Wednesday, June 23, 2010

An Early Look At Mega Man X's Armor

There's this famous, old preview for the original Mega Man X that's been floating around on the net for quite some time which you might have seen over at The Mechanical Maniacs or The Reploid Research Lavatory. The preview, dating back to the game's debut in the summer of 1993, touts shots of an unused "white city" stage, a curious alternate plot for the game involving a "RoboPolice" task force, and an early concept of what would become X's armor....


The mock-up armor:


Notice all the little intricate details throughout its body, the mouth plate, raised shoulders, etc. Quite cool looking, albeit a little too "heavy duty" for my tastes. The armor in particular has been an object of speculation among fans for quite some time, with most wondering just what it might have looked like if it weren't a mock-up. Well, wonder no more; Kobun 20 of the Reploid Research Lavority, in his quest to chronicle the development of X1, stumbled upon the below image of the work-in-progress armor from GamePro's Winter CES 1994 coverage


Yes, that's a giant inflatable X. Nevertheless, it gives us a good idea of what the armor would have looked like in color. You'll notice its lost a lot of detail when compared to its conceptual counterpart as it inches closer to the final design we know and love. I'm a fan of the Casshern style mouth plate; it just gives off this vibe that X is ready for battle. A dropped attribute, I'm afraid. X wouldn't feature a mouth guard till X6's Shadow Armor.

It's interesting; art of the mock-up armor hasn't appeared outside of the pages of GamePro and other gaming magazines of yesteryear. Capcom has never featured it in any official art books, not even Mega Man X: Official Complete Works. Why? We don't know for sure, but a popular theory was it was drawn by a GamePro artist exclusively for the magazine's MMX coverage and wasn't official. I don't think that theory holds true now thanks to the appearance of the inflatable X.

 For more Mega Man X pre-release information, check out The Reploid Research Lavatory.
at

7 comments:

  1. Krazy MonkeyJune 23, 2010 at 9:24 PM

    Hmm, looks a bit weird in my opinion, but at the same time, it looks almost like a combination of the Gaea and Shadow Armors from Mega Man X5 and X6.

    ReplyDelete
  2. kotipeltoxJune 23, 2010 at 10:31 PM

    I remember that armor, i saw it on a japanese blog 8 years ago aprox.!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AndrewJune 23, 2010 at 10:33 PM

    Call me old-fashioned, but I much prefer the X armor design we actually get in-game to this one.

    Good find, though!

    ReplyDelete
  4. MegaMacJune 24, 2010 at 12:09 AM

    I think that artwork was clearly drawn by Keiji or one of his close secondary artists. Just look at the lines, the eyes especially. Looks very similar at least. As for the inflatable X, it's probably in someones basement or attic right now. Outrageously expensive if ever for sale. My god...lol

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJune 24, 2010 at 12:10 AM

    For some reason, I tend to like big shoulder plates in character design. They're totally unnecessary, but they look awesome to me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fanciful Dancing StarJune 24, 2010 at 3:15 AM

    Ah, ya, I actually saw this earlier this week on another Mega Man blog, weirdly enough. X's armor in that inflatable bears a striking resemblance to Casshan/Casshern.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ZanJune 24, 2010 at 1:14 PM

    @Protodude: You should give Kobun20 more time in the spotlight, this was effectively one of the least interesting things he has on his blog, and you're only mentioning him after the "Read More" point...

    ReplyDelete

Keep it friendly. Disparaging, belittling and derogatory comments are not permitted.