Number: DWN-042

Weapon:  Centaur Flash

Weakness:  Knight Crusher

A robot based on the mythical creature. Try to fight him from the center of the arena as much as possible. If you stand to the sides, you’ll be hit by his spread shot.

Centaur Man! Centaur Man bears the noble distinction of being the only quadrupedal Robot Master evah. Yes, as the name indicates, Centaur Man is half centaur, half man, which I believe makes him three quarters man, one quarter horse. Actually, in the Rockman 6 manga, Centaur Man is revealed to be a woman. Not the point!

As told in myth of yore, Centaur Man bears the formidable power to distort space and time, and wields an arm cannon that shoots scattering, ricocheting blasts. Centaur Man’s quadruped design grants a notable increase in agility, but also makes Centaur Man one of the few Robot Masters unable to jump.

Use Knight Man’s Knight Crusher to turn this centaur into a dead-taur. Your reward is the almighty Centaur Flash, a time-stopping weapon similar to the Flash Stopper or Time Stopper of games past, but with the notable distinction of causing damage to enemies in the vicinity at the moment of its flash. Dazzling!

David Oxford   (The Mega Man Network)
Centaur Man is not your little pony, and his friendship isn’t magic — though the Centaur Flash comes pretty close, as it allows him to essentially halt time by distorting space. In addition to freezing opponents in place, he can close the gap pretty effectively by teleporting, allowing him trample foes with his front legs, or put some distance so his spreading buster shots will be all the more devastating.

In a bizarre twist, Shigeto Ikehara’s manga adaptation of Mega Man 6 actually reveals Centaur Man to be a woman who loved Knight Man, which one would imagine might make the Knight Crush an emotional weakness as well as a physical one.

Centaur Man’s appearance is a pretty powerful Robot Master visual to wrap up the Nintendo Entertainment System era of the games on, with a unique form that has not quite been replicated since. That said, Centaur Man does reappear in the second arcade game, there accentuating his already powerful appearance with a naginata, a shield, and the Centaur Arrow.

Keisuke Mizuno  (Character designer for TruForce)
Plainly put, having a four-legged boss was really novel. There’s a sort of romantic quality to the whole centaur thing. I used to try and draw him a lot, and I feel like that actually helped me learn how to draw horse’s feet pretty well for a kid.