So Mega Man 1's first contribution to Mega Man 10, or at least Mega Man 10's marketing, is that dreadfully illustrated packaging abomination right over there. Both Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 have both used the same ugly style for their 'boxarts' (only it's intentionally bad this time around). Here, though, it's actually applicable to the discussion we're launching - because that hideous half-cartoon, half-realistic art style is what Capcom immediately went back to when it wanted to recapture the true sense of nostalgic goofiness that marked the earliest entries in the series. Mega Man Release Date: December 1987 System: NES I tell you, any excuse to post that old, ridiculous Mega Man 1 boxart is a good one. And if you're not, well, this'll at least help you pass just a little bit more time and ease your wait for 10's March release.

If you're new to the series, you might just learn some things you never knew.

Join us now as we take a trip back through time, walking through each one of the Blue Bomber's classic outings, in order, to see which ones have had the most impact on Mega Man 10 and which ones have been brushed under the rug. But all of them have had some level of influence over what the Capcom company will deliver to us in just a few more weeks - so we're looking at every single one. Some of them tried to reinvent core concepts of the series and some of them tried to actively not do that.

The question, though, is which ones had more? Some of Mega Man's classic series sequels introduced important new mechanics, and some were phoned-in, cut-and-paste projects. Mega Man's had more previous numbered series installments than pretty much any other gaming mascot in the history of the industry, and each one of those old outings have certainly had an impact on his upcoming tenth adventure. Yes, we can't wait to find out exactly what Mega Man 10 will hold for us when it ships into the digital download shops for the Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next month, but we can whet our appetites and get a pretty good idea ahead of time - just by looking at the past.

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