Prerelease:Mega Man Legends
This page details pre-release information and/or media for Mega Man Legends.
Mega Man Legends was treated as a bold step for the brand name franchise within Capcom, granting it an "all-star" treatment of some of the company's top developers. Starting development sometime in 1995, the project would become known as Mega Man Neo (Rockman Neo in Japan).
Contents
Development Timeline
 | To do: Get more sources for certain date entries here and setup a references sections. |
1995-1996
- August 18, 1996 - A "weekly status report" by a dev of the team meant to be submitted and evaluated by the game's project manager, is denoted to this day. Small doodles are drawn onto this note to boost morale. Sourced from an early article about DASH in Capcom's official CAP! magazine [1] [2].
1997
- Mid-winter to early Spring - Either from a fallout, requested reassignment or just a simple transition after completing work during the turbulent production of Resident Evil 2 (retrospectively, Resident Evil 1.5), several developers from that game's team move on over to the DASH team. Empirical evidence shows its primarily the sound team [3][4], with possibly other certain individuals of other departments from the game also involved.
- June
- 13th - A "Sample 6.13" build is compiled on this day to be showcased at E3 1997. From the looks of this build, it would appear as though English translation was started to some degree.
- 19th-21th - Mega Man Neo is first unveiled to the world at E3 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, complete with an early playable build at the show floor and a teaser trailer of Neo being highlighted in a sizzle reel. The trailer features an even earlier build than the show floor one, as it shows the early, pulsating HUD. According to some reporters, the game is already not getting a lot of attention.
- 27th - A small clip of an extremely early version of Neo, same build as the teaser mentioned earlier, is included in a packed-in CD for Next Generation Magazine.
- July
- 31st - Rockman DASH is officially and formally announced at the V-Jump Festival '97 event in Japan, with a special appearance by Producer Keiji Inafune presenting a more advanced build to a young audience. Despite the game's name being ostensibly finalized by this point, DASH continues to be referred as Rockman Neo in various official Capcom media. The director and his team are relieved of the valuable feedback gathered from the attendees.
- August
- 5th - An early trial version of Rockman Neo, which was featured in the second disc of Bio Hazard: Director's Cut (Japanese version of Resident Evil) alongside the Trial Edition of BIOHAZARD 2, is compiled on this date.
- 27th - A stand-alone version of the Neo demo above, with the final DASH title, was compiled on this day.
- 28th - A formal press release officially announcing Mega Man Neo is made by Capcom USA. [5]
- September
- 25th - On this day, Bio Hazard: Director's Cut is released in Japan. As mentioned earlier, the second disc accompanying the package includes a playable demo of DASH, but under the name Rockman Neo, despite the final name already established by now.
- November
- 20th - DASH is finalized on this date. DASH is ready for Japan.
- December
- 17th - Rockman DASH: Hagane no Boukenshin is released in Japan. Development continues on for the English version. This day also marks exactly ten years since the release of the original Rockman for the Famicom.
- 18th - Capcom USA's then-President Bill Gardner informs players through a IGN report that an N64 port of DASH will happen in the near future [6].
1998
- January
- 14th - Mega Man Neo at first becomes Mega Man Nova [7][8]. The decision seems to be a sincere one as certain media outlets already began using this name to cover the international releases [9][10].
- 22nd - Nova is suddenly named back to Neo (!) due to trademark issues pertaining to the Nova name in the US [11]. Capcom continues to deliberate on the final name.
- February
- March
- 5th - Rockman DASH formally (and finally) becomes Mega Man Legends [12].
- April
- May
- 8th - The "E3 1998 Show Version" build is compiled on this date [15]. The US version is just about finished at this point.
- 13th - The North American "Master Version" was created on this very day, according to the final game's internal executable file (ROCKNEO.EXE), meaning the US version is complete and ready for retail. Despite this, the release waits.
- 28th-30th - Legends is showcased at E3 1998.
- July
- 10th - Capcom files the US trademark for "MEGAMAN LEGENDS"[16].
- 29th - The European version of Legends is finalized. The game is ready for Europe.
- August
- 11th - The Rockman DASH Digest Edition, a post-release demo that was included in reissues of certain PlayStation Rockman titles in Japan featuring five bosses and a dungeon from the final game to explore, is compiled to this date.
- 16th - For some reason, this is the date for the final US retail version found on the disc. Like only a burn date and/or a revision, as differences between this build and the May builds are negligible.
- September
- 7th - Legends is finally released in North America.
- December
- 4th - Legends is released in Europe. Published by Virgin Interactive.
2000
- November
- 22nd - The Nintendo 64 port of DASH is released in Japan
2001
- January
- 10th - Mega Man 64, the North American counterpart of the N64 version, is released in North America.
Pre-E3 1997 Unveiling
- The protagonist, Rock Volnutt, is smaller and had brown hair. His textures also appear to be slightly different.
- All shadows lack transparency, appearing as black spots under the characters.
- Bombs dropped by Reaverbots lack details, being a simple sphere.
- The barrier generator is completely different, being bulkier than the final version.
- The boss Ferdinand has the cartoony design present in concept art and at the video on the right.
HUD
Immediately noticeable in this build is a completely different HUD design, which appear to visually represent the Mega Man's arms equipment concept. Seen on the HUD are plain text that display "ENERGY", "DAMAGE" (Life Energy and perhaps the Life Shield), "L.ARM" (displays the Mega Buster's firing rate), "R.ARM" (Special Weapon's firing rate), and "EX GAUGE" (possibly Special Weapon energy).
When damaged, a pulsating animation along with a "WARNING!" and "NOW RECOVERING" text that appears in the bottom of the screen, appearing to be an early display of the Life Shield.
6.13 Sample
This section refers to media and observations that factor to the June 13, 1997 build of Mega Man Neo that was exhibited at the E3 1997. Note the SAMPLE 6.13 moniker at the bottom right corner of the screen which denotes the build date.
Footage from this build shows:
- When defeated, Volnutt explodes like Reaverbots (and similar to the Mega Mans from other series) instead of simply laying on the ground.
- Shadows now have transparency.
- There is no game over screen seen in this demo, instead going straight to a Now Loading screen and into the title screen.
- The aforementioned title screen is in quite a rudimentary state, only showing a bare-bones logo with the text (TEMPORARY TITLE) from the August 5 demo, and it can be found in that demo's data.
- Volnutt apparently can pass through NPCs.
- The HUD by this time already looks close to finalized, but the left side of the HUD is still very different from the final version.
Early Textbox and Preliminary Localization Work
This same build presented an early textbox design and font and, even more interestingly, seeming early English localization/translation work taking place six months before Japanese release.
Post-E3 1997 Period
| To do: Elaborate more on the Next Generation magazine screens. |
The ruins had texture designs near disparate to the final designs. The palette in these ruins display a much more gloomier look than the final. The textures can actually still be found in the August 5 demo.
V-Jump '97
At this point in time, the final Japanese name for Mega Man Legends was unveiled to the attendees of V-Jump '97, but was showcasing a build exhibiting the non-finalized Downtown Area that neither the official Neo and CFC demos would show. It's possible the presentation simply used an older build without concern for what would be eventually be finalized in the August 5th demo. The nature of this was referenced by producer Keiji Inafune and director Yoshinori Kawano, who both noted the difficulty of communicating their vision to the development staff to realize in the game, while a playable build was being prepared for V-Jump:
Kawano: Sometimes we weren’t sure if what we were doing was right, but the other producers would tell us [the game] was interesting, and that would see us through. But when things got really stuck, the other (junior) staff seemed just about ready to riot (laughs), and a lot of the burden got put on the main staff...
Inafune: It was hard for the development staff — like us, they didn’t really have the clearest picture of where this was all going. We would try explaining it to them, and they’d be like, “what?”... which just caused us more anxiety. It was actually harder explaining our ideas to the development staff than it was to the sales and marketing people at Capcom... they’d hear “Mega Man” and get a certain idea in their heads based on the previous games, and when that image was contradicted by this development, they started complaining about how confusing this all was. It was tough, explaining what kind of game this was supposed to be.
Kawano: It was fortuitous that the V-Jump Festival coincided with that. It was really tough getting the game into a presentable state for it, but doing so allowed us to get invaluable feedback from players.
— Keiji Inafune and Yoshinori Kawano
Later Builds
