They Don’t Do Like This Anymore: Mega Man 8

With the gaming world in a lather over the news about Mega Man 9, now’s a good time to look at the game’s predecessor: Mega Man 8.

Released in Amerikay during the winter of 1997, Mega Man 8 was a 2D No-No in Sony of America’s eyes. However, it did manage to make it Stateside without Capcom resorting to holding another title hostage (re: Resident Evil 2). Future platformers wouldn’t be so lucky.

In fact, Sony was actually pretty cool with Mega Man 8 not being a Saturn exclusive. That was a year or so before it became obvious that the Playstation was going to spit on the Saturn and grind it into the ground with its left buttock.

Like most late ’90s games, Mega Man 8 eased its 32-bit growing pains with an anime introduction. Though not exceptionally done by today’s standards, the video was a thrill to watch if you were familiar with Mega Man’s exploits on the NES. What was cooler than re-living past battles through hip Japanese animation?

Mega Man runs into Charge Man—

Wait, let me add itallics so that you understand the gravity of the situation.

Mega Man runs into Charge Man. As in, Mega Man meets headlong with a god damn robot train. He grabs Charge Man by the ankle, swings and throws him into Pharaoh Man, who’s lording it up from the top of his pyramid.

Anyone who says the original Blue Bomber isn’t capable of being hardcore needs to check themselves into a lunatic asylum.

Purists prefer the Japanese opening for Rockman 8, and it’s hard to blame them. The Jpop song “Electrical Communication” is definitely catchier than the generic computer noise we got:

Purists also prefer the Japanese voice acting. You might say “That’s stupid, if you don’t understand Japanese, how are you supposed to know what’s going on in the cutscenes?”

To be fair, it’s not like we can tell what the hell’s going on in the “English” cut scenes, either.

(Image copyright Capcom)