Unofficial Official Mega Man Thread

Agreed. And honestly, they might just be A Us, whatever the creators say.

It's much more simple than that, actually. Capcom won't make a game that bridges the Classic and the X series together because it means that the Classic series would officially end, and no more Classic games means no more money.

At this point, current Classic games less to a new continuity that doesn't need to dive-tail into the X games. If there needs to be a version of Classic that ties to X, have that Classic continuity end in 6 (to add to how as Inafune intended, Wily based Zero on Blues/Proto Man). However, because Power Fighters had Wily develop Forte/Bass from a new element he discovered and that Zero also ran on that element, this Classic continuity ending in 6 and divetailing into X will need Wily discovering his new element and developing Zero with it prior to 6.

Yeah, they could just do the X5 thing and have the explicit link happen, and then ignore it moving forward.

There's already a Continuity Error in the Classic Series with 9: It starts with Wily's surrender and a Time Skip, and yet MM&B ends with Wily still on the loose. If it wasn't for the fact that 9's ending had references to the endings of 7, 8, and MM&B, I would have thought that the canon had already split. As it stands, the only way I can reconcile the breech is placing Mega Man V after MM&B and basically making it that Dr. Wily trips allowing Mega Man to catch up. (It also helps justify removing Mega Man's Charged Attack in 9; it was replaced with a Rocket Punch due to Terra completely No Selling the Buster. Doesn't excuse keeping the Charged Shot off in 10 or removing the Slide at all.)

Personally, I don't think that Capcom will bridge the gap; they'll leave the Classic series with No Ending. That said, there are a few already published Fan Games which, I believe, partly fill the gap. And while Mega Man Unlimited has an obvious connection, I think that it's relatively minor compared to Mega Man Rock Force, with Mega Man: Rock N Roll being a potential precursor to the latter.^note Which gets Super Fighting Robot in the timeline as well. The key thing is that all of the above-listed games^note except SFR would have to come after any and all Official Series games unless said Official Game is predicated on events similar to the aforementioned Fan installments; then again, the fan installments could easily become outdated...

Also, ultimately, I don't think they're worried about having a tidy timeline that all of the games fit into - nor should they be, especially. When the games have such a strict formula, it starts to strain credulity the 7th or 8th time Wily unleashes eight robot masters.

If Mega Man 6 was the end where Wily goes to prison and he stays there/genuinely reforms, what would have happened with Zero's backstory? Admittedly I'm not sure if Inafune always intended him to be Wily's masterpiece, or decided to do so after MMX came out and everyone loved Zero so he got the Shadow treatment in Mega Man X2

Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 on Jan 11th 2021 at 11:57:42 PM

It is done. I have persevered and managed to guide X all the way through Megaman X6.

So, I believe this was the most singularly frustrating video game experience I've had lately. Someone said to think of X6 as a Zero game featuring X, but I disagree and that's being very unfair towards the Zero series. Putting aside the Zero series's ranking system, its levels are overall very tough but fair (with a few exceptions here and there like the opening of the Bombardment Aircraft level) and don't rely on the sheer amount of Fake Difficulty this game had. Playing all these games back to back the change in design philosophy from X4/X5 to X6 is extremely noticeable with X6 going for broke with the instant death. Stuffing spikes everywhere they could, even [[Behind the Black just past scroll points) starving the player's health by having levels filled with enemies who don't drop any refills whatsoever, clogging the screen with falling objects so you can't make jumps (god help you if you're trying to make a dash jump off of Frictionless Ice while a hailstorm of meteors are falling)... When I compared the game to a rom hack, I was thinking of the kind that do everything in their power to get the player killed with everything else being ancillary.

To add insult to injury the localization was pretty bad, as I'm sure everyone knows already. I'm going to have to see if there's a full playthrough on Youtube with the retranslation mod because much of the text was only barely coherent. Shame since this was the most dialogue-heavy title of the bunch so far. I wonder if the part of the ending where the cast talks about building a utopia and creating a cure for the Sigma Virus was deliberately foreshadowing Neo Arcadia and the Cyber Elves since Zero 1 was probably in its conceptualization phase at the time of X6's release.

• I do have one level design-related complement, but it's not about something this game did per se. It was really cool during the intro level to enter the Eurasia ruins and realize that this is supposed to be the exact same area, layout and all, that Zero goes through when he first arrives at Area Zero at the start of Zero 4.
• For as infamous as it is, I actually found Metal Shark Player's level to be one of the better ones in the game IMO. My least favorite was probably the Laser Institute. Rainy Turtloid's would've been one of my favorites if the Black Out Basement portains weren't so obnoxious.
• The boss sprites are generally better and more animated than X5's...then you get Blaze Heatnix, who has a really elaborate design yet whose sprite looks like it was taken right out of a late NES game.
• I made what looks like the classic mistake of initially taking the Shadow Armor to Gate's lab so that I wouldn't have to worry about the spikes or High Max but then got stuck without an air dash.
• Some of these boss battles weren't designed very well. High Max was tedious, Gate was an interesting idea with horrible execution, and Infinity Mijinion was just a clusterfuck.
• Speaking of Gate, I only just barely beat him. I had used up my Sub Tank, would've died from one more hit, and if the energy balls hadn't hit Gate right when they did X would've fallen to his death (plus I had no lives left, but lives are meaningless in this game thankfully). It was such a relief that both forms of Sigma were so easy afterward.

X6 was really cheap and aggravating. I don't know if I'm going to do the usual runthrough with Zero next (I actually managed to unlock him at the earliest possible moment). I can see where he'd have an easier time than X in places thanks to the double jump and so many enemies wanting to get right up in your grill, but I don't know if I want to subject myself to even more X6 right now.

Don't forget about how Mijinion only has frames for facing left and facing right, and Turtloid is only seen from the front in his death sprite.

I remember seeing a tweet from ACE Spark showing all the boss sprites. They really don't look like they're all from the same game.

I suppose that X 6 was as barely as playable as it was is impressive considering how short the development time was

It’s a shame that it wasn’t given more time because it has a lot of interesting half baked ideas (story of X series’ life ha) trying to be more than Just a rushed sequel

A more complex story that tries to run with the themes 4 and 5 brought in. And attempted complexity with puzzle bosses in High Max and Gate

But the execution is sooo bad

Also for what it's worth, a banging soundtrack. Not for nothing it has the most memorable tunes for me personally out of the PSX trilogy.

The soundtrack was pretty awesome, I'll definitely say that in the game's defense.

Random question: How much longer are the Power Battle 16 bit sprites to the MM 7 SNES sprites? I wanna play with resizing them in Paint so I can make them fit that style, because I'm nostalgic for the old sprite comics

Is weird but with half made it was, I like X6 than X5, for starter I like their bosses more, even if they range from pathetic(blizzard, yammerak) to frustrating(infiniy minion), the color and level desing was good and yeah, the story feel good, like I said before X series feel like a proto type of zero series in many ways.

X3, X5, and X6 all compete for the laziest boss design in my opinion.

I said I wasn't sure if I was going to do it or not, but I ended up doing an X6 run-through with Zero anyway. Had an easier time than I did with X, partly because I knew what was coming ahead of time now and partly because Zero's double jump helps a lot with the platforming and he can handle Nightmare Viruses more easily than X can. His unique techniques were rather hit or miss this time around though - I did indeed do the thing where you jump off a wire to slash a nearby enemy and instead end up throwing Zero into the abyss many a time - and I didn't like the change to his saber combo to have him end with an upward slash. It made him feel slower even without the new animation of him putting his saber away every. single. time.

Oh, and the Nightmare Mother, already a massive pain as X, was absolutely unbearable with Zero.

Doesn't Nightmare Mother straight up have undodgeable patterns?

I know a No-Damage Run of Nightmare Mother is possible, but both TAS tools and the proper equipment are pretty much essential.

EDIT: I stand corrected. (Skip to 46:39.)

Edited by CasualChris on Jan 15th 2021 at 11:32:41 AM

I remember a series on You Tube where someone did a no damage unarmored X-run of X4-6 (as well as one with no dash for X1-3). I think he said that it pretty much relied on luck.

EDIT:Found it. It's one Xtreme Mode too.

Edited by Aquaconda on Jan 15th 2021 at 10:36:49 AM

Once it starts speeding up in the back half of the battle it's almost impossible to dodge short of having machine-grade reflexes and sometimes it'll decide to change direction with no warning and that's legitimately impossible to avoid unless you're prescient and air dash + hover at just the right moment I guess?

Edited by ComicX6 on Jan 15th 2021 at 11:42:35 AM

Problem with nightmare mother is that she can only be hit at the center and that is a near pain with zero, is easier to hit with X, special with the falcon armor.

X5 mavericks were OK, they worked better with the Guns N Roses names IMO.

And now I've scratched X7 off the list. Its preceding reputation made me think I was in store for a Sonic 2006 or Bubsy 3D-tier experience but it's actually...playable...? You just have to have a high tolerance for an extremely, extremely clunky game. While I appreciate the fact that the stages weren't packed full of bullshit like X6's were the cast handling like they were on the moon made stages a drag, and Zero especially suffered since it felt like he was just waving a flashlight in enemies' faces. The 3D portions were okay for the most part but they shat the bed during boss fights where things went ham with Camera Screw and many of the those fights were just not well-designed at all, like Flame Hyenard, Snipe Anteater, and Red. Oh man, Red was infuriating. In fact, now that I think about it, there were only like four boss fights in the whole game that stuck to a 2D plane. I'm glad the developers realized it was better to stick to 2.5D for X8.

• I recognized a few of the English voice actors from Advent. They actually noticeably improved for that game!
• I honestly never bothered with Axl's copy ability outside of the cyberspace level where I had to to get to the armor capsule.
• Speaking of X, they really buffed his Charge Shot for this outing! As soon as I unlocked him (what were they thinking with that decision?!) I permanently benced Axl since they play nearly exactly the same.
• Zero kind of got beaten with the ugly stick for the 3D sections, but he eventually more than earned his keep once I discovered his counter move is massively effective on Snipe Anteater and can reflect giant green energy balls.
• As for Sigma's giant final form, once I got a handle on what he could do and how to damage him the biggest threat I faced during that battle was the finickiness of wall jumping in the third dimension.
• Fuck the Red boss fight, especially its camera. There was no fun to be had there, none whatsoever.

Axl is just a shitty version of X in X7. His copy shot is useless as shit and as I recall is rarely if ever useful for anything, on top of just being clunky to use.

The game as a whole is mostly just dull and uninteresting more than anything.