Once Upon a Time, Crystal Man Was Almost Crystal Lady?

Inspired by a commercial for Super Mario Maker, Mega Man 5 producer Ichiro Mihara recently decided to dig up some old design documents he had from the development of that game for the Nintendo Entertainment System so many years ago.

“The commercial for Mario Maker made me remember how back when I was working on Rockman 6 for the Famicom, I placed the enemies with a tool that ran on top of the game,” he noted on Twitter (as translated by Sensei Hanzou). “These days things like that are normal, but back in the day we had to use graph paper etc. Enemy placement went very quickly due to that tool that Mr. F made for me.”

For those wondering, Mega Man Megamix author Hitoshi Ariga asked Mihara if he meant Mega Man 5, to which Minara responds “Certainly it’s a 5.”

Minara goes on to show some quick pics taken from his idea notebook, which you can see mirrored in this gallery.

“Man,” he notes, “I really just drew whatever popped into my head, haha. For the minor enemies I would just draw the general image I had; there might be some enemies that were based off of these.”

Other ideas he mentions involve a game called “Rockman Wars” and Robot Masters named Card Man, Climb Man, Stardust Man, Train Man, Graviton Man, Aqua Man, and of course, Crystal Lady.

Had that concept been realized as it was originally imagined, Crystal Lady would have been the first female Robot Master. Instead, we got Crystal Man, along with a 16 year wait before that landmark would be reached in Splash Woman.

Train Man likely became Charge Man, while Aqua Man came to be in Mega Man 8. Climb Man was to be fought while falling down a cliff, an idea that would also be realized in Aqua Man’s stage via a mini-boss. It’s also possible that Card Man might have become Magic Man, Graviton Man doesn’t seem too far removed from Gravity Man, and Stardust Man might have simply become Star Man, but it’s hard not to imagine Mega Man fighting this guy whenever I read that name:

(Of course, he was taken care of by another superhero, but that’s another story for another blog…)

Source: Protodude’s Rockman Corner via Gamnesia and a tip from GeminiSparkSP

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