Rockman & Forte, Super Famicom (1998, Japan)

Of the nearly 5,000 games released for the Super Famicom (Japan’s version of the SNES), just 48 were released in 1998. That makes sense, as the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn had all been on shelves for years at that point, and Nintendo’s beloved gray box was positively ancient (by that era’s standards) at seven years old. Most of the heavyweight game publishers had moved their signature series to the contemporary boxes. Capcom, for example, took Mega Man (known as Rockman in his home country) to the PlayStation, putting out Mega Man 8, Mega Man X4, and even the new 3-D spinoff, Mega Man Legends, on Sony’s new console by the end of 1997. Yet Capcom mysteriously went back to the aging Super Famicom for a bizarre sequel that let you play as either Mega Man or his evil rival Bass (Forte) fighting not against Dr. Wily but a crazy ax-wielding robot named King. Keiji Inafune, the series’ creator, said in the Mega Man: The Official Complete Works anniversary book that the game was made for younger players that might not have moved on to newer consoles. That doesn’t explain why it’s also one of the hardest games in the series, or why it launched on an older console but used a downgraded version of Mega Man 8’s PlayStation graphics, or why they decided to change up one of gaming’s oldest formulas on a box so far past its prime. [Anthony John Agnello]