Inafune talks about gains by working on NES-style Mega Man, and how he doesn't remember all the Mega Man games he's worked on

A portion of an MTV interview with Keiji Inafune, creator, Mega Man…

Multiplayer: It seems to me that if you make a game in an 8-bit style, you lose a lot of things. You can’t do a lot of the things you do in modern game design. What do you gain working within 8-bit constraints?

Inafune: When talking about modern games I think there’s a lot of stuff in there that people don’t need. The systems have much higher specs than the old-school systems. And now makers try to make games that meet the requirements of those systems. So they put in too much and they forget about what’s fun about playing games. If you go back to the 8-bit generation, those games were fun and you could play them for hours on end. People remember that. So we wanted to make something that people would have fun playing and wouldn’t mind playing for hours just like when they were younger. I don’t think players are losing something by playing an 8-bit game. We put a lot of stuff into this one and people will be surprised by what they see.

Multiplayer: I’m just wondering — because there have been so many “Mega Man” games — do you think there have been too many “Mega Man” games? There need to be more “Mega Man” games or you’d like it to be streamlined? What’s your opinion on the franchise as a whole?

Inafune: Well, there are a lot of “Mega Man” games. But most of them are what fans have requested of us. And we try to make follow-ups to the games that fans request. I mean, I’ve been involved with “Mega Man’ for over 20 years now, and there are games that even I forgot that I had made. When you think of it in those terms, yes, there might be a lot of “Mega Man” games. But it’s a franchise that the fans love.

Mr. Inafune has a lot more to say about Mega Man 9. Click here for the full interview