A long look at Mega Man advertising below.
As I was growing up, it was a rare thing among my peers for our parents to allow us more than 1 or 2 magazine subscriptions. Forced to choose, we each did our best to make the wisest choice, but not without involving a little bit of group strategy. I myself subscribed to Nintendo Power, because I owned Nintendo systems and because other magazines seemed to contain more ads than content, which I couldn't stand flipping through to find the real articles. (Of course, one could argue that Nintendo Power itself was nothing more than one huge ad for Nintendo, but there's no way 10 year old me would have agreed with that!)
As it happened I had a circle of friends who were also interested in video games, and we relied on each other to complete our collective knowledge. For instance, one of my friends would subscribe to Gamepro, and another to EGM, and so on. We'd bring our magazines to each others houses or to school and trade off at recess, so that we could keep up with all angles of our video gaming interests. What fun we had, what times! What arguments! What jests! What camaraderie! (What nerds!)
Those days are long gone, but their memories came rushing back as I turned the electronic pages of Retromags. And of seeing all these tidbits again, what surprised me with the greatest sense of nostalgia was seeing those despicable advertisements once again! It's funny how even the things you previously hated can feel like coming home after sufficient time.
Capcom's blog already covered quite a few of the early Mega Man ads awhile back, so I'll just skip to a few that they missed, like this "Gnarly!" classic ad for Mega Man 4.
Appearing around the same time (or a little earlier) was this ad for Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge.
Its sequel garnered an ad of a slightly different style, this time appearing over the right halves of two pages. I smooshed the two halves together below. What a Rush!
The third game boy game went back to the traditional form...
...as did the fourth...
...and even the beginning of the X series!
But time changes all things, and so as we entered the mid 90s Capcom started deviating from the pattern more and more. Like this archaeology themed ad for the same game when it was re-released for PC.
Mega Man 7 broke out of the mold by breaking out of prison.
X3's ad used some beautiful original artwork that I actually like more than the Mega Man X3 boxart itself.
Bringing up the rear of this advertising excursion, Mega Man 8 announces the return of the Blue Bomber! Although before this point, I'd say he was more commonly touted as the "Titanium Titan." It makes a bit more sense too, since aside from some select special weapons he doesn't really do that much bombing (except occasionally in sales). According to Japanese source material, he truly is made of a ceramic titanium alloy. Blue Bomber or Titanium Titan...what do you guys prefer?
That's all for now, but you can expect another Retromags-themed post tomorrow. All of the above ads can be found in various magazines uploaded there, so go check it out and lend the project your support!
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