Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Mega Man X

Go To


Works with their own YMMV pages:


  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Most people see X as either a strong but doubtful hunter who truly wants peace, or a spineless wimp who relies on Zero to save his ass at the slightest hint of danger. The fact that there's a certain amount of Depending on the Writer to his characterization (and many others) doesn't help; compare the whiny X in X7 and with the macho X in Command Mission, for instance.
    • Zero is seen as either a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, a nice guy with a Jerkass act because of his trauma, or a cold-hearted killer.
    • Axl ranges from a hyper-active little kid, a good-natured rookie, and a creepy Child Soldier who sees everything as a game.
    • Just how in control is Sigma? A bloodthirsty Complete Monster? An unfortunate victim of the Maverick Virus? A philosophical Evilutionary Biologist testing X for the good of all Reploids?
    • Vile: psychopath who wants to kill X to get even, or a cynical Rebellious Spirit who isn't all that different from the heroes?
    • Iris, Zero's romantic interest, varies from a saint, to a seemingly sweet person who is secretly crazy, to a naive girl who just wishes humans would stop making life hard for Reploids.
    • Dr. Light, regarding Zero. Does he really have no idea who created Zero, or is he just hiding it from him and/or X? There's also the recurring idea that he's intentionally messing with X, due to the ridiculous placement of some of his armor capsules.
    • The entire "Maverick" idea. The series' Maverick conflicts are often caused by viruses, but as for X1, X4, and X8, there's very little to suggest the rebellions were anything besides political. This is compounded severalfold by the fact that in the Zero series (same universe, just a century later), the heroic Resistance are branded as Mavericks by a tyrannical dystopia; it flips the script, and poses the "Mavericks" as good guys.
      • Furthermore, there is a big case of What Could Have Been due to the extra characterization in Maverick Hunter X. The eight Mavericks were given deeper morality, taking bribes or being forced to fight against their will, showing that if the remakes continued, the "regular Maverick vs. infected Maverick" angle may have been better explored.
    • Despite what many Reploids say, neither X, Zero, or even Axl are ever shown to adopt a "shoot first" approach. More often than not, they ask them to surrender peacefully, are refused, and thus are forced to kill the Reploid in self-defense. However... some lines from Zero among others imply the Maverick Hunters prefer their officers to eliminate targets without wasting time. Is this policy because innocent humans and Reploids in danger at the time take precedence? Because each and every Maverick the Hunters have encountered have refused to surrender anyway? Because of the danger a possibly viral Maverick or one feigning surrender presents? Or is there an anti-Reploid agenda behind it?
    • The humans themselves, particularly the government. Not helped by the fact that humans rarely have their own views, or even appearance, shown in game (the only human we see, Dr. Cain, disappears after X4). Are they well-meaning, seeing the Reploids as equals and valuing their hard work, or do they refuse to see the distinction between them and the Mechaniloids and are only happy as long as the Reploids do as instructed, as Sigma believed? As for the trust issues, are they Properly Paranoid about Reploids given their capabilities, or are they fanatical bigots like Weil who felt the entire race "got off too easy" because of the Maverick Wars, and willing to take extremes to control them?
  • Audience-Alienating Era: X6 and X7 are generally considered to be a slump for the X series; the former for its rushed development and slapdash level design resulting from it, and the latter for its clunky gameplay, bland level design, and misguided attempt at bringing the franchise to 3D. Many will say X8 was an admirable attempt to get it out of the slump and an improvement over the former two games, but sadly, the damage had been done by then, and a new game in the series has yet to surface.
  • Badass Decay:
    • Just like Wily, Sigma's constant defeats makes him less and less of an imposing villain with every game, to the point that in X6 he's reduced to a mentally unstable zombie who can barely form a coherent sentence. Somewhat reversed for X5, however, where the Eurasia Colony Drop he instigates has lasting consequences in the Mega Man Zero series.
    • While Vile remains a formidable boss in X3 and X8, he never regains his dreaded Hero Killer status from the first game, where he curb-stomps X and Zero and requires a Heroic Sacrifice from the latter for the former to even stand a fighting chance.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
  • Broken Base:
    • Many fans believe that X series should've been put to rest at X5, as many key plot points (such as X and Zero's destiny to defeat each other despite being best friends) were resolved there, and the plot picks up in the fitst Zero game. Inafune even indeed stated that the game has the "finality" feel to it. Others would be fine with seeing more X games to stick with the characters and expand on the plot points introduced in the later games. Of course, by this account, X5 is still the end of the series, as each post-X5 game has a time period during the three years the epilogue states, while X6 took place after Sigma's defeat in a few weeks of X5. As an additional note, Zero's ending in X6 is supposed to take place after the end of the series, allowing sequels to be made. Of course, the debate won't stop even with that.
    • Who is really to blame for the events of the X series? Dr. Light? Or Dr. Cain? On one hand, people blame Light for even coming up with the idea of giving Robots free will in the first place, citing that the results were predictable, regardless of intentions. On the other hand, people place the blame on Dr. Cain for not taking nearly as many precautions when making the Reploids as Light did with X, only looking at the results and not taking into consideration the consequences of not properly testing them. A third camp places blame on both, saying that Light should have known not everyone would follow his safety standards and that Cain should have paid more attention to the amount of work Light put into X. It can be argued that neither are to blame- they both had their faults, but it wasn't until Sigma was infected by Zero that things went bad, and that wouldn't have happened if Sigma didn't screw around in their original fight, which gave Zero an opening. A 4th camp believe that while Light and Cain both had the best of intentions they either overlooked or underestimated certain variables that were completely beyond their ability to control ultimately resulting in a powder-keg primed to explode regardless of who, when, why, what, where, or how it was triggered.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • X is not Mega Man. He is his successor, like a "Mega Man Version 2" based on the original model. His sapience - his main difference from Mega Man - is such an important plot point that you'd think it'd be clear, but inaccurate journalism and promotional material hasn't helped with the misconception (even the English versions of X2 and X3 call him Mega Man). Not even the English voice cast of X4 were fully aware that Mega Man and X were separate people, hence Ruth Shiraishi's identical performances in Mega Man 8 and X4.
    • It's common belief that the reason why the Mega Man (Classic) characters aren't around in 21XX is because Zero killed all of them a hundred years prior. This is actually just a fan theory that has been disproven by official documents and Keiji Inafune. What helped this one along was the webcomic Bob and George, which was hugely popular with the Mega Man fandom in the 2000's, based an entire story arc on the theory.
    • Furthermore, fans tend to conflate the personalities of the glitched Zero who fought Sigma in the past, and the Awakened Zero activated by the Zero Virus in X5. When Zero fought Sigma, he was still suffering from an abnormality that Dr. Wily never fixed before his passing, hoping his Maverick Virus would finish it for him; this made him psychotic and bloodthirsty. Contrarily, Awakened Zero is what Dr. Wily originally intended for Zero's personality: a cold-hearted, remorseless agent of destruction. While both relish in chaos, one was a glitch and the other was not, and they are entirely separate facets of Zero's personality.
  • Complete Monster: See here.
  • Continuity Lockout: Zero's ending in X6 is said to take place at the very end of the X series, not directly after X6. This makes Zero's presence in X7 and X8 highly confusing to most fans, since the true placement of Zero's X6 ending is only All There in the Manual in the Mega Man Zero Official Complete Works.
  • Creator's Pet: It's no secret that Keiji Inafune's favorite character is Zero. Inafune originally designed him as the new Mega Man, before deciding to pass the role to Hayato Kaji. He then wanted Zero to be playable as early as X1, and he was the one who got Zero to come back in X2. His comments in the Official Complete Works book also indicate he was very protective of who got to do Zero's illustrations, doing them himself up until X4. Fans assume this is part of why he's such a Spotlight-Stealing Squad character for X in the series. Unfortunately, Inafune seemed to regret this and wanted to put X back into the spotlight with Maverick Hunter X, only for that series to never get a sequel.
  • Die for Our Ship: Some fans aren't fond of Iris for being a brief love interest for Zero, getting in the way of the popular X/Zero pairing. Since Iris dies in her debut game, it's mostly a moot point.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Some fans portray Vile as secretly sexy under his helmet and try to slash him with X (despite trying to kill him multiple times), and Dynamo as a lovable goofball who joins the Hunters and is paired with Alia (despite nearly destroying the world with a Colony Drop). Lumine also gets this treatment to some extent.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • The Green Biker Dude from Mega Man X2. They're a generic reploid who appears in the background of the intro stage and gets shot down in an instant, but still gets appreciation for their sacrifice. Being able to do a wheelie on their Ride Chaser helps.
    • Magma Dragoon is easily the most popular Maverick boss in the series, sporting a cool design, actual involvement in the plot, and a memorable battle. He even showed up in Mega Man X DiVE as a playable character, making him the only playable Maverick boss so far.
    • Wheel Gator is this in the YouChewPoop community, due to his memetic theme song and awesome design.
    • Marty, a mermaid Reploid in the Rockman X manga series, is popular for her cute design, romantic tension with X, and Action Girl moments. It helps that she was one of the only female characters in the series for years, until Command Mission or the navigators in X8.
    • iX, an Evil Knockoff of X from the obscure Japanese Carddass series Rockman X Mega Mission, is especially popular among fan spriters.
  • Epileptic Trees: After the "X is the original Mega Man after an upgrade" theory got Jossed, more than a few fans have decided that he might be Bass from the original series.
  • Estrogen Brigade: Mega Man X has a very strong female following, especially in comparison with other entries in the series. For how action-packed it is, the strong focus in X/Zero relationship, how much the games are dripping in Ho Yay between the two of them and the drama help make the series appealing to both sexes. It also helps that Zero is handsome and mysterious with a tragic past.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Calling X "Mega Man" or claiming he's the same character as Classic Mega Man is enough to have the more rabid fans immediately point out your mistake. The two are completely separate creations built by Dr. Light.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • X: Referred to often as "The Blue Bomber of the 22nd Century" or the far pithier "The Azure Hunter". Other times, especially by fangirls, "Ekkusu" is also used.
    • Zero: "The Red Ripper" or "The Crimson Hunter." An odd inversion is that his popular fan "full name," Zero Omega, turned out to have a significant connection (which you should already know) to the Sequel Series.
    • Gate's battle armor is sometimes referred to as the "Zero Armor" because of the source of his research. Not to be confused with Zero's own ultimate upgrades.
  • Fanon:
    • Though unlikely and never hinted at, many fans assume that either Mikhail or Kalinka Cossack was involved in Axl's creation.
    • It's common for X and Zero to be portrayed in fanart with the ability to take their helmets off to reveal heads of hair underneath, similar to the original Mega Man. This has never been shown in any X game. In the manga, X removes his helmet but it is obscured by light, and concept art for a toy in the Mega Man X Complete Works artbook shows him with bare metal plating underneath.
    • The term Reploid canonically stands for "Replica Android". While many assume this is in reference to them being replicas of X (and thus, X and Zero are technically not reploids), this is never actually stated, and according to other media such as "Rockman X The Novel: Irregulars Report" the term is meant to refer to their replication of human-level cognition, or "replicas of humans". This would also answer the question on whether or not X and Zero can technically be considered reploids.
  • Fanon Discontinuity:
    • It has been a long debate whether the series after X5 (where Zero really died) was canon. However, an official artbook released for the Mega Man Zero series subtly hints at their canonicity. Doesn't stop some fans from disputing the issue, though.
    • Some fans completely disregard the Guns N' Roses names for the X5 Mavericks, and refer to them by their Japanese names instead. The version of X5 found in the second X Legacy Collection switching to names closer to the Japanese originals only helped this stance.
  • Fanfic Fuel: Connecting the X series and Zero series, often exploring the mysterious "Elf Wars" that were loosely described in Zero. Connecting the Classic and X series is also common.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Due to the copious amounts of Ho Yay between them, X and Zero are usually paired together.
    • On the hetero side of things, X is usually paired with Alia while Zero is paired with Iris. Zero is also sometimes paired with Layer, instead, usually in light of Iris' death in X4.
  • Faux Symbolism:
    • Quite common. Is there meaning between Dr. Cain and Abel City's names? Not really. Is it relevant that High Max's barriers feature Egyptian hieroglyphics? Nope.
    • X8 has the clearest examples of Christian symbolism, such as the first stage Noah's Park, the plot-important Jakob Project, the semi-final boss resembling a demon, and the final boss resembling a fallen angel whose ultimate attack is called "Paradise Lost". It's a bit ham-fisted, but they at least fit the mold of the game's themes better than other examples.
  • First Installment Wins: The first Mega Man X game is often considered the best, evolving the classic Mega Man series to faster, more complex platforming, along with new gameplay features and a more mature storyline, and no subsequent game has gotten the same praise. X4 is the only one that comes close, with some fans regarding them as even even better than X1. Many other games in the series are still popular, but they tend to be contested in a few areas that leave them out of the same league as those two games.
  • Franchise Original Sin:
    • One of the criticisms of X7 is that X himself got shafted to being unlockable, becoming a bit player in one of his own games. The series' lack of focus on X has always been bit of a problem, specifically because Keiji Inafune apparently regretted his decision to submit Zero's design as the "sub character" and deliberately was giving the X the short end of the stick to make people like Zero more. It started in X2 which gave hints of Zero's origins and a sidequest about bringing him back to life, but that was okay since it gave the series another cast member. But when the Playstation era started, X was just along for the ride while Zero got all the big character interactions and backstory in X4 and was pretty much the sole reason for X5. While X6 was a little better, Zero still hung over the plot and two of the endings were sequel hooks for the Zero series. Hence, X being dropped as the lead for the next game was the obvious endpoint. Thankfully, later games addressed this: X got equal screentime with his partners in Command Mission and X8, while the Zero series doesn't put up the pretense of being about X in addition to giving a lot of introspection into his character.
    • The criticisms of X being a whiny protagonist can be traced all the way back to the first game, with X already angsting about having to kill Mavericks and the heavy losses that came with the war against Sigma. The main difference was the limitations of the hardware at the time made longer cutscenes more difficult to put in, thus keeping it from being really at the forefront, and he was still willing to hunt Mavericks for the sake of protecting people. As the games went on and the hardware improved to allow for more fleshed out cutscenes, in combination with Zero being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad in the later games, X's pacifistic side became more and more pronounced to give him some relevant character arc, reaching its zenith with X7, where X's characterization of trying to find a peaceful way to deal with Mavericks became flat-out unlikeable and illogical for many.
    • The criticism of Sigma always being the bad guy can be traced back to the Classic series, where Dr. Wily was always behind everything even when the games featured new villains such as Dr. Cossack and King. However, this was never seen as a major problem for the Classic series, partly because the designers eventually just started treating it as a Running Gag, and partly because the plots in the Classic games are generally pretty shallow to begin with. Fans are much less forgiving about this with Sigma however, because the X series actually did try to have a story with lots of Grey-and-Gray Morality, and an Obviously Evil villain who constantly hijacks potentially interesting plots by making one side go mindlessly berserk simply by his presence doesn't play ball with that.
  • Game-Breaker: So many that it has its own page.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: For some reason, the Mega Man X series specifically is very popular in Brazil and other South American countries. Many prominent fan works have been created by Brazilian fans, such as Mega Man X: Corrupted and Mega Man X: Giga Mission EX.
  • Good Bad Bugs: In X1 and X2, dashing while firing a normal shot dealt double damage to enemies and bosses. This was fixed in the third game and beyond.
  • Growing the Beard: Many believe that the X series did so with the jump to the PlayStation, which allowed both the gameplay and story to reach new heights that they never could have within the SNES' limitations.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • At least in story order — while X taking a beam saber through the chest in The Day Of Sigma cues a Moment of Awesome, it's also reminiscent of something more permanent that happened to him later on, especially considering the parallels drawn by one character between Sigma and Elpizo.
    • In the same OVA, Sigma launches a missile strike against Abel City (although with the intention of giving Reploids a future). In Zero 3, the Neo Arcadian Government (specifically Copy X and Dr. Weil) launched a missile strike against Area Z-3038, a human population, of which the missile contained Omega, so they could acquire the Dark Elf, an action that was implied to have resulted in severe casualties in the city.
    • In X4, Sigma tells General that humanity, and by extension the Maverick Hunters, are perfectly willing to destroy anything that doesn't obey humanity absolutely. The Zero series shows just how correct Sigma turned out to be, with the main bad guy in Zero 3 even stating that humanity enjoys controlling everything, considering it to be the ultimate joy. However, he, Weil, is the only human shown to feel that way, and ironically, is almost exactly like Sigma in terms of his megalomania, self-serving morality, and appetite for death and destruction, the only real difference being Weil's bigoted against Reploidkind whereas Sigma looked down on humanity.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • The ending of X2 has Zero easily destroy a weaker clone of himself. Come the Mega Man Zero series, and Zero ends up being the clone himself, with his original body being substantially more resilient.
    • Zero as left by Wily was an indiscriminate killing machine, he only gained a personality after his initial encounter with Sigma. Come the Zero series finale, Dr. Weil tries to invoke the Three Laws of Robotics to undermine Zero's resolve to face him, only to learn Zero was never programmed with them in the first place.
    • The X3 finale. X scrambles desperately away from Sigma to avoid possession and freaks out at a dead end, then Dr. Doppler or Zero shows up and gives his life (minus the sacrifice in Zero's case) so that Sigma will not infect X with The Virus and take over everything with all the wonderful armors and weapons and whatnot. It turns out, Sigma can't actually do any of this; the whole thing was pointless. However, X5 establishes that critical infection causes harm to X, so Sigma still could've killed him by trying to infect him.
    • Marty, a mermaid Reploid who becomes X's Love Interest in the manga, was introduced before the release of Mega Man 9, which included mermaid Robot Master Splash Woman. The original Mega Man is sometimes shipped with her.
    • Up until the release of X4 and thus his decidedly male voice, due to his long blond hair and "booblights", Zero was often mistaken for a woman. Come the ZX series and Zero is now a Biometal, which merges with the player character, one option of which is a girl.
    • Zero was supposed to be the protagonist of the series, until this idea was nixed because the devs figured that making a protagonist too dissimilar from Mega Man would alienate fans. Almost a decade later, when Zero became a major Breakout Character more popular than even X himself, it now made sense to give him his own series.
  • Ho Yay: X and Zero are probably one of the most legendary bromances in gaming. The two are so close that Launcher of a Thousand Ships aside, many of their later interactions are in/famous for one reason or another for this, especially in X5 when Sigma outright uses the threat of trying to kill X or Zero to wedge despair into the other, even referring to them as "Zero, the one most important to you", or how "you won't be lonely if X dies with the both of us" as they tell him to leave the other alone. It's to the point that even those involved in the series have joked about how close the two are, and the amount of fanfiction and shipping fans have done for these two is easily the highest of anyone in the franchise, with Zero/Iris and X/Alia trailing behind.
  • It Was His Sled: Almost anyone remotely familiar with Mega Man knows that Zero was created by Dr. Wily, a twist not fully revealed until X5.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Zero is paired with pretty much everybody. Iris (by default, and in a way that interferes with no others), Bass, X, Dynamo, Alia, Layer, Ciel, any of the Guardians, Roll, even Axl is not immune.
  • Love to Hate: Sigma, especially in X4 and X5 for manipulating the Repliforce into staging a coup against the Maverick Hunters and his involvement with the Eurasia Colony incident.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Mega Man X5 & X6: Dynamo is the suave and chill right hand man to Sigma in X5. After having effortlessly implanted a virus to the Eurasia Space Colony and set it on a crash course to Earth, Dynamo was then tasked to bother and distract X and Zero twice. Despite this, he shares no real animosity or hatred towards the Maverick Hunters, is genuinely polite and respectful towards them, and has no real desire in trying to kill them. After his second fight with X and Zero, he compliments their strength and power and uses his cunning by leaving as he knows that he will likely die if he continues to stall X and Zero. Reappearing in X6 having collected multiple Nightmare Souls in order to get stronger, he encounters and fights X and Zero and compliments their fighting power and skill once again before fleeing mostly unharmed.
  • Memetic Badass: Alia might've gotten a bad start in X5 due to her persistent calls, but X6 elevated her to this status due to that game revealing she had a personal hand in killing some of the Mavericks back in her research days, combined with her being able to reverse engineer and repair Dr. Light's tech with the Forth Armor and Falcon Armor wound up making her one of the strongest characters in the series that had to be reduced to a supporting role due to having that much of a Story-Breaker Power.
  • Memetic Loser: Zero's a through-and-through badass in the games that occasionally becomes a Sacrificial Lion, but with how often it happens in the X series (and in the later series as well), fans have taken to interpreting that dying is his most prominent quality.
  • Memetic Molester:
    • Sigma can become a little too obsessed with the main heroes at times.
      Sigma: That's right, folks! I'll do it again, and again! I will make X and Zero mine! Now, come and get me!
    • There's also a fine scene in X7 where he comes up behind Red (Axl in disguise) and attempts to wrap what looks like tentacles around him, while bellowing: "Give me your power!"
  • Moe: RiCO from X Dive immediately hit super-duper moe status thanks to her voice and perky nature.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Sigma's Macross Missile Massacre against Abel City, killing countless humans and reploids, in The Day of ∑ from Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X. Unlike the original canon, there is no indication he is corrupted by the virus.
    • The Repliforce War was this for the unseen previous commander of the Maverick Hunters, as said commander resigned in disgrace following the end of the conflict, resulting in Signas becoming the new commander.
  • More Popular Spin-Off: At the beginning, the X series was seen as more appealing than the Classic series. Over time, however, this has become less evident due to the divisive nature of the later games.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • The SNES games have impeccable sound design despite their limitations. The sound of X's buster charging is quite wonderful, especially as it plays before Zero saves X from Vile in X1. The extra-loud hit sound whenever you land the final shot on a boss. The sound of a Ride Armor's punch connecting. All beautiful.
    • Zero's saber slash sound in the Playstation games never gets old.
    • In the Playstation 2 games, the three Hunters all got their own unique dash and jump sound effects. Zero's is definitely the coolest, but none of them are slouches.
  • Narm:
    • Mega Man X4 is the king of this due to poor English voice acting. It most infamously ruins what is supposed to be a legitimately affecting scene between Zero and Iris, the memetic "what am I fighting for!?" moment. Over time, this one has crossed into Narm Charm and has strengthened Zero as a memorable character, because people will NOT forget it any time soon.
    • X's voice actors before Mark Gatha. Ruth Shiraishi in X4 sounds too girly and miscast, as it's clear going for Cross-Dressing Voices doesn't fit for the distinctly more mature and masculine looking X like it does for the more child-like classic Mega Man. Meanwhile poor voice direction in X7 makes Peter von Gomm's take sound too whiny and nasally, making X come off as a mopey teenager than a Shell-Shocked Veteran tired of all the death and bloodshed as originally intended
  • Never Live It Down:
    • Fans like to make fun of how frequently Zero dies, to the point where it's his primary character trait in some portrayals. While the total number of Heroic Sacrifices does get a bit ridiculous in Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX, X-era Zero — who is treated as the poster boy of dying — canonically only dies once in X1, and once in X5.
    • There's quite the contingent of fans who mistake X for a whiny, hypocritical wannabe-pacifist because of his portrayal in X7, ignoring all of his previous characterization that establishes him as nothing of the sort.
    • Sigma coming back from the dead and/or being revealed as the games real villain in almost every game in the seriesnote  is another infamous cliche that fans will never let the series live down.
  • No Yay:
    • Vile/X. Dear god, why?
    • Anyone with Double, but especially X.
    • Axl/Lumine is always guaranteed to end horribly for the former, especially considering how X8 ends.
  • Not Badass Enough for Fans: While X is not as popular as Zero because of this, he's also supported by fans who think Rock and Trigger aren't "manly enough".
  • Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: X and Zero are just friends in canon, but they often act like a bit more. No wonder fans use them as the biggest source of Ho Yay in the series.
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: While none of the games have truly bad stories, none of them are very good either. Only X1 and X4 have actually solid plots, while the rest range from overly-complicated messes to borderline Excuse Plots. X8 and Maverick Hunter X sought to rectify this, but whether they succeeded or not is debated.
  • Polished Port:
    • The X Collection adds a save feature to and removes slowdown from the cartridge-based games, and significantly reduces loading times for the disc-based games. That said, this collection is prone to some annoying input delay, although this can largely be adjusted to by the player.
    • The Mega Man X Legacy Collections take this a step further, adding a slew of new features, including a newcomer friendly "Rookie Hunter Mode" that reduces much of the damage from everything and the "X Challenge" mode that lets the player fight two bosses (often from different games) at once.
  • Popular with Furries: As expected in a series where you fight robotic Funny Animals, who go by Reploids/Mavericks. Of the Mavericks, Armored Armadillo and Sting Chameleon are the most popular, though special mention must go to Neon Tiger for having his own Wikifur article. Magma Dragoon is an outstanding example of a Draconic Humanoid reploid who also has a notable fanbase.
  • Porting Disaster:
    • The iOS port of the first game. Not only does it load less smoothly than the SNES version (despite the system being more powerful), it contains poorly redrawn graphics, generic text, and a lot of the artwork cribbed from the PSP remake of the game, which they could have released a modified port of instead. But here's the kicker: you can buy all the weapons and health boosts with real money, without acquiring them the proper way, from the very beginning of the game. This was considered a bad look during a time period where Capcom wasn't treating the Mega Man series well. What's worse is that Capcom apparently didn't learn their lesson and chose this version to port to Android devices in 2023 over the original game. While the microtransactions have been removed, this was compensated by making the game more expensive than the iOS version.
    • While "disaster" is probably too strong a term, the Legacy Collection versions of the games suffer from very noticeable input delay (with X1 having it the worst), and the Steam version launched with a bug that could to lead to significant framerate drops and slowdown (though this could be fixed with a simple tweak). Mind you, the games are still perfectly playable this way (this is still largely a Polished Port), but compared to the original versions, the controls simply aren't as responsive or tight. In addition, just like the Legacy Collection for the Classic Series, the Nintendo Switch version only has the first four games on cartridge with the other four being included via a download code (unless you bought the Japan-exclusive 5-in-1 Box).
  • Retroactive Recognition: Try to recognize Zero in this clip from CLANNAD. It will really boggle your mind.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Axl achieved this in X8. He has a less annoying voice, a better personality, and a different playstyle that wasn't a weaker version of X's, making him a fun character to use (having infinite ammo for his special weapons helped). It also helps that he delivers a Shut Up, Hannibal! to the Big Bad with his gun, a very memorable moment.
    • Alia. X6 took the first step by making most of her calls optional and more pertinent, and giving her some intriguing backstory. X7 undid some of this by giving her an annoying voice, only for X8 to give her a much better voice and make her a hidden playable character.
    • Sigma in X4, X5, and X8, for toying with the Repliforce and Maverick Hunters like fools, attempting to blow up the Earth with an infected Eurasia Colony, and playing an active role involving the Jakob Project.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge:
    • A common one among players is to defeat all of the stage bosses using only the X Buster. Others include beating the game with no damage or beating it without upgrades or hearts.
    • YouTube Let's Player HideofBeast takes this to downright masochistic levels, having done a minimalist, no damage speed run of X4 through X6 on Extreme Mode. This is especially painful when you take into account the horrid level design of X6 and how much of a pain in the ass it is just to beat it normally.
    • Playing as Zero from X4 onwards, especially Black Armor Zero. He's a lot more mobile than X and his saber has better DPS, but he takes more damage from attacks than X and has very few ways to attack from a distance, leaving him much harder overall to master.
  • The Scrappy: Axl was once a Replacement Scrappy for X in X7, producing similar gameplay but with a more annoying voice and less powerful weaponry. He improved greatly in X8 in terms of both gameplay and character, winning the favor of most fans making him a mainstay.
    • Wheel Gator from X2, although not as bad as the above example, since there were no voices back then. His fight is considered one of the most tedious fights in the entire series. This is primarily due to the fact that he likes to dive under the oil pool a lot and waste time firing Spin Wheels up the walls or trying to jump and catch you in his jaws. If you hit him with his weakness, Strike Chain, he does it constantly every time he's hit. Unless you're patient and/or have a lot of health and/or are good at dodging, this fight will really be a slog to get through. Especially in the rematch late in the game.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Injured Reploids in Mega Man X6 and X7. Not only do they possess important parts that are Permanently Missable if you screw up, but rescuing them can be a Luck-Based Mission at times as well.
    • The fact that the Switch version of Legacy Collection only offers the first four games physically, while the other four are provided via download code included in the box (unlike the PS4 and Xbox One versions, which included two blu-ray discs in the same packaging)note . Not only does it make it almost impossible to resell the game, but it also mean that people with bad or no internet will have spent their money on only half a product.
  • Sequelitis: After the original game (which, as mentioned above, is often regarded as the best in the series), there seems to be a "rule of two" as to the quality of sequels. X2 and X3 are regarded as decent, but not offering a whole lot over the first game other than being able to play as Zero in the latter sequel (and even then in a very limited way). X4 is seen as a major step-up in quality and the best game after the original, and X5 is also generally considered to be pretty good, although it has received criticism because of some mechanics and the level design. X6 is regarded as an overly difficult Mission-Pack Sequel with poor level design and a ton of annoying mechanics, while X7 is not only considered to be easily the worst game in this series, but arguably the worst Mega Man game of all time. Command Mission and X8, while not exactly masterpieces, are if nothing else regarded as way better than the two previous games, and not too bad by their own standards.
  • Strangled by the Red String: Iris appears in one game, only for said game to kill her off (assuming you don't count the Xtreme series; even then, she isn't expanded on very much). The end result is that her relationship with Zero feels very rushed.
  • That One Level:
    • Any mission involving the use of the Ride Chasers. Ironically, X6 doesn't have any of these levels, though most of the game's stages are Scrappy Levels enough. X8 made up for it with two Ride Chaser stages, though.
    • The only level in X8 that isn't a total pain in the ass is Bamboo Pandamonium's stage, which becomes pretty hard if you're going for 100% Completion.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • For the games that effectively kickstarted the idea of moral complexity and detailed character relationships in the Mega Man franchise, to the point that virtually everything story-focused in the franchise can be pointed back at these games (primarily X4 and X5), newcomers are often staggered to realize that in spite of this, the games are incredibly straightforward, to-the-point platformers that at best, leaves entire characterizations, relationships, plot points and most of their complex ideas in supplementary materials and at worst, skim over them completely because they have to be short, digestible games completable in about an hour or two, even Command Mission, the sole RPG of the bunch, barely does anything with its own genre and chooses to be a straightforward adventure formatted like a linear Mega Man game instead. In effect, being part of a series not really known for having rich, complex stories keeps these games from exploring more of Mega Man and its lore.
    • For a series that talks about the relationship between man and machine so much, we never see a single human impacted by Mavericks in the story. The best we get are Dr. Cain and some random civilians in The Day of Sigma. It takes the bite out of cataclysmic events like Sigma's anti-human rebellion or the Eurasia crash, though this could be on purpose; one of Inafune's least favorite things about Super Adventure Rockman was that it showed deaths of humans, though in a fairly limited capacity, but it still bugged him enough to bring it up in the Mega Man Complete Works years later.
    • There's a short prophecy that was introduced at the end of X3 that "to save mankind, X must destroy Zero". Two games later, the prophecy was fullfilled, but in a twisted way. The battle doesn't involve the fate of mankind directly (at least in the true/canon ending; the alternate path, however, shows another side), but instead it's simply about a question of trust between two friends.
    • The whole thing about Dr. Wily being alive somehow that started in the Japanese version of X2, before being explored much more in X5. There, it was blatant, with his giant logo in the background, a Nostalgia Level and bosses, and Wily actually talking to Zero when he awakens his Superpowered Evil Side. It was all but dropped later, with only a few subtle hints in X6, regarding Isoc, and from then on absolutely nothing. Rumor has it that Executive Meddling made them drop it because it was supposed to be resolved in the Zero series, though it never was.
    • A few people have expressed disappointment about the Excuse Plot behind X Challenge in the X Legacy Collection, feeling that X's past enemies coming back to haunt him (not just Maverick bosses, but even Quirky Miniboss Squad members and main antagonists) could've gotten more fleshing out than just a few throwaway lines of text.
  • Tough Act to Follow: The first Mega Man X left such a strong impression that the rest of the series had a very difficult time matching it. The only games that fans consider to come close are Mega Man X4 and just maybe Mega Man X2, depending on who you ask.
  • Toy Ship: Axl is often shipped with Pallette or Cinnamon, both considered young characters.
  • Unfortunate Character Design: Zero's classic boob-lights, but his pelvis also makes him look like he's wearing a pair of tighty whities over his pants. This was lampshaded in a Mega Man X7 4Koma strip.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Because of his long hair, sleek body and odd-looking lights on his chest, many people unfamiliar with the series think Zero is a girl at first.
    • Lumine. It's difficult to explain without looking at him. His Cross-Dressing Voice doesn't help.
  • Viewer Name Confusion: "Sigma" and "Signas" are quite similar-sounding, despite the two being completely different characters.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: X2 and X3 including the Cx4 chip that allowed for usage of wireframe graphics, like the Final Boss of X2. The developers made it a point to show it off whenever they could find an excuse, and it results in some memorable visuals and enemies that really stand out from the rest of the sprite-base graphics.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Some fans of Mega Man in general tend to steer clear of the X series because of the line crossed between the Classic series' self-referential status into using Shounen themes for drama. This sometimes extends into the Zero successor series.
  • The Woobie:
    • X and Zero (especially the latter) go through a lot of undeserved suffering in their fights to save the world. Their friends are betraying them or dropping dead left and right, until the two are forced to face each other too. Even then, after the Maverick Wars they're going to deal with the chaos of the Zero series too...
    • Some of the Maverick bosses, most notably virus-infected innocents such as Blizzard Buffalo, or members of the wrongly-accused Repliforce such as Web Spider and Spiral Pegasus (regardless of the irresponsibility of its leaders).
  • Woobie Species: The humans. Despite the fact that very few humans appear on-screen, they are mentioned whenever they get their lives turned upside down by Reploid unrest. At the beginning, not only are Reploids quickly starting to out-populate humans, but then Sigma goes ahead and declares war to genocide them. The resulting Maverick Wars rage for years - Repliforce stages a military coup to get away from them, then Sigma and Dynamo initiate a Colony Drop that decimates the Earth and forces humanity underground. Once the Reploids finally clean up the mess years later, it's no surprise that they want to build the Jakob Elevator to live on the moon! But they can't even have that, as the New Generation Reploids hijack the project for their own purposes. If you wanna include Command Mission, the humans also help build Giga City only to be banished by the Rebellion Army. Then the humans get a day in the shade for the Zero series, where the Reploids are the ones who are discriminated against, until Dr. Weil starts killing humans off too! It's only when humans and Reploids are made indistinguishable in the ZX series that the humans get off okay.

Top