Trivia / Mega Man Zero 4

• Flip-Flop of God: The Four Guardians go completely unaddressed in this game. When asked about them, the dev team initially said that the Guardians had disappeared and were fighting for the humans elsewhere during Zero 4. This was compounded by some artwork in the Vile's Incident bonus book, which showed the Four Guardians and X watching the fall of Ragnarok. But then in Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works, Takuya Aizu claimed that the Guardians had perished shielding Zero from Omega's explosion! Finally, in Mega Man and Mega Man X Official Complete Works, Aizu backpedaled and again claimed that their fates were unknown but they were likely helping humans somewhere.
• Post-Script Season: Inti Creates, the developer of the Zero series, originally wanted Zero 3 to be the ending of the franchise, as they felt it was a great conclusion. However, due to the healthy sales of the series, Capcom commissioned a fourth game. While certain gameplay aspects of 4 are debated, most agree its story serves as a pretty good finale to the series.
• Refitted for Sequel: The designs and inspirations for Mino Magnus, Sol Titanion and Noble Mandrago were based on three unused concepts for Mutos Reploid bosses for Mega Man Zero 3.
• Torch the Franchise and Run: Capcom and Inti Creates made sure this game served as a grand finale for the Zero series by having Neo Arcadia being destroyed, and both Dr. Weil and Zero Killed Off for Real at the end in order to avoid the problem of keeping the series going beyond the original plan like what happened when Capcom continued the Mega Man X series past Mega Man X5 against Keiji Inafune's wishes and Mega Man X8 ended on a cliffhanger that was never resolved after it was released in the previous year.
• What Could Have Been:
  • One of the design concepts for Neige was to give her darker skin to invoke a more "sultana" look.
  • Early in development, when Inti Creates still wanted Zero 3 to be the end of the series, Zero 4 was instead an interquel set between the first two games, exploring the year Zero spent separated from the Resistance after Copy X's defeat (the Zero Knuckle may be a holdover from this idea, as most of his weapons were broken). However, Capcom wanted the game to continue the Zero series, forcing Inti Creates to make it a sequel (though they killed off Zero on purpose to end the series there).