Nintendo Power Prototype Preview

[Dashe]

Check it--TMMN has the scoop on Legends 3 Prototype getting a six-page feature article from Nintendo Power.

Points of interest include:

• The control scheme: The R button shoots, the circle pad moves, and for Barrett, A controls his melee attacks and Y controls his wall dash.
  
• The prototype will help get new players up to speed on the old games' events.
  
• Barrell is missing throughout the entire game...an odd coincidence, considering Barrett has a similar name and face plate.
  
• Names for Barrett's Volcanic Leggings and Burst Spreader
  
• The devs plan to make both Barrett and Mega Man playable in the full game
  
• The rival biker's name is, in fact, Bullbreath.
  
• Aero's dad's the police chief
  
• Barrett gets to fight one of Roll's machines
  
• Barrett goes underground to raise money for the rocket, and finds out about a treasure there called the Klicke Lafonica (the Fire of All Creation), which is supposed to be an important plot element.

I want to buy this issue now. Twice. You know, so I can cut out the pages and glue them in my scrapbook legitimately, 90's style.

[WhiteWindow]

1) After reading the control scheme I grabbed my 3DS, using the circle pad and R to shoot would really work. Feel natural to use both at the same time.

2) Hopefully the prototype will be available for free upon purchase of MML3DS, otherwise I don't think new users would spend the extra money BEFORE they play the game. It would be a good deal, pay 2$ early or get it for free with the game.

3) Don't like this... but if it means Barrell will ultimately play a big role at the end, I can accept.

4) Volcanic Leggings, cool, I expect Thunder Leggings. xP

5) Yup, I kinda hope they make Tron playable, and give her a power house play style. Long shot, but if it's not just going to be Trigger's game, then we might as well get some Tron playability. I doubt it though, and I guess if the trade off would be no Bonne battles, I'd prefer the Bonne Bosses.

6) Wow, cliche.

7) Figured.

8) Awesome. That must be what that huge machine is that was chasing him in one screen.

9) Klicke Lafonica is the system that makes Carbons. That is my bet.

All awesome news.

[Mikéy]

1) I can't comment on this as of now.

2) I hope it does. and I hope the people in the devroom (especially the clueless ones) have enough sense to purchase/play it when they get the chance so they can be enlightened, but there's always at least one nut...

3) Perhaps Barrell is playing his part by not being around. He could very well be a celebrity in a city full of diggers. and oh jeez, please stop making me think of crazy plot twists concerning Barrett and Barrell's similarities. How could THAT ever happen...

4) Erm, okay. unless those leggings are what cause him to dash so quickly, or unless they're beneficial in some other way then I see no reasoning for naming them... We should call Volnutt's leggings “Steve” as a counter. Moving on.

5) This is what I expected, and I approve. Now to think about *cough* multiplayer elements.

6) Bullbreath. Intimidating. Dennis scared me more. He STEPS on people.

7) Guess that explains that one screenshot where Aero was talking about her dad. You taking notes, Typhon?

8) Well, he did beat up a Bonne machine, so I guess... Wait, what? A Caskett machine? Is Volnutt going to be riding on top of it?

9) Okay I suppose.

The fans have got their work cut out for them.

[Pitch]

(1) Primary attack is the right shoulder button? Hmm... I've seen this somewhere before. That could work. Although I think I'll probably end up confusing it often and going for that Y button. For familiarity's sake.

I'm a bit let down at the lack of “tank” controls. I guess the PSP scheme wouldn't work for Barrett here, though.

(2) Naturally.

(3) Barrell's missing? Don't honestly know what to think about that. Cool, I guess.

(4) When you said the Volcanic Leggings and Burst Spreader were given names, I went to the MegaMan Network article to look up what the names were, only to find that those were the names. Rather boring, if you ask me.

Mikéy Why the leggings are named? Have you seen the Red Hot Kick™?

(5) Somewhat deceptively worded. But not surprising. I'd bet that playable Barrett is only available for a couple scenarios in the main game. The point of that quote from Kitabayashi was to confirm that MegaMan will be playable. (In his own series? No way! Honestly, I don't get people sometimes...) I have some doubts that they'd both be equally playable. But I've been wrong before.

(6) Blues figured that one out a while ago. HF helped translate.

(7) ... didn't we know that already? I swear we knew that already. Maybe not.

(8) Since when does Roll build machines? And this one throws random people's cars at you? Is this even... I don't... what?

(9) Your interpretation of the quote from the MMN article was different from mine. Here's the quote.

“As one would expect from a Legends game, going into underground ruins also makes a return. In this case, Roll needs the refractors found within for the rocket they are trying to complete to rescue MegaMan. That is where Barrett encounters Tron in her new Devroom-designed mech, which boasts a whip, “powerful projectiles,” and electrical attacks, the latter making it especially dangerous to stand ankle-deep in water.”

I don't think Barrett's down there to help Roll find the refractors; it sounds like Tron is looking for them and he's getting in the way.

[MegaTuga]

1- Oh boy R button for shooting? My index finger will get tired after all of this... but with the jump and other controls trough the ABXY seems better

2- YES. Come on it's not like tehre is more than 50% of the people who plan on buying that played MML2 (because to know the story MML2 is enough... I think))

3- NO GRAMPS? WHat the... well he had a lesser activity on MML1 than MML2...

4- Volcanic Legs... yeah it works but... Burst Spreader? I start to feel that is a Battle Network P.A.
... Yep 3 spreaders get the Hyper Burst. I am not mistaken

5- AS LONG... as they don't pull the "select your player" like in Megaman ZX. I'm fine with that.

6- Bull...breath.... ooookay. moving on.

7- YESSSSSS. The plot thickens! Now here's a reason of why Aero rebels against her parents!

8- ... wait against the machine? ... I dunno what to think

9- Well the "Mother Lode" the "Aurora Stones"...
This one seems interesting.

[TronBonne]

1) I liked using the shoulder button in Mega Man Zero for attacking, I think this will work.

2) Seems like a good idea to me, since people new to the series probably won’t have a chance to play the older games (especially since the hope of them being released on PSN is gone). I would be surprised if they didn’t include something like this.

3) I really want to know how they are connected! >.<

4) Fine names, nothing wrong with them.

5) I can live with that. As long as we get to play as Mega Man more >_>

6) No comment, really. Bulbreath…

7) I hope we see a bit of interaction between Aero and her dad, instead of just hearing about their quarrels.

8) Hahaha, can you ever justify throwing cars during a battle?! That qualifies Roll being more than “more aggressive” if you ask me.

9) I’m a bit confused on this one. Is Barrett in some ruins and just happens to come across Tron, and they end up fighting? That’s always how I interpreted the situation.


I’ve only ever bought one issue of Nintendo Power before, that was this year’s May issue, since they featured an article on Tales of the Abyss. I was considering subscribing in case Legends was ever featured but I was too lazy to do so. Now I sort of regret that decision…I’ll just have to hound all the places in my area that sell magazines until the June issue is out in stores.

[Dashe]

It's not that bad of a paraphrase for...uh...nearly four in the morning, my time, is it? :17: This is why I make it a point not to update the main site at that hour. I make enough URL errors anyway.

1) I hope the 3DS's shoulder buttons are much more durable than its predecessors', in that case.

2) PHEW.

3) All things considering, I'd much rather see Barrett as Gramps somehow de-aged than as another amnesiac purifier unit. It'd take away the 'This is the cool guy in red that you're supposed to have in every Mega Man game' aspect completely. Sort of. If he were both at the same time, that'd be pretty neat.

4) I always thought the jump springs looked like leggings too. No qualms with attachable leggings, since they were arguably one of the most useful items in Legends 1.

5) @tuga: Oh dear god that would be awful. I'd like to see a 20/80 split in favor of Mega Man in terms of playtime.
@white: If there is a multiplayer mode, I hope they go and include Tron too as a heavy fighter. And maybe one other character to round it out to four, since four's a nice, even number.

6) All Blues and HF could do was translate the Japanese. It still didn't confirm whether his name would be the same in the English version, though this one sounded much more western than usual anyway.

7) I actually didn't see this one coming. 10,000 Zenny says the main reason Aero joined the Bright Bats is because she's into Barrett.

8) Roll just gained ten points in awesome, but she still needs to be about 20% cooler.

9) @pitch: You're probably right. I think I like that much better. Though I thought, from the video clips and HF's rough translation thereof, Teisel was in the mech too.

[General Specific]

1—This screams to me to be some variant of the LoZ camera, maybe having been modified in the vein of RE4 and other games. I can't say I'm too excited over not being able to use the old camera—unless it's still in and has been taken into consideration, of course—but I'll deal with it easily.

2—Figured this out a while ago, just knowing how marketing works and knowing that Capcom really wants to reintroduce Legends not just to us fans, but to the whole MM community and Capcom community in general (after all, we've been getting plenty of cameos in recent times!). Still, this explains the quirky design choices the team's been taking, and I'm still impressed with how compatible they are with what I consider Legends.

3—The face plate can apply to anyone with an injury or aesthetic beef related to that area of the face, so I'm just going to assume that Barrett had a nasty accident a while ago. If he's truly somehow related to Barrel, the best scenario to go with is he met Barrel at a school one day, where he was giving a lecture. Barrel may be missing simply to avoid any traffic and stuff he may know will happen in Teomo if he's there, like being marauded by fans and proteges.

4—I can't see any flaws with these names. They're just special weapons, after all—it's never a bad idea to come up with some zany name if it still works and gets the point across.

5—This is an issue. If the developers relegate Barrett to Teomo-related events and missions, though, it'll be all good.

6—What a name. I like it a lot, and it fits the fact that he looks like a big, black bull.

7—I saw this coming a mile away, though I expected her father to be a government worker with an old-timer neo-Confucian philosophy, which Barrett might have as well.

8—This is interesting, but I don't understand why Roll of all places would be recruited to fight bikers when that's the job of the police. They must have figured out that her "brother" was powerful too and, by association, she has fighting experience and can make large machines. The developers have some explaining to do, lol.

9—While it could be something that makes Carbons, you'd think that would be manned by the Elysians and members of the Master System instead. Something below the earth that everyone wants—it sounds more reminiscent of a refractor producer to me, as it still creates something oh-so-dear to the Carbons.

[tominator]

Oh man, I have to reply in an ordered fashion, I didn't know this topic would come with a test. Well, anyway my take:

1. Seems like a nice control scheme, hopefully this will put an end to all those "ewww .. the touch controls of the 3ds is going to make this game suck it should come out on the (choose other console) those controls are much better."

2. That's great, hopefully the newer fans will being to appreciate the series for what it is than try to cram Megaman X, Zero, ZX, ABCDEFG series into it.

3. The obvious thing here is that Gramps has been binging on root beer and reverted to a younger state. No really, I hope that is not the case. Gramps having some sort of romantic interest in Aero (a 12-14 year old) is all sorts of creepy. On a side note this is also the reason I hope Trigger never gets his memories back. He could possibly be 100s of years old and yeah that'd make that whole Roll/Tron romantic interest quite creepy.

4. Cool, I wonder how rare they are; do other diggers possess this tecnology.

5. This could either be awful for me or mildly nice. I'd hate it if Barrett got 30-50% of the game time. A "tag team" thing would be alright where you could swap out characters whenever you wanted (like before entering a ruin). Maybe Barret could reach some places Megaman couldn't and megaman could blow stuff up that Barrett couldn't.

6. Bullbreath, just sounds like a great name for the "bad guys"

7. Dad's the chief, adds more depth to her rebellious nature.

8. Cool, and Rolls more aggressive too and makes a fighting machine (maybe all that time with Tron is rubbing off on her).

9. I smell plot point

One other thing I gathered was the reaffirmation that this is NOT a demo. It contains exclusive content that will not be present in the full game. Makes that $2 seem like a pittance really.

[Nightshade]

Been a long while since Nintendo Power was interesting...

1. Never really liked the idea on Mega Man Zero on a 2D environment but I can see it go well in a 3D plane. The rest seems fine.
2. Well, after all those years, we do deserve a recap in a form or another. I liked how Golden Sun Dark Dawn had all those encyclopedia entries to keep you up to date with stuff while you were playing. Although learning all that stuff from talking to NPCs is cool too if done right.
3. Barrell knows Roll can handle on her own. He might be with Von Bluecher abroad for the duration of the Prototype version or he could just be gone looking for something that will help. Who knows?
4. Well, those are weapons and they normally have names so I'm fine with those.
5. Saw that coming. I don't really mind. Although, the best way they could do it is allow you to switch character as the story goes. Go to ruins, go back to base, switch, return to ruins. Story elements would vary depending of who you have at the moment it unfolds.
6. Not much to say about that one.
7. Not really surprised.
8. Now THAT is something I approve. Making Roll able to fight like Tron just flares up their rivalry. I guess that she either have the sense of justice of stopping the gangs or she was promised funds or material needed for the rocket.
9. Since we had screenshots before with Barret talking with Roll saying she lost her wrench needed for her rocket, it's fair to assume that Barret helps her out after defeating her and the Bonnes do not know (or Tron at least) which brings an understanding when they meet up in the ruins.
10. Foreshadowing or Prototype only plot element? You be the judge.

[Loken]

1-I was hoping the old controls were back, but that's not too big a deal, and maybe it's an option.

2-Hopfully it will start out with 'In a world covered by endless water...'

3-Do you mean the Prototype or Legends 3?!

4-cool I suppose, perhaps they can be swapped out then?

5-Ehh, I'd rather be Rock all the way, this practically screams 'Berret is a Purifier!' and I hate that.

6-That's a horrible name, I'll call him Moo.

7-Daddy issues, oh boy!

8-Awesome! Roll makes battle machines? Sweet. (That's where all our money and weapons went)

9- Yeah, yeah, fontain of youth, yeah right! pretty obvious.

[Blues]

Hmm, this is quite a glut of info but I'll do more than just number it as that could get confusing easily.

• Re: Control Scheme- For some reason I'm having a hard time imagining how it'll work, even though we've all seen that video where the Devs play the game before. :06: Nevertheless I'm sure it'll make much more sense when the Prototype Version arrives.
  
  
• Re: New Player Explanation- All good and well, though I hope they have something where players learn backstory both by playing the game and by another maybe optional part where they can read past events at their own rate, like Barrell's room in Mega Man Legends 2.
  
  
• Re: Barrell's Disappearance- Hm, interesting, though do they make it clear if they mean just for the Prototype or for the main game as well? Personally if it's just for the Prototype I'm inclined to believe that this is only because they maybe haven't finished making his new model yet.
  
  
• Re: Barrett Weapon Names- Burst Spreader is fine and a very 'Legends'-y name. As for the Volcanic Leggings...well, weird to say but I've actually known that they would be called that (or something like it) since April, according to this post here. Seems paying attention to small details really paid off, eh?
  
  
• Re: Full Game Playable Barrett- Could work, as long as it uses a flexible system. Basically, any system that allows the player to have options would be a good system.
  
  
• Re: Bullbreath- Again, nothing too new here, though I suppose it's a bit different for those in the fandom (^{multi-fandom?)} who don't quite keep up-to-date on Legends.
  
  
• Re: Aero's Dad- Fun fact. Predicable, yes, but fun- should lead to cutscenes with a lot of that 'Legends' charm to them.
  
  
• Re: Roll's Police Mech- ARC1, eh? The name reminds me of Denise's police mech, the PROT2. ;D Moreover, it'll be hard to imagine how Roll reacts and talks in a fight...or for that matter what happens when you 'defeat' her. Surely the Dev team wouldn't let her be 'harmed' in he same manner as they do the Bonnes; in the games she's played as a much more sympathetic, kindly character, so I'd imagine she has some kind of escape pod. ^{Which, thinking again, might work like Wily's saucers.}
  
  
• Re: Treasure of Klickelan Island- Klicke Lafonica! :13: That is an awesome, awesome name for a treasure- it's been stuck in my mind ever since I heard read the name. And with the subtitle "Fire of All Creation"...very grandiose and mysterious...really puts the imagination into high gear. :35:
  
  

One thing's for sure, I'll definitely be getting a copy of this issue onceit hits the 'stands! : D

[TronBonne]

I completely missed the Klicke Lafonica part the first time I read the news :37: I picked up a copy of the magazine yesterday before work and read it once I got home, it was a nice, easy read before falling asleep after a long day.

Best part:
"Meanwhile, on Earth (otherwise known as Terra), ancient machines were threatening to reactivate and wreak havoc on an unsuspecting populace, and Mega Man’s allies – his female companion Roll and his rival/romantic love interest Tron Bonne - were building a rocket ship to bring Mega Man back."

Mwhahaha Roll's just a companion and not a lo-....oh I don't want to start anything! But uh, seriously, I think the article itself was a good read, I’m hoping this will give MML3 a little more exposure.

[Deleted]

1) The controls sound fine enough for me. Don't have the 3DS, so I can't really judge how comfortable the controls would be for one playing. I wonder if there's a possibility of customizing the control settings (like in the previous Legends games, the Zero series and ZX series).

2) Hmm, I wonder how they would do that? Would characters from the previous games speak to Barrett and the Bright Batz about what happened? Or would Barrett read newspaper articles?

3) As if I'm not suspicious enough, Barrett's eyebrows are the same shape as Barrell's. His face-plate (ear-part especially) looked just like Barrell's. In the Relationship chart, Barrett's relation arrow that pointed towards Roll showed, "...". Plus the fact we never actually saw Barrell when he was a teenager before.

4) I like them. It sounds Legendary; and also explains what the parts would do. Also heard the names before.

5) By both being playable, what do they mean? Can you select one and play as him through the entire game? If so, would each character's story exactly the same or different? Or before going on missions, the game would ask which character you would want to play as?

6) Read about that in the Devroom, so it didn't surprise me.

7) Didn't surprise me one bit. The hints were there.

8) This would be fun to see in action

9) Hmm, I wonder how it would be an important plot element? Like, will it be the one thing that would sort out the problem from the main game, or would it actually cause more problems?

[tominator]

I don't know if this has been posted yet, but for us non-subscribers it looks like Nintendo Power has a one page preview of the article on their website. So we can get a peek before it hits newstands.

nintendopower.com/images/NP268_MML3.jpg