many ambitious ideas being implemented into the final game. One such concept was the weapon combination mechanic, which was conceived in the early planning stages. They experimented with weapon attributes until the end of development, and designed the game so players would continue discovering new weapons and devise new ways to complete stages. The processor also made articulated multi-limb enemies possible, like the boss "Seven Force," which was programmed by Nami along with all other bosses. Because moving around large sprites was difficult due to limited video RAM, Seven Force was built by combining circles and squares to make one large character. Maegawa claims the game could have never worked on the Super NES because the boss animations required expanded computing power. The standard enemy characters, designed by Han, were drawn on the screen by combining a top and bottom sprite, allowing for more animation patterns with lower memory usage. Han was inspired by the game Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter (1993) to program the enemies manually rather than with mathematical algorithms. The game was 16 megabits but compressed to fit under 8. Release Although McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure was completed first, Treasure decided to wait and release Gunstar Heroes first because they wanted their debut to be an original game. It was nearly rejected for an American release by Sega of America, only being approved by Mac Senour, the last producer in the reviewing queue after 12 others rejected it. Senour believed the other producers dismissed the game because its small character sprites contrasted with the more popular large sprites at the time. Senour did ask Treasure to change one boss character because it looked too similar to Adolf Hitler. Gunstar Heroes was released in Japan on September 10, 1993, and released in the West the same month. Sega underestimated demand in Japan where their initial shipment was only 10,000 units. Meanwhile, Sega of America also ordered a small initial print run, as they were not typically confident in games from Sega of Japan. The game was not heavily promoted and spread by word of mouth. GameFan particularly enjoyed the game and published the first English interview with Maegawa. The game shipped in total around 70,000 copies in Japan, and 200,000 overseas. An arcade version was also released for the Sega Mega-Play arcade board. Ports and re-releases A Game Gear port was developed by M2. Sega asked M2 if they