Thursday, January 6, 2022

Never-Before-Seen Concept Art of Mega Man X2's "Dino Tank"

Ever wonder what the Dinosaur Tank from Wheel Gator's stage actually looks like? I touched base with former Mega Man series designer "Mr. Pink Head", and he graciously shared a piece of concept art we've never seen before -- the Dino Tank in its entirety. The full thing!

This piece was conceived early in Mega Man X2's development, back when the game initially featured FOUR X-Hunters.  Here's a breakdown of Mr. Pink Head's notes: (translation courtesy of Midori)

  1. Ride Armor catapult
  2. Enemy Dispenser
  3. Elevator
  4. Jet Robot Catapult
  5. "Big Four/Guardian Room"
  6. Boss Room (notes to the right of that say "turrets x2" and "big jump")
Note #5 gives credence to a comment Yoshihisa Tsuda made in Mega Man X: Official Complete Works. He said, "When figuring out the limits of the CX4 [chip], a female X-Hunter was removed from what were called the 'Four Guardians' at the time. Violen also lost his second form. We just didn't have the resources to make that all happen."

I don't have concept art of the fourth female X-Hunter to share today... but, man! How cool is all this? Mr. Pink Head really went all out on creating a fortress that, essentially, is a character in itself. The sense of scale is intense too. That teeny dot labeled "Rockman X" really gives us a sense at how big this guy was meant to be. I've got goosebumps, people!

Thanks again to Mr. Pink Head for the treat. More to come soon... maybe!

11 comments:

  1. Neat! I really wish we'd get an Irregular Hunter X2 or something along those lines of this game. Maybe then we could see some of the lost items.

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  2. Maybe we can finally find out what Gator was swimming in...though the mystery keeps it interesting.

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  3. We also saw the head of the Dinosaur Tank on the X2 map screen;

    https://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/megamanx2/sheet/3085/

    It's interesting how the head closely resembles the D-Rex from X1, which was stated to be an unfinished prototype itself. It's likely the Dinosaur Tank is the final product of what the D-Rex was meant to be. It also shows the difference between Sigma's forces and the Doppler Army, as the Doppler Army lacked a mothership of any kind. Repliforce also had motherships, but those games were by a mostly different team, who abandoned the concept that X and Zero were special in any way aside from their viral immunity and power, probably because it made adding sympathetic new characters difficult.

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    1. Older material implied that X was actually the only reploid who could TRULY think like a human being, as opposed to other Reploids who could only partially do so. This is why earlier Reploids look less human and show less emotions. Then along comes X4, showing romance and more emotions among "normal" Reploids.

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    2. i don't know for x4(outside being when x himself was losing revelence as he really doesn't have a story outside the hunters labeling repliforce as mavericks without much investigation causing it to lose weight and zero's probably could've had more of his life with iris/interacting throughout the game in cutscenes to give more to her death.)but the psx games were kinda a period where they acted more human than robots.

      though for x3 it was made by a different team which shows story wise as it's the only time sigma trying to posses x is brought up(when it's implied x is immune to it.),outside x5's intro doppler's actions aren't really brought up especially the placebo he made for the maverick virus,

      being the start of "x and zero will fight someday" when they didn't have that huge a gap with their ideals,the different ride armors,zero kinda being there story wise/really halved gameplay wiseit's kinda obligatory with the mavericks you fight and with how x5 was originally going to end the series would've been a kinda weak way for vile to go out if this was his last game(weird he wasn't used in x5 instead of dynamo.).

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    3. Dynamo's role was just to slow down the hunters. This implies not fighting seriously to drag on the fight, retreating to come waste more of their time later.
      I think Vile having a personal, deep seated grudge against X and being meant he would'nt really fit that role.

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  4. Was concept art for the fourth X-Hunter ever made? Or Violin's second form?

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  5. Since people like ignoring my tweets (I go on a deletion spree in any case), I will post this here after I just removed the tweet:

    It's a big ass carrier tank in the game. It would be nice if the stage changed after it is portrayed as destroyed on the map by having the background stop scrolling with damage on textures to represent it being destroyed. Also internal explosions right after killing the boss.

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  6. This thing is absolutely huge. It would have been cool if being able to have a full view of it in the game had been possible at the time.

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  7. Loved Wheel Gator’s stage, the music was great, who doesn’t love the idea of a huge dinosaur tank? And the detail of having the large “eye” and “fangs” at the end of the stage at the gate part of the boss is just such great attention to detail.

    My fondest moment of that stage is being able to reach the capsule by using Wire Sponge’s weapon!

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  8. THIS is VERY cool. I really loved X2 and that stage was one of the best IMO. It's awesome to see it in its entirety like this.

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