Mighty No. 9 - Keiji Inafune / comcept kicksarter project

[brunoafh]

Mega Man himself is pretty much Astro Boy anyway so...

Mega Man is Casshern. (poking fun, but Rush is mostly definitely from Casshern)

[ZeroAX]

Can somebody provide me with a link to that fan poll about which design to use for the main female character?

[GSZX1337]

The design for Beck reminded me more of Astro Boy than Mickey Mouse.

Mega Man himself is pretty much Astro Boy anyway so...

So the same can be said about pretty much every Japanese robot?

[Gunstar Green]

As opposed to what, the old Mickey Mouse-esque Mega Man?

Out of the main (regular+X) series, only Powered up and 8 had that overtly kiddie look. 7 was borderline maybe, but still didn't look like a character from a cute em up game.

Does not look like Mickey Mouse

Does not look like Mickey Mouse

Well, let's look at some official art instead of sprites.





I'm looking specifically at the head here and the "crow's peak" sort-of shape that Mega Man's helmet and Mickey's face share. Also there's the large head in relation to body size.

I'm certainly not saying Mickey is a direct inspiration or anything but it's not reaching any more than to say Beck looks like Mickey Mouse.

Though if you want to get technical Mega Man's design comes from Astro Boy which was created by Osamu Tezuka whose art style was self-admittedly inspired by Disney so we come full circle.

Also I'm not talking about X at all because he's a different character and more shonen-hero inspired.

It's funny that you should bring up Mickey Mouse though, considering this is like a new age version of Mickey succeeding Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, except in this case Mega Man is a pop culture icon that's not going away.

Mega Man's original series art has always been "kiddy" with exaggerated cartoon features and implausible robots with big googly eyes, so I don't know what you're talking about there. Let's look at the title screen and box art to the original Rockman.





He got a bit taller and less goofy as the series went on though they they started reversing this with the Official Complete Works art. Mega Man 7 and 8 are only more cartoonish looking in game because they had better graphics to work with. The Japanese art at least has always been overly cute. Regardless I don't see how any of the Mighty No. 9 art is more "kiddy" than the original Mega Man games.

[Menegrothx]

Well, let's look at some official art instead of sprites.

That's the thing, the cover art might've always been "kiddy" (except in the US during the first few games), but I didn't get that impression while playing the actual games.

Given the industrial theme of the games, I don't feel like this new style fits the game so well. If it was more nature based/cute em up style, it'd feel more natural. If they're not going for a Mega Man 9/10 look, I'd personally use an improved version of the Mega Man X look. I love this kind of artstyle in a game like Rayman Origins, but given the style and feel of the series, I think it doesn't fit Mega Man very well. Either way as long as the gameplay is fine, graphics are irrelevant to me.

[jinx]

Can somebody provide me with a link to that fan poll about which design to use for the main female character?

Not quite time yet. They're still working on the designs, and they will announce it on their "community updates". Right now they're doing enemy designs. I'm sure that Call will have to wait a while due to everybody split between the two designs.

Somebody did a quick recolor on the hair. I think I rather black hair with the previous outfit:

Here are links to the ones causing all the fuss. Both are fan-made, but officially recognized:
Blonde:
http://shadow2810.deviantart.com/art/Ca ... w2810&qo=1

Pink Hair:
http://shadow2810.deviantart.com/art/Ca ... w2810&qo=0

[Gunstar Green]

@Menegrothx

To be fair we haven't seen any of the finalized designs in motion yet or even any of the levels beyond the concept stage, so I'll reserve judgement either way until we at least have a demo to look at.

I get your point even if I still disagree a little since a lot of the in game graphics of the NES games are pretty silly and cartoony, mainly in regards to stage enemies and mini-bosses.

Similar to what you're saying, the art style of the Mega Man Zero games threw me at first because I didn't feel it fit the really dark universe it was portraying. It's grown on me over time though.

[jinx]

Interesting; we're talking about making the first phase of Call selection just line art (not colored-in) for this very reason -- we want people to choose the design they like, and its really hard to separate that from colors, especially the hair but even clothes and such...

Yeah, the more we think about it and esp reading all the comments it just really seems to make more and more sense... We could then do coloring next; heck, everyone in the community could even have fun coloring in the line art in different ways....

@Jinx -- Yeah, glad you agree! And agree with you on the debates and talk, lots of fun to read, and so glad everyone is staying so cool about it
(｀_´)ゞ

So yeah... Looks like that's a thing.

[Ack]

Well, let's look at some official art instead of sprites.

That's the thing, the cover art might've always been "kiddy" (except in the US during the first few games), but I didn't get that impression while playing the actual games.

Given the industrial theme of the games, I don't feel like this new style fits the game so well. If it was more nature based/cute em up style, it'd feel more natural. If they're not going for a Mega Man 9/10 look, I'd personally use an improved version of the Mega Man X look. I love this kind of artstyle in a game like Rayman Origins, but given the style and feel of the series, I think it doesn't fit Mega Man very well. Either way as long as the gameplay is fine, graphics are irrelevant to me.

It could be that the art style used for the NES games' gameplay was only chosen due to the limitations of the hardware. Look at Mega Man 7:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHjiUOQ_4dg

But anyway, you're right that if the gameplay is great, it won't really matter how it looks. As long as it doesn't look like the US MM1 box art.

[ZeroAX]

Somebody did a quick recolor on the hair. I think I rather black hair with the previous outfit:

Here are links to the ones causing all the fuss. Both are fan-made, but officially recognized:
Blonde:
http://shadow2810.deviantart.com/art/Ca ... w2810&qo=1

Pink Hair:
http://shadow2810.deviantart.com/art/Ca ... w2810&qo=0

Blonde one looks like female Zero, pink haired one looks like the girl from Megaman Legends 3.

I would go with the black haired one.