Mega Man Legacy Collection – feature update

When we last shared screens and footage of this summer’s Mega Man Legacy Collection, it was an early version of the game. Today we’ve got some new screens and details on the game’s various features – plus a live stream planned for Thursday, Juli 16 from 4 – 5pm Pacific Time!

Challenge Mode: At E3 we had six challenges ready to play. The final game will have more than 50 challenges, each with their own leaderboard and video replay functionality. During Thursday’s stream I’ll run through a few new ones just to show ’em off, but for more examples take a peek at the screens above and below.

A certain amount will be open from the start. To access more, you’ll need to obtain at least a Bronze medal in a handful of challenges. Wie du siehst, the above challenges are not available until I S T E P U P.

Museum: The exhaustive museum is loaded with MM1~6 art, acting both as a great bonus feature und as a form of digital preservation. That actually ties into the “philosophy” behind MMLC – focus on the original six titles and get them running in a beautiful format, then surround them with of-the-era art and fliers to really complete the “time capsule” feeling.

While I do have a special place in my heart for MM7, it and the 32-bit MM8 aren’t part of MMLC’s goal to archive and preserve the 8-bit titles that started it all. Their uniform look and late 80s/early 90s tech make them great candidates for Digital Eclipse’s preservation efforts, while the 16- and 32-bit entries would require different techniques. Instead of using typical emulation, DE is “rebuilding” these six games in the Eclipse Engine using original source assets.

Flicker/Slowdown: For the most part, much of the original flicker and slowdown is still present in MMLC. The games have software-level flicker/slowdown that was programmed into the games, and continuing with the philosophy of developing this title, the games are being historically preserved as they were originally coded and designed. Jedoch, certain Hardware limitations that were not part of the code have been addressed, such as life bar flickering during the Copy Robot battle in Mega Man 1, or Mega Man flickering when two horns rise up from the Goblins in Air Man’s stage. Visual hiccups like this weren’t part of the code, and were instead restrictions imposed by the hardware.

It’s hard to tell from the screen, so if you come check out the stream on Thursday you will get a better look at this.

Filters: While one of the biggest draws of MMLC is the crystal clear picture, we’ve also enabled some Tube TV-style filters that can metaphorically teleport you back to the days of crappy screens and blurry… everything! So if you’d like to experience the games with scan lines and some ghosting effects, go nuts!

Screen display: At E3 we streamed the game in its “Full” format (see above). Since then we’ve added an additional viewing mode called “Original.” We also have a 16:9 stretch mode just to round out the options for folks who want to play that way.

Original : The sharpest possible image that maintains the original game’s intended aspect ratio. Sharp as a tack!

Full : The Original picture stretched to fit the screen vertically. This is how the game was presented at E3, which is still quite clean but the “stretch” does introduce a minor blur since this is not its native form.

Borders: We showed this at E3 but didn’t post screenshots, so this may be the first time some of you see optional borders that will fill the sides of the screen. They’re themed for each Mega Man game! The top screen is in “Original” Modus, while the bottom is “Full” – since the Original screen takes up less space, the more of the border is seen.

Database: Each game has its own database that contains enemy images, descriptions and flavor text. From here you can also battle each of the Robot Masters using any weapon from the respective game as sort of a “practice run” that lets you get their patterns down before tackling them in the full game.

Music player: Und schlussendlich, all six soundtracks are included via a handy music player! Some of gaming’s greatest OSTs, without a doubt.

We’ll stream the latest build on Thursday 7/16 from 4-5pm Pacific Time (that’s 7pm Eastern/6 Central). Bis dann, check out our art contest und life-size Mega Man helmet !