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The infamous American Mega Man 2 box art, where Mega Man wields a pistol instead of his signature Mega Buster, was not an attempt to make Mega Man appear more "edgy", but was actually born from a misconception where Capcom's art director believed Mega Man was using a gun too small to be seen in sprite form rather than transforming his arm. Artist Marc Ericksen would say to Nintendo Age in 2012:

"So we're talking about the infamous Mega Man 2 where Mega Man is actually running around waving a pistol! Okay so, the question on everyone's mind is 'how could the illustrator be such a complete idiot that he didn't realize that Mega Man had a cannon for an arm, and why is he holding a pistol for God's sake.'

What happened was I had to go down to Capcom and do a game they just got in from Japan. They had a beta version; they were in a hurry to get this thing out. So I went down there. The gentlemen was the art director was there with the beta guy and they were waiting for me and I came with my pad and they started running the game. What we saw was this little pixelated figure of the famous Mega Man running around on the screen shooting. Bang, bang, bang, he's shooting obviously like this with his arm [Marc points his arm forward]. So I said to the art director, 'what is he shooting? What is he shooting with?' The art director said, 'he must have a pistol because I don't see that he's got a rifle so he must have a pistol.'

'So... a pistol? You want me to do a pistol?' And he said, 'yeah, let's put a pistol in there.' So I did what I was told and I put the pistol in there. Add to the fact that they only had, like, a day and a half for me to do the painting and what you wound up with was not the greatest result but certainly a result that was not my fault. It was one of those things. Here's my opportunity: I'm saying to everybody now that was not my fault! Talk to Capcom about the pistol."

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