While doing some late-night lurking on the interwebs, I came across this tantalizing YouTube nugget, one part true indie grit and ingenuity, and one part pure childhood fantasy. Capcom die-hards, get your adult Depends ready, and hit the jump for the video(s).
Co-op Demo
Single-Player Demo
This… is Mega Man 2.5D, the brain-child of one Peter Sjostrand, a freelance animator from Sweden. In this short conceptual (read: not really a game) trailer, Sjostrand seems to have taken the indelible Mega Man side-scroller formula, injected approximately half of an extra dimension, and busted open the second controller port. All the trappings of the early era Mega Man games are here.
How much our time as youths did we spend sitting next to a friend, possibly on a couch or some such apparatus designed for sitting, waiting patiently for said friend to miss that long jump or take a spike pit in the butt, and be obligated to pass the controller? Too much time, dammit. TOO MUCH!
Details on where this idea could be taken are scarce, copyright laws being what they are, and Mr. Sjostrand being only an animator. Yet this is merely a glimpse of what could be (a delicious, sugary glimpse). His website is still under construction, but there are some nice 720p wallpapers of the game in motion (even if they do only accentuate the pain of never being able to see this on XBLA or the Virtual Console).