Mega Man: The Power Battle to be included in a western home release for the first time in 15 years

Go go power fighters

When the Capcom Home Arcade hardware was announced I kind of glossed over several entries on the game list.

Okay so a few like Final Fight and Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting are completely expected. Capcom wants to parade the classics around every chance they get, so those kinds of names draw my attention immediately. But as Rockman Corner points out, Capcom managed to sneak one huge release on the list: Mega Man: The Power Battle.

Released in 1995 in Japanese arcades, the fighting game Mega Man: The Power Battle (and the equally kick ass follow-up Power Fighters) avoided worldwide obscurity through its release on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube in 2002, as well as arcade emulation and a 2017 Japan-only PS3 release as a PS2 Classic.

The gist is that you’ll take Mega Man, Proto Man, or Bass in a solo or co-op session on a world tour so to speak through several universes, scrapping Robot Masters and eventually Dr. Wily himself. It’s an incredibly breezy game, especially with a friend, as the whole “Mega Man fighting game” angle works far better than you’d think. Plus, runs are incredibly quick and there’s multiple campaigns to work through.

This situation is really reminiscent of Capcom’s obscure inclusion of The Wily Wars on the unassuming At Games Ultimate Portable Game Player, which was previously a prisoner to the now-defunct Sega Channel in the US. A lot of people are probably going to ignore The Power Battle when they pick up their Home Arcade unit, but it’s an important piece of Mega Man history that is now further preserved, and that makes me happy.

Capcom Home Arcade [Capcom via Rockman Corner]