Super Adventure Rockman

is a 1998 interactive movie/rail shooter video game developed by Kouyousha and published by Capcom for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn; it is a spin-off of the ''Mega Man'' series and follows Mega Man as he attempts to stop an ancient alien supercomputer called "Ra Moon" from taking over the world; the game only saw a Japanese release, and has not been re-released since.

Considered darker than most Classic series games, ''Super Adventure Rockman'' has been met with mixed reception from media critics; Keiji Inafune, who worked on the series until 2010, has also disowned the game, considering it one of the worst ''Mega Man'' games across the series.

Plot

The plot of the game centers on an ancient alien supercomputer named "Ra Moon", which was rediscovered by Dr. Wily in the ruins of the Amazon. Wily uses Ra Moon to revive his Robot Masters from previous games in the series. Wily also discovers Ra Moon's ability to cease almost all machinery and electricity in the world, as well as causing an invasive virus to spread across all technology. Roll is affected by the virus, with Dr. Light immunizing Mega Man and his brothers to prevent them from being infected. With Roll in trouble as well as the rest of the planet, Mega Man sets out to stop Wily and Ra Moon before it's too late.

Gameplay

''Super Adventure Rockman'' is an interactive movie video game based on the ''Mega Man'' universe. It revolves primarily around the player watching pre-recorded animation cutscenes depicting the storyline. The game is divided into three different disks, each presenting itself as an anime episode and containing roughly a half-hour of video footage. Certain points allow the player to select a branching path, which can either lead them to helpful items or an ambush by enemies, sometimes utilizing quick-time events. If the player is ambushed, they are transferred to a rail shooter-like minigame where they must point an on-screen cursor onto enemies and shoot them. Some of these fights feature Robot Masters from earlier ''Mega Man'' games, particularly ''Mega Man'', ''Mega Man 2'' and ''Mega Man 3''.

Development

''Mega Man'' artist and producer Keiji Inafune claimed that ''Super Adventure Rockman'' was developed during a time when Capcom was attempting to branch out the series by "selling tto the lowest bidder". Although he had little involvement in the game, he was assigned to finish it after the project leader suddenly quit towards its completion. Inafune exclaimed, "The ultimate unspoken rule about making a game that is geared towards children is that you simply cannot kill anyone, but here you have military helicopters falling out of the sky and people dying in droves. If it had been up to me, I would have at least made it so they all 'got away safely' via parachutes or something. Then as if that wasn't bad enough, Roll dies... and to top it all off, the whole world is destroyed! I was like, 'Did they really need to go that far?!'"

In September 2018, a listing appeared on Yahoo! Auctions Japan for the design documents of a scrapped interactive movie titled ''Rockman X Interactive''; it was confirmed by the seller that the game, which was in development between December 1995 and 1996, influenced the development of ''Super Adventure'', however the listing was eventually deleted before anyone could purchase it.

Reception

Upon release, Japanese magazine ''Famitsu'' gave both the PlayStation and Saturn versions a 27 out of 40 score.

Brett Elston of GamesRadar included the game in his retrospective on the series for the sake of completeness. "It's a bizarre animated/FMV/first-person game that doesn't really fit anywhere in the main series," Elston stated. "But is so damn weird it has to be pointed out." GameSpot writers Christian Nutt and Justin Speer summarized the game as "an intensely boring and unplayable excursion into timed button pressing". 1UP.com editor Jeremy Parish thought the game may be acceptable for those who understand Japanese. Inafune has apologized to fans for the alleged low quality of the game.

Other media

The game was adapted into the Archie Comics

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