Mega Man Universe’s soundtrack turns up, along with Robot Master art

The cancellation of Mega Man Universe was a legit crusher. Even though the project had lost its creator, it just seemed so inexplicable, worsened by the similarly unaccountable sacking of Mega Man Legends 3 a few months later in 2011. Fans still won’t let either go, and with good reason.

Now they’ve unearthed the game’s unreleased soundtrack and some official artwork of the Robot Masters appearing in it. From Protodude’s Rockman Corner comes the 15-track playlist and eight images, and Protodude says his little birds have more to be shared later.

Capcom’s internal sound team composed the soundtrack between late 2009 and 2010, says Protodude. (The Megas, the cover band that did the music for some of the game’s trailers, are not behind this work.) The Robot Masters’ themes are new arrangements of their original tunes from Mega Man and Mega Man 2. Three tracks ended up being released in 2012 on the album “We are Rock-Men! 2,” called “original tracks” at the time.

For those who want to download the soundtrack, the original post has the cloud drive links.

As for the Robot Master artwork, unfortunately those images are quite small, but they do show the bosses redone in a hand-drawn visual style.

Screenshot via Protodude’s Rockman Corner

Mega Man Universe was a tantalizing concept; players would have been able to create custom 2.5D levels, and the potential for character customization options seemed limitless, drawing on Capcom’s vast stable for crossovers.

But Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune left Capcom in October 2010, and the following March, the publisher unceremoniously dumped Mega Man Universe’s body in an end-of-the-quarter note to everyone. The end of the next quarter brought news Mega Man Legends 3 was toast, worsened by Capcom’s fan-blaming treatment of the matter on social media (and the fact it rolled right into the company’s appearance at San Diego Comic-Con 2011). Almost overnight, one of the best companies for fan service vaporized most of that goodwill.

Eight years later, Capcom may be back in good graces with its fans, but many still carry a torch for the cancelled Mega Man games. Inafune’s follow-on project for his new studio, Mighty No. 9, was also a 2.5D side-scroller, but it did little to soothe fans’ hurt for Mega Man Universe’s untimely departure.