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Mega Man Discussion / Dissections of Mega Man X Series

« on: November 10, 2013, 03:26:53 AM »

I discovered much of the Mega Man lore late in life. It was only until college that I learned more of the background story behind the games. When I finally learned the backstory for Mega Man X, I was surprised what the story actually was about. I thought that it was about the classic Mega Man waking up in a apocalyptic future where humanity was dying and advanced robot masters based off Wily's design reigned supreme, and that Zero was Mega Man from the deep future serving as his guide. Boy was I wrong. The plot was more complicated than that, yet at the same time kind of absurd.

Things about Mega Max X that intrigued me:

So X was a second prototype of Mega Man, who was a completely different robot than Classic Mega Man, with his own personality, and free-will. We never know what happened to the first Mega Man, or why Dr. Light wanted to make a completely different Mega Man who had no resemblance to the first.

The development of Reploids was the fault of Dr. Cain, an archaeologist who had no business building robots, least of all replicating the work of a robotics expert from the past. Why did he take it upon himself to replicate X when he was not qualified, especially when it seems like he was replicating X's design for quick cash?

All the Reploids and Mavericks, except for X who is not a Reploid, are all pretty much the younger offspring of X because they are replications of his design. Ironically, even though these Reploids are younger than X, the majority of them treat him like a naive kid. They do realize that they all owe their existence to his design, right?

Zero seems like a more advanced version of X, but it turns out that he was the ultimate creation of Dr. Wily. Not only that, but he was the source of the Maverick virus, and presumably still carries the virus even after losing his memories and Maverick thoughts. Zero seems to serve as both a Protoman and Bass figure in the X games. However, Dr. Wily never left any holographic pods like Dr. Light did to explain to Zero why he was created.

The Mavericks are anti-human, yet their reason for being was the result of a virus created by a human (as well as faulty wiring from replicating X). Makes me wonder how the Mavericks would think of Dr. Wily if he somehow miraculously came back to life and try to gain the Mavericks' allegiance.

Sigma is not a scientist. He is a former Maverick Hunter, yet through his contracting of the Maverick Virus he has emerged to become Dr. Wily's successor, though far more dangerous than Dr. Wily. The other MMX games came up with other Maverick villains who served as Reploid equivalents of Dr. Wily, like Serges or Dr. Doppler, but it always Sigma who is the main villain. Sigma does get destroyed multiple, but he always has a backup plan. It's interesting that Sigma usually is blown up at the end of the game yet still survives, while Dr. Wily only still survives because Mega Man was predictably merciful.

The plots of the MMX games usually involve misunderstandings with other Reploids and Sigma being revealed to be the true villain. The Maverick Hunters seems kind of slow to sense Sigma's influence behind the scenes just like Classic Mega Man and friends are slow to determining that Dr. Wily was behind it all.

The Maverick Robot Masters never have "Man" in their names. They're all either animal-based or humanoid-looking Reploids with pun-names. And their not the result of being built by the villain, but were mostly former good guys who have been corrupted. Interesting take on the Mega Man formula.

All in all: Mega Man X is Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? meets Mega Man.


Anyway, those were things that came to mind when I learned more about MMX's story. What have other fans thought of the story and motifs in the MMX series?

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MM8BDM Discussion / Some Issues with v3b

« on: November 04, 2013, 05:38:53 AM »

I've been playing MM8BDM a lot lately, and I think it's one of the most brilliant freeware games I ever played. You really succeeded in making Mega Man FPS when Capcom couldn't. Not only that, but you succeeded in rendering NES Mega Man's 8-bit graphics into a retro-3D environment from the first person, in the DOOM II engine. Many of the weapons from the old MM games work very well in this transfer. The Slash Claw, Flame Sword, Bass Buster, and Proto Buster and Shield are among my favorite weapons in MM8BDM. What's also cool is to see the moving mouths from the MM NES games from a first person perspective in the DOOM engine: it's a quality that makes me thing of Half-Life 1, and it just makes me wonder why other FPS developers in the 90s couldn't make their NPCs move their mouths while talking to you while MM NES did it so simply. And the boss fights are brilliant as well. Gamma is pretty difficult, but I think that he is by far the largest boss ever programmed for a DOOM engine game. Having the EVIL Energy Robot from MM8 be the boss in the last expansion, considering that he didn't get to be a boss in the original MM8, was a great touch.

Those are just a few of my praises for this game. I will now get into some complaints, but they are very few. They persist a lot, so I was wondering if you could fill me in on them.

1) Autoaim is always on: I find it very strange why this feature is always on, and always resets to autoaim even when I try to change it. It's annoying, because it shoots at things I didn't want to shoot at, like those raven robots in the Shade Man level. I'm not firing at them, but it still hits them, and they fire back. It happens to when while fighting some of the bosses, the mega buster fires at the small damn helmet things when I really just want to fire at the end boss. Whenever I try to change it, the menu won't allow me, because it says that I can't change in-game. Even if I am in Dr. Light's compound, it still says I can't change. I changed it while in intro cutscene before starting the game, but it always reverses back to autaim. Why must you have autoaim always on? Granted, I did manage to change autoaim other features once while in game mode, but the game was probably too distracted to care, and that resulted in a crash afterwards I think. The same applies to the crouch mode: game wouldn't let me alter it, except once. I can understand that the "can't change while in game" is important so that online players don't have an unfair advantage, but why must it be the same for singleplayer?

2) Can't change gameplay features in menu: As I stated above, it's something you may want to look into.

3) Enemy Bots too Accurate: Most of the time, the enemies seem too accurate. It's not that big a complaint, so it's more likely that I'm a wuss. However, I hate it when they're more accurate than I am, because of my confused autoaim.

4) A Slide function should be implemented: It might cause problems, but I think if you could swap the crouch function with a slide function, it would add a new element to the gameplay.

5) Some weapons don't work: Plant man's weapon doesn't do anything, and when I fight plant man at the end of the Mega Man 6 section, he just reverts to Mega Buster. Check it out.

7) Other MM Weapons Should Be Featured: Like the Magnet Beam. Just a small suggestion.

You can dismiss the other critiques, but I would recommend you fixing some of the gameplay configuration issues.

3

Mega Man Discussion / Mega Man DOS 2: My Ideal Interquel for the MM PC Games

« on: October 29, 2013, 03:15:56 AM »

I am id Man! Robot Master with all the technology and weapons of id Software's gaming titles! Fear my Pogo Stick Chaingun BFG!

OK, now to the topic.

I must admit that my first Mega Man game was the DOS version. It was the only Mega Man game I could play and beat at the time, sadly (I never could afford a Nintendo back then). Through visits to my Godbrother, I got exposed the classic cool Mega Man, as well as Mega Man X. I only recently watched the longplays of most of the Mega Man games, and gained more and more appreciation of them. Strangely enough, I discovered on YT that there was a sequel to the DOS Mega Man, except it wasn't called 2 but 3. It made me wonder why they made it 3 instead of 2, and I thought perhaps that were hoping to make a 2 once they got better at designing Mega Man for PC?

The reason why I am fascinated with Mega Man DOS is because
1) It was for me my childhood, however pathetic that sounds,
2) Duke Nukem 1, my other favorite childhood platformer, borrowed a bunch of textures from Mega Man DOS, so it has that almost-Apogee feel to it.
3) The mundane setting: it may be less futuristic than the console Mega Man games, but I still liked how they made the levels that way.
4) Choice of robot enemies: mainly insects, dogs, spiders, bats, and aquatic critters. Mundane critters without any anime style to them.
5) Original though slow moving robot master designs: At least in the first Mega Man DOS. I know that 3 ripped designs off the NES games, and all fought the same way.
6) Mega Man DOS was very atypical for a Mega Man game.

Since I do have a fondness for the old title and for Apogee/id DOS platformers, and since there was only a DOS 1 and 3, why not a Mega Man DOS 2? It would be perfect, because I could parody the style, look, and gameplay of Mega Man DOS, but at least make it more fun to play than the originals. I would try to make MM DOS 2 be to the MM DOS games what Mega Man 2 was to the Mega Man games.

Here's the concept: Dr. Wily has infiltrated major areas of commerce and administration with his latest robot masters and taken them hostage. Mega Man must fight all robot masters in order to determine the new location of Dr. Wily's super underground Skull City. The Robot Masters he faces are deliberately meant to be mundane and dull, but at least each have unique fight patterns and attacks.

Robot Masters:
Globe Man:   Spinning Globe Projectiles
Daimyo Man:    Vibrating Katana Slash
Oven Man:    Environmental Broil
TV Man:    Static Interference Wave
Kraken Man:  Feeding Tentacle Grapple
Vitamin Man:   Pill Bomb
Computer Man:   Error Screen Attack
Motorcycle Man:  Gas Blower
Pool Man:   Chlorine Grenade
Radioactive Man:   Mini-Atom Bomb Blaster
Lawnmower Man:    Mower Blade Projectile and Grass Thrower
Bookworm Man:    Re-educator Annelids

At one moment in the game, Mega Man is kidnapped, and Roll must rescue him by becoming MEGA WOMAN, for at least two levels and then she's back to being Roll.

For a secret level, you play as a 8-bit DOS version of X, and you have to fight Bile (Vile's weaker cousin), and Sigma, who fights rather like Dr. Wily from Mega Man DOS. And you get the same anti-climactic ending after beating him!

For the Wily boss, I'd want to do something different from the mechwarrior Wily pilots in both 1 and 3. Something more interesting. For the ending, I'd like to do something akin to the ending to Mega Man 2 NES's ending.

What say you, Robot Masters?