did Mega Man/Rockman jump the shark?

[Reimu Hakurei]

I didn't realize that not a lot of people enjoyed the ZX and Ryuusei games but still there has been some decent Mega Man games out. However, some fans feel that Mega Man has jusmped the shark with the discontinued ZX and Star Force series. They are good in their won right but seriously did the series really jumped the shark?

[Acid]

If he did, he did long ago. And even then we didn't care. So why start caring now?

[Sato]

That's not what jumping the shark is. They were unpopular, not universally panned or stupid or ruined it forever.

[Hypershell]

Starforce, maybe, but I don't pay enough attention to it to care.  Otherwise, no.

Frankly, I'm not sure how exactly video games "jump the shark" in the first place.  The nature of game development is a far different beast than the nature of TV shows; reboots and design shifts are relatively common, and may happen independently of the series storyline, plus release schedules are more flexible.  So some hope is always there.  How does one, in light of that, say that a game series has peaked, and that it is all downhill from here until death?

[Acid]

Welllllllllllllll one could argue that a certain blue mascot that used to be Mario's rival has "jumped the shark".

But I'm not knowledgable enough to make such a claim.

[Hypershell]

Well, I knew that was coming.  Avoided making a pre-emptive comment because I was afraid of sending the thread on a tangent.  Because of that, I'll make this quick:

Even Sonic is not beyond redemption.  He may be the "go to" example of this as far as the editorial bandwagon is concerned, but nobody is going to convince me that Sonic is worse off now than he was in 2006.