Proto:Mega Man 7/Spring Man

This is a sub-page of Proto:Mega Man 7.

This stage cannot be accessed without the following code: 7E0B7308. Starting the game will send you to Spring Man's stage.

Note: Since Spring Man's stage in the sample is devoid of objects, objects have been omitted from the final version's map pictures as well

Level Changes

Early Spring Man Stage	Final Spring Man Stage

Shade Man's stage design was rough, but resembled the final design. The art in Spring Man's stage doesn't look like the final version's at all. The original concept for Spring Man's stage was an abandoned toy factory, while the final's is...something. Space? The sample version has a lot more machinery in the foreground, though the scenery here is clearly broken. It looks like the level was in the middle of being revamped. More on that later.

Early Spring Man Stage
Final Spring Man Stage

The sample has windows with stuffed toys and a crane claw, while the final has toy soldiers. The spikes here have 2 layers in the sample, simplified to 1 layer in the final. The second and third elevated sections here were lowered in height. The floating platform is blocked off in the sample, but not in the final. The platform is also wider in the prototype.

Early Spring Man Stage	Final Spring Man Stage

The bases of the springs on the ceiling and left and right walls are larger in the sample. The wall on the bottom left is pretty glitched up in the prototype.

Early Spring Man Stage
Final Spring Man Stage

The walls have toys in the sample, and these dolls include two cameos that aren't present in the retail version! Ryu from Street Fighter and Nina from Breath of Fire are the first two dolls here. The first set of springs has six springs in the prototype but five springs in the final build. The second set is six in the prototype and seven in the final. The rest of the platforms at the bottom were moved to the right to compensate. The pyramid platforms on the left were changed to be asymmetrical in the final release.

Early Spring Man Stage
Final Spring Man Stage

Another cameo lost, the prototype has a doll of Pure the Mage from the obscure game Capcom World 2 and an Assist Character in Marvel vs. Capcom as well. One spring on the left was moved down for the final version. There's a nasty spike trap directly below some springs in the prototype. This was changed to a floor for the final build.

Early Spring Man Stage	Final Spring Man Stage

The prototype's ground in the lower half of this room is much more uneven than the final's. Note that there is a platform below the stairs in the sample, but it's cut off by the screen border. This was thankfully fixed for the retail version, along with the glitched ladder palette. A platform was added to the upper section of this room.

Early Spring Man Stage	Final Spring Man Stage

Though the stage design is more or less the same, the room in the prototype has a vastly different art design. The final uses the same tileset as the rest of the level, but in the sample it actually uses a completely different tileset than previous rooms! The only other differences are the platform at the top left of the stage and the platform above the room entrance changing to a spring. The ladder to the right in the sample has a partially glitched palette, this was fixed in the final.

The palette for this part of the level is never loaded in the sample, but it is present in the ROM.

Early Spring Man Stage
Final Spring Man Stage

More unique graphics, including what appears to be a UFO catcher. A ceiling is present in the first section of the sample, something that was removed from the final build. and the Dr. Wily logo placed differently. Spring Man's arena features a giant furnace with burning toys! This was replaced with generic stage graphics for the final, unfortunately.

Early Spring Man Stage	Final Spring Man Stage

This is where Auto's Hyper Bolt appears in the final. The platform it appears on isn't present in the sample.

Background Changes

Early Spring Man Stage Background	Final Spring Man Stage Background

A complicated furnace background was replaced with a space background for the final. While this background doesn't move in the sample, it can be found underneath the boss arena. If implemented properly, it would appear in the large spring room.

Some of the background graphics are corrupted. This is due to some new graphics being introduced after the background was finished (see below).

Other Differences

• Cloud Man's theme plays in this level.
• Because this stage's graphics were still being worked on, there are some graphics loaded that are never used, or at least not used properly.

Graphics from Earlier Revisions

A toy giraffe with a ring around its neck, which is slightly torn. This doesn't show up at any point in the sample.

Graphics for Later Revisions

Two nutcrackers. These would appear in the walls as foreground decorations. These can be found, improperly assembled, in the first half of the stage of the prototype. Their appearance suggests that their graphics replaced whatever the decorations originally were.

The first is an early version of the final's nutcracker graphics. There isn't any real palette that applies to it perfectly, so this is just a guess. The final's nutcracker has a lot more variety to the colors displayed. The second is a little graphic of Eddy/Fliptop. The last is a giant statue of Dr. Wily! Sadly, this was not kept in the final version.

The graphics for the Nutcracker and Dr. Wily replaced some of the original stage graphics. This can be seen in the sample's furnace background, where their tiles are inexplicably placed at the top of the screen.