The 250th issue of Nintendo Power has confirmed that Capcom is working on a new Mega Man game, although they did not give any indication of a release date. Since this is going to be 10th release in the Mega Man series, the game has been aptly titled Mega Man 10.
Capcom is adamant in retaining the original feel and visual appeal of Mega Man from its early days on the NES. Mega Man 10 will retain its old-school charm of 8-bit style graphics and game-play elements of a side-scrolling 2-D shoot ‘em up. The article was not forthcoming with a lot of details; however, it does provide some insight into this new game. The game will feature a total of eight Robot Master Bosses and defeating each of them will give Mega Man access to their special weapons. One of those bosses will be especially susceptible to a certain type of weapon’s effects and this is something that will be left to the players to figure out. To facilitate this style of play, the game’s levels can be attempted in a non-linear fashion and this should mean that you can devise your own strategy to beat the game.
The game’s premise is about finding a cure for Robotenza—a virus that affects robots, causing erratic behavior and overheating. The main objective of the game will be to find different parts of a vaccine against this dreaded virus. Joining forces with Mega Man will be his mysterious ‘brother’ Proto Man. Available only as DLC in Mega Man 9, Proto Man will be a playable character from get-go in Mega Man 10. He will come with his own set of skills like the ability to charge his shots and even block smaller enemy projectiles. Now what we would like to see is some co-operative game-play with these two characters in tandem. The article also mentioned that there will be a third playable character in Mega Man 10; however Capcom is choosing to keep mum about its identity for now.
Since this was announced in a Nintendo special magazine, it only confirms the game’s release on Wii Ware. However, going by past network-games releases from Capcom, especially with Mega Man 9, we can expect to see Mega Man 10 on the XBLA and PSN Store also.