Thing is, I dont think this will EVER blow over, or at least not for a long time. Not to mention a bad game is far from the same thing as what has happened with Mega Man. No matter the reception, Sonic still got games- which while of questionable decisions, still provided good gameplay and showed that they at least tried.
And that is the textbook definition of "hit nail on head."
First of all, there was rarely if ever any real consensus what was wrong with Sonic or how to fix him. But Sega never really stopped trying, either. It probably is just a numbers thing; even Shadow The Hedgehog made Player's Choice, after all (though I dare say it's not the worst game to do so; looking at you, Star Fox Assault). But in the midst of a whole lot of questionable quality releases, Sonic had a few scattered hits as well. The handhelds, Secret Rings, and the bizarrely positive initial reception of Heroes. Also, even though I realize I'm in the minority on this one, I still maintain that Black Knight is sorely underrated.
(Also as a matter of perception: Rare was the Sonic game that got butchered as badly as NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. That one killed part of my soul.)
I'm just so tired of hearing the same thing about MML 3 over and over again "Megaman's dead, Capcom hates the fans, Capcom is full of greedy douche bags, etc" honestly I get that the Megaman community is not the same as it used to be after that day over a year ago but it is a bit much for someone who didn't really care about Legends that much in the first place, I'm sorry but it's the truth I never really cared for it. Like I said of all the main series Legends is the most obscure and most unusual of the series. It's the only fully 3D game in the series while the other game were strictly 2D platformer, Battle Network and Starforce excluded. The series had a small fan base at the time but years later it obviously grew within the Megaman community but it's still more of a niche thing.
Believe me, I get where you're coming from. When the UMvC3 rage hit, it was very difficult for me to buy the "neglecting Mega Man" angle when the game included Zero, Tron, and a boatload of cameos; even if the premise of such a short-term update being released as a standalone was complete bull.
In terms of fanbase morale it's arguably worse now than before (or at least it is for me personally) because we were expecting Capcom to pick up one of the other series, which they don't seem to have much interest in doing. Having jack squat for the blue bomber's 25th anniversary is a very troubling sign, as is the fact that the last good Mega Man news to come from Capcom internally really was the Prototype Version's announcement. All of our glimmers of hope since then have come from licensees. And even that's a crapshoot as to whether or not such morsels will escape their local territories (Project X Zone probably will not, which combined with the 3DS's region lock will likely be all the reason I need to attempt to hack it).
The topics in the Megaman sections now are looking back at the series and seeing how things came awry but honestly before Legends 3 we knew the system Capcom was using wasn't perfect but we didn't care because we thought it was fun regardless.
I remember on one of Inafune's more recent criticism of the Japanese gaming industry, somebody told him that they still liked Japanese games, and he responded with "You're thinking of the older games, and being too kind. If they're really not up to the same standards, and you don't tell them that they suck, they won't change."
That's exactly the kind of criticism that gets me thinking about Mega Man. I've often said, the last time Mega Man generated mainstream appeal was probably Zero 3 (MM9 being the closest thing to an exception to that statement). And I do NOT say that because I don't think any of the more recent games were better than Zero 3; ZX still ranks among my favorites. But it was back then that the quality of the games were consistent across the board. Remember right before Mega Man X came out? The formulas got stale, the small changes were collecting rough spots, and many people lost interest. Then, WHAM!, new game, new style, more EVERYTHING, and every damn thing they attempted with it, they hit absolutely on the mark. Zero 3 was the last game that felt like that; that felt that they'd accomplished everything they set out to do. You played it, you finished it, and you thought about where they could go from there instead of what they should have done better.
More recent games have small quirks/flaw/oddities that gnaw away at them more than they used to (again, looking at ZX, it has a troubling map, clunky mission system, a localization that makes X6 look good, ditched New Game Plus which was a standard feature of the entire Zero series, and has absolutely no weapon restore points in the entire game). These are things that we the fans can forgive because we recognize the core strong points underneath it all, but they damage the series appeal among the less familiar and/or more casual audience, and given enough time, it causes the fanbase to dwindle. Capcom hit dead ends with ZX, Star Force, Classic, and X that way.
It all boils down to "stop half-assing it". A quality and nostalgic 2D sidescroller doesn't just happen because you're working within the 2D genre; it takes a serious level of effort that Capcom has seemingly not been willing to sink in. Every stumbling block they hit was taken as a reason to back off rather than a reason to try harder, and that's ultimately where the problem lies.
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