Timeman and Oilman notwithstanding, Dr. Light did build eight robot masters in the original game. You only need to fight six of them though, because a) the other two successfully resisted reprogramming by Dr. Wily, and b) you play as one of them.
Mega Man 9 had some pretty cold interactions, with Mega Man and Roll not being able to understand why the current batch of Robot Masters did not want to go to the scrapyard. At first, it seemed kinda gruesome. But then I realized that Mega Man and Roll are not truly free-willed beings. They are limited in many ways. This is why X was such a breakthrough. Mega Man and Roll can't understand why they wouldn't want to be scrapped because their programming is too limited to let them. Which also explains why Mega Man picked up the Idiot Ball at the end. He's a limited 3-Laws Robot.
Speaking of Mega Man 9, while Tornado Man and Splash Woman are based on Sage Harpuia and Fairy Leviathan respectively in the real world, it’s probably the other way round in universe!
It doesn't explain the Idiot Ball, because with Proto Man around, he could have had his big brother keep an eye on Wily. Proto Man clearly sees through the trap, but picks up a Jerkass Ball, allowing a deadly psycho to run free in order to teach his brother to be less naive. It's not an issue of in-universe robot logic, it's a world where Dr. Wily managed to scam the human populace into arresting Dr. Light just by showing up on TV. That, and Failure Is the Only Option as regards stopping him for good.
Think about it this way: Everyone in the Mega Man universe is ultimately simple-minded. Except for Dr. Wily, who is smart enough to realize he can dupe and con and outsmart everyone even though they don't have a One-Man Army chasing them all the time. Heck, he simply TALKS the Robot Masters into going berserk in MM9. Also, Dr. Light is smart enough to realize their limitations and works on X, along with burying capsules with advanced weaponry in case the future needs another hero.
The lack of an in-game explanation for the expiration law that set the plot in motion bothered me. Then I realized that the massive distrust that humans had for Reploids in the Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero series started with distrust for robots in the original series, with the expiration law as an early example.
That's similar to the revelation I had with the expiration law and Wily's usage of its pointlessness to get the Robot Masters on his side: the law was likely created because of Wily, the public thinking that having the expiration dates and keeping to them prevented madmen like Wily from taking control of them and wreaking havoc. When Wily learned of this, he realized just how stupid that logic was, and was able to convince the Robot Masters of that. This, in turn, makes him realize just how easy it is to get robots to rebel by playing on humans' distrust and callousness towards their safety rather than simply reprogramming them for evil, and thus inspired him to create the Maverick Virus.
Zero was created to ruin Light's dream for peace between robots (or reploids) and humans. As long as Zero lived, there was constant tension, even if he wasn't directly responsible for it and fought for the good guys. After Zero dies for good, peace is achieved. In effect, Zero filled his original purpose as long as he lived.
Even after he (as a Reploid) died, he was still wrecking peace's day, if only as a tool rather than as a character; his Biometal form is directly involved in the events of ZX and ZX Advent.
I discovered an interesting revelation in the change in Mega Man's demeanor across the games. In Mega Man 7, he points his buster when he's charging a shot. In following games, he doesn't. Then it occurred to me: 7 is the game where he tried to kill Dr. Wily. Pointing the buster out was meant to foreshadow Rock's anger at Dr. Wily, which would cool down but still remain. In 8, he realized that Wily always says the same line when he's defeated before he's attacked by the Evil Energy. He was going to attempt to kill Wily again, no announcements ("I am more than a robot!"), just straight-up murder him because he was tired of dealing with him again and again. That's why the Energy attacked him; he was the only viable source of evil left. When Duo saved him, he also purged Rock of his anger, restoring his friendlier nature.
I figured out why Mega Man can't slide in the adaptor forms: they're too bulky. Think about it; the wings prevent good sliding due to the length, the power adaptor has a bigger torso, and the Super Adaptor carries both problems.
After replaying the second and third X series games, I realized why the bosses had blue explosions when they died, as opposed to the reddish orange ones seen everywhere else. The bosses were upgraded to the absolute limit, making their bodies run "hotter" to generate enough power. After X3, the heroes' power meters default size jumped to 32, with the max being 48. The increase was an upgrade in order for Reploids to take full advantage of advancing technology and to function properly.
Mega Man Zero had these things called "Cyber Elves", which I thought was an absolutely stupid name. Then, eventually it dawned on me: Elf is an Acronym, "Electronic Life Form". Now I think it's pretty clever.
The only problem, then, is that pluralizing it ruins the acronym.
This is probably a case of society normalising the acronym and treating it as a normal word, much like how LASER (Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) has been more-or-less normalised as a generic word for "energy beam" in modern English.
This Troper gave some thought on why Zero is named "Zero". How he can do exceptionally high close range damage at the expense of low armor, and also as a character why he has a tendency to rush headlong to face impossible odds, performing extraordinarily heroic feats and getting himself killed at least three times (counting both series he participates in) in the process. Then I remembered the Japanese airplanes employed during World War II, the A6M2 "Zeroes" who were destructive in close range, but fragile compared to most other fighter planes, and several pilots who were about to die or ran out of ammunition... who were instructed beforehand by their superiors that they may not make it out alive, crashed their ships into targets as a last-ditch effort, creating the suicidal term known as "Kamikaze", and they were revered for such heroic acts. Interesting stuff.
Becomes more brilliant in Marvel vs Capcom 3. The opening quote for Captain America to Zero is "Your name's Zero? Hope you don't fight like one." Now, what war did Cap fight in? And what war did the A6M2 Zeroes fight in? That's right, Cap isn't insulting Zero, he's tense about his fighting style.
There's also another interesting theory about Zero's name. You see, in mathematic terms, x means a variable with limitless potential. Now, no matter what value x is, if multiplied by zero (or divided by zero, although the former seems much safer), the result will be the same: nothing. Zero's purpose? To destroy X.
Actually, the above explanation is a lot closer to the truth — as "0 & X" are both math terms, where 0 means 'nothing, empty, void, or devoid of meaning', X means 'limitless, potential, unlimited, full of meaning'.
For more brilliance, consider Zero's immediate predecessor. Bass has an enormous ego in the Classic series, which has not only prevented him from completing his mission, but also led him to rebel against Dr. Wily on multiple occasions. Making his next robot "Zero" may have been Wily taking the opposite approach as with Bass; make the robot think less of himself, and more on destroying his target and completing his objective.
The final battle in the last game of the Mega Man Zero series has something boss battles haven't had since the first actual boss in the first game: a countdown. 140 seconds before the Colony Drop. I was pondering if the number 140 had any special meaning: if they had wanted to make it 2 minutes, it would have been 120 seconds. Maybe they figured out this was the best time range to defeat the last boss. But This Troper thought up of an interesting meaning: 140 = 1-4 Zero. Or Zero 1-4; games 1 through 4 in the series have their climax in these last 140 seconds.
In Mega Man Zero 4, in the abandoned lab/factory stage, you can grab a pipe and use it as a weapon. This is a nod to two things:
In Mega Man X4, Sigma entered an abandoned lab, then he fought Zero. What weapon did Zero use again?
Also regarding the final battle with Zero killing Dr. Weil. While this would seem to invalidate Dr. Light's ideals due to Zero not being programmed with the three laws, it truly doesn't when you take into account the extremely obscure Zeroth Law Of Robotics. "A robot through action or inaction cannot allow humanity to come to harm." What this law says is that in order to protect the human race as a whole, a robot is allowed to disobey laws 1-3 because law zero supercedes the other laws. Think of it as an emergency clause that would take effect if someone like Hitler or The Antichrist rose to power. Under Law Zero, a robot would be allowed to terminate him to stop his depredations upon humanity. Due to the obscurity of the law, this is a Genius Bonus.
This Troper just realized the beauty in giving all the NPCs names and bios in Mega Man Star Force: It is like a social networking profile. You know them as well as you do random people you friend just to increase your friend count in Facebook.
And then you realize how he attacks you. Yep, Electricity!
In Mega Man 10, you can easily defeat Solar Man with the Water Shield. Put out the sun with mere water? Preposterous! Then I read this XKCD what-if article...
Another one for Mega Man Star Force: After having played through the trilogy, I wondered why it was that while both Budd and Luna had gained EM forms throughout the story thanks to merging with Taurus and Ophiucus, respectively, in the first game, only Taurus revived as a Heel–Face Turn while Luna was left on the sidelines with no powers by the end of 3. At first, I thought, "letdown," and that they just decided to shove her to the sidelines for whatever reason. But then, I remembered that for the human-EM fusion to be effective, it was a two-way deal. Both the character and the FM-ian had to "sync" in sorts to get it to work right, hence why the FM-ians deceived their hosts in the first game. As the story goes on, we see that Taurus may not have been all that evil when we first met him, better to match Budd's fierce, yet easy-going demeanor, resulting in his eventual team-up in 3. Ophiucus, on the other hand, was wholly unrepetant and manipulative, while Luna was becoming a nicer, more honest and genuine person. Luna's character development and personality just did not match Ophiucus', which is why Luna never transforms ever again, barring her fight in 2 when she was Brainwashed and Crazy at the time. Basically, Luna would have to betray her entire being to obtain that power again, and she would rather be powerless and support from the sidelines.
Many people complains that how Model ZX looks more like Zero than X, and with that fact, some fans assume that Inticreates dump X away. And then I remember: Why Model HX looks more Harpuia than X, for example, and fans never complain about it? The answer is that Double Megamerging is not like mixing red with blue (as many fans assumed), but akin to X'sVariable Weapons System. What the system does is emulating the powers he copied from the defeated enemies. Similarly, Model X serves as an emulator to use other Biometals. That's also probably why we never see Double Megamerge forms other than Model (insert letter here)X: Because only Model X could do it.
Dr. Light's & Bass profile lists his bad point as "douchie." It made no sense, until I remembered the LightCapsules.
At the end of the first Mega Man Battle Network game, Wily goes into a Motive Rant about how long ago, he was working on robot research, whereas Lan's grandfather was doing Internet research. The committee in charge of both had to cancel one or the other, and after much debate they canceled Wily's project. I wondered almost immediately: what would have happened had they decided to give Hikari's research the axe instead? I shared my quandary with a friend, and he noted the obvious: there would be more robots about and the Internet wouldn't be so advanced. It wasn't until later that I made the connection between that and certain theories about the series as a whole, and the revelation came out: not only is the Battle Network series an alternate timeline from the original Mega Man series, but the latter is what would've transpired had Hikari's research been cut instead of Wily's.
The darkchip factory was what got his attention. Apparently other types of evil weren't really his problem... similar to Mega Man 8 / Rockman 8.
With Battle Network confirming that Dr. light's focus was software and Dr. Wily's was hardware, a lot of things in the Classic series make more sense. Megaman is really good at fighting other robots because Dr. Light's advanced programming allows him to develop better strategies. Dr. Wily isn't nearly as good at programming, so his robots have simple, predictable patterns. This is also why many of his robots like Bass and King go rogue easily, since their programming isn't as good they have an easy time finding loopholes. And while Wily is able to crank out new robot masters like it's nothing, Dr. Light takes much longer to build new robots and make upgrades for Megaman, sometimes needing assistance from others like Dr. Cossack. This even gets brought up in Mega Man 11 where Dr. Light points out that Megaman is so powerful because both of them built him.
I was playing Mega Man 3 the other day, and I remember thinking to myself, "What kind of a stupid name for a dog is Rush? I mean, he's not exactly fast (seriously, Rush Jet goes, like, five miles an hour), and he certainly doesn't hurry Mega Man along, so what the hell?" Just today, it dawned on me. The Mega Man series is known for its musical Theme Naming, and then there's that one really awesome progressive rock band from the 70's and 80's...
Referenced in Roo's review of The Wily Wars. Rush is also one of the reasons why Mega Man 3 is his favorite game of the classic series.
All main characters are named for musical association — Rock & Roll, Blues, Forte, Rightot (Right on Target), Beat, Reggae, Rush, Tango, and Gospel. The only one not named for a musical theme is Eddie Flip-Top, but it’s suspected he is in fact named for 'Iron Maiden'.
Another brilliance is that Rush debuted in Mega Man 3, the game whose development is considered to be "rushed".
Actually, all of this is Jossed. Inafune stated in an interview that he really liked a game called Rush 'n Crash from Capcom's very early catalog. The dog is named after that game.
In Mega Man 7, the best Robot Master weapon to use against Bass (during Wily Stage 1) is the Noise Crush, Shade Man's weapon. Where is it that Mega Man sees an injured Bass earlier in the game? Shade Man's stage. - MisterVercetti
Genius Bonus: Bass' Japanese name, "Forte", means "loud noise." Loud bass is a rather crushing noise, is it not? Also, Noise Crush emits a high-pitched scream. High-pitched sound overrides low-frequency sounds, such as bass.
There are three reasons why it was a good idea for Wily's final form to always be weak against the worst weapon in the game. First, there is the in-game reason: Wily figures Mega Man would never bother with such a crappy weapon against such a serious enemy (why use Bubble Lead when you have Metal Blade?). Then there is the out-of-game reason where, because you never use it, it ensures that you always have plenty of ammo for it. And one that works on both levels: it adds difficulty to the fight.
It's pretty much fanon at this point that in the original batch of Robot Masters, Mega Man has a type advantage over Cut Man, based on how easy a boss Cut Man is. What is Cut Man based around? Scissors. What was Mega Man's original name? Rock. Rock beats scissors.
This point is made even more succinctly by Cut Man's ACTUAL weakness... that being Guts Man's power... which is to hurl giant rocks at your opponent.
Gemini Laser offers this one as to why Elec Man's weakness is Rolling Cutter: Scissors cut wire.
In Battle Network, we have the Undernet. A deep part of the internet that people fear to tread, with posters that don't disclose any names, and is subject to illegal activity and piracy. Remind you of 4chan, perhaps?
If you think about it, that's also a good description of the Deep Net in real life.
So I used to think "Blaze" was a weird last name for Chaud in the anime of Battle Network. Granted, it's a fire word, and so fits in with the first name he has in Japan — "Enzan", "flame mountain" — but still. Kind of a weird name, no? And why did they change it from the game (where "Eugene" is his first name and "Chaud" is his last name)? And then I realized: "Blaze" sounds like "Blues", which is ProtoMan's name in Japan... and Chaud is ProtoMan's Operator.
Yet another thing...a 'blaze' is the term for a big white patch on a horse's face. Look at Chaud's hair! Also, the first kanji in 'Enzan' can be translated as 'blaze' as well as flame. I think it was actually a pretty good name change.
In the X series, many of the bosses have an animal theme (Gravity Beetle, Rainy Turtloid, Blizzard Buffalo, and so forth). This is in direct contrast to the Classic series, where the bosses are humanoid Something Men (and a Something Woman).
Made more brilliant when you realize the context of the two games: robot bosses who appear more human than the era would expect (Classic) as contrasted to bosses who act less human (X).
Peacekeepers wear blue helmets. Who (always) wears a blue helmet? Mega Man. And who fights for everlasting peace? Mega Man.
For ages, two questions bugged me: "If Mega Man can teleport, why doesn't he go straight to Wily's Castle?" and "Why doesn't Mega Man keep the weapons from previous Robot Masters?" For a long time, I chalked it up to Gameplay and Story Segregation. Then it hit me... it's not that he doesn't — he can't. Wily, being Dr. Light's former colleague, would know certain fundamental things about his rival's technology — things such as his variable-weapon systems and teleportation frequencies — and thus obviously set up some form of forcefield/filter thing to keep Mega Man out. The access codes for the filter would be in the care of his robots, thus why Mega Man needs to defeat them all to gain entry. The loss of weapons would be due to said pass-codes being integrated with the control drivers of the Masters' weapons, which would self-corrupt when Wily himself was defeated, to keep Light from using the codes/weapons against him at a later date.
This is a great theory, though as for the weapon loss, one would have to wonder how Mega Man got to keep the weapons from the Robot Masters of the second game when he took on the Genesis Unit and later stormed Wily Tower. Dr. Light personally created the Robot Masters from Mega Man 1, and he had a part in creating the Robot Masters from Mega Man 3, so it'd make sense for the blue bomber to have the weapons from those robots during the events of Wily Tower. Were the parts of the Doc Robots salvaged so that Dr. Light could replicate the weapons of the robots from Mega Man 2?
Though that doesn't explain why X himself can't just simply teleport to Sigma's fortress in his first game. Wait. Assuming that Wily's consciousness is part of the Sigma Virus and that he's aware that X is Dr. Light's invention (Look at Serges's Japanese dialogue when defeated for the second time. "Defeated by the robotic memento of Light yet again... Such regret..."). That would mean he could have told Sigma how X's teleportation system and weapon variable worked based on his interaction with Mega Man's version (since everything X has works on prinicple the same as Mega Man), allowing Sigma to also block off direct access to his fortress.
As for the weapon loss, it could also be that having weapons put a bit of a strain on Mega Man's stability. Yes, he can carry up to 8 before going crazy and that's what he's trying to avoid.
It can also be a simpler explanation: The old weapons don't work against Wily anymore. Each time Wily builds a new batch of Robot Masters and support robots he designs them so that the old weapons would do next to nothing against the new generation. Only the weapons built for the new generation work against said generation.
Some people used to complain about some of the strange designs and themes for the Robot Masters. In Mega Man 8, the robots were a lot more quirky than the others, with Search Man having two heads and confusing himself, Clown Man's design, and the fact that Clown Man's spare parts were used to make Aqua Man and Frost Man. Even Wily knew he was running out of ideas. Further supported by the fact that the next three games had Robots that weren't actually built by Wily.
I've always wondered why they say that, as of X8, Sigma is Deader than Dead. But then I looked at his most recent body: partly completed, with viral energy clearly visible. Perhaps it symbolizes that after so very long, Sigma's on his last legs. Perhaps his mind has finally worn out?
This makes a lot of sense when you stop to consider that, as a self-replicating computer virus, Sigma is constantly copying himself. Copying complex code over and over rapidly will result in transcription errors that cause the copy to be different in some ways from the original, and these errors are compounded over time as copies of copies are made. In biological organisms, this phenomenon results in genetic mutations (and, eventually, cancer), and in a being of pure data such as Sigma, this means that his mind is being fundamentally altered. This could also explain his change in characterization over the games as he slowly transitions from a charismatic rebel leader to an insane, revenge-obsessed madman and finally into a barely-cogent zombie.
Dr Weil's comment that "I am the Devil!" makes a lot of sense when you think about it: he corrupts everything he touches. He triggers a Heel–Face Brainwashing to the Eight Gentle Judges, manipulates Copy X into crossing an in-universe Moral Event Horizon, gets ahold of Omega... that's not even getting into what he did as BiometalW. And this is just glossing over the fact he makes Dr. Regal look innocent by comparison!
I used to be amused by one discrepancy in Nintendo Power's coverage of the first Mega Man X game, in which they recommended fighting Storm Eagle after Chill Penguin and using your normal buster on him, and then issued a "challenge card" claiming that beating Storm Eagle first was one of the toughest challenges. Until I realized the truth. Look carefully at Storm Eagle's techniques in battle. While his weapon weakness is the Chameleon Sting, that's not what makes him so trivial to beat early in the game. The real difference is X getting the boots from Chill Penguin's stage. Try beating Storm Eagle without a dash. That can be fairly challenging.
On the Japanese names: Did you know Rock & Roll were influenced by Blues?
The art style and some character designs of Mega Man X8 were changed to make the characters look more human. This is (for now) the last game in the series... which bridges into the Mega Man Zero series, where reploids are basically indistinguishable from humans.
The Dr. Cossack fortress bosses in Mega Man 4 are usually considered fairly easy... because Cossack is a good guy who really doesn't want to be doing this.
Following that same logic, have you ever noticed that when the fight with Dr. Cossack begins, he actually doesn't do anything for the first few seconds of the fight? This very subtly hints that Dr. Cossack really doesn't want to go through with this.
Speaking of Cossack, I've noticed why Dr. Cossack would design Skull Man. A skull theme isn't seen anywhere else in Cossack's Citadel, and Skull Man is actually the last robot built by Dr. Cossack, meaning that somebody was giving him some ideas about this.. This is even pointed out by a Youtuber as well.
In Mega Man 2, Wily's final form's weakness is Bubble Lead because it's really a hologram. The water-based weapon shorts out the machine, thus deactivating it.
This troper finally noticed a pattern in Mega Man X: Command Mission. The game is divided into a total of ten chapters. You fight a boss at the end of each chapter. The first boss is a flunky with no real impact on the story, it's just...y'know, there. The next eight stages are the main bosses (with two battles in Chapter 9) and the final chapter is the boss rush and final bosses. In the main Mega Man X series, you fight an intro boss, eight Maverick bosses, and then a boss rush leading into the final battle. While Command Mission was essentially the Ensemble Dark Horse of the series, they kept the same pattern all along.
On a similar note, the boss designs from Battle Network and Star Force mimics the Classic and X series respectively. With Battle Network, what with being an Alternate Universe of the Classic series, they used the humanoid design. While Star Force wasn't explicitly stated to be an Alternate Universe to X, it is a sequel series to Battle Network, just like X to Classic. Thus, the boss designs are more based on Anthropomorphic Animal. Only approximately ten people (in which two of them are split personalities of one another), minus the hero, have a clear humanoid design without any Animal Motifs.
There is a good reason why Proto Man marks his entrance with a whistle, and why the ending to Mega Man 3 is an extended version of his whistle. Blind Willie McTell, a blues performer, would often encourage his audience members to whistle during his songs. This started a tradition of whistling during a blues concert, and later stuck with Proto Man, which makes even more sense seeing that his real name is Blues.
I always found it strange how in Mega Man X, X would never retain his armors, especially after later games showing it was possible, but those first few armors never made a comeback. Then it occurred to me. In X1, X is almost pathetically weak compared to the Mavericks until his armor is obtained. In X2, which only happened months after X1, the armor is gone... but X can now dash without it! And his fully charged buster shot now has a pinkish tint to it! In the third game, that pinkish tint is even MORE apparent, and in the fourth game, it's a solid gold! X's first three armors had integrated into his systems until they became a natural part of him. The only reason he keeps starting with so little health is because the Maverick Wars necessitated that weapons technology advance beyond his armor's ability to compensate. The armors were stacking this whole time! Though granted, there are SOME losses of functionality. X can't air dash, no matter how many times the armor gives him the capability.
Zero can also be used as evidence here. In the first game, we see nothing of Zero's power other than he's a freakishly powerful robot. He takes the arm off Vile's Ride Armor with a single level 2 blast. He then turns and tells X that he has the potential to become as powerful as he is. In X1 and X2, Zero is an enormously powerful robot. Even with all his armor upgrades in X1, X could still not damage Vile's Ride Armor. In X3, the first time Zero is playable, he is roughly as powerful as X becomes with all his armor from that game. Vile also re-appears with even more powerful Ride Armors, but they aren't invincible anymore, and X can still damage them with his basic buster, which now has the stacked effects from the previous two armors. In X4, Zero starts out just as weak as X does, which means that weapons technology has finally caught up to him, and he too must now rely upon life capsule upgrades and armor boosts to keep his edge in the game. It also means that by the end of X3, X had finally fulfilled Zero's prediction, and had become as strong as Zero himself.
It's also useable as evidence that X's own power is growing on its own. In X's original rampage down the Highway, he wasn't even able to dent Vile's Chimera Ride Armor, and yet by X8, his fully-charged X-Buster shots were breaking shields and he had become able to destroy Ride Armors with just his buster. The reason why his and Zero's lifebars were still so small by that time is that the reploids around them were being constructed with more powerful specs now that the common technology around them has caught up.
This also explains why in X6, attempting to do a playthrough with Armorless X is pretty much virtually impossible (unless you're super skilled). X had been reset to his X4-era body because of Dr. Light's repair power but the technology had advanced past that point.
If this post from Twitter applies to all armors, it might explain why X is able to dash without needing to have his armor on. The armors acts more of a mold. After X is done fighting in said armor, his body stores the info and adapts him so he can replicate the effects armorless. This could also tie-in to the Shining Finger from the Day of Sigma video. X could always adapt his body to suit the battle, the armor just makes it easier.
It took me a bit to realize, but here it is: in Mega Man ZX Advent, all of the evil Mega Men (and Prometheus and Pandora)'s names are taken from Saturn's moons. They're all participating in Albert's Game of Destiny, which is about gathering Model Ws. Saturn is famous for its giant ring. Albert later awakens and combines all of the Model W fragments into a giant floating ring, the Ouroboros. See what I did there?
A lot of people complain that Wily doesn't just create a "Spiked-Wall Man" to defeat Mega Man immediately. It doesn't make sense to not do that, until you realize: Dr. Wily really wants to prove he's better than Dr. Light. As such, he wants to prove this using robots and machines that are on the same level as Mega Man, and create obstacle courses that he can bypass. As a result, Mega Man failing any of these challenges would "prove" that Dr. Wily is the better engineer in a fair and square battle.
Bubble Man is one of the more rotund Robot Masters. You could say that he has a bubble butt.
The Amazons were a group of female fighters in Greek mythology who were inspired by the horse cultures of the Eurasian Steppes, which could easily explain the Greek Centaur Man's Gender Flip in the manga of Mega Man 6.
Wood Man is reeeally weak to two things (which is not unusual, take Metal Man for example): the weapon from Heat Man... and the one from Metal Man. Forest fires and chainsaws, anyone? (He's also weak to a well-placed and well-timed attack from Air Man's weapon as well, perhaps referencing storms tearing out trees.)
The 1-Up item looks like your character's head. It could just be a useful way of graphically showing these things... or maybe it actually is a spare head, complete with a hard drive containing a copy of the character's programming so they can be rebuilt and reactivated immediately.
Between Enker and Ballade's heads and Punk's entire body, the Mega Man Killers are all pointy to some extent. Which is fitting for a group called the Mega Man Killers, since Mega Man's greatest weakness is Spikes of Doom.
Special for Mega Man X4: Sigma, of course, wants the Maverick Hunters and the Repliforce to destroy each other. And, of course, the best weapons that the Hunters have are X and Zero, with their Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors m.o. Look at the weakness tables of the Repliforce: Yeah, 4 of the 5 Officers form a good chain... but it is not a complete chain and it excludes Storm Owl. Sigma didn't just station Cyber Peacock and Split Mushroom as Double Agents and recruit Magma Dragoon on whims... they were the missing pieces to the weakness loop!note Though one wonders why Sigma had to set Split Mushroom on Cyber Peacock as opposed to having a Maverick with Piercing be weak to Electricity directly...
Also, the next game had one of its Repliforce bosses, Burn Dinorex, be a fire elemental type, and Cyber Peacock, unlike the other two, was infected.
A good number of Ice-based bosses have a weakness to electrical attacks, starting with Ice Man and continuing on with Cold Man, Tundra Man and Avalanche Yeti. It could likely be the stuff they're built with — certain metals turn into superconductors at extremely cold temperature, and their electrical resistance drops to zero when this happens. Hence, the electricity weakness. Likewise, this could also explain why some electrical bosses are vulnerable to cold such as Spark Mandrill, and the "ice beats electricity" thing in Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX. The cold drops their electrical resistance to zero which causes their electricity to fry themselves.
Ice-themed bosses other than the ones listed above are weak to fire or heat weapons, instead. This seems like a Logical Weakness, and it is. But not just because of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. Your refrigerator makes the air inside of it cold by heating liquid until it evaporates, and then venting the heat that liquid absorbed as a gas into the air somewhere else. If you were to cool the hot components on the back of your refrigerator, the refrigerator would not work as well, and would eventually stop working altogether. An ice-themed robot whose refrigeration system works on the same principle would therefore not have a strong internal cooling system. Which would leave them vulnerable to overheating.
I realized there's a good reason why Zero was Killed Off for Real in Mega Man Zero 4 (or two or three). One, he's in a reploid body, which when damaged enough can cause permanent death. Notice how throughout the Mega Man X games, every time Zero died, he's always in his robot master body, which means he can be easily repaired by Dr. Wily. Two, in the final scene showing Zero's helmet admist the ruins of Ragnarok, his head is missing. Everytime he died, his head is always intact, allowing him to be repaired with his personality intact. Now without the head, there's nothing to repair Zero from. Three, Dr. Wily is truly dead. X2 had Serges while X6 is implied to have Dr. Isoc be Wily as well. In that game, it can also be assumed that Sigma accidentally killed him by absorbing Wily into him and was subsequently killed off for good via the Mother Elf. Now even in the Zero series, Zero's original body cannot be studied fully. So without the creator or full knowledge of Zero's body, there is no way Zero can be returned.
In the intro to Mega Man 8, the upper half of Duo looks different compared to when we later see him. Why? Simple; it's likely that it got completely disfigured in the crash and Dr. Light, with no knowledge of what his original design really was, simply came up with his own one.
Given that Dr. Light was trying to make robots so advanced that they would be on par with humans, he may have been using the Buddhist teachings of dukkha as a guideline. This is taught as one of the three marks of existance and focuses on humanity's struggle against dissatisfaction in life. X's ability to worry may have been more than just a way to keep him from being violent, but also as a way for him develop a soul in a sense. It's usually translated into English as suffering, which may be why Dr. Light named it the suffering circuit.
Dust Man might not sound frightening, but dust is baneful to electronics, and the Dust Bowl instigated the Great Depression.
Also, his stage is a robot junkyard, which is essentially graveyard to robots. Dustman is designed to inhale garbage, and his vacuum is implied to be his "mouth". That's right: Dustman is a robot cannibal.
The end sequence for Mega Man 2. Assuming that tableau of Mega walking home isn't merely the devs showing off the NES' palette-swapping capabilities etc., that means it takes Rock a year to get home from Wily's final castle.
On the other hand, during the four seasonal shots, seven of Rock's nine weapons are referenced in color scheme and falling items — fall has leaves (Leaf Shield) and a red/gold color scheme (Atomic Fire). Winter has snowflakes (Metal Blade) and a gray color scheme (Bubble Lead). Spring has cherry blossoms (look like Quick Boomerang) and a pink color scheme to match (Quick Boomerang again). Summer has rain (Buster shots) and a blue color scheme (Air Shooter). Can't show Crash Bombs because he has no ammo left for that weapon. Don't want to show Time Stopper because the journey's taking a long time as it is.
Debatable. 9 and 10 don't refer to the Game Boy games in their plotlines; note which games are absent in 9’s ending. Also, the secret stages in 10 are bonus stages, and not plot-relevant.
On the contary, canon never states from what point in the future Quint had been stolen from, so he might have been taken from a point further in the future.
No, it's established that Quint is taken from 37 years in the future.
Which means that Quint was successful in destroying Mega Man, in a way.
It also carries some Fridge Sorrow in that Quint may have realized that he himself was a converted Mega Man, and decided to let his past self destroy him, an action that still technically counted as destroying a Mega Man.
It's been stated that X considers Zero his only friend. Why? Because all of the others he had made either turned Maverick (such as Volt Catfish) or were Killed Off for Real. In a deeper sense, you can even assume that these events have resigned X to not form meaningful bonds with anyone, save for the one robot who has persevered through it all so far.
Mega Man Zero introduces us to Omega, aka what happens if Zero turnsbad. The planet became devastated, and most of humanity died. And this was what Wily intented. Given his Pet the Dog moments, what happened to make Wily a heartless world-ending maniac?!
No, what Wily intended was to beat Mega Man and control the world. Omega happened because it got out of Wily's control.
You do realize that Dr. Wily's tried more than once to kill Mega Man, right? And arranged for robots to go on global rampages causing massive property damage at least ten times, with all the fatalities implied? The only real difference between Omega and what Zero was supposed to be is the difference in the overall tech levels in the Classic and X/Zero series; that is, the power of the robots in those eras.
There's a big, big difference between what Wily did and intending to end the world. Omega was, once again, when Wily's creation grew way out of his control — and not the first time it's happened, either.
When you think about it, some of the villains won in a way. Dr Wily managed to surpass Dr. Light, considering Zero not only outlasted X, but become a greater hero than him. Sigma ultimately won, since humanity ultimately died out and got replaced by Carbons whilst the successors to reploids are still around.
What makes it worse is that Zero ended the overall conflict that began with the first Mega Man game by killing Dr. Weil, the human villain. Rock himself tried to kill Dr. Wily in his seventh game, but was unable due to the morals Dr. Light programmed into him. If Rock had just fired (no speeches, no charging, just shoot the Mad Scientist to death), the war would've been over, possibly forever. No King, no Roboenza (which may have been the origin of the Maverick Virus), no Zero, no Maverick or Elf Wars. Just Bass and Treble, and they wouldn't have been a threat too long without Wily to maintain them. Even the Evil Energy would've been dealt with once Duo woke up. X would've lived out his life as Dr. Cain's lab assistant, maybe become a scientist himself later on. But because Dr. Light couldn't compromise his ideals, despite that Dr. Wily just didn't deserve mercy, he became humanity's killer.
Mega Man was a three rules robot, and physically could not pull the trigger, his programming wouldn't allow it.
Again, Dr. Light programmed those into Rock. He, of all people, should know how dangerous Wily was then, given the multiple robot thefts, kidnappings, and the general mayhem his robots cause which must amount to war crimes at least. Programming a fail-safe (which, granted, would not be entirely ethical) wouldn't be that hard, and the usual exploding fortress would destroy the body.
A piece of new Fridge Brilliance: In X4, it's revealed that Zero and Sigma fought before. Watching the scene, you see that Sigma toyed with Zero, instead of immediately using his beam saber to slice Zero apart. If Sigma had done that, than everything that happened because of Zero wouldn't have happened. While it mostly absolves Dr. Light and Rock (killing Wily would've prevented Zero altogether, but unlike them, it's Sigma's job to take out violent robots as quickly as possible), the horror kicks in when you realize Sigma's campaign was already won, without him realizing it.
Wily won — he won in spite of himself; Zero was born of the neurotic, malevolent wrath that festered and spread from the simple schoolboy jealousy that Albert fostered. Yet, Zero proved ultimately to be one of history's greatest heroes, whether or not he accepts that designation.
Maybe Zero was a three laws robot as well, only it had the logical conclusion to those three laws; some people must be sacrificed for the good of the many. People, 'ZEROTH LAW'!
We all know that Dr. Weil is the narcissitic, ultra-sadistic, prejudiced epitome of all that is wrong in the world. But, when you think about it, many of his Breaking Speecheshaveground. Indeed, if it wasn't for It's All About Me, they'd be quite chilling, and Weil nightmarish on a very personal level. You want some examples?
That's BIOLOGICAL evolution. Reploids, for all their humanity, are still Ridiculously Human Robots at this point. Their evolution is technological, which means that it can be influenced by things like conquest, politics, science, etc.
Dr. Weil exhibits Fantastic Racism. But so do most of the citizens of Neo Arcadia. Not to mention, Weil would've grown up in the Maverick Wars. He knew what damage the Reploids had done to the planet, so is it any wonder he despises them?
Also keep in mind that each X series game usually takes place a few months after the last one (X5 had a bad translation error in its opening). So in possibly less than five years since Dr. Cain found Dr. Light's lab Sigma became so insane that he had no reservations with doing a Colony Drop (and he tried to blast the world with a Kill Sat a few months before that). Take into account the damage and casualties mentioned in X6 (billions dead), and suddenly Weil's hatred seems a lot more justified.
If you follow the plot of the main series timeline, things progress thus: the original series has Mega Man (Classic) vs. Dr. Wily, with the latter never being executed for his actions. Eventually, Doctors Light and Wily make their final works, X and Zero, with the Maverick virus created sometime in the interim (it's implied it was Wily's doing, but never confirmed) and getting into Zero. The Mega Man X series has the virus absorbed from Zero into Sigma, the latter screwed around when fighting Zero instead of doing a quick kill with his beam saber like he's supposed to, and thus becomes the new Big Bad and spreads the new Maverick virus. The virus is defeated with Cyber Elves, but the source of said Elves is taken over by Dr. Weil, causing the Elf Wars that ravage the Earth and kill off billions of humans and reploids. Again, the human villain is not executed (in fact, his punishment is theexactopposite of an execution), leading us to the Mega Man Zero series. After that, humanity and reploids merge into a single species seen in the Mega Man ZX series. In the Mega Man Legends series, it's revealed that humanity has been entirely replaced by Carbons, artifically created humans that perfectly mimic humans. The last true human died before the series started. So, because humanity couldn't put down the human villains, or more broadly because neither political nor military leaders do the smart solutions with psychopaths, not only did humanity eventually die, but the original villains were partially vindicated: Dr. Wily ended the robot war and changed the world through Zero, who would never have been built if Wily was killed after the sixth game, and Sigma more or less got his wish of a human-free world, since they all died and were replaced by robots.
Goes further when you realize that Doctor Light, the Big Good Guy, invented X and unintentionally set all of that in motion (if it were not for X, Dr. Cain would have never invented the reploids).
It could go a step farther when you realize that you, the player, have been bringing this world closer and closer to its death until Zero 4. This is why Capcom should've let Inafune tell the story he wanted. Or at least amend the whole Dr. Wily angle in the X series.
Then there's Omega. The Ax-Crazy psychopath whose Hate Plague powers and ceaseless thirst for blood that ended up killing 75% of sentient life. The horror kicks in when you realize that Omega was exactly what Dr. Wily intended Zero to be. In fact, given what happens in the whole timeline, actually letting Dr. Wily win seems to be genuinely preferable to just thwarting his plans. As bad as his schemes got, they never went as far as what Sigma or later villains wanted.
Remember, Wily became evil because his pride was hurt. Meaning if he won, it would be more or less just to prove he's better than Dr. Light. If he won, mankind would probably just have to deal with his ego for a couple decades until Dr. Wily dies (he's already quite old). Compare that with Sigma and DoctorWeil, and you'll be rooting for Dr. Wily in no time.
The basic premise: Mega Man is a DRN series robot. The Robot Masters from the first game are also DRN robots. Mega Man must kill his brothers. Not to mention that Guts Man keeps getting brought Back from the Dead in various forms. Poor Gutsy... And if you assume that Mega Man is too unsophisticated to realize the above, think about Mega Man X. All Reploids derive from him, so he has to destroy his offspring, and is fully aware of it.
Think of the attitudes humanity has towards genuinely non-violent robots: in MM9, we see the Robot Masters are still online when Wily finds them. In MMX6, Gate's Reploids are killed off due to their potential risks instead of merely reassigned; in the context of this series, robots are basically sentient, so humans are willing to leave living people to basically starve to death, or outright kill them, out of convenience. Yet, people like Dr. Wily and Weil get to live, with no "kill on sight" orders established before being captured. How horrifically skewed are humanity's priorities towards robots and humans to even allow this to happen? The worst part about this? This means that Dr. Weil's Breaking Speechhas ground.Only humans understand the joy of power, ''indeed.''
Translations errors aside, X5 is notoriously off; each X series game takes place a few months after the last one. With a new Robot War starting almost like clockwork, with a Reploid becoming so insane that he does a Colony Drop not even a decade after X is uncovered, is it any wonder that Weil seemed more than a little pissed that Reploids seemed to be getting off too easily for the Maverick wars?
Oh God... that makes Dr. Weil even more terrifying. How? Because it means he had a good reason behind his Fantastic Racism. HehadJUSTIFICATION.
Not that it makes it any better, but Weil also subverts his own philosophy: He's human, but his omnicidal tendencies are worse than any Maverick ever was, Sigma included. Not so different, eh?
Although, saying all the Reploids should have been punished for the actions of a minority of extremists would be like saying since there are terrible humans, all of humanity deserves to be wiped out. Are there really terrible people? Yes. Do they make up the majority of humanity? No. Even though there have been awful Reploids, most are shown to be peaceful and pretty decent. The attempted genocide of the entire race just shows Weil to be a racist, demented monster.
This troper realized that, when Sigma said something along the lines of "Evolution needs sacrifice", he was right all along! Let's just see it:
From Classic to X: Until the discovery of X, robots didn't have emotions, pretty much like the robot masters. Then X was discovered, and Dr. Cain tried to make all robots a replica of him, but he failed to copy the part that limits X's decision, part of a failsafe that ensured that X would never harm a human. This made the reploids able to feel emotion, yet they weren't restricted from harming humans. In essence, the first law of robotics was sacrificed in order for robots to evolve into reploids.
From X to Zero: During the Elf Wars, humanity was thrown into chaos after 70% of its population was decimated, essentially creating a chaotic world. After defeating Omega in the Elf Wars, X used his body to seal the Dark Elf, while Zero chose to seal himself because he believed that as long as he still existed, there would be war (and how right he was! The 'war' between Neo Arcadia and the resistance technically began after Zero was awakened). After that, Neo Arcadia was created as an utopia, bringing the world into peace (that didn't last for long, though). In essence, the heroes sacrificed themselves in order for the chaotic world to evolve into an utopia.
From Zero to ZX: In Zero 4, it was stated that the relationship between humans and reploids was bad. After Zero killed Weil (in which he was also killed off for real), humans started to warm up to reploids. In essence, Zero sacrificed himself in order for the rowdy relationship between humans and reploids to evolve into a better relationship. Also, in ZX, reploids were given an age limit, while humans were given cybernetic implants and enhancements. In essence, Zero sacrificed himself in order for reploids to become closer to becoming the same as humans.
In Mega Man ZX Advent, when playing as Ashe, you visit the Mysterious Lab; however, the bridge is destroyed (which was the result of Grey beating his intro boss), leaving Grey's intro area of the Lab inaccessible, and Model A mentions that it looks like there was a fight there, while when playing as Grey, you can see the remains of Ashe's intro boss in the Oil Fields. This shows that both characters went through their intro stages. However, Grey is nowhere to be seen when playing as Ashe, and Ashe is nowhere to be seen when playing as Grey. This implies that the opposite player character to the one you are currently playing as died at the end of their intro stage, Grey falling to his death when the bridge is destroyed, and Ashe (alongside her crew, given their absence) being killed by Prometheus on the Raiders' airship.
If you look at the series from Classic to ZX then you'll notice something about the current state of the world — in Classic, this is more subdued due to the presence of natural forests, with the robotic animals being outright stated that they were once environmental and fauna patrols before Wily reprogrammed them into serving him. However, the X series is where the state of the world is apparent; everything from fauna to forests are mechanical, with implications that the wildlife are almost rendered extinct and the world's biodiversity being decimated as a result of mechanizing the planet. In Zero, the resulting Elf Wars ensured that the world is even damaged than before, and the only bastion of civilization left being Neo Arcadia. While the natural forests made a return in Zero 4, the Fridge page on the ZX series points out that the damage dealt to Earth meant that it isn't enough to sustain it without aid, and all of the animals seen are Reploid-made replicas - meaning that even flesh-and-blood domestic animals have gone extinct. This make Sigma's (and Lumine's) line about the world being worn out and crumbling suddenly become a reality.
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