* AccidentalInnuendo: X's ending. His [[CrossdressingVoices girly voice]] in the English dub does not help.
-->'''X:''' Zero, if I become a Maverick, [[HoYay you have to take care of me]].
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** Despite their claims to the contrary, there's little evidence the Repliforce ''hasn't'' gone Maverick. They refuse to disarm and come in for questioning about their suspicious presence at the Sky Lagoon, they declare they will break away to form their own nation and attack humans and Maverick Hunters in their plan to do so, and at no point do they attempt to reason with X or Zero. As a matter of fact, almost (if not ALL) of them will outright declare war with a bit of eager glee. Furthermore, the English manual mentions that Repliforce was formed to support the Hunters in fighting Mavericks, but since their formation the number of outbreaks has increased, which is rather suspicious. As far as can be told from their actions combined with the Maverick Hunters' knowledge and experience of what constitutes a Maverick, they ''have'' gone Maverick, and act like it at every turn while trying to insist they haven't. TheReveal that General has been in contact with Sigma, possibly for months, even makes it possible that he or other members of Repliforce contracted the Sigma Virus.
** Colonel specifically is subjected to this. In X's story, his decision seems to be made out of nothing but foolish pride. In Zero's, however, he's clearly shocked and outraged that the government would suspect him of being Maverick, and later in the story, honestly seems to believe that war is their only option. Given his backstory, it's certainly possible being faced with the threat of his life's purpose taken from him caused him to snap.
** Iris' final words to Zero about living in a world of only Reploids. Was she secretly a human-hating extremist all along? Or was it more that she blamed the humans for the death of Colonel and the rift between her and Zero, and decided that if there were no humans there wouldn't have been a conflict in the first place?
** Did Sigma CameBackWrong from ''VideoGame/MegaManX3''? Nobody mentions anything, but if we do take Repliforce's claims at face value, he's relying more on trickery and deceit than infection, seems to only have a small handful of viral Mavericks, and overall just doesn't seem quite as powerful as usual -- even his OneWingedAngel form seems weaker and more like a last-ditch effort. On top of that, though he has already been suffering some MotiveDecay, this is the first game where he completely loses his own plot, going full on "Destroy the world." He doesn't even mention possessing X or the hastening evolution of Reploids. Given Doppler's HeroicSacrifice against Sigma in ''X3'', this interpretation is entirely possible. It's not until ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' where he works up another attempt to consume everything with his virus, and that was a grand CameBackStrong moment, further implying he wasn't quite up to snuff here.
* AntiClimaxBoss:
** For a character so hyped that you have to fight him twice (if you're playing as X, at least), Colonel's moveset is painfully predictable. With the exception of one (extremely telegraphed) move, he is completely incapable of attacking the player on the wall. Winning is as easy as tapping him a few times then wait on the wall until he's vulnerable again.
** Compared to [[spoiler:Double]] in X's route, Iris isn't terribly difficult -- just slash her to keep her at bay, then focus on the core. Justified as Iris was never meant to be a fighter and the project that spawned her and Colonel, spawned the two for a reason.[[note]]They were originally one and the same Reploid meant to replicate the paradox X had with {{technical pacifis|t}}m, but Iris' innocence and pacifism didn't go well with Colonel's spirit of combat and honorable nature, so they were SplitAtBirth.[[/note]]
** Defeating General as X is as easy as hugging the top of the wall and plugging charge shots into his face from the other side of the room while he's nigh-helpless against you. Zero, sadly, [[ThatOneBoss isn't so lucky]].
* AssPull: [[spoiler:Double being TheMole]], while fitting with the game's theme about betrayal, gets pretty much no foreshadowing. Additionally, the scene where he shows his true colors suggests that X has already left for the Final Weapon, but the guy blocking his path suggests that he somehow got there before him despite X leaving first.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: ''X4'' has by far the best art out of all [[VideoGame/MegaManX the series']] PSX games. Every stage has immaculately constructed and animated backgrounds, every character's movement bounces with a sense of life sadly absent from ''X5'' and ''X6'', and then there's the cool anime [=FMVs=]! Even the player select and stage select screen have so much style in them, making them feel almost like fighting game select screens.
* BestBossEver: Magma Dragoon, who has a badass design in general, steals moves from ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' like the Hadoken and Shoryuken, and is one of only three fights in [[VideoGame/MegaManX the entire series]] where you can bring a Ride Armor into the boss room and fight him with it. [[note]]The other two being [[VideoGame/MegaManX7 Vanishing Gungaroo]] and [[VideoGame/MegaManX8 Bamboo Pandamonium]].[[/note]] He's even the only Maverick boss in the series to have an actual death scene instead of just exploding, and was even "brought back" as [[WarmupBoss the boss of the tutorial stage]] in the next game.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
** When you fight Sigma's first two forms, the background is a ''giant, robotic demon face'' with a rotating crystal in its mouth and RedEyesTakeWarning. What does this mean for the story, or for Sigma? Nothing, because after beating phase two, the ground gives way to a more proper interior for a space cannon station. It also can't be the core, because that's just a little further past the final phase, so Sigma just has some occult {{magitek}}-looking room for no real reason. This is the ''only time this happens in the series'', and not a single character comments on it.
** When the room returned in ''VideoGame/MegaManXtreme2'' for the fights against Gareth and Berkana, nothing about it was brought up by any of the combatants. So, unless it was meant to foreshadow that Sigma already had plans for Repliforce, what was the point behind it being on Laguz Island?
* BreatherBoss:
** Any airborne boss is this for Zero, like Web Spider and Jet Stingray. Because the Z-Saber can hit multiple directions, it's easier to hit them from below. While Spider's pattern is a little more random and can hit you with his webs if you get cocky, Stingray usually stays in the same two spots during his battle.
** Magma Dragoon if you manage to bring the Ride Armor intact to his lair. By the time your Armor gets destroyed, you will have taken off enough health for him that he generally won't be a threat to you. [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome A lot of players even go to his stage first simply because of this.]]
** While either of X's armors do this to all the main bosses, special mention goes to Storm Owl. Due to a glitch, attacking with Aiming Laser and following up with Nova Strike will triple the damage done by the Strike. Not bad given the BeamSpam-happy stage the player had to go through.
* BrokenBase: Does Repliforce's defection make them UnintentionallyUnsympathetic, as the entire conflict could've been avoided if Colonel hadn't chosen HonorBeforeReason, or was it understandable due to the mounting paranoia and suspicion between them and their human masters (at least partially seeded by Sigma himself) and Colonel's possibly hardwired inability to resolve conflicts peacefully? Others take a TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot position, feeling that while the story could have been interesting, vital plot points about Colonel's programming flaw and Repliforce's poor reputation are AllThereInTheManual, undermining the purpose of ''X4'' being more story-driven than previous games in the series.
* CommonKnowledge: Some fans accuse Jet Stingray of being far too violent in Repliforce's coup d'état, as his poorly-translated stage intro states "He destroyed the city and escaped to the sea." However, Capcom's official ''Mega Man X4'' website says that he only destroyed the city's underground power system and sent everyone into panic. This is the context as to why his stage starts in an underground area before emerging into the open sea.
* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: Most players choose the Plasma Charge Shot upgrade over the Stock Charge Shot, owing to its greater power being more useful than the stored shots. Capcom seems to have caught on to this, as the Plasma Shot is the upgrade that comes with the Fourth Armor in ''X5'', as well as the Ultimate Armor. Speed runners, however, prefer the Stock Shot because it has higher damage output against bosses like Magma Dragoon and Slash Beast.
* CompleteMonster: In [[Manga/MegaManX the manga adaptation]], [[AnIcePerson Frost Walrus]] is a sadistic Reploid war criminal that not even the Repliforce can tolerate. A convicted murderer who joined the military [[SociopathicSoldier for the violence]], Frost Walrus sees the MilitaryCoup as an opportunity to indulge in random acts of cruelty. When the Great Repliforce War begins, Frost Walrus takes several Reploids to his torture room and watches them slowly freezing to death but unable to do anything about it, later disposing of his victims by HuntingTheMostDangerousGame -- it's in the aftermath of this massacre that X learns the true extent of his atrocities: Frost Walrus is a prolific SerialKiller who likes to keep the corpses of famous Maverick Hunters as morbid trophies in what he calls the "Room of the Wild Ones", so bad are his crimes that General himself steps in to personally execute Frost Walrus.
* ContinuityLockout: ''X4'' manages to have this [[AllThereInTheManual with its own manual and supplementary material]]. The game opens on X and Zero investigating Sky Lagoon, and after it crashes into the city below, they aggressively demand that Colonel come in for questioning, leading to Colonel refusing and igniting Repliforce's rebellion. The manual explains that Repliforce already had a reputation for doing more harm than good, while later material reveals that Colonel had no capacity for peaceful negotiation due to developmental flaws. None of this is explained in-game however, so without the information (which is especially bad for later re-releases which don't have the info at all), X and Zero come across as overly aggressive while Colonel comes off as {{idiot|Ball}}ic.
* DesignatedLoveInterest: Iris to Zero; they got together sometime between ''VideoGame/MegaManX3'' and this game, and don't share much romantic screen-time in the game proper before Iris's death. The later-released ''VideoGame/MegaManXtreme2'' has a small CallForward by featuring a younger Iris as Zero's Navigator and including a brief scene arguably nodding to their relationship in this game, but there's still little in the way of substance to their love story.
* DisappointingLastLevel: The final three stages of the game, while not bad by any means, are rather underwhelming overall, if just by virtue of the dev team [[ToughActToFollow blowing their wad on the main course and not having anything quite as creative or cool to follow up with]]. The first one is a straight line to Colonel where you just plow through a conga line of mooks, the second one is a fairly straightforward platforming affair before you reach a WalkingSpoiler MiniBoss and General, and the third level is basically just a BossOnlyLevel for the BossRush and Sigma himself.
* DracoInLeatherPants: While Repliforce is a lot more sympathetic than most Mavericks, there is a tendency in parts of the fandom to downplay or ignore Repliforce's more negative traits, often depicting them as an incredibly noble and competent organization only declared Maverick because of humanity's intolerance of robots showing any sort of autonomy and despite this going out of their way to avoid human casualties, glossing over their [[AllThereInTheManual history of city-destroying levels of failure]]; insubordination for petty reasons while under suspicion of committing a massacre; questionable hiring decisions that would include in their ranks [[{{Pegasus}} a reckless hothead]], [[WilyWalrus an unrepentant Maverick]], [[DinosaursAreDragons a black market arms dealer]], [[OminousOwl a war criminal]], [[SinisterStingrays a city-destroying war criminal]], and [[DraconicHumanoid the guy who framed them]]; brutal and ruthless attacks on civilian centers; and their construction of a planet-destroying superweapon they lost control of. The next game would go on to establish that their space campaign forced so many space colonies to be abandoned that Sigma was able to snag one of them for his ColonyDrop plans.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Magma Dragoon, for being a badass BloodKnight. Bonus points for being a ShoutOut to [[Franchise/StreetFighter Akuma]]. This popularity was enough for him to become the first Eight Mavericks boss to be PromotedToPlayable in ''VideoGame/MegaManXDive''.
* EvenBetterSequel: This game is a huge step-up in comparison to ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX3 X3]]'', with a more memorable soundtrack, interesting level design, and an entire second campaign starring Zero with [[DivergentCharacterEvolution a more varied gameplay style]] compared to the last game. It also helped to establish ''X4'' as, along with [[VideoGame/MegaManX1 the original]], a ToughActToFollow for the remainder of the [[VideoGame/MegaManX series]]. It is also considered by most fans to be the only game in the ''X'' series to, at minimum, rival [[FirstInstallmentWins the original]] in quality.
* FanNickname:
** Force Armor or Nova Armor, for X's armor in this game (the former being a [[VideoGame/MegaManX5 retroactive]] FanNickname).
** [[spoiler:Double]]'s true form has been called "Jello Man" since the 90s, due to Capcom USA's official ''X4'' webpage referring to them as such (likely in an attempt to hide the twist).
* FranchiseOriginalSin: One of the biggest complaints about ''VideoGame/MegaManX7'' is that X does not get much focus in favor of [[SpotlightStealingSquad Axl]]. This can be traced back to this game, where Zero gets more story involvement than X does. The difference is that X is still the main character of his ''X4'' story and playable for the entire game. When comparing both of ''X4''[='s=] story campaigns, although X doesn't get nearly as much emotional investment or backstory as Zero does, he is still very much an important player in the conflict and goes through many of the same beats Zero does. By contrast, ''X7'' has X undergo TenMinuteRetirement as an unlockable character instead of being available from the start, and has little involvement in many of the big story scenes with Axl calling most of the shots. Adding to this is how Zero [[BreakoutCharacter had grown to become the most popular character in the series over the course of the previous three games]] to make his focus not feel undeserved, while Axl got his focus as early as his first appearance and had yet to earn his fanbase (he was TheScrappy in ''X7'' but was RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap in [[VideoGame/MegaManX8 the next game]]).
* FridgeLogic:
** Finding the Helmet upgrade in Cyberspace [[YourMindMakesItReal allows you to actually wear them in the real world]]. And how did Dr. Light leave the capsule in the Cyberspace, a network that just didn't exist 100 years ago, anyway?
** Why was Iris allowed around Maverick Hunter HQ in the first place? Despite being a Navigator for them in ''Xtreme 2'', she's still from Repliforce, the primary enemy of the game. You'd think they would have locked her up or at least kept an eye on her, but she had enough access to [[spoiler:retrieve Colonel's remains to enable her power-up and subsequent boss fight]].
* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** In Slash Beast's stage, the first Repliforce mook that destroys the train connectors also [[HoistByHisOwnPetard falls into the pit he created]].
** When X meets Split Mushroom, the script [[LampshadeHanging takes a jab]] at [[HijackedByGanon the pattern that's being established]].
--->'''Split Mushroom:''' Are you X? I'm under orders to terminate you.\\
'''X:''' What?! Who's [sic] orders?\\
'''Split Mushroom:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Take a wild guess.]] [Proceeds to power up, his health bar having [[BroughtToYouByTheLetterS Sigma's]] [[SigilSpam insignia]] instead of a Repliforce one.]
* GameBreaker:
** The Force/Nova Armor in general, but ''especially'' the head component, which gives you ''[[BottomlessMagazines unlimited ammo]]'' for your weapons. Charged attacks still drain your energy, but the charged attacks are generally considered to be overkill anyway, and the ability to spam the normal versions of the attacks with impunity is far more practical.
** The Ultimate Armor. Boasts the same powers as the Force Armor, but with unlimited ammo for the highly damaging Nova Strike. It also only requires the player to obtain one of the parts to assemble the entire armor (after you inputted the cheat code), meaning a savvy player can simply grab the Leg Parts in Web Spider's stage and proceed to steamroll a good 90% of the game.
** To a lesser extent, the Plasma Shot ArmCannon in this game leaves behind damaging plasma orbs every time it hits something, which deal massive damage to minibosses and are also effective (although slightly less so) against normal bosses. Those orbs can also be an impromptu "shield" that destroys whatever projectiles can be destroyed for 2-3 seconds. Sadly, later games nerf the plasma orbs to be completely ineffective against normal bosses, and when the Force Armor returns in ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX5 X5]]'', only one plasma orb can be generated at a time (while the Ultimate Armor can still make more than one).
* GoddamnedBoss: Sigma [[SequentialBoss has three phases]] in this game. The first one can be resolved quickly when you use fire attacks. The second one relies on manipulating his scythe so he goes for an easier to avoid attack. The final form has three forms he cycles through: A gun form that takes its sweet time lining up shots, and a garbage form that sucks in debris from random angles and blows you towards SpikesOfDoom. There is also another form consisting of FireIceLightning heads that BeamSpam and cannot be permanently destroyed. With only two Energy Tanks, it's clear Sigma's strategy is to just stall for time and hide his weakpoints for as long as possible. [[FridgeBrilliance Makes sense, since he's activating Final Weapon.]]
* GoodBadBugs:
** Colonel's SwordBeam flurry has an odd blindspot: right in front of him. [[ViolationOfCommonSense Apparently you can avoid sword beams by standing right in the path of the sword being swung to launch those beams.]]
** Zero's Slash-Dash cancel started here, continuing into ''VideoGame/MegaManX5''. You can LagCancel the first slash, and cancel the sword cancel with a dash. You can then cancel the dash with a slash. [[SomeDexterityRequired With proper timing]], Zero won't move from his spot and will just BladeSpam. Bosses don't trigger MercyInvincibility until Zero completes his combo, so Zero can shred most bosses in about 4 seconds. The only exceptions are airborne bosses or Zero getting hit. ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX6 X6]]'' forced lag after enough cancels to [[{{Nerf}} try to fix it]] but it's still effective.
** It's possible to exploit glitches with Lightning Web and the Ride Armor in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxWwvjTvpno the volcano stage]] to retrieve the chest piece early and in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwKLeJSBTKE the train stage]] to use it against Slash Beast.
* GrowingTheBeard: While it's debated if this game's overall level design was as good as the original ''VideoGame/MegaManX1'', on a series-wide scale, it was at this point in the ''X'' series where stories got more complex, the levels got bigger and more elaborate, and Zero's sword-based playstyle was introduced.
* ItsEasySoItSucks: One of the biggest complaints about the game is its relative lack of difficulty, especially in X's campaign which gives you the Force Armor to [[GameBreaker break the game wide open]]. Most stages are fairly straightforward, and the standard bosses can easily be stun-locked with their respective weaknesses so they'll never even get the chance to put up a fight. Things get a bit tougher in the final act, but even then it's only a marginal increase, and it still ends up being noticeably easier than the finales of the [[VideoGame/MegaManX1 three]] [[VideoGame/MegaManX2 previous]] [[VideoGame/MegaManX3 games]]. Zero's campaign, on the other hand, makes some of the bosses tougher since he can't exploit every boss's weakness, but the stages themselves practically become a joke as Zero's Z-Saber tears just about everything to shreds.
* ItWasHisSled: The scene where Iris dies is the game's SignatureScene and the source for [[MemeticMutation a popular meme]], so it's hard not to be spoiled, and to a lesser extent the SuperpoweredEvilSide of Zero that this game sets up becomes the entire crux of a similar usage of this trope in ''X5''. The identity of [[spoiler:TheMole]] in X's story ([[spoiler:Double]]) qualifies as well, though far less discussed due to lacking the emotional weight and/or memetic value of Iris's death.
* MoralEventHorizon: If Magma Dragoon dropping the Sky Lagoon and killing millions of innocent people [[DisproportionateRetribution just to fight X and Zero]] wasn't bad enough, he has the gall to gloat to X about how he would do it again.
* {{Narm}}:
** The English version's voice acting turns Iris's death from a tragic event into sheer hilarity. There's a reason that it spawned [[MemeticMutation a meme]].
** One of General's lines before his boss fight: "My fate is sealed. I have...''no choice.''" It sounds as though he lost interest towards the end, what with its abruptness and quietness.
* NarmCharm: Given the series' increased {{Shonen}} influences as it progressed, the hammy acting feels downright appropriate in places. And despite how fun it is to make fun of, Iris's boss fight and resulting death are still effective at making the player [[PlayerPunch want to storm Repliforce's base]].
* NightmareFuel:
** Zero's opening flashback to his encounter with Sigma. The sight of so many mangled Reploids and MachineBlood combined with Sigma's terrified scream (one of the few moments of semi-competent English voice acting) makes for a truly horrific scene.
** The final battles with Sigma mark the point in the series where he goes from a revolutionary, if crazed, TakeOverTheWorld kind of villain, and descends straight into AxCrazy territory as he's willing to destroy the whole world to achieve his goals. The game shows this with [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment his demon room]], his first reaper form, and then his abnormally creepy final form that straight up has ScareChord moments in the theme to highlight how ''unhinged'' he has truly become.
* OlderThanTheyThink:
** While Zero was playable in [[VideoGame/MegaManX3 the previous game]], he was limited to being a call-to-action character and was essentially a clone of X. This game would fully flesh him out [[PromotedToPlayable as his own playable character]] with [[DivergentCharacterEvolution a new and unique playstyle]].
** This isn't the first time X was voiced by a woman; Creator/MegumiOgata provided the voice clip for X when he fires the Hadoken in [[VideoGame/MegaManX1 the first game]].
* PlayerPunch: So the series has finally let Zero be fully playable? As a trade-off, let's give him some trauma and kill off Iris. In fact, she was probably introduced into the story just to ''invoke'' the trope on Zero.
* QuestionableCasting: Infamously, X has the voice of a prepubescent girl in this game's English dub, when the original Japanese had a man voicing him. This was because X's actress in English recorded for classic Mega Man in ''VideoGame/MegaMan8'' and X in this game at the same time, without being told she was recording for two different characters.
* SignatureLine: The game's SignatureScene ends with Zero screaming:
--> '''WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOOOOOORRRRR!?!?!?!?!?'''
* SignatureScene: In both ways in the same scene where [[CradlingYourKill Zero cradles the corpse of Iris]]. The Japanese version is considered the saddest moments due to the Japanese acting involved. The ''English version'' has a [[MemeticMutation memetic]] bad acting while Zero undergoes a {{narm}}y HeroicBSOD.
* SoBadItsGood: The English voice acting. It's full of {{Narm}} and questionable voice directions, but oh boy is it fun to listen to.
* StrangledByTheRedString: Zero and Iris don't have much screentime together to suggest that they're attracted to each other, at least not until the latter's death. ''[[VideoGame/MegaManXtreme2 Xtreme 2]]'', which is a prequel in which Iris appears, doesn't give too many hints either (aside of, arguably, a small moment before the Fortress stages where Iris shows concern for Zero). Zero's flashback in his ending suggests they didn't meet in person until after ''Xtreme 2''.
* StrawmanHasAPoint: Repliforce was quite justified in their lack of trust in the Maverick Hunters -- the Hunters basically did whatever they were told by the humans, and had killed thousands if not millions of Reploids in their crusade against Mavericks. From Repliforce's perspective, the Maverick Hunters had a stranglehold on all of Reploidkind and wouldn't allow anyone to change or evolve, lest they threaten the supremacy of the humans. Sigma put it well:
--> '''Sigma:''' They are far too eager to please the humans, and continue to hunt down the Reploids...Their sole mission has been to destroy any Reploids who fail to do as the humans order! ...It's in your best interest to stop them now, before they turn on you!
* TearJerker: If you play the Japanese version, which is now available in the ''X Legacy Collection'', Zero's cries of what he's fighting for after Iris' death is more poignant and heavy compared to the English version's narmful version. Creator/RyotaroOkiayu's delivery gives off that weight in the original Japanese.
* ThatOneAttack:
** The boomerang attack from Sigma's second phase. It's easily avoidable if you repeatedly bait Sigma into throwing his scythe into the wall, but if you screw up and it gets stuck on the floor instead, the boomerangs are almost guaranteed to hit you.
** The upper-right Sigma body and the three Sigma heads have attacks that are easy enough to evade and counter once you know the right way to dodge them, but the bottom-left Sigma's attacks revolve around either pushing you towards a wall of (non-lethal, but extremely painful) spikes or pulling you in before filling the screen with debris while guarding itself with one of the Sigma heads, giving you absolutely no safe opportunities to counterattack.
* ThatOneBoss: [[ThatOneBoss/MegaMan Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.]]
* ThatOneLevel: [[ThatOneLevel/MegaMan Shares a page with the franchise.]]
* ToughActToFollow: None of the subsequent games in the ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX X]]'' [[VideoGame/MegaManX series]] reached the heights that this one did: ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX5 X5]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX6 X6]]'' especially, and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX8 X8]]'' were varying degrees of divisive, and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX7 X7]]'' is considered a low point for [[Franchise/MegaMan the entire franchise]].
* UnderusedGameMechanic: The Weapon Energy Sub-Tank. With X, getting strapped for weapon energy is only a problem if the player gets careless, and the Tank becomes almost completely useless once you get the head upgrade unless the player spams charge attacks. With Zero, he only has one attack that requires Weapon Energy, but he only ever needs it during his battle against Storm Owl, and it can get replenished if he takes damage.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
** Magma Dragoon's death is presented as a tragedy because he wanted a fight with X/Zero... but he accomplished this by crashing Sky Lagoon, killing thousands of innocent people, and gloats about it when X confronts him, making it kind of hard to share X's mournful sentiment.
** The same can honestly be said about the Repliforce in banter regarding X. Depending on who you choose to pick, you'll either get a half-assed excuse to use Zero, or a taunt/dedication of battle to X. It's hard to say they're framed when they're essentially ready to fight without hesitation.
** We're ''meant'' to pity Repliforce, [[BigBad Sigma]] tricked them and the government unfairly deemed them Mavericks, but their actions don't endear them. After [[ColonyDrop a national disaster]], Colonel refuses to disarm and come in for questioning, saying it's an insult to Repliforce's honor (he might have been more sympathetic if he stated a lack of trust in the Maverick Hunters/their superiors instead of that). General, Repliforce's leader, revolts to declare an independent, Reploid-only state: a huge space station with a WaveMotionGun ''pointed at Earth'', and parts of Repliforce launch organized attacks on civilians (particularly Jet Stingray, who apparently destroys an entire city) to buy time for Repliforce to launch. Of course the government would call Repliforce Mavericks -- peaceful intentions or not, they refused to follow the law after a huge disaster, declared civil war, and then took that as free reign to act exactly like every previous Maverick in the series. But the ending here and the attitude towards them in ''[[VideoGame/MegaManX5 X5]]'', suggests we're supposed to view them with ''sympathy''. The only sympathetic ones are General (who, in the opening cutscene, didn't want to rebel and later committed a HeroicSacrifice to save Earth), Iris (she didn't rebel and went insane when Colonel died), The Skiver/Spiral Pegasus from ''X5'' (doesn't hold a grudge and fights because he knows he'll become a Maverick soon), and arguably Colonel (his programming flaw made him lack a peaceful side, [[AllThereInTheManual not that the game itself tells you this]]).
** Iris' death scene can become this due to her stressing her desire to live in a world with only Reploids. While this is probably meant as a TragicDream and an attempt to invoke HumansAreTheRealMonsters, the fact that we almost never even ''see'' humans in the ''X'' series makes the attempt at demonizing them fall rather flat and can come across as sudden, vague FantasticRacism instead. Made worse by the fact that we ''do'' see a lot of evil Reploids throughout the timeline.
** Web Spider in the manga adaptation. He gives a long speech about how because of humanity's flaws, reploids will forever be trapped fighting pointless wars and cry out for independence, and that Repliforce is lashing out in part because they were told to hold back during Sigma's rebellions so the Maverick Hunters could save face, which damaged Repliforce's reputation for not intervening and they had been secretly cleaning up various messes so the indignity of being forced to disarm struck harder, but he is a war criminal who booby trapped the corpses of dead Maverick Hunters and the only reason he didn't murder a city full of humans was because he spent a whole bunch of time monologuing to X allowing X to catch him offguard, and his claims seem to come out of nowhere, not to mention he was lying about Zero earlier in their conversation. And yet his speeches are meant to invoke an AlasPoorVillain reaction.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: This game got an "E for Everyone" rating. This is the same game that has ''the'' most violent cutscene deaths ever seen in the entirety of the franchise, with [[spoiler:Double]] bloodily and mercilessly murdering an entire squad in a rather gratuitously violent scene, and Zero maiming the hell out of Sigma before he gained amnesia, never mind the FreezeFrameBonus of the slaughter of other Maverick Hunters he did before. Even before that, the game explicitly has Sky Lagoon be wiped out, killing potentially ''tens of millions'' of people in one fell swoop that the characters outright remark upon in horror while showing you the ruined aftermath up close, and the plot itself thinly veils what amounts to not just fighting rebellious robots, but a flat-out genocide of the entire (''sentient!'') Repliforce solely because they bucked their leash and threatened Earth due to being framed and baited by Sigma. Perhaps because of changed standards, the ''X Legacy Collection'' silently bumped the game up to "T for Teen".
* TheWoobie: Iris. All she wanted was peace between humans and Reploids, yet this sweet, innocent girl got thrown into two forces fighting for their beliefs and she's torn on which side to pick... leading to her brother Colonel getting killed by Zero, and Iris herself going past the DespairEventHorizon before also being killed by Zero (and/or the strain of [[MySkullRunnethOver trying to integrate her brother's incompatible systems into her own]]).
----