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Footage Of Cut Mini-boss From Mega Man 4 Surfaces
Back in March of this year, Robert Hoskin uploaded a video of him and fellow Electronic Gaming Monthly ex-staffers Ken Williams and Ed Semrad at the 1991 Tokyo Toy Show. The video is a time capsule of the Japanese toy and game industry at the time, with several classic games on display. The video also contains a neat secret: Footage of a Mega Man 4 mini-boss that never made it into the final game.
A few days ago, Mega Man fansite Protodude's Rockman Corner found the video, pointing to the Sphinx-like boss that was originally going to be part of Pharaoh Man's stage. According to the fansite, fans had been able to find bits of pieces of the boss in the retail version of the Mega Man 4, but couldn't put those pieces together in order to resurrect the mini-boss. Hoskin's video shows the mini-boss in its full glory, as well as a few other elements from pre-release version of Mega Man 4.
As to why it was cut, Protodude's Rockman Corner has a theory: It was kind of a pain to actually fight the thing. "Presumably, players were to jump on top of the boulder to shoot the snake on the sphinx's head. However, Mega Man himself has very little room to maneuver. Unused sprite data provides credence to the theory as the boulder was decreased in size later in development. Ultimately the entire boss was cut." You can watch the boss at the 4:13 mark in the video below.
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