The original Megaman game only has 6 Robot Masters instead of the usual 8. Out of Universe this may be because they felt 6 made for too short of a game and bumped it up. In-Universe, there are 8 Masters, but Dr Wily only successfully reprograms 6 of them. The other two? Megaman and Roll. Roll is the only one not retrofitted for combat while Protoman is just that, a prototype; not one of the original "Master Series".
The serial numbers for Doctor Wily's robots do not start at DWN-000, but rather carry on from those of Dr. Light. This seems very unusual on the surface, until you realize that due to Wily's meddling, he probably believes he has some claim to Light's robots. Thus, while Cut Man, for instance, may officially be DLN-003, Wily considers him DWN-003. However, this doesn't quite explain why Concrete Man, Doctor Light's next robot after Elec Man (or Oil Man) would be DLN-065.
Because, despite everything that happened between them, Thomas still respects and uses the skills in robotics he learned while working together with Albert. It's his testament to the great man that still resides in Wily.
Top Man, widely considered the easiest of the Mega Man III bosses, is at the top of the agenda.
In Mega Man Powered Up, Dr. Light appears not to have learned his lesson by activating Time Man before he was completed. In truth, he did learn his lesson, just not the one Proto Man felt he should've. Proto Man was activated alone, and took off on his own. If Light had waited to finish Time Man instead of activating him alongside his brothers, it would've created a massive gap between him and them; with his obviously superior powers, he would've likely looked down on them from the outset, and they likely would've been jealous of the attention he'd get with his power, not to mention not having the time to get to know them that he did. It would've made it much more difficult for them to bond, and he probably would've been 100 times as arrogant as he is now.
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.
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 inspires 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.
A number of people thought that it was an utterly stupid idea for Wily to try framing Doctor Light, and that the story writers had to be off their meds to think such a thing would ever work. But when you think about it, it works with Wily's habit of using chaos as a cover for his schemes, like in Mega Man 5 and 6; make people confused and disoriented and then strike while everyone's trying to confirm his 'footage' and claims that Light made the robots go nuts. Naturally, people would call and complain or accuse like in real-life without thinking, but considering that plot point dropped pretty quickly once Wily's Fake Man bots put up an act of a police arrest of Light, perhaps those people came around and realized they’d been had relatively fast.
Dr. Light and Dr. Wily keep their noses strictly within robotics and artificial intelligence as opposed to something like medicine or chemistry. Although, in a cartoonish way, it distinguishes them as (computer?) scientists, the lab coats wouldn't really make any sense. They do, however, likely get very hands-on with some of the specially customized circuitboards and other sensitive electrical components in Megaman and the other robots, and that would require some very special precautions to avoid accidental damage from static discharge. They aren't wearing lab coats — they're wearing ESD smocks!
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. Than it occurred to me: 7 is the game where he tried to kill Dr. Wilynote Abeit this is only in the English release, in the Japanese release, Mega Man just stands there. 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.
This is shown due to his perpetual scowl throughout 7. As Zero would put it, Megaman has hit "this isn't fun anymore" and is thus sick and tired of having to keep fighting for peace when NOTHING changes.
Also building off Rock's anger leading up to the moment where he outrights considers killing Dr. Wily, the event that happens in-between defeating the last Robot Master of "7" and going to Wily's Fortress of that game was Rock returning to Dr. Light's lab only to find the place ransacked by Bass, who as it turns out was created by Dr. Wily. Makes sense he'd consider outright killing the Mad Scientist at this point since he's managed to in one fell swoop: take advantage of his and Dr. Light's kindness via Bass, steal tech from Dr. Light and decimate Rock's home (and in a case of Fridge Horror could've likely killed Dr. Light and Roll whilst he was away dealing with Wily's other robots.) After doing so many terrible deeds, Wily finally hit THE big Moral Event Horizon in his eyes at that point.
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.-
The inclusion of Sheep Man in Mega Man 10 seemed kind of a lame boss-concept... then I realized: wait a minute... he's a robot sheep... an Electric Sheep... the kind androids dream of. It's even in the name of his stage theme, Dreams Of Electric Sheep!
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...
Continued on from Solar Man, what the heck is a "Solar Workout" anyway? Well, consider that one of the basic poses in yoga is called the "Sun Salutation".
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.
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... —
Rush does a song called "By-tor and the Snow Dog".
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".
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.
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.
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?" Fora 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.
As for the weapons, it would make sense that Dr. Wily would first make each generation of his robots immune to the weapons of the previous generations, as each generation has more powerful weapons and stronger armor, but as a consequence at least one of the weapons of the robots of the current generation would be powerful enough to punch through the new armor of each robot.
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 those in the rest of the series, 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 two games had Robots that weren't actually built by Wily.
Wily's final form always being weak to the weakest weapon in the game works on three levels. In-universe, Wily would expect Mega Man to never bother attacking with a weapon that barely worked before; why use Bubble Lead when you have Metal Blades? Out of universe, the devs could always expect you to have plenty of weapon energy left for such a bad weapon. Finally, it adds another layer of challenge.
On the Japanese names: Did you know Rock & Roll were influenced by Blues?
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.
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 Mc Tell, 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.
Why is Beat a Game-Breaker against the Bosses of Megaman 5? Two reasons: 1. The fact that Dr. Cossack probably figured out that Dr. Wily was truly behind Dr. Light's kidnapping and Cossack knew a bit about Dr. Wily's tech and gave Beat the ability to seek and destroy Dr. Wily's creations. 2. Beat was finished shortly before Mega Man went into fake!Protoman's castle. Dr. Wily had never seen the tech before and had no chance to upgrade any of his robots to defend against it.
While on the subject of Beat, why is it that Beat got nerfed going from 5 to 6? This is going into WMG territory, but when Dr. Light went to improve Beat's weapon system, he may have inadvertently removed Beat's ability to target Wily's bosses.
Not only that, but all of the Robot Masters in 6 are technically not Wily's.
Proto Man’s signature whistle from whenever he appears? He's whistling it himself when he enters. It's probably a tune he picked up during his travels around the world.
Zero is not only more powerful than any of Wily's robots, he also has no type weaknesses OR noteworthy strengths, something Wily has utterly failed at in every one of his Robot Masters before this point. However, it makes sense if you think about it; each Robot Master built by Wily was a relatively shoddy piece of work made as quickly as he could in order to have 8 prepared as well as a Wily Machine for his world domination schemes and thus is flawed in some way that allows the weapons of the other Robot Masters to be able to exploit those flaws. By this point, Wily has FINALLY learned from Mega Man's own example and his own failures and thus focused on making a single robot that removes as many potential flaws as possible instead of splitting up his time and effort creating a bunch of robots. Zero also lacks any particular weapon aside from a simple if really powerful buster, just like Bassnote the Z-Saber doesn’t count, as it was developed by Dr. Cain during the events of Mega Man X2, meaning it can't be stolen and used against Zero or any of Wily's other robots he might have planned to build afterward but never managed to.
Something I thought up about Mega Man 3: Gemini Man is based on one of the signs of the zodiac, but he's not the only one. Snake Man is also based on a sign, the snake of the Chinese Zodiac. This gives one reason why Gemini Man is also weak to the Search Snake; he's based on a zodiac sign that is only associated with part of a year, while Snake Man is based on an entire yearnote Also Gemini Man is afraid of snakes. This is not a joke..
A break is a false ending to a song, an extended rest until the song suddenly starts back up. Break Man was Blues who was thought to be dead.
How come Shadow Man, who was said be completely destroyed by Wood Man is able to show up in other games past Super Adventure Rockman? Well...what the Hell would Wood Man know about repairing a Robot Master? Or any of the Wily Robot Masters there for that matter? They're built for combat, not to repair or construct. Chances are among Shadow Man's wreckage, his IC Chip was actually still perfectly functional enough that he could be restored, but Wood Man either just happened to miss it or there was surface damage that made him believe it wrecked as well. If that's the case, Wily (when escaping the ruins) could always stop by Shadow Man's wreckage site to salvage his body long enough to find it and actually go about properly restoring his robot.
As for why, if that is the case, Shadow Man still wasn't brought back, it could have been because Wily legitimately believed Wood Man and so didn't bother getting to Shadow Man until after things were settled (when robots who could be saved were of more concern). That, or, Shadow Man's IC chip was actually wrecked a fair bit that Wily needed to carefully fix it up instead of relying on Ra Moon to do the work.
Dust Man might not sound frightening, but dust is baneful to electronics, and the Dust Bowl instigated the Great Depression.
There's also his level, with its rather melancholy stage theme. Being a junkyard — complete with an incinerator — it's the robot equivalent of a cemetery/crematorium.
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 Bomber because he has no ammo left for that weapon, due to the fact [[spoiler:It's the only weapon that can damage Boobeam Trap. 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. And 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.
In the Japanese translation of Mega Man V (or Rockman World 5), Sunstar's motivations link towards the idea of Human Aliens, some other species of humanoids out there that are constantly building robots for their own personal wars. Then we see Duo and the unnamed evil robot in Mega Man 8 with the implication that Duo is a sort of space police robot who has a cosmic scale of power. Far beyond the reaches of Earth and the Solar System, of Light's research and Wily's world ruling machinations that have crossed our local planets, there's entire civilizations with far, far more powerful machinery — and they're capable of destroying all of civilization for the rest of the franchise.
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