Video Game / Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch

Does this look familiar to you?

Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch is a Mega Man (Classic) themed multiplayer Game Mod for the Zandronum (previously Skulltag) engine, which itself is a Game Mod of Doom. It was first released in October 2010 from CutmanMike, who previously made Ghouls vs. Humans, and it fully focuses on typical multiplayer gameplay such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and so on.

It takes place after Mega Man 6, when the real Mr. X^note distinguished from Wily's portrayal of him in MM6 by the lack of sunglasses, flat eyebrows, and no dot on his forehead hosts the second annual Robot Master tournament. With Dr. Light's consent, all robots entering must be refitted with Mega Man's powers, to ensure fair competition. However, Dr. Wily sees this as a brilliant opportunity to prove his genius, and enters all of his robots in the tournament. Mega Man, not trusting Dr. Wily in the tournament, decides to enter, but since he can't watch over every match, Dr. Light enters his robots as well. The Player Character, a generic robot by the name of Maestro^note though it can be given any name or skin you prefer, agrees to work with Dr. Light and investigate Dr. Wily's activities in the tournament.

In the initial release, the game's stages, skins and weapons are based off of the first six Mega Man games on the NES. Version 2 came in June 2011 and added content from Mega Man 7 while simultaneously borrowing the 8-bit graphics from the fan made project Rockman 7 FC. Version 3, released on December 21st, 2012, added additional content from Mega Man 8, also borrowing graphics from Rockman 8 FC, while retroactively adding content from Mega Man Powered Up to the original Mega Man chapter. Version 4, released on May 17th, 2014, chronicles the events of Mega Man & Bass and includes extra maps and skins based on Mega Man: The Wily Wars; but unlike the previous two updates, it doesn't borrow graphics from a retraux version (there are no "Famicomized" versions of either game), instead opting to use sprites done up from scratch. Version 5 arrived on July 29th, 2016, and it covers the plot of Mega Man 9. After a long wait, Version 6 was released on October 23, 2020 —- and it adapts content from both Mega Man 10 and Mega Man V (with the latter's graphics being fully colorized). A future (and presumably final) expansion will focus on Mega Man 11.

The game has its own Single Player campaign which pits the player against computer bots. There are currently thirteen chapters (the first six being the main story, and the other seven using the non-NES games as a basis), and each chapter features a series of predefined deathmatches before the player faces the chapter boss, though some chapters feature boss battles after certain deathmatch stages.

It can be found here and does not require a copy of Doom or Doom II to play.

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• 11th-Hour Superpower:
  • Right before the boss of Chapter 8, Duo gives you his Duo Fist to take on the Evil Robot.
  • One of the final fights in Chapter 13 has you teaming up with Dr. Wily, who is invincible and has access to all the weapons you do, except Dawn Breaker, with infinite ammo for all of them.
  • During the final boss of Version 6, the player harnesses the energy Duo gave them way back in Chapter 8 to enter an empowered state with increased speed, strength, and defense, complete with a Theme Music Power-Up.
• Achievement Mockery: Carrying over from Zandronum is the Medals system, of which there are three that are considered negative: "You Fail It", "Your Skill is Not Enough", and "Llama". The first two are awarded for five and ten deaths in a row without scoring a single frag respectively, and Llama is given by fragging a player in the middle of typing a message, using the menu or console, or lagging. You can also get the Llama medal from a bot if you're quick enough.^note There is one other "negative" medal known as "Spam", but as Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch lacks a BFG weapon, it cannot be earned under any circumstances.
• Actually a Doombot: Post Version 5, if the player fights and defeats the Wily Capsule, Wily begins to beg for mercy like usual... until his head starts bouncing around on a spring, revealing it to be a robotic fake.
• Adaptational Abomination: In Mega Man 8, the Evil Robot didn't get much screentime, but in 8-Bit Deathmatch, appears to be an avatar for Evil Energy itself, which allows it to do things such as come back from death as only a head which can possess other robots, and take over the Wily Star, with an amorphous mass forming over much of it that turns it into limbs.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Quint from Version 5 onwards. In Mega Man II, he's easily dispatched with a predictable pattern, and his signature Sakurgarne weapon is relatively useless. In 8-Bit Deathmatch, he's almost exactly what you'd really expect from a future Mega Man: he's taking a whopping five transitions to beat, gradually becoming much more powerful over the fight and being very durable himself. Sakugarne itself is very helpful as support to him in battle, as it is when wielded by the player.
  • While Bass is a Mini-Boss in the canonical games, he's upgraded into a full, two-phase boss fight at the end of the Mega Man 7 expansion.
  • Gamma gets several powerful new attacks and abilities, and unlike in 3, is fought from the ground instead of at least up to his torso. Justified due to Dr. Wily rebuilding him stronger.
• Adaptational Heroism: It is heavily implied that Ra Moon created the Player Character specifically to protect against the apocalypse that the Stardroids and Sunstar would cause. Whether this indicates actual goodwill or Evil Versus Oblivion is up for debate.
• Adaptational Late Appearance:
  • The Stardroids and the Genesis Unit were introduced in Mega Man V and Mega Man: The Wily Wars respectively, both of which released between Mega Man 6 and Mega Man 7. In 8-Bit Deathmatch, the Genesis Unit are introduced in Chapter 10, which is set in-between Mega Man & Bass (Chapter 9) and Mega Man 9 (Chapter 11), while the Stardroids are introduced in Chapter 13, set after Mega Man 10 (Chapter 12).
  • Ra Thor and Ra Devil are introduced into the story in Chapter 13 as part of an optional sidequest, while their actual introduction into the Mega Man franchise, Super Adventure Rockman, released the year following Mega Man 8 and only a few months after Mega Man & Bass in Japan.
• Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed. The Stardroids were a villainous group of robots reprogrammed by Dr. Wily in Mega Man V to take over the world; but in here he has had no hand in their programming, instead being an Omnicidal Maniac cult hell bent on awakening Sunstar to destroy the world from the start, essentially making them more like their versions from the Archie Comics and Gigamix. Out of all of them, Terra is the most psychotic.
• Adapted Out:
  • In Version 5A, the plot point of Dr. Light being arrested during the events of Mega Man 9 was dropped from this game's retelling. Version 5B adds a new cutscene system to the lab, allowing this plot detail to be brought back.
  • The plot of Super Adventure Rockman is heavily abridged from its source material, reducing it to a small, linear obstacle course inside the Lanfront Ruins followed by a two-part boss fight, and the only characters of importance besides Ra Moon and its creations Ra Thor and Ra Devil are Maestro and Pharaoh Man.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: Prior to Version 5B, the Guts-Dozer chases the player down an endless path while being fought. From V5B onwards, the path is much shorter as you and Guts Man escape out of it... with the Guts-Dozer following you as well.
• Alternate Continuity:
  • The first half of the story is a What If? scenario taking place immediately after Mega Man 6, exploring what might have happened if Mr. X had been a real person instead of a disguised Wily — in this case, a more proper Tournament Arc that was more than just the sixth game's backstory.^note Interestingly, the comic book adaptation made Dr. Wily and Mr. X into separate people as well. It was a simple Excuse Plot in previous MM8BDM versions, but was redone into a proper storyline from Version 5B onwards to bring things in line with later story chapters, which are also fleshed out considerably.
  • The Evil Energy plot doesn't remain exclusive to Mega Man 8. As revealed at the end of the Wily Tower chapter, and in The Stinger for the Mega Man 8 chapter, Dr. Wily reveals that he has retained some samples of Evil Energy, and is planning to refine it into a more controllable form, including using it to create and spread Roboenza during the climax of the Mega Man 9 chapter, setting up the stage for Mega Man 10.
  • The fact that Maestro takes over Mega Man's role as The Hero in Mega Man 7 and beyond is a plot point in the secret battle against Quint, who attempts to erase him from the timeline and restore it to how it originally was.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • You can get an Energy Balancer very early on in the fight with the Cossack Catcher, likely so you won't need to micromanage the three different weapons you get during this fight.
  • To ease up the management of Maestro's ever growing arsenal for Chapter 13, you can always visit Dust Man's machine on Cossack Cruiser and turn off any unnecessary weapons at the moment.
• Anti-Villain:
  • The Cossack Numbers, as of Version 5B. They allied themselves with Dr. Wily because Dr. Cossack was forced to abandon them, and they help the player escape from Wily's forces after the Cossack Citadel fight.
  • King and his organization, whose main goal was to fight for the freedom of robots after the expiration date law was signed in. He genuinely believes in his cause, and is only dissuaded from it once he realizes that his attempts to secure freedom have caused more suffering than they're worth. In The Stinger, King even speculates that history may view him as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, word-for-word.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Lampshaded by Roll if the player selects Sword Man as their skin:
  Roll: Sword Man, it's 20XX. You'll have to use a Buster too.
  • In game, this translates to Sword Man somehow being able to fire a Buster by swinging their sword.
• Arc Welding:
  • Bass appears in the climax of the Mega Man 6 chapter, bridging the gap between the 8-bit titles and Super Nintendo follow-up game.
  • The Mega Man & Bass chapter does this with Mega Man 9 (with the expiration date law serving as the basis of King's rebellion) and Wily Tower.
  • The Mega Man 9 chapter, likewise, does this with Mega Man 10, with Wily spreading the Roboenza virus across the world, which would infect nearly everyone.
  • The Mega Man 10 chapter has ties to not just the aftermath of Mega Man 8 and Mega Man & Bass, but also Mega Man 4: Dr. Cossack repairs Duo and King, who both proceed to help the player against the chapter's main boss, and the cure for Roboenza is implied to be made by Dr. Cossack instead of Dr. Wily like in 10 proper. Especially notable as Duo, King, and Dr. Cossack were all one-shot characters in their original games.
  • The events of Mega Man 8 have a much greater lasting effect: Dr. Wily uses Evil Energy to create Roboenza, something hinted at as early as the Wily Tower chapter before becoming a major plot point in both the 9 and 10 chapters, and not only does Duo's immunity to Evil Energy protect him from Roboenza as well, but the player, having used the Duo Fist at the end of the 8 chapter, also quickly becomes immune. On top of all of this, the delayed debut of the Stardroids allows the Evil Robot to take center stage again late in the Mega Man V chapter.
• The Artifact:
  • While still understandable in Multiplayer, the idea of all Robot Masters sticking to Mega Man's powers becomes this starting with Chapter 7, with the tournament having been over since then, leaving the others without an obvious need to stick to such a power set. It isn't until seven chapters after the tournament that robots besides the player stick to their original weapons.
  • Buster Rod G is named that in his original Wily Wars appearance because he uses a bo staff in his first appearance, while his second uses an Arm Cannon. In this game, Buster Rod G focuses exclusively on his rod attacks, with his projectile moves being replaced with a Doppelgänger Attack.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Bot pathfinding leaves a lot to be desired, and leads to such incapabilities such as being unable to chase players up ladders and running on the spot next to cliff edges. It's lessened of v6 where they will automatically aggro if the player approaches them while doing the latter, but these two points can still make any Gang Up on the Human levels like King's Tower or Fake Man significantly easier than they would otherwise seem.
  • Bots aren't really able to utilize complex weapons. Expect to see bots attempting to use melee weapons at long range or just running around dropping Mega Balls everywhere without attempting to kick them.
• Artistic License – Space: Chapter 13 faithfully carries over most of the artistic license Mega Man V had, but it adds a few new examples of its own:
  • The colorations of half the planets in the solar system are...well, different than they are in real life. Mercury being pink and green is somewhat excusable, but what's not are Pluto being blue instead of white and brown, Uranus conversely being brown as opposed to blue, and that instead of being a mostly orange-ish planet, Jupiter is green.
  • Neptune's stage now actually takes place on Neptune, but still has surface water and a sky resembling that of midday on Earth like his terrestrial stage in Mega Man V does. In real life, Neptune does not have a watery (or any) surface and is too far from the sun for it to be any brighter out than Earth gets in the evening at the most.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Skins^note except for the many Roll costume skins, bots and weapons from the fan made Mega Man Powered Up expansion made it into the core game in Version 3.
  • The Mega Mech Shark from Wily Castle 2 in Mega Man 9 makes a surprise appearance as one of the two final bosses of Version 5. Its original appearance had it only be a simple fortress boss; here, it's one of two bosses of V5, and also plays a pivotal plot-related role in setting the stage for the events of Mega Man 10.
  • 8's Evil Energy robot was an integral character for setting up his game's plot, but his effect is posthumous and mostly separate from his actual character. Here, he's the final boss of one of the chapters and has a direct hand in a part of the story. He's also is the Final Boss of V6, taking over Sunstar's body and the Wily Star.
• Attack Pattern Alpha: The Genesis Unit's first two Combination Attacks are referred to as Attack Form Alpha and Attack Form Beta. Hyper Storm H's Buffy Speak aside, this likely applies to the third (Delta) as well.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Time Stopper. Prior to Version 5B, it freezes all players (except you) for a few seconds, but leaves you unable to attack. As many players also dislike being frozen in place, it is the rarest weapon in the game, only appearing in three maps at the most. It's also automatically removed from your weapon selection after usage and the powerup for it has to regenerate after a lenghty time after it is picked up by a player. As of Version 5B itself, the Time Stopper is still like this but upon usage, it temporary freezes players around you instead of all around the stage and completely depletes all your weapon energy for it.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Subverted and then Played Straight; the player's celebration ceremony as the champion of Mr. X's tournament is interrupted by Dr. Wily's attack. After Gamma is defeated, Mr. X recognizes the player's true potential, and settles for a much more grandiose golden statue instead.
• Bad Vibrations: During the finale of Chapter 6 from Version 5B onwards, Wily begins approaching the building inside Gamma. During the breaks in-between the Robot Master gauntlet, the ground periodically shakes from its approaching footsteps, getting increasingly violent the further you progress and the closer he gets, to the point that small debris starts raining down from the ceiling. Oddly enough, the vibrations pause during the actual battles.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss:
  • Happens at the end of Chapter 4, whether you're playing pre- or post-Version 5B. In the previous builds, the fight starts you off right in front of the Cockroach Twins (the third Cossack Stage boss in Mega Man 4)... before both get crushed by the real boss of Chapter 4 — the Metool Daddy. In Version 5B and beyond, you initially start off looking like you're gonna square off against a Power Muscler before the Cossack Catcher drops down and crushes it.
  • At the end of the Robot Master gauntlet in Version 5B, the fake Mega Man shows up a fourth time to challenge you to one last battle with him, even speaking with you extensively before the fight, like in the previous three times... then Gamma punches a hole through the building and destroys him in the process before transitioning to the proper final battle.
  • The nearly identical corridor and boss arena before the boss battle in Chapter 12 all but hint you'll be duking it out with Wily Capsule 10...only for the Wily Robo Iron Golem to suddenly emerge from below and face you instead.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Just in like Mega Man 10, Dr. Wily is perfectly capable of surviving exposed to the open vacuum of space at the top of Wily Station and seemingly the entire trip to Wily Star too. Averted for the rest of the cast, as the only other characters who step out into space are robots.
• Batman Gambit: Dr. Wily attempts this twice, with varying level of success.
  • The first time, he correctly guesses that the heroes would be dead-focused on rescuing Guts Man once he went missing, but wouldn't bother checking his systems... which translates to Guts Man threatening Mega Man's life at the award ceremony.
• Behemoth Battle: The Final Boss is an epic showdown between Eclipse (a.k.a. the possessed Wily Star) and the player, who is piloting Gamma Mk. II.
• Berserk Button: Buster Rod G gets offended when King calls him a filthy ape.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Quite an epic moment in the lead-in to the Mega Man 10 chapter: Maestro is about to kill Dr. Light, when all of a sudden, what seems to be a completely repaired Duo shows up and saves him from the Roboenza infection. It's implied that, as Roboenza originated from Dr. Wily's Evil Energy experiments in the MM8BDM canon, Duo as he appears here represents the energy Maestro received from using the Duo Fist during the climax of Chapter 8.
  • In the Mega Man 10 chapter itself, Dr. Wily has the player clamped in the arms of the Wily Iron Golem after beating its first phase, preparing to pull them apart to "see what they're made of", only for King and Duo to destroy the arms. Cue Phase 2.
  • The credits sequence features Maestro drifting off into space, broken and beaten down, ready to become little more than space debris. And then, Sunstar emerges from the Wily Star thrown into the Sun, wreathed in flame and carrying Maestro back to Earth.
• Big "SHUT UP!": The following exchange occurs before starting the Wily Star stages.
  Bass: I'll show them what true power looks like!
  Proto Man: So how many times has that overconfidence cost you by now?
  Bass: Shut up!
• Bilingual Bonus: In Chapter 13, the 8 artifacts you give to Pharaoh Man will spell out "lanfront" in Standard Galactic Alphabet once fully arranged. Fitting, since they hint you towards Lanfront Ruins.
• Blackout Basement: Bright Man's stage, which features an "enemy" that when shot at, plunges the stage into darkness. Another "enemy" appears and lights it back up again when destroyed. The Version 5 update features a section of Plug Man's stage that's permanently dark.
• Blinded by the Light: As of Version 3, Flash Stopper is this. Ironically, Flash Bomb isn't, which is especially strange considering Frost Man's reaction to it in Mega Man 8, although it does cause a blinding Interface Screw if you are caught in the middle of one.
• Boring, but Practical: The Needle Cannon, and possibly Yamato Spear and Quick Boomerang qualifies as this. Their function is very simple when compared on most other weapons; They have better damage and a better rate of fire than the default weapon. The Yamato Spear can penetrate through enemies and Quick Boomerang has an even faster rate of fire, but the latter is only useful in short-range.
• Boss Banter: Most of the bots do this. Surprisingly, none of the actual single player bosses speak while you fight them. Some of them have Pre-Asskicking One-Liner, though.
• Boss Bonanza: The Doc Robot fights, which are four sequential fights in a row against the Doc Robots, who combine two weapons from the Mega Man 2 robot masters each.
• Boss-Only Level: The map titled in-game as Unknown is a specially designed map where all the single player bosses are fought in "separate" areas. In fact, attempting to play a normal multiplayer game on it will automatically redirect all players to Cut Man's map. Two more Unknown maps were added in Version 5 to house its new bosses, and even more would be added in Version 6.
  • Has been averted more than once when people figured out they could set a variable to allow teleportation straight to the bosses.
• Boss Rush:
  • Sorta happens near the end of single player. Prior to Version 5B, at the end of Chapter 6, before the Final Boss, you fight all of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 1-6 one by one with them equipped with their own weapons. In Version 5B and beyond, it has been reworked into Multi-Stage Battle, keeping the multiple botmatches the same but making them happen in different locations of Mr. X's mansion.
  • A straighter example can be unlocked once Plug Man returns to the Lab and the main campaign is beaten, which takes the player through all of the main bosses in single player (except for Wily's robot army and the Mega Mech Shark).
  • The Weapons Archive functions as one, as it borrows movesets from 9 previous bosses and uses them against you in sets of three.^{In order:} Wave 1: Doc Robot (Heat Man and Wood Man), Met Daddy, Dark Man 4. Wave 2: Buster Rod G, Duo, King. Wave 3: Bass, Proto Man, Mega Man?.
• Bottomless Magazines: Mega Buster, Proto Buster, Bass Buster, Duo Fist, Super Adaptor, and Treble Boost (since Version 6) have infinite ammo and can be used an indefinite number of times. The bonus Instagib Metal Blade weapon, which can only be used in multiplayer or with cheats, also has unlimited ammo.
  • Bots are given this ability with ANY weapon.
• Bottomless Pits: All over the place, as per usual.
  • Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: A few maps have Beat Call, a one-use assist item which saves you from being killed in such pits.
• Brick Joke: Pressing the "QUIT GAME" button from the main menu will provide a random text message before confirming whether or not you actually wanted to quit, and one possible message is "Press 'N' to unlock Splash Woman's secret outfit!" (Of course, pressing N would exit the QUIT GAME screen and do nothing else). Though that message has been included in the game since early in development, in the Version 5 update, you can find Splash Woman herself in Dr. Light's lab and finally "ask" her about this secret outfit.
  Splash Woman: My... secret outfit?
  
  I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.
• Bridal Carry: A gravely damaged Maestro is held this way by Sunstar who flies him back to Earth during the credits of Version 6.
• But Thou Must!: As of Version 5B, during the cutscene before the Yellow Devil fight, a mysterious silhouette offers you to join him, at which point you regain control of your character. However, an invisible wall prevents you from approaching him, meaning you can only "back away" from his offer, so to speak.
• Call-Forward:
  • In Version 5, it was rare, though possible, to acquire Solar Blaze from Mega Man 10 from Eddie or as a starting loadout weapon in Last Man Standing despite 10 having not yet ben adapted into 8-Bit Deathmatch. The weapon is also obtainable during the third phase of Quint's battle, where he takes the player into the near future (or the present as of Version 6).
  • In the aforementioned Quint boss, the battle transitions to Solar Man's stage for Phase 3, and Mega Man X's opening stage for Phase 4.
  • In Chapter 13, when Dr. Wily prepares to assist the player in fighting the Stardroids on the Wily Star, he boasts "Wily always wins!", a clear reference to one of his dialogue lines in Mega Man 11.
  • Another 11 nod: during the same chapter, if you talk to Dr. Cossack, he will sometimes say the following, referencing Tundra Man:
    Dr. Cossack: Though I was assigned to the space program, I haven't given up robotics.
    One of my latest designs has been put into production for Arctic research.
• Canon Character All Along: The game is generally polite about keeping the player character's chosen appearance consistent in cutscenes to allow the player to more easily insert themselves into the story, but there are a few specific story moments that violate this:
  • The Chapter 11 stinger has the player character confront damaged visions of themselves, which will always be Maestro regardless of skin.
  • On the splash image for V6's launcher and in the title sequence for Chapter 12, Maestro's face is shown in detail. This is also the case for a brief cutscene during the Chapter 13 FinalBoss.
  • The Chapter 13 credits have the player character drifting through space, at which point their Holographic Disguise dissipates to reveal Maestro before they break down.
• Charged Attack: Aside from existing examples such as Atomic Fire, Pharaoh Shot, etc., a couple of weapons have become this when they weren't in their original games:
  • Junk Shield's charge level determines how many projectiles are shot.
  • Tengu Blade's dash is now used by charging the weapon.
  • Dawn Breaker also has a charged attack, that will One-Hit Kill most bots hit by it at point blank.
• Chase Fight: You have to fight off the chasing Fake Men when you and ??? are speeding Proto Man back to Dr. Light's lab. The actual Boss Fight that follows is fairly tame in comparison.
• Checkpoint Starvation: The combination of this and Marathon Boss is what makes Quint such a brutal Optional Boss.
  • The Weapons Archive has it too, with no checkpoints inbetween each of its three phases, but that boss is considerably easier than the former.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Towards the end of Chapter 13, the Gamma blueprints Dr. Wily recovered back in Chapter 3 are utilized again to build a new and improved Gamma.
• Chekhov's Gun: One of the first things you'll see when starting the game (except when starting it for the first time, since that'll place you in front of Dr. Light, and in Chapter 13, as you'll be aboard Dr. Cossack's spaceship) is Auto's truck. The object in question ends up being of vital importance, being the "arena" you fight on while being chased by Fake Men.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: After the main campaign spanning the first six Mega Man titles is finished, Mr. X no longer serves a major role in the game's story and effectively disappears, unlike most other one-game characters like Cossack and Duo. Meta-wise, starting from Version 4, the Purple Team (changed to Yellow in Version 5) is represented by King as opposed to Mr. X.
• Citywide Evacuation: Towards the end of Chapter 13, you come across King coordinating an evacuation with the Mega Man & Bass Robot Masters in preparation for your showdown with Eclipse. After you board the remodeled Gamma, King shows up again to report that the city had been completely evacuated.
• Classic Cheat Code: The usual cheat codes from Doom can be entered. Even then, the IDDQD cheat does not protect you from telefrags, nor the laser beams in Quick Man's stage, nor Metool Daddy stomping you flat.
• Climax Boss: Gamma, past Version 1.
• Clown Car: The police cars in the Fake Men chase sequence not only hold the numerous Fake Men that you'll be blasting away during the fight, they also hold the motorcycles and the Bunby Catchers that carry the Fake Men.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The players change color to match what weapon they're currently using. In team-based game modes, the players are colored to match what side they're on instead.
• Combination Attack: The Genesis Unit have three of them during their boss battle - Alpha, Beta and Delta respectively.
• Composite Character:
  • Duo's boss fight is how he would fight in Mega Man 8 proper (ricocheting off the walls and trying to do a close range shockwave punch), but with an added attack where he fires his hand at you (and this is how it works if his fist is acquired) much like his playable Power Fighters incarnation.
  • Bass uses the rapid-fire Bass buster in the main games in his boss fight, but can also use his close range kick from The Power Fighters.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Bots get infinite ammo for all of their weapons. This was done because bots were not programmed to pickup weapon energy, though. They can also see through certain degrees of invisibility, have a high accuracy, and can jump ultra high if close to a ledge they can jump on.
• Construction Is Awesome: The climax of the plot has The Light, Wily, and Cossack Numbers all working together to build Gamma Mk. II.
• Crosshair Aware:
  • The Evil Robot's version of Homing Sniper tracks the player down with this.
  • You can see another player's Homing Sniper crosshair popping up if you are walking back while looking at the missiles.
• Cutscene Incompetence: In the cutscene mentioned below, Duo doesn't even try to dodge the Beam Spam that Terra uses, and while this could be chalked up to the power to stop time that Terra has, the coloring of that effect is not used, nor is the attack that actually causes the effect thrown at Duo.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Averted by Terra. That omnidirectional simultaneous Beam Spam setup that he used to destroy Duo? He will use it against you once things start looking dicey, so be ready to jump.
• Death by Adaptation: Duo, who survived Mega Man 8 and showed up in spinoffs in the Classic series, is destroyed by Terra at the end of Chapter 12 in a way that makes it so he can't be rebuilt.
• Degraded Boss:
  • The Mega Man Killers appear in the Wily Star after each level is complete. However, since they're just bots with inflated HP and infinite ammo on their weapons, they're not as tough to defeat as they were as Optional Bosses.
  • The Stardroids appear as Mini-Boss-type encounters after their stages are complete, with increased maximum HP compared to regular bots. When they appear all at once in the fourth stage of the Wily Star, they're reduced to the level of normal bots.
• Demonic Possession: The Evil Robot's remains latch onto Sunstar in Chapter 13, taking control of not just him, but the entire Wily Star.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • A few stage examples with MM1DW2 and MM7DW2-4 formerly being part of the campaign, but are now simply bonus content. This likely has more to do with keeping the pacing of the campaign streamlined instead of forcing players to play through three extra stages just to fight the chapter boss.
  • Likewise, the Wily Capsule boss in the Mega Man 7 chapter is replaced with Bass in Version 5. However, if you beat Bass without using the Super Adapter, you'll be able to fight the Wily Capsule like in the previous versions.
• Destination Defenestration: How the Genesis Unit dispatches King after his boss fight... Thankfully, he gets better.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • In Gemini Man's map, there is a structure on the boundary of the map that Proto Man destroyed in Mega Man 3 to allow Mega Man to continue through the stage. If the player cheats to get the Proto Buster (the map doesn't have it otherwise), the structure can be destroyed with it.
  • In Wave Man's map, the Wave Bikes are destroyed when they crash into a wall. If a player obtains the ability to extend their jumps through a weapon or item and attempts to bring a Wave Bike into an interior section, the Wave Bike explodes anyway. However, if the player is teleported into the interiors, the bikes will only explode without touching the walls if they are brought through the hallways leading to the exteriors.
  • There are a few weapons that can't inflict damage or score kills. However, they still have death messages as these are (for most of the part) generated depending on your current weapon.
  • Normally you can find Splash Woman in the pond in front of Dr. Light's lab. But when it's snowing outside, you can instead find her in one of the showers in the basement.
  • Roll has unique dialogue for any skin you can equip, including puns on some of them, like telling Time Man to take some time off and unwind. She'll be amused if you use her as a skin.
  • When you're using the Jewel Man skin and talk to him in Dr. Light's lab, he'll say: "Oh my! Who's that handsome devil?"
  • After finishing every chapter of the game, Magic Man appears outside Dr. Light's Lab. Players can visit him anytime to warp their progress and re-experience the story. Returning again to Magic Man at that point warps the player back.
  • Even the musical preferences are accounted for, as far as Version 6 is concerned. Players can choose the level themes for Tengu Man (PlayStation or Saturn version from Mega Man 8) and all three Mega Man Killers (Game Boy or Mega Man 10 versions).
• Disc-One Final Boss:
  • Gamma in Chapter 6 serves as the conclusion to the Tournament Arc that makes up the first half of the game.
  • For in-expansion examples: King in Version 4, and the Wily Robo Iron Golem in Version 6.
• Distant Finale: The first ending of the game (after the MM6 chapter) features the Player Character immortalized as a golden robot displayed at the Robot Master Museum for everything he has done, with X visiting it.
  Technology raced ahead
  Wars were fought
  Earth was never the same
  
  But during Earth's darkest times, new heroes looked back to the past, to remember the one who managed to over come the greatest of challenges.
  
  ... The one called, Maestro.
• The Dog Bites Back: In Chapter 13, Terra kidnaps Wily and forces him to build the Wily Star for him and the Stardroids so they can use it to revive Sunstar. Later, the player infiltrates the Wily Star and rescues Wily, allowing him access to his battle suit to fight back against his captors.
• Doppelgänger: Wily to Mr. X, considering their similar facial structures (and Mr. X being far nicer than Wily has ever been).
  • Mega Man? to Mega Man as well (except for the purple scarf and constant smug face).
• Dramatic Irony: The plot of the Mega Man 10 chapter hinges around Dr. Light sending the player character after Dr. Wily, who presumably has a cure for Roboenza. However, as the intro for the chapter (and the trailer for V6) make clear, Wily does not have a cure, as he didn't plan for his own robots getting infected.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him:
  • At the end of Chapter 6, after the gauntlet of Robot Masters, Mega Man? shows up one last time to challenge the player only to get crushed by Gamma's fist coming straight through the window.
  • In Chapter 13, Terra goes out very unceremoniously by the way of having the Wily Star's debris literally crushing him. And then the game gives you his Spark Chaser and makes you solve a target puzzle with it - as if to spit on his "grave" further.
• Dual Boss:
  • The Wily Wars-themed Chapter 10 ends with a battle against the entire Genesis Unit.
  • Since Version 5B, a Metool driving the Cossack Catcher serves as the boss of Chapter 4. Halfway through, it pulls the fearsome Metool Daddy out of the scrap heap, who has a separate health bar (and, ironically, is no longer nowhere near as difficult to beat as he was in prior builds).
  • Chapter 5's boss also gets the full Version 5B spitshine: after Dark Man 4's health drops to a third, he summons his other Dark Men comrades to finish you off. Luckily, Proto Man drops in before they can do the deed, turning the fight into a hectic 2-on-4 affair.
  • Quint's final phase is the same as the first phase, but you have to fight two Quints at the same time.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Bass shows up in the final boss area as one of the robots in attendance at the tournament's trophy presentation ceremony a chapter before you fight him. Additionally, after Gamma is destroyed, he and Treble show up to rescue Dr. Wily, and he reluctantly lets your heavily damaged character go recover from the final battle... so that he can have the pleasure of knocking you down a peg himself.
  • The start screen montage from Version 5B onwards features Robot Masters representing every chapter of the game (except Wily Tower). At the time, it even included Solar Man and Pluto before the Version 6 expansion was released. Terra was also able to be seen as a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The MM7 expansion, being the game's first update, felt less like a continuation of the game's storyline, and more like being there for the sake of Extended Gameplay. In fact, when it was first added to the game, it was completely separate from the main campaign. Each expansion afterwards made the MM7 campaign mandatory, but it still stood out from lack of story development, as the campaign scenarios afterward are part of a continuous storyline, with Version 3 having a stinger promoting Version 4, and Version 4 itself revealing that Dr. Wily still has plans to utilize the Evil Energy from MM8. Version 5 mostly rectifies this by revamping the MM7 campaign to be more integrated into the storyline as a whole.
    • By extension, this also applies to the first six chapters. Prior to Version 3, the story was fairly simple and only told through Dr. Light between the completion of each chapter, the bosses had little connection to the story other than to give players a break from the usual deathmatch gameplay and were generally less complex to fight than the bosses that came later, and your character was implied to be Mega Man himself instead of a generic tournament robot. From Version 3 onward, the hints of a larger storyline were beginning to develop, the bosses got more complex and were better connected to the plot of each chapter, and Maestro was introduced in Version 5 while Mega Man himself was becoming a part of the story. Version 5B corrects this by completely revamping the content from the initially released game to match the quality of everything made in Version 3 and beyond.
  • In the first six chapters, most of the Robot Masters' stages come in a seemingly arbitrary order. For the Robot Masters that come in the later expansions, however, they always come in the numerical order usually presented in the credits of each game.
• Easter Egg:
  • Pre-Version 5, the door behind Guts Man contained a beat-up sprite of Slash Man from Rockman 7 FC. The same image appears in Astro Man's & Bass stage, though you need Treble Boost and an energy refill to find it, or enter the map outside of singleplayer and use Spectator mode to fly to it freely.
  • Version 5 adds a mugshot of Shark Man from the Mega Man (DOS) games hidden behind the mugshots on the Stage Select screen.
  • In Dr. Light's lab, the vent in Auto's room contains a family of Metools, the same one featured in Super Adventure Rockman.
  • The closed-off section of Dr. Light's house as of Version 4 has several Picket Men working on it. This later became a living room, a kitchen, and a small garden in Version 5.
  • In Dr. Light's Lab, you can find a suspiciously familiar-looking refrigerator. If you use Ice Wall on it, Cold Man's head pops up for a moment.
  • If you noclip out of bounds, you can find a discarded Cut Man plushie behind the giant hill in the corner of the map.
  • Each stage has a Yashichi hidden somewhere on the map, nearly always out of bounds.
• The End of the World as We Know It: In the Version 5B stinger, Dr. Cossack theorizes that Roboenza will bring an end to not just robots, but humanity as well.
• Endgame+: Beating all the chapters in the campaign unlocks Magic Man in the hub, who allows the player to revisit the events of the earlier chapters.
• Enemy Civil War: Played for Laughs to explain why Chapters 7, 8 and 11 continue to have free-for-all deathmatches even after the tournament is concluded and one-on-one fights should be expected as per Mega Man tradition - it turns out all the previous Wily robots want another crack at Maestro, and they want the glory too much to team up, so they end up fighting each other as much as they're fighting their intended target. Chapters 9, 10 and 13 go with team deathmatch instead, however, averting this trope since the forces of evil are more unified under King, the Genesis Unit and the Stardroids respectively, and Chapter 12 involves a robot-infecting pandemic causing mass chaos, forcing Maestro to fight robots who would otherwise be allies as well as adversaries.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Mega Man and Bass both team up with Player Character for the Mega Man & Bass chapter. Surprisingly, it's Bass who approaches the heroes with an offer for collaboration, as he knows even he has his limits and can't fight an entire army of robots by his lonesome.
  • During the Mega Man 9 chapter, the player very briefly allies with Wily to stop a horde of Fake Men downtown. It even extends to the player being part of the Dr. Wily Team as the round is played in Team Deathmatch.
  • On the final Wily Star stage before facing Sunstar, Wily allies up with the player once more to wipe out the Roboenza-infected Stardroids after they kidnapped him and used the Wily Star for their own goals. Once he's back on Earth with Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack, he rallies up all of his Robot Masters to create Gamma 2.0 to help the player stop Eclipse.
• Energy Weapon: Quick Man's stage has these. Like always, they will kill anyone instantly if touched, including cheating players with God Mode on.
• Epileptic Flashing Lights: The Flash Stopper used to cause this with the flashing overlay over the victims' screens. Flash Bomb can be this if you are too close to its explosion.
• Episode Title Card: The Version 5B update adds title cards for each chapter.
• Escape Sequence: The escape from the Wily Star in Chapter 13 after Sunstar's body is taken over by the Evil Robot.
• Escort Mission: If you want The Mega Man Killer weapons during Chapter 13, you'll have to keep Mega Man, Proto Man, and Bass alive during the stages they're your teammate in the Wily Star.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Dr. Wily doesn't try to buff his own robots up during the non-boss levels to give them advantages towards the non-Wily robots, especially when considering Wily's status as Big Bad. Even when Roboenza comes into the plot, his own robots becoming infected was not part of the plan.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The "Evil (Energy) Robot". Out of necessity on the developer's part, as there is No Name Given to him in Mega Man 8, nor was he ever given an official name by Capcom. It wasn't until Archie Comics' Mega Man that he was given the name "Trio", years after MM8BDM's Mega Man 8 chapter was finished. He's never referred to by name even in chapters added after he received a semi-official name, likely to be consistent with earlier appearances.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: In Chapter 12, Dr. Wily's Roboenza virus has caused untold amounts of chaos and infected his own robots, just like in Mega Man 10... but it also puts Earth at a greater vulnerability to the Stardroids' attack and gives them a way to control the robot populace (that being, a promise for a cure in exchange for slavery).
• Extended Gameplay: The Mega Man 6 section was supposed to bring the single player campaign to an end, ending with a climatic battle against the Final Boss - Gamma. However, as of the Version 5 update, completing it unlocks the Mega Man 7 campaign, which then unlocks the Mega Man 8 chapter afterwards, which leads to the Mega Man & Bass and Wily Tower stages upon clearing that, which are followed by the Mega Man 9 storyline. Version 6 adds content from both Mega Man 10 and Mega Man V, and Version 7 is planned to finally end the game properly with Mega Man 11.

F-O

• Face–Heel Turn:
  • The fate of the Cossack Numbers as of Version 5B. Since Cossack was forced into working for the government because of the rampage his Robot Masters caused back in Mega Man 4, they saw no potential in their future and were approached by Wily, who accepted them. Ring Man reluctantly reveals this story at the end of Chapter 4, but has no desire to get a second chance and promptly knocks Maestro into the Cossack Castle's trash compactor to fight the chapter's boss, if only to prevent them from being taken in by the army of Sniper Joes that come storming in.
  • Happens briefly during the climax of the MM6 chapter. Guts Man suddenly reveals that he was secretly reprogrammed by Wily during his prior capture in the MM2 chapter and holds Mega Man hostage, threatening his destruction if the MM1 and MM6 Robot Masters don't join Wily. Seeing no other choice, they allow themselves to be reprogrammed and join the rest of the classic Robot Masters for the Boss Rush through Mr. X's castle.
• Face Hugger: Evil Robot's head latches onto Sunstar's face in an oddly familiar way.
• Fake Defector: Dr. Cossack's Robot Masters are only in Wily's employ to keep an eye out on Wily while Cossack is otherwise indisposed thanks to the Russian government. The earliest hint of this can be seen in 'disposing' of Maestro themselves when a Sniper Joe army comes to destroy him by firing squad, or earlier in the same chapter where the flashback to before Needle Man's stage has Bright Man's voice falter when he calls Dr. Cossack "super weak". Version 5B's stinger also hints that they've been keeping in touch with Cossack, while the actual reveal comes in Chapter 13.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: Version 5B adds a seemingly superfluous cutscene to the beginning of Freeze Man's stage (the start of the Mega Man 7 chapter), where Freeze Man himself plots to destroy Maestro in order to become honored by Dr. Wily. The scene starts to fade out, but then it immediately snaps back when the real purpose of the cutscene is revealed - to explain why the various Robot Masters are still fighting each other despite the Tournament Arc being already over. The cutscene seamlessly transfers into the gameplay as Freeze Man, Flash Man, and Napalm Man run off to compete against each other in destroying Maestro.
• Featureless Protagonist: Canonically, the Player Character is not actually Mega Man himself, just a random tournament robot. Up until Version 5, the default base skin just happens to be Mega Man himself. He has since been given a new default skin inspired by the NormNavis in the Mega Man Battle Network series, as well as the Canon Name of Maestro.
• Fighting Your Friend:
  • Towards the end of the MM9 chapter, you end up fighting Proto Man, who has gone berserk thanks to Roboenza.
  • When under the Roboenza influence, Maestro mercilessly curb-stomps Galaxy Man and Plug Man to the point that they both get damaged very badly. The worst part? The player is not even controlling him.
• Final Boss:
  • Notably, Version 5 has two of them, depending on the video mode settings. If the renderer has been set to Software (indicated by the Mega Mech Shark appearing as a flat texture when it flies by after the Proto Man battle), then Mega Man himself goes after the Mega Mech Shark while Maestro must escort Proto Man back to Dr. Light's Lab, fending off numerous Fake Men and culminating with a one-on-one showdown against a single Fake Man. If OpenGL renderer is used, however, then Mega Man will take Proto Man back to the lab himself while Maestro takes on the Mega Mech Shark (though, you could still access the alternate sequence after beating the game, by startling the Fake Man at the open doorway before fighting Proto Man).
  • In V6, the position goes to Sunstar and Eclipse, the Wily Star infected by the Evil Energy thanks to what remains of the Evil Robot attaching itself to an overloading Sunstar and becoming an Eldritch Abomination.
• First Injury Reaction: Sunstar in V6's story spends his first phase throwing out "low-effort" attacks such as meandering toward Maestro to throw him into a wall, and doesn't even have a health bar. But once you hit him enough, he takes a scratch, pauses to observe it, and promptly goes from 0 to 100, where the real fight begins.
• Fission Mailed: Halfway through the final battle against Eclipse, it suddenly unleashes an unavoidable barrage of claw swipes that instantly takes down Gamma. Instead of the battle restarting, a cutscene occurs where Duo's energy within Maestro awakens, granting them a Heroic Second Wind and allowing Gamma to recover in a more powerful state.
• Flash of Pain: In versions prior to 5B, the Guts-Dozer and Metool Daddy flash white when they take damage. Averted with their redesigned battles from Version 5B onwards, though.
• Flying Seafood Special: As a playable skin, Splash Woman hovers above the ground, bound to the gravity of the other Robots and jumping just like them.
• Foreshadowing:
  • References to the the player/Maestro not being a Light robot and instead having an unnamed creator go as far back as the first chapter. Two unavoidable references in particular stand out - in the lead-up to the tournament's closing ceremony in Chapter 6, Dr. Light congratulates Maestro and tells them he hopes their creator is proud of them, which makes it explicit that Light did not create Maestro. Later on in Chapter 11, Wily jokingly asks if Maestro isn't actually a Light robot. The matter of Maestro's actual creator becomes a plot point later, albeit as part of the Ra Moon plotline.
  • The ending of Version 5 implies that the Roboenza epidemic from Mega Man 10 is the result of an Evil Energy outbreak.
  • In Dr. Light's lab, Galaxy Man crosses this with Tempting Fate:
    Galaxy Man: Duo and that Evil Robot both came from the depths of space to bring their war to us...
    Oh well, I'm sure there won't be any more visitors from space!
    • Notably in Version 6, Galaxy Man's last line remains the same at first, but when you reach Chapter 13, it changes accordingly:
      Galaxy Man: The Stardroids also came to wage war... Why is everyone from space so grumpy?
  • In the room before Ra Moon's arena, A keen eye can spot a mural on the wall showing a figure that looks Maestro holding a sword against a caricature of Sunstar. This is a major clue towards Sunstar's true weakness, Flame Sword.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the official trailer for Version 5, when the full title of the game appears at the two-minute mark, the background behind it flashes white in transition to gameplay footage of Magma Man's stage. Within the flash, one can make out the faint image of Quint's face. This is notable as Quint has been a part of the game from the beginning as a player skin, although he had made no appearances in any of the campaigns up until now. Upon release, it was revealed that he is an Optional Boss.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Inverted by Proto Man, as while everyone else is fine with them, they tend to be pretty aloof, as per the source material. During Chapter 12, thanks to the Roboenza outbreak, they're forced to stay at Dr. Light's lab, hiding out in a corner outside the lab.
  Proto Man: Heh. Sorry, I'm not one for family reunions.
• Funny Background Event: During the final stage of Version 6, you get to see a glimpse of all of the Robot Masters working together in preparation for Eclipse's planetfall... except the Genesis Unit, who are sleeping on the job.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Whenever a new expansion is released, older maps are updated to feature the newer characters and weapons, even though the first six chapters in particular were supposed to take place one year after Mega Man 6 happened, and the subsequent chapters are adaptations of the other games' plots, therefore giving us out-of-place things like Grenade Man attacking opponents with Jewel Satellite in Bomb Man's stage, which storywise took place during the second tournament despite neither Grenade Man or Jewel Satellite technically in existence yet. Only the MM9 Robot Masters, the Genesis Unit, and the Stardroids dodge this trope by being exempt from the chapters they're not involved in altogether, and you never face the Mega Man Killers in proper bot matches until the Wily Star. The MM10 Robot Masters Zig Zag this by appearing during the tournament chapters, each one making two appearances, then never making another appearance until their spotlight chapter.
  • During the botmatches, the enemy Robot Masters change colors based on their weapons like normal, but in Dr. Light's Lab and other cutscenes, they appear in their canon coloring. This is especially apparent in the final botmatch of the Mega Man 8 chapter, which involves all 8 of the Mega Man 8 Robot Masters as your opponents; once you approach the apparent frag limit, the match is suddenly and abruptly stopped by the Evil Robot breaking in, at which point the Robot Masters suddenly use their original coloring. This is averted in the gauntlet portion of the Chapter 6 boss stage in Version 5B, where the Robot Masters retain their original colors in spite of the battles being botmatches. All the botmatches in Chapter 13 avert it in the same manner.
• Gang Up on the Human:
  • Of the "story mode" variety: in the cutscene before the Mega Man and Bass chapter kicks in, several of Dr. Light's Robot Masters surround Bass (who came with proposition to Mega Man) and are ready to attack him simultaneously. With a single kick, Bass quickly shrugs them off.
  • Another one happens in the same chapter, where you are pitted against the entire team of King's Robot Masters alone thanks to Mega Man and Bass running ahead to fight King... (which, needless to say, ends badly for the two).
  • In Chapter 11, the Player Character must win a round of Team Deathmatch, with them alone on the Red (Wily) Team and several Fake Men on the Blue (Light) Team.
  • All of Chapter 13 works like this, with a coordinated team of enemy robots working against you and a single partner.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere:
  • At the end of the Mega Man 8 expansion campaign, the final botmatch against all eight Robot Masters is abrubtly stopped by the unnamed Evil Robot from 8's opening cutscene.
  • Averted with the Version 1 bosses as of Version 5B; before then, they were mostly there to give players something else to shoot at other than bots. This update gives them more relevance to the story by giving them all a reason for being fought other than "just because".
• Gimmick Level: Individual chapters can shake up the traditional deathmatch formula.
  • Chapters 9 and 10 (Mega Man and Bass and The Wily Wars) are played in teams- with only one exception, you will have two AI bots assisting you on each stage.
  • Chapter 12 (Mega Man 10) randomly gives the enemy bots Roboenza, resulting in them receiving various effects to make them trickier to fight and more likely to score points by beating on each other.
  • Chapter 13 (Mega Man V) forces you to use the Mega Arm and removes all weapon pickups from the maps. Instead, you collect screws and use them to purchase extra weapons from Auto. Furthermore, while a similar team setup to Chapters 9 and 10 is used, the odds are weighed against you —- you only bring in one AI partner, and they (along with the enemy bots) have a preset weapon that can never be changed. You are also only given one life to reach the target score. If you die, you have to start the match over... and if your partner is taken out, they're out for the rest of the match.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Version 5B update reworks the Wire Adaptor to function like this.
• Grand Finale: The current plan is to end the Single Player Campaign by including Mega Man 11 content.
• Gravity Screw: Instead of having the reversing gravity of the original game, Gravity Man's level instead has a timer which regularly switches the stage from either having low gravity or high gravity.
  • However, Saturn's stage functions much the way it did in the original, having rectangular zones which either have double gravity or half gravity, indicated by red and green particles, respectively.
• Guide Dang It!: The Weapon Collection sidequest, available after reaching Chapter 13. Every weapon from MM1 all the way to MM10 ^note as well as Mega Man & Bass can be bought in Auto's shop, while the MMV arsenal and the Mega Man Killers' signature weapons can be gradually collected upon progressing further through the chapter. However, in order to get Dawn Breaker (which can't be used outside this chapter), you have to buy Rush Search and uncover 8 artifacts scattered across the entire game, solve the puzzles inside Lanfront Ruins and defeat Ra Thor along with Ra Devil. Even if you managed to do all of the above, you still have to find Mega Ball and Sakugarne - the only weapons that will be left at this point... all in order to get the trophy.
• Have a Nice Death: Every single weapon in the game has a different death message, as well as many of the bosses.
  Ring Man was spaghettified by Saturn's Black Hole.
  Strike Man was kicked around by Mega Man's Mega Ball.
  Maestro was erased from time by Quint.
• Hero Killer: Terra, whose Establishing Character Moment is blasting Duo, King, Maestro, and Wily with his signature Spark Chaser, obliterating Duo by Beam Spam, and then strongarming the doctor into servitude.
• Heroic Second Wind: Just when it seems Eclipse has destroyed the rebuilt Gamma, Duo's energy within Maestro powers the mech back up, with even greater power.
• Hijacked by Ganon:
  • True to form, King ends up getting bumped off the Big Bad card fairly easy towards the end of the Mega Man and Bass expansion by Dr. Wily (big shock). Unlike Mega Man and Bass itself, however, King comes to understand the error of his ways instead of being brainwashed further, and he gets unceremoniously dumped by the Genesis Unit. Additionally, while Wily does take center stage as the Big Bad, he's not the de-facto Final Boss, just a Zero Effort Post-Final Boss.
  • During the finale of Version 6, after Sunstar's initial defeat, the Not Quite Dead head of the Evil Robot literally hijacks him and the Wily Star.
• Hitbox Dissonance: All of the players have the same hitbox, regardless of whatever skin they're using. Which means that if someone is playing as large characters like Stone Man, Frost Man, or Hyper Storm H, your shots can clip through parts of their bodies. Thankfully, the client allows you to disable skins, but that will mean that everyone will appear as Maestro (or Mega Man in pre-V5 releases of the game). Exaggerated with some of the custom usermade skins, such as Gamma or the entirety of the Wily Castle from Mega Man 10, although you can avoid downloading them.
  • In Version 6, Sword Man's skin was redesigned to downplay this, as the previous skin was twice the height of the hitbox.
• Holographic Disguise: This seems to be the in-universe explanation for the skins Maestro can use, since Roll lets you use a machine that enables you to "reprogram your display module" ever since Version 1. The ending of Version 6 reinforces this since Maestro's shown slowly fading to the default player skin after shorting out in space.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Double Subverted with Sunstar. He starts off the fight without a visible health bar, which, combined with his hard-to-dodge grab attack, makes him seem unwinnable at first, but attacking him is required to progress, and once he takes enough hits, he gets serious, and an actual health bar appears. Then he gets possessed by the Evil Robot, and actually does become undefeatable; you have to Hold the Line until the boss room's door opens back up, allowing you to escape the Wily Star.
• Hope Spot: Chapter 12 seems to end on a positive note, with King making an impassioned speech on how they believe Dr. Wily can change just like how King himself was able to change for the better, and the reveal of the fact that Dr. Cossack was able to create a cure for Roboenza. But then Terra appears, annihilates Duo, and kidnaps Dr. Wily. Cue Chapter 13.
  King: It is safe to proceed. But beware: I feel this battle is far from over...
• Hot Pursuit: Auto and the Player Character find themselves thrown into this situation while trying to get a comatose Proto Man back to Dr. Light's Lab if the game is rendered in Software mode or tries to enter the previously closed blue door in the building in OpenGL mode before Maestro fights Proto Man on a second playthrough.
• Humongous Mecha:
  • The Final Boss of the initial single player campaign (at least until the expansion chapters arrived) is none other than Gamma from Mega Man 3. Not only that, but it's also fully functional and much more powerful than before.
  • Chapter 12 has the Wily Iron Golem from Mega Man IV as the main boss, while Chapter 13 introduces a Mk. II version of Gamma controlled by the player.
• Hurl It into the Sun: Eclipse is defeated by being thrown into the sun along with the rebuilt Gamma, with Maestro ejecting at the last second.
• The Immune: After their initial outburst at the start of Chapter 12, Duo's energy within the player (from when they used his Duo Fist back in Chapter 8) gives them immunity to the Roboenza virus. Unsurprisingly, while he doesn't appear until the end of the chapter, Duo himself is also naturally immune.
• I'm Your Biggest Fan:
  • AwesomeFan92, whoever it is, to the player. All hints point to them being Cold Man: the upside-down triangle on his forehead is on each one of his letters, one letter notes that he joined King's rebellion when Cold Man was canonically one of its members in the source game, and that same letter notes that he fully accepts his creator's punishment around the same time Cold Man appears as Dr. Light's fridge. The most damning piece of evidence is that, if you skip all the dialogue of the "Building Gamma" level and rush to the end, you come face-to-face with Cold Man, who gets shocked and flees through a nearby door. The letter that comes with that level notes that AwesomeFan92 was too nervous to talk to the player in person.
  • Bad Box Art Mega Man to the original Blue Bomber.
• Infection Scene:
  • Chapter 12 kicks off with you returning to Dr. Light's Lab and, after a brief conversation with Tornado Man, heading to the basement. The elevator breaks down and you discover that you have been infected with Roboenza, causing voices in your head and images of the Evil Robot to guide you towards a path of destruction followed by an Unstoppable Rage through the lab's basement, ending with Duo's energy suddenly curing you at the last minute.
  • In order to ensure Sunstar's resurrection, the eight remaining Stardroids (thanks to Mars) willingly let themselves be infected with Roboenza in one final attempt to stop the player and Dr. Wily. Sure enough, during the fight proper, they are all affected by the various Roboenza effects encountered in the Mega Man 10 chapter and will remain infected even when fragged.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Dawn Breaker, accessed in Chapter 13 after killing Ra Moon's minions. It fires a Spread Shot of three powerful explosive projectiles by default for a low energy cost, and charging it up creates a massive burst of blue flames that can easily One-Hit Kill most bots.
• "Instant Death" Radius: The Metool Daddy and Gamma. Not even normal God Mode prevents you from getting crushed beneath them.
• Interface Screw:
  • The Flash Stopper. If anyone is hit by it, most of their screen is obscured by a white blur for a few seconds.
  • Going near an enemy infected with Type-T Roboenza tints your screen purple and slows down your movement speed.
• Interface Spoiler: All character skins are unlocked by default, generally paired with the update they represent and often in order of their appearance in the game, which means that savvy players who look through all the skins before getting to major plot points might find it suspicious that King is placed before the Genesis Unit, hinting that he's not the final boss of the Mega Man & Bass arc. The presence of certain characters unhinted at by trailers as well, specifically Ra Thor, can also be spoiled via the character skin chooser.
• In the Hood: The trailer for Version 6 includes a scene where two cloaked figures arrive at Dr. Wily's MM10 castle. Studying the figures' appearance closely reveals King's halberd and Duo's fist, following up on the Post Credit Sequence from Version 5B.
• Ironic Echo:
  • A cutscene during the Final Boss features the line "Are you more than just a machine?" This is a reference to the English localization of Mega Man 7, where Mega Man proclaims he's "more than a robot" before threatening to kill Dr. Wily; in this context though it's very unambiguously heroic, used to encourage Maestro to continue fighting before granting them an 11th-Hour Superpower.
  • That same scene is also an example of this to a moment at the end of Chapter 11, where the player is treated to a cutscene of Maestro's view of being infected by Roboenza, featuring floating purple text tempting them to give in, visions of destroyed Maestro copies, and the silhouette of the Evil Robot. The final boss cutscene has similar elements with floating blue text encouraging Maestro to fight on, visions of all the allies and enemies made along the way watching Maestro fight, and the silhouette of Duo's original form.
• Jump Scare:
  • Wily delivers one to Mr. X at the end of Chapter 6 (Version 5B). He shouts "FOOLS!" and quickly close-ups his face to the monitor, causing Mr. X to run screaming in horror.
  • Done by the Evil Robot right before his saps the power of the MM8 Robot Masters and flees into outer space.
  • Chapter 13 provides another one. As Cossack talks to Maestro after half of the Stardroid arenas are completed, Toad Man gets scared by the sight of what remains to be Evil Robot's head still hovering in space.
  • In the same chapter, after completing all of the Stardroid stages, something impacts with the back of the Cossack Cruiser. When the player goes to check it out, the airlock explodes and the player is face-to-face with Terra, who then tosses them into space to fight them.
    Terra: Hello, Maestro...
• Karma Houdini: Dr. Wily escapes at the end of Chapter 13, having evaded punishment for causing the Roboenza outbreak and having built the Wily Star.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • The fake Mega Man from Mega Man Powered Up is a Recurring Boss throughout the first 5 chapters, with him teleporting away the first two times and then Faking the Dead after the third time. However, near the end of the 6th chapter, he appears once more and attempts to fight you again... only for Gamma's fist to suddenly come crashing in and completely and utterly pulverizing him. He's notably absent from every chapter that comes afterward.
  • Duo doesn't come back after Terra blows him up.
  • Terra himself gets crushed by falling debris as the Wily Star blows up.
  • Sunstar manages to survive both getting taken over by the Evil Robot and getting flung into the Sun along with Eclipse, but as soon as he finishes carrying Maestro back to Earth, he disintegrates into ash.
• Knight of Cerebus: Quite of number of them over the course of the game.
  • When he was introduced in Version 3, the Evil Robot was simply just there to give the plot of Mega Man 8 a bit more of an Adaptation Expansion as he was originally The Unfought. Starting in Version 4, Wily begins dropping hints of something greater regarding said robot and his defeat. This culminates in Version 5, where Wily has refined the Evil Energy into Roboenza, infecting robots all over the world, including the player and Mega Man, who - if he wasn't cured in time - would eventually become the version of Quint fought as an Optional Boss.
  • As part of the Hijacked by Ganon, the Genesis Unit are not to be trifled with when they attack King.
  • Version 6 has three of these over the course of two chapters, all starting with Terra, from the moment he kills Duo and kidnaps Wily. After completing the eight Stardroid stages, he comes back to ambush the player on Cossack Cruiser, revealing that the Stardroids are in control of the Wily Star. The second one appears as soon as Terra mentions him - Sunstar, to be exact. The mere mention of his name and Wily referring to him later on as a Physical God show that he is not only a Person of Mass Destruction, but that you might not survive the fight with him all the way.
  • The trio of Knights of Cerebus culminates as soon as the fight with Sunstar finishes as the Not Quite Dead head of the Evil Robot performs a hijack himself, literally in this case. What ensues is a Demonic Possession of Sunstar's body by latching onto his face, a horrific transformation of Sunstar's once celestial body into a demonic mockery, and an Escape Sequence from this new fusion known as "Eclipse". Eclipse later takes this up a notch as the final boss of Chapter 13, having fully spread across the Wily Star, making it into his body.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The official trailer for Version 3 briefly features Gamma towards the end, while the official Version 5 trailer shows the final Genesis Unit battle during the brief version recap at the beginning.
• Ludicrous Gibs:
  • Version 6 adds the feature of player characters blasting apart into chunks of scrap if they're killed with a powerful enough attack. It can be turned off in the options, though. Version 6B goes as far as to add Literally Shattered Lives effect when the bots are frozen over with ice-type weaponry (Ice Slasher, Blizzard Attack, Freeze Cracker, Ice Wave, Chill Spike).
  • Duo suffers this fate at the end of Chapter 12, courtesy of Terra's assault.
• Macross Missile Massacre:
  • A fully charged Homing Sniper shot does this.
  • Evil Robot's Hyper Homing Sniper that makes Macross Missile Barrage look like nerf darts!
• Marathon Level: It's more like a marathon chapter, but Chapter 13 is far and away the longest chapter in the game, having a whopping twelve botmatches, all of which must be completed without getting fragged once and all but one of which end with one of the aforementioned Mini-Bosses, and three chapter bosses, of whom one has three phases and tons of health. It's also one of only three chapters in the game to not skip any maps during the campaign,^note along with the 11-map Chapter 8 and 5-map Chapter 10 and it even includes maps based on levels that weren't even in its source game.
• Meaningful Background Event:
  • During Version 5B's final Version 1 stage, between battles in the Robot Master Gauntlet, Gamma can be seen in the background. At first, he's seen far into the distance, but after each subsequent wave, he gets closer and closer to the building.
  • The Solar Man arena that you fight Quint's third phase in is visible from the main area of Solar Man's stage, near where Sakugarne is, and vice versa.
  • With each phase of the battle against Weapons Archive, the elevator to the Wily Station rises further and further into the outer space - it's noticeable through the windows.
• Mechanical Abomination: The Evil Robot is revealed to have survived his destruction in Chapter 6, albeit as only a head, and hijacks Sunstar's body, gathering enough newfound power to merge with the Wily Star itself and become Eclipse: a planet-sized monster with the Evil Robot's head and multiple limbs formed from the amount of Evil Energy it has gathered.
• Mini-Boss: In Chapter 13, each of the Stardroid maps ends with a fight against the Stardroid in question once the frag limit is reached. In addition to a having a higher health pool, some of the Stardroids have special abilities compared to regular players or bots; Mars can instantly fire out his Photon Missiles without delay while Pluto can instantly Break Dash without having to charge up first, Jupiter has free flying while Saturn's Black Hole has suction like Galaxy Man's Black Hole Bomb, and Uranus opts for a huge amount of health compared to the others.
• Mirror Match: The third encounter with "Mega Man?" is set up like this, with him using four weapons that the player has likely become familiar with (Centaur Flash, Flame Sword, Pharaoh Shot, and Yamato Spear), as well as using the Wire Adaptor.
  • In a heroic example, Dr. Wily will use whatever weapon the player has equipped (unless that weapon is Dawn Breaker, in which case they will use your most recently equipped weapon) when they team up with you while fighting the Stardroids in the fourth Wily Star stage.

• Multi-Stage Battle:
  • As of Version 5B, the Robot Master Gauntlet is this as you go all around Mr. X's castle to fight all the robot masters from MM1 to MM6 with each set of Robot Masters having their own area to fight in.
  • Mega Mech Shark requires battling its different parts one at a time: beginning with tail rocket launcher mounts, following that with bottom chutes that launch little robots, then goes a little sidetrack with Changkey Dragon, and then the battle is properly finished after taking out the laser cannon in Shark's mouth.
  • In addition, Quint's secret boss battle begins in a barren time void before moving on to Earth circa pre-history, followed by Solar Man's stage from Mega Man 10, then the opening highway stage from Mega Man X, and culminates with a return to the first area.
• Musical Nod: MM8BDM's otherwise faithful cover of the Wily Iron Golem's boss theme from Mega Man IV incorporates an unused song from its source game during the opening notes in the exact same manner as Dynamite Man.EXE's cover of the song.
• Mutual Kill: The projectile-heavy nature of this game (there is a complete lack of "hitscan" weapons that hit whatever's in your crosshair instantly, aside from maybe a few very close-ranged weapons) means this is a very common occurance.
• My Name Is ???:
  • Duo, when he first appears in the single player campaign, at least until towards the end when he introduces himself properly and forgives the player for his earlier actions. Also, the Evil Robot.
  • Dr. Wily in his Chapter 1 and 3 cutscenes from V5B onwards, when he appears as a silhouette, is also identified this way.
  • Ditto for Terra and Sunstar briefly in Chapter 13 before they introduce themselves. Being fragged by the latter before he's introduced himself has the death message call him "the doomsday weapon" instead.
  • In addition, there's also a character you can choose from in the bot selection screen simply titled ???. It's Auto wearing a Metool helmet. He's the only character to be called this continuously even after he's introduced in the story, and he identifies himself only as this:
  ???: "You're probably wondering who I am. Let's just say... I'm a hero. With a strong sense of justice!"
  • Notably averted for the Optional Boss of Chapter 13, Ra Moon. It's one of the factors implying that Ra Moon created Maestro.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The Guts Dozer's reveal at the end of Chapter 2 is punctuated by an 8-bit remix of the Gutsman's Ass riff.
  • In the Cossack Catcher arena, you can spot the cut Mega Man 1 boss Bond Man amongst the wreckage.
  • While the Mega Man 8 chapter is unlocked, if you talk to Dr. Light at the lab, he'll mention that he sent a mysterious crashed robot (who turns out to be Duo) to Dr. Cossack for repairs. This is an allusion to the original concept of Duo being a Cossack robot. Cossack is also seen repairing Duo in the post-credits stinger added in Version 5B.
  • When using the Laser and Arrow Busters from Mega Man 8, the palette cycle for charging both weapons are different. The Laser Buster uses the cycle from Mega Man 4, while the Arrow Buster uses the cycle from Mega Man 5 and Mega Man 6.
  • The second phase of Bass's new boss fight in the Mega Man 7 chapter uses an unused song from the original game.
  • From Version 5B onward, the animation for using Time Stopper resembles Flash Man's pose when he used it in Mega Man 2.
  • In Mega Man & Bass's Robot Museum map, you may find several odd-looking robots contained within the glass domes. Those are actually the Robot Masters (technically, "Dimensions") from the obscure handheld ''Mega Man and Bass'' follow-up.
  • The design of Gamma is based on this poster by the in-house artists of Nintendo Power.
  • The recreation of Wily's arrest in Chapter 6 features Bad Box Art Mega Man, with Dr. Wily being represented by Doc Robot as he was designed in Captain N: The Game Master. Said recreation also features Dr. Wily saying that "My plans have faild!", a reference to a well-known spelling mistake in Mega Man 6.
  • MM10DW1 map (Wily Station Archives) features every weapon previously copied by Weapons Archive in the vanilla Mega Man 10, along with some additional weapons. In the same vein, MMVDW1 map (Wily Star) contains every weapon from the entire Game Boy saga.
  • Wily's Powered Armor that he uses post-Genesis Unit fight and when he teams up with you to fight the Stardroids in Chapter 13 is based on his armor from the Super Nintendo side game Mega Man Soccer.
  • Terra describes Sunstar as "the sun god" during the Wily Star Escape Sequence, a nod to "Sungod" being Sunstar's Japanese name.
• Never Trust a Trailer: In the Version 5 trailer, one shot shows the player standing in front of Dr. Wily with his waggling eyebrows, with a darkened Wily Machine looming in the background. In the actual game, however, this scene is completely different. When the player reaches Wily, they catch Wily off-guard making dinner while the Wily Machine is still unfinished.
• Nintendo Hard: The entire Single Player campaign, in particular. You have to win each match in first place to progress, and these put you against bots that have infinite ammo, which means they can endlessly spam high-damage weapons such as Hyper Bomb, or Area-of-Effect weapons such as Centaur Flash, whenever the hell they want. And then there are bosses: if you die against them, you have to start the fight all over again with all their health restored.
  • In Version 5B, an Easy Mode has been added to the main campaign, making this somewhat easier.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Yes, Dr. Cossack was forced into villainy, but the fact remains that his robots were the ones causing havoc. As a result, he was forced to work for the Russian government's space program seemingly for the rest of his life, thus abandoning his creations (outside of a few discreet occasions). It's only after he and his robots help save the world in the finale of the Mega Man V chapter when he gets a full pardon from the government.
  • When King gives his war funds for the robot revolution to Dr. Light to be distributed to those affected by the war, Magic Man lost their funding, and thus is reduced to performing as a street magician. Though they're still fairly upbeat about "showing wonders to the world".
• Non Sequitur: In the Mega Man 8 chapter, when the Evil Robot shows up, the Eighth Numbers wonder where he came from and threaten to beat him up. Frost Man is the last of the group to speak, and he just exclaims: "Popsicle!"
• No One Could Survive That!:
  Drill Man: "That hole leads straight to the trash compactor... no robot could survive that."
• Nostalgia Level: Version 5B brings back Fire Man's pre-Version 4 map visually revamped as the first Dr. Wily stage in Mega Man 4. This is doubly notable as up until this point, the Dr. Wily stages in the fourth, fifth, and sixth games weren't represented in 8-Bit Deathmatch.
• Not Brainwashed: Talking to Splash Woman post-Chapter 12 reveals that the letter they wrote was not due to Wily's reprogramming: they still have the same feelings they did when they wrote it. However, they never planned on being violent: that part was due to Wily.
• Not His Sled: The Mega Man V arc looks like it will end the same as canon, until the Evil Robot arrives to take over Sunstar's body, which results in a completely new endgame where the Evil Robot has to be destroyed once and for all.
• Not Quite Dead: Even after being blown into pieces at the end of Chapter 8, the Evil Robot's head still survives all the way to Chapter 13, where it takes control of Sunstar's body, and then the entire Wily Star.
• "Not So Different" Remark: If you talk to Skull Man during the Playable Epilogue, they accuse you of enjoying the thrill of battle just as much as they do.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: If you meet the conditions for the Fake Men chase and ensuing Boss Fight in Chapter 12 instead of the normal boss fight, Mega Man will fight the Mega Mech Shark instead of the player, and win.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • A fully charged Atomic Fire shot is strong enough to kill anyone at full health.
  • The Metool Daddy and Gamma can also instantly squish the player flat.
  • Top Spin will usually inflict this if it connects, if not leave the opponent with a shiver of health.
  • Slash Claw used to do this before the Mega Man 8 update, but it received massive nerfs.
  • Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch supports the Instagib features of Zandronum. Everyone is given a special version of Metal Blades that travel very fast and, of course, kill in one hit.
  • A fully charged Dawn Breaker is capable of destroying surrounding bots in one hit.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Explaining why the 7 and 8 chapters are still free-for-all deathmatches is the fact that all the Wily robots are stepping over each other in a mad attempt to be the one to defeat the player character, whether it's because they have to or because it'll redeem their past failures to Wily.
• Optional Boss:
  • In the single player campaign, if you beat Flash Man, Drill Man, and Knight Man's stages quick enough, you'll fight Enker, Punk, and Ballade respectively. If you beat them, you'll keep their respective weapon for the rest of the chapter. Well, if you can beat them, that is. Did we mention that you only get one try against them?
  • Quint from Version 5, accessed through a portal in the waterfall near Dr. Light's lab after beating the MM9 chapter.
  • The Wily Capsule was the original boss for Chapter 7, but got replaced by Bass for Version 5. You can still fight it if you beat both of Bass's forms without using the Super Adapter. Considering people think Bass is one of the hardest bosses in the game, that'll probably take a while...
  • Ra Thor (and Ra Devil) can be accessed by finding all the artifacts and entering a teleporter in Pharaoh Man's room on Cossack Cruiser in Chapter 13. Beating them grants you a weapon called Dawn Breaker.
• Orwellian Retcon: Many.
  • Most notable is the stages and how certain weapons work between earlier and later versions of the game. And these aren't just balance patches, the changes practically make them brand new weapons and maps! It's Lampshaded by the Robot Masters (mostly Cut Man) in the hub.
  Cut Man: Huh? How long has Plant Barrier functioned this way?
  I swear Mr. X's new revisions to the tournament have changed a lot of my play styles.
  Cut Man: I went out to mow the lawn in Plant Man's stage again, and it looked completely different!
  Of course, by the time I got back, Dr. Light's lawn needed mowing as well. *sigh*
  Cut Man: My stage got updated! But it didn't get the giant pit.
  Guts Man: We took out the Boss Endurance chamber for a patio.
  Fire Man: Keep ice away from the fire pillars of my new stage. Don't like them getting frozen.
  Roll: Good news Blizzard Man, there's slopes in this game now!
  • Slash Man's default skin used to be the Rockman 7 FC version, with the Mega Man 10 version being the bonus skin. Newer versions switch the two, as Mega Man 10 Slash Man is seen as canon to the Main series.
  • Chapter 7 was using all 4 Mega Man 7 Wily Stages in prior builds, while newer builds cut the last three from the campaign's line-up, leaving them simply as bonus content.
    • Same deal happened with Mega Man 1's second Wily Stage. This is almost definitely due to the addition of the Mega Man Powered Up robot masters.
  • Versions 2 and 3 originally scattered the MM1 Robot Masters (including Time and Oil) across Chapters 7 and 8. Once later versions came around, they would be removed or replaced due to their affiliation with Dr. Light and only come into the spotlight one more time for Chapter 10.
  • Version 5 gives the Tournament Robot a new default look, replacing Mega Man as the base skin.
  • It also makes Chapter 7 much more relevant to the plot rather than merely a Mission Pack to the previous 6 chapters, including a new boss fight against Bass.
  • Version 5B updates the entire campaign to the standards set by later expansions, such as a more developed storyline. It also gives Auto's training simulator its own map with new features.
• Outside-Context Problem: The MM9 expansion mostly plays out like in the original game: Dr. Light's robots revolt over being scrapped, and it is discovered that Dr. Wily had been tampering with them. However, when Maestro invades Dr. Wily's fortress and confronts him over the matter, Wily reveals a much more dire crisis in progress: hundreds of robots have started malfunctioning and attacking everything in sight - Proto Man is among them too. Maestro has no choice but to ally with Wily and investigate this.

P-Z

• Perfect Run Final Boss: In Version 5, the Wily Capsule in the MM7 chapter has been replaced with Bass. However, it can still be fought by defeating Bass without the help of the Super Adaptor.
• Pet the Dog: In the Playable Epilogue, talking to Dr. Light has him point out that while Dr. Wily is still set in his evil ways, he cared enough to bring the damaged Maestro to Light Labs.
• The Plague: The MM10-focused Chapter 12 revolves around Roboenza, even introducing a new game mode based around it.
• Physical God: On top of sporting the skills of his original game counterpart, Sunstar has enough power in him for the Evil Robot to take over the entire Wily Star by hijacking his body, and even after the resulting monster is hurled into the sun, Sunstar still survives long enough to carry Maestro back to Earth. Terra even outright calls him "the sun god".
• Played for Laughs: The reconstruction of Wily's arrest is over-the-top, complete with Bad Box Art Mega Man's performance.
• Plot Hole: During Chapter 6, talking to Dr. Light while at the lab reveals that Dr. Wily had been found and arrested (in Version 5B, this was told through a news report). However, at the end of the chapter, Wily shows up without any explanation. Version 5B subtly addresses this through an implication that Wily had tampered with the police robots while in jail, which resulted in his escape.
• Power Copying: Averted for most of the main game, played straight in several plot-critical instances.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: A lot of rebalancing has been done to make all the weapons on a relatively level playing field.
  • Some classic Mega Man elements like Denial of Diagonal Attack aren't present; the lack of that makes aimable weapons (like Metal Blade) inherrently less useful due to the first person shooter genre lacking that element. Naturally, any weapon that is harmed by the restriction is likewise benefitted.
  • Melee weapons are all incredibly strong, compared to most canon games. Their short range is properly compesated for by a drastic increase in firepower, allowing for one-to-two-hit KOs with attacks that fire relatively often and with big hitboxes.
    • Charge Kick combines both of the previous examples: it's a powerhouse weapon when it lands, and the engine's removal of sliding in the transition means Charge Kick retains it as part of its primary gimmick, making a great utility for movement as well.
    • Top Spin gets a completely insane upgrade: It's a one hit K.O. almost every time it makes contact, is amazing for sneak attacks and traps, and is totally necessary for the battle against Gamma. In Mega Man 3, it was the absolute worst weapon - so you can realize what this means.
  • Thunder Beam was the strongest weapon in 1, where its decent ammo capacity and three-way shot made it the best choice most of the time. Here, it's a good weapon, but not the overpowering beast it was in the original title: the triple shot is harder to utilise, between enemies not moving predictably and not being able to see any way but forward, and the slow firing speed means it's not always the optimal choice.
  • Triple Blade is infamously known as Mega Man 10's strongest weapon, for having little competition and being a strong choice in its own right. Here, though, it's a lot weaker, since its vertical spread is far less useable than a horizontal spread, and can only three-shot enemies at point blank (versus something like Rolling Cutter's instant kill if it hits at a specific mid range).
  • On the opposite side of 10's power scaling, Thunder Wool goes from an unwieldy and extremely niche weapon to an amazing weapon for area denial, crowd control, and indirect attacks.
  • In Mega Man II the Sakugarne is infamously weak, dealing little damage, being awkward to use, and making its rider take damage when it lands on an enemy that isn't killed by the attack, including the Final Boss. No longer the case in 8-bit Deathmatch: the Sakugarne is outright terrifying in the right hands, dealing significant explosive damage to anyone near it with each landing and outright One Hit KOing anything it directly lands on. It's still unwieldy, but that's the trade-off for being so powerful.
  • In Mega Man 5, the Power Stone was quite possibly the worst weapon of that game, as it didn't do too much damage and was nearly impossible to aim. In this game, it becomes a decent close-range weapon, where you can run into a crowd, activate it, and do quite a bit of damage.
  • Version 6B goes as far as to provide another massive overhaul to most of the weapons.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Many of the shield-based weapons have been changed from the original games, so as to prevent redundancy. Leaf Shield is an offensive shield that spews a fury of leaves forwards when the user is attacked, Skull Barrier protects the player from one hit, Star Crash provides no protective utility but allows the user to deal damage via Collision Damage, Plant Barrier slowly heals the user while it's active, Junk Shield is a chargeable weapon that fires defensive projectiles, Jewel Satellite reflects some projectiles that hit the user (negating damage on certain weapons), and Water Shield reduces damage while also dealing Collision Damage.
  • Most of the Area-of-Effect weapons were changed to differentiate from each other:
    • In the Classic series, Time Stopper and Flash Stopper both had the same effect of stopping time. Here though, Flash Stopper blinds nearby enemies (like it was said to do in Mega Man 4).
    • Similarly, Gravity Hold, Centaur Flash, Astro Crush, Lightning Bolt, Tornado Blow, and Black Hole have all been changed to differentiate from each other and from Rain Flush especially. All of them were originally screen-clearing attacks, but now they differ significantly: Gravity Hold deals extra damage based on how elevated enemies are to the wielder, Centaur Flash hits nearby enemies and makes the user invisible for a brief moment (like what Centaur Man does during his boss fight), Astro Crush hits an area in front of the user (as opposed to all around them), Lightning Bolt deals extra damage based on how close they are, Tornado Blow has had its range drastically reduced in favor of damage output and utility, and Black Hole is now a stationary shield that drains ammo until detonated. Rain Flush keeps its original properties of dealing consistent damage to nearby enemies.
  • As acknowledged by Ice Man himself, Ice Slasher has been changed from a freezing weapon (like the later Spark Shock) to a slow-moving multi-hit projectile.
  • Super Arm and Deep Digger no longer require specific blocks to use, as Guts Man points out in the case of the former. The two weapons are further set apart by Deep Digger picking up two rocks to throw at a time instead of Super Arm's single, giant boulder.
  • Instead of being a single projectile that can be aimed, Gyro Attack has the ability to split into two projectiles at a certain distance.
  • While most boomerang weapons differ enough in damage output or range to stay the same as in their original game, Magic Card stands out as the only one able to move through walls.
  • Plug Ball has been modified to bounce off walls instead of climb them, to separate it from Search Snake. Ice Wave doesn't get the similar treatment since it can't be jumped over (while Search Snake can).
  • To separate itself from Flame Blast and Concrete Shot, the initial shot of Chill Spike deals regular damage, while the spike trap freezes the opponent; the opposite of how it functioned in Mega Man 10.
  • Mirror Buster retains the front-facing "shield" of the original weapon, but increases in power the more the shield is hit before an attack, like the version used by Enker during his boss fights.
  • Treble Boost's temporary flight is replaced with an air dash the player keeps until they are fragged.
  • Certain bosses are either changed or been added to the game, likely to diversify the experience. Gamma has a much wider range of attacks and movement, and the Evil Robot instead functions as the Final Boss of the Mega Man 8 chapter rather than Wily or one of his machines.
    • Come Version 6 and the Mega Man 10 chapter, this applies to both main bosses. First, the Weapon Archive now takes the form of various fortress bosses fought throughout the game instead of Robot Masters. Second- instead of the Wily Machine or Capsule from that game, the game instead uses the Wily Robo Iron Golem from Mega Man IV.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Delivered by Hyper Storm H, of all characters:
  King: Ugh! Unhand me!... I'm... the king!
  Hyper Storm H: Now you're king of the dead! (throws King out the window)
  Buster Rod G: Wow, such wit Storm! I didn't know you had it in ya!
  Hyper Storm H: Hehe.
• Purposely Overpowered: In Chapter 13, The Dawn Breaker is obtained for use after defeating Ra Thor and Ra Devil. Its charged attack can easily wipe out enemy bots and it is the only weapon that cannot be found in the arenas.
• Puzzle Boss:
  • Gamma, in pre-V5B versions where only specific, powerful weapons deal damage to him. This element is still semi-present, but only with regards to the very last hit.
  • Chapter 13 has Lanfront Ruins, where you need three weapon types to access the boss: one that lets you ascend up walls (Tornado Hold, Wheel Cutter, Sakugarne, etc.), one that provides a barrier against projectiles (Skull Barrier, Ice Wall, Leaf Shield, etc.), and one that attacks in all directions (Lightning Bolt, Gravity Hold, Rain Flush, etc.). This is because Ra Devil has pinch phases at specific health intervals where you must use those weapons to avoid damage.
• Recurring Boss: The fake Mega Man from Mega Man Powered Up is fought no less than three times. He attempts to fight you a fourth time, but Wily has other plans, though Wily crushing him with Gamma could possibly be just an accident.
• Recurring Element:
  • In the campaign, Bubble Man is present on every aquatic-based Robot Master's stage, only being absent on Toad Man, Pump Man, and Neptune's stages.
  • If a level takes place in a forest or jungle, expect Wood Man to be among the opponents encountered.
• Redemption Equals Death: A suprisingly touching example when it comes to Sunstar's last act of kindness. Just as the Eclipse gets hurled into the Sun, he immediately flies towards Maestro (despite his ravaged state) and then carries him back to Earth. As soon as he finishes the ordeal, he crumbles away into dust.
• Reduced to Dust: Sunstar fades into ashes just as he carries Maestro back to Earth at the end of Chapter 13.
• Retcon: The Sakugarne and Spark Chaser are given new weapon color palettes as the original official artwork of Mega Man using the two weapons (the latter from the Rockman Carddass series) showed no color change from the base Mega Buster weapon palette. Sakugarne gives the user a forest green/mint green color palette reminiscent of Quint's own, and Spark Chaser applies an azure blue and lime green colorization.
• Retraux: The original six NES titles, as well as 9 and 10, have their assets and sprites ported over and retooled to work in 3D. In the case of the rest of the represented games, which include 7, 8, & Bass, Wily Wars, and V, their assets are redesigned (and colorized, in the case of Mega Man V) to mimic the graphics of the NES.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Touched upon in Chapter 13. While the new and improved Gamma is being constructed, Mega Man has a candid talk with Maestro. The Blue Bomber sincerely supports the deeds of Maestro... but at the same time, Mega Man confesses that he feels a bit of jealousy towards him, admitting that Roboenza brought a lot of negative feelings out. There is a strong implication that being outshined by Maestro could be another reason for Mega Man's eventual transformation into Quint.
• Rise from Your Grave: Version 5's intro shows the Mega Man 9 Robot Masters rising from a large chunk of scrap metal in a junkyard.
• Running Gag: The fact that Auto's Paper-Thin Disguise as ??? never once gets broken. Even Dr. Cossack, supposedly a scientific genius, is fooled.
• Run or Die: Once you defeat Sunstar and he gets possessed by the Evil Robot's remains, none of your attacks will work and you will eventually be forced to flee the room and escape the collapsing Wily Star.
• Save the Villain: At the end of the Mega Man 10 chapter, Dr. Wily agrees to help bring an end to his Roboenza plot, but then Terra appears, seeking Wily's assets for his own purpose. He then kidnaps Wily, and Chapter 13 is dedicated to the player on a mission to stop the Stardroids and rescue Wily.
• Say My Name: After Dr. Wily is kidnapped by Terra, King screams out their name.
• Sequel Hook:
  • The Stinger for Chapter 8 has one for Version 4:
  Dr. Wily: Phase 1 may have been ruined, but we haven't lost yet! We're going into Phase 2. And this time, no one will stop me! Wahahahahahahahahaaaa!
  • Chapter 11 has Wily launch an Evil Energy-filled Mega Mech Shark onto the city, which the player (or Mega Man) destroys, causing Evil Energy to seep out at an alarmingly fast rate when it crash-lands. Dialogue of characters getting "sick" around the time of the battleship's attack suggest that it's being used to create and start the Roboenza pandemic Mega Man 10 focused on, which is the main subject for Version 6.
  • Version 5B replaces the above with Dr. Cossack seen repairing Duo in his lab, showing great concern about the Roboneza outbreak Wily has unleashed upon the world while King shows up and offers to assist in battling Dr. Wily, seemingly setting up a huge case of The Bus Came Back for all three characters in the later chapters..
  • Version 6, while a much lesser example compared to the above hooks, ends with the player receiving a letter in the mail from Dr. Wily, providing strong hints towards the events of Mega Man 11 being adapted in the 8-Bit Deathmatch canon.
• Series Fauxnale: The Mega Man 10 and Mega Man V chapters end the arc started with Mega Man 8 chapter, resolving the Roboenza outbreak and defeating the Evil Robot once and for all, and has a feel of finality, but an expansion based on Mega Man 11 is in the works.
• Shout-Out:
  • The pre-Version 5B title screen, after the opening story, is a direct homage to Mega Man 2.
  • The bots drop a lot of references in their BOTCHAT dialogues:
    Bad Box Art Mega Man: This is my destiny!
    Bad Box Art Mega Man: Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!
    Cut Man: Let's see how you do against, Kung-fu Cutman!
    Elec Man: Don't you go hugging me... It's hard to be cool when you're hugging me.
    Snake Man: I have the urge to be on a plane...
    Star Man: Wish upon me, see what happens!
    Freeze Man: Get your filthy hands off me! You damn dirty bot!
    Freeze Man: Do you know what killed the dinosaurs? THE ICE AGE!
    Junk Man: Gonna take pollution down to zero!
    Cloud Man: Kuwabara, Kuwabara, no more lightning rods for me, thanks.
    Cloud Man: Hey you! Get off of my cloud!
    Slash Man: Let's go, bub!
    Slash Man: One, two, Slash Man's coming for you!
    Turbo Man: Time to transform and roll out!
    Tengu Man: Personally, I prefer the air!
    Frost Man: I'll be back again someday!
    Grenade Man: Say hello to my cute bombs!
    Dynamo Man: They should make a new game: Dynamo Man Powered Up!
    Ground Man: Sand... why did it have to be sand?
    Pirate Man: I'MMM A CODFISH! *sobs*
    Pirate Man: But... why is the rum oil gone?!
    Magic Man: AVADA KEDAVRA! Whoops, wrong magic.
    Buster Rod G: I've journeyed to the west for this fight.
    Plug Man: Quick! Change the channel!... too late.
    Plug Man: I love my Plug fist! It's so bad.
    Plug Man: What's with these bots? It's just like one of my Japanese animes.
    Jewel Man: Remember, diamonds are forever.
    Galaxy Man: Uh Houston, I've had a problem.
    Fake Man: Dead or alive, you're coming with me.
    Fake Man: YOU BETRAYED THE LAW! LAAAWWW!!!
    Pump Man: HEY, I'M WALKIN' HERE!
    Chill Man: Chill out, 'bots.
    Sheep Man: Do robots dream of me?
    Strike Man: There's no crying in baseball... *sobs*
    Solar Man: Praise the sun!
    Jupiter: It's over, ($player_random_notself)! I have the high ground!
    Sunstar: All that my light touches... is my kingdom.
    • As well as some tragic ones:
      Bad Box Art Mega Man: Mega Man Legends 3? I'm the only legend you need!
      Bad Box Art Mega Man: MegaMan Universe? I am your universe, baby!
    • Shade Man takes the cake, though:
      "SEVEN! SEVEN USELESS ROBOTS AH AH AH AH AH!"
      "What is a Robot Master? A miserable little pile of circuits!"
      "PLAYTIME IS OVER! WITNESS TRUE POWER!"
      "THIS STAGE IS AN ILLUSION AND IS A TRAP DEVISUT BY WILEY!"
      "WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE!"
      "I am the terror that flaps in the night!"
  • An Easter Egg in Star Man's stage features a duck enemy from DuckTales which plays the "Moon" theme from said game when shot at.
    • A similar Easter Egg shows up in Shade Man's stage featuring Firebrand playing the Ghosts 'n Goblins "Graveyard" theme when shot, which is an actual Call-Back to the Easter Egg from Mega Man 7.
  • There are also a few references to the base game:
    • Skull Man's stage layout is a blockier version of MAP01 from the Dwango5 Doom II WAD◊, which in turn was based off of Doom II's MAP01◊.
    • The initial lobby area you end up in just before being crowned champion is based off of a portion of the original Doom's E1M1◊.
    • Eclipse's battle theme is titled "Thy World Consumed"; a clear nod to the fourth chapter from The Ultimate Doom, "Thy Flesh Consumed".
    • There's an Easter Egg in Mars' map that plays a chiptune cover of Doom's "Kitchen Ace (And Taking Names)", the theme of E1M4.
  • One of Galaxy Man's dialogue lines in Dr. Light's lab:
    Galaxy Man: In space, no one can hear you scream!
  • Another line in Dr. Light's lab, this time from Splash Woman:
    Splash Woman: Auto did a great job repairing us. He even offered to give me a "walking" upgrade... But it would cost me my voice modulator to make it work. No thanks!
  • Wily gives you one hell of a familiar-sounding sick burn when he guesses you were expecting his castle to have the remaining deposits of Evil Energy left over from the Evil Energy Robot.
    Dr. Wily: My samples are in another castle!
  • Quint's boss fight is influenced by Shadow the Hedgehog from Sonic Boom: Rise Of Lyric.
  • A Mega Man amiibo can be found in Dr. Light's living room.
  • Wave Man and Stone Man both appear on Concrete Man's map. Word of God revealed this was a reference to their fusion into Concrete Man from the popular webcomic, Bob and George.
  • When the player gets killed by the Weapons Archive, the game will report that the player "had their data expunged" by it.
  • Terra's final appearance during the escape from the Wily Star and the fusion of Sunstar and the Evil Energy Robot— after taunting you about how it's useless to stand up against what is about to happen, he proceeds to imitate Iori Yagami's iconic Evil Laugh.
  • The final battle of Chapter 13 partially is a love letter to Punch-Out! series.
  • Some of Magic Man's incantations when returning the player back to the present day include:
    "Klaatu barada nikto!"
    "^^VV<><>BA Start!"
    "WishyWashyBanjo!"
  • Several elements from Mega Man Megamix pop up, including the name "Ray Blewilt", as well as likely inspiring the Robot Master collaboration on the assembly line to create the new Gamma near the end of Chapter 13.
  • Punk's map during Chapter 13 is Quake III: Arena's Q3DM6: The Camping Grounds.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: The player can do this to Wily after beating the Genesis Unit.
• Sigil Spam: Most of the maps based from Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 8 are covered with Wily's infamous "Dr. W" signs. Likewise, the Mega Man 9-themed maps have Light's "Dr. L" signs.
• Significant Anagram: Letter No. 4 from the mailbox (the one with horrible grammar written by Needle Man) is addressed to someone named "Ray Blewilt". At the beginning of Chapter 5, Mega Man correctly deciphers the name as Albert Wily.
• SNK Boss:
  • Up until V5B, four bosses (Dark Man 4 and the Mega Man Killers) were simply bots with increased health, and weapons that mimicked more intricate AI. Now Averted, however, as all four now function as their own entities, like the other bosses.
  • Both played straight and Inverted with the Stardroid fights (and later the Mega Man Killer fights) in Chapter 13. On one hand, they can take a lot more damage before dying than players usually can; on the other hand, this applies to your and your teammate as well.
• Space Elevator: Naturally featured in Mega Man 10 chapter. In the original game, it was simply a part of Overly Long Gag on the Wily Castle map. In 8-bit Deathmatch, however, the entire battle with Weapons Archive takes place inside it - and the Player Character can see how far they're rising with each stage of said battle.
• Space Zone: All the examples from the source games, naturally, but Chapter 13 moves four of the Stardroid stages to their actual corresponding planets. Punk's stage and half of Enker's become this as well by virtue of moving into the Wily Star.
  • Original to this game, the boss fight against the Evil Robot takes place out in Earth's orbit.
  • The Capture the Flag map "Snakes In Space" is a particularly strange example.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • In Mega Man 8, the Evil Robot's effect on the plot is largely posthumous. It not only survives to fight you at the end of the campaign adapting that arc, but also comes back to heavily derail the endgame of the events of Mega Man V.
  • In Mega Man & Bass, King is seemingly destroyed for good. Here, not only is he disposed of differently following his fight, but he's revealed in the next chapter's epilogue to have somehow survived. He returns in Chapter 12 and beyond to have an important role in the game's storyline; contrast with Death by Adaptation above.
  • While she was never actually killed off to begin with, Roll never gets infected with Roboenza at any point, unlike in Mega Man 10.
• Spectacular Spinning: Thanks to Power Creep, Power Seep, Top Spin's a much more viable weapon than in Mega Man 3.
• Spikes of Doom:
  • Rather surprisingly, they appear rarely compared to their abundant appearance in the actual games.
  • Once he's at Dr. Light's lab, Hornet Man's head (adorned with a spike) will instantly kill you if you step on it.
• Spread Shot: Alongside existing spread shot weapons, Gyro Attack has been reworked to split on a second button press, and Wild Coil's two projectiles are now close enough that they have become this. Triple Blade is a peculiar first-person perspective version; all other spread weapons fan out horizontally, while it spreads out vertically.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: Burst Man and Spring Man's stages have large bubbles/springs players can bounce on. Plant Man's stage once lacked these despite being present in his actual stage from Mega Man 6, though they were since added when Plant Man's stage got an overhaul.
• The Stinger:
  • Virtually every expansion since Version 3 has featured one in each ending, usually with Wily.
  • After completing the Wily Tower chapter, waiting until after the credits will give you a scene with King, having survived his fall from his tower, speaking with Dr. Light about what he's going to do now that the rebellion is over.
  • The Mega Man 9 chapter has Dr. Light lamenting that his attempts at curing the Roboenza virus are not working, while Galaxy Man picks up a space-time anomaly...
  • ...which was replaced by an even bigger stinger in Version 5B, showing us the surprising return of Dr. Cossack, Duo and King, hinting that they will become involved in Version 6's chapters.
• Story Breadcrumbs: Pre-Version 5B, story development was minimal during earlier chapters, with most of it coming from Dr. Light's dialog changing after each chapter is completed. With an increased focus on storytelling on each successive expansion, the development team eventually decided that the storyline as a whole needed to be brought up to the new standards.
• Suddenly Voiced: Throughout most of the game, Maestro is a Zelda-style Silent Protagonist, So What You Are Saying and all. But in the first Chapter 12 story event (added to Version 5D as a teaser for Version 6), Maestro says, "It is what we were made for!" in unison with the Evil Robot while under the influence of Roboenza virus.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Roboenza has eight particle-and-color-coded strains, each one granting robots powers beyond their normal capabilities. As for the evil side, it's also... well, Roboenza.
  • Anything afflicted with Type-A (red with steam clouds coming off of their sprite) gets an increase in damage dealt.
  • Type-S (yellow with blurry trail) gives robots Super-Speed.
  • Type-W (weapon colors with two floating cyan flames) turns every weapon into a three-pronged Spread Shot, including ones that are already spread shots.
  • Type-H (purple with spirals and stars shooting off of them) results in a drastic increase in firing speeds, about double of the default.
  • Type-I causes the afflicted to turn invisible, with only some hard-to-notice sparkles denoting the victim's actual position.
  • Type-T (purple with a pulsing ring) applies Time Slow's effects to everyone nearby, with exception to the one who is afflicted with it.
  • Type-O (dark grey with shrinking rings) sucks in everyone nearby.
  • Type-F (dark blue with horizontal ripples) causes victims to suddenly float in the air for short periods of time.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: Roboenza is already portrayed in a rather unsettling way, turning the original "common fever that turns robots evil" into "a Hate Plague that rapidly creates an unprecedented amount of destruction in urban areas". And then there's Chapter 12's first gameplay cutscene, which shows what the effects of Roboenza actually look like to those afflicted; hallucinations of the Evil Energy robot, voices in one's head overpowering their thoughts, an army of oneself in various states of destruction staring at them, and their metal armor disintegrating to reveal the robotic skeleton underneath.
• Take That!:
  • In a botmatch, Shade Man may throw one towards The Twilight Saga if you frag him.
    Shade Man: I may have burst into flames but at least I didn't sparkle!
  • In Dr. Light's Lab, Plug Man also makes a jab at Mighty No. 9:
    Plug Man: I'll have you know that I haven't cried on prom night once!
    Though, robots don't really HAVE a prom night...
  • Also in Dr. Light's Lab, Ice Man may occasionally say something about his Mega Man Powered Up personality.
    Ice Man: Soldier, what are you still doing here? You should be training for your next match!
    Ow, sorry. I thought Dr. Light fixed that AI bug.
• Taking You with Me:
  • Rarest case of Last Man Standing. What are the chances of getting a "Draw Game" and replaying the level?
• Telefrag: As usual in a first-person shooter setting, it is possible to kill someone by doing this.
• Thematic Rogues Gallery: Your opponents will usually be based on what stage you're fighting on (i.e. Aqua Man will show up on Bubble Man's stage).
• Theme Music Power-Up: A triumphant reprise of the game's main theme plays when Maestro gets their Heroic Second Wind during the fight against Eclipse.
• Theme Song Reveal: During the MM9 chapter, the moment Dr. Wily reveals the Outside-Context Problem that's happening at the moment, "Future World", one of the songs that played during the introduction of Mega Man 10, plays in the background. As the game progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that the situation is tying into MM10.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Terra literally pulls Maestro out the airlock of Cossack Cruiser before fighting him personally.
• Title Theme Drop: Happens four times in the game as of Version 6: once during the Chapter 6 finale (when Mega Man expresses his belief in the Player Character), and again during the beginning of Chapter 7 (when Dr. Light asks you to help Mega Man fight for peace), again during Chapter 13 (when Dr. Wily reveals that you're going to control the remodeled Gamma), and once more during the final boss's second phase where it's remixed into another song.
• To Be Continued: Every version since Version 3 has featured this in each ending. Notably, in the original release of the Mega Man 8 campaign, the phrase was followed by the words "In MM8BDM Version 4", which is of course removed in the actually released Version 4. Version 6 is the exception, as despite the Sequel Hook via the letter received after clearing Chapter 13, it concludes with a simple "The End."
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Quint puts up a much better fight against you during his boss fight than he did in his debut game, to the point he even goes back in time to assist his past self in the last phase.
  • Gamma. He has full movement capabilities as well as some significantly more powerful attacks compared to his appearance in Mega Man 3.
• Tsundere: Elec Man, as seen when he and Bomb Man show up to help finish off the Guts-Dozer. Bomb Man claims that Elec Man was the most adamant on helping rescue Guts Man, which Elec Man vehemently denies.
• Turns Red: When the Evil Robot reaches critical health, he starts attacking twice in a row before charging at the player, and he charges towards them much faster as well. In Version 5, the music also changes when he reaches this stage.
• Unexpected SHMUP Level: The main boss of Chapter 9: The Mega Mech Shark from the second Wily Castle stage of Mega Man 9, which the player or Mega Man ambushes on Rush Jet.
• The Unfought: Wily Machine 9, mainly because Dr. Wily thought the heroes would be more concerned with Proto Man's rampage than the reprogrammed Robot Masters, thus he didn't prepare for any possible confrontation.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • While all the prior non-boss levels were done in variations of traditional deathmatch game modes, Chapter 13 changes it up to be more akin to the classic Mega Man linear style; no Power Copying besides from after the Stardroid fight once the frag limit is reached, screws can be dropped from fallen enemies and used to purchase upgrades, and the 8 levels can be fought in any order before taking on a linear path again of four levels.
  • The final boss can only be wounded by duking it out in classic Punch-Out!! style.
• Unexplained Recovery:
  • Prior to Version 5B, near the end of the Chapter 8 of the single player campaign, when the player fights Duo, he dies and explodes after being defeated. However, he later shows up completely fine, although weak. Averted in Version 5B itself, where he simply teleports away instead when you defeat him.
  • The same deal goes with King. He's last seen being tossed out of a window by the Genesis Unit after defeating him in battle, but in the stinger after the credits roll, he's seen perfectly fine talking to Dr. Light with no apparent damage.
    • This is lampshaded by Dr. Light in The Stinger for Chapter 10:
      Dr. Light: ...but how is it that you are still alive?
    • It's possible that he was repaired by Dr. Cossack, given that he's seen with the latter while they repair Duo.
• Unflinching Walk: Your character does this after beating the Mega Man 7 chapter, mimicking the credits sequence from that game.
• Unwanted Assistance: Auto's attempts to help you out during the escape from the Fake Men results in him tossing away a few otherwise useful weapons a bit too far out into the incoming horde of pursuers and ends up wasting Super Arm and Hard Knuckle, as well as accidentally giving two of the Fake Men Remote Mine and Gyro Attack. All four were weapons that actually would've been a tremendous help in keeping the Fake Men at bay.
• The Virus: The Evil Energy from the Mega Man 8 chapter is used by Wily to create Roboenza during the end of the Mega Man 9 chapter, which the plot of the Mega Man 10 chapter gives focus on. During the beginning of Chapter 12, you get to see just how bad its effects are when in full effect, arguably to an even further extent than Mega Man 10 itself ever touched upon.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The fight against the four Doc Robots as of V5B is when the game takes off the gloves and tells you it's not joking around. Each one the four Doc Robots could make for a decent boss in and of itself, but you have to fight them back-to-back, one at a time, only getting weapons after each boss, and with no ammo refills. Some of the combinations' Turns Red phases (like Heat/Wood's burning leaves or Crash/Air's attempts to blow you into the explosions of its Crash Bombs) can also be especially dangerous if you don't know how to dodge them.
• Warm-Up Boss: The Mega Man imposter, after clearing Fire Man map in the campaign. His attacks are fairly easy to dodge, and there's two weapons to help you. He's not as much of a pushover in the later encounters against him, however.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: From Spark Man's exchange with ???:
  ???: "How long do you expect me to wait down here in the dark, Spark Man?!"
  Spark Man: "I'm sorry, doctor. The match took much longer than expected..."
  ???: "Spectacle loving fools! Who decided on these ridiculously high frag limits?"
• Wolfpack Boss:
  • The Dark Man fight at the end of the 5 chapter starts off between just you and Dark Man 4... but, partway through, 4 summons his three flunkies to attack you at the same time. Proto Man drops in at the nick of time too, turning the one-on-one duel into a two-on-four slugfest.
  • The final fight of the Genesis Unit chapter is against the Genesis Unit as a cohesive whole. They start pulling team attacks at specific health intervals throughout the fight.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Mega Man and Bass end up incapacitated right before the final confrontation with King in Chapter 9. During the following chapter, they are still in recovery, leaving Maestro to instead team up with the MM1 and Powered Up Robot Masters, Proto Man, and Auto.
  • Duo is obliterated by Terra at the end of Chapter 12.
• Weaksauce Weakness: What's the one weapon capable of easily defeating Sunstar? Flame Sword.
  • Flame Sword is Sunstar's weakness, but not in the way you'd normally think. If you go into the code, you can see that Flame Sword's Damage Factor (read: damage multiplier) is set to 1.0, which basically translates to "does normal amounts of damage". But the damage factor for almost all of the other weapons are also set to 1.0, meaning that Sunstar doesn't have a standard weakness to Flame Sword. Instead, Sunstar's "weakness" actually stems from Flame Sword's behavior and logic. Open the Explanation if you want a detailed rundown of how Sunstar's "weakness" works.^Explanation Flame Sword is composed of five invisible "sub-attacks" fired in quick succession. Each sub-attack spawns a trail "projectile" that both simulates the arm-swinging effect and lops off a whopping quarter of the max health of any other player hit by the trail. If the user uses Flame Sword while on the ground, a "spawner" object is also created on the floor. The spawner very quickly creates a total of 30 "sparks" in a little less than a second, with each spark dealing a single point of damage. And since you can use Flame Sword a little faster than once every second, you can do a total of 155 points of damage with each swing (assuming all sparks and trails hit the target). More than enough to insta-kill a player and enough to kill Sunstar in 26 hits (again, assuming all sparks and trails successfully hit Sunstar when he's not firing Nova Beam or is using his Turns Red attack).
• Zero-Effort Boss: Dr. Wily in his Skull Suit at the very end of the Wily Tower chapter, after beating the Genesis Unit. All he does is stand there and taunt you, and he goes down in a single Mega Buster shot.

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