Mega Man is one of the characters who has starred in the most video games and at the same time has faced a greater number of different enemies. In each of the deliveries he had to defeat numerous bosses, known as Robot Masters, which awaited the end of each of the various platforming phases. Thus, against a total of eight main enemies in each new adventure, except for the first Mega Man of all, since in this case there were only six.
All Robot Masters can boast of having very special designs that make them unique and different from all the others. Likewise, their aspects match their names, as also happens with Pokémon creatures. However, this work was not carried out by Capcom, but rather the community of fans themselves who invented what the final bosses of each game in the saga were going to be.
In the only Mega Man Classic that Capcom did take care of all this work was in the first of all NES. It was as a result of the development of its sequel that the idea of carrying out a character design contestso that all the followers of the blue robot could send their own proposals and the best ones that were selected would become Robot Masters within the game.
An example that was followed from Mega Man 2 to Mega Man 8which left us with very striking anecdotes and countless drawings.
Mega Man 2
The first time a contest of this type was held was with the second part of the classic franchise and in this case there were more than 8.000 personas those who decided to try their luck. A good part of them won a series of prizes for simply participating, such as a Capcom jacket, music tapes and stickers, but the best thing is that the winners appeared in the game’s instruction book.
In order not to sit idly by while the designs arrived, the team set about simply creating the phases. Due to this decision, they would only have to Choose Robot Masters that could fit the levels that were developing, such as one related to water, air, the forest, etc. Once chosen, all that was left was to touch them up so that they could be related to the themes and the saga.
For example, in the following image you can see what Bubble Man was originally going to be like (below right) and other candidates to be elected for the water phase. Although the author of this drawing called him Water Man, Capcom chose to change the name later.
And they were not the only cases, because Metal Man was originally called Rolling Man, Crash Man was Missile Man and the creator of Quick Man nicknamed him Boomerang Man. In fact, you can see some of the sketches that were sent and ultimately discarded.
Mega Man 3
The first edition of the contest had such a good impact that for the next one, dedicated to Mega Man 3the number of participants rose to more than 50,000 designs. In turn, in this case the same example was followed as with Mega Man 2so Capcom began to design the phases and would later choose the Robot Masters for each of them.
The prizes for the winners were a little different, because here a pencil case, an ID card were given away, and the top 40 appeared in the end credits. The truth is that the designs of the eight finalists were largely respected, with aspects very similar to those submitted by their authors, while these were some of the ideas that were on the verge of being chosen.
Dash Man, Plas Man y Smoke Man
Mega Man 4
It is noticeable that these types of contests were becoming more popular, because with Mega Man 4 there were more than 70,000 participants. The winners took home a gold cartridge of this NES game, while everyone else was given a book with information on the saga and even included a manga called The Birth of Mega Man.
Again, the eight winners had their appearance slightly touched up, because they are practically identical to the ones we ended up seeing in the NES game. Here are some examples:
For its part, among some of the drawings that were rejected there was one capable of stretching his arms and legs as if they were springs (Spring Man), another who wore a poncho (Mucho Man) and another whose name was not even painted. for being a mole (Wall Man).
Mega Man 5
Capcom had to take time under the rocks to decide which would be the Robot Masters of Mega Man 5because in this fifth delivery more than 130.000 ideas, truly crazy. Finally, with the designs of the eight that were chosen, such as Gyro Man, Gravity Man or Wave Man, once again the idea of the original authors was largely respected.
Mega Man 6
The history of the contest Mega Man 6 It was even more special. To begin with, for the first time the barrier of 200,000 drawings coming from all over the world. To date, users from Japan had always won, but in this sixth installment two of the Robot Masters corresponded to the designs of users from the West.
These were the cases of Wind Man and Knight Man and the striking thing about this matter is that The American cover of the game wanted to pay tribute to both of them.hence only these two final bosses appeared in the background on the cover, leaving aside the other six.
In another vein, Nintendo Power magazine published on several of its pages some of the ideas sent by the community, among which we can see tremendously varied proposals.
Mega Man 7
With the launch of Mega Man 7 The saga said goodbye to the NES and made the leap to the Super Nintendo, with an action adventure in which the graphic quality evolved considerably. That did not stop Capcom from going ahead with its drawing contest, which could boast of having an even greater reception, given that they were sent more than 220,000 drawingsso the company had a hard job until it reached the top eight.
Mega Man 8
The last contest of this type that was held in Mega Man 8 was very different from all the previous ones, apart from the fact that only a few were sent 110,000 drawingshalf compared to Mega Man 7. For the first time since the first Mega ManCapcom was responsible for the design of two of the eight Robot Masters, Tengu Man and Astro Man.
As for the rest, three were added based on community designs (Frost Man, Grenade Man and Aqua Man) and for the remaining three a template was establishedso that one of them had to carry a sword (Sword Man), another had to have extendable arms (Clown Man) and the last one had to be characterized by having two heads (Search Man).
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