Releasing on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1988, Mega Man 2 came out mere months after 1987’s Mega Man, the first game in Capcom’s iconic series. One of the key creators of Mega Man 2, Akira Kitamura, recently revealed exactly why this game had a staggeringly short development time of 3 months.
Quite a lot of games that are considered classics were developed surprisingly quickly, including Final Fantasy VI (12 months), GTA: Vice City (9 months), and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (12 months) (Source: GameRant). This is often due to the game’s system being based upon a previous title and/or because they reuse existing character assets. However, a super short development time like Mega Man 2’s three months can raise alarm bells among fans, even prompting concerns that the devs were unfairly pressured by the company.
The development of Mega Man 2
Taking to X last week, Akira Kitamura dismissed fans’ worries about pressure from Capcom and revealed why Mega Man 2 was made so speedily. He explains that sales for the first Mega Man game were not good, and the decision had been made to end the series there. At the time, arcade games were Capcom’s main focus and many of their console games were ports of arcade titles. As a brand-new IP on a console created by a team of 6, including Keiji Inafune, Mega Man did not have this existing name recognition behind it.
In order to prevent Capcom from ending Mega Man after one game, Kitamura and the team immediately set out to make Mega Man 2 in between working on other projects. “This was not something the company forced me to do,” says Kitamura, reiterating that “We weren’t told to make [Mega Man 2] by the company, rather it was something I wanted to do.”
Kitamura adds that they were able to make Mega Man 2 so quickly because the foundations of the game’s development (gameplay system, characters etc.) had already been created for the first Mega Man title. Mega Man 2 kept the first game’s system of letting the player choose which order to beat the stages in, with each stage’s Robot Master boss giving up their weapon to Mega Man after being beaten. Each boss is weak against a certain other Robot Master’s weapon – lending a strategic aspect to the gameplay. Mega Man 2 built upon the first game’s 6 stages and Robot Masters, upping the count to eight (in the final stage in both games, the player takes on the Robot Masters again before facing off against Dr. Wily). Mega Man 2 also improved graphical and gameplay aspects, such as adding the Energy Tank item that insta-fills Mega Man’s health and a password system so that you didn’t lose your progress.
Kitamura thus describes Mega Man 2 as giving the game’s small team of young devs the chance to redo and rework the first game. “Although I created the gameplay system myself, I couldn’t explore its depths [with Mega Man 1], so many parts had to be redone,” Kitamura explains. Although Mega Man 2’s appeal lies in how it expanded upon the first game by adding new elements, Kitamura says that they prioritized perfecting it. “That’s why we did the level design first- not just the appearance of each stage, but also things like gimmicks and enemy placement.”
However, part of the motivation to finish making Mega Man 2 came from the players. “I got all the postcards sent to us by children and read them out to the team,” Kitamura recalls. “Even now, I still remember this moving episode. It was a moment when we felt that we were doing a very important job and became aware of our responsibilities.” This helped the young team to remain focused and not get bogged down in making things overly complex. “Thanks to this, we were able to create a very high-quality game in a short period of time.”
On X, Akira Kitamura often provides answers to fans’ questions and behind-the-scenes insight, especially on the early Mega Man games, which he seems to get asked about a lot. If you have a burning question about the titles that he has worked on, you may be lucky enough to get an answer.
