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Spoiler Preface!!!

This post contains content that some may deem as spoilers. You have been warned

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With Mega Man being on my mind so much lately, I found myself trying to take inventory of all the Mega Man games I have played. The results were surprising.

For this inventory, I am not counting stuff like the .exe games or the Starforce games.

Mainline series

Played: 1-7. 9

Not played: 8, 10, 11

So I’ve played most of these, and I don’t think I’m really missing out much with the ones I haven’t.

X series

Played: 1-3

Not played: 4-8, Command Mission

This one is a bit surprising. The original MMX is one of my favorite games ever, but apparently I don’t like the rest of them all that much!

Zero series

Played: 1 (on an emulator years ago)

Not played: 2-4

Yeah, this mostly passed me by.

ZX series

Not played: ZX, ZX Advent

This one completely passed me by.

Game Boy games

I’ve played some of these, but I can’t remember which ones

Legends games

Played: Legends 1

Not played: Legends 2 (but I own it, and will get to it eventually)

I like these games, but they are kinda rough to play on Vita. I need to be in the right mood for them.

Until doing this inventory, I never realized that there are just as many (or more) Mega Man games I haven’t played as ones I have. It looks less like I’m a fan of the Mega Man series, and more like I’m a fan of a few partcular games.

That’s not a bad thing necessarily, but it still feels strange. There is a formula that most of these games follow to a certain extent, a formula that I happen to like quite a lot. Even the worst of these games must offer something I might enjoy - so why are there so many gaps in my play history?

I wrote an earlier version of this piece that broke it down to a number of factors, but it didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t actually believe my own words. I put the post on ice, and then proceeded to write all of the other MM-related posts you have seen up to this point. Then one day I had an epiphany. I finally figured out the true reason for my Mega Man Gap.

It’s this jerk right here:

According to legend, Kenji Inafune and the Mega Man X development team originally wanted to make a game starring Zero. However, someone at Capcom pointed out that folks might not want to play a Mega Man game without a Mega Man in it, so the team was forced to create the character of X, and relegate Zero to the role of supporting character. Considering how good the game turned out, I think we can agree this was a case where corporate interference was a good thing.

But Inafune and crew would ultimately get the last laugh. Despite being killed in MMX, Zero would return in X2 as a major part of the story. Even as a pre-teen, I rolled my eyes at this reveal. I thought Zero worked well as a sort of Obi Wan Kenobi analogue in X1, first acting as X’s mentor, and then sacrificing himself to ensure that X would live another day and fulfill his destiny. Bringing him back in X2 cheapened that sacrifice.

Furthermore, the way in which he is brought back is suspect. The villains acquire Zero’s parts (despite the fact that he seemingly disintegrated in X1) and try to rebuild him. If you fail to get all the parts back, Zero is rebuilt, and X is forced to fight (and once again destroy) him. If you do get them back, Zero is rebuilt as a good guy, and the villains make a Zero replica instead. You don’t get to fight the replica, however, because the real Zero flies in and one-shots it (which doesn’t make much sense. If he can one-shot himself, then shouldn’t the copy be able to one-shot X?). The whole plot feels like an attempt to artificially turn Zero into this legendary, hallowed, important figure, one who fans might consider even cooler than X.

This ploy was followed up in X3, where Zero finally became playable. The catch, however, is that he only has one life. If he dies at any point in the game, he never comes back (funny how this allegedly badass dude keeps getting himself killed). This felt like a marketing tactic - if you want people to desire your product, regardless of its quality, make it rare. Personally, when I first discovered this caveat, my initial reaction is that they should have sh*t or gotten off the pot. Make him fully playable, or don’t.

Turns out this is exactly what they did next. Zero officially becomes him a deuteragonist in X4. Not only could players choose to play as Zero for the whole game, but he starts to become more and more important to the overall lore of the franchise. Oh, and he even gets himself a girl robot as a romantic interest:

Of course, she gets fridged by the end of the game, giving the writers the perfect excuse to make Zero even more moody and angsty in the next game.

Speaking of which … wow. Based on what I have read about X5, it basically makes Zero the Most Important (and possibly most powerful) Reploid of them all, the cause and solution to all of Reploidkind’s problems. He even becomes an actual Christ figure by the end, since he sacrifices himself to save the world - and is mysteriously and inexplicably resurrected in Mega Man X6.

By the time we get to X7, Zero’s presence became so prominent that you can start the game playing as him, but have to unlock the ability to play X.

Yeah, that’s right - in a game named after “Mega Man X”, you have to unlock the privilege to play as the titular character - but you can totally play as his cooler, better friend right off the bat.

Meanwhile, as things were going to hell in the Mega Man X series, Kenji Inafune and the crew at Inticreates made yet another spinoff series, named Mega Man Zero. This game finally gave them what they wanted - a series in which Zero is the sole protagonist, who everyone loves and adores.

This is where things get pissy. In the finished version of Mega Man Zero, the villain is a clone/copy of X who turns evil and creates a fascist anti-Reploid state called Neo Arcadia. The actual X exists as a techno-spirit of sorts, who helps Zero from the shadows in his quest to destroy the copy.

However, in the original draft of the game, the villain was not a copy, but was the original X.

Let me repeat that - they wanted to make a game where Zero is the protagonist, and his mission is to kill Mega Man X.

This is the kind of scenario that the phrase “tell us how you REALLY feel” was made for.

As far as I am concerned, Zero may have been okay at the very start, but he very quickly turned into the equivalent of an “original character” some angsty teenaged edgelord posts to Deviantart. I can tell you without searching for it that there are Anime Music Videos that splice together cutscene footage of Zero with Linkin Park songs.

Though not his fault, Zero is sadly the product hacky writing and Mary Sue-esque characterization. Character analyses of Zero love to bring up his “shoot first, ask questions later” approach, and his cold efficiency in combat. He constantly stews over his origin (he was originally created by Dr. Wily), his curse (he is the source of the virus that turns reploids evil), and his power (the virus somehow makes him stronger rather than turn him evil). And of course, one must not forget the oldest, lamest trick in the book for hacky anime writers everywhere, which is to point out that “deep down inside he really just cares for his friends”.¹

The fact that Inafune fell in love with this character - and that he wanted to act that pissy toward the character of X - makes me think even less of the man than I already did (which is saying something).

But what makes this all extra frustrating is that X himself was a character with a ton of potential. He is the classic “fish out of water” ala Captain America. He is a pacifist who is forced to fight. And he brings in the topic of “what rights do we give to sentient robots?”, which is a staple of science fiction storytelling. X has everything you need to craft a story that is not necessarily original, but is potentially engaging.

Instead, it appears that instead of character development, X received character dictation throughout most of his own series. The writers decided to tell us how X was feeling after each game, rather than really showing us how the events of the story impacted him. That effort, it seems, was dedicated primarily to Zero (which means it was pretty much wasted).

Conclusion

Here’s the thing - if you asked me in the late 90’s why I stopped playing Mega Man games, I would not have answered with anything that I mentioned in this post. This is one of those situations where I was initially driven by my subconscious without quite realizing it. There was a part of me that knew that Zero was turning into a lame character, and that whatever storytelling potential the series may have had was quickly being squandered - I just didn’t realize it. This skepticism lingered for years, and eventually Capcom just stopped making any kind of Mega Man game. By that point, it didn’t matter any longer.

But now, decades later, I was able to fully search my feelings and finally figure out what drove my decisions back then.

Do I regret walking away from the franchise? Not really. It was an early lesson in the fact that both people and things change over time, and that things that were “meant” for me today may not be “meant” for me tomorrow. Furthermore, regardless of what I think of these games, there is a generation of younger gamers for whom this series meant a lot. At the end of the day, their joy is far more important than whether or not I got what I want.

But hey, at least I know what happened to me. Stupid Zero. Screw that guy 😜

Other Thoughts

Setting aside that the concept of robot romance is a bit odd, I find it interesting that while Zero received a love interest, X never did, despite the fact that there were other well endowed robots to pair him up with:

Maybe they thought it was too weird for him to hook up with a character who looks an awful lot like a grown up version of Roll, or maybe the writers hated X so much that they couldn’t possibly imagine that a ladybot would ever want to suck face with a guy as lame as him. Whatever the reason, it certainly made Zero look a heck of a lot cooler. Whether that was intentional or not I cannot say.