Mega Man X: Command Mission - Development and Release

Development and Release

Megaman X Command Mission was developed by Capcom Production Studio 3 and many of the team members that worked on Mega Man X7 and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Long-time producer and artist Keiji Inafune had always viewed the Mega Man X series in the action genre. He flatly refused when it was requested that he make it into an RPG. When asked why the team chose to make Mega Man X into an RPG, producer Tatsuya Kitabayashi explained, "Mega Man X is respected as an action game, but also has a good story. So we've decided to focus on the story, which is why I'm creating an RPG based on Mega Man X." Kitabayashi considered Command Mission a sequel rather side-story or the beginning of a new series because the plot is complete at the end of the game.

Based on their experience with the Breath of Fire series, the team created a new battle system for the game but found it difficult. "It's really difficult to create a battle mode system," Kitabayashi ellaborated. "Mega Man has been about jumping and shooting in an action setting, so I needed to add a new system for this game. It was quite difficult to create something that is action-like but still has an RPG-like fighting mode." When the game's production began, the Hyper Mode was exclusive to the playable characters X and Zero. However, because this gave them too large of an advantage over other party members, all other characters were given one Hyper Mode while X and Zero were given two each. The development also decided not to include a New Game Plus option because the game is an RPG rather than an action game. Instead, they included incredibly difficult, secret bosses that were originally part of the storyline.

Ryuji Higurashi, a veteran artist of the Mega Man X series, acted as the game's chief character designer. When he learned that the game was take place in the same time period as the Mega Man Zero series, Higurashi added several features to his designs to Command Mission to reflect their relation. However, he was initially, somewhat sceptical about the changes requested for the character X. The game's musical score was composed by Shinya Okada, Yuko Komiyama, and Seiko Kobuchi. A total of 58 tracks were compiled and released on a CD soundtrack by Suleputer in Japan on September 23, 2004. Asami Abe performed both the opening theme, "Passionate Moment", and the closing theme, "Parts". Mega Man X: Command Mission was first announced and presented by producer Koji Nakajima at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2003. The game was released in Japan on July 29, 2004; in North America on September 21, 2004; and in Europe on November 19, 2004. The North American PS2 version includes an unlockable demo version of Mega Man X8. To coincide with the release the launch of the game in North America, NubyTech announced Mega Man-themed game controllers for both console versions. However, only the GameCube version of the controller arrived with the release of Mega Man X Collection in early 2006.