Development
Mega Man & Bass was developed for the Super Famicom after the release of Mega Man 8, which preceded Mega Man & Bass on the two 32-bit consoles, the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. According to series producer Keiji Inafune, Mega Man & Bass was intended for younger players who still owned a Super Famicom and did not have the means to experience Mega Man 8 on one of the newer systems. "Even though trying to bridge out a new title on the was a little backwards at the time, we didn't want to make a half-hearted attempt at it," Inafune explained. The design team included several new employees, as well as members of previous Mega Man games. Inafune required them to make the game "as hardcore as possible". Designer Hideki Ishikawa recalled the development of Mega Man & Bass as "one big party". The staff attempted to create an original game while avoiding the "same old, same old pitfall" that so many long video game series suffer and "had a lot of fun doing it".
Graphically, Mega Man & Bass uses many of the same two-dimensional sprites and animations as Mega Man 8. Two of the eight Robot Master bosses in Mega Man & Bass (Tengu Man and Astro Man) are borrowed from Mega Man 8. The other six were newly created for the game by three character designers: Hitoshi Ariga, Yoshihiro Iwamoto and Koji Izuki designed two characters each. The bosses were officially unveiled on a teaser page in the Kodansha magazine Comic BonBon. Each boss was given distinct characteristics so that they could be easily identified by players in both their aesthetics and personalities. Some of these characters had different names during their conceptual phase prior to the finalization of the game. "Blast Man" became Burner Man, "Freezer Man" became Cold Man, and "Coil Man" became Dynamo Man. Iwamoto originally denoted Ground Man as "Drill Man" despite there already being a Robot Master by that name in Mega Man 4. The musical score for Mega Man & Bass was co-composed by Akari Kaida, Naoshi Mizuta, and Toshihiko Horiyama. Rather than create tracks together, each composer was responsible for their own songs.
Mega Man & Bass was originally available in Japan through the Nintendo Power game service in Lawson convenience stores. Its popularity prompted Capcom to later release the game in Super Famicom cartridge form. Until its GBA re-release, it was one of the few Mega Man titles not localized for English-speaking countries. The company commemorated the 15th anniversary of the Mega Man franchise with the GBA version of the game.
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