If you’ve paid a visit to the Taylorsville Redwood Campus, then chances are that you seen some very interesting papers on the outdoor bulletin boards. These ads told the tale of a game that spent over ten years in hiatus, only to be cancelled last month by the company behind the franchise.
On July 18, 2011, Capcom announced that a long awaited entry in the Rockman DASH, known as Megaman Legends in the United States, that was to be for the Nintendo 3DS had permanently ceased development. The company released a statement citing lack of an audience as their primary reason. Unlike fans in the past, fans of the series weren’t going to take this lying down, as a huge, now international, movement to revive the project has spawned on the internet.
The movement first started out on Facebook with the creation of the “Get Me Off The Moon” fan page, the name being a reference to the cliffhanger ending of Megaman Legends 2. At the time of this article, the movement has currently amassed over 40,000 fans, the final goal being 100,000 as reflected in the logo and page title. The movement now even has its own website that features artwork by many loyal fans of the franchise.
What really ties fans to this series, and the cancelled game in particular, was how the development process had garnered input from the legion of fans at every single step of production. As a result, many fans became invested in the project, making the cancellation all the more tragic. Although Capcom has gone on record saying that it was a lack of a fanbase that did the project in, many people speculate that the departure of producer Keiji Inafune, co-creator of the Megaman franchise as well as the man behind Onimusha and Dead Rising, from the company may have been a factor.
This is one of three player-based movements that have spawned in recent months. The first was Operation Rainfall, an ongoing movement to persuade Nintendo of America to localize three role-playing games that were made for the Nintendo Wii but never released stateside. The second was Operation Moonfall, another Nintendo-targeted campaign to produce a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for the 3DS, similar to the recently released remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the same console.
Two key things that are to be said about these movements is the goal of staying positive and staying civil, as stated on the Get Me Off The Moon blog.
“We want to stay classy. We are not about cursing Capcom out, insulting them, or attacking them,” reads the About section of the site. “We want them to see the error of their ways, not go out of business.”
Despite this, a lot of negativity is still directed towards the company for many of their practices, most notably the repackaging and mild retooling of previously released games, seen most notably with the fighting game Street Fighter II and more recently with the announcement of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
While Capcom is openly aware of the movement, they have stated that they have no intention of reviving the project anytime soon. However, many fans remain hopeful that their efforts will change the company’s mind.
If you would like to lend your support to the Get Me Off the Moon movement, then you can visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/getmeoffthemoon or their official website at www.getmeoffthemoon.com.
