Following up the last, we continue our look at how the Mega Man series uses environmental storytelling, this time by moving forward in time to examine the franchise’s run of Super Nintendo games.

Preface

This post contains examples from Mega Man 7, as well as Mega Man X 1, 2 and 3. It does not contain any examples from Mega Man & Bass, not only because I’m not fond of it, but also because I don’t think it has any particularly good examples.

Furthermore, writing this post helped remind me of just how gorgeous and timeless good Super Nintendo sprite art can look. I could stare at these screenshots for hours.

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Spoiler Preface!!!

This post contains content that some may deem as spoilers. You have been warned

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This post contains content that some may deem as spoilers. You have been warned.

Mega Man X

Mega Man X. Of course this game would excel at environmental storytelling. It excels at everything.

It all starts with its masterful prologue stage. We begin on an elevated highway:

We see a busy cityscape in the background, one that really gives you a sense of just how densely populated this future-metropolis is. As we run forward, we encounter a number of civilian vehicles driving in the opposite direction:

When combined with the wailing guitar chords and the (what sounds to my ear like a) minor key of the background song, this opening bit makes it clear that we are about to do something that no other Mega Man game up to that point had done before - namely, place us in the middle of an active enemy attack, rather than in its aftermath. Living people are being attacked and likely killed - if we, as Mega Man X, don’t do something about it, then even more will perish.

As you continue through the level, you move past the hulks of destroyed cars, and watch as enemies tear chunks out of the road, making it un-driveable for anyone else wishing to escape. These foes mean business:

Eventually you will come across one of the most iconic enemies in the game - the giant hornet-shaped attack helicopter:

Destroying it causes the hull of the copter to crash down and destroy an entire strip of road. Maybe this is me reading too much into things, but this moment does a lot to set the tone of the game. Even in doing his job in destroying enemy robots, X is going to end up causing devastating collateral damage. In war, there is no way to keep things from getting messy:

I’m including this shot simply because I love how close they placed these buildings to the highway. The carnage feels that much more tangible when you can reach out and touch the people affected by it:

Near the end of the stage we encounter a toll booth, along with the remains of some vehicles who did not make it out of town.

I love the inclusion of the toll booth, as it gives us a sense of distance and location. The presence of a toll suggests the beginning or the end of a highway; if the game allowed us to continue running right, we most likely would end up one some surface streets of a residential or business district.

I have one more picture from this stage:

I love that there is an emergency phone on the side of the road. It reminds me of just how hard it can be to predict the future, when it is so difficult to predict just what will or will not be considered obsolete one day.

Overall, this intro level does a phenomenal job of showing players that this game is going to be just a little bit darker and more serious than the NES Mega Man games. I know it certainly got my attention back in the day.

As for the rest of this game, I can make a strong argument that every single stage has a story to tell, but in the interest of brevity, I will stick to to just a few, starting with Storm Eagle’s:

This stage very clearly takes place in a commercial airport. No seriously, that isn’t my headcannon or anything. It takes place in an airport:

The beginning of the stage contains a bunch of platforms moving along on conveyor belts, and I always interpreted this as being part of some futuristic baggage transportation system. These platforms are guarded by flying enemies that attempt to grab X and drop him to his death:

I always thought that these enemies were originally meant to pick up and drop off luggage, and that they were repurposed to fight. It feels like a callback to the very first Mega Man game.

Later on in the stage, you fight through what looks to be a series of air traffic control towers:

Just like in the opening highway stage, your actions can cause collateral damage. In this case, destroying the enemies in the tower will cause the glass walls to shatter:

Poor X. He can’t leave anything intact even if he tries.

Moving on, let’s look at some very subtle environmental storytelling in Armored Amradillo’s stage, which takes place in some sort of mine.

Here we see the opening shot of the stage:

Of note is the window to the left. We can see a series of pipes running along the roof, as long as a light. This tells us that the mine is far bigger than the just the parts that X moves through.

A bit further into the level, we see even more background detail:

In addition to the piping and the lighting, we see heavy machinery and supplies. This place was very clearly once a workzone before being taken over. The dark lighting also gives the background a somewhat creepy vibe - if there are tons of scary enemies in the bright, well-lit parts, imagine what lurks back there.

Near the end of the stage, we get a chance to ride a mine cart:

While the cart itself does not look at all practical, the idea of there being a rail line running along the length to the mine makes plenty of sense. We can also spot a robot miner, which is absolutely a call back to Guts Man’s stage in Mega Man 1.

Lastly, I just wanted to include this shot because the waterfalls in the background are gorgeous:

I don’t know if it really establishes a sense of place, but these waterfalls do create a sense of scale (and of elevation) to the mine.

The last stage I want to cover is Chill Penguin’s. I don’t think the stage itself does a ton of explicit storytelling, but I have a pet theory about what the stage is trying to do. It has to do with the upgrade capsule found in the stage:

Over the years, these capsules became increasingly hokey in illogical. Why would Dr. Light create a capsule with the Dash upgrade in one place, and another capsule with an improved Dash upgrade somewhere else? And how is it that these capsules just so happen to appear in the places that X happens to visit?

I bring this up because I feel that the capsule in Chill Penguin’s stage might be the only one that makes sense. Take a look at this shot from the opening scene:

Why are all these trees cut down? (Also, why do they look like robot trees?) My theory is that Chill Penguin and his goons found out that the upgrade capsule was somewhere in this region, and they proceeded to level everything in their path in an effort to find it, not knowing that only X himself can activate them. There is nothing else in the level that supports this theory, but no one said environmental storytelling had to tell a complete story. It is still effective if it can get our imaginations racing¹

Before we move on to the next game, there is one other feature I need to comment on. In Mega Man X, completing certain stages can affect other stages in both visual and material ways. For example, defeating Storm Eagle causes his airship to crash into Spark Mandrill’s stage:

Not only do we see various bits of debris from the airship, but the crash also causes many of the traps and hazards within the stage to be disabled. These little details help reinforce the idea that the game’s stages are not entirely isolated, but rather exist as individual sectors of a larger cityscape.

Mega Man X2

X2 gets lazy with its stages. Quite a few of them are explicitly set in some generic military base. However, there are at least a few that have a story to tell.

First off is Morph Moth’s. This stage takes place in a junkyard, and while this is not the first Mega Man stage to use this idea, it does an incredible job of depicting a junkyard:

The first thing I notice is that the stage has approximately four “layers” of background detail, which I tried to number below:

Junkyards and landfills tend to be very large and can run for very long distance. The multiple layers of background art establish this sense of scale and size.

The second thing I notice in this scene is that the piles of junk near X contain the dead husks of some familiar robots. To the right we see a destroyed Bee Copter as seen in Mega Man X. In the pile to the left, we see a bunch of destroyed Metalls, as well as a few torsos that resemble the body of Auto. While these details may have been intended to be nothing more than easter eggs, it makes sense that all the robots destroyed during years of conflict would have to wind up somewhere. To me this junkyard scene emphasizes the cost of all this fighting.

A bit further into the level we discover that there are robots strung up on poles:

This is not something one expects to see in a junkyard, which is why I always interpreted this as a form of punishment against robots that either failed, or refused to comply with some order. This is reinforced by the fact that not all of these strung up robots are actually dead (some will break free and attack you).

Moving on, let’s take a look at Wheel Gator’s stage. This takes place entirely on a, ummmm …. giant gator tank on wheels. More importantly, this giant tank is rolling through city streets:

I chose this particular screenshot because you can see a building in the background that is already heavily damaged. This suggests that the city has been under siege for some time already, and that Wheel Gator may simply be rolling around looking for stragglers to pick off. This stage definitely has a darker edge to it.

Mega Man X3

X3 takes place in some sort of utopian robot city. The fact that it explicitly takes place in a city means that there should be some good opportunities for storytelling.

We get some good stuff right off the bat. The intro stage takes place in the Maverick Hunter’s headquarters as it is under attack. The opening shot gives us a nice cityscape that matches the look and feel of the city in the intro to MMX1:

Further into the base, we see more signs of damage, and even a searchlight across the way. This is how we know serious sh*t is going down:

Broken monitors and a vehicle garage. This is how we know this is a base, rather than a villain’s lair:

At the end of the stage, we square off against a boss, under a blood red sky. I don’t know what it is supposed to signify, but it sure makes the fight feel ominous:

Now onto the “standard” stages. Let’s start with Blizzard Buffalo. His stage shows a ruined cityscape that is covered with snow and ice. This feels like a callback to Ice Man’s stage way back in Mega Man 1:

There are some nice little details in this scene. For one, the buildings are of a similar shape and color to the ones in the intro level to the original Mega Man X. This creates a nice sense of continuity and visual consistency.

I also like the color of the sky, as well as the … sparkly things that are floating in the air. Together, these two touches really make the stage feel cold.

This is not the first Mega Man stage to show a damaged civilian location, but it feels unique in that it portrays an annihilated civilian location. There is nothing in this scene that looks like it can be salvaged, and I find that extremely disturbing. Who knows if any of those buildings were occupied when they were frozen over.

Second on my list is Toxic Seahorse’s stage, which takes place in some sort of waste/water treatment facility:

I love how the water that pours in from the background eventually flows into the overflow in the foreground. I also feel like this is yet another callback, this time to Wave Man’s stage in Mega Man 5. Mainly, I like this stage simply because it depicts another plausible, real-world location.

Third up is Crush Crawfish’s stage, which takes place in a seaport:

This is another example of using midrange and long distance background layers to create a sense of scale for the environment.

Later on in the stage, we get to climb up a crane:

Considering we start the stage on ground level, this goes to show just far up the level design takes us.

Now to mix things up a bit - I would like to showcase a bad example of environmental storytelling, courtesy of Gravity Beetle’s level. This one starts off at an airport:

And winds up with you on an airship:

Anyway, I guess this is a callback to Storm Eagle’s stage in Mega Man X. It seems a bit too soon to be calling back to another MMX game. Part of me likes how pretty this stage can be, but part of me hates how much of a rehash it is. This is a great example of just how lazy X3 sometimes gets.

Lack of originality aside, the main problem I have with this stage is that the segue from land to airship comes out of left field. One moment you are on solid ground, the next you are zipping by clouds. Apparently this here is where you board the ship:

Could have fooled me!

Last example - Tunnel Rhino’s stage takes place in a quarry, which is yet another callback:

I would be extremely shocked if these callbacks were all coincidence.

Mega Man 7

Mega Man 7 may be part of the mainline Mega Man series, but the game borrowed a bunch of ideas from Mega Man X. This includes the ability to revisit old stages to look for secrets, and exit them at any time.

The other thing it borrows is a willingness to depict destruction of civilian locales:

Okay, so that’s not too much damage. I guess they decided to be a bit more mild what with the mainlines series -

HOLY CRAP SOMETHING RIPPED THE TOP OF THAT HOUSE OFF OH THE HUMANITY!!!!

Okay, so that’s a bit more grim. Let’s get out of here and hope it gets better -

That’s … not better. Someone not only destroyed these robots - they mutliated them. I wonder if the game is going to show us who did this -

Oh, so I guess it was Bass and Treble then. Huh.

Whether or not you consider the robot massacre a case of foreshadowing depends on whether or not you think the developers are trying to hide the fact that Bass is a jerk. If you don’t, then the scene is simply meant to contrast with his words offering assistance to Mega Man. Even if he is being honest, you might want to think twice about teaming up with a guy who does that.

The rest of the game’s stages are a mix of realistic and weird.

First off is Slash Man, who hangs out in … a robot dinosaur park?

I mean, it has to be a park - it has safety fences!

Next is Junk Man, who lives in the junkyard. Been there, done that.

Third is Shade Man. If you look real close, you can see a dark city skyline in the distance, meaning his creepy haunted robot forest was built somewhere near the town.

Cloud Man sets up shop by, I dunno, a wind turbine farm? Maybe?

You fight Turbo Man at a garage. Checks out.

Finally we have Freeze Man, who like Blizzard Buffalo in X3 has frosted over the town, though to seemingly less devastating effect.

Conclusion

These SNES games are able to do quite a lot more with their environments than their 8-bit predecessors, thanks to both added detail and their use of extra background layers.

Even with that being the case, it is clear that Mega Man 7’s environmental storytelling doesn’t quite stack up to what we see from the Mega Man X games. Since the mainline games take on a much less serious tone (and a relatively less realistic tone), there is less of a need for it, which tells us that the setting and scenario of a game is just as important in determining what kind of story a game can and should tell.

And with that, I hope I have convinced you that not only is environmental storytelling a useful device, but one that the Mega Man franchise does a pretty good job with.