So, I've talked about the gameplay in the Mega Man X series and I've talked about the transition to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. What I still haven't gotten into, but promised I would, is explaining why Mega Man X is a different and separate series than Mega Man. To explain this, I'll essentially need to summarize plot. Fortunately, Mega Man X5 had the most emotionally resonant story in either series so far; since I'd need to explain the franchise's backstory anyway in order to describe X5's plot, this works out perfectly. This may take a while, but I promise, I'll avoid all of the mundane shit; what's important isn't the conflict specific to each game in the series, but instead just the characters and general structure of the plot. So here we go. The Mega Man series begins in the 21st century when Dr. Light, a robotics genius, develops the first humanoid robot with artificial intelligence. This is Mega Man. Following this success, Light creates six more humanoid robots specially designed for specific tasks - cutting down trees, demolition work, et cetera. He wins the Nobel Prize. His jealous assistant, Dr. Wily, rebels by reprogramming these six robot masters for destructive purposes and seeks to take over the world. Light then converts Mega Man into a combat-ready robot and sends him off to defeat the robots and Wily, saving the world. That's the first game. Over the course of the next nine in the series, Wily repeatedly escapes, rebuilds an army of robots, and is conquered by Mega Man. The cycle repeats itself with few twists every game. One point of note is that Wily creates a robot called Bass, modeled after Mega Man but stronger than he is, as a natural rival to Mega Man. The problem is that Bass is torn between doing his duty and doing what he knows is right; he becomes a "frienemy" of sorts to Mega Man, sometimes fighting with him and sometimes against him. Oh, and there's also Proto Man, Dr. Light's first attempt at making an intelligent robot. Anyway, that's all fine and good, but that's really all that the Mega Man series has to offer. Here comes the transition to Mega Man X. Dr. Light, knowing he's not long for this world and that Mega Man won't last forever, constructs his magnum opus (still in the 21st century), an all-around state-of-the-art robot called Mega Man X. Realizing the potential X had for both good and evil, Light sealed him away in a chamber for thirty years. The chamber would test and evaluate X's sense of ethics and morality; only once he proved to be capable of making "good" decisions on his own (without having been explicitly programmed to do so), would he be allowed outside of the chamber. Only, instead of thirty years, he ends up being sealed away for a hundred due to a cave in. In the 22nd century, then, X is finally uncovered by an archaeologist named Dr. Cain. At this point, the original Mega Man has been "dead" for a long time, along with Bass and Proto Man and everyone else from the original series, including Dr Light and Dr. Wily. But before he died, Dr. Wily also made a magnum opus of his own and called it Zero. Mirroring Light's plan, Wily also sealed his own creation away for an extended amount of time. Anyway, Cain decides to make some "reploids" (a portmanteau of "replica" and "android?") of the newly discovered X. But once Zero is unearthed from his own chamber, he brings with him a virus that causes these reploids to go "maverick," or rebel against humanity. So now come the maverick wars. Those affected by the virus are hunted down by a special group of reploids called, fittingly, the maverick hunters. X is one such hunter. The group is led by Sigma, Dr. Cain's own greatest creation. One day, Sigma and Zero have a showdown that leaves Sigma the victor but both severely damaged and weakened; Zero is brought back to the maverick hunter headquarters and, after extensive monitoring, he's shown to be free of the virus. He joins the team and makes a fantastic addition, becoming a mentor-like figure to X. There's just one problem; Sigma, in his severely weakened state, succumbs to the maverick virus himself. And that's where the actual gameplay in Mega Man X kicks off - Sigma takes nearly all of the maverick hunters with him, turning them maverick themselves. Apparently, just X and Zero remain. The plot of the first three games has X battling his way into Sigma's fortress and stopping his evil plans. Aside from a brief segment of X3, Zero is a nonplayable character, merely mentoring X from the sidelines as he, presumably, does other important things to take down Sigma and the mavericks. Then, X4 begins to mix things up a bit as you can play the entire game as either X or Zero. In this game, Sigma has manipulated a situation in which the maverick hunters declare an entire group of reploids (called the "Repliforce") to be mavericks. A war breaks out, and Sigma's intention is to get both groups to destroy one another for him. It pretty much works. Zero even needs to kill the love of his life (yeah, robots can love, I guess) in order to follow orders. The event clearly shakes him to the bone, and he endures an emotional breakdown afterward, crying out, "What am I even fighting for?" Always cold and distant (he was programed by Wily, after all), Zero becomes even more stand-offish by the time X5 rolls around. Now, this game was supposed to be the finale of the series; it's got a really epic plot and plenty of legitimately moving scenes about the bromance between X and Zero. This time around, Sigma is looking to destroy the entire world by implanting a virus in a giant space colony, causing it to fall down toward the Earth. After you fight through the standard eight robot masters using either X or Zero, Zero will climb aboard a spaceship and launch himself at the incoming space colony on an apparent suicide mission. Here's where things get interesting, and here's what makes this game so unique among the series. Depending on whether or not you've successfully beaten the eight robot masters and collected the right parts for the spaceship, one of three endings happens. If you've failed to do what I just described, Zero will fail to destroy the space colony and humanity will barely survive extinction on impact. X will then race to the crash site looking for Zero only to find him overrun by Sigma's latest virus - dubbed the Zero Virus - and suddenly cognizant of his original purpose: to destroy X and all humans. X fights and kills Zero, more or less sobbing before, during, and after the battle. Sigma arrives - you gotta fight him too - and after he is destroyed, he activates a self-destruct mechanism that blows X to pieces. Barely functioning, the largest chunk of X - head, shoulders, and one arm - are suddenly greeted by a strange visitor from the past: Dr. Light himself. (How? I don't know. Is this his ghost? A hallucination inside X? Whatever.) We cut to a few weeks later and a healthy and active X is shown once again leading the maverick hunters. He remembers his encounter with Sigma just fine, but when asked about Zero, he has no idea what he's talking about. It's then implied that Dr. Light not only repaired X but also deleted whatever portion of his memory was dedicated to Zero. Presumably, Light knew X would be unable to keep fighting if burdened by the loss of his mentor and only true friend. Pretty touching and bittersweet, no? Anyway, that's just one ending, and I had to look on YouTube to find it. For the other two endings, which are much more alike, let's rewind back to when Zero is about to collide with the space colony. If you did get all the necessary parts, the plan goes off without a hitch and Zero ejects safely. Once again, though, the remnants of the colony crash into the Earth (though there are no human casualties mentioned) and a giant crater appears. This is where Zero lands and where X again rushes to meet him. Here, once again, X and Zero must fight. This time, though, it's not nearly as serious; because Zero has gone rogue, he's been labeled a maverick. X tells him to at least turn himself in and Zero refuses. Whichever reploid you're playing as, just vanquish the other one. Either way, Sigma will appear and, again, you need to fight him. And, yes, he once again self-destructs and nearly destroys both X and Zero. Zero saves X, however, and takes the brunt of the damage. Now, if you're playing as Zero, you'll see the ending through Zero's eyes; play as X, and you'll get the same ending, just seen from X's point of view. It is as follows: Zero is fading fast and though X keeps yelling at him to pull through, Zero realizes that it's only a matter of time before he himself turns maverick once again; he remembers, suddenly, being created by Dr. Wily for bad intentions. He realizes his purpose was to kill X all along, and though he has no urge to follow through on it, he's too ashamed to go on. Besides, his mind is no longer on the maverick war, as when he killed his own girlfriend in X4, it sucked the will right out of him. (Remember that quote? Yeah, foreshadowing. Nice!) Dying, he apologizes to said girlfriend in an image and swears to X that his death is for the best. The credits roll. Now, if you played as X, you'll get the same ending, but instead of seeing Zero apologize to his girlfriend and remember his own creation, you just see X collapsing. Dr. light, once again, shows up to fix him (why? how?), but this time he does not erase X's memories of Zero. We cut to three years later. X is back to kicking ass and taking names for the maverick hunters. When a distress call comes in, he flies out the door wielding Zero's saber. The game ends with a monologue from X paying tribute to Zero and claiming that with Zero's sword at his side, X will never truly be without his best friend. Aww. And, scene. So yeah. I know I did it next to no justice, but this game actually had a very strong and emotional story at its core. Zero's atonement, X's heartbreak - there were things going on here that were far deeper than anything in the eight classic Mega Man games. Of course, Capcom ended up deciding to continue the X series, even against the will of its creator, and X6 came out a year later. I'll play that next, but I'm not looking forward to it; rumor has it that the sixth game more or less undoes the beautiful ending from this one and also sucks gameplay-wise. But hey, whatever. It's my last game in this compilation disc. Let's do this.
