview. My first MM was actually VI, then V, then the X games, so I always assumed it was the X series that made the subweapons useful outside of bosses. Guess I was wrong! Can’t wait for the game!
2: Gravity Man…was my first conquest in V, and, in my opinion, the easiest. Try charging your mega buster and, when he flips, shoot him in mid-air! Trust me, it works- and probably deals as much damage as the subweapon sadly enough…
Yes, it’s true that we don’t have things like the slide or the charge shot, because we really want to bring it back to the basics — simple is better in this case. The basics of Mega Man are moving, jumping and shooting. The challenge comes from the levels themselves.
This guy gets it. He gets it so hard. Great interview, Parish!
It’s straight up old-school game philosophy.
Going back to the excellent MM9 article on this site, I found it incredibly insightful how it was mentioned that other companies have been toying with the idea of ‘regression’ as well, from (the fluid) Contra 4 to the new DQ — now cumulating with the boldest stroke yet.
I really hope these sort of design ideals are on the up-and-up.
Airman is old and busted JP. The new hotness is “Clear Made Wa Nemurenai”. Because unlike Airman Megaman 1 is REALLY hard.
Interestingly enough, Gravity Man was the first boss I beat whenever I played MM5 as a kid.
Good interview! It was nice to see you mention Initcreate and Airman ga Taosenai just to show that even Western media is aware of things like that.
Also, a new PSX-style Megaman Legends would be glorious. Well, maybe if they used a few more polys on the models.