YMMV / Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man: Worlds Unite

• Ass Pull: Xander slamming the Reset Button by killing Sigma before he begins his reign of terror, thus rendering the entire last twelve issues largely moot and pointless. Kind of like a certain other Sonic-related product that received less than stellar fan praise...
• Broken Base:
  • The usage of the Deadly Six in the storyline. Many fans are not fond of Sonic Lost World and are quite weary of their usage, while those that do like them were eager for their inclusion. Others were merely eager to see if Ian could make them Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, like he's done with so many others.
    • Others were displeased by their sudden inclusion into the series since, prior to the start of the crossover, Eggman had only just discovered Lost Hex. With the first issue of the crossover, they already turned against Eggman as Sigma-Orbot, in flashback, had already destroyed the Conch, and the Zeti themselves were mostly voiceless before getting mind controlled by Sigma. Ian Flynn has mentioned he planned to do a proper Lost World adaptation in the main book, but he never got to it before Archie lost the Sonic license.
  • The fact that they did a second crossover so soon after the first. Many fans feel that tossing in a second crossover not only in the middle of the Sonic Unleashed storyline, but also barely two years after the comic's reboot is a little over the top and felt that it should have waited just a little more longer to do so.
  • As stated on this page, the use of comic exclusive characters in this one. Worlds Collide only kept its focus on game only characters (though there are some nods to story arcs that were going on at the time in Sonic's comic) so at the least it would stay familiar with people who were only familiar with the games. Here, however, many found the inclusion of the Freedom Fighters and Xander Payne to balloon an already big cast (some like Quake Woman barely get any screen time). Some didn't mind too much and feel it widens the scope of the crossover (It is called Worlds Unite after all), plus seizing the opportunity to let them join in this time while the writers had the chance. But others, most of whom didn't follow the comics, find these characters distracting and uninteresting then anything, hampering some of the character interaction and wouldn't get some of the references to the comics. Not helped that it's ultimately Xander that ends up saving everyone in the end. And his inclusion here is a plot point in Mega Man's comic.
  • Reception to the crossover as a whole has been mixed compared to the first one, with some liking it just fine while others find the recaps, exposition, and lack of meaningful fight scenes annoying and tedious.
• Complete Monster: Sigma was previously a hero and the leader of the Maverick Hunters. However, after fighting for a while, Sigma would start to see Reploids as superior to humans and start a rebellion. Sigma would stage an attack on Arcadia City, bombing the city and having his forces kill off various Maverick Hunters who refused to join Sigma. Sigma returns as a computer virus and travels to the Sonic universe, where he forces Dr. Eggman, Dr. Wily, and the Deadly Six to help him in his plans, mostly with the Unity Engines with which Sigma intends to harness the power of entire worlds and conquer the multiverse. Sigma continues abusing the Genesis Portals—threatening to tear apart reality—all in his plan to become a god.
• Evil Is Cool: Say what you will about the rest of the crossover, but Sonic Man and M'Egga Man were badass.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Mega Man #50's Short Circuits strip sees Mega Man and some of other characters celebrating the landmark issue. As the Sonic Boom version of Knuckles tries to figure out how many years fifty issues equals, Boom's version of Sonic jokingly tells Mega Man that he'll have reached his 100th issue by the time he's figured it out. A Stealth Insult about Boom Knuckles's intelligence in retrospect, as Mega Man's comic would only live for five more issues...
  • In another non-canonical example, the Off-Panel strip for Sonic the Hedgehog #276 (the first issue to take place after the crossover) has Sonic bid a long farewell to all of the other SEGA and Capcom characters who joined him in the crossover, before saying that he will see them in the next crossover, with an unidentified character saying "No you won't" from off-screen. Said unidentified character, of course, couldn't be more right...
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: ...unless you interpret "the next crossover" as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, where Sonic will indeed see Mega Man, Wily, X, Zero, Ryu, Ken and Guile again, as well as Mii costumes of Blues and Arthur. On a more macabre note, of the characters Sonic listed off, he will also have a reunion in the same game with Dr. Light, Roll, the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters, the Mega Man 3 Robot Masters, Axl, Sigma, Chun-Li, M. Bison, Vega, Balrog and Palico... of sorts, as they were all vaporized by Galeem and had their disembodied souls stuffed into the bodies of doppelganger Mega Men and evil knockoffs of Nintendo characters.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Many fans found it fun to "recreate" Worlds Collide in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. Now, they can "recreate" Worlds Unite thanks to the Mega Man X and Zero Mii costumes along with the Ryu DLC character!
  • Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. It's essentially the same base plot, but with Marvel Universe characters replacing Sega characters and Sigma having a new - and even better to him - best friend in Ultron.
• I Knew It!: Many people expected Xander Payne to have a role in the event due to the events of Dawn of X. He ended up becoming a central character.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many fans picked up the crossover just to see the Sega and Capcom characters that, at the time of its release, haven't appeared in a game in years (like NiGHTS and Viewtiful Joe.)
• Sequelitis: Worlds Unite was not as well received as Worlds Collide, thanks to several reasons - such as Sigma, a Mega Man villain, being the main villain as opposed to a more balanced antagonist team-up, the at-times lackluster art in some parts of the story, characters being around for almost no reason at all (e.g. Comedy Chimp and Fastidious Beaver), the constant recap exposition seen throughout the entire first act, the inclusion of the original characters from the comics like the Freedom Fighters and Xander Payne alienating some fans, compared to the original crossover who focused on the game characters and a lack of interesting character interaction and meaningful battle scenes. Adding to all this was the fact that a new crossover event was placed in the middle of a Cosmic Retcon'd world building storyline, shortly after of the last crossover.
• Tainted by the Preview: When early previews featured the casts of Sonic Boom and Mega Man X being mixed in with the casts of Sonic and Mega Man, some were concerned that the story would suffer due to having loads of characters. These were not helped by the reveal of even MORE characters from completely different franchises. Some regard the end result as a something of a cluttered mess thanks to this.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: All the Capcom/Sega characters are absent until the last third, show up for one battle scene, then spend the rest of the series on the sidelines. Specific examples include:
  • Dynamo, who was Hurricane Kicked in half by Ken and Ryu.
  • Amaterasu ends up unable to stop the apocalypse, despite being a god.
  • The Zeti, who are mind-controlled by Sigma after a little bit of screentime and get no lines before then.
• Unexpected Character: Nobody saw the presence of the other Sega and Capcom characters coming prior to their announcement. The presence of Street Fighter characters was particularly surprising, given that license is already held by UDON.
  • Invoked in part two, when Fastidious Beaver and Comedy Chimp's appearance is heralded with the text box saying that they were "not the cameos you expected".
  • Part three has Gemerl show up!
  • Sigma's many Maverick bosses were a given, but did anyone expect Geemel and Zain and Gareth and Berkana to also appear?

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