This Gritty Mega Man Short Imagines The Hero As You’ve Never Seen Him Before

By Brent McKnight | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

When you hear the name Mega Man, you probably imagine a pixelated little dude in armor bouncing around on your TV screen and frantically mash buttons The first thing that pops into your head probably isn’t a dark and gritty crime drama, but that may change after you see this short film, Battle. Brief, direct, and to the point, it imagines the titular videogame hero as a grim, Batman-style vigilante, skulking in the shadows, and it’s also a pretty good time. Check it out for yourself.

This starts off like just about every movie of this ilk begins. A bunch of cops show up at the scene of a crime that’s going down, they can’t do anything about it, but someone who can shows up and, well, shows them up. In this case, it’s an iteration of Mega Man that you’ve never seen or encountered before. A quick hitter, this fan film has the good sense not to linger and overstay its welcome, and gets in and gets out in short order, ending with a nice little cameo face off with another favorite Capcom character. It doesn’t drag, showing Mega Man arrive on the scene, beat up some henchman, and be done with it.

Directed by Nicolas Acosta, this comes from the folks at Loot Crate, the people responsible for that Dead Rising 3-inspired short a while back. And like that film, this one has higher production values that their other films deliver. You have slick costumes, a bigger than average cast, and overall professional appearance, and looks better than you might otherwise expect. Maybe the costume wasn’t all the way there, but given what they’re working with, this is another nice little diversion.

First appearing in 1987, Mega Man has gone on to figure into more than 50 videogames on a wide variety of systems, starting with the original Nintendo Entertainment System (and still the only gaming system I’ve ever owned) all the way through the more modern incarnations.

For their part, Loot Crate is a subscription service for gamers and geeks that sends its members, known as Looters, a monthly box full of random goodies that they may find useful or just cool. This includes snacks, toys, hardware, even art and other items that support their gaming lifestyles. This sounds like a fun deal, and you never know exactly what you’re going to get as each delivery is kept secret until it shows up on your doorstep.