Video Game / Mega Man X5

Spoilers for all Mega Man X entries preceding this one, particularly Mega Man X4 may be unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

"The situation is far worse than expected. Sigma's explosion has spread the Virus all over the Earth. It's affecting both people and Reploids. What's worse, the Space Colony, Eurasia, is heading straight toward us. At this rate, it's going to crash into the Earth... in 16 hours. Everything... including Reploids and the entire human race, will be... annihilated..."

— Commander Signas, Mega Man X5

Mega Man X5 is the fifth entry in the Mega Man X series, released on the PlayStation on November 2000 in Japan, February 2001 in North America, and August 2001 in Europe. It was originally intended as the series finale, but this plan was changed by greater powers.

In the year 21XX, several months after the Great Repliforce War, Earth is enjoying a time of peace. Repairs from the war's damage include the renovation of the space colony Eurasia. However, the dreaded Sigma suddenly reappears, goading X and Zero into an explosive battle that scatters his Sigma Virus across the globe. To make matters worse, a mysterious mercenary called Dynamo hijacks the empty Eurasia with a virus and sets it on a collision course with Earth. If it impacts, the results will be catastrophic for both humans and Reploids.

With only 16 hours until global devastation, the Maverick Hunters must quickly find a way to stop Eurasia's fall. Plan A is to repair the aging supercannon Enigma to blast it out of the sky, while plan B is to outfit a space shuttle with explosives and crash it into the colony before it hits the Earth. With time running out, X and Zero split up to collect the parts for both plans, the fate of the world in their hands.

The gameplay twist for Mega Man X5 is the Doomsday Clock, which the player must race against to complete the plan to repel Eurasia. Each Maverick holds a MacGuffin for the Enigma mission or the Shuttle mission, and defeating them grants the player a part to increase their chances of success (note that it only increases chance — the player's success always has a hint of randomness). Otherwise, the game plays largely the same as Mega Man X4 but with some changes: a boss level system that affects the difficulty of each boss, a Power-Up Parts system to grant the characters buffs, and two unique sets of Armor Parts available to X. The entry is also notable for finally giving X and Zero (or any Mega Man playable character for that matter) the ability to crouch.

This game's eight Mavericks are unique for their Guns N' Roses-inspired Woolseyism names in the initial English release, which have since been retconned to more accurate names:

• Crescent Grizzly (Grizzly Slash), an arms dealer holding a Crystal Ball. X earns Crescent Shot from him, and Zero earns Crescent Sword.
• Volt Kraken (Squid Adler), an ex-Maverick Hunter holding an Energy Cart. X earns Tri-Thunder from him, and Zero earns Electric Blade.
• Shining Firefly (Izzy Glow), a laser researcher holding a Laser Device. X earns Flash Laser from him, and Zero earns Chaos Flasher.
• Tidal Whale (Duff McWhalen), a museum curator holding a Hydrogen supply. X earns Goo Shaver from him, and Zero earns Flying Splasher.
• Spiral Pegasus (The Skiver), an ex-Repliforce captain holding an Orbiter Wing. X earns Wing Spiral from him, and Zero earns Wind Shredder.
• Spike Rosered (Axle the Red), a black market thief holding an Orbiter Engine. X earns Spike Ball from him, and Zero earns Twin Dream.
• Dark Necrobat (Dark Dizzy), an escaped creation of Sigma holding a Fuel Tank. X and Zero both earn Dark Hold from him.
• Burn Dinorex (Mattrex), a weapons crafter holding a Booster Engine. X earns Ground Fire from him, and Zero earns Quake Blazer.

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Tropes:

• Aborted Arc:
  • Since X5 is supposed to be the final X series game, the franchise would have gone full-circle with the implication that Dr. Wily is still around. But then the X series continued on, and there is little to no mention of Wily ever since with the exception of the reploid scientist Isoc from X6 possibly being a body used by Wily like Serges from X2 was also implied to be in the original Japanese localization.
  • In X's ending if Zero went Maverick, he mentions wanting to build a utopia called "Elysium". This seemed to allude to the possibility of X (or Copy-X, who was originally supposed to be X himself) building it in the Mega Man Zero series. However, in the Zero series, Copy-X runs a city called "Neo Arcadia" with no mention of Elysium.
  • Dynamo disappears halfway into the game with no mention of him at all at the end. He is absent for the rest of the X series, except for a cameo in X6.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: In Tidal Whale's stage, there is a battleship that serves as a Mini-Boss that chases you 3/4s of the level.
• Aerith and Bob: This game introduces an expanded supporting cast of Maverick Hunters, with names like Signas, Alia, Lifesaver and... Douglas.
• Alas, Poor Villain: A few Mavericks went out of control due to the Sigma Virus infections, while others, such as Spiral Pegasus and Tidal Whale lost their will to live, and Burn Dinorex was consumed by paranoia. Their last request is to be Mercy Killed before they go insane. Only Spike Rosered and Dark Necrobat are truly assholes among the bosses.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: Zero Space, the final area of the game, consists of levels that appeared in prior games in the series, including Quick Man's stage elements from Mega Man 2, a boss fight with the Shadow Devil (a new version of the Yellow Devil fought in the first Mega Man), and a retooled version of Sigma's first fortress stage from X1, with a boss fight against Rangda Bangda from the second fortress stage at the end.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The "Zero Space" stages.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Not a whole lot, but if you invested heavily in Zero, and the plans to stop the Colony Drop fails, X has 4 heart tanks (though he'll need Gaea and Falcon Armors to reach them) to help give him some extra health to help against enemies he isn't ready for.
  • Despite the game being presented as a Timed Mission, you can take as much time as you want during stages, as time only ticks down when you enter a stage.
  • As infamously difficult as the Ride Chaser segment of Volt Kraken's stage is (especially if you're gunning for the Falcon Armor part) the rest of the stage rewards the player with a ton of extra lives.
• Anime Theme Song: "Monkey" by Showtaro Morikubo in the Japanese version.
• Apocalypse How: Sigma intends on launching what could be a Class 3 to Class 4, as he intends to wipe out humanity, and possibly all biological life, off the face of the planet.
• Art Shift: X5 uses far more pre-rendered sprites than X4 and its mostly hand-drawn artstyle. X6 would follow up on this artstyle.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Sigma has a battle body.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Zero's Z-Buster; it's extremely slow and deals less damage than Normal X's fully-charged shot.
• Back from the Dead: Presumed dead since the Classic Mega Man series, it's strongly implied that Dr. Wily has returned in some manner to inform Sigma about Zero's connection to the Maverick Virus, as well as somehow build Sigma a new battle body. How Dr. Wily returned and where he is after this game, however, are never explained or explored.
• Background Boss: Rangda Bangda W and Sigma's second forms.
• Bag of Spilling: Averted for once; X still has the Fourth Armor if you start a new game with him, although it does seem to be missing the head part's abilities. Played straight however if you start the game with Zero as X will sustain an injury that destroys the Fourth Armor during the opening stage.
• Bat Out of Hell: Dark Necrobat, being a creation of Sigma himself; he is also the only boss who is officially a Maverick from the start, as opposed to being infected later on.
• Bears Are Bad News: Crescent Grizzly. Subverted when Monstrosity Equals Weakness comes into play, seeing as he's the easiest Boss in the game and he gives a useful weapon/technique to boot.
• Big Damn Heroes: A variant: You as the player are the one coming to the rescue of the one in distress (who was even in disrepair), when Sigma personally attacks them.
• Bittersweet Ending: Regardless of whether or not the Eurasia is stopped, X and Zero nearly die in the fight with Sigma at the end of the game, and Zero is presumed dead. Especially bad if Zero did go Maverick, as after X is repaired, he no longer remembers Zero thanks to reprogramming that the Maverick Hunters can't undo. Also, Earth is still left devastated from the remaining debris of Eurasia despite being mostly destroyed, as lampshaded by Gate. Ironically, the fact Eurasia's pieces still crash down on Earth ends up being a good thing in the long run, since its environmental systems end up being what helps revive nature in Mega Man Zero 4.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation:
  • When you meet Volt Kraken in his stage, he will bring up his friend Launch Octopus, whom X had killed in the first game. However, this reference ends up getting lost in the English version, which mangles his name into "Octopardo", a transliteration of "Launcher Octopuld", his Japanese name. This was fixed in the Legacy Collection re-release.
  • Repliforce from the previous game gets referenced in this game quite a bit by some of the game's bosses. Like with Launch Octopus however, these references also end up getting lost, getting mistranslated into "Reploid Air Force", with one or two references to just a "Reploid Force". The Legacy Collection release fixed this as well.
• Blob Monster: The infamous Yellow Devil from the classic series comes back in black colors, named Shadow Devil.
• Boss Banter: Like X4, the Mavericks will talk to the hunters before battle. The banter varies depending upon when the boss is talked to: Either pre-colony drop, post-colony drop, or colony explosion will all have different dialogues. The Skiver is one of the more blatant examples.
• Boss-Only Level: The Dynamo "levels" feature only him and absolutely nothing else. There isn't even a Boss Corridor!
• Call-Back: X and Zero's inevitable battle has been teased at ever since Mega Man X2.
• Came Back Strong: After getting inflicted with Doppler's antivirus in X3, and getting destroyed again in X4, Sigma is back yet again, and has not only completely overcome the effects of the antivirus, but is even more powerful than ever. He can bind himself directly to machinery and transform it to his will, and trying to destroy him again only allows the Sigma Virus to spread across the entire planet!
• Colony Drop: The giant space colony, Eurasia.
• Colour-Coded Timestop: The Dark Hold ability.
• Continuity Nod: A whole lot of them, as befits what was intended as the Grand Finale.
  • The menu music starts off as a remix of Zero's theme in Mega Man X, but also has some nods to the intro of Mega Man 3.
  • Tidal Whale's stage music is a remastered version of Bubble Crab's from Mega Man X2; however, Whale had an original theme before it was scrapped. The U-555 is also a bit similar to Sea Canthller, the miniboss in Crab's stage.
  • Spiral Pegasus and Burn Dinorex are both former members of Repliforce; in fact, Pegasus will either mention the Colonel or Iris to Zero, depending on when he is fought.
    • Spiral Pegasus's fighting style and the arena you fight him on mimics that of Storm Eagle's from Mega Man X.
    • In Burn Dinorex's stage, if you pick the upper route when the path branches, you'll face the Pteranoid, a miniboss that's highly reminiscent of the Mecha Dragon from Mega Man 2.
  • Iris will also appear in Zero's flashbacks during his ending.
  • Spike Rosered brings up the Repliforce incident as well, when he accuses Zero and the Maverick Hunters of wrongfully (at least according to the law) classifying innocent Reploids as Mavericks.
    • His fighting style also mimics that of Gemini Man from Mega Man 3.
  • Volt Kraken is a retired member of the Maverick Hunters, and had a close connection with "Octopardo" a.k.a. Launch Octopus.
  • Dark Necrobat was built by Sigma for his Maverick army, before he defected and went into hiding. As a result, he is the only boss to have the classic Sigma insignia under his lifebar, as opposed to the skull the other bosses use. He's also similar to Shade Man.
  • The first Sigma stage is chock full of nods:
    • The stage is a recreation of Quick Man's stage, although the laser trap portion is a lot meaner. The achievement for beating it without using Dark Hold even notes it by calling it "You're Quick, Man."
    • The Shadow Devil is an obvious reference to the Yellow Devil from the Mega Man (Classic) series; also, at one point, it shapeshifts into the Wily Machine used in Mega Man 6.
    • Shadow Devil's weakness is Tri-Thunder, just like the original model's weakness to the Thunder Beam.
    • It also has a Dark Reprise of the very first Mega Man's Wily Boss Music.
  • Throughout the fortress are Eagle Gs, Reploid enemies that ride green Ride Armors with shields, filling the role of Sniper Joe and its various variants, such as Returning Sniper Joes and Sniper Joe 01s.
  • Rangda Bangda W, the second fortress boss, is an upgraded version of the boss of the same name from Mega Man X. Parts of the stage were also taken from the first Sigma Stage, and its boss theme is also X1's fortress boss theme.
  • If you go into a certain boss battle, X/Zero will use his arsenal from a past game: from X4 and X2, respectively.
  • The Sigma Virus taking the visual form of Sigma's head was first seen in Mega Man X2, and again in X3.
  • Sigma's Final Sigma W body is similar to Gamma from Mega Man 3, especially the arms. This crosses into Fridge Brilliance territory when you take into consideration that it was Dr. Wily who made this body.
  • After being absent throughout the entire X series, Capcom brings one of the classic games' staple hazards: disappearing blocks. Fortunately, this is only for a small portion of the final Sigma Stage.
  • The final level begins with a section similar to Bubble Man's stage, complete with spike balls not seen anywhere else in the game.
  • Several of X's special weapons reference weapons seen in the classic series:
    • Tri-Thunder behaves much like Thunder Beam from Mega Man.
    • Crescent Shot is reminiscent of the Quick Boomerang from Mega Man 2.
    • Dark Hold works almost exactly like the Time Stopper from Mega Man 2, and both weapons are useful in their respective games' laser sections.
    • Spike Ball is similar to the Knight Crusher from Mega Man 6.
  • X's Falcon and Gaea Armors emphasizes on granting him extra mobility or strength, respectively, not unlike Mega Man's Jet and Power Rush Adaptors from Mega Man 6.
• Cultural Translation: In the original English localizations of X5, the bosses' names were plays on then-current and former members of Guns N' Roses.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: The endgame Boss Rush gives the eight Mavericks much longer health bars that extend almost the entire side of the screen, so that it takes a while, even if you're using their weakness against them. In some cases, using their weaknesses gives them longer invincibility frames.
• Darker and Edgier: It has an unusually oppressive atmosphere for a Mega Man game, thanks to the counter until the colony hits (though it doesn't matter much in practice), and there's a disturbing undercurrent that pervades the whole game, with the virus infecting everything, the trippy final stages, sinister hints of Dr. Wily's involvement with the faded W logos and old bosses from Classic Mega Man, Zero and X fighting each other and the former possibly becoming corrupted by the virus, and then finally dying no matter which ending you get. He gets better next game though. Even the regular Maverick boss theme is the darkest-sounding in the series.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying or continuing in the game just takes you back to the last checkpoint you reached in the level.
• Dig Attack: Crescent Grizzly when he Turns Red. He can either come out of the ground with a drill attack or out of the walls and slash you with his claw.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Burn Dinorex, a fiery T. Rexpy Reploid can breathe fire and has fiery Stegosaurus-esque back spikes. Justified, though, since he's a robot.
• The Dragon: Dynamo to Sigma.
• Dramatic Thunder: The first boss battle with Sigma's head takes place in a thunderstorm.
• Dub Name Change: Infamously, all of the Mavericks' names were changed to homage members of the band Guns N' Roses (turns out Alyson Court, who was a member of the English localization team, as well as the first and longest-standing voice actress of Claire Redfield, had something to do with this)^note the exception being the Skiver, who is named after Michael "High in the Sky" Monroe, who frequently collaborated with Guns n' Roses. Averted with the manual of the game (in the western versions), which does use the original names rather than the changed names, and averted almost completely with the Legacy Collection restoring the original names in the game proper. In case you're curious:
  Crescent Grizzly → Grizzly Slash (named after Slash^note founding and current lead guitarist)
  Tidal Whale → Duff McWhalen (named after Duff McKagen, ^note founding and current bassist)
  Volt Kraken → Squid Adler (named after Steven Adler^note founding drummer)
  Shining Hotarunicus → Izzy Glow (named after Izzy Stradlin^note founding rhythm guitarist)
  Dark Necrobat → Dark Dizzy (named after Dizzy Reed^note not a founding member, but first keyboardist)
  Spiral Pegacion/Pegasus → The Skiver (named after Michael "High in the Sky" Monroe^note never officially a member of the band, although collaborated frequently with them)
  Burn Dinorex → Mattrex (named after Matt Sorum^note second drummer )
  Spike Rosered → Axle the Red (named after Axl Rose^note founding vocalist; only member to have never been fired)
• Eldritch Location: "Zero Space", a mysterious and inexplicable Cyberspace area that materialized somewhere in Earth's underground due to bits of Eurasia crashing into the planet coupled with the influence of the highly dangerous Zero Virus. It essentially looks like another dimension altogether.
• Expy: Dark Necrobat appears to be a more powerful version of Shade Man from Mega Man 7. In addition to stopping time, and summoning a flock of bats, he can dive into the player to drain the player's health.
• Face Death with Dignity: Zero's ending, where after the battle with Sigma, he convinces himself that his death will finally bring peace.
• Fighting Your Friend: No matter what you do, X and Zero end up fighting each other. In the good ending route, it's because Zero refuses to return to the base with X attempting to bring him back by force due to believing he might become infected by the virus. In the bad ending route, X attempts to arrest Zero when he becomes a Maverick and is forced to fight him which eventually brings him back to his senses and leads him to sacrifice himself to kill Sigma and forced Dr. Light to reprogram X so he can no longer remember Zero.
• Flunky Boss: Dark Necrobat can summon bat flunkies.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Burn Dinorex, Tidal Whale, and Volt Kraken, in that order.
• Foul Flower: Spike Rosered can manipulate rose vines and petals to attack you.
• Fragile Speedster: X with the Falcon Armor: It allows the best mobility of all armors, as it gives X the ability to fly for several seconds, and while flying, he creates an energy barrier in front of him, so the smaller enemies are unable to touch him. Its charged shot is a powerful laser that pierces through enemies, and actually connecting several hits to the bigger ones, and for its Giga Attack, X unleashes a flurry of vertical lasers that fill the entire screen, essentially wiping out small enemies, and dealing good damage to bigger ones; however, its downside is that, unlike with the Fourth Armor, X is unable to charge special weapons.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In the opening of the game, if you look very carefully at the bottom-left of the screen at the 0:33 mark, you can see the word WILY appear.
  • During the X vs. Zero battle, the winning combatant remarks that they didn't expect the loser to use Soul Body as a final attack before collapsing from their injuries. If you squint, you'll see X/Zero actually send out Soul Body to attack the player right at the end of the usual explosion that signifies a defeated boss.
• Game Mod: The North American PlayStation release has the Improvement Project by DarkSamus993, a ROM hack that aimed to add some quality-of-life changes to the game such as both Hunters get to keep their respective bonuses regardless who was chosen at the start of the game, Heart Tanks/Life Ups/Weapon Ups are shared by both characters, and completely disabling Alia's hints. This project was incorporated and expanded upon with the Improvement Project Addendum helmed by acediez, which not only restores the missing and altered features from the Japanese version (the title screen art, Maverick names, songs, voices, and unused music), it features a retranslated script, fixes the parts acquisition mechanics, tweaked the RNG mechanics of the Engima and Shuttle, X can use armor parts without completing the set, and various other gameplay rebalancing and quality-of-life changes, bring the project to be comparable to the author's Mega Man X6 Tweaks ROM hack.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Being infected by The Virus causes X to constantly take damage for a time. Zero becomes invulnerable.
  • This is given further backing in one boss, where, if not defeated in a certain amount of time, Maverick Zero becomes invincible and starts spamming Genmurei.
  • At the start, the player has to choose which character to use for the first level: either X or Zero. Choosing one will have a bonus in that character's abilities (the Force/Fourth Armor or the Z-buster, respectively). The other bonus will not be available for the rest of the game, on account of being severely damaged by Sigma prior to the first Boss battle.
  • Fail to stop the Colony Drop, and Zero will "awaken" and will be unavailable for the rest of the game.
  • Dark Necrobat is a Reploid created by Sigma for his Maverick army, but defected from Sigma and ran away. As a result, Necrobat is the only one of the eight bosses to have a Sigma insignia under his health bar.
  • When you go into the X vs. Zero battle, neither of the characters fought as a boss use any of the new moves in X5. Against X, he will use several of the attacks he earned in X4 against you; his Soul Body is heavily altered and homes against you multiple times. Regular Zero uses the moves he used in X3, as well as an altered Messenkou (Ground Pound) move; his Z-Saber Sword Beam now homes on you. This is averted on Maverick Zero because this is his first real appearance, if this path was taken.
• Guns vs. Swords: This happens in the fight between X and Zero, where X's X-Buster is pitted against Zero's Z-Saber. Whichever wins depends on who you play as.
• I Let You Win: It turns out that Sigma allowed the heroes to defeat him in the intro stage, which triggers the Colony Drop.
• Inconsistent Dub: The Mavericks are referred to by their Japanese names in the manual.
• Irony: X worries about Zero having been infected and may turn Maverick at any moment, so he confronts Zero and asks him to return to base for inspection. Zero, being both perfectly fine and fairly proud, doesn't want to go back. X, mistaking his friend's stubbornness as a sign of guilt and believing that the circumstances are too dire for him to afford taking the chance, attacks Zero. This parallels the events that led up to the Repliforce War in the previous game.
• It Is Not Your Time: In both of X's endings, regardless of whether Zero went Maverick or not, Dr. Light appears to him and says it's not his time to go yet.
• Jack of All Stats: Of the three armors X can carry (four if we count the Ultimate Armor), the Fourth Armor is the best balanced, as X is able to keep most of his abilities from Mega Man X4, such as hovering in the air, air dashing, the Plasma Shot, and the ability to charge special weapons.
• Just Before the End: Assuming that you fail to stop the Eurasia. The next game reveals that the attempt was enough to stop the extinction of all life on Earth, but failing to stop it completely still devastated the Earth.
• Kaizo Trap: Inverted in Volt Kraken's stage. If you don't know you're able to move as soon as you appear, you'll fall into a pit and die before the "READY" sign has even left the screen.
• Kraken and Leviathan: The namesake of Volt Kraken, a squid-based Maverick...before the name change to Squid Adler.
• Life Drain: Dark Necrobat can latch onto the player character and take away his health, akin to a vampire.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • X with the Ultimate Armor, which can be accessed via either a cheat code or in-game by going into Zero Space 3 as unarmored X and finding the Dr. Light capsule hidden within: it's essentially the same as the Fourth Armor, with the addition of Nova Strike, which wipes out anything in sight, and allows X to take down bosses in a matter of seconds.
  • Same goes to Black Zero, which is basically the same as Normal Zero, except that now the damage he takes is cut down by 50%, and his saber changes color, from green to purple, which lets him absorb enemy projectiles.
• Luck-Based Mission: The whole game (or at least the "destroying Eurasia" part) — you can try using the Enigma cannon from the very start and it still has a chance of success; conversely, even if you collect all the parts for the Shuttle, it may still fail.
• Mighty Glacier: X with the Gaea Armor: It's bulky and limits X's moves a lot, but it gives him more firepower and can charge shots much faster, and its Giga Attack creates a huge fireball in front of him that deals decent damage; however, he's unable to use special weapons. It also lets him climb walls without sliding down, and gives him immunity to spikes, making it a lot easier to obtain items such as the Heart Container in Crescent Grizzly's or Shining Firefly's stage,
• Multiple Endings: The second time for the series (the first was X3). It all depends on whether you managed to destroy Eurasia or not:
  • If you do, then the ending depends on who you're playing as for the final level, X or Zero.
  • If you don't, then Zero will be unusable for the rest of the game.
  • Because of the confusing chronology of the multiple endings in the series context, the Legacy Collection achievement for getting them all is named "Time Paradox".
• Nerf: To compensate for the fact it's become the default armor available from the beginning, the Fourth Armor has received several downgrades from X4. It only has halved weapon energy consumption rather than infinite, there's no Nova Strike Giga Attack and no access to the Stock Charge Shot, and the Plasma Shot only leaves behind one plasma ball instead of three and no longer goes through walls. This is justified In-Universe by the fact the X5 Fourth Armor is a duplicate created by Alia analyzing the discarded X4 original, but she wasn't able completely analyze and successfully recreate it perfectly because the original from Dr. Light was over 100 years old.
• No Endor Holocaust: Averted. Completely destroying Eurasia leads to bits and pieces of it falling to Earth, causing a fair bit of collateral damage.
• One to Million to One: Dark Necrobat's introduction: Multiple bat drones congregate altogether and then go away, revealing him.
• Orichalcum: In the Japanese version, the upgrade to the Enigma that Crescent Grizzly is carrying. In other releases, he's got a "Crystal Ball" instead.
• Pegasus: Spiral Pegasus.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • As mentioned above, the character you don’t pick for the opening stage loses an item for the game: for X, the Fourth Armor, and for Zero, the Z-Buster.
  • Albeit one that takes a bit of Epic Fail; if you get all the orbs in Squid Adler's stage, open the door to the Falcon Armor capsule and then somehow fall down the hole to continue...you can't get back up to it. And the orbs don't respawn once the door has been opened. So if you do that and then save, you lose both Armors, since a Gaea Armor capsule requires the Falcon Armor to reach.
    • And if you then don’t find the Ultimate Armor capsule in Zero Space Stage 3, you have to go the entire game as armorless X. Likewise, missing this capsule means you can’t be Black Zero either.
  • Since parts don’t start appearing until bosses reach level 8, any parts held by bosses defeated before then are gone for good. You can also take only one of a boss’ two parts.
  • Fail to stop Eurasia (either by failing both the Random Number God opportunities to destroy it, or letting the time run out), and you lose the ability to play as Zero for the remainder of the game.
• Posthumous Character: Despite being dead, Sigma is apparently able to communicate with Dr. Wily, learning about Zero's creation and purpose, and having his new cohort build him a giant battle body.
• Predecessor Villain: Hinted at for awhile, but Dr. Wily is officially given credit in this game for the virus and Zero's creation.
• Race Against the Clock: X and Zero have just 16 hours to stop Eurasia from crashing into the planet.
• Rank Inflation: Dynamo was actually a GA-ranked Maverick Hunter, one rank above Zero. That (and the fact that he sabotaged Eurasia by himself) doesn't help him much in the boss battle, however.
• Ramming Always Works: When the Enigma laser cannon fails, plan B was to use a manned space shuttle with Zero as the pilot. Subverted in that it doesn't always work (sometimes even if you managed to get all the needed parts in time).
  • Also a favorite attack of Spiral Pegasus and Burn Dinorex.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Alyson Court's then-husband was a big fan of Guns N' Roses, which inspired the names for the Mavericks.
• Red Right Hand: More like "Red Left Claw", but Crescent Grizzly is equipped with one that can turn into a drill.
• The Remnant: Spiral Pegasus and Burn Dinorex were affiliated with Repliforce from X4. Likewise, Dark Necrobat was one of Sigma's forces, but then hid himself.
• Route Boss: If the Eurasia Space Colony crashes into Earth, Zero will become infected by the Sigma Virus, and X will be forced to fight him. If the colony did not crash, X and Zero will still fight, but the player can choose to play as either X or Zero.
• Series Fauxnale: Wraps up a lot of things in the X series, including confirmation that Dr. Wily created Zero and the Maverick Virus, the fight between X and Zero that was foreshadowed since the third game, and sets things up for the Mega Man Zero series. Unfortunately, Executive Meddling would ensure that the series would go on without Inafune's input, creating a Continuity Snarl between the X and Zero series, also resulting in many an Aborted Arc.^note Due to the series's abrupt cancellation after X8, resulting in the plot threads from this and future games being forgotten.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: All the bosses were named after Guns N' Roses band members in the original western release.
• Shout-Out:
  • Dark Hold stops time in the same style as The World. You even get the weapon from a vampire bat Maverick.
  • In the X Legacy Collection re-release, the achievement for destroying an enemy for the first time with the Falcon Armor is called "Up, Up and Away", doing the same with the Gaea Armor gives you "By Your Powers Combined".
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: If Zero becomes Maverick, all the life/weapon up parts and Heart Containers that you had him get are gone for good.
• Something about a Rose: Spike Rosered, a Rose Reploid.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the game, Zero dies by the time the story ends. In the manhua adaptation, X manages to escape with Zero alive while blasting Sigma away when he tries to attack them from behind with the next scene showing Zero fully rebuilt joining X in the peace Sigma's defeat brougt.
• Spell My Name with a "The": The Skiver.
• Suicide by Cop: The sad reason you're fighting many of the bosses. Having realized they've been infected by The Virus, they provoke X or Zero to fight them to the death, preferring that to going Maverick.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The first Zero Space level is known for its brutal difficulty, so the game actually hands out a free 1-Up before each laser section.
• Touch the Intangible: Sigma Virus and Zero Virus enemies cannot be attacked normally (your attacks will phase through them), but you can hit them if you equip the Virus Buster part.
• Training Stage: The game has a dedicated "Training" stage not seen in any other game in the series. Through the Mission Control Alia, it teaches you the basics of the game's platforming for both X and Zero, and ends with a watered-down version of Magma Dragoon from the previous game as the training boss.
• Trippy Finale Syndrome: The final stages, in spades. Neon-lit platforms, flashing background, and the techno music will make you think it's some kind of drug trip.
• Tunnel King: Crescent Grizzly will dig into the ground and jump in to attack once his health is depleted enough.
• Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway: Sigma admits his Final Boss battle body has not yet been completed, but it should be powerful enough as is to finish off X and Zero.
• Visual Pun: Spike Rosered/Axle the Red's stage opens with a background of a rose garden and handgun-shaped cannons sticking out upward. Now that explains the Dub Name Change.
• Warmup Boss:
  • And it's Sigma, of all people, who is fought in the opening stage this time. Of course, Sigma then later comes back as the Final Boss as usual.
  • And the boss of the tutorial stage is Magma Dragoon, who was That One Boss in the previous game. Thankfully, he was toned down a lot since then.
  • Crescent Grizzly is the first boss offered in the stage line-up, and usually recommended to be fought first. He is also the easiest of the eight Mavericks to defeat, and gives Zero one of his most valuable attacks.
• Wave-Motion Gun:
  • The Maverick Hunters' aging supercannon, Enigma.
  • X's F-Laser, when charged, can become this.
• Well-Intentioned Replacement: The Fourth Armor recreated by Alia isn't a perfect replica, lacking the ability to provide infinite weapon energy, the fully powered Plasma Charge Shot, and having no Nova Strike at all. However, it is the only armor capable of charging special weapons before you find the Ultimate Armor, and fills the Jack of All Stats role in X's wardrobe.
• Wham Episode: Is this to the entire Mega Man mythos. Because of the Colony Drop, Earth suffered a huge loss of life and was nearly ruined by it. The consequences of this would be felt all the way to the Mega Man Zero series, a hundred years later.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Dynamo was built up as a formidable opponent since the start of the game, acting as Sigma's new Dragon, being the one responsible for infecting Eurasia and causing it to crash to the planet, and personally challenging the Maverick Hunters at their own HQ twice to slow them down. However, once the final levels start, Dynamo mysteriously disappears from the plot. He does end up making a return in X6, but as this was originally intended to be the Series Finale, it's still a bit glaring how he's just suddenly dropped from the story.

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