Why Mega man 9 & 10 looks as bad as 1 after beatiful 7 & 8?

[v00d00m4n]

Did someone cut the budged or what happened? Why 9 and 10 such a downgrade comparing to 7 and 8?

Just found this - a concept of 9 & 10 in 7 & 8 style, looks muuuch betteeeeeeeer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EbVki-2tWk

[Retro Hacker Developer]

I notice a trend. People who dislike how 9 and 10 went back to NES graphics tend to prefer 7 or 8 or both over the original Mega Man games on the NES. Yes, if you prefer 7 or 8 then I can understand why you would dislike 9 and 10. However, there is a reason why 9 and 10 was made the way it was. The majority of Mega Man fans disliked or even hated MM 7 and 8. That's it in a nutshell. Why alienate most of the fanbase just to please the few who prefer better graphics over classic MM gameplay? Graphics don't matter. Seriously, they really don't. A good game is a good game. Doens't matter how it looks.

[76561198063124591]

Seraphna and flamewars.

[themazingness]

Originally posted by ILoveJesus:

I notice a trend. People who dislike how 9 and 10 went back to NES graphics tend to prefer 7 or 8 or both over the original Mega Man games on the NES. Yes, if you prefer 7 or 8 then I can understand why you would dislike 9 and 10. However, there is a reason why 9 and 10 was made the way it was. The majority of Mega Man fans disliked or even hated MM 7 and 8. That's it in a nutshell. Why alienate most of the fanbase just to please the few who prefer better graphics over classic MM gameplay? Graphics don't matter. Seriously, they really don't. A good game is a good game. Doens't matter how it looks.

Yeah, 7 and 8 are my least favorite. I wouldn't have a problem with updated graphics in future games, if that ever happens. But I thought it was cool to have Proto Man and Bass in 8 bit style. I had wanted Proto Man in a game since Mega Man 4.

[theclaw135]

Originally posted by ILoveJesus:

I notice a trend. People who dislike how 9 and 10 went back to NES graphics tend to prefer 7 or 8 or both over the original Mega Man games on the NES. Yes, if you prefer 7 or 8 then I can understand why you would dislike 9 and 10. However, there is a reason why 9 and 10 was made the way it was. The majority of Mega Man fans disliked or even hated MM 7 and 8. That's it in a nutshell. Why alienate most of the fanbase just to please the few who prefer better graphics over classic MM gameplay? Graphics don't matter. Seriously, they really don't. A good game is a good game. Doens't matter how it looks.

What we need here is someone with art experience to run us through the pros and cons of the different styles. While I tend to be on the side of the fence that thinks 7 and 8 don't look quite right, I'm not at all qualified to describe why.

[themazingness]

Personally I have no problem with the graphics of 7 and 8. I just didn't care for some of the gameplay mechanics, the forgettable robot masters, or the bad voice acting.

[Sails]

Originally posted by Seraphna:

That's not copy paste. That's proof they look the same.

They're not the same sprites. It wasn't copy pasted. Post actual evidence that shows they are the same sprites.

Wow, seriously? This is a really easy one.
https://www.spriters-resource.com/wii/mm9/sheet/36588/

This is the complete Mega Man/Rush/Light/Roll/other hero characters sprite sheet for Mega Man 1/2/3/4/5/6/9/10.

The sprites at the top, "Shared", are the ones used in all of those listed games for Mega Man. They are identical in every single one, right down to the palettes.

Mega Man 9 has 15 new sprites for Mega Man, nearly half of which are for a spinning animation, and four of which are cleanups with a mere few pixels edited each. The vast majority of the Mega Man 9 and 10's sprites for Mega are in fact copy pasted, they are the exact same sprites. This extends down to other game assets, such as bullets, items, and some enemies.

Anything related to Mega Man himself that isn't in-stage is likely new or also modified from old art, such as the Stage Select head.

[Gabby]

You need to fully look over your own evidence, particularly towards the bottom to see where you got this entire thing wrong dear.

This is also inaccurate because, again, it’s a visual comparison. MM1-6’s sprites are not the single flat image they use here. Due to the NES’s limitations those spurted were actually two different sets of sprites working in tandem to allow for so many different colors. The MM 9-10 sprite sheet is actually fully new and unshared because it uses single sprite blocks.

This is info you learn from actual modding attempts and sprite injection.

But yeah, my point is more about everything else as Megaman himself barely counts for anything against the actual sprite asset total... saying this one character makes the entire game cut and paste like the troll above was trying to is just plain wrong.

[parasocial catgirl]

Originally posted by Voodooman:

Did someone cut the budged or what happened? Why 9 and 10 such a downgrade comparing to 7 and 8?

because ♥♥♥♥ you thats why

[Syragar]

I guess I'm an oddball in that I actually liked MM7... but I thought 8 was kinda meh. I didn't think MM8 was terrible (although I hated the voice acting and music), but I didn't think it was great either. IMO, MM7 felt more like a proper 16-bit evolution of the series whereas MM8 tried to be so different that it really didn't impress me as much as I had hoped. That said, I have to admit that I also like the nostalgia factor from MM9 and 10.

[Annie Blue]

I feel like there are two very different arguments mistaking one another as comparable.

The situation is this: MM9's art style is a deliberate return to form. It required active work to recreate things in the style of the NES games, including a pixel-for-pixel recreation of Mega Man's sprite which required a different method to code and animate than in the 80's but yielded a visually identical product.

Doing so did not recycle any assets besides the fundamental designs of preexisting characters, many of whom received new animations and many of whom reused old animation's for nostalgia's sake. However, doing so was, in terms of labor, absolutely trivial compared to creating a new art style.

This isn't strictly a bad thing. The game almost certainly wouldn't have been made if a new art style had been mandatory, and it would have probably been polarizing. It launched in the era of the Virtual Console's debut, when gaming culture's collective nostalgia bone was being stroked something fierce, alongside the first mainstream presentation of directly downloadable, often-indie games, which frequently relied on nostalgia-inducing pixel graphics to keep production costs low and allow quality game concepts like Cave Story to be created without having to invest thousands to millions of dollars in an art budget. Which, to be fair, Capcom probably did anyway.

Launching a decade after Mega Man 8, whose reception was very lukewarm, MM9 wasn't a response to people asking for the next generation of Mega Man- gamers mostly weren't. Instead, with gamers newly captivated by retro content and affordable small-scale productions, and with said content being *much* easier to take a risk on, MM9 struck exactly the chord people were asking for at the moment it was made.

So we're kind of all right here. Yes, it was an easy move for the company while a nicer-looking game would have taken much more work, but also it's what the player base was more interested in at the time, so the choice was a win-win.

Now hug and be friends, you nerds. c:

[Syragar]

Originally posted by Chicory Blue:

I feel like there are two very different arguments mistaking one another as comparable.

The situation is this: MM9's art style is a deliberate return to form. It required active work to recreate things in the style of the NES games, including a pixel-for-pixel recreation of Mega Man's sprite which required a different method to code and animate than in the 80's but yielded a visually identical product.

Doing so did not recycle any assets besides the fundamental designs of preexisting characters, many of whom received new animations and many of whom reused old animation's for nostalgia's sake. However, doing so was, in terms of labor, absolutely trivial compared to creating a new art style.

This isn't strictly a bad thing. The game almost certainly wouldn't have been made if a new art style had been mandatory, and it would have probably been polarizing. It launched in the era of the Virtual Console's debut, when gaming culture's collective nostalgia bone was being stroked something fierce, alongside the first mainstream presentation of directly downloadable, often-indie games, which frequently relied on nostalgia-inducing pixel graphics to keep production costs low and allow quality game concepts like Cave Story to be created without having to invest thousands to millions of dollars in an art budget. Which, to be fair, Capcom probably did anyway.

Launching a decade after Mega Man 8, whose reception was very lukewarm, MM9 wasn't a response to people asking for the next generation of Mega Man- gamers mostly weren't. Instead, with gamers newly captivated by retro content and affordable small-scale productions, and with said content being *much* easier to take a risk on, MM9 struck exactly the chord people were asking for at the moment it was made.

So we're kind of all right here. Yes, it was an easy move for the company while a nicer-looking game would have taken much more work, but also it's what the player base was more interested in at the time, so the choice was a win-win.

Now hug and be friends, you nerds. c:

Well said. I wish I could give this post a thumbs up.

[Gabby]

Originally posted by Chicory Blue:

I feel like there are two very different arguments mistaking one another as comparable.

The situation is this: MM9's art style is a deliberate return to form. It required active work to recreate things in the style of the NES games, including a pixel-for-pixel recreation of Mega Man's sprite which required a different method to code and animate than in the 80's but yielded a visually identical product.

Doing so did not recycle any assets besides the fundamental designs of preexisting characters, many of whom received new animations and many of whom reused old animation's for nostalgia's sake. However, doing so was, in terms of labor, absolutely trivial compared to creating a new art style.

This isn't strictly a bad thing. The game almost certainly wouldn't have been made if a new art style had been mandatory, and it would have probably been polarizing. It launched in the era of the Virtual Console's debut, when gaming culture's collective nostalgia bone was being stroked something fierce, alongside the first mainstream presentation of directly downloadable, often-indie games, which frequently relied on nostalgia-inducing pixel graphics to keep production costs low and allow quality game concepts like Cave Story to be created without having to invest thousands to millions of dollars in an art budget. Which, to be fair, Capcom probably did anyway.

Launching a decade after Mega Man 8, whose reception was very lukewarm, MM9 wasn't a response to people asking for the next generation of Mega Man- gamers mostly weren't. Instead, with gamers newly captivated by retro content and affordable small-scale productions, and with said content being *much* easier to take a risk on, MM9 struck exactly the chord people were asking for at the moment it was made.

So we're kind of all right here. Yes, it was an easy move for the company while a nicer-looking game would have taken much more work, but also it's what the player base was more interested in at the time, so the choice was a win-win.

Now hug and be friends, you nerds. c:

I think it should be noted that MM9 is credioted most often as the cause of the current retro style trend in games. It sold so well that other companies woke up and realized they could market to older games on a nostalgia basis. So... yeah, it not only came at the right time, it basically started a whole category of gaming.

[Ｄｅｍｏｎ]

Originally posted by Seraphna:

[everything you've said in this thread]

I'm a game developer, and you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Gabby]

Originally posted by Ｄｅｍｏｎ:

Originally posted by Seraphna:

[everything you've said in this thread]

I'm a game developer, and you have no idea what you're talking about.

That's nice. Pity I don't believe you. :)

90% of what I've stated in this thread are facts you can find simply by googling and seeing what the actual developers had to say on this subject.

What little isn't comes from experience working with games that depends on pixel based graphics to work. A real developer also doesn't run around seeking threads almost a year old to go touting their skills in, so despite the fact that you're in the Steamworks development group, with me, I might add, since you need to have SW access to even see the group, I have a feeling you aren't as closely into development as you claim. Access to Steamworks doesn't constitute development, nor does it actually speak for your skill level, proficiency, or even remotely what work you have to speak for.

Actually bring up a point or argue something, because trying to establish authority and just saying I'm wrong only tells me you didn't actually have anything to say and felt like trolling someone.

This thread was about someone trying to claim something about the development about this game by making false claims about the reasons behind why they even made them the way they did.

Reasons that have actually been public record for over a decade. This led to attempts to claim that everything in the game was copy pasted sprites, ignoring that an amazingly large chunk of those sprites never existed before... therefore couldn't have possibly be copy and pasted from anything.

Which also led to more attempts to divert the conversation away from the facts to support some weird attack on nostalgia, inferring that somehow the very reason for why the game was designed the way it was wasn't the actual reason, but the reason behind any attempts to defend it... also known as a no true scotsman fallacy.

So Mr. Game Developer, why did Capcom choose to revert to the NES style of gameplay, if not for nostalgia purposes? Because that's the argument you just adopted.

Noting again, the actual answer is plain as day:

Inafune stated that the success of the Virtual Console platform led Capcom to choose a nostalgia title in order to ride the wave of success and the percieved crowd of nostalgic gamers.

- Hoffman, Chris (August 2008). "True Blue". Nintendo Power. No. 231. Future US. pp. 20–2. ISSN 1041-9551

Infaune also clearly stated that the choice was in fact to please the fans.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110629032728/http://www.1up.com/previews/mega-man-9_2

In terms of the long argument about just "emulating an NES and copy pasting all the sprites from older games", Hironobu stated quite clearly that they are not in fact emulating the NES, nor using NES assets, but rather recreated the feel of such hardware and sprites on a brand new engine:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3752/he_is_8bit_capcoms_hironobu_.php

By the MM10, they were 100% concerned with surpassing the feel of MM2, as it remains to date one of their most popular titles. Which is also why the mechanics seem to have gone backwards, they were worried the "complications" of later games were the cause of fewer fans remaning with the series.

- Hoffman, Chris (January 2010). "Tenth Time's the Charm". Nintendo Power. No. 250. Future US. pp. 18–21. ISSN 1041-9551.

So yeah, guess I don't know what I'm talking about. Despite the fact that I can cite each and every one of my claims. But you're a game developer, that somehow means I don't know what I'm talking about.

[theclaw135]

Originally posted by Ｄｅｍｏｎ:

Originally posted by Seraphna:

[everything you've said in this thread]

I'm a game developer, and you have no idea what you're talking about.

A game developer curious about this, would dig into the code and understand what it means that there is no 6502 programming in this game.