Mega Man 7 - Development

Development

Prior to the release of Mega Man 7, numbered entries in the original Mega Man series were only on the NES. Mega Man 7 is the first and only numbered title in the original series released on the SNES. Capcom had begun its Mega Man X spin-off series on the console more than a year before. Due to "bad timing", the development team had to work under a very tight, three month schedule to complete Mega Man 7. The franchise's primary artist Keiji Inafune felt that due to the team's high motivation during that time, it was a very fun experience for him personally. The new head illustrator Hayato Kaji concurred, stating that the team was very devoted to the project's completion despite having to rush its development. Designer Yoshihisa Tsuda recounted, "I remember it being quite fun, like a sports team camp or something. Still, there are so many things about this title that I have regrets about, and even at the time we all found ourselves wishing for another month or so to work on it." Inafune takes credit for designing the character Auto, who is based on stereotypical "tin man" robots he remembered seeing as a child. Inafune also did the initial rough sketches of Bass and Treble, which bear the names "Baroque" and "Crush" in his sketchbook. The ideas for these two characters were ultimately handed off to Kaji for design. As with many other games in the series, the eight Robot Masters featured in Mega Man 7 are the product of design contests held for fans by Capcom in Japan. Capcom received around 220,000 character submissions.

One of the development team's goals was to add locations where the Master Weapons can be used to interact with the environments of many stages. In addition, Inafune wanted to include a hidden boss battle mode and recommended the idea to Tsuda, who discussed the matter privately with the game's playtester. Just one week before the game went beta, the team decided to include this mode on the conditions that Mega Man and Bass be the only playable characters and that it would have no bugs. It was completed and included within two days. However, Capcom only made this mode accessible via a secret password. The team also intentionally made the game's final boss "insanely hard" and "something that cannot be defeated without the use of an Energy Tank". The beta for the original Japanese and overseas versions of Mega Man 7 occurred simultaneously. The translated localizations of the game contain less dialogue than their Japanese equivalent. When Mega Man gains a new weapon in the North American version, he speaks with Dr. Light; in the Japanese version, Mega Man may exchange banter with Roll or Auto as well as Dr. Light.

Gregory Ballard, the president of Capcom's North American division, admitted the company was too conservative in shipping copies of Mega Man 7 when it launched in the region during the fall of 1995. The demand for Capcom's released titles apparently did not meet the supply the previous year, causing the company to scale back during that particular release quarter. The music and sound composition of Mega Man 7 was a collaboration of ten people, including Ippo Yamada, who was pulled in to work on the game while he was working on another project. A CD soundtrack for Mega Man 7 containing 37 pieces of music was published for the first time in Japan by Team Entertainment on November 21, 2007 amidst the franchise's 20th anniversary.