Today marks the 35th anniversary of the original release of Mega Man (or Rock Man as it is known in Japan).
Capcom's action platformer, about a humanoid boy robot, originally launched on Nintendo's Famicom system on December 17th, 1987 and tasked players with defeating the evil Dr. Wily and six advanced robot masters (Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Bomb Man, Fire Man, and Elec Man).
As became a common feature of the series, players could freely choose which robot masters' stage to tackle first, with certain bosses giving a greater advantage over others from being completed first.
Worth noting is that Mega Man marked somewhat of an interesting departure for the Japanese developer at the time, as rather than being a port of one of its existing arcade games it was developed specifically from the ground up for home consoles. This strategy arguably paid off, with the title going on to spawn countless sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations after becoming a sleeper hit through word of mouth.
Earlier this year, Capcom reported that the total number of units sold for the series has now reached 38 million worldwide since its original debut, which is a simply astonishing amount. We can only hope that we'll see even more of the character over the next decade. For now, we'll just raise a glass to the game that started it all.