"Mega Man X" was developed by a team at Capcom which had worked on the long-running "Mega Man" series for the NES. Lead artist Keiji Inafune (credited as a planner as Inemuryar) recounted that the development of "Mega Man X" required a lot of brainstorming for its storyline and content where the team's goal was to branch out from original "Mega Man" games while still maintaining their fundamentals. In the original "Mega Man" series, Inafune typically designed the protagonist while his protégé Hayato Kaji handled the supporting characters. However, their roles were reversed for "Mega Man X". Kaji (credited as Rippa H.K) illustrated the protagonist X, but had a difficult time with the initial design. He was presented with much more freedom than he was accustomed with the SNES's larger palette of colors when compared to the NES. Inafune and Kaji worked simultaneously on the various designs for X with different pieces of armor attached. The idea for the armor parts came about because the game was planned during a time when role-playing video games were becoming extremely popular. Inafune felt that "Mega Man" had always represented a classic action game formula in which the hero earns his defeated enemies' abilities; the armor parts were added to supplement this concept.