Very awesome article, Patrick. I was really, really looking forward to Mega Man Legends 3. MML is one of my most beloved franchises. But regardless of the cancellation, the way Capcom has been handling it has been..interesting, to say the least. I would love it if you could follow up on the bit about people being turned away from Capcom's booth. That part has me really intrigued.

i love these kind of editorials that Patrick does...  even though i couldnt care less about MML3 i still feel bad for the fans of the game.

Meanwhile, Udon is putting out their huge Mega Man fanart book fairly soon (if it isn't already released that is) in which they received somewhere in the hundreds for entries (just from Deviant Art alone, not sure on other entries). Yeah, Mega Man doesn't have that many fans seems like they're just trying to blame the people and not themselves. I get that MML3 was game made with the help of the fans, but from everything I've seen of this game it looked rather professionally done. 
 
It's weird for me to be outraged by this since I wasn't into the project -- I love Mega Man, but I'm not getting a 3DS so there's that -- but it's just the bitter assholery brought on by Capcom's PR people and Dev teams that has been grating on my nerves. Though, from my perspective I saw this coming as I tend to find Capcom as a company that doesn't go too far from what it knows. Hence why they like selling the games to us. Or at least that's just my opinion.

I just hope the end result for all this is some kind of hilarious 'gritty reboot'.

@ryanwho said:

I just hope the end result for all this is some kind of hilarious 'gritty reboot'.

With retro 16-bit graphics.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.

Seems like Megaman and Sonic are just cursed brands that no one should ever put hope into.

Capcom must really hate Inafune for leaving if they are cancelling all the Megaman projects he started. But this is going too far!!

Thank God they keep cancelling these original Mega Man games in order to focus more on re-releasing Dead Rising 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Because really, who wants to take a chance on new titles when you can just re-sell the old ones with subtle changes?

I love how Patrick takes all his news from GAF, LOL.

Neat article & from what Capcom has decided on the last couple years of decisions on the games that they make/kill as well as the design, this just digs them deeper in a pit of disinterest which makes me less likely to put any money into what they do. 

They realized they couldn't repackage MML3 9 months later and sell it for $40 so they cancelled it.

This showes a big difference between Capcom and Team Sonic. If the support and/or quality isn't there, Capcom won't release a game with their mascot. Team Sonic will jam Sonic down any clunky game design and ship em out the door.

I always found it weird that they didn't put Megaman in MvC3, and now he's most likely not in UMvC3 either. Megaman just keeps getting the short end of the stick. I certainly would have bought the Legends 3 demo, hell I'd still buy it.

Would you rather have a game be cancelled, or have it released only to discover it's absolute shit?

Asking/allowing people who have no experience in game design or development to participate in a game's design/development on ANY level is a horrible idea.

Hmm

CRAPCOM

Just change the name to MegaMan Forever and it will come out eventually

Capcom's decision to tie MML3 to the 3DS is what tempered my interest. I had and still have no plans to pick up a 3DS. If they would have also announced it for XBLA or 360 as a full game, they would have had much more interest from me, as a fan. I'm really sad to see that MML3 is cancelled though.

You know what, make this game my damn self! Fans were putting in effort anyways, so blah.

I just hope the end result for all this is some kind of hilarious 'gritty reboot'.

@Junpei said:

Just change the name to MegaMan Forever and it will come out eventually

And give it to Gearbox

I'm more concerned why Big O's head is popping up in the final image.

Dayum Capcom, you dun goofed up. 

I was really disappointed that this game won't be made.

Hopefully articles like this can change capcom's mind about the cancellation. I mean, come on - Okamiden was a WAYYY more niche project and probably sold a lot less than MML3 would..

I've never liked the Megaman series, but this is definitely a bad way of handling things on Capcom's part.

One thing that didn't seem touched on that makes this whole situation worse was the Prototype. It was essentially like Case Zero, maybe a bit less, with a built in debug editor. It was going to be the first major title for the 3DS online shop, and was going to cost around 2 dollars
 
 Fans were already familiar that the game wasn't in the best situation, and Capcom and the developers said that sales of a demo would decide the fate of the project. Yes, that's as retarded as it sounds but we were going to bite and buy it anyway. If anything else Mega Man Legend 3 Gmod Edition would have been a consolation prize. However, Capcom delayed and canceled that one too. Canceling is one thing, putting out the task and canceling anyway was another thing, but giving a condition and not even letting people submit their efforts in the first place makes the fanbase feel betrayed. It's like saying "you must win this horserace to get the prize. Oh, we just killed your horse and the race is over now."
 
TL;DR Capcom held the game hostage then killed the hostage before the ransom note was sent.

All capcom had to do was kick the can in the backery a couple times 

Score another point for Japanese publishers. Capcom seems content to pull back and milk the safe franchises that they assume will appeal to the stereotypical Western gamer. Who knows what the fuck Konami is doing these days (Metal Gear?!). Sega is Sega. Square-Enix-Eidos and friends have cast such a wide net they've lost all sense of what their brand is anymore other than a billion Final Fantasy spinoffs. Nintendo continues to make money but is still confounded by the Western online and digital download markets.
 
Really the only Japanese publisher who seems to consistently take risks and even attempts to understand the Western markets is Atlus, who's been unafraid to release small titles, "Japanese" games, and a slew of non-mainstream genres. Kudos to them.

Cpacom killd the game because mega man legends series sucked balls  and mega man legends 3 was sucking just as much and it was a bad idea to even start making it  . 
 
So they killed the game they don't  need an explanation and the only people whining are a bunch of insane people and noob who was like 7 years old 10 fucking years ago only had a 3d bit console and don't know what a good mega man game is and how it is the prime example of the worst way possible to make a 3d version of a 2d game.
 
Hint Check the virtual console on wii in the NES sNES section or buy mega man 9 and 10. for a real mega man game.
 
And the fucking mega man got his weapons from a garbage can and ducked taped them on so  not get them from Dr.light or in a more bad ass way of steal them from the lifeless bodies of his dead enemies. 
  
No no this one made it from parts he find in junk yards and flea markets and then ducked taped the crap getto parts onto his body it's not even a fucking mega man game it's like saying the fucking pokemon wannabe mega man battlenetwork starforce is a real mega man game (it is not ) no no it's a fucking disaster  with the mega man name stamped on it it's like the castlevania game on n64 in the amount of suck it brought to the mega man name when it was change over into 3d .   it's like the fucking disasters sonic has had in 3d but capcom is smarter and they killed off the crap mega man legends series before it drove mega man legends name into te ground in it's puddle of suckage where sonic is today.  (If only they killed it as fast as final fight street wise then we would not be stuck with 2 mega man legends games)
 
Bad controls bad voice acting bad story, and it look like ass no redeeming qualities period and the best thing about the game was fucking kicking a can with the horrible controls. 
 
Oh and the lego men that they ripped of from Lego,  but then again the whole mega man series is a astro boy rip off.
 
The game sucked  give it up and 100,000 people is next to nothing in games sells these days so capcom don't give a fuck what you people think.  
 
The only reason this was even thought about being brought back was   Keiji Inafune mad man like obsession with his most crap series like the fucking duke nukem forever project leader only capcom told him "no and you are fucking insane" for 10 years rather than let him make this crap and spend millions over 12 years, The dude said yes to this crap set up a team to make it because he knew he was leaving and he didn't give a fuck if capcom fired him for putting dev time and money into it, 
 
If you thought capcom was going to go for putting out a crap mega man series that nobody cares about except for insane people who like crap games and don't sell  think again even I saw this coming, this crap won't sell and the game was horrible so they killed it.  It will sell even less on 3ds since NOBODY fucking bought a 3d since al lit has is ports of crap n64 games from nintendo. 
 
Capcom did the right thing in other words if this crap was going on at nintendo  Shigeru Miyamoto would have over turned the tea table and forced a redo or kill the game and never speak of it again and with mega man legends history of suckage it is best to kill it forever and nintendo don't say jack when they kill of the crap games they are making you will not hear of it 99% of the time.

@ptys: Stop your elaborate trollin', son. There ain't no one takin' ya serious like.

Would you rather have a game be cancelled, or have it released only to discover it's absolute shit?

I don't mind if they canceled it for quality, the issue is the handling of the announcement. It was poor timing, gave little explanation why, and the sociopath running the CapcomEuro twitter account isn't helping the situation.

No biggy, only been waiting 11 years for another Legends game.
 
It was a shitty project to begin with, the game didn't belong on the 3ds. The MML franchise needs to be rethought and re-imagined like when Metroid went from 2d to Prime. I would love to see a super-realistic first/third-person zelda-esque Legends game come out with real thought and real time put behind it for a more powerful system. Maybe make it a bit along the same play style as the Elder Scrolls franchise where you could customize your megaman for malleable gameplay. Perhaps, ranged combat with different abilities or make Megaman more like Zero if you wish and have him with an energy sword and shield if you want to play the game in a melee style. Bring me THAT legends game.
 
Rocketman's been getting augmentations to take down the villainous cronies of Dr. Wiley since long before Deus Ex was even in diapers...and they're giving that game a fresh coat of paint after 10 years of downtime. I want the future of Megaman...not MML on 3ds.

I thought the Dev Room was a stupid idea. Well...not a stupid idea. But the execution was awful. There's nothing there that couldn't have been done with a Facebook page, to be honest. It's retarded of any company to expect people to sign up for YET ANOTHER service/website/whatever in this day and age. I, for one, am tired of giving up my personal information to every frickin' company out there who thinks they're special (that applies to you too, EA. Frickin' stupid Origins bullsh**).
 
I just...I really didn't want to go to the Dev Room. Much like how I have a Wii, but don't wanna go through the bullsh** process of buying Wiiware games. That's Nintendo's fault for making it so unnecessarily difficult. Just like how the "failure" of the Dev Room is AT LEAST as much Capcom's fault as any of the fans. How many fans are actually part of that "Capcom-Unity" blog or site? I'm willing to bet it's a WHOLE LOT LESS than the amount of people who bought Street Fighter IV, or buy Monster Hunter. You can't judge the worth of Mega Man Legends 3 based on the amount of people who, or who don't, participate in your silly experiment. There were better ways to get fans excited and involved.  Sh**; you're the company who, back in the day, went to Nintendo Power and Famitsu and asked fans to draw up their own Robot Master designs so you could incorporate them into Mega Man 6!
 
And you better believe Mega Man is worth it, Capcom. No one cares about Lost Planet. People are frickin' sick of your incessant game tweaking (multiple revisions of Dead Rising 2, Street Fighter IV, MvC3, etc.). But one thing that gamers will ALWAYS love is the Blue Bomber. WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT!?! 
 
So I hope you get your sh** together Capcom. Drop this Dragon's Dogma stuff and worry about what's important: re-establishing the Blue Bomber. Put together a full blown, well--budgeted production for HD Consoles. Or finish up Mega Man Legends 3 for the 3DS. 
 
I can't believe Inafune-san left Capcom without grooming another "godfather" for Mega Man. You know, like how Miyamoto has groomed Eiji Aounuma to take over Zelda since Ocarina of Time came out? Or how he groomed Yoshiaki Koizumi to take over the Mario series from Sunshine onwards? How could there not have been someone at Capcom to pick up Inafune's torch when he left? Or AT LEAST someone like Yoshinori Ono, who practically single-handedly willed Street Fighter IV into fruition? I mean, he had to go to e3, comic con, TGS, all these places, and get fan support personally to show that it's a product people want and that's worth pursuing. Where's that guy for Mega Man? 
 
Of course, there is the flip side. That Mega Man Legends 3 was just sh*t. And that Capcom was looking at, say, the Sonic series and deemed it too damaging to the brand's reputation. I mean, Yuji Naka left Sonic team after Sonic Adventure (I think), but they kept pumping 'em out and a whole lot of gamers got sick of 'em (and, unfortunately stopped playing when they eventually got great again). Maybe Capcom was trying to prevent that kinda situation and genuinely just killed Legends 3 and Universe because they were sh**. I mean, Universe overtly looked like sh** (like Mega Man Powered Up with all the charm sucked out), so it's a possibility. Also, maybe they're just pulling support for the 3DS  - Ubi Soft killed some 3DS Assassin's Creed no one noticed they announced. But if that's the case, then why not AT LEAST let him into MvC3? Something's really rotten here, and I'm not liking it Capcom...

Just change the name to MegaMan Forever and it will come out eventually

The whole "Customer Loyalty Test" was always going to be a hideous, noisome gimmick, even if they shipped the game: "If enough of you don't buy the incomplete demo, we'll cancel the game, so beg all your friends! It's all up to you!" We're your fucking customers, assholes. Finish your product and ship your game and we'll decide whether to pay for it.
 
That they actually did cancel the thing is totally outrageous. I (like a lot of commenters) don't quite "get" people who are attached to Mega Man Legends, but they do exist. My brother is in conniptions. They're not quite the same demographic as the old Mega Man players and people who loved Mega Man 9 (that would be me), but they're loyal and MML seems to have been a legit "thing" after most of us stopped paying attention 10 minutes after it came out.
 
Capcom deserves every cubic centimeter of grief, and considerably more than that small community can likely generate. Then again, it's Capcom. If they had shipped the game, probably half of it would have been locked behind a 47KB piece of DLC costing $10.

I wouldn't be surprised if Inafune has some rights to megaman or gets royalties for anything megaman related and Capcom don't want to give him money.

@subatomicpizza said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Inafune has some rights to megaman or gets royalties for anything megaman related and Capcom don't want to give him money.

I can't see this possibly being the case.  Megaman was made back in the 1980s.  I don't think any dev or publisher back then was giving individual creators ownership rights back then.

I'm really not liking Capcom's way of doing business as of late, it started with the RE5 mode and SFIV DLC but with the recent news about UMvC3 and the way that this was handled ( the news about the game itself really don't resound with me since I've never liked MML series) it's growing out to be my least favorite Publisher/Developer which is a coveted place since the gaming industry is filled with bad cases, the sad thing is that all these things probably won't hurt their sales one bit.

It baffles me that that there are still people who care about Megaman in 2011.

This is really, really bad on Capcom's part. I didn't care one bit about this game, but screwing over the fans like this and not being as transparent as they had promised is really bad.
 
Heck, I used to be a huge Mega Man fan and I still like the old ones, but I haven't liked a new Mega Man game at all since maybe Mega Man Zero 2, which wasn't all that good. Mega Man 9 and 10 are horrible.

@ptys: Stop your elaborate trollin', son. There ain't no one takin' ya serious like.

Tough week for Megaman fans huh?  No Megaman in Super Duper Ultimate (give us your money!) Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and this. 

Capcom needs to stop pretending things are going well for them. JUST ADMIT IT, YOUR SHIT IS ALL FUCKED. They keep making terrible moves. You know, if you wanted more interest in the project, maybe you should have put the word out. I'm not the biggest Capcom or MM fan. I had NO IDEA any of this was happening. But I tend to keep up fairly well with this stuff. They just never put it out there, and expected everyone to know and care about it? It's silly. I get the feeling this has nothing to do with project issues and everything to do with company issues.

@ptys said:

@Hailinel

@ptys: Stop your elaborate trollin', son. There ain't no one takin' ya serious like.

Who died and made you lead council, your royal highness?.. It's a valid point.

Cubical's points are too poorly argued to be valid.