I'd say that I think that the original timeline, as a whole, could've been done better so that we don't need some comprehensive book to find out all of these details. Each game should've had the relevant data explained in-game. And as an extension, they need better plot explanations. The crap about the Guardians being killed by the destroyed Omega is just plain bull.

I personally think there were more times then just one that Capcom dropped the ball for the Mega Man Series.


#1. Mega Man 4-6 should have been released on the SNES. Okay, so that's going pretty far back, and even if they had, people probably wouldn't care much at this point in time. However, the fact that Capcom had released MM4-6 for the NES because it was inexpensive for them to develop, is bull. If they had spent as much time on the Original Series as they ended up spending on the X Series, they would have made a perfect two separate series duo on the Super Nintendo, without one overshadowing the other. Sure, many people leaned more to the X Series at that time anyways, but many people still retained close to the easier light-hearted feel of the Originals.

#2. Switching from anime cut-scenes, back to the old tired comic strip style story telling in the X Series. Evidently found in X5, when compared to it's predecessor X4. If they had found better voice actors( like the ones they currently use from The Ocean Group), and appended to the art style, it could have made a better visual impact if they had continued with that idea for the rest of the Series (which would later change to 3D character models as the series progressed). It also would have been easier to get into the story. Let's not forget that annoying typing sound effect for every single letter during every single conversation in X5. Also, what's with the Japanese voice overs in the North American version of X6? I'm not even going to point out the lousy translations. I think they speak for them self.

#3. Inconsistent gameplay progression among the X Series. It seems typical of Capcom, to explore a new idea, fail miserably, then retaliate with their tried-but-true ideas. I thought that X7 had much potential. Unfortunately, it didn't hold up as people had hoped. I thought it was strange, that you could carry over the Chips you accumulated in your previous game, but not the Heart Tanks and other items when playing New Game Plus.

X8 was good, but it also had its share of flaws. No crouch, ugly character models and ridiculous level designs are among them. With X8, Capcom had sucked out all that what made previous X Games so fun and made into a frustrating experience. Also the bosses were pretty lame too. If there is one thing that stands out about X8, it would be the Chip Development System. Collecting Metals and Leveling up your characters worked fantastically. Hopefully Capcom uses this idea again in possible future X games.

I thought that a New Game Plus would have worked well in X5. You should carry over all the Parts you collected from bosses, so you can obtain the others that you had to disregard. Something else, notably from X5-X7, was how unbalanced the distribution of Heart Tanks was. I think Capcom could have at least made exclusive Heart Tanks for each individual character, indicated by representing colors (X=Blue, Zero=Red, Axl=Purple) or whatever.


Anyways, I probably have more to rant about, but I think I'll save some for later.

Wow, everyone here has already listed a lot of the issues that really disappointed me too! Sometimes I think I'm the only one. To go along with Rising Dragon's comment, I've always disliked the idea of having to buy a book just to understand the storyline of the games. I'm not saying they should never release books that have extra details, but there really needs to be better in-game storytelling. You should be able to make sense out of everything you're shown and told in the actual games.

As Arkane mentioned, the unbalanced distribution of heart tanks was really troubling. And just about everyone that knows me knows that my own heart sank when I first bought X5 6 years ago and saw that there were no anime cut scenes. It seemed that X4 made so many steps in the right direction, and then afterwards they took several steps backwards. Why???

It's no secret that X4 is my favorite game... period. But it had its flaws too. I noticed that Split Mushroom, Cyber Peacock, and even Dragoon all worked for Sigma. If you defeat these guys first, you should be able to resolve the conflict with Colonel peacefully when you meet him at Memorial Hall, even if the rest of Repliforce still continues the coup. Colonel clearly came there to talk, not to fight (at least in Zero's game). They made you powerless to stop Sigma's plot, even if you knew exactly what was going on. I always thought they could have given you the option of a happier ending, even if it wasn't canon. Just look at Metal Gear Solid, where they allow you to save Meryl.

Now I'll move on to a more controversial issue, that I'm sure most people will disagree with. I felt that the X series was a missed opportunity in a way. The story of robots that have their own free will is good. On some level the Maverick rebellion is an understandable situation, because of reploids' free will. When I first played X1, I thought the whole point was, what would robots do with free will? The virus takes away from that story element, because it basically robs reploids of free will. Many of them are clearly not in control of their actions after they get infected, such as Squid Adler. I'm not saying that the virus is a completely bad idea for the story. I just think they should have dealt with it a long time ago (in X2 or X3) and ended it by now. It's an overused story element. The games are more interesting when your opponents aren't brainless war machines. Otherwise what's the point of it being the X series anymore? X4 did not feature the virus and it's my favorite game. Command Mission is another good one.

I have another big one for you all. It's about the fight between X & Zero. They hyped this event up throughout several games over the years. But when it finally happened in X5, it was anticlimactic! It wasn't big enough for all the build-up. What was all the ominous talk of them being destined to destroy one another, when it turned out to be a lame fight over a stupid misunderstanding? That brings me to the next big, missed opportunity: The Zero series! It would have been so much more exciting if X and Zero had fought each other to the death in that series. The real X should have been the "villain" of the series, instead of Copy X. Not that Copy X is a true villain anyway, and neither is X. It's within X's personality to be that loyal to the humans. Maybe he got tired of fighting over the decades and decided his harsh new policies were the only way. I may have given away what I had planned for my future fanfics, but I always thought of that as a huge missed opportunity.

Now I've gotten all that off my chest, so I'll try not to go on whining about it all the time anymore.

I think the reason why they didn't have Wily as the final boss in X5 was because if they did, they'd have to make him like the Wizard of Oz, a giant floating head.

... yeah, wouldn't go so well there. >.>

Or maybe have Zero claim it's their destiny, and then have X deliver some long-winded speech about how destiny can kiss his ass.

Or something.

Rather than to say X was just tired of fighting, I should say he was tired of humans being in danger and took steps to ensure that mavericks would be eliminated forever. The whole point would be that X changed over the years when he and Zero were apart, so the player (as Zero) would be shocked to discover this; even if Zero didn't have most of his memory he would be shocked too. Obviously it would require some other adjustments to the story for it to play out this way. I don't really think that an energy shortage should have been the main issue in this case. And the sollution to the energy crisis might not have been found so easily either. But the main point would be how X & Zero both changed over time and end up going in different directions. And of course X wouldn't be the main enemy ultimately.

There was even some build-up to this if you look at how harsh the Hunters became in some of the X games. You hear many reploids complain about the unfair and excessive tactics of the Hunters if you're paying attention. Grizzly Slash was only hunted down when he had something you wanted. You didn't know or care if he was infected, and you didn't care about him selling weapons. Squid Adler quit being a Hunter because of their overly agressive tactics, not just because of Launch Octopus. Many of the Mavericks in X6 had been retired unjustly.

I realize X becoming a fascist seems even stranger than Cody from Final Fight going "bad" in SFA3. Of course I didn't expect everyone to agree with me on this or the virus issue. That's perfectly OK! But to me MMZ was a missed opportunity to make X & Zero's final conflict more dramatic. My opinion remains the same. But more importantly I'm still interested in hearing everyone else's "missed opportunities".

Well, you also have to realize, the X series was SUPPOSED to end with Mega Man X5. Had X6 never come out, the Zero series would've been done a lot differently.

*looks at topic decription*

It's a recurring trend, I notice, with Capcom. They've got something really neat, and as time goes on and sequels come out, they drop those hot potatoes and it leaves a mess I ain't cleaning up. Happened with Megaman, happened with Street Fighter...probably'll happen with Devil May Cry.

And yet, we all keep buying their stuff, like fools...

Not that they can't put out awesome games. It's just inconsistent, especially where sequels are involved.

But yeah, X6 was sloppy overall, and I can only imagine the horror stories I get from X7.

No, he believed himself to be a hero, but knew he wasn't the real X. But, keep in mind, he did think he was better than X...

I enjoyed X6. I'd prefer a Japanese-sounding X over a girly-sounding X.

*Looks at topic* *Blink, Blink*
Theres something that has been irritating me about a particular MM Series. Legends(Dash)...It had closed alot, almost completely finished. What bothers me is not so much the storyline but Capcom had finally used the Action-RPG element with the Megs element. That's when I really fell back in love w/ Megaman. Not some open ended story where rock beats scissors and scissors beats paper.
Yes I agree that the stories need to end but I mean who wouldn't want to play like say MM9 Legends style? Lol may only just be me. Capcom dropped the ball when they made 2 Action-Rpgs for MM and then stopped and went to this weird panel RPG (MMBN).

You know, as I read through th topic it may have been even sooner, say around X4 even. By then the plots could be boiled down so easily that from a player's point of view it just wasn't fun anymore.

In a way, I compare Capcom's treatment of the canon X4 and beyond to if they wrote a book on how to live life, which would be like Uwe Boll shooting a gun/auto safety video. We'd all be dead in like a week...

i always felt that mega man 5's (for nes) storyline/plot should have happened before mega man 4.
it just seemed strange that after having proven proto man(blues) was really a good guy at the end of 3, and also during part 4, to try and convince people he is a bad guy again in part 5 was corny.

especially since he rescues kalinka in part 4 and wily says "you betrayed me proto man".
it all just seems like wily should have used the "blame proto man" idea, before he revealed himself to be alive again.
another element that i think would have made the original series even more intriguing is if proto man became a playable character along with his own personal story/plot from mega man 4 onward.
maybe if they had made it a 2 player co-op game with split screen teamwork missions.
or even given proto his own series to explain his backstory (what he was doing during 1-3) and what he was doing during 4-8.

i really think there were a lot of things capcom could have done had they just kept all the series alive rather than killing them off for the sake of another.
mega man soccer could have just been the beginning.
sure it turned out pretty screwed up, but they could have learned from it's flaws to make follow up side games better.
mario did it, so could mega man.
the potential was definitely there, they just didn't follow up on it.

i personally would like to see some crossover games that probably would not happen in our plane of existence.
lol.
by the way is there a topic for this on this forum (mega man game ideas or crossover game ideas)?

i have plenty of ideas for games for mega man, but i guess they will remain in the imagination.
oh well.

all in all i would have to say they drop the ball everytime,

1. they don't answer the gap questions between one series to the next series.

2. they bring no conclusions to unresolved plotlines or make them extremely stupid explanations. (kind of related to point 1.)

3. they do away with one series whenever they start a new one. (most people will probably disagree with me on this, but that's okay. it's just my opinion on it.)

i really think the original series should not have ended though, there's still so much that could be done with it.

[i]Edited by PR070 M4N on December 20, 2007 at 17:17:05.[/i]

[i]Edited by PR070 M4N on December 20, 2007 at 17:37:18.[/i]

Capcom dropped the ball by not continuing the original and legends series. I know there are people who will disagree with me but the stories in these games really aren't that important. Especially in the original series. Megaman has always been about gameplay and as long as Capcom deilvered solid gameplay in each new release, the stories could keep rehashing themselves as far as I care.

There honestly isn't much room for me to complain about what else hasn't been done right in any of the Megaman series. Sure, Alia in X5 pretty much ruins the game for me and X7 is abit of a dud. But those are both related to gameplay. As far as the story goes in any incarnation of the series.. I just don't think it is important. I played Megaman because I enjoyed the gameplay; if I wanted to be immerged in an engaging storytelling experience I'd play something else.