Completely real concept art unearthed
With the recent release of Mega Man Legacy Collection, Capcom has acknowledged that Mega Man is a character and series that exists, which, really, is just going to piss people off further, you know. The upcoming movie and separate TV series don’t count.
We decided to celebrate the occasion by peering into the Capcom vault and unearthing some completely real and, also, not fake rejected early Mega Man boss and enemy designs.
If you enjoyed this, which you can’t possibly know because you have not gotten so far as to make that claim yet, remember when we made an actual, boss Mega Man Creator where I just made a blue-jeaned Totoro with Ryu’s torso?
“DJ Man was created specifically to administer only the freshest, hippest beats during Dr. Wily’s mid-life-crisis-party-phase. Unfortunately during his first test run, the beats were too dope and the drops were too dank, rendering DJ Man only capable of harming instead of sick beatmaking. All of his tracks are certified bangers.” – Myles Cox
“The first real robo-births found in the Mega Man series can be traced back to Mega Man 2, which featured birds that drop eggs filled with children, and frogs that had the ability to give birth from their mouths. Apparently lacking in maternal instinct, both types of robo-parents seem quite content to send their robo-kids off to almost certain death. Perhaps that because it only takes them seconds to have a new baby, unlike humans, who take longer to make.
The original idea here was to have robo-moms who fly through the air and drop their robo-placenta covered children on Mega Man en mass, like the birds from Mega Man 2, but technical limitations made it impossible for the NES to render baby graphics small enough and detailed enough to to make that work. Instead we’ve opted for a design based around the frogs from Mega Man 2 and the Penguin birth-bots from Mega Man 3. Robot mom heads spout rocket babies from their ‘mouth’ style openings. Baby rockets cry as they fly, leaving Mega Man torn between his urge to defend himself and his natural instinct to care for the children. Un-exploded rocket babies will eventually learn to walk (and kill) if Mega Man takes to long to ponder his decision.
There’s also a rare alt sprite for this enemy that features a giant baby head that spits up little mom rockets.” –Jonathan Holmes
“Here he is, Insomniman. Insomniman’s too tired to really care, there are other Robot Masters who haven’t been awake for three weeks who can deal with that crap… his lair is just one big kitchen in the dead of night, with Insomniman shuffling around, doing anything to keep him distracted.
Once Megaman finally defeats Insomiman, he’ll gain the ability to fire boiling hot coffee from his arm! Scorch the enemies, or give himself a little boost of energy when he needs it!” – Joe Parlock
“The Plantman knows if the plants will grow
The Plantman knows where the plants will grow
And the plants will know if the Plantman knows
The plants will know if the Plantman knows” – Darren Nakamura
“While Mega Man 3 was the first Mega Man game to feature a boss that shot organic projectiles with Snake Man, the concept of organic themed robot masters had been on and off the table at Capcom with mixed success since the production of the original game. Initially designed for the slot that eventually went to Guts Man, the tentatively titled Waste Man was envisioned as a robot that could replace humans within waste management plants. Designed without a nose, the character had soft, fleshy appendices to facilitate in large amounts of manual labour.
While Waste Man’s many butt-like protrusions were designed with practicality in mind, the development quickly came to love the character’s unique, voluminous charm. Unfortunately, when it came to testing sprite art for the character, issues began to arise. While his head was technically feasible on the NES, the envisioned miniature projectiles he would wield, and that would be acquired by Mega Man upon boss completion, simply lacked the required level of visual detail.
While Waste Man was initially shelved pending a SNES Mega Man release, it was ultimately decided that his design would be too endearing for fans to want to fight. The rights to the character have since been caught in a large legal battle, meaning we’re unlikely to ever see this wonderful Robot Master come to market.” – Laura Kate Dale
“Dr. Wily built Particle Man to gather data on a microscopic level while easily avoiding detection. He’s particularly effective at spying and infiltrating secret bases. Also, for some inexplicable reason, he really hates triangles.
Particle Man fires a beam of charged particles to subdue foes, though due to his size, it’s really only effective against single-celled organisms. When Mega Man acquires Particle Man’s power, he gets equipped with the Particle Beam, which is much deadlier in the hands of the Blue Bomber. Unfortunately, Mega Man might be too giant for Particle Man to pose much of a threat, so the idea was scrapped. Plus, there was talk of a possible lawsuit…” – Ben Davis
“CUT TILE MAN. After the mechanical Robot Masters’ continual defeat, a new strategy was necessary. Every material under the sun was considered for construction, but tile ended up being the most cost-efficient. Tile Cut man uses a combination of sharp tile chunks and the mud of his fallen brothers to slow down his opponents. He’s totally not just a googled image of Mega Man that I traced and cut out while remodeling a bathroom.” – Zack Furniss
“Child Coffin Man!” – Occams
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I for one would love to see everyone draw their own version of Child Coffin Man, or any other Mega Man boss.
Or just mess with the Mega Man creator some more.
Published: Sep 7, 2015 02:00 pm