- [Norman] In 1990, Capcom and Hi-Tech Expressions
released Mega Man, on DOS.
It's a strange game,
especially when compared to the NES titles.
The bosses are wacky,
the enemies seem out of place,
and gameplay feels sluggish.
The game is infamous
within the Mega Man fandom.
Even Capcom wants fans to forget about it.
In the "Mega Man: Official Complete Works" book,
Mega Man on DOS is missing.
But behind the game is a story
about a Mega Man fan
who followed his passions.
Programmer Stephen Rozner
worked on it by himself,
in his spare time after work.
One could argue that Mega Man on DOS
is an early example of a fan game,
that actually got published.
And if you can believe it,
Rozner and his brother made a sequel, too.
Let's dive into the strange world
of Mega Man games on DOS.
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Throughout the '80s,
the average price of the personal computer
kept coming down,
which made PCs more and more accessible.
This brought computer programming
to the masses.
Suddenly, everyday people were learning
how to make software,
including video games.
Stephen Rozner of Thousand Oaks, California
was one of these people.
He taught himself to program
with whatever computer he could
get his hands on.
The Apple II, a TRS-80, the Commodore Vic 20.
He ported the game Berzerk
to his friend's old S-100 bus computer,
the same type of computer found
in the movie "War Games."
- That's pretty much what told me
programming was going to be my deal.
And then my dad, after seeing this,
he paid the $600 for the Commodore 64
when it first came out.
And another $600 probably
within a year or two
to get the disc drive for it.
That's pretty much how it started.
And it was really just doing little games
and trying to come up with things
that would help us play Dungeons and Dragons.
- [Norman] After high school,
Rozner enrolled in community college.
But he quickly learned
that he was ahead of the curve.
- When I got into college,
I probably got like at least
an associates degree work,
but I never finished.
Occasionally, I would know more than the teacher.
I remember dropping a class after
I corrected the teacher twice,
I knew I wasn't going to get a good grade.
There was that, so I was like,
pretty much self-taught.
- [Norman] At the same time,
Rozner got a job at Hughes Aircraft,
through his father's connections.
He programmed databases
for the accounting department.
It was a mundane job
that didn't pay much.
Rozner hoped that, eventually,
he could work his way
into the video game industry.
Then came a very lucky break.
- I was toying around with a karate game.
It was a Karateka or whatever,
one of the very first karate games was.
I basically made a copy
of that on my Commodore.
And then some friends
who had started a pizza joint
delivered to a little company
out near Thousand Oaks.
And the guy said,
"Hey, if you know anybody who programs
"just give them the business card."
So I went over there with this game
that I was making as a demo.
- [Norman] Rozner interviewed
at a small software company
named Pacific DataWorks,
which primarily did contract work.
One of their biggest clients
was Capcom USA,
located in Sunnyvale, California.
The company was the US subsidiary
of Capcom Japan,
and brought over their coin-op games
for distribution in the United States.
But in 1986, Nintendo of America
chose Capcom USA
as one of the first four licensees
for their new console,
the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Capcom USA learned quickly
that the real money
would be in consumer sales.
Executives put Joe Morici,
a regional sales manager,
in charge of Capcom USA's consumer division.
They ported their most popular
coin-op games over to the NES,
brokered a licensing deal with Disney,
and hired subcontractors
to port titles
to the personal computer.
One of those companies was Pacific DataWorks.
Capcom hired the company
to port Street Fighter,
a popular arcade fighting game,
to the Commodore 64.
So when Stephen Rozner interviewed
for the job at Pacific Dataworks
and presented his karate game demo,
they immediately hired him
to help program Street Fighter.
- There's two versions.
There's one that came out of the UK
that's not very good.
And then there's my version,
which it doesn't have the last guy
because he was too big
to get the Sprite system to build.
So rather than make something poor,
we decided just leave out Sagat.
But it was actually
a very good Commodore 64 port.
- [Norman] In addition to Street Fighter,
Rozner worked on Bionic Commando, Hat Trick,
and even an unreleased
NES version of Street Fighter.
Porting games proved challenging.
- When I was working at Pacific Data Works,
literally what you would do
is you would play the arcade game
and then you would basically copy
as best as you could.
The artists would redraw everything,
you would reprogram everything,
the whole nine yards.
- [Norman] Eventually, Rozner
and two other employees
left Pacific Dataworks
and joined another software company,
Riggs International.
They only made one game, Pocket Rockets,
a motorcycle racing game.
Not long after, Capcom USA's
Joe Morici offered to acquire
Riggs International
and make them Capcom USA's
internal development team.
They accepted, and soon Rozner
was working for Capcom.
- The motive of the three of us
that actually got brought into Capcom
was the idea that Capcom USA
would start actually trying
to develop stuff.
It was generally going to be PC games.
- [Norman] Unfortunately,
the internal development team never materialized.
- There was a couple of little projects
that were being worked
on when we got there
that never actually saw
the light of day.
There was a little World War I aircraft,
it was basically the Allies
versus the Germans
and a little barnstorming game.
I don't think I really worked
on anything or got anything produced
while I was at Capcom,
or published while I was at Capcom.
- [Norman] Instead, Rozner had to review
PC titles from external developers.
He missed his true passion, Programming.
With nothing on the horizon at work,
Rozner programmed something for himself.
In his spare time,
he developed a DOS version
of one of his new favorite
NES games, Mega Man.
(arcade music)
Mega Man was one of Capcom's newest characters,
and it became a powerhouse franchise.
Mega Man graced the covers
of video game magazines,
had a starring role in cartoons,
and was consistently
a top-selling game on
the Nintendo Entertainment System.
- The fact that you had to learn
to understand what weapon
would damage somebody.
And so you had to create an order
in which you would go and do things.
And this is before the advent of books
that would tell you exactly
what order to do stuff, right?
You had to literally parse
these things out by just playing
the game 10,000 times.
So I thought it an extremely intelligent game.
The fact that you had
to put all this thought into it,
you couldn't just willy-nilly go through.
For his new Mega Man game,
- [Norman] Rozner did everything himself.
Graphics, sounds, level design,
enemy and boss patterns.
It was a daunting task
for one person to complete.
But he pressed forward.
The game has an electricity theme.
Mega Man must enter a top-secret compound,
take down three robot masters,
and defeat the evil Dr. Wily.
Previous Mega Man games began
with a stage select to choose
which Robot master players
wanted to fight.
But Mega Man on DOS begins
with an introduction stage.
Mega Man must get past
the security gate
and a robot guard dog before
reaching the stage select screen.
This is a way for the player
to get used to the game
before jumping into a level.
Over the years, the Mega Man games
have become somewhat famous
for having opening stages,
Mega Man X in particular.
Mega Man on DOS's opening stage
is by no means great.
The guard dog takes a lot of hits
to kill and instantly re-spawns.
It's best to just run through it.
But it is, technically,
the first Mega Man game
to have an introduction stage.
There are only three robot masters.
Dyna Man, Volt Man, and Sonic Man.
Levels feel somewhat empty,
but that could be because
there is no music.
Control-wise, Mega Man feels
pretty close to the NES games.
He even has that little foot shuffle
when you press on the D-Pad quickly.
One of the big differences
between this game and the NES games
is how players progress through levels.
Due to technical limitations,
the Mega Man games on NES
had horizontal scrolling,
but no vertical scrolling.
Stages were sort of chained
together into sections.
But Mega Man on DOS has
both types of scrolling
and so the stages feel
like one big level.
The enemies are somewhat strange.
Mega Man fights against rats,
mosquitoes, birds, and bees.
There are a few familiar
enemies like Sniper Joe,
but they rarely pop up.
On the surface,
Mega Man on DOS feels like
an outlier in the series.
But it has unique origins.
It was a fun side project
made by one programmer.
And Rozner received no assistance from Capcom.
He made what he wanted.
It was, essentially, a fan game.
- I just made the game, period.
Everything, sound, graphics.
I see, every once in a while,
on the things,
when people talk about it,
they just don't get it.
Well, my name's on everything
because literally I had to do
all of the audio bleeps and bloops,
I had to do the artwork.
And the design of it was
just something I did.
it mimics other Mega Man games
in the fact that you have
to get weapons
to defeat different bosses.
But yeah, I was just me.
- [Norman] While working on the game,
Stephen Rozner realized
he couldn't stay at Capcom.
He wanted to make games for a living again.
- I guess it would be,
boredom's not the right word.
It was just missing programming.
I really, really, really liked programming.
I couldn't tell you exactly why.
I think it's got both artistic
and logical sides
and my brain was always both.
- [Norman] When Rozner told Joe Morici he was leaving,
he got a surprise.
Morici knew that Rozner
was working on a Mega Man game
for DOS as a side project.
Because the series was so popular,
Morici wanted to get Mega Man
on as many platforms as possible,
for exposure and extra revenue.
He offered to publish the game.
So in 1990, Capcom and publisher
Hi-Tech Expressions released
Mega Man for DOS.
To save money on the cover,
Capcom slightly altered
the box art from Mega Man III on NES.
This art was also used
for the Game Boy game
Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge.
Rozner was back to making video games.
He started doing freelance work
for various companies under
the name "Rozner Labs."
Rozner worked on The Great Waldo Search on NES,
and Darkwing Duck for the Turbografx-16.
He even ported the Ninja Gaiden
arcade game to computers.
Soon, his brother William,
who had a background
in art and architecture,
joined him to assist with development.
- We were pretty much,
were co-developing.
I would do the programming.
I would create the tools
to do the artwork and everything,
and then Bill would pretty much do
all of the artwork
and stuff that would go into things.
- [Norman] While porting games brought in money,
it was not as fulfilling
as making an original game.
So the Rozner brothers came up
with a concept for
an environmentally-themed
game called Eco-Man.
Players took control of Eco-Man,
a little guy in a hazmat suit,
who went around oil rigs,
underwater caves, and boats
transforming mutated enemies back to normal.
They worked on the game
for several months before
pitching it to publisher
Hi-Tech Expressions.
Hi-Tech Expressions,
which had an exclusive
licensing deal with Capcom,
agreed to publish the game
under one stipulation.
Change Eco-Man to Mega Man.
Rozner Labs agreed
and began making the necessary changes.
In 1992, Capcom and Hi-Tech Expressions
published Mega Man III: The Robots are Revolting.
Many people find the title
of the game confusing.
What happened to Mega Man II?
There is no Mega Man II for DOS.
The game was only titled Mega Man III
because of the cover art.
One of the bosses from the NES version
of Mega Man III closely
resembled one of the bosses
from the Mega Man III DOS game.
So once again, to save money,
Capcom re-used the box art
and called the game Mega Man III.
If people thought the first
Mega Man DOS game was strange,
Mega Man III was even stranger.
But that's because the game
was originally never supposed
to be a Mega Man game.
The levels are massive, living worlds.
Enemies don't re-spawn,
even if Mega Man loses a life.
This time around, the robot masters
are Bit Man, Shark Man, Wave Man,
Oil Man, Blade Man, and Torch Man.
Their portraits are based
on bosses from the NES games.
For example, Blade Man
is a modification of Metal Man's
portrait from Mega Man II on the NES.
Another surprise is that,
for the first time ever,
Mega Man can swim.
The feature wouldn't return
until Mega Man VIII
on the Sony PlayStation.
William Rozner stated
"Capcom didn't hate it, otherwise,
"we would have had to change it out."
After Mega Man III's release,
Stephen and William Rozner
officially incorporated Rozner Labs
as Rozner Labs Software Group.
They attended trade shows,
looking to elicit work
from bigger companies.
They aimed to get high-paying console work,
but their specialty was porting games
to the computer.
They continued to work
with Hi-Tech Expressions and Capcom
on various projects.
One of those projects was Mega Man X.
Capcom had recently re-invented Mega Man
with a new franchise that took place
100 years after the original games.
Mega Man X came out
on the Super Nintendo in 1993.
Joe Morici, still at Capcom,
approached Rozner Labs
about porting the game to the computer.
And this time,
Capcom was willing to help.
- That one was great because
I think we got DAT tape audio,
we got the graphics.
We basically got most everything
although I couldn't get the code for Mega Man X.
So with that, that was one where,
literally, we had to play
the Super Nintendo
and recreate everything
from the ground up.
- [Norman] Capcom released
Mega Man X for DOS in 1995.
It came packaged with a six-button controller.
The game sold well,
but it is by no means a perfect port
and has some minor differences
from the Super Nintendo version.
Bosses feel more aggressive,
X controls much differently,
and all the Ride Armors are missing.
But if players didn't have a Super Nintendo,
it was a way to get in on the Mega Man craze.
- Again, it was a whole different market.
There weren't really a lot of PC games
and a lot of the PC games weren't great.
I think that's why a lot of people,
if you see the people
who really like the Mega Man PC games,
it's like what was out
there was really not great.
Ports that were out there
were really, really horrible.
Where, yeah, people just coded it
as poorly as possible.
I was told on a number of ports
that I worked on,
"Do it fast.
"It doesn't matter if it really is horrible,"
and even with bugs, they would say,
"No, we're just going to push this out."
- [Norman] Two years later,
The Rozner brothers sought new opportunities,
and shut down Rozner Labs.
Stephen Rozner bounced
around the industry for a while,
including a stint at Electronic Arts,
where he worked on a variety of sports titles.
Today, the Rozner brothers
are running their own company again,
Fun Spray Games.
Currently, they are working
on their passion project.
The Rozner brothers always
wanted to make their own RPG,
so together, they are working
on one for Android and iOS.
The Mega Man games on DOS
are certainly strange when compared
to the other games
in the Mega Man franchise.
And they aren't necessarily good games.
The Awesome Games Done Quick charity
has featured Both Mega Man
and Mega Man III in it's lineup.
Capcom has never officially acknowledged
the games since their release.
Although they have reused some boss names,
like Oil Man and Blade Man,
they have nothing to do with the DOS games.
- I mean, they are what they were.
They're kind of like homages
and what have you.
Capcom has always been
about fan art and whatever.
If nothing else,
I mean, it was a super early version
of fan art programming.
- [Norman] Capcom has since taken
a neutral approach to fan games.
They've stated that
they can't legally sanction fan games,
but they also won't go after them either.
In 2012, they even officially
licensed a fan game,
Street Fighter x Mega Man,
and released it for free.
People love to make fun
of the Mega Man games on DOS.
But by looking at their backstory,
it's easier to see these titles
in a new light.
At the time,
Capcom was trying to expand
its consumer division
by porting popular games to the computer.
There was little to no concern
about continuity or quality.
The Mega Man DOS games were,
essentially, fan games that Capcom
agreed to publish for a quick buck.
That's all for this episode
of The Gaming Historian,
thanks for watching.
- [Narrator] Funding for Gaming Historian
is provided in part by supporters on Patreon.
Thank you.
(light music)