History Headscratchers / MegaManClassic

*** No, they changed they name because a higher-up (Director of Marketing or something like that) hated the name. What a [[IncrediblyLamePun nameass]].

** Wily doesn't just want to beat Mega Man and rule the world, he wants to show that his robot creations are superior.

*** Ah, just beat the game. Turns out that [[spoiler:Wily was using all the fights against the Robot Masters as data for King, so pitting them against his most powerful creation before King makes sense. Forte was in the dark, of course.]]

* Does Wily program his robots to obey the 1st Law? Keiji Inafune [[CreatorBacklash claimed he was very disturbed]] by a scene in Super Adventure showing Wily's robots apparently killing people (more precisely, blowing up helicopters with humans inside) and said he would [[NobodyCanDie never have included such a scene if he had more input]]. So, are we supposed to believe that in all of the rampages Wily has sent his robots on, they have never harmed a single human being? The intro to ''MM7'' shows a Mad Grinder ''burning a city to the ground'' (and just about every other game's intro shows a large city being rocked by explosions). Was it a completely abandoned city that was already evacuated? If even Wily's robots are forbidden to harm humans, it seems unlikely they would even need Mega Man to stop them.

*** This Troper remembers the first Mega Man taking place in the year 200X. Aka before 2010. Makes the gap to 21XX much longer then 30 years.

*** It works reasonably well in the [[Main/FanVerse Ericoverse]].

* Why did Capcom not resolve any of the plot holes in Mega Man and Bass?
** All plot holes and hanging threads were ''supposed'' to be dealt with in the final Mega Man game. Which was never created. Whoops.
** They resolved them but the translation never made it over, its in an audio drama CD called Rockman & Forte: Aftermath. There is also a Rockman & Forte: Challenge from the Future which fills up a few extra gaps and revels more of Zero's pre-life designs.

** He programmed it that way. =P

* So now Wily is going back to the old "frame someone to take the fall for his robot assault on humanity" ploy in ''9'', e? Why? Only a true moron couldn't see through the ploy ([[spoiler: and it ''is'' a ploy, according to the official soundtrack; Wily ''is'' controlling the new robots, ''not'' Light]]), and he had pretty much given up trying such a tactic after it failed him ''three different times in the past''. Does Capcom simply think that Main/ViewersAreMorons? Do they really think we're going to buy Wily's accusation of Light in this game? Seriously...
** Considering that the last time he used such a tactic, he [[PaperThinDisguise put on a fake beard, sunglasses and posed as Mr. X]], this plot at least makes it so that Dr. Light can't help Mega Man. It's quite obvious that Dr. Light didn't even have enough time to reinstate the Charge Shot or Slide to Rock before the police were on his tail. Take note that [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou Bass]] is [[PutOnABus mysteriously absent]].
*** Take note that in the ending, [[spoiler:Bass' blueprints are shown on a screen. Either Wily deactivated him, or Bass got so sick of the old fart that he left in disgust... Or maybe he left when Wily tried to seem "good" again, on Wily's orders, for the sake of making it look more convincing.]]
*** This troper likes to think that [[spoiler:Bass was just getting a tune-up.]]
*** WordofGod confirms this.
*** Of ''course'' Capcom didn't think anyone would be fooled. Wily really being behind it, and obviously so, is part of the throw-back appeal of the game. It's doing everything retro, storyline included.
* Why the expiration dates in Mega Man 9? Wily was ''right''. Arbitrary expiration dates sound like a load of crap, not even regular tools or machines have those kinds of things. Sounds like something made up by bureaucrats that have bugger all knowledge of robotics.
** Maybe it was the companies' weaseling their way out of paying their robots.
** Robots get ''paid''? I was under the impression that the bots were created for a specific purpose and to be satisfied by fufilling that purpose, eliminating the need for any "incentive".
*** Which begs the question: how long until these artificially curtailed lifespans bite the bureaucrats in the ass in ZX? There's got to be SOME sort of "Reploid's Rights" groups somewhere, Maverick or moderate, with a beef against not having the same longetivity as Reploids of old.
*** I think that one was a compromise to try and kill off the maverick problem, as mavericks have always hated humans, make them less different and it seems a lot more fair... At first glance.
*** ZX Advent's extra ending implies that [[spoiler:Master Thomas wants to get rid of the biological bodies for Reploids, and go back to the old ways. Or something. It was a bit confusing.]]
*** [[spoiler:Master Thomas wants genocide. That he has old, immortal-ish reploids on hand just makes him more threatening.]]
** Or maybe Wily just lied? I mean isn't Proto Man, Mega Man AND Roll vastly older than the Mega Man 9 Robot Masters?
*** Unfortunately, since the Robot Masters in MM9 were made by Light himself, and a piece of scrap from one of the first few Masters you beat does have an expiration date, which means Wily was ''not'' lying, for a change. It's likely that the expiration date thing came about as a result of Wily's antics, and Mega Man and friends are given a free pass, due to how they were Light's first creations and had helped save the world from Wily far too often; forcing them to follow the expiration law would mean losing humanity's only real defense against Wily's future attacks.
*** Considering that Wily [[MoreThanMindControl succeeded in convincing the Mega Man 9 Robot Masters to rebel]] [[DramaticIrony BECAUSE of the expiration dates]], I don't think it worked too well.
*** As for the Light family robots not getting slapped with a mandatory expiration date, it's probably because they're privately "owned", not "public servants".
** The expiration dates make some sense. With a completely uninhibited learning AI (which the Robot Masters seem to possess), you don't want them getting too smart. So, after a while, they expire, their minds are wiped and their bodies are recycled. If that doesn't sit well with you, then think of it as wear and tear: eventually they just get ''worn out'' from all the work they do (it's implied they don't do ''anything else but work'', after all) and need to be replaced.
*** The [=MM9=] manga [[https://mangadex.org/manga/24584/ actually has an interesting explanation for why the bill was brought about.]] It was mostly to allow new and improved robots to replace the older models. However, of course, Light objected till the very end.
* Why do people keep assuming that Wily convinced the Mega Man 9 Robot Masters to rebel of their own free will? I'll admit, it's a cool idea, and could've gotten more focus, but I was under the impression that he convinced them that expiration dates were a stupid idea, and that he could repair them and repurpose them. While he was repairing them, he changed their programming so that they were his obedient war machines. How is that rebelling?
** Well, they rebelled at the notion of having expiration dates, but yeah, I always assumed he reprogrammed them at some point.
** There was no rebelling at all. Here's the dialogue:
--> Robot: "So what are you trying to say?"
--> Dr. Wily: "I'm saying you're all going to end up in the junkyard!"
--> Robot: "Of course. When we're done with our work that's what happens."
--> Dr. Wily: "It's not just you. Millions of robots all over the world are winding up as piles of junk! You work hard for humans, and then they destroy you when no longer needed! Doesn't that make you angry?"
--> Robot: "..."
--> Dr. Wily: "Just because you reached some arbitrary expiration date doesn't mean you should be scrapped! You're all still quite useful! You have a right to live! I'm going to help you. Together we'll show the world how useful you all still can be!"
--> Robot: "Hmm... perhaps you're right. We still want to be of use to people. Can you repair us?"
--> (Close-up of Dr. Wily, grinning)

* It has always bugged [[Main/{{Leylicite}} this troper]] how it is consistent that the Ice Slasher is Fire Man's weakness in Mega Man 1, and how the Bubble Lead is Heat Man's weakness in Mega Man 2. However, ''Flame Man's weapon is Blizzard Man's weakness'' in Mega Man 6! Why the elemental reversal from "ice weapon beats fire robot" to "fire weapon beats ice robot"? This troper has heard stories about other examples of this sort of thing, but this is the one he has actually encountered.

** This troper remembers reading somewhere that spikes are sharpened to the molecule or something like that. Building off of that, the reason why spikes that come from enemies (i.e. Needle Man) are not lethal is likely because containing said molecule-sharp spikes would be difficult, thus less sharp spikes are used.
* If the original six robot masters were created by Dr. Light, why didn't he just GIVE Mega Man their weapons to begin with instead of having him fight all of them with his pea-shooter?
** It's entirely possible that the weapon data was wiped from Light's computer somehow.
*** Shouldn't he know how to make them in the first place or is he that old that he forgot?
*** Time. Working from the above, we can assume that either Dr. Wily stole and deleted Dr. Light's data files, or perhaps caused some damage to his lab during his escape. Sure, given time, Dr. Light could rebuild and reprogram the various weapons, but Wily was out causing mayhem with his bots right now, so he had to make do with Mega Man's weapon absorption ability.
*** The robots didn't originally have "weapons". They were created as public servants, not warriors. Wily modified their tools to become weapons, which Light wouldn't have known about until Mega Man actually faced them.
* Wait, I heard that in the ''VideoGame/MegaMan9'' manga, the original 6 robot master were there trying to stymie the robot rampage. Considering the [=MM9=] robots were being scrapped because they were past their expiry dates, wouldn't the originals be well past their expiry dates? Or was it that these "original" robots are technically newer robots, having been rebuilt from being scrapped by Mega Man.
** Expiration dates apply to a specific robot. Doesn't mean you can never produce a robot that's the same. They're probably just robots designed the same way as the original six in a different production series.
** I don't think expiration dates were put in place until much later than the first game's events.
** The manga has Splash Woman saying that the expiration date law wasn't retroactive, so it didn't apply to older robots like the original six or Light's other creations.
** Also, it might not apply to privately owned robots, which, in the manga, the original 6 are after the events of the 1st game.

* Why were the Robot Masters in ''Mega Man 6'' classified as DWN models? Weren't they built by other robotics experts for robot tournament, and not Wily?
** It's easier to list them as DWN numbers so Capcom won't have to make up entirely new scientists which make one-time appearances in ''6'' then never appear again.
** How does the series/model numbering work in-universe anyway? The first DRN line is logical enough. DWN models start with 009 and goes to 024, DCN gets 025-032, then DWN starts ''again'' at 033 and goes up to 064. Light's second line gets 065-072. Wouldn't it have been more logical with "DWN 001-48", "DCN 001-008" and "DRN 009-16"? Not that I'm complaining too much since it makes it easier to keep track of them, but it still bugs me. Especially since there's other models that don't follow this pattern.
*** Maybe Wily, egotist that he was, considered the Cossack Bots ''his'' for purposes of filing numbers and such. Because, after ''all'', it was ''his'' beautiful plan! That Dr. Cossack ''fool'' was just a ''pawn!'' [[EvilLaugh Mwahahaha!]]
*** ...that's bloody ''[[FridgeBrilliance brilliant]]'', and also fits the tournament bots. This is now part of my personal fanon.
*** Perhaps Light built 56 robots between the events of Mega Man 1 and Mega Man 9. Cossack is similar, as he could have built 24 robots prior to Mega Man 4.
*** Besides, the Wily Archive shows that all of the Robot Masters are still in Wily's arsenal.
* The Robot Museum in ''MM7'' houses the actual chassis of old Robot Masters, yeah? In the first room, if you look closely, you can see Plant Man in the background twice. What gives?
** I'm annoyed by how they're rebuilt after the games, and yet, are still there. Do they volunteer to stand motionless in the background, or what?
*** Maybe only some hold the actual Robot Masters and the rest are models?
* Why are all the Dr. Light Robot Masters humanoid? I mean, in the case of Rock and Roll, who are meant to be assistants, it makes sense. Same for Proto Man, who was a test to see if they could get the concept right, and a few others. But Fire Man, who's supposed to be an incinerator? Cut Man, who's just supposed to cut down trees? Galaxy Man, who's function was to calculate rocket trajectories, something that could be just as easily done by a computer that [[SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids wouldn't spawn all-consuming black holes if it got pissed off?]] Not to mention that for the more industrial robots like the aforementioned Cut Man, wouldn't being in a small, humanoid form decrease their productivity and make them outclassed by technology we have in RealLife present time? I can buy it for the Wily bots, which were designed mostly to go toe-to-toe with Mega Man, but robots actually designed for work? And why give them advanced AI if they're just going to be mass-produced for menial work? Bah, maybe I'm just looking too much into it, [[Headscratchers/HomePage but...]]

* In Mega Man 9, Splash Woman's weakness is bees. Friggin' ''bees''! Seriously, on what level does that make sense? Normal bees can't fly underwater, let alone the heavier metallic bees Mega Man gets. Even if they could, the water would slow them down and their stingers would barely hurt. And besides all that, ''why would a mermaid-type robot have a weakness to bees?'' Who designs an underwater robot to have a weakness to bees? And if it wasn't a design, how would an underwater robot ''naturally have or develop'' a weakness to bees? HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE?! * pant* * pant* Bees...my god.
** Because VirginPower and "getting stung," that's why.
** Maybe she's just afraid of bees?
** I think you answered your own question. As an underwater-bot, she'd rarely if ever come into contact with bees, therefore she wouldn't be used to the shock of it, resulting in the weakness. Then again, most bosses' weaknesses don't make much sense in the games, including others in MM9. Case in point: A slab of concrete blocking a ''black hole''.
** Because Splash Woman's armor would need to be just as light to facilitate her moving freely through water (supported by her taking double damage from the Mega Buster). The stingers can tear through it with ease. And these are robot hornets: they can alter their wing movements to duplicate swimming... okay, maybe that part doesn't make sense.
** Well I like that theory of armor however; getting back to Concrete vs. Black Hole -- remember its not really a blackhole only a super strong gravity storm that absorbs all objects into itself then compresses them but yeah...doesn't make sense..then again Mega Man 10 has a similar problem -- look at some of the odd ball weaknesses of Sheepman and Nitroman
*** Rebound Striker bounces. There's a good chance it's made out of electricity-insulating rubber. And the Chill ''Spikes'' only work if you goad Nitro Man into ''running over them''. Ever try driving a motorcycle over a pile of nails? (Hint: Don't)
** The Black Hole thing makes sense: If you controlled friggin black holes you probably wouldn't program a defense for an object like that and assume it was taken care of.

* [[spoiler: How does Wily catch a robot disease?]]
** [[spoiler: He didn't. He caught a plain old cold. Mega Man's just an (admittedly lovable) idiot.]]
*** [[spoiler: But in Bass's ending he thinks Wily caught Roboenza too...]]
*** [[spoiler: When was it ever implied that Bass was smart? He's not ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'' levels of retardation, but he's probably a little thickheaded, considering [[ArrogantKungFuGuy his personality.]]]]
*** [[spoiler: Note that Proto Man just thinks it's a regular cold Wily got in a form of Karmic Justice.]]
*** [[spoiler: Well, they are robots. Roboenza is probably their only personal experience with some form of disease, so of course they'd think that Wily, who was exhibiting Roboenza-like symptoms, contracted Roboenza.]]
** [[spoiler: Why was the ending so freakin' '''short'''?]]
*** [[spoiler: It's just another throwback to the retro style of the game. Back in those days you were lucky to get more than a screen that summed up the events following the game's end and "Congratulation".]]
* In Mega Man 10, how does Wily get the time, money, and resources required to build [[spoiler: a huge tower that extends from his already immense Skull Fortress all the way up into space? And why would he even bother the first place, in a world where teleportation and space travel are likely common everyday things?]]
** [[spoiler: How would a thing that huge not fall over? It defies all physics!]]
*** [[spoiler: The tower is probably high enough from the ground to be in orbit, not unlike a space station.]]
** [[spoiler: I honestly don't think there's enough metal in the world to make that thing.]]
** [[spoiler: Remember all [[ContinuityNod the money he hoodwinked people out of in 9?]]]]
** [[spoiler: First time I saw it, I assumed the beggining of the dark part just got an antenna that pointed straight up to a geostationary satelite, so most of the line you see forming is just Mega Man teleporting in wave form.]]
** [[spoiler: Maybe Wily rebuilt [[VideoGame/MegaMan5 Crystal Man]] so he was able to continue selling his artificial crystals. With Crystal Man at work, the sky's the limit, literally.]]

* In Mega Man 10, why does Auto hide his identity from Proto Man in the item shop? (With only a Met helmet, but that's beside the point)
** Somebody (probably already in this page) said that it's because Proto Man is a rebel; going to Auto with the Met helmet is probably an equivalent (for Proto Man anyway) of going to the black market. That, or he doesn't trust Auto, so he needs a disguise.
*** In the beginning of 7 Auto says he likes the Met helmet, so he could just be trying to seem cool like Proto Man by "hiding" his identity with a snazzy helm.
** Auto's kind of goofy, so he probably thinks that the Metall helmet helps hides his identity. I'd think that Proto Man has never met Auto before, since if he's keeping an eye on anyone, it's probably Mega Man. Thus, Auto thinks the disguise is working, but Proto Man doesn't know who Auto is to start with.
* This might be a weird place to ask, but I'm gonna ask anyway. How do you get Mega Man to appears on VideoGame/MegaMan3's title screen? It seems to happen at random.
** This troper has never had Mega Man appear in the NES version of ''3's'' title screen. Only in the famicom and Anniversary versions. Even then, it is set, and not random.

* In Mega Man Powered Up, when you're playing as the Roll, Proto Man, or the Robot Masters, where's the real Mega Man?
** Might as well be captured and converted to the Dark Side by Wily.
** Or Wily somehow created a Copy Robot with an uncanny resemblance of Mega Man.
* Why didn't Mega Man ''kill'' Wily at the end of ''Mega Man 7''? Dr. Light programmed his Robot Masters with Asimov's Laws of Robotics, which means he also included a very important one: '''the Zeroth Law'''. This Law states: ''Any time a human is endangering other humans, a robot is given license to incapacitate the human through whatever means necessary'' (in this case, incapacitation might as well be interpreted as ''taking human's life''). Wily ''has been'', ''is'', and ''always will be'' a threat both to humans and robots.
** Mega Man actually ''wanted to '''kill''' Wily'' in both versions. If he wanted to, he could've just somehow manipulated his own programming into ''allowing him to do so'' in order to ensure that nobody else would be endangered by Wily's future schemes. Hell, at the beginning of the game, it shows a ''[[DarkerAndEdgier giant robot destroying quite a bit of the city]]''. It's just sort of strange how people say that there wasn't any way for Mega Man to do the deed when there was a chance, albeit with some creativity on his part.
** It's possible that Mega Man doesn't have either the Zeroth Law programmed in or the mental dexterity to come around to that answer - and this would make sense, because he couldn't go straight ''Terminator'' on Wily's ass, anyway. Light may have been GenreSavvy enough to know that the Zeroth Law is ''pretty damned easy to abuse by a sufficiently intelligent robot'', and thus he favored intelligence over flexibility. In his shoes, ''anyone'' would vastly prefer a robot smart enough to find a way to defeat Wily without hurting him (as this already happened in a lot of prior games before) than a robot that might decide that Wily's rivalry with Light is the problem that endangers other humans.
** Fiction is filled with robots that have rationalized out that the most dangerous things to humans are other humans - and worked from there. Also, while it is stated that a robot ''cannot kill a human'', we don't know if Robot Masters from ''Mega Man saga'' are actually Three Laws Compliant, or is there some completely new variant that happens to include "[[ThouShaltNotKill No Killing Humans]]" protocol.
* While on the topic of the subject mentioned above, there is also one question: ''What would happen if Mega Man '''actually killed''' Wily''?
** On the realistic side, there would be '''harsh consequences''. Mega Man couldn't bear living with this terrible deed - after all, he has ''the strong sense of justice''. Killing the single ''human being'' (even if it is his sworn enemy) would predictably make Mega Man ''a lot worse'', thus he would be rendered as criminal and hunted down - just like in case of the Mavericks from ''Mega Man X'' saga. Dr. Light would obviously reject him as his "son", because he ''couldn't comprehend'' the nightmare behind killing Wily. Bass would be ''outright terrified'' - because even if he was angry at Wily from time to time, he ''would never pull the trigger'' on his creator.
** In the worst case scenario, Mega Man would ''embrace the thirst of human blood''. Simply put: his free will would decide that he could do whatever the Hell he wants from now on, [[NightmareFuel so...]]
* In Mega Man 11, Dr. Light ''personally'' goes into the Gear Fortress to talk with Wily after the latter is defeated. This is quite an unusual situation for a Mega Man game, thus it raises some questions:
** [=1st=]: '''Why Light had never done this before?'''
*** Possibly due to his off-screen duties as MissionControl to Mega Man.
*** Maybe he reached the peak of his [[NoodleIncident karate skills]] that he practiced in his spare time? The traps that Wily rigged are still stay intact; after all, there is no way that the old man with Santa Claus' beard could pass through all of this without some sort of mystical mumbo-jumbo skills he never mentioned.
** [=2nd=]: '''What makes him think that Wily will listen to him, anyway?'''
*** Light sincerely believes that Wily still might have some goodness in him. After all, Wily left behind a shitload of Roboenza cure pills at the end of ''Mega Man 10''.
** [=3rd=]: '''Why the fuck Light yet again tries to convince Wily to give up on his evil ambitions if the latter was still doing the same exact shit for the ''[=12th=] time already''?''' Not to mention Wily yet again promises to enact [[SequelHook yet another revenge on Mega Man]].
*** Well, Dr. Light might be gullible enough that he ''still refuses to acknowledge that Wily is irredeemable''. And this is '''Mega Man 11''' we're talking about. ''He's even worse than [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Knuckles]]''!
** [=4th=]: '''Is Wily himself ''now'' decides to brush off Light?'''
*** The answer could be "YES" because ''the exact moment of Wily's betrayal'' at the beginning of the classic Mega Man saga was never canonically portrayed. Instead of waiting ''12 games in a row'', Wily could've done it much earlier - ''at the beginning of the entire goddamn Mega Man series'' - by saying something like this: "Thomas, you never respected me, you refused to acknowledge my achievements, you never gave me credits on projects I helped you develop... You are no longer my friend - fuck you!"

* In the ending of ''VideoGame/MegaMan6'' after Mega Man arrests Wily and he's sent to jail, the front page of a newspaper is shown displaying a story on it. The thing is, the headline (aside from "Dr. Wily") seems to be written in some sort of bizarre nonsense alphabet where the symbols just vaguely resemble English letters. This seems to imply that in the far-off future of 20XX, not only is everything aside from proper nouns written in this symbol set, but spoken words are completely different from written ones, since ''Mega Man'' characters always speak in actual real-life languages like English or Japanese. What's up with that?
** What's up is that it's an NES game that was not able to accurately portray newsprint.

** Also, it's not that every Robot Master has only a single weapon that acts like [[{{Superman}} Kryptonite]] to them: Robot Masters reappearing in later games are sometimes vulnerable to completely different weapons. Every design has it's flaws, and when deploying such a wide variety of Robot Masters, it's only natural that there would be weapons that worked effectively against each one (''2'' arguably had the most realistic take on it, with each Robot Master vulnerable to a variety of weapons, to various extents).

** Wily doesn't just want to beat Mega Man and rule the world, he wants to show that his robot creations are superior.
* So how exactly would a giant robot like Gamma be used for peace-keeping?

** Wily doesn't just want to beat Mega Man and rule the world, he wants to show that his robot creations are superior.