The Reploid Research Lavatory

One of the intriguing mysteries of the Rockman DASH series is the use of the title “Rockman” by ancient and powerful beings who may have once controlled the world. Even before there was Rockman Juno, the developers were toying with different ideas for an antagonistic Rockman to serve as a foil for our hero. We caught a glimpse of one such concept last week. Now we’ll be taking a deeper look at the unused characters that could have inherited the name of Rockman.

From the Rockman DASH Great Adventure Guide, page 62:

Professor Data’s “Uki-Uki!” DASH Laboratory!!

Lesson 5: The Evil Rockman Follow-up Report!!

“Uki~! For our fifth lesson, we’ll be uncovering an astonishing fact! This time we’ll be talking about the enemy character known only as the Evil Rockman!!”

Aside from the Bonnes, there was an even more powerful villain that could have emerged!
“The Evil Rockman was going to be Rock’s rival in the early stages of development. But that doesn’t mean he was going to be an ally of the air pirates either, it seems this guy was actually going to be an antagonist to both Rock and the Bonnes! He’s one gruesome fellow!”

Could this have been Rock’s fiercest rival!?

Evil Rockman 1
“With those thick arms, this Evil Rockman was designed for with the tough guy look in mind. If you were to get hit by this guy, you’d probably take a lot of damage!”

Speed-stealth Rockman
“This guy has equipment installed in his shoulders that can render his body invisible! On top of that, he posses incredible speed as well! If he had appeared in the game, you know he’d have made for one formidable opponent!”

Evil Rockman 2
“This evil Rockman shares a similar style with Rock. Except his expression is totally frightening! With those sharp edges even along his fingertips, he looks totally vicious!”

“Uki~! Now this is really interesting!”

Evil Rockman even appeared on a character relations chart!?
“You can even find Evil Rockman on relationship diagrams like this. You can also spot Miss Nurse from our first lesson on there as well! And an Evil Rockman was in the body chart from that page, too.”

Evil Rockman would have had his own Kobuns!?
“There was an idea that like the air pirates, Evil Rockman would have had his own lackeys. It appears they thought up all different types of mecha, some of which rather resemble the leebirds. The Bonne Family and the leebirds are bad enough as it is, so I’m glad these guys didn’t make it too!”

“The Evil Rockman’s subordinates each all share the same menacing looking eye that only they have! That evil eye is their main design point!”

It’s hard to say whether the early Evil Rockman idea would have fit into the plot of the Master System as we know it. Is he a Purifier model, a Bureaucrat like Juno, or a digger with a similar armor design to Rock? He seems altogether more malicious and scheming than the calm, polite exterior of Juno. And his kobuns are quite certainly some ferocious-looking robots. Their basic design contains elements from the good and evil Rockmen, but they also strike me as a strange mix of Bonne tech and Reaverbot that in some ways still manages to look quite alien. The notes by their designs explain that the main sphere with the evil eye adorned is the robot’s main AI, and potentially a weak spot. The idea of a more treatcherous servbot would later be realized by Glyde and Loath’s birdbots.

Let’s take a closer look at that interrelations flow chart to get a better idea of the early story. *click*

It looks as though Evil Rockman might have deceived our hero Rockman (not yet known as simply “Rock”) into looking upon him as an ally for a while.

And the others? The Bonnes were fairly well established even before Tron’s final design was decided, with Teisel being the head of the family and Bon being the strong man of the group, and the 40 servbots acting as Tron’s kids. The tenuous love triangle between Rock and the two girls was also set in place.

But there are also some hints that the Bonnes were going to interact more with the Casketts. As seen in the servbots have taken a liking to Roll, infuriating poor Tron (as we’ve seen before)! Tiesel’s arrow also shows that he actually has a fondness for Roll (who does not feel likewise), and he and Barrel (listed here only as the Professor) seem to have a mutual appreciation for each other. I wonder who would have been using who? Eventually we know the two did come to some understanding by the ending of Legends 2. Perhaps their respect for one another is based on academics, given that Teisel is a bookish nerd?

And last but not least, we have Miss Nurse joining the cast at this stage, labeled here as an Assistant with an arrow pointing to Barrel. Once again, no sign of Data himself. We’ll talk a bit more about that next week.