Forget Lost Planet and Dead Rising Sequels, Where’s My Mega Man Legends 3?

Capcom’s been going all out lately, having recently announced sequels to their first shots at next-gen development, Dead Rising and Lost Planet. Combine those titles with their already announced Bionic Commando, Dark Void, Resident Evil 5, and their recently released Street Fighter IV, and Capcom has one hell of a line-up for 2009. But with all these games, we’ve yet to see one character make his jump to next-gen, and his name is Mega Man.

Okay, Mega Man 9 came to the PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE, but although it was a full new game, it’s not to be considered a true next-gen title. No, people, I’m talking about a little game called Mega Man Legends. You remember playing the first and second game on your PSone, don’t you? I sure as hell do.

What ticked me off was exactly how Mega Man Legends 2 ended. Mega Man, Yuna, and Sera were left stuck on Elysium with Roll and Tron Bonne arguing about how to save Mega Man. A finish to the series was never created by Capcom, however, leaving questions left to be asked at the end of the game. “I wonder how Mega Man is doing” said Data. So do we.

The gameplay was simple. You’re Mega Man, you have your basic buster and then you have your upgrades. However, instead of being a 2D sidescroller, the game was in 3D and featured towns and dungeons, adding interactions with NPCs and store purchases to the series. As well as finding out what to do rather than just heading straight towards the end of each level.

(screen from Legends Station)

Mega Man series creator, Keiji Inafune, told 1UP in 2007 that he wants to make a Mega Man Legends 3 so he’s on the right track, saying it’s as easy as throwing Mega Man in the Lost Planet and Dead Rising engines.

“If I was able to make a sequel without having to worry about money in any shape or form, I think it probably would be Mega Man Legends 3. And that’s not just me — a lot of the original team members would also love to make a sequel. They talk about it. I talk about it sometimes. I know they love that series and so do I. If I were to say right now, I have a tiny, tiny, tiny dream that I wish I could realize, but I don’t know if it’s possible, it would be to do a sequel in the Legends series. The framework that we used for our next-gen titles, creating it was not easy — it took talented individuals. One was the main programmer on Mega Man Legends. He said, while creating it, he was envisioning how Lost Planet would fit in it, and how Dead Rising would fit, and on top of that, now ‘any time you want to make a Mega Man Legends game with this framework, it’s ready. All I need is the go and we can slap Mega Man in there.”

So, it’s obvious Inafune wants to work on a third game, but at the time said money was a problem. However, with Capcom announcing so many games lately and games like Street Fighter IV already selling two million copies, I don’t believe that’s the case any longer.

The case now is Inafune’s free time since he’s already producing Dead Rising 2 and Lost Planet 2. But the question is, why announce a sequel to the two-year old games when a sequel for a game released in the year 2000 is just waiting to be created, and on the top of Inafune’s list as well. Well, it definitely has something to do with Capcom’s decisions rather than Infaune’s himself. That’s how corporate works.

An announcement can be on its way for all we know, but if I had a choice, I would put Dead Rising 2 and Lost Planet 2 on hold and make way for Mega Man Legends 3, the next-gen Mega Man every fan is waiting for.