Limited Run Games, Retro-Bit reveal Mega Man: The Wily Wars Collector’s Edition

As reported yesterday, Limited Run Games and Retro-Bit Gaming are teaming up to bring us a full physical release of the game which never properly saw one. Well, in North America, at least.

While there was seemingly at one time plans for a full retail release of Mega Man: The Wily Wars, as evidenced by the box art which floated around a bit back in the day (seen at right), the release would never come to pass. At least, not in North America. PAL regions saw a physical release, as did Japan under the original title of Rockman Mega World, but it was an exclusive title for those who were so fortunate as to have access to the SEGA Channel in the US of A.

Mega Man: The Wily Wars was developed for Capcom by Minakuchi Engineering, who had developed four of the five Game Boy Mega Man titles as well (the Japanese name “Mega World” would seem to be a 16-bit inspired Mega Drive nod to the titles of those games, Rockman World), as well as Mega Man X3. After Capcom had struck a deal to begin publishing titles for SEGA’s platform (a move previously prohibited by Nintendo’s monopolistic third-party publishing restrictions), they opted to provide the platform with what could easily be seen as their answer to Nintendo’s own Super Mario All-Stars.

As such, Mega Man: The Wily Wars is comprised of 16-bit remakes of the first three Mega Man games Capcom had developed and published for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. But whereas Super Mario All-Stars zigged with the inclusion of the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, a title previously unreleased in the west and renamed Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Capcom and Minakuchi would zag by including an all-new “game” in the form of “Wily Tower.” By completing all three of the original games on a single save file, you could unlock Wily Tower, a shorter series of four levels with a familiar mix of stage enemies and all-new Robot Master bosses in the form of the Genesis Unit (who some of you might recognize from Archie’s Mega Man/Sonic the Hedgehog crossover, “Worlds Collide”). Sweetening the deal is that you could choose any eight special weapons acquired from the previous three games, as well as any three support items.

However, the Wily Tower portion of the game was vexing to the fan community for many years. The requirement of save data would end up making it tricky to properly unlock in emulation for quite some time, and when the game did finally see some form of official non-SEGA Channel release as a part of AtGames’ Sega Genesis: Ultimate Portable Game Player, the inability to save meant that the most desirable part of the package for many a Blue Bomber fan was inaccessible.

And while a Wii Virtual Console release, or any sort of digital release at all, would have been most welcome… one never came. But fast-forward to 2019, and Mega Man: The Wily Wars would finally see a full, tangible release of some kind as a part of the wealth of 42 games that make up the SEGA Genesis Mini library.

Nevertheless, despite the existence of the SEGA Genesis Mini and even reproduction carts, there’s been a Genesis case-shaped hole in many a Mega Man fan’s collections, just waiting to be filled by an official release that would never come.

That is, until now.

First announced back in 2019, we are now finally getting an official release of Mega Man: The Wily Wars that will work on original SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive hardware (as well as “most” 3rd-party consoles) in the form of Mega Man: The Wily Wars Collector’s Edition.

The package includes a sparkly blue game cartridge, with a matching blue circuit board, 5-volt chip, battery-backed saves, beveled insert points, and gold-plated contacts. Plus, as per the trailer at the top of this article, they’ve enhanced the gameplay over the original releases so that it runs more smoothly, with less slowdown.

Also included is a collector’s box which can display any one of five different lenticular cards featuring Mega Man, Proto Man, Elec Man, Metal Man, and Cut Man; a plastic Genesis game case with reversible artwork, displaying either the original artwork from the PAL/Japanese releases (in a Genesis style, of course), or a version of the cartridge label’s art, featuring Mega Man hanging out with the Robot Masters from the first two games; a full color instruction manual; a certificate of authenticity; a double-sided poster featuring both pieces of art from the reversible cover; nine collectible cards featuring art and details about different characters, as chosen by Retro-Bit fans; and a sticker book, featuring artwork from the first three Mega Man games and The Wily Wars.

All this can be yours for $69.99 USD/€69,99, and pre-orders open this Friday, May 21st at 10am Eastern Time on the Limited Run Games website, and will run until 11:59pm Eastern Time on Sunday, June 21st. In addition to Limited Run Games’ website, you can get a closer look at everything included at Retro-Bit Gaming’s page.

Finally, if you’re a longtime Mega Visions fan, you can find my review of the game as part of our Mega Man anniversary celebration all the way back in issue #6!