Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.
There was a time, years ago, when Mega Man fans were feeling mega-fatigued. Capcom was publishing so many sequels in so many spin-off series so close together to each other that it was impossible to keep up! Looking back on it now, we should have foreseen the brand's crash long before it finally happened. Perhaps some did.
But now that Mega Man has been almost entirely inactive for the past several years, I can't wait to play his latest sequel, Mega Man 11! Had Capcom kept pumping out more and more Mega Man games with that same frenzied pace, then there would be almost no excitement to support this one. It would be "just another Mega Man game." But given a little breathing room and a fresh creative team unafraid of pushing new ideas into the 30-year-old series, and we've got the makings of a major hit on our hands!
I'm delighted to be able to present an all-new issue of NF Magazine with an all-new Mega Man sequel emblazoned across the front cover, in the same way I was thrilled to be able to present Samus Aran's revival in Metroid: Samus Returns a little less than a year ago. Since she was out of the public eye for so many years leading up to that adventure, we thought it wise to present The History of Metroid in NF #29 to get new fans caught up on her story so far. So it seemed appropriate to prepare The History of Mega Man for this edition!
Classic, numbered-sequel Mega Man, at least. We had to hold back the reins on the feature a bit, because like I said, Capcom went totally nuts with Mega Man spin-off brands years ago, so a full history of every different Mega Man would be a massive (headache-inducing) undertaking. For the purposes of preparing you for #11, it seems sufficient to get you up to speed on installments 1 through 10.
That's not all, of course! Our history feature leads into our preview of Mega Man 11 itself, we've got interviews with both Mega Man fan community icon Protodude and Takuya Aizu, the President and CEO of Inti Creates who actually brought Mega Man back to life once before, and much more! I hope you'll enjoy every Blue Bombin' bit of it!
Digital subscribers can expect to see the PDF version of this new issue pop into their inboxes within the next 24 hours.
The Magzter version for tablets, eReaders and the like will follow roughly a week from now.
And the print version, as always, is in production as I type this and will be completed, packaged and mailed out within the next week in order to get to most subscribers' physical mailboxes in early-to-mid July. The poster is mega-sized this time, making good on one of our past subscriber total goals here on Patreon, so please enjoy its extra real estate as you go on a visual Where's Waldo-style hunt to try to pick out every past Robot Master on Thor's newest "crowd of characters" art piece!
Speaking of posters, I know a lot of you are already looking ahead to what kind of wall poster we'll include in our inevitable Super Smash Bros. Ultimate issue. Would you all prefer another mega-sized poster with Nintendo's official art in the usual rectangular dimensions? A collage of the official character select screen art in the same style as the Smash Wii U poster we did back in Issue #12? Or should we go for something we've never done before and try to adapt that really long and wide Smash cast image Nintendo revealed at E3 into physical poster form? Let me know your preference!
Thanks as always for your support, NF fans! The back half of 2018 is looking like it's going to be a blast, from Mega Man 11 to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and everything in between. I'm happy to help keep your hype high!
~ Lucas M. Thomas
Young Park
2018-07-29 00:02:33 +0000 UTCYoung Park
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