December 4th, 2017, Capcom held a livestream to commemorate the 30th anniversary of one of their
most popular franchises ever: Mega Man. It was an evening of trivia, music, interviews, but the stream's culmination made it a day
Mega Man fans thought would never come; the announcement of the first new Mega Man game
in almost a decade, Mega Man 11. It signaled that the dark times were over, and ushered the dawn of a new era of one of the most
enduring and celebrated franchises in gaming. But there was supposed to be another game that was
gonna usher in the dawn of a new era for Mega Man. And that game was Mighty No. 9. When announced in 2013, Mighty No. 9 took the
gaming world by storm, shattering Kickstarter records by promising to usher in
the next chapter of Mega Man. And in a way, because it flopped so hard, it did. Welcome back to Past Mortem, and to fully understand
the significance of Mega Man 11, we'll need to jump back in and update you on the status
of the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter, the whereabouts of former father of Mega Man,
Keiji Inafune, and his company Comcept, and the state of Mega Man at Capcom, and how everything has now come full circle. Welcome to our third video on Mighty No. 9 and
Keiji Inafune, and it's effect on the big man in blue. ...I am over 30 years old. If you've watched our other two videos, you already
know that Keiji Inafune was a very ambitious man, and his company Concept had a lot of irons in the fire
after his exit from Capcom in 2010. I need to prep you all, we have a lot to cover
before we can get to Mega Man 11, and of course, we gotta start with the infamous
elephant in the room, Mighty No. 9. And there's actually some good news to report! In June 2017, Mighty No. 9's main character Beck
made a cameo in Inti Creates's Mighty Gunvolt Burst, and if you'll remember, Inti Creates were the actual
Mighty No. 9 developers. And Mighty No. 9 even made it onto March 2018's free
PlayStation Plus downloads. ...though you wouldn't know any of this if you paid
attention to Comcept's social media channels. They've all been pretty quiet for the last few years. These seem like the type of things you'd want your fans
to know about. If you'll remember, the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter
was a damn mess, with one very noteworthy problem being the
physical rewards. And I don't mean this "physical reward" that I or anyone
can buy at Walmart, I mean the special Kickstarter goodies promised
to those willing to put down enough cash. Well, 2017 also finally saw the Kickstarter
physical rewards shipped out. But it wouldn't be Mighty No. 9 without something
screwing up First to come in the summer of 2017 were the physical
game box and retro-style manual for $60 pledges. Backers were given the option of either a Famicom or
NES-style box or manual However, the Famicom-sized manuals were incorrectly
sized, and didn't fit the Famicom box. The mismatched boxes and manuals made a lot
of headlines, with many seeing it as a fitting end to a messy
campaign. We reached out to Charlie Verdin of Fangamer, the company responsible for Mighty No. 9's
physical rewards, and they said this error was their fault, not Comcept's. However, Fangamer funded and shipped replacement
manuals out of their own pockets. The final Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter update was in October, an announcement that the rest of the physical rewards
would be sent out by the end of the calendar year, and Verdin said that by year end 2017, Fangamer's business dealings with Comcept
had concluded, with all goods shipped. So many of you might be thinking, "Hey uncle Derek,
Mighty No. 9 came out in 2016, "how come the physical rewards didn't ship until
at least a year later?" Well, in a Polygon article written by Matt Leone about
the type of studio Inafune tried to create with Comcept, former Inafune collaborators Ben Judd, you know, the "It's better than nothing" guy, and Takuya Aizu, CEO of Inti Creates, confirmed what we
mostly suspected. First of all, Mighty No. 9's funding success was largely
predicated on the promise of ten total ports, which was a very tall order and caused major
development issues. As Judd notes, they had to design the game for the
lowest common denominator and go from there. Even more damning, Aizu-san claims that Comcept
didn't account for Kickstarter fees, which ate up 40% of the total money raised. These are things we always suspected, but seeing them
confirmed like this is just... wow. But even more importantly, Inafune was so ready to be
freed from his Capcom cage he became unfocused and overambitious, scattering his attention to the winds instead of
prioritizing on securing his base. I mean, remember the Mighty No. 9 cartoon and movie? This combined with Mighty No. 9's lackluster reception meant that Comcept did not have enough money
to send out the rewards. But they did come out! How was this suddenly possible? Surprisingly, it was not under the Kickstarter. And we don't actually have direct confirmation for this, but the physical manual and boxes came conveniently
one month after a very big development: Inafune's company Comcept was acquired by Level-5. The Japanese developer responsible for mega-hits
like Yo-kai Watch and Professor Layton officially swooped in and scooped up Comcept
in June 2017, incorporating the newly-renamed Level-5 Comcept
as a subsidiary. Outside of Comcept's financial troubles, the acquisition
wasn't as unexpected as you'd think. Level-5's CEO and founder Akihiro Hino is something of
a kindred spirit to Inafune. He too was a career developer who'd left a salaryman
lifestyle to strike it out on his own. Inafune has long admired Hino and, since
a brief collaboration a few months before the launch of the Mighty No. 9
Kickstarter, the two have wanted to collaborate again. In any case, Inafune became the CCO of
Level-5 Comcept as a result, though he hasn't made any public appearances
in this role. Level-5 Comcept is currently working on the
mobile game Dragons & Colonies, set to be released later this year in Japan. So anyway, that is likely the reason for fulfillment
for the physical rewards being possible, so any manual or box-havin' Mighty No. 9 backers
currently enjoying Ni no Kuni 2, pay your respects. But there's still the matter of the Kickstarter
stretch goals, specifically, one of the final Kickstarter stretch goals. Shortly after the acquisition announcement, Comcept promised it would release the elusive
3DS and Vita ports in 2017, but here we are halfway through 2018, and not another
damn word. Nothing. At this point, it's fair to assume they will never
be released, though it's poor form of Comcept not to just officially
announce their cancellation and finally close this casket. I guess technically they are still forthcoming, but at this rate, releasing on anything other than
the Switch would just be leaving money on the table. And not to beat a dead horse here, but 2 Player Productions has also not made any more
episodes of their documentary. I would love to see the rest of that. ...assuming any more was even filmed. Again, we asked Fangamer if there were ever plans for
a DVD release of the documentary, and they said that even early on, the documentary
was never discussed, so we can maybe put the cap on that project, too. So the physical rewards are out, but the 3DS and Vita ports are still M.I.A. Still, we're calling it; the Mighty No. 9 saga
has concluded. It's over. However, there are still a few loose ends. Among other things said in the Level-5 acquisition
announcement, Inafune dropped this little gem: "I will take responsibility for the titles I'm working on
until the end." And I guess to Inafune's credit, one of his other
major projects, the Xbox exclusive ReCore, got a huge patch upgrade, Xbox One X compatibility,
and a fancy rerelease in late 2017. But we found almost no progress in regards to one other
Mega Man-related project he was working on. For Mega Man Legends fans, and we know
you're out there, the big question after the Level-5 acquisition was
"Well, they can finish Red Ash now, right?" But if you're lost, and I don't blame you, here's a quick
refresher. Comcept started a Kickstarter campaign for Red Ash
while Mighty No. 9 was still in development. Slyly billed as a successor to Mega Man Legends, it promised to fill the void left after
Mega Man Legends 2's cliffhanger ending. It's important to note Inafune's burned bridge approach
to leaving Capcom, where he started the Mega Man Legends 3 project
right before he quit the company. Sidenote; this reportedly left a bad taste in
Capcom execs' mouths, and is likely a major reason why there haven't been
any Mega Man titles in the years since. However, perhaps due to burned goodwill from the
Mighty No. 9 campaign, the Red Ash Kickstarter did not catch on, and when it became clear it had failed to attract
enough backers, Comcept was able to pull funding from Chinese
entertainment company Fuze. The Kickstarter ended with the project technically being
unsuccessful, though this deal seemingly rescued the project. Fuze even bragged it and Mighty No. 9 would be coming
to its new console, the Tomahawk F1, in a 2016 press conference. The Tomahawk also apparently didn't do very well. The context around China's console market would need
its own separate video, but just know it's complicated too. In any case, saying a game is coming out
on your console is a lot different from a game actually coming out
on your console, isn't it? Or even confirming it's still being developed? There has been no official word on if Red Ash is
still being developed, and to be honest, we have no reason to believe it is. Since it would require a ton of resources, don't you think
it's something that Level-5 would at least allude to? It's possible It's just on the backburner until Inafune
is able to rehabilitate his public image, so who's to say? There is at least one positive development, though. The Red Ash Kickstarter was not just a Kickstarter,
it was a double Kickstarter! Two Red Ash Kickstarters were actually launched
at the same time, and while the game, subtitled "The Indelible Legend",
didn't get funded, the anime side-project, subtitled "Magicicada",
aka "Gear World", did. This is a 23-minute short movie that aired in Japan
in March 2017, and was delivered to Kickstarter backers in late 2017. Though we found bootleg streams on YouTube with English subtitles, there doesn't seem to be a planned official release
for the West, and it would appear that no other episodes are
in production. Hwooh! And that, my friends, is the end of the story. Keiji Inafune is still gainfully employed, and it's possible some of these unfinished projects
will pop up again, perhaps under the Level-5 banner, but his days as an independent developer,
as a superstar titan of gaming, are over. His fall from grace will no doubt be remembered
as one of the great stories of the decade, and I want to stress that word "decade", because when you talk about Keiji Inafune, Mighty No. 9,
Red Ash, Mega Man 11, you need to remember that this whole story goes back
for years. So with everything else out of the way, let's talk about
Mega Man 11 and why it's a big, big deal. I've been a Mega Man fan since preschool. I could probably do 20 minutes on why Mega Mans
2 and 3 are tied for my favorite games of all time But I've said it before, it's been hard to be a
Mega Man fan, never harder than after Inafune's departure, but
the series was all over the place way before that. A long streak of spin-offs in the previous decade were finally broken by 2008 and 2010's Mega Mans
9 and 10 respectively, which had given the franchise a much-needed
shot in the arm. It felt like Capcom was positioning Mega Man
for a whole new era. They teased games like Mega Man Universe,
Rockman Online, and were even privately working on a
first-person shooter called Maverick Hunter with Metroid Prime and future ReCore developers
Armature Studios. This might look like a weird concept, but remember,
as Capcom's global head of production, Inafune was all about Westernizing Japanese games
by utilizing Western devs and styles. And man, I wish this game had actually got made! This is a dark, gritty reboot that's just dumb enough
for me to get behind! But anyway, the biggest boon to Mega Man fans,
however, was the Mega Man Legends 3 project, launched in September 2010. All these games would be canceled within the year
after Inafune said goodbye to his company of 23 years. After this, Capcom basically shuttered Mega Man. Outside of a few cameos, an officially-sanctioned
fangame, and the first Legacy Collection, which notably was a Western-developed game
largely to the credit of Backbone Entertainment, the Blue Bomber was nowhere to be seen. I'll admit it, a new Battle Network game
every nine months didn't seem so bad. We don't know a lot about what was happening
behind the scenes at Capcom, but Mega Man 11 producer Kazuhiro Tsuchiya
said to Game Informer that "...when Inafune left it was a difficult atmosphere
within the company. "It was difficult for someone to step up and say,
'I really want to work on Mega Man.'" When Inafune left Capcom in 2010, he effectively
took the Mega Man franchise with him. With the success of the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter,
he proved to the world that Megaman was his to lose. And he lost. He lost big time. But he also proved that there's still a huge audience
for Mega Man. When he missed his shot, Capcom simply
picked up the ball. This is of course just speculation, but we can't imagine that Mega Man 11 would exist
in a world where Mighty No. 9 was successful. At the time of producing this video, we don't know much
about Mega Man 11. We've seen two trailers and still don't know a whole lot
about gameplay, or even all the Robot Masters. And quite frankly, this is the first time I've ever seen
a Mega Man trailer and not known exactly what's going on. And that's exciting! I don't know what this game is going to be,
and I love that! We do know that the development team boasts a mix
of veteran Mega Man developers and people who grew up with the series. The most striking aspect of it right now is its
distinctive look. The aesthetic is not 2D, it's not sprite based, hell, it
doesn't really look like any Mega Man game before it. Except one unofficial one. Mighty No. 9 was supposed to be the future of
Mega Man, and in a way, it was. It's hard not to see Inafune's vision, Mighty No. 9's
concept pitch, here in Mega Man 11. We can't talk gameplay yet, we'll probably learn more
at E3, but it definitely looks like they're nudging classic
Mega Man in new directions. Though this slowdown mechanic feels like a reaction
to Mighty No. 9, because it's the antithesis to what that game
was all about. But I don't want to age this video too much
with wild speculation. Besides, there's something much deeper going on here. I think Mega Man 11 received a somewhat
muted response from fans. At least speaking for just myself, it took me a while
to actually get excited about it. After everything I as a Mega Man fan had endured with
Mighty No. 9, my heart just wasn't ready. We've had to watch Mega Man die twice, first when Inafune left Capcom, and again with
the mismanagement of Mighty No. 9. So in a sense, Mega Man 11 is a game almost ten years
in the making, and Inafune is still driving the creative direction
of the series However, Mega Man 11 effectively ushers in the
post-Inafune era of Mega Man. Though the title of "father" was mostly just marketing
spin, he still had hands on every Mega Man game. But now, never again. And I know there's still plenty of reason to suspect
that Capcom will bungle this up, but it's exciting to think that not only is Mega Man back,
but we're in uncharted territory, people! We're ready to see what happens next in the
Blue Bomber saga, because shit, our boy is finally back! And you know what? That's certainly better than nothing. We're sure this story is far from over, but when the next
big scoop happens, you'll know how it got there. For Grace Kramer and Derek Alexander, this is
Past Mortem, signing off. Thank you so much for watching! Again, this is our third video on the subject of
Mighty No. 9 and Keiji Inafune. We've done... a little bit of work researching this topic, so if you want to learn a lot more, please check out
those other two videos. And a huge shout out to the SoberDwarf for helping
with the edit on this video, check out his video on Okami, another Capcom game, check that out, synergy, figured it out. This is a Patreon-supported show,
Stop Skeletons From Fighting is made possible by the generosity of every single one of these
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see you again real soon, stay powerful!
No one gonna point out the obvious joke here? 9? 11? The blue bomber? Really?
I probably shouldn't, but I legitimately feel bad for Mighty No. 9. I definitely think Inafune took a job that he couldn't handle within a reasonable time frame. I do think that a sequel, if it were to come, would definitely improve upon the formula and previous mistakes, especially considering Mega Man 1 was rusty too.
I'm probably just being an apologist though with my attitude.
yeah I think the reception to Mega Man 11's announcement was rather muted as well, and it was in part due to the franchise's extended dormancy. part of the problem now is an uncertainty about whether or not this formula of gameplay can survive in today's gaming world. and at this point in time, we're dealing with a more hospitable climate for side-scrolling action than we've had in years, but one wonder what happens after Mega Man 11. reception to the cartoon doesn't seem good. Mega Man 9 only received one sequel - Mega Man 10.
A lot can be done with Mega Man 11, so we'll see! one key thing that Capcom had to get right was a new art style, and wrt to both Classic and X, they nailed that. so that's one hurdle cleared