A while ago, when I had been showing her my concepts for Mega Man Ultimate before I unveiled them publicly, @stephysalcido asked me what the stages for its eight robot masters would look like. At the time, I wasn’t really certain, seeing as all I had laid out for the project were eight robot masters, an antagonist that wasn’t even finalized yet and a story that was all over the place.
But it was fun coming up with little ideas and gimmicks on the spot. For instance, Amazon Man’s stage would take after Search Man’s stage from Mega Man 8 but with a lot more focus on forest exploration, and Hydro Man’s stage would be a flooded water filtration plant with giant water geysers galore!
The other day, though, I had an interesting vision on how Strafe Man’s stage would look from a visual and gameplay standpoint, and I wanted to see if I could bring it to life. I wasn’t sure if I could initially (Seeing as I’m normally no good with backgrounds, even in pixel art)... but my expectations were greatly subverted!
Somehow, with a lot of inspiration and experimentation with tilesetting, I was able to conceptualize this mock screenshot, which took significantly more time than my previous one due to all of the finer details present all throughout! Welcome to the first half of Strafe Man’s stage, where you’re treading precariously on floating glass platforms and wind turbine blades eight hundred feet above the ground!
Having wind turbines ever present in this stage was inspired by the stationary wind turbines in the background of Cloud Man’s stage in Mega Man 7, but unlike them, the ones in Strafe Man’s stage are in the foreground- and they move via weight sensors. Once Mega Man sets foot on one of the turbines, he will have a few seconds to prepare himself before the fan undergoes a full 360 degree rotation. The player must be prepared to hug the wall and stick the landing as the turbine is spinning- hence the small platform under the turbine on the left.
Here’s an animation of the wind turbine in action!
Keeping your footing in Strafe Man’s stage won’t be a picnic, however. Not only do you have to carefully plan your landing upon boarding each wind turbine, there exists a foe exclusive to Strafe Man’s stage (And perhaps a Synth Fortress stage or two) whose purpose is to cause Mega Man to plummet... the Propellyte!
If it catches Mega Man in its sights, it will hone in on his location and blow a gust of wind at him for a brief period before falling back to repeat the process, not unlike the Hover Meanies from the Shovel Knight games. This, essentially, is how the first half of the stage plays out, but upon reaching the end of this mock screenshot’s completion, I liked the result, but I felt as though it wasn’t too ‘sky themed’ as I had planned... which is why it’s the first half of the stage.
The second half of the stage, however, also has a mock screenshot created for it, and I am much more proud of that one in certain aspects as it’s just as if not even more gorgeous than this one in terms of background and tilesetting. That will be uploaded in due time, but for now, I really hope you enjoy this piece because I put a lot of love into it!
