Video Game / Mega Man X: Mavericks

The title screen of the first game.

Mega Man X: Mavericks, commonly abbreviated as just Mavericks, is a series of fan games made by Maddrex77. Programmed in RPG Maker, it's based on the Mega Man X series while drawing elements from just about every other Mega Man game series.

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Games in the Series (contains spoilers)

1. Mavericks is the first game in the series. Thirty years have passed since the wiping out of all Mavericks and the Hunters are little more than peacekeepers. That changes when Zero disappears on an investigation and previously defeated Mavericks start popping up across the world. X must get his butt into gear, defeat the Mavericks and save the world...and maybe Zero while he's at it.
2. Mavericks 2: Resurrection of the Repliforce is the second game. Two years after the first game, the Repliforce has also been restored and they're up to their old tricks of a Reploid-only nation, as well as a dish of revenge. It's up to X and Zero to save the day again, but with Iris among the restored, how far will Zero go to amend his biggest regret?
3. Mavericks 3: Zero's Revenge is the third installment. After Zero turned evil after the previous game, Maverick activity has taken an uptick as he and Sigma make their plans to finally conquer the world. As X struggles to keep the world safe, help arrives in the form of Zero...the Zero from the Mega Man Zero era. Both allies and enemies are seeking to use the current events to change history and X must work with these new friends to stop Sigma and hopefully save the present Zero.
4. Mavericks Final is the Grand Finale on the initial arc, serving also as a Compilation Re-release and an Updated Re-release. Following some time after the stinger for Mavericks 3, Gate is trying his hand at world domination again. To prevent X and Zero from stopping him, he uses a time machine to send them back in time to relive the last three games once again. Eventually, the duo return to the present to find Gate has put his plans into motion. With his old allies and a new one by his side, X will need all of his powers and skills to find the true cause of the Maverick resurrections and put a stop to it once and for all.
5. Mavericks - Final Strike Vol. 1 is the first of a two-part follow-up. The threat of Evil Energy turns out not to be quite over yet as the debris from Wily's space station crash lands on Earth. The Maverick Hunters find themselves with some new allies as their old foes the X-Hunters make a comeback, lead by Dr. Wily's other ultimate creation: Bass. Announced as in development on Oct. 21, 2021.
6. Mavericks - Final Strike Vol. 2 was announced on Mar. 23, 2023.

The games can be downloaded here. Maddrex77's YouTube account can be viewed here.

Tropes for the Mavericks games

Tropes Across All Games

• Actually Four Mooks: The majority of field encounters will have more than one foe.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Present across all four games with the resurrected Mavericks due to the game's writing style, but most apparent in the first game due to boss dialogue being constrained by the use of Mega Man X8 voice clips. Notably, Mino Magnus goes from simple-minded and speaking so slowly it annoys the other Einherjar to a Smug Snake with a normal voice that taunts X with the knowledge of his fate in the Zero series.
• After-Combat Recovery: Starting from the second game, beating a boss or mini-boss will give you full LE and WE.
• An Ice Person: Tidal Whale, Frost Walrus, Frost Man, Blizzard Wolffang, Bifrost the Crocoroid, Blizzard Buffalo and Avalanche Yeti.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Special weapon descriptions will gain you a hint as to what Maverick they do extra damage to. For the fourth game, you can have Alia examine a stage and give you recommendations as to what types of weapons to bring.
• Ascended Glitch: When the bosses started using Fixed Damage Attacks in the third game, it would cause an approximate amount of their remaining HP to show up by accident. The creator left it in since it was handy for the player to gauge their progress.
• Astral Finale: Space is the place for the boss lairs. The latter half of every game from the second onward is entirely set in space.
• Back from the Dead: All the games are themed around past Mavericks coming back to life.
• Bag of Spilling: Played straight for the second and third games, but played with for the last game, where you can access all your boss weapons and Ultimate Armors from the previous games at the start. Still no cash, items or levels, though.
• Bears Are Bad News: Grizzly Slash and Bamboo Pandemonium.
• Big Damn Heroes
  • In the third game, this happens every time a new party member arrives.
  • At the start of the fourth game, Duo arrives just in time to destroy the time machine.
• Blow You Away: Air Man, Storm Owl, Spiral Pegasus, Storm Eagle and Hyper Storm H.
• Boss Banter: Except a few pre-battle lines and usually some closing ones with your bosses.
• Boss Rush: Aside from the classic rushes associated with the series, there are a few variations.
  • The third game had two optional boss rushes, one against the Doc Robots and the other against a predetermined boss selection, for the purposes of extra level grinding. Both of these were removed when the game was remade.
  • The fourth game has a hidden boss rush that pits you against every Maverick boss from the first three games and one new boss. The next to last stage also has a boss rush against the major bosses of the previous three games.
• Boss Warning Siren: In fine X series tradition.
• The Cameo
  • One of Dark Iris' attacks brings back Magna Centipede.
  • Metal Shark Player's clone attacks creates copies of Wood Man, Hard Man and Shield Sheldon.
• Can't Drop the Hero:
  • X must always be in the party in Final.
  • X and Zero are both required for Final Strike.
• Character Portrait: Usually one per character, though some will have two for different forms such as X's armors or Sigma's different bodies.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • The Maverick Hunters must've had some serious layoffs in the three decades between the offical games and this series, as only X, Zero and Alia seems to be on the payroll aside from some Red Shirts in the third game. Douglas, Lifesaver, Layer, Pallette and Signas are all gone without explanation. Axl is given an explanation in the second game, implying he fell in the line of duty.
  • A number of fortress bosses ended up getting changed out or swapped around when the first three games were remade. Most notably, this happened to one of the main Maverick bosses in the second game's remake with Crystal Snail getting replaced by Storm Owl.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Status effects actually could work on bosses in the first game, but this trope was played straight for all games afterward with a few exceptions.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Stone Man and Uranus.
• Doppelgänger Attack: Split Mushroom and Gemini Man.
• Dying as Yourself: Tidal Whale and the General briefly return to their senses just before they perish.
• Early Game Hell: You start each game with no money, no items and only one special move to your name. And the first game didn't even give you a special move. Once you whack a boss and start getting some gear, things become more manageable.
• Equipment Spoiler: Since all your equipment is purchasable from the start, you'll see that you get Zero back in the first game and that Harupia and Fefnir join in the third.
• Feathered Fiend: Storm Owl, Cyber Peacock, Storm Eagle and Blaze Heatnix.
• Fixed Damage Attack: Bosses tend to use attacks that can't miss and deal a preset amount of damage.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The fact that Mino Magnus, a boss from Zero 4, is among the line-up is an eyebrow raiser in the first place. In the boss rematch, he makes it clear he's not quite working for Sigma and he knows much more about Zero than he did previously.
  • The fact that classic Mega Man bosses are among the line-up instead of just X series bosses hints that someone from the past is looking to make a comeback.
• Game-Over Man: Sigma in the first game, Vile for the final game.
• Greater-Scope Villain: While Sigma is the driving force for the bulk of the games, it's Dr. Wily who brought him back and worked behind the scenes to take advantage of the situations.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Sigma being in these games is such a gimmie, there's no point in spoilering it. That being said...
  • In the third game, Sigma is working with Dr. Weil. Sigma ends up getting taken out and Dr. Weil becomes the sole bad guy for the rest of the game. Then we find that Dr. Weil had been possessed...
  • In the fourth game, X is so sure that Sigma is behind Gate's plans that he already starts asking the bosses about it before reaching the fortress. He's right, of course, but Sigma was only brought back thanks to the Stardroids, who were under the leadership of the real bad guy behind it all: Dr. Wily.
• Humongous Mecha: Some of the bigger bosses will often act as fortress guardians.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The Opening Scroll of each game usually recaps whatever key plot points were revealed at the end of the previous game to set it up.
• Making a Splash: Rainy Turtloid and Bubble Crab.
• The Man Behind the Man: Sigma is eventually confirmed to be working under Dr. Weil, who in turn is being possessed by Dr. Wily.
• Never Shall The Selves Meet: Averted. X-era Zero has no problems interacting with Zero-era Zero. You can even have both of them in the party at the same time in the fourth game.
• No Cure for Evil: Averted for some foes.
  • Magnet Man and Jet Stingray can absorb the player's health to restore themselves. Other minor foes can do this as well.
  • Hydra Sigma from the remake of the first game has Regenerating Health that is very hard to chip down. Unless you manage to poison the core.
  • Dynamo Man, like in his home game, can also heal himself.
• Nonstandard Skill Learning: Aside from Power Copying, you can buy new moves from the store. This was pretty much required for the first game, which had X's special weapons function as equippable weapons than skills.
• One-Hit Kill: This is limited to field obstacles like spike pits and crushers. The second game had some real nasty Gabyoalls that required frame perfect movement to get past. They were heavily nerfed in every game since to just doing contact damage.
• Opening Scroll: All of the games open with one.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Anything you passed up in a stage in the first game, since you couldn't reenter them at all.
  • Fortress stages in all games can't be reentered after completing them.
• Playing with Fire: Magma Dragoon, Burn Dinorex, Blaze Heatnix, Flame Mammoth, and Fire Man.
• Plot Hole:
  • Zero is able to recognize the Mega Man era boss in Mavericks 3 and the remake of Mavericks 2, but not in the original or remake of Mavericks 1 or any of the returning ones in Mavericks Final.
  • X mentions Dr. Light in the ending to Mavericks 2, but when Duo mentions him near the start of Mavericks Final, X doesn't quite remember who he is.
• Power Copying: In classic Mega Man tradition. Note that not everyone has this ability.
• Pre-existing Encounters: Aside from a pair of stages in the first game, you can see every enemy clearly in the field.
• Rare Candy:
  • Chips can be used to buff your stats permanently. This is more or less required in the first game, where stats can't get anywhere near the cap with just leveling.
  • Every game has an easter egg, either hidden or guarded by a bonus boss, that gives all party members five levels. The third game also include Life-Ups, going by their old name of Heart Tanks, that gave the party a boost of one level. The fourth game gave you one that maxed out all your party members levels.
• Shock and Awe: Crystal Snail, Dynamo Man, Jupiter and Spark Mandrill.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration
  • Special weapons run off a shared WE pool instead of each having their own ammo count. Until the fifth game, Zero also used the exact same special weapons as X despite his Command Arts system normally giving him different moves from X's Variable Weapons System.
  • Duo can use special weapons due to having a Variable Weapons System from Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters. On the flip side, Fefnir and Harupia lack one and can't learn attacks from bosses.
• Status Effects: You have poison (virus), paralyzation and berserk. The first game also had blind and sleep, but those were later phased out.
• The Stinger: Every game has one after the credits that sets up the next game. The fact that the fourth game doesn't have one cements its status as ending its current arc.
• Space Elevator: The Jakob is still in use and plays a role in the third and fourth games.
• Time Skip: The first game takes place thirty years after the last X game, while the second takes place two years after the first.
• Underground Monkey: Enemies in the fortress levels are the same as in the regular levels, just with a new paint job and boosted stats.
• Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: The writing tends to go a bit overboard on ellipsis.
• Whatever Happened to the Mouse?:
  • By the end of the third game, both X and Zero note that the Mother Elf seems familiar somehow, but this is never addressed after.
  • In the fourth game, Gate is never mentioned again after Alia says he'll be okay. Likewise, if you rescued Ciel or not, nobody makes mention of her again. Final Strike vol. 1 subverted this by revealing that Ciel did return to the future with the rest of the Zero cast and Gate took up working with the Hunters after his recovery.
• A Wizard Did It: Any changes to the original games when they were remade can be handwaved by Gate saying he was going to make a few alterations to make the redos harder on the heroes.

Tropes for Mavericks 1 and its remake

• Abled in the Adaptation: Mino Magnus speaks quicker and more elegantly than in his home game.
• Badass in Distress: Zero. You can't save him until half the bosses are defeated.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first game was a far different beast than its follow-ups. Only a few of these features were retained when the game was remade.
  • There wasn't an introduction stage and all ten Mavericks are available to choose from the start.
  • You couldn't re-enter a stage after beating it.
  • Stat growth was much smaller and it wasn't possible to hit the level cap.
  • Special weapons were treated as equipable weapons for X. Skills could only be acquired by purchasing them.
  • The levels used a top down view like in classic RPGs.
  • Most Boss Banter was voiced and comprised of recycled clips from X8.
  • There were no armor pieces to collect.
  • E-Tanks came in variable sizes instead of one.
• Hurl It into the Sun: Inverted. In the original release, Sigma's boast before the final battle claimed he could somehow drop the sun onto the Earth. The remake quietly removed this.
• Wicked Wasps: Blast Hornet.
• Wily Walrus: Frost Walrus.
• Wolverine Claws: Neon Tiger.

Tropes for Mavericks 2 and its remake

• Bittersweet Ending: Very much on the bitter side. Repliforce is defeated, but Sigma finally has Zero on his side and is ready to go all out of attacking Earth. X and Alia are left with no clue how to save Zero and can only wait for Sigma's next attack. The Stinger provides a small ray of hope with the reveal that the future Zero is coming back to help out.
• Duel Boss: X must face the final boss alone due to Zero leaving the party.
• Giant Spider: Web Spider.
• Idiot Ball: We wouldn't have a final boss fight or a third game if Zero hadn't decided to run off at the last possible moment to save Iris from what was an obvious trap.
• Meta Twist: The remake pulls a few fast ones on previous players.
  • In Cyber Peacock's stage, the area where you could initiate the easter egg area trigger is mandatory instead of optional. You also encounter Dynamo there instead of at Split Mushroom's stage.
  • After beating Dark Iris, the game throws you into a new fight against Black Zero.
• Mushroom Man: Split Mushroom.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Web Spider and Cyber Peacock, as well as Frost Man and Magma Dragoon, are weak to each other's weapons.

Tropes for Mavericks 3 and its remake

• Clipped-Wing Angel: Dr. Weil's final form doesn't hit as hard, is vulnerable to your weakest weapon and you're back up to full health. It's justified in that you just blew up his new battle body, so he's essentially fighting you with what remains of his current one that was damaged in the explosion.
• Deus ex Machina: After defeating Omega, X tries to save Zero before he dies, but there's no way to get him back to Earth for adequate repairs and the other party members are ready to accept Zero's death to ensure Omega's destruction. Suddenly, the Mother Elf - which wasn't mentioned at all - arrives to heal Zero and take him back for full repairs.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Bubble Crab and the Kanigance.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: You have to beat Sigma to clear the opening stage, but the post-fight dialogue makes it sound as though Sigma won.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Hidden Phantom and Fairy Leviathan don't get to learn that the X they serve is a copy, the former due to loitering around in Cyberspace after his initial destruction and the latter due to not being taken along for the ride with Copy Zero. As such, when they do jump back to the present, they're little more than indoctrinated sycophants of Copy X, and the lack of knowledge costs them their lives.
• Revenge of the Sequel: It does say "revenge" right there in the title.
• Savage Wolf: Blizzard Wolfang.
• Sinister Scythe: Sigma is using his X4 body here, so he brought this back as well.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The Four Guardians avert their fate between Zero 3 and Zero 4, presumably following the original draft of what happened in the interim where their absence in the latter game is merely due to overwork. Subverted with Phantom and Leviathan, who become indoctrinated servants of the revived Copy X and are destroyed by Zero and their own siblings in the process.
• Spoiler Title: So, um, Zero's getting revenge here. Just so you know.
• Unexplained Recovery:
  • Copy Zero's dialogue makes it clear he comes from post-Zero 4 with only a quick line that he "barely survived" the ending of that game. Dr. Weil, when questioned how he survived as well, handwaves it by practically saying "You survived; why couldn't I?".
  • It's left unclear how Copy X returned after being scrapped by Weil's Explosive Leash in Zero 3, along with how he managed to drag the destroyed Hidden Phantom along with him.
• The Unintelligible: The Red Devil speaks only in "bumo" like in Mega Man Powered Up.

Tropes for Mavericks Final

• 11th-Hour Ranger: Duo shows up for the final game of the arc.
• Arbitrary Head Count Limit: You can't have more than four party members at a time.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Many of the Evil Energy empowered bosses are basically larger versions of their original selves.
• Brain Uploading: How Dr. Wily survived all the centuries after the classic Mega Man era.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The Nightmare, which is where Ciel is held captive. You're required to dismantle all 30 Mavericks from the original trilogy in rapid succession, and their stats have been scaled up to the point in progression when the area can be unlocked. Defeating them and Maha Ganeshariff, however, boosts everyone's stats up to level 99, making all other enemy encounters completely irrelevant except to gather Zenny for skills.
• Damsel in Distress: Ciel. Rescuing her is optional.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Okay, the majority of the bosses make sense, but why in the heck is the Crimson Dragon helping the bad guys again?
• Goomba Stomp: Due to the tendency of the bosses to be much larger than usual, this is used to attack for several of them.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • You have all your party members from the start and can pick which ones to take into a stage.
  • You don't get special weapons from beating bosses, but you can use all the previous special weapons and choose the ones you want before a stage.
  • Stages are unlocked via a Mega Man & Bass system where beating one boss opens up paths to certain others.
  • There are no armor capsules to hunt down.
• Made of Evil: Evil Energy, as the name implies.
• Mythology Gag: Exposure to Evil Energy turns Ground Man into a vicious and militarized Humongous Mecha resembling his original self. Of course, his sprite in this form is ripped from one GroundMan.EXE.
• Scarred Equipment: The Ultimate Armors are available from the start, but their respective skills have been damaged from repeated use & Gate's shenanigans and will malfunction at inopportune moments. Gameplay-wise, this translates to a number of regular and boss enemies being outright immune to damage from these skills.
• Scary Scorpions: Mega Scorpia.
• Series Fauxnale: The end of this game was original intended to be the last of the series with all the bad guys defeated and all the major plot points nicely wrapped up. It wasn't until the announcement of a fifth game years later that it was this.
• This Is a Drill: Ground Man, remodeled to look like his Battle Network counterpart.

Tropes for Mavericks Final Strike Vol. 1

• Brainwashed and Crazy: Proto Man is reprogrammed to attack the heroes in the second opening stage.
• Call-Back: The cutscene between Proto Man and Bass is modeled after the scene between Dr. Doppler and Vile in Mega Man X3.
• Cutting Off the Branches: The opening cutscene confirms Ciel was rescued in the previous game.
• Divergent Character Evolution: X and Zero now gain different weapons from each boss instead of each having the same one.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Gate has reformed and begins working for the Maverick Hunters to atone for his actions while he was corrupted.
  • Dynamo also joins up, at least partially because he owed them one for accidentally saving him from Gate's time machine.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: Bosses no longer used Fixed Damage Attacks.
• Nerf: Duo lost his ability to use boss weapons from the previous game. Proto Man also lost this compared to the original games, though it could be handwaved by his technology being out of date.