Kickstarter Hopefuls: Red Ash

At the moment, I am currently an amateur level journalist with minimal experience in the industry. However I wish to break one rule I swore to myself upon studying journalism at the University of Metro in Denver Colorado. That rule is to not be critical of others’ work until I got enough experience myself. That is why for my Kickstarter Hopefuls series (formerly named Kickstarter Game of Note). I wish to talk to everyone today about RED ASH-The Indelible Legend.

Red Ash is a game made by Keiji Inafune and his company Comcept. While the Kickstarter page claims the game is about "Running free in an anime-inspired game world”, most fans of his previous work will recognize this game as an attempt to recapture another part of the Mega Man legacy from Capcom, specifically the Mega Man Legends franchise. This particular part of the Mega Man universe had two games with a third one cancelled by Capcom. According to the Kickstarter page this project will not be funded if the money asked for isnt collected by Monday, August 3 2015. It got to the point where Fuze entertainment has had to fund Red Ash, any proceeds gathered from Kickstarter will be used to fund additional content. So now we must ask, why did it fail? What does this mean for Keiji Inafune and the gaming industry as a whole?

A lot of variables can be taken into consideration when it comes to the lack of hype for Red Ash. For instance, was Mega Man Legends even worth trying to rescue in the first place in the form of a new franchise? Did other Kickstarters such as Shenmue 3 take away the limelight from Red Ash? While these are very valid questions we will be focusing on two broad points for this article. The presentation and lack of information of the Red Ash Kickstarter, and the value of Mega Man Legends are what we will focus on today.

On August 31st, 2013, the gaming world was graced with the Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter. Anti-Capcom sentiment was at an all-time high yet the Mighty No. 9 presentation looked spectacular; it got many people excited on a emotional level and a hype level. Finally, a new Mega Man when Capcom would give us none! The Kickstarter climbed over a four million dollar stretch goal and people were buzzing with excitement. Then a year later, plans for a animated series was announced. The hype wasn't as explosive though and as of now there is no indication whether it received the funding it required. The comments are disabled on its YouTube trailer. The only clue that we have if the show will be released is that it's planned for release in Q2 2016, the game’s release was unclear for awhile but its release is now scheduled for 2016. While Mighty No. 9 had a shaky start, people were willing to chalk up its road bumps as Keiji Inafune trying just a bit too hard to recapture the initial glory that Mega Man has on the gaming world. Then Red Ash got announced.

So Red Ash doesn't show us gameplay trailers, instead in the initial Kickstarter video we get moving concept art with anime voice acting and english subtitles. All we get is that it's going to be an action RPG. So the first critical question to ask is with all the variations of RPGs we have in the industry, what is this broad genre title supposed to do for gamers? Two games that come into mind when I hear action RPG is Diablo 3 and the Dark Souls series. These two contrasting games would not give anyone a clear indication as to the type of game that Red Ash might be. Yes, people can tell me to look to Mega Man Legends to see what it can be. Yet this game is Red Ash, not Mega Man Legends and with any game you need to present its worth on its own merit, not what it's inspired by. They don't show us any form of gameplay or gameplay work in your initial video. You don't offer any sort of early alpha or demo for your second Kickstarter. All you give me is something that looks like early work for an anime, and look! An anime got announced! Its Kickstarter while closer to completion than the game, will most likely fail as well. Keiji Inafune is no amateur in the industry and does not deserve even the smallest bit of slack for announcing a new Kickstarter before we even have Mighty No. 9 in hand. We don't know what kind of game this will be even based off the legacy it's trying to recapture. We also don't know what deals or promises they are making to people away from Kickstarter. It's starting to seem like your fans aren't your first interest.

Now how well is Mega Man Legends received by the community? According to Capcom, it wasn't the most popular of the Mega Man franchises. They asked for fan participation and when that burned out they decided to cancel Legends 3. Of course this met with serious backlash and Capcom was not on many people's favorite list. Now whether you played Legends or not. Why does Keiji Inafune want to recapture another part of his history instead of making a truly new concept? Is he more spiteful to Capcom than he lets on or is his creativity not as boundless as people think? I am well aware Mega Man Legends is a beloved game. Yet your past work can only take you so far as a video game developer. You sometimes have to move to the future; you can’t recapture the past and live in it. Keiji Inafune may not understand that the videogame world and the value of his Mega Man legacy like he used to. After these last six days, people should talk about what the failure of Red Ash means for Inafune and the gaming industry.

What do you think? Am I overly critical of a beloved treasure of videogames history or is Keiji Inafune in for a few wake up calls? The Red Ash Kickstarter will always be available to view and observe here. As always the future of this game is in the hands of the gamer. We just have to wait and see what gamers choose.