Mega Man has had three major high points. The first is obviously the classic era series, specifically Mega Man 2. Mega Man 1 was well received, but it was mostly word of mouth that spread the game’s popularity. 2 was the instance where everyone started taking about Mega Man. Capcom then rode that out to make 3, 4, 5, and 6. I loved all of them, and I actually prefer 3 over 2. 4 is one that I find incredibly underrated as well. But I can’t argue that 2 was by far the most influential. Mega Man 2 and 3 were the earliest million-selling Mega Man games. After 2, it went downhill.

Then the series was rejuvenated not with a direct sequel, but a new spinoff: Mega Man X. X was the next million selling game (there are only 5 million selling Mega Man games, out of all 129 official releases over 25 years). X is an absolutely perfect game. It took everything the classic series did and refined it, making it an action experience that was really unparalleled for the time. I’d say it’s my favorite action game on the SNES. It’s concise, tight, well-developed, and as Egoraptor pointed out, it made great use of cinematics and theming. Mega Man X was the third million selling Mega Man game. All of the X games went downhill in sales from there, though I personally think they maintained a very high level of quality throughout, X6 and X7 notwithstanding. X1-5 and X8 are all excellent action games, and X8 is a criminally underrated gem in the PS2 library.

Legends was not another high point of the franchise (sales-wise), though some fans will try to argue otherwise. Truth is, those games did not sell at all. Legends 1 has sold approximately 120,000 units globally in its entire lifetime, across all platforms. Legends 2 sits at almost 100,000. Rumor has it that these games, with their higher budgets, actually put Capcom in debt even after they made a crapload of money with the start of the popular Resident Evil brand. The next high point was the Battle Network series, which had the third and fourth million selling games, Battle Network Battle Network 3 and 4 were both million selling games. It brought new life and new attention to the series in a big way after X. Legends was not the shot in the arm the franchise needed, though they are excellent games. Mario had Super Mario 64 to bring him into 3D, but unfortunately for Mega Man, it didn’t work out. It just wasn’t lucky with the mainstream. While Mega Man never sunk like Sonic (where all of his games became awful and people wondered if it’d be better to kill him off), he’s struggled to come up the mainstream popularity again. I think the issue is that Mega Man never was a Mario or Sonic. He never reached their level of sales or popularity. Heck, even Shadow the Hedgehog, regarded as one of the worst Sonic games ever releases, sold on par with Mega Man X.

With all of that, once Battle Network started to wane (after six main entries with multiple versions, manga and anime adaptations, lots of merchandising, etc), Capcom had to reinvent Mega Man again. Their bets were on ZX, a follow-up to the critically acclaimed Zero series, and Star Force, a follow-up to the far more commercially successful Battle Network series. Both failed to do well. ZX stopped after two entries. Great games, just too far removed from Mega Man. Star Force stopped after three. They were basically the same thing as Battle Network, and it just got too old.

I still think the issue isn’t that the games aren’t of high quality–many times, they are. There are a lot of very good Mega Man games. Capcom hasn’t found a way to make them catch on and become successful. Fans expect Capcom to treat Mega Man like Mario and Sonic, but he’s never reached that level of mainstream appeal. He is well adored by a lot of gamers and as shown by the Legends 3 backlash, it’s a vocal group.

Right now, Capcom is faced with a dilemma. They can let the series rest for awhile and anger fans, but they can let it sleep until someone else takes the reins. They can prove they are willing to take a chance on it with a bold new direction (maybe release something classic to appease the fans, something new to usher in a new change for the franchise, and a collection disk for the anniversary). Or they can ride it out with small risk projects to bank on the dedicated fans. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the awful iOS ports of Mega Man 2 and Mega Man X and this Rockman Xover game, it’s looking like the third option. I just pray I’m proven wrong. Capcom has stated that there are still plans coming together for the 25th anniversary, and that announcements will be coming later this year, so I’m hopeful that something will be unveiled then. Even if I have to wait a year or couple years for a release, that’s ok. It’d just be nice to know that things are moving ahead.