With the declining success of the megaman series, Capcom wanted to reinvent the franchise
to prevent it from getting stale.
By adding a wide array of mechanics and fine tuning the previously established ones.
We received what many consider one of the best 2D platformers of all time.
This is the Megaman X iceberg Not the same mega-man The 'Mega Man X' character
from the Mega Man X series is often confused as older Mega Man by those who are not very
familiar with the franchise.
However, the character featured in the spin-off is in fact a different person altogether.
'X' is an upgraded version of the character that we see in the mainline franchise, designed
to appear older, have a more mature storyline, and be more sentient than the previous model.
Almost the chosen one The popular character Zero that debuted in Mega Man X was in fact
meant to be the protagonist of the series.
However, throughout development, creator Keiji Inafune instead decided to make Mega Man X
the protagonist and make Zero a supporting character who serves as a deuteragonist.
The reason behind this was a fear for fan backlash which could have occured by sidelining
the main character of the series.
Fortunately for the character, he did end up getting his own spin-off games called Mega
Man Zero and cameod in many other games over the time too, most notably Marvel vs Capcom
3 where players often complained about him being broken.
First time for everything The first boss in the game, which is Vile in his Ride Armor,
is the series' smallest opening boss stage because every other opening boss stage happens
to be huge and takes at least half of the screen in most cases.
Additionally on an interesting note, this game is also the first one in the series to
show a preview of the boss levels on the stage select screen.
Mistranslated Usually when video games are re-released as a part of a collection on newer
consoles, there are changes that try to improve the game in several ways.
Oddly enough, the opposite happened with Mega Man X as the translation changes a few things
for the worse.
For example, the voice clip for 'Hadoken' is removed and there is a strange error that
makes Sigma say 'Why you done this to us?!'
once he is defeated at the end of the game.
On another note though, X says 'Damn!' in a conversation in the opening of the game,
for those who want that tiny bit of extra edge.
Fans speculate that these errors exist as part of the abandoned plan of re-translating
the games in the collection.
Adaptions Due to its immense success, the game was adapted into other Mega Man related
media.
The story was first adapted into the manga form as part of the Irregular Hunter Rockman
X - and then it was adapted once more as a manga called Rockman X.
Although the first adaption was faithful to the source material, the second one was particularly
darker and contained themes of death, cursing, sexual overtones, and religious symbolism.
Furthermore, the Mega Man series of comicbooks by Archie Comics integrated several elements
from Mega Man X before the series went on a hiatus.
The Mega Man #34 and #35 storyline 'The X Factor' was an adaption of 'The Journal of
Dr. Cain' from Mega Man X and was originally intended to lead up to the story of the game.
And lastly, a novel called 'Rockman X The Novel: Irregulars Report' was released which
retold the story of Mega Man X.
Remake Although Mega Man X has been released on many different platforms over time since
its original release on the SNES - it was completely remade from the ground up as well.
Once the PlayStation Portable was released and the team was told to make a new Mega Man
game for it - the development team debated on whether to create Mega Man X9 or something
else.
Eventually, they decided that it would be better to go back to the series root and improve
upon the game that started it all.
Eventually, 2005 saw the release of Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, which was a remake that
remained faithful to the gameplay and storyline of the original game but had a complete graphical
overhaul with 3D characters and backgrounds, a remixed soundtrack, redone voice acting
and even anime cutscenes.
On top of all of that, the game had several additions to the gameplay, an extra mode that
allows players to select Vile as a playable character, and even an OVA called 'The Day
of Sigma' that served as a prequel to the game's storyline.
These additions to the game allowed players to experience the story from the perspective
of the villains too not just the protagonist, which makes the storyline seem less black
and white.
Although the game did not sell as well as the company had hoped for, it still received
almost as much critical acclaim as the original SNES game did - which helped it greatly in
re-releases throughout time.
Map Editor Not many games came with a built-in map editor in the SNES era of video games,
but Mega Man X is one of those that surprisingly had one.
It can be activated using the Pro Action Replay codes and players are allowed to build maps
of their choice.
It's nothing fancy, but it's a fun way to kill some time.
You need two controllers to properly use it though, as the functions are split between
the two gamepads when they are attached.
Cut Content Like most games with a passionate development team, Mega Man X has a bunch of
unused content.
There is a third type of Anglerge boss in the game, who has the ability to blow air
at X once encountered.
Since the first version of this boss sucks air in and the second one both sucks it in
and blows it out - it's speculated that this unused version might have been intended as
a boss to use in the middle.
The pallette that is used if you use the Pro Action Replay code to summon this version
of the boss is incorrect since it's pulled from a place that's not meant to be used.
Then we have a Hoganmer enemy type that jumps once its shield is destroyed, although the
version of the character that is in the final game might have this characteristic too - but
it's impossible to find out since its shield cannot be destoryed.
Afterwards, there is a Jellyfish enemy that has completed animations but does not appear
in the game.
Both the Hoganmer type that is unused and this Jellyfish enemy were shown in the 1993
Spaceworld trailer for the game, before they were removed from the final release.
Lastly, there is an unused object with corrupted graphics that spawns Tombots, some random
pieces of graphics that are never loaded into the game, a bunch of unused Zero pallets that
are not found in the game, unused item drops, an unused audio file, some unused text, and
an entire unused Boss Entrance room that is a duplicate of the Launch Octopus' boss entrance
room and it cannot be accessed in the game without using cheats.
Regional Differences The very first regional difference for Mega Man X is, of course, the
main title itself.
The game is called Rock Man X in Japan, while the international versions retain the Mega
Man X name.
Then we have a bunch of name changes on screens that include character information, some changed
titles and a different splash screen, and bosses have altered names too, such as Spark
Mandriller being called Spark Mandrill in the international release.
Bugs Mega Man X has several notable bugs, some of which are game-breaking and were fixed
in later releases.
Firstly, there's a powered-up Shortgun Ice platform that does not shatter if it's used
to kill a boss, which leads to a bug where the player gets credited for defeating Storm
Eagle after dying.
Then there's the bug in which if Sigma and X are killed at the same time, even though
the boss is defeated, the player cannot control X again and the ending cutscene cannot be
advanced.
There are several passwords that can be used to start the game with 0 to maximum life and
every weapon, if the player is willing to cheat to get such things early.
And lastly, X can walk on the ceiling in the beginning of the Flame Mammoth room if the
player follows certain conditions.
This leads to climbing up on an invisible wall that leads to a central room that has
corrupted pallette and enemy graphics, and the boundary is incorrect too.
All of these were fixed in the European version, but the Japanese and North American releases
go back and forth on having and not having these bugs.
Creative Copy Protection Mega Man X is one of the few video games that tackle the issue
of piracy with creativity.
The game constantly tries to detect whether it's being run on a copier and if the game
realizes that it's being run on a pirated copy, there are several things that go wrong
to purposefully ruin the player's experience.
For example, you might lose all upgrades as soon as you enter a stage, picking up a power-up
might throw you back to the beginning of a level, getting hit 128 times might add random
inputs or nerfs to X, and other similar changes to the gameplay occur too which mess up the
gameplay in one way or another.
Although this method of preventing the game from being copied was fairly useful, it started
to cause cases of false-positives too in which people who purchased the game in Japan would
suffer from these issues because the game would incorrectly assume that there is an
error in place.
Eventually, Capcom fixed this by physically rewiring the game's cartridge which disabled
the copy protection - and a new version of the protection was reinstated in subsequent
releases of the game.
Glitches and Exploits Game-breaking bugs are not the only type of effors that exist in
Mega Man X's programming, as casual glitches and exploits are present too.
In Boomer Kuwanger's tower, due to programming issues with hit detection, the spikes in the
area do not damage the player if they touch the spike after being hit by an enemy.
Additionally, if you jump on the spike, pressing the button once more while nullify any damage
taken too.
You can bypass the first conveyor belt section in Flame Mammoth's factory by carefully jumping
on top of a scrapped Utuboros head and dash-jumping into a ceiling tube.
Doing so will send X off-screen, but his shoes will still be visible and this allows the
player to carefully go to the spot where they want to.
Once you do get there though, the area will have a different color, the sub tank sprite
will be glitched, a capsule will be missing, and there will be a bunch of invisible enemies
attacking you.
You can skip the Armored Armadillo rematch by positioning X slightly away from the door
and using a specific set of actions.
This will push X into the door but the camera won't adjust properly, which will then cause
the character to enter an incorrectly loaded version of the room and the boss will be completely
missing.
But if the player does choose to load into this glitched version of the room, a corrupted
version of the boss loads anyway.
Lastly, you can get a fourth sub-tank by using an exploit that includes having a special
weapon with less than full power and grabbing a weapon capsule while pressing start immediately.
Eventually, you can fill it using that method - but if you do it wrong, you'll lose your
third sub-tank too.
Detailed Continuity The stages in Mega Man X change based on the order you choose to
fight the bosses.
For example, if you beat the Chill Penguin first, the Lava in the Flame Mammoth stage
is frozen.
And if you beat the Launch Octopus, Sting Chameleon's stage will be partially flooded.
These are just two examples, and there are many small details like these found if the
player pays attention.
These details are also present in the weaknesses that the bosses have, with a quick example
being the fact that Chill Penguin goes up in flames if attacked with fire.
Minor Secrets You can get Zero's Buster as a weapon in the Sigma Stage 1 if you do not
pick up the arm Power Up in Flame Mammoth's stage.
Ryu's iconic Hadouken can be obtained in Armored Armadillo's stage if you have Heart Tanks,
Sub-Tanks, enemy weapons, and power-ups.
Once you're in his stage and reach the final mine cart, you have to jump and climb up the
wall.
On top, there is a large Energy Unit that you need to grab and then you'll have to jump
into the pit and die.
Then the player has to repeat the process five times and eventually a capsule will appear
which X can enter and inside the player learns the Hadouken move.
As mentioned previously, the sound effect for it was removed in the re-releases.
Honor Among Thieves Sigma cannot be hurt with any weapons in the game aside from the upgraded
X-Buster and the defensive Rolling Shield.
The reason that his final form cannot be damaged by any of the other weapons is because Sigma
specifically built this new form to be immune to any attacks that have been picked up from
his minions.
So, why can the defensive Rolling Shield hurt him?
The reason behind this is traced into the lore, as Armored Armadillo was his most loyal
and trusted henchmen.
Thus, Sigma saw no need to give himself immunity to his attacks since he never feared that
he would turn against him.
Boss Order Mega Man X can almost be seen as a customizable experience, and we're not referring
to the level editor.
The game lets you pick the order in which you fight certain bosses - and the order that
you pick matters a lot for a number of reasons.
For example, if you don't fight Chill Penguin first, you might find other bosses harder
to beat since you won't have the Dash ability which is crucial to the game's difficulty.
And if you fight some of the harder bosses first, the game becomes incredibly challenging
to the player in general.
And last but not least, there are certain bonuses too for the player if they put themselves
through such situations, since certain weapons allow you to breeze through the rest of the
game easily since you got them earlier than you should have.
Fan Theories There are two prominent fan theories for Mega Man X.
The first one is more of a debate as fans question whether or not those infected with
the Maverick virus can be called evil.
After all, Sigma used to be a good guy until he was infected with the virus and then tried
to take over the world.
And the same goes for most people that work for that cause, as the virus removed the parts
of their mind that would make them stay away from such actions.
Thus, it becomes quite dark when you kill them all to beat the game as they're not too
different to zombies - except that perhaps they could have been saved with an antitode.
The second fan theory focuses on Dr. Wily and his connection to Zero.
Although it's no secret that Dr. Wily created Zero as a force to use against his enemies,
he was unable to do that due to how uncontrollable Zero was initially and then ended up locking
him away.
However, some theorists believe that Dr. Wily had been dead since Mega Man 3 and had since
been living as robotic copies of himself.
Thus that's why the Roboenza disease infects him in Mega Man 10, rather than the virus
being something that evolved to infect humans too.
Thus, it is believed that the last and most ideal body that Dr. Wily created for himself
was Zero and the reason that Zero remains a good guy despite slowly regaining Dr. Wily's
memories is because Dr. Wily had somewhat redeemed himself in the end of Mega Man 10
too.
Thus, the violent tendencies of Zero are Dr. Wily unable to control his past urges - but
ultimately he ended up helping humanity whether he liked it or not since Zero became a good
person.
And, of course, his evil personality continues to live on as the Sigma virus.
And the 'true Zero' that Sigma tried to awaken at one point in the Mega Man X series was
supposed to be Dr. Wily's true self.
The Mega Man series is still a staple in the gaming community despite its initial release
almost 30 years ago, with every subsequent release introducing more and more fans into
the franchise.