Mega Man first appeared on store shelves in 1987, making it one of the longest-running series in video game history. The developers at Capcom have pumped out dozens of games across several series. Between the original series, Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man Battle Network, and everything in between, there are more Mega Man games than most will ever play. Add in a comic series and five different TV series, and you have a franchise that can be tough to keep up with for even the most diehard fans.
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With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of a few fun facts most players have never heard of. Here are the three Mega Man factoids even hardcore fans might’ve missed.
1) The Reason Behind His Trademark Suit Color
Most fans probably know that Mega Man’s original name is Rockman. While Capcom played with ideas like Mighty Kid, Knuckle Kid, and Rainbow Battle Kid, Rockman was the one that made the final cut. However, Capcom USA’s Joe Morici localized the title to Mega Man because he hated the Rockman name.
What you might not know is that Mega Man’s iconic blue color comes from the limitations of the NES. You might assume someone called the Blue Bomber would have more thought behind his coloration, but Capcom’s reasoning behind using blue is simple: The NES’s color palette had a larger variety of blue than any other color.
In fact, creator Keiji Inafune wanted the color to be red originally. However, he was convinced to make the change so Mega Man’s sprite could use more variations of his base color to give his character extra design flair.
2) He Was Almost in a First-Person Shooter
Mega Man hasn’t been afraid to make a genre change. Who can forget playing hours of Mega Man Soccer on the SNES? However, there’s one surprising genre that Capcom almost shifted to with its proposed Maverick Hunter game.
Maverick Hunter is the code name for a cancelled Mega Man first-person shooter. The game would have been developed by Armature Studio, the team behind games like ReCore and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate. Supposedly, it would’ve been a more mature entry into the Mega Man X series.
The team was hoping to target fans of games like Metroid Prime, but decided to cancel it after only a few months in 2010. Rumors persisted of the initial prototype generating positive buzz internally, though Capcom senior vice president Christian Svensson claimed that opinions were “very polarized.”
Once fans learned about the cancellation, they were quick to start up petitions to try and influence Capcom to give the game another look. Of course, that never happened, but it wasn’t quite the end of the saga. Interestingly, Inafune went on to collaborate with Armature for ReCore, so the partnership wasn’t a complete bust for the creator and developer.
3) His One-Punch Man Connection
You might know that Capcom used to host design contests for Mega Man villains. Over 700,000 designs were submitted throughout the series’ history, and most villains from Mega Man 2 onward were influenced by a fan design. Of course, the developers tweaked things before the final release, but Mega Man fans played a huge part in helping shape the series.
With so many designs submitted, it’s not too surprising to learn that at least one famous artist had their Mega Man villain designs included in the game. When he was 13, Yusuke Murata submitted a design for Mega Man 4. His submission was chosen, and you can find him in the credits for creating Dust Man.
Murata again submitted for Mega Man 5, this time drawing the original inspiration for Crystal Man. That’s two-for-two for the young teenager. Murata kept working on his art and eventually became a professional manga artist in 1995, just three years after creating Crystal Man.
Since then, Murata has gone on to create fan favorite series like Eyeshield 21 and One-Punch Man. He likely still would’ve made an impact on the manga world without the Blue Bomber, but it’s neat that such a respected artist got his start with Mega Man fan art turned in-game boss.
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