Mega Man X / Fridge

Mega Man X works with their own Fridge pages:

Fridge Brilliance

No wonder Zero invokes Do Not Run with a Gun with his Z-Buster in the first two games and everything from X5 onwards; he charges his shots for maximum kill efficiency and needs to take a moment to aim, as Maverick Hunter X implies. Every shot he takes with his Z-Buster in X5 and X6 aren't as powerful as X's full charges he'd gained through his personal growth with the series progression, and show he isn't as proficient with ranged combat unless it's with raw, overwhelming force like in X1— which he had to use for ambush tactics rather than mid-fight. He works around this in the sequel series by outright shoving his Z-Saber in a regular, handheld buster like an ammo pack, removing the weight and kickback from the equation while using the Z-Saber's power that he's more comfortable with.
Like in Pokémon, each Maverick's elemental weakness can usually have an explanation strong-armed into making sense. Some are fairly arbitrary, but a lot of them check out. For example:
- Gravity Beetle is weak to Ray Splasher because light can escape a black hole and Beetle's attacks are black holes. Gravity Antonion is weak to Dark Mantis' weapons since darkness has no weight and is therefore unaffected by gravity.
- Flame Mammoth, Magma Dragoon and Burn Dinorex; fire is blown out by wind.
- Chill Penguin and Frost Walrus; ice is melted by fire.^Note
- Toxic Seahorse, Jet Stingray and Rainy Turtloid; liquids are frozen by ice.
- Launch Octopus and Infinity Mijinion; barriers block weapons fire.
- Spike Rosered and Bamboo Pandamonium; fire burns plants.
- Dark Necrobat and Dark Mantis; light consumes shadows.
- Boomer Kuwanger and Wind Crowrang; boomerangs can't outrun homing missiles.
There are also often Mavericks whose weaknesses are derived from their animal nature, rather than an elemental alignment. Examples are:
- Spark Mandrill; mandrills live in tropical climates and hate the cold of Shotgun Ice.
- Wheel Gator; Strike Chain clamps his jaws shut, plus it's not energy so he can't eat it.
- Blast Hornet; an airborne animal is susceptible to the pull of a Gravity Well.
- Blizzard Buffalo; buffalos are susceptible to parasites such as Parasite Bomb.
- Slash Beast; the speedster gets slipped up by Ground Hunter.
- Shield Sheldon; metal implements like Metal Anchor can pry and smash clam shells open.
- Vanishing Gungaroo; boomerangs like Wind Cutter have been traditionally used to hunt kangaroos.
How is Zero able to survive his "death" at the end of the first game, being rebuilt with his personality and memories intact, while Reploids like Iris stay dead and the original games bosses can't be brought back personality wise (as we can see in Maverick Hunter X, Sigma is seemingly only able to create functional but mindless facsimiles of their originals to guard his fortress)? Because like with X, Zero isn't a Reploid, he's a robot, with what amounts of a Black Box of a brain.
- Then again, that ending implies that both Zero and Sigma stayed dead, and the backstory of the Mega Man Zero series established that Zero was a carrier of the Sigma Virus and was unknowingly spreading it around the world, and that the cure to the virus was discovered in his AI. Said cure was weaponized by Weil, who started the Elf Wars and razed the planet before being stopped. Since none of that will ever come to pass, maybe the X in that version of events will accomplish his goals and create a real utopia.
- Dr. Weil and the Dark Elf are likely new additions that the writers didn't plan for when they made the first game; you can easily imagine X's canon ending of X5 (or his bad ending) leading to Zero 1 while Zero's X6 ending (which was Inafune's compensation, by the way) explains those two aforementioned elements and leads to Zero 2 and 3.
- Actually, it's foreshadowing Mega Man Legends. X mentions he dreams of creating a paradise called Elysium in that ending of X5. Come Legends thousands of years later, and you end up finding out about a space colony called Elysium meant as a paradise. The good ending sets up X6, while the bad ending shifts the timeline to the events of Legends.
After replaying X2 and X3, I realized why the bosses had blue explosions when they died, as opposed to the reddish orange ones seen everywhere else. The bosses were upgraded to the absolute limit, making their bodies run "hotter" to generate enough power. After X3, the heroes' power meters default size jumped to 32. The increase was an upgrade in order for Reploids to take full advantage of advancing technology and to function properly.
This Troper gave some thought on why Zero is named "Zero", how he can do exceptionally high close range damage at the expense of low armor, and also as a character why he has a tendency to rush headlong to face impossible odds, performing extraordinarily heroic feats getting himself killed at least three times counting both series he participates in the process. Then I remembered the Japanese airplanes employed during World War II, the A 6 M 2 "Zeroes", who were destructive in close range, but fragile compared to most other fighter planes, and several pilots who were about to die or ran out of ammunition... who were instructed beforehand by their superiors that they may not make it out alive, crashed their ships into targets as a last ditch effort, creating the suicidal term known as "Kamikaze", and they were revered for such heroic acts. Interesting stuff.
- Becomes more brilliant in Marvel vs Capcom 3. The opening quote for Captain America to Zero is "Your name's Zero? Hope you don't fight like one." Cap's tone sounds dismissive, believing that Zero is planning to die to take out the guy with an indestructible shield, but there is something else to consider. What war did Cap and the A 6 M 2 Zeroes fight in? Cap isn't necessarily insulting Zero, he's possibly tense about his fighting style.
  - The irony is that Zero did fight like the old war pilots once: his Heroic Sacrifice to save X from Vile.
- There's also another interesting theory about Zero's name. You see, in mathematical terms, x means a variable with limitless potential. Now, no matter what value x is, if multiplied by zero (or divided by zero, although the former seems much safer), the result will be the same: nothing. Zero's purpose? To destroy X.
  - Actually the above explanation is a lot closer to the truth - as "0 & X" are both math terms, where 0 means 'nothing, empty, void, or devoid of meaning' X means 'limitless, potential, unlimited, full of meaning.'
  - In engineering terms, numbering a project as "zero" indicates it to be a prototype or the first iteration of its kind. Zero was Keiji Inafune's prototype design for X.
  - Another good explanation is that Wily was trying not to make another Bass. Bass was made for pretty much the same purpose as Zero, but his enormous ego repeatedly got in the way of his mission, and on multiple occasions caused Bass to turn on Wily. Zero, in contrast, thinks less about himself, and more about destroying his enemies and completing his mission.
In the X series, many of the Maverick bosses have an animal theme (Gravity Beetle, Rainy Turtloid, Blizzard Buffalo, and so forth). This is in direct contrast to the Classic series, where the bosses are humanoid Something Men (and a Something Woman).
- Made more brilliant when you realize the context of the two games: robot bosses who appear more human than the era would expect (Classic) as contrasted to bosses who act less human (X).
- Also, it makes sense that one of the first bosses would be a mandrill.
It's strange how X never retains his armor abilities, especially after later games showing it was possible to keep whole suits. Consider this: In X1, X is utterly weak compared to the Mavericks until his armor is obtained. In X2, which happened six months later, the armor is gone, but X can now dash without it and his charge shot now has a pinkish aura to it. In the third game, that aura is even MORE apparent, and in the fourth game, the shot's a solid green. He even gains a natural air dash in the seventh game. X's first three armors had integrated into his systems until they became a natural part of him. The armors were stacking this whole time!
- X slowly adapting the abilities of his Armors was actually confirmed in an obscure blog post about Mega Man X8 on U-Capcom. It also implies that X may be disturbed by his own evolution, since a person so desperate for peace wouldn't like seeing himself become a more efficient warrior...
  - Additionally, the book Compendium of Rockman X indicates that the main Armors from X1 to X4 are actually the same set, calling them the "Normal Armor". This is mentioned by a Japanese Mega Man X encyclopedia, which states that after X1 he returned his Armor to a Light Capsule and it disappeared so that it could upgrade them. This is why X never reuses anything earlier than the Fourth Armor - the first three no longer even exist.
- This also explains how his charge shots got so large and powerful from X7 onward as well as his natural air dash: He finally got around to integrating the previous super charge shots into his systems. The charged shot's size increase comes from the plasma or Gaea shots (as they were large charge shots) and the increase in power was because X couldn't replicate the unique functions so the integration was a power boost instead. As for the air dash, the function had to be stacked multiple times due to its complexity before it could be integrated into X's systems.
- Zero can also be used as evidence here. In the first game, we see nothing of Zero's power other than he's a freakishly powerful robot. He takes the arm off Vile's Ride Armor with a single level 2 blast. He then turns and tells X that he has the potential to become as powerful as he is. In X1 and X2, Zero is an enormously powerful robot. Even with all his armor upgrades in X1, X could still not damage Vile's Ride Armor. In X3, the first time Zero is playable, he is roughly as powerful as X becomes with all his armor from that game. Vile also re-appears with even MORE powerful Ride Armors, but they aren't invincible anymore, and X can still damage them with his basic buster, which now has the stacked effects from the previous two armors. In X4, Zero starts out just as weak as X does, which means that weapons technology has finally caught up to him, and he too must now rely upon life capsule upgrades and armor boosts to keep his edge in the game. It also means that by the end of X3, X had finally fulfilled Zero's prediction, and had become as strong as Zero himself.
- It's also usable as evidence that X's own power is growing on its own. In X's original rampage down the highway, he wasn't even able to dent Vile's Chimera Ride Armor, and yet by X8, his charge shots were breaking shields and he could destroy Ride Armors with just his buster. The reason why his and Zero's life-bars were still so small by that time is that the reploids around them were being constructed with more powerful specs now that the common technology around them has caught up.
- It also explains why X6 was so difficult for X without his armor. When Dr. Light rebuilt X in his X5 ending, he could only restore X's specs to what they were at the start of the game. X was a game behind when Gate rebelled.
After reviewing the powers granted by X's armors, it's pretty clear that Dr. Light didn't build them in the order he gave them out. First off, the Gaea armor's helmet isn't given an in-game function while later helmets just tweaked existing abilities. Also, the dash powers as given seem out of order: dash, air-dash, air-dash/vertical air-dash, air-dash/hover, FLIGHT, pushing certain blocks, directional air-dash, gliding, and invisibility while dashing ^note. Additionally, early teasers for the Ultimate Armor, English translation here, say that the Ultimate Armor is supposed to have a blade weapon and flight capabilities, all of which were taken out in the actual game, hence why Dr. Light describes it as "incomplete" in X4. This suggests that some of the armors, while functional in their own right, were actually developed to beta test ideas that Dr. Light planned for the Ultimate Armor. This also suggests that most of the armors weren't developed as-is, but that Dr. Light is actually mixing different combinations of parts and adjusting the designs to match.
There are boss dialogues in X8 that suggest that Zero can no longer be powered up by the Maverick Virus, a revelation actually foreshadowed in X6. The theory is that Dr. Wily, having somehow become an AI, rebuilt Zero after X5 and pretended to be Isoc in X6, given his interest and knowledge of Zero. During the repairs, Wily removed the violent, virus-powered side of Zero's AI into a new body, which became the Nightmare Zero. Thus the Nightmare Zero became the embodiment of Zero's original potential, its destruction heralding the end of Zero's dark side. As for why Zero's AI was split, Wily likely wanted to salvage the violent side above Zero himself, so that's what got into the new body first. Or, Wily wanted to upgrade Zero, the latter starts with the double jump and a good buster, but couldn't put everything in on top of the repair job. So Wily built the Nightmare Zero to beta test the more extensive upgrades while Zero recovered, but Zero woke up and ran off before he could get his final upgrades.
- That might also explain how his style slightly changes in the sixth game; his sword now looks more like a solid rod than a fluid, almost whip-ish beam saber, and that he swings it differently, more similar to him in the Zero series. It's also likely a conscious choice on part of the devs to connect the 2 series on a game-play level.
- Adding on to the above, Zero's saber being almost whip-like could be attributed to him swinging it more aggressively, almost looking as if he was flailing it wildly, which could be a leftover from his original programming. From X6 onward, the rod-like shape of the saber is probably because he swings it calmly, with more precision to each strike.
- You can potentially see when this happens in X5 if X fights Zero. At the end of his boss fight, Zero seemingly uses Soul Body on X, knocking him out. This was actually Zero's viral power up, taking one last shot at X.
For all of the villains' blathering about having evolved beyond the fleshy meat-bag humans, they certainly haven't learned from the mistakes humans made: among other things, being free to go maverick means that you're not free to go un-maverick, not only because Sigma is a dictator in the making who wants to Take Over the World (and then descended into becoming an Omnicidal Maniac in the end) but there isn't any way to disinfect yourself from viral infection short of death.
- According to this web-comic, Sigma's goal to Kill All Humans should be easy to accomplish if that's what he wanted. The only time he actually tried was X4, it almost happening in X5 was collateral damage, and he ultimately gave up on that in X8. For all his talk, he's just as ego-driven as the humans he fights against.
Unlike every Maverick, who explodes in bright light or fire depending on the game, X explodes into scattering spheres of light should he be defeated. This is most likely because he was built with 20XX technology similar to his elder brother and other Robot Masters, who all have visually similar explosions. This could apply to Zero too, but considering his rebuild in X2, it muddies it somewhat.
- Axl also dies in a similar energy ball explosion in X8, muddying this further. Fun idea though.
X's design is exceedingly simple compared to his fellow Reploids - while many possess colorful designs with boosters, armor, and ports decorating their bodies, X's smooth blue body seems boring in comparison. Seeing him next to Zero's much more visually-complicated form is almost jarring. However, this was likely an intentional choice by Dr. Light; he realized that X's design would be the template for an entire generation of robots, and thus kept it as simple and by-the-book as possible. Any extra specs or designs he might've wanted to add he instead incorporated into X's various armors.
- Additionally, X so closely resembles his predecessor Mega Man because Dr. Light was much more focused on building X's free will and evolutionary mind; basically, more worried about making his brain unique than making his aesthetic unique.
  - This also speaks to Dr. Light's love for Mega Man - at the time of X's creation, Mega Man was the pinnacle of all Light's work! He'd accomplished so much and grown so close to being human, and Light loved the little hero so much he knew his true magnum opus should be based on him.
- Despite this simplicity, however, X goes on to topple virtually every single Reploid that gets in his path, both alongside comrades and as a One-Man Army. The series tries to propose that it's X's infinite growth for potential that drives this, but there's also likely another reason: he's the original versus nothing but knockoffs. Perhaps in part to his potential, he can keep adjusting and adapting, changing as the series goes on, but all of his foes are imperfect recreations that are designed to-spec even as the Lensman Arms Race of power increases through the canon. The only ones that can match up are Zero, who was designed as a counter to X, Sigma, who effectively sacrificed his physical form to become data shifting to new bodies, and Copy Reploids, who presumably were a new attempt at the X potential design by being able to change into anything judging by the final battle with Lumine — and, as far as canon is concerned, disappear after the X series, implying they were ultimately wiped out in the Elf Wars or otherwise.
The three new party members in Command Mission (sans Spider) can all be interpreted as reflections of the main Hunter trio:
- Cinnamon is the innocent idealist like X, whose pleas with Prof. Gaudile to let her fight reek of X's own admission to Dr. Light that he will fight for justice.
- Marino is the hardened, independent warrior who is touched by their naive friend to seek justice, just like Zero.
- Massimo is the newbie who still doesn't quite know where he fits, constantly imitating others while searching for his own identity like Axl.
This troper finally noticed a pattern in Mega Man X: Command Mission. The game is divided into a total of ten chapters. You fight a boss at the end of each chapter. The first boss is a flunky with no real impact on the story, it's just there. The next eight stages are the main bosses (with two battles in Chapter 9) and the final chapter is the boss rush and final bosses. In the main X series, you fight an intro boss, eight Maverick bosses, and then a boss rush leading into the final battle. While Command Mission was essentially the Ensemble Dark Horse of the series, they kept the same pattern all along.
It's beautifully ironic that X, a robot defined by his unlimited free will by Light, is paradoxically trapped into fighting and being miserable because he feels morally obligated to help the humans. Meanwhile, Zero is a robot made only to bring the world into ruin, and yet he defies Wily's purpose to instead protect what he personally cares about. Thus, one was made with total freedom and yet constrains himself to suffer for those he loves, while the other was made for a single purpose and yet has chosen to fight for those he loves.
- Extend this theme to Axl, who unlike the other two is a total blank slate. His origins are a mystery and he has no real purpose, so he chooses to take that blank slate of a life and do good with it rather than let himself be used by the likes of Sigma.
- Speaking of whom, Sigma's original purpose was to fight to protect the world, but he ends up seeking chaos and bloodshed instead. He was created to act like X, but ended up pursuing Dr. Wily's dreams in one way or another.

Fridge Horror

X called Zero his "only friend" in X5. Why? Because all of the others he had made either turned Maverick (such as Volt Catfish) or were Killed Off for Real. In a deeper sense, you can even assume that these events have resigned X to not form meaningful bonds with anyone, save for the one robot who has persevered through it all so far.
According to some background details for the Mega Man Zero series, the Maverick Virus was sealed into Zero's capsule only to leak out and cause the Maverick problem, and is implied to be some form of Dr. Wily's Roboenza virus.. If this is the case, then why wasn't the virus causing problems before X was dug up? Because the robots that existed between Mega Man (Classic) and Mega Man X were too different from anything based off of Dr. Light's work to be compatible. This also means that Dr. Cain really screwed up when he decided to mass-produce Reploids because the virus that wasn't a threat was given a breeding ground.
- Of note is that the Maverick Virus was originally intended for Zero in order to fix the problem with his A.I. that was causing him to be a mindless berserker, and it doesn't drive him nuts as is shown when Zero becomes completely infected in the bad path so much as return him briefly to his originally intended programming. It seems odd that it would cause insanity in most other Reploids contrary to it's actual purpose. However, the Fridge Brilliance is Maverick Virus isn't really a "virus" so much as a software patch intended for one specific robot, it causes insanity in most other Reploids because it's a program trying to patch an A.I. it was never designed for, breaking that A.I. in the process.
  - Another thing to consider is why the Maverick Virus can replicate and spread itself out. Bass, King, and Zero have a history of disobeying Wily, so by making a virus that can spread across the world, Wily is making sure that Zero can't escape his function- it's meant to not only correct his flaws, but to also enslave Zero.
- For all the flak Dr. Light gets, it was inevitable that Reploids would rebel because the virus was leaking out of Zero's capsule, something that he couldn't have foreseen. If Sigma hadn't screwed around fighting Maverick Zero, then someone else would be the Big Bad.
Even if he survives the ''X'' series, Axl will not survive to the ''Zero'' series.
- Anyone else who's not X and Zero is probably dead by the Zero series as well. Alia, Signas, Layer and Palette, the Command Mission cast, all likely killed either during the Elf Wars or during Copy X's purges, since none of them are seen again after the X series.
In Mega Man X: Command Mission and Mega Man X8, X goes from a reluctant fighter to being more willing to brand his opponents as Maverick and go for the kill. The end of Mega Man Zero has X talk about how he'd been fighting for so long that before he knew it he no longer cared about the reploids he killed. X8 and Command Mission are the beginning of X's desensitization to the bloodshed he causes as a Maverick Hunter.
Nothing is ever said or done about the remains of the Mavericks in the X series. Fast forward to the ZX and ZX Advent games where it's revealed that all the destroyed enemies were just left for scavengers, as evident with Wire Sponge's remains being assimilated in ZX Advent and how Ashe comments about old mechanaloid parts from past bosses are considered ancient. the X series takes place in 21XX while the ZX and ZX Advent series takes place in 25XX. Old maverick and mechaniloid parts have just been sitting around for 400 years.
The novel "Irregulars Report" states that Dr. Cain built Sigma after his own image, sharing his younger self's face. That's an interesting bit of trivia until you realize that Sigma is, well, The Dreaded. Cain got to watch a replica of himself wreak havoc on civilization for years and years. Can't be good for your mental health.
If Dr. Light is all but a legendary roboticist who reinvented society as we know it through his and Wily's research, why was X found in dusty, decrepit ruins? If it's a secret location Light built him at so that Wily didn't invade his home to find such a powerful machine, that's one thing — but what if that's the doctor's own home? Did no one even bother to care for his legacy? We already have the likelihood that all of Light's robots, including Rock and Roll, were inevitably shut down by either lack of power or by law, but did everyone just leave the very centerpiece of society to rot?

Fridge / Mega Man X

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