Last month, Capcom Town shared ten pages from the original, never-before-publicized Mega Man 1 design document. The pages unveiled a collection of early game mechanics, ideas, and concept designs by Akira Kitamura that had never been revealed previously. These include different versions of the unused Robot Master Bond Man and Oil Man, along with other fascinating details.
Unfortunately, Capcom didn't provide an official English translation. But thanks to our helpful friend Windii, we now have the complete document translated into English! You can download it here or view each page below after the break. There's a lot to read and see -- it's a real treat.
(Windii has been a great help to Rockman Corner for several years. Please consider donating to their Ko-fi!)
There is an impressive amount of bad ideas here. Of all of them, I'm glad the jump height being determined by the health bar was axed, that sounds way irritating. I think they should have kept Bubble Man's weapon going into the sequel though, that seems way better then what he got.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, the ideas presented here would later be used on many other installments of the franchise, all credited to the thief Inafune. Not to mention that his ripoff also copied the Life bar mechanic 1:1 too.
DeleteRAY doesn’t get weaker as her health decreases, nor does this design document encourage constantly attacking enemies to stay alive. It’s been 6 years already, you guys need to start charging MN9 rent for how long it’s been living in your head.
DeleteThey idea is still stolen regardless. By a cryptobro nonetheless.
DeleteIdeas aren't copyrighted, glad someone is using them since Capcom doesn't give a shit about Megaman unless their ego is being threatened by indie games like Mighty n9.
DeletePlagiarism is a thing, its immoral and scummy, M9 is a scam too. You also sound like a cryptobro.
DeleteSo what are you going to accuse Capcom of plagiarizing platforming left to right game play with the ability to shoot fireballs? Care to rethink that one?
DeleteNot that its the plagiarism your referring to, but rather just mechanics theft. But theft is theft, its immoral and scummy. And as I recall, Mega Man has a lot of stolen concepts in their characters well. So, using that logic, Capcom is immoral and scummy. And probably cryptobros too (whatever the fuck that is)
DeleteAnonymous July 17, 2023 at 5:29 PM was me. I swear I was logged in. Oh well.
DeleteI'm accusing Inafune, not Capcom, the series is wrongly credited as Infune's doing, while the real father of Megaman was Kitamura.
DeleteCryptobro! CRYPTOBRO! Everyone who disagrees with me is a cryptobro! And when everyone's a cryptobro... no one will be.
DeleteSomeone is too uninformed to talk about the issue and does not know that Inafune is heavily into NFT, he is a natural scammer and people still treat him as some sort of god.
DeleteRolls eyes
DeleteThen you had better accuse the entire videogame industry. Because they all borrow ideas from each other. That's how genres get invented. Furthermore nothing is more scummy then borrowing ideas from yourself according to your logic. Or lack of.
The whole concept of being punished for running out of time in platformers started with Pac-Land, the true very first platformer(The Sue ghost will chase you faster than you can run. There's a way to refill it by eating 4 ghosts and Sue as the fifth which will spawn an item. Getting this item will refill all of your time.). Criticizing Inafune for using a variation of that is kinda pointless when the entire industry does it as well. Now, there are things to criticize Inafune for like starting an NFT scam campaign, ordering to cut content from the X collection(redub of X4, CD audio for X1, English dub of X6, etc.) to implement it in the PSP remakes with the problem being not only that it was a handheld but one that wasn't that popular effectively dooming the remakes, reviving Zero in X2 when he should've stayed dead completely changing the direction of the X series and stealing protagonism from X, making one of the goals for Mighty Number 9 to port the game to every modern console and handheld which to this day hasn't been fulfilled as well as hiring crazy authoritarian individuals that hate videogame and/or anime fans and appointing them as community managers and the list goes on.
DeleteNow I'm curious about who "Nick" and "Anne" were...
ReplyDeleteProbably Pluto/Beat and Roll
DeleteIt kind of looks like you fight the boss throughout the stage, so the whole stage is one big boss fight.
ReplyDeleteI like to believe that they are weaker lookalikes of the actual boss, while you fight the actual boss at the end like in the final game
DeleteI think I would have actually preferred Bomb Man's design if he actually had a bomb for a head rather than whatever it ended up being.
ReplyDeleteA snapping turtle? :3c
DeleteThere are a lot of overly-complicated ideas that would have harmed the overall experience listed here. Energy running out on its own? Locations uncomplicated to player being the only way to refill it? Jumping being TIED to this mechanic? I’m so glad they simplified things. You don’t always need a complex system that feeds into itself for a good gaming experience, and it should be obvious how it can impact the player experience by having it be needlessly complicated. Simple jump’n’shooting is just fine.
ReplyDeleteIt is really neat to have a look into the early idea though!
My hunch is some of these gameplay dynamics were inherent to Capcom back in the day, as they were a company which really earned their stripes in the arcade market. As we all know, the goal of an arcade game was not just to be enjoyable but to have the player throwing money into the machine to keep the game going. Some arcade elements stayed in the game (like the scoring system and no continues), while Capcom was still finding their way with console gaming.
Delete>no continues
DeleteWhat? Do you mean like how the score resets every time you get a game over or something else?
Right, the score resets is what I meant to say. It also was pretty much the only game without a password system, so while you technically had "continues", you still had to beat the game in one sitting.
DeleteBond Man kind of looks like a duck lol
ReplyDeleteHe was a famous spy. The ducks will never even realize he's there. ;)
DeleteOn the subject of "Anne Man" and "Nick Man", since nobody pointed it out...
ReplyDeleteI was a little confused myself, at first, but they were likely supposed to read as "Anman and Nikkuman", as speculated by Kobun20 years back. A nod to two types of manju, sweet-filled and meat-filled. It would make sense for Nikku to give more health, in that sense. They were indeed acknowledged by the devs as prototypes for what would become Eddie.
http://kobun20.interordi.com/2012/12/28/think-about-your-troubles/
Neat stuff!
ReplyDelete