Believe it or not, I am a longtime fan of Mega Man games.
...
All right, you caught me. I am a longtime fan of Mega Man 2, which is one of my all-time favorite NES games and the last bit of reason that Capcom had before it went full-tilt insane on everything Mega Man. I recently began to purchase some classic NES games (again), this time on the Wii's "Virtual Console," and I purchased a litany of favorites from a time when Nintendo was a pioneer in the development of games, not so much the way we play them.
I did not purchase Mega Man 2, however. I was going to, but I wanted to make sure that I had all of the reasonable Mario games (not Mario Bros. or The Lost Levels -- just the ones that I enjoyed) and both NES Zelda games before getting that one. As luck would have it, when I went to my local GameStop they were having a special on the very-backwards-compatible-with-the-Wii GameCube games, and sitting on the shelf just a few dollars more than the Virtual Console version of Mega Man 2 was Mega Man Anniversary Collection. This disc has all six NES Mega Man games, the Super Nintendo one, and the pretty but nearly impossible to play and/or beat Playstation/Saturn one as well (no, not Mega Man Legends, Mega Man 8); you know, the one where the Mega Man character speaks and sounds like a seven-year-old Japanese girl. You also get two unlockable craptastic arcade games that you'll only play as a curiosity.
I was so excited: I mean, I had a lot of these games, and now to get them all in one package, with the one good one for just a few(hundred) pennies more than what the download would cost -- That was enough to sell me on the idea. No way Capcom could screw this one up.
No way.
Nope.
Not gonna happen.
...
The following conversation is completely made up, but words to these effect must have been spoken at some point during this collection's creation:
Capcom Moron 1: "Well this just sucks! Nintendo gets to charge almost full price for it's classic video games on the Game Boy Advance, and now we're expected to release ours at a bargain price with all of our classics on one disk? This is an outrage!"
Capcom Moron 2: "I know what you mean, Gary,"
Capcom Moron 1: "My name is Steve..."
Capcom Moron 2: "That's not the point, Gary. The point is that a lot of these games have spot-on control, cool power-ups, and catchy soundtracks."
Capcom Moron 1: "You mean..."
Capcom Moron 2: "Yes -- normal people have beaten them!"
Capcom Moron 1: "But what about the Rock Monster at the end of the first game with it's completely unavoidable attacks?"
Capcom Moron 2: "Sometimes people can randomly get past it -- I know, it's a flaw in our code."
Capcom Moron 1: "What about the spot in the second game where the player has to die in order to defeat the end boss, and if they don't get that right then they don't have enough power in the only weapon that can kill it?"
Capcom Moron 2: "People seem to just look past it because the rest of the game is so darn good."
Capcom Moron 1: "Um... How about when we started having the weapons make no damn sense from the third game onward?"
Capcom Moron 2: "Yeah, that didn't start to kill the franchise until later..."
Capcom Moron 1: "What about when we introduced the Mega Buster, and then powered down all of the other weapons so that they were next to useless in any given situation?"
Capcom Moron 2: "We still had to make four more games after that, and that's not even counting the Mega Man X games."
Capcom Moron 1: "Well, we have to do something! If this collection sells, people will be expecting us to keep making these games, and I have to get back to kicking newborn puppies!"
Capcom Moron 2: "We have to do something to wreck this game so completely, yet so subtly that people will buy it, then get it home and immediately regret it..."
Capcom Moron 1: "Well, we blew the entire budget on the interface, so we can't spend money messing up the graphics, or reprogramming the gameplay to make it even harder..."
Capcom Moron 2: "Wait a minute -- the INTERFACE, that's it! We can make the game impossible, wreck the fun, and no one will be the wiser!"
Capcom Moron 1: "But how?"
Capcom Moron 2: "It's easy, Gary-"
Capcom Moron 1: "-Steve."
Capcom Moron 2: "Sorry Gary. All we have to do is SWITCH THE "A" AND "B" BUTTONS AROUND, THEN GIVE THE PLAYER ABSOLUTELY NO MENU OPTION TO CUSTOMIZE THE CONTROLS! The players that remember the old games will try to adapt, but fail, BECAUSE HAVING THE TIP OF YOUR THUMB ON THE "B" BUTTON TO FIRE THE GUN AND PRESSING THE FLAT OF YOUR THUMB ON THE "A" BUTTON TO JUMP IS SO ESSENTIAL TO EVERY SINGLE SIDE-SCROLLING PLATFORMER ON THE NES, GAME BOY, AND THE RESPECTIVE CONFIGURATION ON EVERY SINGLE VIDEO GAME SYSTEM EVER THAT IT HAS BECOME THE STANDARD no one will notice how we FUCKED UP THEIR GAME BEYOND ALL REASON until it is too late!"
Capcom Moron 1: "Brilliant! Then I'm back to kicking puppies!"
Satan: "You have done well, my minions!"
...
FUCK YOU, CAPCOM!
