E-can Factory -

Capcom's English Speaking PR needs to be fired. FOR THE THIRD TIME NOW.

1/29/2012

I wish for you to meet "Mega Man". He is a bonus character recently revealed for Street Fighter Vs Tekken, Capcom's newest blockbuster fighting game that's set to be released in March. Not only is he some horrendously tacky super hero, he's now also really short, out of shape, easily flustered, and hot-bloodedly angry yet with no direction. And his total composition and back-story, a jarring confused mixed up mash of different Mega Men of various franchises with an added touch of middle-aged depression and desperateness. Now, with the number of disparaging descriptors I have laid out, how did Capcom's Public Relations completely miss the anger and rage this character's introduction could (and has since) cause?

Look at those pupils,
Clearly he's on "something"

In case I'm starting to sound like some sort of raving fanboy lunatic, I'll give you this. I am 90% certain that the plan for this character was made way back last year before all the strings of Rockman related cancellations and MvsC 3 exclusion. I'm also 90% certain that it was suppose to be a hilarious one-upping, self-ribbing send up of BadBoxArt Mega Man to go along with freakishly LSD laced "more than happy" Pac-Man. I would even speculate that Inafune got a great laugh out of the idea and approved it too before he left Capcom. But these facts don't mitigated the flurry of upset Capcom customers shouting: "Capcom is clearly killing Mega Man" that is occurring everywhere.

But before I spout off any further, let's first get a better look at his "back story" and see him in action. From Capcom's Street Fighter X Tekken webpage:

Mega Man
Middle Aged Hero!
Known as a Digger, a person who digs up relics from the past for research. He is a hot-tempered man, but has a strong sense of justice and is also very polite. His weak point is that he is easily rattled when backed into a corner. He is always running around in a hurry due to the demands of his partner Roll, and this time he's been asked to travel to Antarctica to retrieve a mysterious box.

Even BBA Mega Man doesn't look
half as bad as that guy.

The core of the problem is that this underscores Mega Man horribly. In the current void of actual appearances for the characters, MegaManSFT (henceforth what I'm calling him) is now the perceived "face" of Mega Man. And he is a joke through and through. It is already bad enough that it deliberately mixes and confuses the identities of the various Rocks out there (which discounts the identity of each one as an individual and their individual series). But to pile on, they throw in extra traits that are commonly associated with someone that's "past his prime". And this hits hard for series fans since the current reality of cancellations related to Mega Man games reaffirms these uneasy feelings.

The "Past His Prime" Traits:

Middle Aged (from his better days as a youth)
Lost of Vitality (since gaining that gut)
Short (Never actually "growing" since then)
No direction (Roll bossing him around)
Flusters Easily ("easily rattled" from no longer in being in control of his life)
Easily Agitated ("Hot tempered" due to years of failure)
Proving himself in a tournament fight,..... by carrying a gun,.....and still doing poor damage from it.

So why is it that I say Capcom's PR staff should be totally fired? Because they had a good 7-8 months in advance to see this problem and work out some sort of solution. Isn't that what Public Relations people are suppose to do? Besides talking to the public, they should be advising their client to not do stuff that can offend their customers. Trucking out a beloved character, butchering his story and identity, adding a failed depression into the mix, then throwing him out as the face representative is something anyone can say is a "Bad Idea". But then again they should of already been fired for the Open Development PR stunt, or for How they dealt with their angry customers before.

I'm postpone discussing possible solutions and countering all the people making a stink of the people who are upset with MegaManSFT to a later time and future article. It's late and I'm spent for the night.

8 Comments

Mega Boy

1/29/2012 04:25:37 am

I think your are taking it to seriously. This is nothing but a cross promotion with Mega Man Universe, Inafune asked Ono to do it. Obviously, this is pointless now that Mega Man Universe is cancelled. Everything was planned with Inafune approval and before the dead of Universe and Legends 3.

Auto

1/29/2012 12:16:37 pm

Oh no, I totally agree it's a cross promotion concept and it's meant for good fun. That's what the second paragraph was all about. I'm talking strictly from a PR point of view that this was a bad idea. There's just so many minor things that you could of done to fix it so that people would not take it like a middle finger of the series, which was the point of the article title (and the focus of the article).

#20 link

1/29/2012 04:20:48 pm

I used to think Capcom could still do right by me just by bringing back Legends 3, but lately I think I've lost more than that: maybe even my capacity to get excited about Mega Man.

Here I am, a grown man with a vicious obsession with a video game robot that thrived for over 20 years, despite as many sloppy titles and cheap merchandise tossed out over all that time, and then somehow just as I was feeling more optimistic about the franchise than I had been in over a decade, Capcom managed to cure me of that all-consuming fixation, all in the course of a single year. Maybe I should thank them. Sadly, however, I really just want all that enthusiasm and optimism back...

LBD_Nytetrayn link

1/29/2012 01:12:10 pm

I'd honestly have been okay with BBA Mega Man, though that joke is starting to get worn thin-- mostly because Capcom's the one always telling it now. I'd even be reluctant for a Mega Man 11 to have the bad box art style, and only be willing to consider it as a matter of "rounding out a trilogy," so to speak.

At this point, though, they're now parodying a parody, in a sense.

The original BBA Mega Man was fun, in a way, due to the almost stereotypical sci-fi cheesiness-- from the sci-fi raygun to the Flash Gordon-esque costume to fighting "Humanoids" in the empire of "Monsteropolis." It's practically pulp, and that was fun.

This? ...less so. Some of it's fine, but the gut just seems like overdoing it. Scrapping the backstory in favor of a smashed-together jigsaw puzzle of Mega Man stories from different puzzles? Not so much.

And the heavy Legends elements just call to mind the last time they mixed up Legends Mega Man and Classic, and just seems sloppy. I'm reminded more of early 2000's Capcom, who couldn't translate a game to save their life.

I think Ruby Spears Mega Man might have been a fun, cheesy inclusion, if they could do it-- especially if he kept all of his Saturday morning puns. Or maybe the Mega Captain Mega N Mega version of the Mega character...

#20 link

1/29/2012 04:10:11 pm

That is exactly how I pictured BBAM, too! The "defender of the universe and its inhabitants" who "dares to single-handedly penetrate seven separate empires of Monsteropolis, eliminating the leaders and followers of these sovereignties."

Perhaps he was thought of as too much of a Western style joke and the devs in Japan wanted to make it their own... Or perhaps they just never saw him that way to begin with. Japan has their share of campy pulp heroes in the same vein (Space Pirate Cobra!) but I'm not sure they're viewed in the same light as we sometimes celebrate them. I still can't quite shake the feeling that this Mega Man is more like a Japanese-oriented stereotype of a westerner than a loving throwback to the West's early gaming culture.

Not that a pulp robot/space hero write-up can't work with a weight problem; Mr. Incredible made middle-aged overweight superheroes charming, while Zapp Brannigan also manages just fine with an air of self-depreciating class. But there's something to be said that even a strong parody character like Zapp is still widely respected in his world and regarded as an accomplished legendary hero (deserved or not), whereas "Mega Man" seems to be the smelly, crazed-looking lunatic off the street that you try desperately not to make direct eye contact with as he steps onto your subway platform and mumbles something about a top-secret mission to Antarctica. He "gets no respect" in his world, or likely any other.

The weight thing also reminds me a lot of a passing joke that was presented for Rockman's 10th anniversary. The "Real Rockman" was just a big heavy blob of a character in a Rockman suit, next to a presumably equally "Real" Blues with a square-looking chin and muscle-bound frame. There isn't much in common besides the fat, but it's the same joke that has been slapped onto him. And now, because this is the first official portrayal of BBA Mega Man as a character, he'll probably be carrying it for as long as he is re-used or remembered.

Have... have they shown what his "Roll" is like?

Joseph Collins link

1/29/2012 05:46:11 pm

Old Man Mega Man's Roll is probably Frank West in his Roll Casket outfit. Or maybe Frank West in an outfit like Roll from the US cartoon. Hah!

LBD "Nytetrayn" link

1/30/2012 06:59:59 pm

Yeah, I've seen the "He's fat because he's AMERICAN Mega Man" thing thrown around a bit. Deliberate or not, intended to be offensive or not, does Capcom really want something in there which might be construed as racist?

On top of that, the usual follow-up I've seen to the above is "that's why he's got a gun, too." Of course, Mega Man has his arm cannon, but on the original box and BBA MM (and this to a lesser degree), the weapon is more "gun-ish."

nonA

1/30/2012 08:13:33 am

"Capcom's English Speaking PR needs to be fired"
Actually, Capcom needs to receive some Japanese PRs. They apparently have none. Two games cancelled without a single reason?

Capcom's English Speaking PR needs to be fired. FOR THE THIRD TIME NOW.

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