As was mentioned in our recent Nintendo Download article, this month is once more being dubbed “Mega May” by Capcom and Nintendo. Last year in the month of May, the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console was graced with Mega Man II, III, IV and V, the Game Boy entries of the series, as well as Mega Man Xtreme and Xtreme 2, Game Boy Color games which remixed levels and bosses from Mega Man X through X4. This year, however, Capcom sought to release a handful of Game Boy Advance Mega Man games to the Wii U Virtual Console. Through a poll on Capcom-Unity, fans were able to vote for which game released first, and, this time around, the fans chose Mega Man & Bass to release first on the Wii U eShop on May 7. Nintendo has listed the release schedule for the remainder of the titles to release every Thursday this month. Each game will cost $7.99 to download. They are as follows:
- Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue – May 14
- Mega Man Battle Network 3 White – May 14
- Mega Man Zero 2 – May 21
- Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon – May 28
- Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun – May 28
It is nice to see the Battle Network series receive some love by being released on the Wii U Virtual Console service. The series is rather unusual since it features real-time tactics RPG gameplay instead of the traditional running, jumping and shooting side-scrolling action. It is also a fairly prolific series, having received a total of six games, with two versions of each game available (much like the Pokémon series) starting with Battle Network 3. The Zero series, meanwhile, is much more traditional (even if Zero was the protagonist instead of X) and played like the X games, while Mega Man & Bass is a spinoff of the original series and more traditional still. With all of these offerings, there should be enough to satisfy fans of all the series. Hopefully, Mega May will be a continuing trend in years to come, because there certainly is no lack of love for the Blue Bomber and his friends. Mega Man & Bass is available now on the Wii U eShop.
