In the second grade, my mom took on the daunting task of creating a Halloween costume for me of my favorite video game character. Instead of choosing Super Mario, Sonic or one of the few recognizable video game characters of the early 1990s, I chose to honor the lesser-known — but equally important — character Mega Man. This decision only furthered my awkward social life in elementary school as only two of my classmates admittedly knew who Mega Man was and the rest resorted to either teasing me or ignoring me. However, my unpopular costume choice helps illustrate the importance and relevance of Mega Man in gaming history.

In July, “Mega Man” developer Capcom announced a ninth entry in the traditional “Mega Man” series. However, “Mega Man 9” drops expensive to produce modern graphics in favor of emulating the original game engine from the Nintendo Entertainment System games. Capcom will release this new NES-style game in September on Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

Though it seems like an insane idea on the surface, a new NES-style “Mega Man” game could very well be what the modern gaming industry needs to remind itself of what constitutes a great video game.

The “Mega Man” franchise produced around 50 games since 1987. Most were released after 1995, and received harsh criticism from even the most devout “Mega-Man(iacs)” who remember the golden days of “Mega Man 2” and “Mega Man 3.” If the definition of insanity is to try the same thing over and over and expect different results, Capcom could likely write an anthology of that philosophy based on the dozens of “Mega Man” titles available.

The old “Mega Man” games were known as challenging, but beatable and were known to have “rock-solid” game play — yes, that “Mega Man” pun was intentional, though your authenticity as a gamer will be questioned if you didn’t get it.

The state of gaming today focuses less on creating the most enjoyable game possible and wastes too much energy using as many lighting effects, polygons and complex bitmapping as the hardware can handle.

Following the steps of the Wii — which is dominating this generation’s console sales despite the system being about as powerful as the last generation’s Xbox — Capcom realizes there still are gamers out there that want new experiences with games that remind players of the countless hours they spent grinding through classic NES games. If “Mega Man 9” is a success, who knows what will come next?

Maybe we’ll finally get another good “Contra” game after all these years.