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WARNING:

"X" is the first of a new generation of robots which contain an innovative new feature - the ability to think, feel, and make their own decisions. However, this ability could be very dangerous. If "X" were to break the first rule of robotics, "a robot must never harm a human being", the results would be disastrous and I fear that no force on Earth could stop him.

Approximately 30 years will be required before we can safely confirm his reliability. Unfortunately, I will not live to see that day, nor do I have anyone to carry on my work. Therefore, I have decided to seal him in this capsule, which will test his internal systems until his reliability has been confirmed. Please do not disturb the capsule until that time.

"X" possesses great risks as well as great possibilities. I can only hope for the best.

September 18, 20XX
T. Light
— Message from Dr. Thomas Light, Mega Man X intro

In A.D. 21XX, War Was Beginning...

Mega Man X, the Darker and Edgier Sequel Series to Capcom's original Mega Man series, follows the exploits of the original Blue Bomber's future successor.

As his Magnum Opus, Dr. Thomas Light created Mega Man X, a robot with the ability to completely think, feel, and make his own decisions. Dr. Light sealed X inside a capsule designed to run ethics testing over the course of 30 years to test X's reliability, believing that X would turn to evil if not tested repeatedly within the capsule. A century later, archeologist and scientist Dr. Cain unearths X's capsule and soon becomes astounded by Dr. Light's engineering miracle. He decides to mass-produce a line of robots based on X — "Reploids" that also have their own individuality — but glosses over the fact that he doesn't fully comprehend Dr. Light's work. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Soon after their activation and deployment into the world, some of Cain's mass-produced Reploids develop bugs and glitches that cause them to go mad and become disobedient. These malfunctioning Reploids become known as Mavericks.note  To combat the increasing Maverick menace, Cain helps to create the "Maverick Hunters", a group of Reploids authorized to use force in apprehending or outright stopping their violent brethren. One of Cain's creations, an advanced Reploid named Sigma, becomes the leader of this group.

Cain's work backfires again when most of the Maverick Hunter group, including Sigma, turn into Mavericks themselves. Why the others turned, we have no idea, but Sigma turned soon after getting into a fight with "Zero," a mysterious and insane robot of similar capability to X but of unknown manufacture. Sigma's defection heralds the beginning of a massive war between Mavericks and humanity — and since he feels responsible for the Maverick outbreak, X decides to team up with Zero (repaired and now sane after Sigma knocked out him out with a decisive blow to the forehead, which makes him useful to the Maverick Hunters) and put a stop to the war.

In terms of gameplay, the series has the same basic formula as the Classic series: you choose levels in no particular order and gain weapons from defeated bosses; you use the weapons in an Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system against the other bosses; lather, rinse, repeat. The X series, however, have a much more aggressive playstyle than the Classic series due to the existence of Video Game Dashing and Wall Jumping. The games' maps have a much bigger and more open design than the Classic series' maps to accommodate the new playstyle. Taking cues from the Role-Playing Game genre, the series also introduced hidden collectible items that grant a life meter boost, armor parts for X that upgrade his abilities, and interchangeable parts to enhance attributes or grant passive effects.

The series saw several sequels on the Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2. It also spawned Mega Man Zero, an even darker Sequel Series for the Game Boy Advance, in 2001. An anime OVA, The Day of Sigma, came with the PSP remake of the first game (Maverick Hunter X). Several manga adaptations of the first five games have added some additional characters (such as the Merloid Marti) and additional characterization for the various Mavericks and their motivations for defecting. Three Cardass card series, Rockman X: Megamissions, also got published; while not part of the official X canon, their place in the timeline falls roughly somewhere between X1 and X2 (and X2 and X3 for the third Megamissions).

Until 2016, Zero was the only character from the X series who appeared as a playable character in the fighting installments of Capcom's Vs. series, serving as the sole X series representative in both Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. (His Zero incarnation also appeared in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos as a Mid-Boss.) This would change with the announcement of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, where X was unveiled as a playable character for the first time in Vs. series history. Sigma himself, depicted in his Mega Man X form, is also present, serving as one-half of the Big Bad Duumvirate alongside Ultron. Additionally, both X and Zero appear in the crossover Project × Zone and its sequel, and Sigma's Mega Man X4 incarnation appears as a hidden character in Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha. Zero also appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as an Assist Trophy.

Do not confuse this series with Mega Man 10, the tenth game in the Classic series, which came out well after Mega Man X.

Two character sheets exist for this franchise: one for the main series, and one for Command Mission.


Games in the series:


Tropes present in the Mega Man X series:

    open/close all folders 

    Tropes A-M 
  • 2½D: X7 and X8. The former's gameplay jumps from 2D to 3D seamlessly without warning. The latter is a better example, with most of the gameplay being 2D with some occasional 3D moments.
  • Aborted Arc: The Maverick Hunter X version of the timeline after poor sales killed off the chance for continuing the story.
  • Achievement System: The Mega Man X Legacy Collections feature Hunter Medals that serves as as one for each collection. The achievements across both compilations ranges from "assembling x armor set in each game", "defeating a boss or enemy in a particular fashion", and "complete the opening stage of any game in both English and Japanese versions".
  • Advancing Boss of Doom: In X5, there's a battleship that serves as an Advancing Mini-Boss of Doom.
  • After the End: X6 onwards, because of the Eurasia Crisis in X5.
  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • upon Sigma's defeat, Sigma laments X's decision to side with humanity.
    • Vile is also given this treatment in the Vile Mode ending of Maverick Hunter X.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Being cheap replicas of X, Reploids (in their earlier generations at least) have the tendency for going "Maverick".
  • All There in the Manual: The developers decided to resolve all the plot-holes and Canon Discontinuity problems with the Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works that was for the aforementioned Sequel Series. It introduced the concept of the "suffering circuit", a specially-designed chip meant to give X empathy that Dr. Cain failed to successfully replicate (allegedly making them go Maverick). This is also the case with the Rockman Zero Collection timeline, a portion of the official website which had a slightly different account of the Maverick Virus (claiming that Dr. Light foresaw such a thing and made X "impervious" to viruses).
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The opening of X3 has X and Zero's home base besieged by Dr. Doppler's Mavericks.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The Fortress Levels of X5 qualify.
  • An Ice Person: Chill Penguin, Blizzard Buffalo, Frost Walrus, Duff McWhalen, Blizzard Wolfang, Avalanche Yeti.
  • Anime Theme Song:
    • "Makenai Ai ga Kitto Aru" ("We've Definitely Got a Love that Won't Lose"), "Monkey," "Moon Light" and "The Answer," "CODE CRUSH," "WILD FANG," and "Don't Wanna Be" for X4, X5, X6, X7, X8, and Maverick Hunter X respectively.
    • And let's not leave out "One More Time" for the CD-based versions of X3.
    • And X2 brings it full-circle (or rather, begins the whole trend) in "Sekai ga owaru Toki" ("Moment When the World Ends"), notibly used in Japanese commercials.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: In games where the plot is Hijacked By Sigma (X2, X3, X4, and X7) there is only one fortress gauntlet to go through that is usually only 3 - 4 stages long with the Disc-One Final Boss being fought in the penultimate stage with Sigma being tackled thererafter (as opposed to the classic series where the Disc-One Final Boss would have an entire fortress dedicated to them with another Wiley fortress to tackle thereafter.)
  • Autobots, Rock Out!: A majority of Sigma's battle themes count.
  • Art Evolution:
    • The appearances of the main characters were slightly altered in X8 (X's helmet, Zero's ponytail, Alia's upgrade of her chest, and the shape of the characters eyes). Word of God claims that it was to make them look more human. Every game made since has used an Animesque artstyle more similar to X4-X7, with Legacy Collection's art bringing the X8 characters (and Alia's redesign) into the artstyle (the old art is still used in-game).
    • Before that, the first game art was like classic Mega Man trying to be serious; by the time X4 and X5 came out the art evolved to be much less cartoony. Though this is at least partially due to changing artists between games; X1 art was done by Inafune, and it shows.
  • The Artifact: The boss rematches in the fortress stages of each game. In the Classic series a Boss Rush was an intimidating idea, because it was a rematch with the eight bosses and it was going to be the same fight as before, more or less. But the X series includes numerous upgrades for X's HP and armor, so by the time you refight the bosses, X is probably fully upgraded with much higher health, firepower, and maneuverability than when he beat them the first time, making the fights much easier. But the refights with the Robot Masters/Mavericks is a Mega Man series tradition and it's unthinkable that a game wouldn't do it.
  • Artifact of Hope:
    • Dr. Light's left many upgrades specifically designed for X scattered about the world. All of these capsules provide X with words of encouragement from his creator while bestowing upon him valuable equipment that can drastically improve his abilities to handle threats to the fragile peace between humans and robots.
    • X himself is Light's Magnum Opus, the first truly sentient robot entirely unbound from being Three Laws-Compliant, giving him tremendous capacity for good and evil while representing a paradigm shift in the relationship between man and robot. X's schematics were so advanced that Dr. Cain eagerly copied them to produce the Reploids. Unfortunately, Cain did not put them through the same moral testing programs that X went through, resulting in many of them going Maverick and sparking the Maverick Wars once Sigma was infected by Wily's Zero Virus.
  • Artistic License – Biology: The X series relies heavily on the Maverick Virus (or as it's later known the Sigma Virus), which is a computer virus, i.e. malicious self-replicating computer code, that behaves like a biological virus, in that it's transmitted through physical exposure.
  • Artistic License – Physics:
    • In Day of Sigma OVA, Sigma launches several large missiles, think ICBM sized, at Abel City. Several of these missiles touchdown and explode, leaving massive, smoking craters. Obviously, the shock waves from the explosions should've leveled the city outright.
    • Flame Mammoth uses the ground pound move, also used by Guts Man and Hard Man, to violently shake the ground when he lands from a jump. Problem is, Flame Mammoth's weight is 719 lb; most cars and trucks available today are heavier than he is, and they just don't release that much energy when they fall from similar heights.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Sigma's final form in X1, the intro stage bosses of X2 and X3, Eregion and General from X4, Illumina in X6, Sigma's One-Winged Angel forms in X5, X6, and X7, and the intro stage bosses from X7 and X8, as well as a reappearance of said robot later in X8.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: A lot of X's helmet upgrades fall under this. The SNES ones, and their Gameboy Expies, aren't much use once you memorize where they'd be useful aside from unlocking that game's respective Game-Breaker. Half of the regular X5 and X6 ones reduce weapon energy usage (which Zero nor the Ultimate Armor really need), the Shadow Armor speeds up sword attacks, and the Gaea Armor has no stated function at all. Aversions are X4 (game play is set up so weapons are still useful), X7 (attracts power ups from further away), and X8 (a weaponized form of X1's part, a quick charge, and unlimited weapon energy).
    • Charging up the X-Buster for normal mooks is only useful if you had one ready. Since they lack Mercy Invincibility, it's much faster to rapid fire them to death. Bosses are a different story. For that matter as well, charged up special weapons are situational at best, and not very useful for bosses most of the time.
  • Ax-Crazy: Before his Heel–Face Turn, Zero was very violent and very disobedient due to a programming flaw in his cognitive system. When the Maverick virus infected him, however, it ironically fixed this exact flaw, allowing him to perform a Heel–Face Turn and join the Maverick Hunters.
  • Background Boss: Rangda Bangda and Sigma's second forms in both X1 and X5; Giant Mechaniloid CF-0 in X2; Maoh the Giant in X3; the first encounter against Egregion in X4, Illumina in X6; Yadokari and Sigma's second form in X7; the second Crabz-Y encounter in X8.
  • Bad Boss: It is heavily implied that Flame Mammoth spends most of his time in his unit mocking those inferior to him in terms of strength. As an added bit of laser-guided karma, he's also the only one of the former Maverick Hunters in the first X game that defected to Sigma's side to not have any of his unit go with him, although given the setting where he is fought, he probably didn't need them anyways.
  • Bag of Spilling: The games tend to eschew all weapons and upgrades you've collected in the previous games, except for a select few. X, for example, keeps his dash upgrade after acquiring it in first game. Likewise, Zero started to Double Jump on his own starting from X6.
  • Barely-Changed Dub Name: In most cases, the standard 8 Maverick Bosses have their name changed in the overseas version in a certain way: In the original, they follow A Lizard Named "Liz" (e.g Web Spidus, Cyber Kujacker), while in the localized version they're changed into Species Surname (e.g Web Spider, Cyber Peacock).
  • Bash Brothers:
    • X and Zero as bosses in Maverick Hunter X: Vile Mode.
    • For a playable version, in X7 and X8, you can use 2 characters in a level, essentially creating your own Bash Brothers.
  • Bears Are Bad News:
    • Grizzly Slash (Crescent Grizzly) from X5. Subverted when Monstrosity Equals Weakness comes into play, seeing as he's the easiest Boss in the game.
    • X8 featured Bamboo Pandemonium, the single largest boss in the game. Ironically, pandas aren't normally the first thing people think of when they think of ferocious ursine creatures. That said, his face is still very cute. And he can kill you with one hit of his Desperation Attack.
  • Beneficial Disease: The Maverick Virus is this to Zero. In fact, according to Word of God, the virus had ironically fixed a programming bug in his "cognitive" system that made him very violent and disobedient, to the point where he performed a Heel–Face Turn soon after and joined the Maverick Hunters to face down other Mavericks. (The virus is supposed to make other robots violent by removing their inhibitions and their empathy).
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • A subversion at the beginning of X5: You as the player are the one coming to the rescue of the one in distress (who was even in disrepair), when Sigma personally attacks them.
    • X8's Hard Mode: Whoever is the backup character will be captured by Vile after that Mini-Boss fight, and the main player character will have to traverse the rest of the final level alone. In an awesome Gameplay and Story Segregation aversion, Sigma traps the main player halfway during the Boss fight, and, true to the trope, the backup character will return to save his partner.
  • Blackout Basement: Spark Mandrill's stage in X1, especially if entered after beating Storm Eagle. In X6, some stages also qualify (where you have to use misleading lights as a guide), if the right requirements are met, and X8's "Pitch Black" stage.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation:
    • X6. Which is a shame, because beneath the awful, awful localization, there is actually a reasonably serviceable story. Just how bad is the translation? See if you can try to make sense out of the below exchange:
    Zero: "Shield Sheldon...Too bad about your previous life." Correction 
    Shield Sheldon: "Don't be. I was new as a bodyguard. That's all." Correction 
    Zero: "Maverick Hunters are supposed to be able to tell a Maverick from a Reploid. Our officers are not good enough... They could cost us everything." Correction 
    Shield Sheldon: "Reploids all over the world have been needing you. I was useless as a bodyguard... And was useless to everyone else. When I accepted that fact, I accepted my fate. However, there turned out to be someone who needs me. He has given me one more chance. And therefore, I am going to fulfill my mission as a bodyguard now. I'll protect him, even if it means that I have to sacrifice my life. Come on, Zero!" Correction 
    • There is also this gem in Metal Shark Player's stage (which is itself a mistranslation of Prayer). Apparently the translators had Super Mario Bros. on their minds when the player was faced with a wall of spikes:
    Alia: "You can't jump across spiny area!"
    • The conversations with Zero Nightmare, which given as Zero Nightmare is intended to be completely insane, makes it difficult to discern what part of it was intentional. Here is the most notable example from Blaze Heatnix's stage:
    X: "Hey you! Quit fooling around!" Correction 
    Zero Nightmare: "I'm not fooling around... The fake me appeared. I don't know what's happening." Correction 
    X: "......... Shut up! I will not forgive you. Never!" Correction 
    Zero Nightmare: "Don't you know who I am? ......... ...Fine. You will be dead anyway. Heh heh heh, die! X!!" Correction 
  • Blob Monster: The infamous Yellow Devil from the classic series comes back in X5's fortress bosses, now black-colored and named Shadow Devil.
  • Blood Knight:
    • While generally overlooked, Magma Dragoon is probably the biggest example of this trope in the franchise. To wit, he causes a civil war and very nearly The End of the World as We Know It just so he could fight the protagonists! Then again, he is based off Akuma.
    • More than a few Reploids in X5 seem more interested in fighting the protagonists than they are about doing something to help save the world. Many of them (especially Duff McWhalen and Grizzly Slash) say that they've been infected by the Virus and want to fight the heroes and die with dignity. Some, like Squid Adler, do actually give X and Zero what they need, only for the Virus to choose that moment to take over their minds and force them to fight.
    • Each X5 boss seems to have different reasons for fighting, and oddly enough, the reasons can change depending on which plan to stop the Colony Drop is active. And if the colony has already been destroyed/crashed, some bosses will already have been seized by the virus.
  • Bonus Feature Failure: In X8, the navigators, Alia, Layer, and Palette, are unlockable as playable characters. They are basically feminine clones of X, Zero, and Axl respectively; however due to Gameplay and Story Integration, Alia cannot get X's capsule upgrades, Palette cannot copy enemies, and Layer gets a nice aversion by only being unable to use the Zero Armor. You also have to purchase all of X's, Zero's, and Axl's purchasable upgrades a second time in order to access them on Alia, Layer, and Palette. Additionally, using even one of them when running a stage will forbid you from choosing a navigator for that stage. Level Grinding the Navigators at least gives you something to do on your New Game Plus, and fully powering them up changes, of all things, the Capcom logo screen, which is pretty cool.
  • Book Ends:
    • The Zero series reveals that this series "ended" with the main characters sealing themselves for different purposes, which is the same state they are found in at the beginning of this series.
    • During X4, we learn that before the events of the first game, Sigma had smashed Zero's head crystal. At the end of X8, Lumine smashes Axl's head crystal.
  • Boss Rush: Every single game.
    • X1 is the only one to intersperse boss fights throughout Sigma's Fortress. The games X2 onward lock you in a room with 8 teleporters leading to each boss, much like the Classic series from 2 onward.
    • The PSP remake of the first game has X realize that Sigma had the bodies of the eight bosses repaired, but not the personalities, when he starts having the rematches.
    • Justified in X8: the Bosses in the Boss Rush are new generation Reploids copying the data of the Boss.
    • There's a variation in the second half of X8’s final level: most of the enemies are now using their abilities to morph into weaker versions of the Sigma fought a level earlier, now a Disc-One Final Boss.
    • X8 also changes up the boss rush chamber by color coding the teleporters, so you can tell where each boss is. Black = Dark Mantis, white = Avalanche Yeti, etc. There's also an optional boss in Optic Sunflower's stage where you must beat the Maverick under a time limit.
  • Boss Subtitles: Mimicking the original series.
  • Boss Tease: The ending narration of the third game mentions that X has to destroy Zero to save mankind. It foreshadows the fifth game, where X vs Zero is the Climax Boss of the game - especially in the bad end route, where Zero turns Maverick and X has to destroy him before he wreaks havoc.
  • Boss Warning Siren: The series has this starting from the fourth game, just before the boss appeared on screen and has a dialogue with the player character. It was carried over to the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX series as well, although in those cases it happened just before the fight begins after the boss's monologue.
  • Bottomless Pits: A common stage hazard.
  • Bounty Hunter: Red Alert starts off as something like this.
  • Boxing Kangaroo: Vanishing Gungaroo in X7.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy:
    • What the effect the Maverick Virus seems to have on Reploids is. Their personalities are often altered and they become violent and homicidal, sometimes to the extent that they lose all sense of themselves and go insane. Most also join Sigma's forces after infection, though whether it's forced or willing depends on the Maverick.
    • The only one completely immune to the effects of the Virus is X, who nevertheless takes damage from it when he's infected. It doesn't stop him worrying about the possibility of going Maverick, but that's for other possible reasons. He is effectively immune from the Virus.
    • Zero also appears to be immune, and is actually strengthened by being "infected". To elaborate further: Zero's behavior in the X4 flashback is not caused by the virus. Zero was sealed because he contained a flaw in his cognitive program that made him violent and unwilling to obey instructions. This behavior persisted until the virus entered his body after Sigma damaged his armor. (The virus was stored in Zero's capsule, but had not entered his body yet.) The effects of the virus on Zero's body in X5's non-canon bad ending makes him calm and helps him remember his original objective, which quite different from the crazed Zero from the X4 flashback. It should be noted that Zero's data readings do not change when he's infected. In fact, According to Word Of God, the virus actually fixed the flaw in his cognitive program, making him perform a Heel Face Turn and join the Maverick Hunters.
    • Axl, along with the other New-Gens whose copy chips have not been corrupted by Sigma's DNA, are immune the the virus as well simply due to their copy chips reverting all changes to their DNA.
  • Broad Strokes: In order to not confuse the fans, Inafune started the Zero series off with the title character sealed instead of dead, the latter of which was the original concept (how X5 ended, that is). Still leaves Capcom to make more X games.
  • Broken Aesop: The idea that the term "Maverick" being abused to deal with merely disobedient Reploids in X4 would be a lot more effective if Repliforce wasn't an army, and therefore disobedience from a massively powerful army answerable to the world governments that is suspected of murdering millions of people would be a legitimate concern. The only difference between a human army who did that would be using "traitor" or "renegade" in place of the word "maverick".
  • Brought to You by the Letter "S":
    • A stylized Greek Letter Sigma (Σ) for Sigma and the Mavericks loyal to him.
    • Zero's styalized letter Z on his left shoulder.
    • X arguably does have one in his X8 design, but it's in the side of the helmet and might just be a screw or something.
    • In Maverick Hunter X, Vile has his own red letter V on his helmet in lieu of the Sigma symbol.
  • Camp Gay:
    • Tornado Tonion, of X7.
    • Cyber Peacock too, somewhat, in X4.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Zero with his Command Arts; bonus points for calling them mostly in their Japanese names. Especially of note would be X8, where X, Axl, and several of the bosses join in the act as well, with X always doing it in English for good measure. Magma Dragoon, an otherwise normal boss in X4, also does this with Street Fighter-based attacks.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: The Nightmare Inspectors, Red Alert and most of Sigma's minions.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: X4 was the point where Grey-and-Grey Morality started to shape the conflict and things got progressivly worse for the world at large.
  • Character Development:
    X: "I have to work for the reconstruction of the world... I have no time to waste on you... If you show up, I'll defeat you."
    • A speech which actually has shades of Zero's personality to it.
  • Character Select Forcing: X6 was horrible about this; choosing the wrong armor set made the game very hard in the fortress. A variant also existed in X8, where most of the main stages required the X/Axl team to collect all or most of the items hidden throughout — effectively benching the most popular character in the series!
  • Characterization Marches On: Not applied to only one character, but the concept as whole for the series. In the beginning X was said to be special, not only for being the origin to all Reploids but for being to most humane out of the bunch, his emotions and potential for growth can be compared to that of any human; in turn other Reploids, and even Zero the other Super Prototype himself, commented on how they couldn't (or considered a waste to) feel and express themselves like X did. A few games later, this concept seems to be all but abandoned, pretty much all other Reploids and Zero are Ridiculously Human Robots, they express themselves and have distinctive personalities like any other human; X now is more of an outspoken pacifist, as opposed to someone who worries because he was the only one who could.
  • Charged Attack:
    • Shouldn't need elaboration. Also applies to the Z-saber in X3 and X6 (when used by X).
    • That's Type B. Giga Attacks sometimes fall into this category, as Type A.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Almost every game features an ally turning on you, with Sigma's revolt in the first game being the most notable.
  • Climax Boss: Built up by four games' worth of storyline? Check. Very awesome boss battle theme? Check. Supposed to end the series? Check. Mega Man X vs. Zero is the right way to go. Tweak a few more things in the storyline, and it would even be more awesome. The battle was even reused for the future series: Copy-X vs. Zero (twice!) for Mega Man Zero, and Mega Man Model X vs. Mega Man Model Z in Mega Man ZX.
  • Colour-Coded Timestop: The Dark Hold ability from X5.
  • Combat and Support:
    • X, as protagonist of the series, fits combat in this way, but he wields a support weapon (long-range buster). Zero, who scouts along for support, is the one with the combat weapon (the Z-Saber).
    • Alia, Douglas, and Signas join in as support.
    • Axl is a balance between combat and support, while X starts fading almost fully into the support position.
  • Compilation Rerelease:
    • The Mega Man X Collection, compiling Mega Man X from X1 through X6 plus the unlockable Mega Man Battle & Chase on a single disc. It also features a Gallery where artwork, original sketches, and unused music can be unlocked through beating each game. Originally the collection was also intended to be updated versions of these games, but due to complications that arose from of using the idea for Maverick Hunter X as a remake of X1-X6, the idea for both games was scrapped.
    • The Mega Man X Legacy Collection are a pair of compilation re-releases that compiles the two halves of the series, X1-X4 in X Legacy Collection 1 and X5-X8 in X Legacy Collection 2, along with the ability to play their western and Japanese versions, a Museum packed with artwork and sketches, a Music Player featuring music from the collection's respective games, a gallery of official merchandise, a collection trailers of the series, the Day of Σ OVA from Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X, and a new boss rush X Challenge mode where players fight a combination of two bosses throughout most of the Mega Man X series. The games in the collections themselves also feature a new "Rookie Hunter Mode" option that makes the games easier for beginners. Unfortunately, for the international versions, some of the game's music were replaced likely due to licencing issues.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • X5 is chock full of these. There's also a prime example in X6, where the plot is driven by the Big Bad getting infected by the The Virus from Zero's piece that he took in the crash site of the Colony Drop.
    • In X's bad ending in X5, he states his dream is to create a paradise where humans and Reploids peacefully coexist. The name of that paradise? Elysium.
    • After Gate is defeated in X6, X sees Isoc's lifeless body, which Alia says is similar to the Erasure phenomenon from Xtreme 2.
    • X8 contains some of these. Sigma makes a reference to Zero's virus infecting him in their first battle, and the colony virus is brought up by X.
  • Cool Airship: Storm Eagle had his personal airship, called the Death Rogumer. After his defeat, it crashed on Spark Mandrill's power plant, causing the power to fail.
  • Cool Bike: The second game introduces the Ride Chaser, the bike variant of the Ride Armor with built in guns. They also lack wheels - they hover off the ground. The fourth game makes them cooler with a damaging dash move, and lets you ride it on water as well (much like a jetski). And in the eighth game they even come with moves that fit your characters.
  • Cranial Processing Unit: Many large bosses and mini-bosses (as well as Sigma's One-Winged Angel forms) can only be damaged in the head.
  • Creepy Centipedes: Magna Centipede from X2, who's a ninja hacker centipede robot. There's also a more traditional one as the mini-boss of Neon Tiger's stage in X3.
  • Cultural Translation + Punny Name: In the English version of X5, the bosses' names were plays on current and former members of Guns N' Roses.
  • Cute Bruiser: All of the female playable characters to some extent.
  • Cyber Cyclops: Various Mechaniloids.
  • Darker and Edgier:
    • In general, the early entries in this series are an excellent example of this trope being used well, without dumping on the original series.
    • X2, for example, shows a very violent way to kill a Maverick; if you kill Wire Sponge using his primary weakness, the poor dude gets sliced in half.
  • Deadly Euphemism: "Retirement".
  • Degraded Boss: A boss that has been degraded so much, he was turned into a mook (an Elite Mook, but still)! And he's Sigma of the previous games! See Boss Rush above.
  • Desperation Attack: Starting from X2 onwards, most bosses get one when they get to low health. Some of them deal incredible damage, some are tricky to avoid, while some put the player into an undesirable situation.
  • Disc-One Nuke:
    • See one of the Game Breaker page for this series. Also, through a cheat code, the Ultimate and Zero Armors can be available at the very start of some of the games (X5, X6).
    • The first game gives us a double-dose. Chill Penguin's stage, which has the mandatory Leg Capsule. There's also the fact that the aforementioned Boss is a Warmup Boss, meaning that defeating him would be a good start for the game!
    • It's tricky, but far from impossible in X1 to beat Storm Eagle first (without the ability to dash against his wind) so long as you know where and when to start running. The reward, Storm Tornado, rips through stages like nothing.
    • If preferred, X could defeat Chill Penguin or lose all his lives in Chill Penguin's stage after getting the Leg Upgrade, then go to the airport to face Storm Eagle and access the Helmet Capsule.
    • If you have the guts to take on Sting Chameleon and Storm Eagle first and get the Buster upgrade from Flame Mammoth's stage soon after, you're rewarded with the ability to constantly turn yourself invincible for the rest of the game, and all for relatively little ammo consumption to boot!
  • Disc-One Final Boss: The X-Hunters, Dr. Doppler, General, Dynamo, Gate, Red, and, ironically, Sigma himself in X8, not once, but twice!! Capcom is in love with this trope.
  • Distaff Counterpart:
    • In X8, Alia, Layer, and Palette are counterparts to X, Zero, and Axl, respectively.
    • Concerning the Easter Eggs below, they can be Joke Characters, too, since none of them can use their respective Spear Counterparts' armor upgrades. At least they do have access to all of the upgrade chips.
  • Distant Sequel: The series takes place a century after the events of the original series.
  • Doppleganger Attack: From X4 onwards, there would be a boss that specializes in creating at least one copy of himself, whether or not his Boss Weapon was based on this ability.
  • Downer Ending: Zero's ending in X5. Though having finally defeated Sigma for good, Zero himself is mortally wounded in process, and as he dies, he sees the flashback of his evil past (of Dr. Wily), as well as the memory of his deceased girlfriend Iris, whom he could never meet again.
  • Drought Level of Doom:
    • To a certain extent, most stages were used to weaken you for the boss and waste your lives and life containers. For most Mega Man players, the first life is a throwaway regardless because you probably won't be able to defeat the boss unless you're at full health.
    • This isn't really the case in the first game, because the bosses were pretty easy to Buster to death. There were some exceptions, though — you were expected to toss a life or two to Launch Octopus before he would deign to be destroyed, for one.
  • Dub-Induced Plot Hole:
    • When obtaining the Black Armor for Zero in X5; Dr. Light, of all people, was the one who gave it to Zero! And he (Light) made it just for him (Zero) In the Japanese version, Light talks about releasing the power that sleeps in Zero.
    • And of course, the big one from X3:
    "Unknown to X, his destiny has already been decided. To save mankind, he must destroy Zero. But only time will tell, when and why..."
    Mega Man X3's ending
    "In his memory, he knows his destiny is fixed to do battle with Zero. And beyond this point, what will they see?"
    Rockman X3's ending
    • Likely due to an error of translation, in the dialogue with Volt Kraken when playing as X from X5, X refers Launch Octopus as "Octopardo". This was fixed in Legacy Collection.
  • Dub Name Change:
    • Most of the Mavericks (Icy Penguigo to Chill Penguin, Storm Eagleed to Storm Eagle, etc). The name of the rogue Maverick from the first, third, and eighth games got his name changed from Vava (which would be pronounced in Japanese roughly like "Boba", as in Boba Fett whose Expy he is) to Vile in the English version. (In fact, the reason they couldn't just call him "Boba"note  outright was because of trademark issues, so they had to spell it Vava). The name change in English resorting to "Vile" had, in turn, an effect on the following series (especially since Zero was created by Dr. Wily).
    • And in fact, the term "Maverick." They were called "Irregulars" in Japan, though this is probably because the noun "irregular" in English refers to non-conventional or private military forces of the type usually employed by governments (which might be a good description of the organization to which the heroes belong), something wholly unlike what the Japanese name was supposed to mean.
  • Dueling Player Characters: In X5, if you can save Zero from going Maverick then X and Zero get into an argument that escalates into a fight (with you playing whomever you took in to the level). If Zero goes Maverick then you have no choice and X has to destroy Zero.
  • Early Game Hell: You always start with an undersized health bar, no special weapons, and (if playing as X) no Armor pieces. Fortunately, the bosses are all designed around this so that you can fight them with just the X-Buster; there'll also be a dedicated Warmup Boss among them which you can fight easily without their weaknesses.
  • Easily Forgiven: A weird zigzagging of this trope. Reploids are declared Maverick for not obeying humanity perfectly, then in the aftermath people realize how wrong they were and retroactively declare them not Maverick... despite the accused reploids doing things like committing insubordination despite being a military for petty, self-serving reasons while under legitimate suspicion of committing a massacre, engaging in city-destroying war crimes, and endangering the planet with their giant space cannon, or ethnically cleansing the human population of a city, torturing prisoners, and endangering the planet with a missile designed to scatter over half the world a substance that killed or drove insane all but one of the test subjects... who became the guy in charge of the organization that did the aforementioned atrocities.
  • Easter Egg: The Hadoken and Shoryuken in some of the games, of course. In X8, Zero also gets a Hurricane Kick with the K Knuckles.
  • Easy Level Trick: There's a section of Sigma's first fortress in X1 that's full of springs. The springs launch you toward the ceiling when you step on them, making the section rather difficult, but if you just use the dash feature you bounce from spring to spring avoiding enemies and zooming past the lasers, landing at the end without a scratch.
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Per the previous series, everyone's weak to something; you just have to figure out what.
  • Elemental Shapeshifter: Toxic Seahorse in X3 can turn into acid. How a robot does this is anyone's guess.
  • Elite Army: The Maverick Hunters are always shorter in numbers than their adversaries, but they consistently come out on top, largely owing to the fact that two (later three) of their members are just that exceptional.
  • Enemy Chatter: Starting from X4.
  • Eternal Villain: Sigma is essentially one for the series. He swore to always return so long as X and Zero exist to torment them and slaughter humanity, and that promise has certainly stuck one way or another. In X8, Sigma seemed to finally acknowledge his increasing body decay and limited time, so he hijacked the production of New Generation Reploids to instill his personal data across all of them except for Axl. While Sigma's next stand appeared to have finally been his last, it didn't matter, because he effectively created an entire line of Sigmas to succeed him. Even proclaimed by himself in Megaman X7.
    Zero: You never give up, do you? Even when we break you down to scraps, you always come back.
    Sigma: That's right, folks! I'll do it again and again! I will make X and Zero mine! Now come and get me! Give me a good fight! Like you always do!
  • Evasive Fight-Thread Episode: X5.
  • Excuse Plot: The Legacy Collection Challenge Mode has some backgrounds, but those were mostly excuses so you can just go fight two bosses at once.
  • Expy: Avalanche Yeti (and to a lesser extent Frost Walrus) seems specifically based on Frost Man. Several Mavericks borrow from earlier Robot Masters, in fact: Ride Boarski is like Turbo Man and may have partially inspired Nitro Man, Dark Necrobat looks quite a bit like Shade Man, Commander Yanmark looks almost exactly like Gyro Man, Magna Centipede borrows from Shadow Man, Launch Octopus is based on Napalm Man right down to the missile launcher shoulders, Boomer Kuwanger is a mixture of Cut Man and Quick Man, and Flame Hyenard borrows from Burner Man.
  • Fake Difficulty:
    • X6. It gets particularly egregious in Metal Shark Player's stage, where there's a ceiling trying to crush you, instant death spikes, and ice — in a trash compactor, making no logical sense — all on the same screen.
    • Gate's fortress is even worse. Three words. Spikes of Doom. No, Capcom, coating virtually every surface with them does not constitute as difficulty. Ironically, this very thing makes using the Shadow Armor a Game-Breaker due to its invulnerability to spikes.
    • Gate's fortress also has points that are impossible to get through without certain armors/upgrades. And you can't exit the level manually. Hope you didn't have a lot of lives on hand.
    • If a reploid holding a part (say, the Jumper, practically essential for reaching higher-up areas) is killed, they're lost forever. This makes getting certain items, such as a Sub-Tank, literally impossible without restarting the game from scratch.
  • Fake Longevity: The Central Museum in X6, if you're trying to save all the Reploids. It requires multiple runs to get into all the rooms, each of which has at least one Reploid.
  • Fighting Your Friend:
    • The penultimate boss fight of X5 saw X fighting against Zero.
    • Zero vs. Iris from X4. It doesn't end well.
    • In Legacy Collection Challenge Mode, X can fight Iris as well (alongside Double), though she will still refer to Zero, basically about her having to fight her boyfriend's best friend, and same goes with X fighting his best friend's girlfriend.
  • Finishing Move: For X8, there's the tag-team attack, which, if inflicted as the final blow for the boss, nets the highest rank. In the latter, in a Matrix Raining Code background, regardless of the weapon equipped on the characters, they will always use the following: X has a Wave-Motion Gun, Zero's Laser Blade grows BIG, and Axl combines Trigger-Happy, Guns Akimbo, and Beam Spam. If used on a boss to deal the finishing blow, the color of the field will be orange instead of the normal green, and the background static will buzz intensely.
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: Some of the games have Mavericks who use these;
    • X: Flame Mammoth (fire), Chill Penguin (ice), and Spark Mandrill (lightning). Interestingly enough, Fire beats Ice which beats Lightning, compatible with the Mega Man 6 pattern and completely opposite of what happened in the original Mega Man.
    • X4: Magma Dragoon (fire), Frost Walrus (ice), and Web Spider (lightning).
    • X5: Mattrex (fire), Duff McWhalen (ice), and Squid Adler (lightning).
    • X8: Burn Rooster (fire), Avalanche Yeti (ice), and Gigabolt Man-O-War (lightning). Here, lightning beats ice which beats fire, like in the original Mega Man and in Mega Man & Bass.
  • Flanderization:
    • For X, Zero and Sigma, as the series progresses. Especially because Executive Meddling forced the series to go beyond the creator's planned ending, X5.
    • Even the term "Maverick" isn't safe; originally used to describe out-of-control reploids (mostly viral infected, though the viral infection wasn't realized until the third game), then it became a warped political tool to refer to any designated threat becoming a target, starting with the Repliforce (though the Repliforce's complete idiocy in handling the situation that got them declared Maverick in the first place would have necessitated their disbanding anyway). Eventually the "Maverick" label escalated to the point it became a convenient tool to refer to anyone that "needed" disposing of, even harmless Reploids trying to stay alive during an energy crisis like in the Zero series.
  • Floating Continent: Sky Lagoon in X4.
  • Flunky Boss:
    • Flame Hyenard is the worst offender here. You're riding on a Mechaniloid that's trying to shoot you down with missiles! And if that's not enough, he makes two copies of himself as well!
    • Infinity Mijinion from X6 is even worse. It's reflected on his namehe can make copies of himself indefinitely, to the point of filling the entire screen with his clones.
    • Split Mushroom and Axle The Red from X4 and X5 respectively also qualify.
    • Sigma becomes this in X6.
  • Foregone Conclusion:
  • Four Is Death: X4 was the first game in the X series to escalate the body count up to a horrific extreme- and first to present a legitimate threat to destroy the entire planet. It was also the same installment where Zero suffered a tragic loss... the death of his crush, Iris. In addition, three more key-to-the-plot Reploids perish: Colonel, a martyr to his own cause, Double, who reveals himself as a Double Agent and gets a Karmic Death, and General, who performs a Heroic Sacrifice. That makes four major deaths in the story. note 
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble completed by X5:
    • The fast-action Anti-Hero Zero (choleric), the conscientious defender X (melancholic), the father-figure Signas (phlegmatic), the flamboyant Axl (sanguine), and Douglas (eclectic).
    • Lady reploids of X8: Alia (choleric), Palette (phlegmatic), and Layer (eclectic).
    • The lone X-hunter (in his own right), X2's X-Hunters, and the Big Bad Sigma: Vile (super choleric), Agile (melancholic), Serges (phlegmatic), Violen (sanguine), and Sigma (eclectic).
  • Frame-Up: Happens in X4 to the Repliforce, by Magma Dragoon and his forces wearing the Repliforce sigil.
  • Franchise Zombie: Invoked Series creator Keiji Inafune wanted to stop the series after X5, but Executive Meddling forced three more games out of the series, and quality suffered as a result.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: During the X vs. Zero battle in X5, the winning combatant remarks that they didn't expect the loser to use Soul Body as a final attack and then collapses from their injuries. If you squint, you'll see X/Zero actually send out Soul Body to attack the player right at the end of the usual explosion that signifies a defeated boss.
  • Full-Boar Action: Hellride Boarski, a mohawked motorcycle-based gang leader.
  • Full Health Bonus: The Hadouken and Shoryuken secret moves from the first and second games respectively will defeat virtually any enemy in the game in a single hit, but X must be at full health to use them.
  • Game Mod: Due to the games in the Legacy Collections save for X1-X3 being native ports of the original games, fans have taken upon themselves to not restore features cut from the Japanese version back into International releases, as well as restoring the Japanese voice-overs for the games that lack proper dual-audio support, the uncut anime FMV sequences in X4, and the Anime Theme Songs of each games that featured them.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration:
    • Being infected by The Virus in X5 causes X to constantly take damage for a time. Zero becomes invulnerable.
    • This is given further backing in the battle with Maverick Zero, who, if not defeated in a certain amount of time, becomes invincible and starts spamming Genmurei.
    • Convoluted example in the same game: At the start, the player has to choose which character to use for the first level: either X or Zero. Choosing one will have a bonus in that character's abilities (the Force/Fourth Armor or the Z-buster, respectively). The other bonus will not be available for the rest of the game, on account of being severely damaged by Sigma prior to the first Boss battle.
    • And again in X5: fail to stop the Colony Drop, and Zero will "awaken." and will be unavailable for the rest of the game.
    • In X5-X6, armor parts can only be used once they're assembled whole as opposed to them being instantly melded onto X's body to be used immediately. Dr. Light claims it because of security reasons, but the actual reason is that there are 2 sets of obtainable armors (not counting the Ultimate Armor) as opposed to just one; making them be useable immediately would clash with the interchangeable armors concept. This is revamped in X8 where you can mix and match armor parts; so in that game, despite having 2 sets of armor, Dr. Light's capsules can immediately make X use that armor part right after he gets it (on the same level).
  • Ghost Leg Lottery: The Bospider descends in this pattern during your battle against it, and can only be damaged in a short window right after it reaches the ground. You have to quickly read its randomly-generated path and evade it while getting in position to shoot it.
  • Giant Spider: Bospider from X, and Web Spider from X4.
  • Genre Shift:
    • The SNES games are basically what Mega Man would be like in the future, with the cartoonish designs and relatively simple plot. X4's story is much in the vein of 80's anime, with more realistic (but still highly stylized) settings and morally ambiguous members of both sides. X5 and X6 are Darker and Edgier than the rest of the series, featuring high-stakes situations and huge call backs to the Classic era. X7, X8, and Command Mission strike a blend between the Urban Fantasy theme of the SNES era and the free-standing theme of the PS1 era.
    • Mega Man X: Command Mission. It takes a break from the action-platforming gameplay the series is known for and delves into the JRPG scene.
    • Mega Man X7 forces shifts between 2D platformer and 3D third-person shooter gameplay throughout the game, with questionable results.
  • Grand Finale: X5. Callbacks to the earlier series and the rest of the X series, a Climax Boss foreshadowed by all four of the previous games, the return of a classic villain, and a potentially apocalyptic plot. A fitting end to the series...Too bad Capcom had to keep making more games against Inafune's intentions.
  • Gratuitous English:
    • The original Japanese names of the Mavericks. X6 and beyond used these for all translations, leading to such oddities as Metal Shark Player (?), Vanishing Gungaroo, and Tornado Tonion.
    • "Tonion" is an attempted Woolseyism on "Debunion" (debu/"fat" and onion). Vanishing Gungaroo's name is a portmanteau of "gun" and "kangaroo." In general, many Mavericks' Japanese names are a corruption of the English name for whatever animal they resemble — Wheel Gator's Japanese name is Wheel Alligates, for instance. It's just that in X6, they stopped changing them to make sense for the English version.
    • Metal Shark Player's bizarre name comes from a mistranslation of "Prayer," as in praying. Suitably, he has an ability to resurrect old bosses using the scrap metal nearby.
    • In one case, Magna Centipede, this was actually sort of averted. It was thought that Japanese kids wouldn't know the English word "centipede", so the developers spent a lot of time trying to think of a better name before settling on "Hyakulegger," "hyaku" meaning "a hundred."
    • And in the cases of Boomer Kuwanger and Infinity Mijinion, the names are only partially in English — leaving English speakers baffled as to what a "Kuwanger" is.
  • Gravity Master: Gravity Beetle of X3 and Gravity Antonion of X8.
  • Gravity Screw: Cyber Peacock's stage in X4, Dark Dizzy's stage in X5, and Gravity Antonion's stage in X8.
  • Green Thumb: Axle the Red from X5 and Bamboo Pandamonium from X8.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: As the series went on, the lines separating who's the good guys and the baddies became increasingly blurred. X4 showed how the label of "Maverick" can be tossed around indiscriminately and how this can have tragic consequences, X6's plot only happened because Gate was betrayed and cast out of a society simply because he took risks no one else would (aside from his creations being too strong), and Lumine in X8 genuinely believed that his force-evolution plot would end the wars.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • A minor, yet mandatory, example in X6: High Max (as the second fortress Boss) requires a certain combination of attacks to beat.
    • The Hadouken upgrade in the original, and most of the special unlockable powers in the following installments. The Hadouken in particular requires you not only to have all of the other upgrades and items (many of which are Guide Dang-Its themselves), but also to jump into a specific Bottomless Pit and die four times in a row before it appears.
    • An optional version is the method for unlocking Axl's special armor in X8 (you have to deal the final blow to the boss with him as well as pick up all of his upgrades), but you might well end up doing it without even knowing it.
    • The power weakness order can be a Guide Dang It!, especially to the uninitiated. Each boss is weak to a certain power, but there is hardly any hint as to what power. If you've played previous installments, there's a bit of logic to it — wind blows out fire, fire tends to burn plants or melt ice, etc. — but you're otherwise playing a guessing game. Moreover, the game usually has a preset pattern which allows you to defeat every boss with the least amount of trouble, not to mention taking advantage of the weaknesses of any of the special bosses along the way. Again, there's not a hint on what this is. The games do tend to lean towards Monstrosity Equals Weakness, but this isn't a universal truth.
    • The special bosses are even worse about this. While regular bosses have an obvious reaction to the power they're weak against, most special bosses don't, so the only way to tell if you're doing it right is to check the amount of damage you do. This is particularly important in X3, as defeating the special bosses with the right weapon is essential to getting the Z-Saber upgrade for X.
    • The some of the Rare Metals in X8 that needs to be unearthed by a charged Crystal Wall.
  • Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: Most of X6. The exception is the second fortress stage, where High Max and Gate are just as hard as the stage itself.
  • Heart Container: Heart Tanks.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Subverted — The Hero, X, prefers an Arm Cannon. It's The Lancer, Zero who prefers swords (more specifically, a Laser Blade).
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: With the amount of time (and dedication) X and Zero spend together, they're very easily this.
  • Hijacked by Ganon:
    • A staple of all games with the exception of Mega Man X8, where Sigma has the final boss title hijacked from him.
    • Parodied in the Hunter Medals of the Mega Man X Legacy Collections. There's an achievement for defeating Sigma and Lumine at the end of each game in both collections, each one featuring a title joking about Sigma's defeat only to rise back from the dead in the next game.
  • Hollywood Chameleons: Sting Chameleon of X1.
  • Honor Before Reason: Maverick Hunter X has the pre-fight dialogue with several of the Mavericks point out that they're followers of this logic. X specifically points out that their actions will have them classified as Mavericks, and they don't deny it, but believe that what they're fighting for is right. The one exception is Storm Eagle, who doesn't deny the Maverick classification, but seems genuinely remorseful about the fact that he'll be considered a psycho and have to fight X as a result.
  • Human Popsicle: Many Mavericks weak to ice based attacks (and our heroes) will get frozen this way. Overdrive Ostrich in X2 is a variant, instead vulnerable to being sealed in crystal, but it's the same idea.
  • Humongous Mecha:
    • The Gigantic Mechaniloid series of bosses.
    • Some of the Mavericks themselves (particularly General) could count as these on their own.
  • Iconic Outfit: If anyone doesn't know Zero because of his badassery, it would be because of his Booblights...
  • I Die Free: Many of the bosses in X5 that are infected by The Virus challenged X/Zero for this reason.
  • Improvised Platform:
    • X1: A charged Shotgun Ice will allow X to fire out a sled that he can ride on.
    • X2: Enemies trapped with the Crystal Hunter can be used as platforms.
    • X3: Using a charged Frost Shield underwater creates a rideable ice block that floats to the surface.
    • X4: The Lightning Web creates an improvised wall for the player to Wall Jump up.
    • X6: Ice Burst causes X to fire out a spread of 2 projectiles and an ice block, which he can push around and stand on.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests:
    • The Dr. Light capsules, in all games. A popular Epileptic Tree for it is that all of them are actually one, single capsule.
    • Just to give the most bizarre example, there's a capsule in the Dinosaur Tank, a place that is flying all the time and did not exist in Light's time.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: So many...
    • X: Hadouken and Zero's Z-Buster. Subverted in the latter's case, as it requires you not to complete the Side Quest.
    • X2: Shoryuken.
    • X3: The Hyper Max Armor chip and Zero's Z-saber.
    • X5: Ultimate and Zero/Black Armors; both armors exist as infinity plus one armors since their first appearance, with the exception of X7.
    • X8: Sigma's BFS. This game also marked the first (and so far, only) appearance of Axl's "White Armor". X and Zero can also get their Ultimate Armor and Black Armor respectively in this game.
  • Informed Attribute: Of the setting itself. Just how well do humans and reploids get along? It'd be nice to know, but the one recurring human has been retconned out of the series recently. Becomes fairly ridiculous when Lumine mentions that said relationship has irrevocably changed and manages to confound the heroes. Do they know either?
  • Inherently Funny Words: Metal Shark Player.
  • In-Series Nickname: Rarely is X referred to by his full name, Mega Man X.
  • Instrumental Theme Tune: "Variable X," the theme that symbolizes X's growth and Zero's trust in him. It was this at first, but later the theme became more attached to dramatic scenes mostly involving Zero's death or any sacrifice he makes for X. That said, the theme still follows both warriors, zig-zagging to which one it truly represents, leading to the conclusion it belongs to both of them.
  • Japanese Beetle Brothers: Boomer Kuwanger (Kuwagatamushi) and Gravity Beetle (Kabutomushi). They actually are brothers, too.
  • Judge, Jury, and Executioner / Knight Templar: The Maverick Hunters were forced into this trope more often than not due to both extreme circumstances and the complete unwillingness of their targets to cooperate. Needless to say, X was very unhappy about this fact.
  • Kangaroo Pouch Ride: Vanishing Gungaroo starts his battle riding a mother kangaroo-shaped Ride Armor, its cockpit being in its "pouch".
  • Kill All Humans:
    • Suddenly Reploids, thanks to their advanced programming that allows them to enjoy a personality, can malfunction and end up wanting to exterminate and not care about humans, aptly named Mavericks. Thanks to the circuit that makes X "worry" about the value of humans and reploids not being perfect in other reploids, and thus extremely vunerable to the virus, which exploits the cracks.
    • This is also at times implied to be an inherent part of the reploid's free will: Just as a human can freely choose the Dark Side, reploids can do the same. The flaw simply makes them more vulnerable to physical and external influences on their behavior.
  • King of Beasts: Slash Beast from X4, who has a leadership position in charge of an army unit.
  • Land, Sea, Sky: In X4, you face off against high-ranking officers of Repliforce's Army (Slash Beast), Navy (Jet Stingray) and Air Force (Storm Owl)
  • Levels Take Flight: The stages for Storm Eagle (X1), Storm Owl (X4), The Skiver/Spiral Pegacion (X5), and Wind Crowrang (X7) all involve (in some way) their personal armadas, with the actual battle against these Mavericks usually taking place on their personal aircraft/flagship.
  • Life Meter: The Life Energy meter.
  • Light and Mirrors Puzzle: Shield Sheldon's stage in X6.
  • Limit Break: Giga Attacks. Also, each boss, starting with the third game, will unleash a more powerful attack starting at 50% health, but only once (it either is very difficult to avoid, or has a lingering effect).
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Zero and X respectively, in a way. Zero, as a prominent Z-saber user, is stronger than X at first, but when X is fully upgraded with the weapons from bosses as well as Powered Armors, X becomes an all-powerful warrior in his own right.
  • Live Item: Technically, the Reploids you need to rescue in X5, X6 and X7. They'll give you goods (commonly a 1-Up) when you rescue them. The X6 and X7 variants give you equipment as well.
  • Living Structure Monster: Rangda Bangda, which comes up twice: once in the first game, and once in the fifth game as its powered up form.
  • Locked Out of the Fight: In X2 and X3 notably, Zero will arrive in the last level, declare he is "Going ahead to destroy the core," and will "catch up to you later." Also mentioned in the X5 intro stage and after the final battle.
  • Luck-Based Mission: X5 and the cannon. The cannon will only successfully fire half the time, no matter how well you do. Also, the shuttle can in fact fail to destroy the colony even if you do gather all the parts. Conversely, you can fire the cannon right off the bat and it actually has a decent chance of destroying the colony. The success of the shuttle seems tied to which character you've been giving preference to. For instance, a playthrough focused on building up Zero will usually have a successful Shuttle Operation, for obvious reasons.
  • Macabre Moth Motif: Morph Moth, whose stage is the robot equivalent of a graveyard with zombies.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Happens literally (the massacre part, that is) in the climax of the OVA.
  • Magma Man: Magma Dragoon from X4.
  • Mana Meter: The Weapon Energy meter.
  • Meaningless Lives: X5 and X6 were especially ridiculous, as getting a Game Over did not even make you lose your level checkpoint. Also, the littering of hostages in many stages, each of whom granted an extra life, meant maxing out at nine lives was too easy.
  • A Mech by Any Other Name: Ride Armors.
  • Mechanical Evolution: Done rather uniquely; all Reploids are 'replica androids' derived from the titular X, who was designed with 'limitless potential,' the capability to evolve to (hopefully) overcome any obstacle he was presented with. As X is forced to fight and evolve, more and more powerful Reploids can be made based on him, allowing the species itself to evolve over time.
  • Meta Twist: Like Dr. Wily before him, Sigma is always the Big Bad and Final Boss in every game, and if he isn't outright stated to be the Big Bad right off the bat, then he's either be The Man Behind the Man or he'll hijack the plot at the last minute...except for the two games where he doesn't (X8 and Command Mission.)
  • Minecart Madness: Armored Armadillo's stage in X1. The minecarts themselves travel very fast, mow down nearby Mooks in an instant, and are in fact required to cross the large chasm connecting the end of the mine to the entrance of the Boss Room.
  • Mini-Mecha: The Ride Armors seen in most of the games, available for use to the playable characters. Vile more than often uses them in his appearances as well.
  • Monstrosity Equals Weakness: The more animalistic or inhuman Mavericks are always level bosses. It's the humanoid Reploids like Sigma or Vile that are the more powerful and dangerous Mavericks.
  • Motive Decay: Invoked with the Maverick label, which was originally used to describe rogue Reploids infected with the Maverick virus, and then starting with Mega Man X4 began to be applied to political enemies as an excuse for the Maverick Hunters to wipe them out. By the time Mega Man Zero comes around the Maverick virus has ceased to exist and "Mavericks" are basically just any Reploid the Neo Arcadian government wants dead.
  • Multiple Endings: Subversion in X2 and X3. Gathering all of Zero's parts and keeping the same character alive, respectively, definitely changes things in the final battles, but they only slightly affect the ending. Played straight in later games, though.
  • Multi-Platform: Mega Man X Collection and Mega Man X: Command Mission, both available on PlayStation 2 and GameCube.
  • Multipurpose Tongue: Sting Chameleon from X1 is all about this trope. He uses his tongue as his primary attack, and can hang from the ceiling to rain damaging spikes down from the ceiling.
  • Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: In X3, in addition to the Powered Armor, you can get an upgrade chip from the capsule that will upgrade one of the parts. Once you select one (by accepting Dr. Light's offer to add the chip to the respective part), you can't have the others, but you can still get the other armor parts. However, there's a secret way to get all of them at once, and with a nice touch of gold color!

    Tropes N-Z 
  • Named After Somebody Famous: The Maverick bosses in X5 are named after the members (and ex-members) of Guns N' Roses. This gets downright punny with a Maverick rose named Axle. See Shout-Out below.
  • Never Trust a Title: X isn't the main character of X7.
  • New Game Plus: Xtreme 1 and Xtreme 2 allowed this, particularly with the latter's parts system. X7 also featured this so you can carry over the upgrades you got from Reploids. X8, which features the most item collection in the series, lets you cut loose with all your prizes — indeed, it's the only way to unlock each character's special armor.
  • Nintendo Hard: X6, thanks to the endless array of instant death spikes. Combined with every other instant-kill trap, utilized in the most sadistic way possible.
  • No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Any animated cutscene with X shows him in his base form, with whatever armor powerups you have being absent. In-game scenes keep the armor on though, leading to continuity problems in X7 and X8 which go from in game to animated during the final boss fights.
  • No Canon for the Wicked: Averted in that, in the games with Multiple Endings, the next games after those almost always follow the bad ending.
  • No Endor Holocaust: Averted in X6; just because you blew up the space colony doesn't solve the problem of the debris crashing and causing havoc.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Many instances. For one, X wouldn't be harmed by spikes if he stands on them right after he defeats a boss.
  • Odd Name Out: The Maverick bosses follow the "Adjective, then Animal-Noun" naming convention except the English version of X5, whose Mavericks were instead named after members of Guns N' Roses. Also, X6 is the series starts going with the original Japanese names of the Mavericks, leading to weird names like Infinity Mijinion and Rainy Turtloid.
  • Ominous Owl: Storm Owl of X4.
  • One-Hit Kill: The Hadouken and the Shoryuken from the first and second games, respectively.
  • One-Man Army:
    • In X7, Zero comes close to literally being one, after X retires, until at least he was joined by the "volunteer" Axl.
    • In fact, most of the legwork of the Maverick Hunters seem to rely only on X, Zero, and (later) Axl. It's only in The Movie Day of Sigma that other Maverick Hunters are actually shown fighting (and, even then, just briefly).
    • This is played with, since the Mavericks always seem to rely on a mere 8 bosses, suggesting that both sides deploy forces against each other beyond what we see.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted, unlike in the Classic series. While Maverick bosses never have their species repeated, some of them do share the same adjective, ie Flame Mammoth and Flame Stag, Blizzard Buffalo and Blizzard Wolfang, and Storm Eagle and Storm Owl.
  • One-Wheeled Wonder: Rush Roader.
  • Optional Boss: There's a bonus Mini-Boss in the first game, guarding one of the Light capsules. There are also some optional fights in X3 and X6.
  • Orchestra Hit Techno Battle: As the series start in the nineties, many of the theme songs are techno, with a few greater ones being orchestra as well. Best example would be X5's final stage, where combined with the trippy background makes the it as much of a rave party as a climactic fight.
  • Outside-the-Box Tactic: While many bosses have Logical Weaknesses, Launch Octopus has one of these - the boomerang attack can cut off his tentacles and prevent him from using his homing and energy drain attacks. Use the same attack on Flame Mammoth to cut off his trunk and stop him from shooting globs of oil he can turn into pillars of fire with his main weapon.
  • Original Video Animation:
    • Day of Sigma, available after finishing the first game's remake. It's a prequel to events in the series; however, it retcons certain aspects of the series canon (eg. Sigma's motivations, Dr. Cain's death [he was shown/mentioned in games up to X4; especially in X2, where it was he who rebuilt Zero from the parts X stole from the X-Hunters], etc.).
    • It should be noted that Maverick Hunter X was intended to use Inafune's originally intended plot for the X series, so maybe Dr. Cain wasn't supposed to be around for that long.
  • Our Clones Are Different: The Reploids (a portmanteau of "Replica Android") are the next generation of robotics, created by Dr. Kain by replicating the schematics of the titular X. Far more human than their predecessors, Reploids are extremely individualized, looking nothing like X and having entirely separate personalities and memories from their source, to the point where certain Reploids are created specifically to be clones of X but end up with separate personalities.
  • Panthera Awesome: Neon Tiger from X3 and Slash Beast from X4.
  • Parrying Bullets: One of Zero's upgrades is to let him able to deflect bullets with a swing of his Z-Saber. In Mega Man Zero this can also be done in the fourth game with the correct upgrade.
  • Password Save: In the first three games.
  • Peacock Girl: Cyber Peacock is a Rare Male Example — but he still acts quite campy anyways.
  • Permanently Missable Content: In X6, there are Reploids scattered throughout the levels waiting around to be rescued. God help you if a nightmare virus infects one of them, because they will be lost forever, taking the items they give with them.
  • The Phoenix: Blaze Heatnix of X6.
  • Pickup Hierarchy:
  • Mega Man X
    • Primary: Special Weapons and Techniques, the Leg Armor in X1
    • Secondary: Armor Pieces, Sub-Tanks, Heart Tanks, Injured Reploids, Zero’s parts in X2
    • Tertiary: Ammo and health capsules, Credits
    • Extra: Street Fighter moves, the Ultimate Armor, the Z-Saber in X3
  • Platform Battle: A few bosses, most notably the rematch against Serges in X2 (set on floating platforms above a bed of lethal spikes) as well as Gate's boss fight in X6, this time above Bottomless Pits.
  • Platform Hell: Gate's stages in X6, which often approach I Wanna Be the Guy levels of frustration and difficulty.
  • Player-Guided Missile: In X2, the Magnet Mine can be steered vertically while it's in flight, both in normal and charged forms. In X5, the Flash Laser is fully steerable at the cost of not being able to move X while it's in use.
  • Playing the Victim Card: Some of the bosses do this to you when confronted. They're not necessarily wrong, either.
  • Playing with Fire: There's a fire-themed maverick in every game except X3: Flame Mammoth, Flame Stag, Magma Dragoon, Mattrex, Blaze Heatnix, Flame Hyenard, and Burn Rooster.
  • Post-Script Season: X5 was meant to cap off the series and segue into the Zero series, but stuff happened and Capcom threw together four more installments that didn't really involve Inafune's input.
  • Power Armor:
    • The Mini-Mecha mentioned above, complete with a separate health reservoir, speed dash, and titan punches. X3 introduced a few variants, including one with Spikes of Doom and an anphibious one with Super Not-Drowning Skills.
    • X's various armors from Dr. Light's capsules is a more standard version.
  • Power Crystal:
    • Many Reploids have these. In particular, most of the humanoid ones have at least one on their forehead.
    • This is pretty much a trademark symbol of Gate's Reploids in X6.
  • Power Levels: In X3, the images were combined with ratings for strength and speed. Most of the bosses topped at about 10,000 for one or the other, Sigma made it up to 16,000 both, and Battle Body Sigma reached 25,600 for both (despite the fact that he was slower than dirt). Interestingly, X and Zero both had ratings of "?", which is confirmed in X4 when Cyber Peacock proclaims that X's potential is limitless (though he immediately tries to discredit his readings by claiming it's not possible).
  • The Power Of Potential: X is referred by Dr. Light as having limitless potential many times. This is mainly due to X having an Adaptive Ability that allows him to grow stronger with each fight.
  • Power Pincers: Crush Crawfish's weapon of choice in X3, as well as the Crabz-Y's main attack from X8. Surprisingly, Bubble Crab from X2 actually lacks pincers until he does his jumping attack, in which they manifest as laser blades from his shoulders.
  • Precision F-Strike: The dialgues in the Japanese version of X4 and X5 are even harsher than the English version:
    • In X4, when Zero tells Frost Walrus that he'll get rid of "that big mouth", the latter calls him a "damn brat".
    • Also from the same game, Jet Stingray says "damn" after Zero cornered him.
    • When Sigma reveals himself to be the culprit behind the Repliforce's Maverick activities, X calls him a "bastard".
    • In X5, Zero calls Sigma a "bastard" again when he and X found out that Sigma gives them the win.
    • Later in the same game, X says "damn you" in response to Sigma's latest Evil Plan.
    • And after X beats Sigma's latest final form, the latter curses one last time by saying "damn you".
  • Pre-Explosion Glow: Starting from X4 onwards, all of the bosses does this after being defeated (sans Dynamo, who isn't dead).
  • Properly Paranoid:
    • In X5, Livesaver had growing concern of Zero's immunity to a virus he carries. Depending on how the story unfolds, turns out said virus, alongside a different strain of said virus, releases Zero's evil side.
    • In X6, the Inspectors are labeled Mavericks on a whim. The Inspectors turned out to actually be willingly working for someone evil.
    • Somewhat of a Double Subversion regarding their backstory: Gate (the Inspectors' creator) wasn't evil back then, but his creations ended up branded Maverick or otherwise killed off because of the other scientists' jealousy at his talent (and some of his creations are indeed dangerous, but not malicious). It drove Gate bitter and evil, making people's suspicions right from a certain perspective.
  • Prophecy Twist:
    • From the end of X3: "To save mankind, Mega Man X must destroy Zero." A straight example in X5: Zero and X indeed fight, but X wasn't able to destroy Zero (although he did die, by Sigma's hands), because they were the best of friends. The same prophecy was then averted much later, in the Zero series. According to Inafune, X is originally the Big Bad of the first game, a Knight Templar exterminating Reploids for the sake of humanity, and Zero The Hero trying to save the remaining Reploids because they were wrongly accused of being "Mavericks". It was only because of Executive Meddling on the X series, that the true, "twisted" events of the prophecy never came to pass, replacing X with a clone.
    • Of course, the wording used is different in the Japanese version (see "Dub-Induced Plot Hole"). In this case, true to the prophecy, in X5, he had a battle with Zero, for reasons differing depending on which path you took, thus averting this trope.
  • Psycho Electric Eel: As an exception to the "no other electric fish" rule, Volt Catfish from the third game.
  • Racing the Train: Slash Beast of X4 shows up to the Traintop Battle by running parallel up to, then jumping onto the train car used as his boss room.
  • Rank Inflation: X5 goes for B, A, SA, GA, PA, MH, and if you're lucky, MMH or MEH ranking scales. X6 goes D, C, B, A, SA, GA, PA, and UH, although in X6's case, your rank as based on how many Nightmare Souls you gathered rather than your actual performance in the stages. X7 does the same as X6 but goes back to being performance-based. X8 goes D, C, B, A, AA, and AAA (or S in the Japanese version).
  • Real-Time Weapon Change: Since the series started on the SNES, the shoulder buttons were used as an alternative to pausing for the weapons.
  • Recurring Boss: Dynamo, High Max, the Nightmare Police, and Vile.
  • Recycled Soundtrack:
    • Duff McWhalen's stage music is Bubble Crab's stage music remade for the PS.
    • The battles against the Black Devil and Ragna Bagda in X5 are set to remixes of their their boss themes from 1 and X1 respectively.
    • Gate's stages from X6 use a sped-up remix of the second X-Hunter stage from X2.
  • Removable Shell: Armored Armadillo of X1; he'll lose his shielding if he's hit with the Spark Shot.
    • Crystal Snail from X2. If you hit him with the Magnet Mine, his shell flies off, causing him to lose his only method of defense and causing him to focus on trying to reclaim it over attacking you... which you can prolong indefinitely by knocking the shell around.
    • X8 has Earthrock Trilobyte, who, like Crystal Snail, also has a shell that flies off by guard-breaking attacks, removing his only protection against the Hunters' attack and he'll try to reclaim it. It can also be destroyed outright hitting him with Gravity Antonion's weapon, rendering him completely vulnerable.
  • Re-Release Soundtrack: In the English version of Mega Man X Legacy Collection, when the games were set to Japanese, the replacement songs for their international localizations still continue to play due to Capcom not willing to license them out for international use. In the cases of Mega Man X6 (which retained its own songs in its original international release) and Mega Man X7 (which featured an instrumental version of "Lazy Mind", its Japanese ending theme), brand new instrumental music had to be produced for the collection. As a result, "Moonlight" and "The Answer" were replaced with "The Crisis Continues", while "I.D.E.A." got substituted for "End of File", and "Break Out" now stands in for "Lazy Mind".
  • Rhino Rampage: Tunnel Rhino of X3.
  • Rise to the Challenge: Often done with magma.
  • Road Runner PC: For this series (as well as Zero and ZX), the greatest advantage a player has over most enemies (including many bosses) is in the player's vastly superior speed and or agility. And you will need it.
  • Rouge Angles of Satin: From the first game: "YOU GET HORMING TORPEDO". They didn't bother correcting it in the US version, it seems. PAL version seems to have fixed it, though.
  • Same Content, Different Rating: Though the series has always been rated E for everyone (save for Maverick Hunter X, which got an E10 rating), the Legacy Collection is rated T, making it the first Mega Man game to receive the rating.
    • This may likely be due to the blood-like liquid found in Zero's intro cutscene and the scene of Double revealing his true nature and violently killing the reploids in Mega Man X4- though it is supposed to be a type of robotic oil, the way it is drawn in the cutscenes does make it look quite a bit like actual blood. This, combined with the rather violent imagery (particularly in the case of the Double cutscene, where the liquid is spurting out of the reploids much like blood does in a typical anime) is probably what garnered the Teen rating.
  • Scarab Power: Three of the four beetle-themed Mavericks in the series - Boomer Kuwanger (stag beetle), Gravity Beetle (rhinoceros beetle) and Ground Scaravich (dung beetle) - are in fact all based on scarabs. This leaves only Izzy Glow (firefly) as the only non-scarab beetle, and is the only instance where so many of a certain Maverick theme (beetles, fish, cats, etc.) have all been of such a specific grouping.
  • Schrödinger's Player Character: In X4, you can choose to play as either X or Zero, and when you choose one, the other won't appear in the storyline (save for Zero appearing once in X's ending). Subverted in X5 when choosing the playable character only means keeping different power-ups (Z-Buster for Zero, nerfed Fourth Armor for X); both characters still appear in the story proper, and you can play as either one freely by the next levels.
  • Secret A.I. Moves: X5 is pretty bad about this. When you end up challenging either X or Zero, the character gets moves you cannot (or no longer can) use. X can use several powers from the previous game, which he can use a lot better than he ever could in that game, while Zero gets a huge upgrade to his ranged attack abilities. The latter might have been excusable if only Maverick Zero could do it (instead he he's just cheaper and gets a one-hit kill attack on top), but Zero can use these powers regardless of the circumstance.
  • Secret Level:
    • In X3, there's a secret level that can only be accessed through specific teleportation capsules, that take you to an abandoned factory where you can fight Vile, The Dragon of the first game. Finding and beating him will result in another boss appearing in his stead later on, where he would normally find and attack you.
    • Then, in X6, there 's a secret "Nightmare Stage" for every normal level, where you can find secret upgrades and bosses.
  • Sequel Hook:
    • X8 ends with one, where Lumine, in his last breath, knocks Axl comatose, and leaves a strange fragment on his helmet. It gets no mention in Command Mission, which might or might not be the next chronological game.
    • Earlier, in X1, after the end credits: Sigma shows up on a screen and taunts X, saying that his spirit still lives on, which turned out to be a hint about Sigma's true nature as The Virus.
  • Series Continuity Error: A flashback in X5 shows the fight between Sigma and Maverick Zero. Zero has his buster in the flashback, but in the earlier flashback to that same scene in X4, Zero's buster is never seen.
  • Shades of Conflict: The games can vary tremendously. In the first through third games, you are heroically trying to put down a murderous revolution mostly caused by an army of infected replies. In the fourth game, you're a bit more trigger happy, dealing with wrongfully accused people doing everything in their power to justify your need to take them down. The games just get more ambiguous from there.
  • Shared Life-Meter: Rangda Bangda (which also reappears in X5), a giant robotic face that's defeated by destroying both it's eyes and its floating robotic "nose".
  • Shock and Awe: Spark Mandrill, Volt Catfish, Web Spider, Squid Adler, Tornado Tonion, Gigavolt Man-O'-War.
  • Shotoclone:
    • There are hidden special attacks for X in the first two games that mimic Ryu and Ken's signature attacks from Street Fighter. X's Shoryuken returns in X4 (charged Rising Fire) and X8 (comes with the Ultimate Armor).
    • Magma Dragoon is an utterly blatant Shotoclone, complete with Akuma's topknot and magatama.
    • In X8 as well, two of Zero's techniques change into the Shoryuken and the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku when he's equipped with the K Knuckle. X can use the Shoryuken as well if he's equipped with his Ultimate Armor.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Crush Crawfish's stage in X3 sounds suspiciously similar to the theme of another popular franchise at the time.
    • Two of the final stages in X5 are based on respectively, Quick Man's stage and the first stage of Sigma's Fortress from the first X game... containing updated versions of the Yellow Devil and Rangda Bangda, respectively.
    • To Blade Runner with the "retirement" of Reploids, and Reploid being short for Replicant Android.
    • Alyson Court (known better as Claire Redfield) was responsible for localizing X5, and she's quite shameless about letting her love of Guns N' Roses influence her. As a result, the bosses’ names in the original X5 were changed from their original names to be references to members of the band. This was changed in the Legacy Collection 2 version, however, making them the same as (or making them close to) their Japanese names.
    • Neon Tiger's theme in X3 (and Xtreme 2) are remixes of "My Michelle", also by Guns N' Roses.
    • Also in X5, Dark Dizzy/Necrobat, a vampire bat with the ability to stop time, is apparently based on Dio Brando. ZA WARUDO!
    • In X6, after you defeat a boss, an orb drops down, and when you touch it, victory music plays and the level is complete, which could be seen as an homage either to the first Mega Man or Castlevania.
    • Vile (whose Japanese name is VAVA) is clearly based on Boba Fett, of Star Wars fame. Word of God says he's also based on Bubba Zanetti, The Dragon from Mad Max.
    • Sigma's design and backstory (a good reploid who was driven mad in an accident and turned evil before raising a robot army against mankind) are evocative of Braiking Boss from Neo Human Casshern.
    • One of the X Challenge levels in the Legacy Collection is "Sharks and Jets".
    • The Legacy Collection achievement for unlocking Zero's Beam Saber in X3 is named "He Wanted You To Have This". Obi-Wan Kenobi said the original line while presenting Luke Skywalker with his father's lightsaber in A New Hope.
    • There's an achievement in Legacy Collection 2 for defeating an enemy while X is equipped with the Gaea Armor in X5 named "By Your Powers Combined". This is a famous line from the titular Captain Planet from Captain Planet and the Planeteers whenever he is summoned by the Planeteers. There's also another achievement for defeating an enemy while equipped with a the Ultimate Armor in X6 named "My Ult Is Ready". This is a reference to a common phrase spoken by the characters of Overwatch whenever their Ultimate Skill is ready.
  • Skippable Boss / Sequence Breaking:
    • In X5, you can skip the eight Maverick stages by immediately using the Enigma Cannon and/or the Shuttle, and then you can access the fortress stages. Amusingly enough, you can take out the space colony with just the Enigma Cannon right off the bat if you're lucky, which doesn't happen if you do things the "normal" way.
    • Likewise, the three X Hunters from X2 move randomly from stage to stage, and appear only in designated rooms within the stages, sometimes off the stage's main path. There is also an additional boss in the final stage, depending on whether or not you defeated all three X-Hunters while battling the eight Mavericks.
    • Vile's reappearance in X3 is completely optional, depending on whether or not the player finished that stage before he appeared on the map.
    • In X6, if you beat Nightmare Zero and High Max in the secret areas, Gate's secret lab becomes accessible.
  • Smashing Survival:
    • X1: Used to escape the Gulpfer fish in X1 and X5 if you get Swallowed Whole.
    • X2: Used to escape Crystal Snail's Crystal Hunter.
    • X3: Blizzard Buffalo's ice prison and Crush Crawfish's Spam Attack
    • X4: Web Spider's webs and the yellow orbs in Cyber Peacock's level.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Blaze Heatnix's level. His stage music is one of the fastest paced and intense songs in the series. The level itself, on the other hand, is one of the slowest paced in the series, comprised almost entirely of battles against the same mini boss.
  • Space Elevator: The Jakob Elevator in X8, and you also fight Mavericks riding it.
  • Species Surname: A common theme with many of the Maverick bosses of the X series.
  • Speed Echoes: Whenever you dash, this happens.
  • Spikes of Doom: Par for the course for a Mega Man game, but this got really bad in X6.
  • Spin Attack:
    • In most of the games where he's playable (both in this series and Mega Man Zero), one of the skills Zero learns is a rising slash. In X8, he instead gets a spinning rising slash, similar to Link's Spin Attack in Super Smash Bros..
    • He has the spinning slash since X4, after you beat Split Mushroom. It has been one of his staple techniques through this and the Zero series.
  • Spread Shot:
    • Initial spread: Charged Homing Torpedo from X, Twin Slasher and Rakuhouha from X4, Crescent Flasher from X5, Drift Diamond from X8, as well as the Buster Parts H for X.
    • Spray Burst: Ray Splasher from X3, C-Shot from X5.
    • Exploding Shot: Shotgun Ice and Chameleon Sting from X, Acid Burst from X3.
  • Sprite/Polygon Mix: In Maverick Hunter X remake.
  • Standard Power-Up Pose: If Zero becomes "Awakened" in X5, he adopts this pose along with a red glowing aura.
  • Stealth Pun: X6 having Metal Shark Player (the jumping part can also be done literally, considering one of Shark Player's attacks) and Zombie Sigma.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Many fans said that that's what make them love this series (especially true to the boss' cinematic explosions). You know why. You can even see Special Effects Evolution of the explosions across the first three games; in X1, enemies just turn into an explosion sprite, in X2 some of them have a few pieces fly out, and in X3 and beyond all of them have lots of pieces fly out.
  • Strange Salute: Some of the bosses' character art, and pre-battle poses in-game do a version of the infamous Roman Salute with the middle and ring fingers together and the rest spread out, in an approximation of a Greek letter Sigma.
  • Strictly Formula:
    • If there's some new Reploids introduced, chance are they're evil or just want to backstab people. Most of the time, Sigma is behind all of these.
    • It then becomes a plot twist when it turns out in X8 that Sigma is not the Big Bad and the Final Boss of the game.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Elderly mad scientist Reploids as antagonists seem to be a trend, referencing the Classic series villain Dr. Wily. In X2 we have Serges, in X3 we have Dr. Doppler, and in X6 we have Isoc.
  • Synchronization: In the spin-off, Mega Man Xtreme, the characters Techno and Middy share the same CPU despite being in different bodies.
  • Team Shot: This happens near the end of Mega Man X4's intro cutscene, and an awesome one is pulled off near the end of X8, as the three heroes prepare to take on Lumine.
  • Tentacled Terror: Launch Octopus from X and Squid Adler from X5.
  • Thanking the Viewer: Capcom games love to do this, and this series is no exception.
  • This Is a Drill:
    • In Maverick Hunter X, the remake of the first game, Spark Mandrill gets a drill for a right hand as a pun on his name.
    • Also Tunnel Rhino of X3 and Grizzly Slash of X5 (although we don't get the drill weapon from the latter).
  • Threatening Shark: Metal Shark Player from X6.
  • The Three Faces of Adam: Shown best in X8: Signas the commander as The Prophet, the veterans X and Zero as The Lords, and the rookie Axl as The Hunter.
  • Title Drop:
    • Mega Man X8: Paradise Lost. Guess what's the final boss' attack name?
    • In Maverick Hunter X, after Zero sacrificed himself to destroy Vile's mech:
      X: "Zero! Hang in there, buddy!"
      Zero: X... I'm always telling you... to be more careful... but now look at me...
      X: "Don't waste your energy talking, Zero. We've gotta fix you up."
      Zero: "There's... no time for that... Sigma is close... Very close..."
      X: "Zero..."
      Zero: "Go now... Maverick Hunter X..."
    • Storm Eagle also calls X by his full title, but only on the second playthrough.
  • Theme Naming: X, Zero and Sigma are all named after mathematical concepts – of which X after the usual shorthand for variables and unknowns (symbolic of his infinite potential) and Sigma after the summation operator.
  • Title Scream: In X4, X7, and X8.
  • Too Long; Didn't Dub: In particular, the X6 bosses' name keep their original Japanese names, as opposed to the bosses of the past (e.g X4 Cyber Kujacker into Cyber Peacock).
  • Tragic Monster: Some Maverick Bosses are actually innocent individuals (e.g. Blizzard Buffalo), or have sympathetic backstories (e.g. most X6 Investigators) before being infected; and then there are other Mavericks who are only termed as such by the government (most of the Bosses in X4 (though granted, their army was acting treasonously) as well as Command Mission's Rebellion army). The most tragic one of all, is, of course, Zero's girlfriend Iris.
  • Trippy Finale Syndrome: X5, to the max. It is caused by the concentration of the Zero virus being so strong that it caused the formation of a "Zero Space", in which Cyberspace and the ordinary world merge. This is similar to Omega's power causing doors to Cyberspace to appear in Zero 3. He is, after all, the original Zero's body.
  • Turns Red:
    • In contrast to the NES originals, bosses start becoming more dangerous when low on HP. In X1, this was limited to two of the Sigma fortress bosses simply moving faster, but in X2, the Mavericks began unleashing new and more powerful attacks after their HP hits 50%.
    • In X2, Morph Moth starts the battle in a larval stage and doesn't reveal his true form until low on HP. Meanwhile, Flame Stag doesn't reveal much in the way of new attacks, but the color of his fire upgrades from red to blue (in the rematch against him, he already starts out blue).
    • In X8, every boss will turn invincible and pull out a Desperation Attack at 25% health. It becomes quite annoying once you avoid it and are waiting for the Mercy Invincibility to wear off...
  • Unblockable Attack: In X8, X's fully charged buster shot, Zero's 3-hit sword combo, and Axl's rapid-fire shots (to be exact, every 8th shot) can flip Metools over. They all also have at least one boss weapon that breaks shields like the previously-mentioned techniques, and one that bypasses shields completely.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable:
    • In X6, Capcom actually included a way to get Zero's Black Armor without the use of a cheat code. However, a design oversight made it impossible to achieve. What did you have to do? Defeat Nightmare Zero when he's at level 4, which you get him at by obtaining 5,000 Nightmare souls. Problem is, getting 3,000 unlocks Gate's Lab, which removes the Nightmare Zero fight entirely and replaces him with Dynamo. Oops! Thankfully, the Mega Man X6 Tweaks project can fix this oversight (among other things).
    • It's seemingly impossible to beat Gate's Lab 2 with Unarmored X or Shadow Armor X due to an air dash-only jump, but you can clear it with either clever use of Blaze Heatnix's weapon (swing the fire blade repeatedly in the air to float over the gap), or by combining BOTH the Hyper Dash and Jumper parts, and then dash jumping off the wall at the absolute lowest possible spot.
  • Urban Ruins: Thanks to the rise of the Mavericks, the series contains a few examples:
    • The intro level for Mega Man X takes place in a city under attack by Mavericks.
    • Wheel Gator's stage in Mega Man X2 takes place in a ship travelling through a half-demolished city.
  • Updated Re-release:
    • X3 got a PlayStation/Saturn re-release with a revamped soundtrack and a full video opening and unique openings for each Maverick. It was only released outside Japan on PC until the release of Mega Man X Collection, as it was the version of X3 included.
    • Said X Collection was supposed to be one, but Capcom Japan forced the developers to release the games in their original state so as not to upstage the Maverick Hunter X series. This move backfired in the long run, as the demise of the Maverick Hunter X series meant that no one would ever get to experience any updates to the series, old or otherwise.
    • The Mega Man X Legacy Collections features a "Rookie Hunter Mode" to make the games easier for newcomers of the series, the ability to save passwords for X1-X3, faster (if non-existent) loading times for PlayStation and PlayStation 2-era games, and increased rendering resolution for X7 and X8.
  • Unique Enemy: The Mega Man (Classic)-era Bubble Bat in Armored Armadillo's stage, which drops an extra life 90% of the time you kill it. Relatively easy to miss, as you're supposed to be on a speeding trolley when you go past him.
  • Van Helsing Hate Crimes:
    • Shades of this appear in later games; the Maverick Hunters dutifully destroy any Reploid that goes "Maverick", according to their standards...which would be fine, if those standards were limited to those Reploids actively infected with The Virus or deliberately causing grievous harm to humanity and/or Reploidkind. Unfortunately, it seems to encompass any form of resistance against the natural order of things, including otherwise non-hostile acts like peacefully exiling themselves to their own space colony (Repliforce and the Rebellion Army; though there are reasons for both of those, albeit not entirely concrete justifications) or merely having traits that could potentially cause problems with controlling them (Nightmare Investigators). In fact, it's revealed in X5 that the (unseen) Maverick Hunter commander in charge during X4 retired in disgrace for misapplying the label of "Maverick" on Repliforce, and thus causing the deaths of hundreds or thousands of relatively innocent Reploids. Furthermore, the commander who labels the Rebellion "Maverick" in Command Mission was a Manipulative Bastard who fancied himself a god.
    • While Repliforce and Nightmare Investigators are both sympathetic in one way or another (Repliforce was framed, some of its members are actually moles working under Sigma, and it's Magma Dragoon who brought down the Sky Lagoon. The Nightmare Investigators were killed off for pretty petty reasons- they're hard to handle and their DNA data was unreadable), they do have their own faults (Repliforce refused to stand down for interrogation and instead they go to their Kill Sat and they want peace and seclusion out of Earth, it's just that they're breaking the law, and let Jet Stingray and Storm Owl destroy some cities as distractions for their exile. In the Nightmare Investigator's case, the Hunters saw through the ruse created by the Investigators the moment Isoc started calling for Reploids to volunteer to help destroy a "ghost" of Zero gone bad, and said "ghost" is actually Gate's own creation).
    • That's also forgetting a crucial detail: They try to reason with them first. In every case, barring purely evil Mavericks like Split Mushroom, and the ones that are completely out of their minds like Dark Dizzy, X and Zero give everyone they encounter a chance to cooperate or surrender depending on the situation. In X4, the Repliforce soldiers are asked to peacefully surrender. They refuse, and try to kill X or Zero. In X5, the Reploids with parts for The Enigma/Shuttle are asked to cooperate, the only one who cooperates without a fight is Squid Adler, who goes insane from the Sigma Virus immediately afterwards. In X6, all the investigators are reasoned with first but even the sympathetic ones like Rainy Turtloid choose to obey Gate rather than help the Hunters. Turtloid's case is particularly sad. While he says he understands where X/Zero is coming from, he just can't bring himself to betray the one who gave him a second chance, which is at least understandable given that Gate was punished for protecting him back when he was alive.(All the investigators were resurrected Reploids that Gate had originally created.) and X, for his part, is horrified at the thought of fighting him.
  • Victory Pose: All of the heroes has one each after defeating a boss.
  • Video Game Remake: Maverick Hunter X to X1, which was supposed to be a Continuity Reboot.
  • Villain by Default:
    • All of the villains in this series (and also ZX series) are called Mavericks, ranging from the virus-infected ones, wrongly-accused ones or just the plain criminals with free will.
    • Mega Man Zero plays this from the different side, as La Résistance who is composed of innocent Reploids are judged Mavericks just because of energy shortage.
  • The Virus: The Maverick Virus; not counting an Early-Bird Cameo as the Final Boss in X2, its role becomes prominent in the series from X3 onwards. There are other variations, like the Nightmare Virus in X6 and of course the Sigma Virus. X8 gives us Sigma's very DNA, allegedly encrypted into all the data of the New Generation Reploids.
  • Wall Jump: This game is the king of this trope. Combined with Jump Physics, the players can climb a single wall with this. This is later carried over to Zero and ZX series.
  • Warmup Boss: The bosses of nearly any introductory stage, Vile in X1 notwithstanding.
  • Weaponized Animal: Well, robot animals, but still, some mooks amount to this. As well as the Maverick bosses themselves in some cases, such as Snipe Anteater's Backpack Cannon or Storm Eagle's Arm Cannon.
  • Weaponized Offspring: In X, Storm Eagle can fire eggs which will hatch into robotic birds that will attack you.
  • Wham Episode: X4; well, most of it anyway. Mavericks that have more to do with politics instead of The Virus (as was established two games earlier), Iris' death, and X wondering if he can keep doing the same thing over and over (although the last one was subverted). The whole thing even started off with a WHAM:Dr. Wily appearing for the first time, and to Zero, no less!
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Dr. Cain is mentioned in the instruction manuals to Mega Man X and Mega Man X4, before making actual in-game appearances in Mega Man X2, Mega Man X3 and Mega Man Xtreme, but after that, he is never mentioned or seen again. The Day of Sigma, however, retcons this and implies that he died from Sigma's attack.
  • When All Else Fails, Go Right
    • Played with in X6; as the second part of the Infinity Mijinion level opens, you do have to go right to progress. But directly to the left of the starting point (Behind the Black) is one of the game's upgrade capsules, which most players would miss because of this trope.
    • There's also some variations in other games: The heart tank for Storm Eagle's level is directly above the player, unreachable from the start point, so you have to go right, then left when you get high enough. In Armored Armadillo's stage, you need to go right to get away from a death machine, then go back left to get a sub tank. In fact, from the very first game, the X series has delighted in hiding things from the player that assumes forward is right.
    • The general case applies as well, starting from the original Mega Man (Classic) days and carrying forward from there; most levels (if not all) start you at the left end and send you to the right.
  • Where It All Began:
    • A subversion: in X2, Sigma is fought in one of the 8 initial Maverick stages (the Central Computer), which is not necessarily the first one to be played. Plus, the map shows that the fortress where all the "Final Stages" were is in ruins, but trying to go there will still take you to the Central Computer stage. Most Western players did this anyway, because the translation left out Sigma's line "I'll be waiting for you at the Central Computer..."
    • Subtly implied in X5 when X or Zero goes to fight Sigma. In the background of the first fight are two dilapidated capsules, one red and one blue.
  • Wicked Wasps: Blast Hornet of X3.
  • With a Friend and a Stranger: In the manufactured-reploid era, X and Zero are the two original blueprints and lifelong friends. The third hero, Axl (the New Generation Prototype) comes into existence much later.
  • "With Our Swords" Scene: In the first game, if you haven't gotten the arm cannon upgrade, Zero will give X his arm cannon (which has the upgrade) just before he dies in Sigma's castle. In X3, he'll do it again; if you use him to fight a particular mid-boss in Sigma's fortress, he'll die after defeating it, but not before giving X his Z-Saber.
  • World Half Empty: Especially after the Colony Drop.
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz: The GBC Mega Man X games play this trope in their English titles.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: No matter what happens in X5, Zero and Mega Man X will always have their destined battle. This was already hinted at since X3.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: In X5, your initial defeat of Sigma is part of his plan, setting in motion a Colony Drop. You then spend most of the game building machines to prevent the crash — but no matter how good your luck is, you can't stop it completely. What's more, the second thing you try may turn Zero evil, and this was also part of Sigma's plan. (Even if Zero's okay, he and X will end up fighting, leaving just one hero to stop Sigma.)
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: X8's "Gateway" (never mind the title!) level is the standard Mega Man X formula for the final level: shorter than most levels, the Boss Rush initiated halfway, and confronting Sigma as the Boss. However, this Sigma is not even the real one. The final level is on the moon afterward.
  • Zee Rust: The first game's pre-title intro is done as a computer read-out on X's data and Dr. Light's warning about his abilities, prefaced by a boot-up sequence. Despite the OS being as advanced as 2114 (with RAM to match: all told, the system's packing 40,960 terabytes of memory) aside from the blue typeface, it's a clear knockoff of DOS.

 
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Megaman Boss Warnings

A compilation of boss warning sirens from all the mainline series ''Megaman'' games, starting from ''X4'' all the way up to ''ZX Advent''. Original video by Youtuber Arkausey, found here at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83byvBR-4os

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