Mega Man (known as ロックマン Rockman in Japan) is a series of video games from Capcom, usually starring the character Mega Man. The Mega Man games began in 1987 with the first Mega Man game for the Nintendo. This series is known as the Mega Man Classic series, and has spawned several other series. These are the major Mega Man series, including year they began:

• Mega Man Classic (1987)
• Mega Man X (1993)
• Mega Man Legends (1997)
• Mega Man Battle Network (2001)
• Mega Man Zero (2002)
• Mega Man ZX (2006)

Background

The character Mega Man was created in 1987 by Keiji Inafune at Capcom of Japan as the protagonist in a new style of platform game.

In the story behind the original series, Rock is a robot created as a lab assistant by the scientist Dr. Thomas Light; following treachery by Dr. Wily, Mega was converted into a fighting robot to defend the world from Wily's violent robotic threats. Thus he becomes Mega Man (Rockman in the Japanese original). Though all Mega Man games feature unique stories, settings, and characters, they nevertheless share several common features that have made the series one of the most consistent in video game history. Until 1998, all Mega Man games (except on the Legend series) were side scrolling, with 2D maze-like levels. The character controlled by the player was Mega Man himself, who had to fight through these levels using the Mega Buster (so named in Mega Man 4), a cannon attached to his arm, to shoot the robotic monsters that inhabited his environment. After defeating a Robot Master, the boss of a level, Mega Man would gain the ability to use that Robot Master's special weapon. Each robot master was themed after a specific element or object, for example "Fire Man," "Ice Man," "Stone Man," or "Napalm Man." The weapons Mega Man gains, in turn would share the theme of whomever it was he had just defeated. Levels can generally be completed in any order, and as a result determining the best strategic use of different weapons in different levels is one of the hallmarks of the series. Each new Mega Man game would contain new enemies, as well as familiar ones, new bosses (and thus weapons), and new gadgets. Enemies would have at least one weaknesses from certain weapons: for example, Ice Man's weapon is powerful against Fire Man. This creates a preferred order of stage completion. After all 8 bosses are defeated, Mega can travel to Wily's castle, and after fighting past clones of the 8 bosses, confronts Wily, usually in his flying saucer. Each series has a different take on this basic formula. In the Mega Man X series, the characters grow in abilities and power as the game progresses; in the Mega Man Zero series weapons are no longer copied, but abilities and enhancements can be collected throughout the levels. Mega Man Legends brings the gameplay into 3D and is an action adventure with role-playing game elements, and Mega Man Battle Network is an action RPG. While each series plays very differently, their roots in the classic Mega Man series are unmistakable.

The timeline for the series and its spinoffs is somewhat complicated. According to Rockman Perfect Memories:

• Mega Man Classic takes place from 200X to 20XX,
• Mega Man X begins from 21XX to possibly 22XX afterwards,
• Mega Man Zero is set an additional century after the X series ends, and
• Mega Man ZX is set after the Zero series and is presumed to be before the Legends series
• Mega Man Legends takes place several thousand years after the Zero series but the exact time is unknown. Rumored to be 8XXX.

Mega Man's designer, Keiji Inafune, decided to name him Rockman based on rock and roll (hence, the reason his sister is named "Roll"). He also has been quoted to find the name "Mega Man" laughable and cacophonic.

Some other names considered for the series include Knuckle Kid, Mighty Kid, and Rainbow Senshi Miracle Kid. Mega Man is also known as the "Blue Bomber" among fans.

Capcom had recently announced a new Mega Man game called Mega Man ZX, which is apparently set to take place between the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man Legends series. Also, Capcom recently showed that they are working on yet another series beleved to take place after the Mega Man Battle Network series. The name of this series tenatively called "Shin Rockman DS." Both of these games are going to be released on the Nintendo DS system.

Mega Man in other media

Television appearances

Despite consistently high ratings and being a series producers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears really enjoyed working on, the show was cancelled after two seasons. Only a single post-season-two episode was created to complete Ruby-Spears' contractual obligations; no true "season three" plans had been put into motion at the time of the cancellation. (It is worth noting that this final episode contains some of the cleanest, highest-quality animation in the entire series.) The decision to end the cartoon was handed down from Capcom, most likely due to merchandising pressures from toy-partner Bandai, which cut several other popular toy lines at the time short due to not making sales expectations (including The Tick, Sailor Moon and amusingly enough Dragon Ball). Bandai's influence is easily noticeable in the second season, with its much heavier emphasis on characters and gadgets they were producing as toys, like recurring robots Snake Man, Elec Man, and Bomb Man, and new gadgets like the "Land Blazer" vehicle and new Mega Man armors, though the vehicle and armor figures ultimately never made it to retail release.

The pilot episode of the cartoon featured an anime-like style that far more closely resembled the original character designs; this episode and two others like it were released in Japan as OVAs. The three OVAs are now available in English as Upon a Star on DVD. This OVA is aimed at an even younger audience than the American cartoon that followed, and was made as educational video to teach children about Japanese culture. The voice cast enlisted for the dub influenced several of the casting decisions for the American cartoon, especially Dr. Wily.

Characters loosely based on Mega Man, his robotic dog Rush, and mentor Dr. Light appeared in the cartoon series The Game Master in the United States. Dr. Wily was a villain in the same series. Since the show was produced by DiC Entertainment, the characters, depicted as midgets, bore little to no resemblance to their video game counterparts, although Wily looked somewhat like his NES sprites. Confusingly, whenever the Robot Masters made an appearance, they were depicted to be as tall as the show's titular character. The franchise's first three games were adapted as episodes of the series.

The second series, Rockman. EXE Axess, is also not directly based on any of the games but contains elements of the fourth game in the series. The third Rockman. EXE Stream , continues the tradition of not directly following the plot of the games. The fourth series, Rockman. EXE Beast, also followed this tradition, though it can be easily attributed to the Mega Man Battle Network 6 games. The most recent version of the anime, Rockman. EXE Beast+, is the most unique so far in the series; not only is each episode approximately half the length of the episodes in previous series, but it combines elements from EXE Beast with the game Mega Man Network Transmission. A heavily edited version of the anime airs in the United States and Canada, where it is called Mega Man NT Warrior and Mega Man NT Warrior Axess. No plans have been made at this time to localize subsequent EXE series, such as Stream. A Rockman. EXE movie, Bequeathed Program of Light and Darkness, is also a part of the anime series, taking place in the middle of Rockman. EXE Stream, and containing a plot loosely based on Mega Man Battle Network 5.

The various television series and manga contradict the storyline in the games and are therefore not considered game-canon.

Comics and manga

Each series (and usually, each individual game) has a licensed manga that follows its storyline, though only the Rockman EXE and Rockman Zero manga are still being serialised today. The manga of Rockman EXE, which was written by Ryo Takamisaki, is one of the few Mega Man manga available in English; it is known as Mega Man NT Warrior ^* in North America.

There are also many webcomics based on the Mega Man series, the most famous (and debatably first) being Bob and George, which is mostly a parody of the series.

Trivia

• The Classic and X series always include eight robot masters (Except the original Mega Man 1, where Megaman and Roll are the other missing two from the original Mega Man game.)
• Ian James Corlett who voiced Dr. Wily in Captain N, would go on to voice Mega Man in the Ruby-Spears series.
• Though The Beginning is considered chronologically as the first episode of the Ruby-Spears cartoon, in some states it was aired as the second episode, after Electric Nightmare.
• The soundtrack music of the cartoon show (including the main theme) was later used for replacement music in the English-language version of Dragon Ball Z shown in Europe.
• A minor villain named "Megaman" (no space) also appeared in an issue of Man Called Nova.
• Keiji Inafune on Zero in an August 2002 interview with Super PLAY magazine:"The original intent was that Zero would be the protagonist as early as the first X-game. But there were many who protested, so he had to wait."Eriksson, Magnus (August 2002). "Mitt liv som robot". Super PLAY, p. 54.
• The name Rockman, like many elements in the franchise, has been a target of much fan-speculation for years. At one point, the character was referred to by the names Rainbow Kid (referring to his color-changing) and Mighty Kid (which can be considered slightly similar in tone to the western name).
• Each Mega Man series usually uses one distinct thing to which aspects in that universe are based on.
  • In the Mega Man Classic series, many characters are named based on musical terms. Examples including Rock (Rockman, Mega Man in English games), Roll, Blues (Proto Man in English games), Forte (Bass in English games), Gospel (Treble in English games) and many more.
  • The names of many boss characters in Mega Man X have 2 words in their name: One describes what type of organism/object they look like, and the other usually to describe their specialty, characteristics etc. Also, earlier Mega Man X games (the first, specifically), also used Star Wars as inspiration, some of which carries on until late in the series (Zero's Z-Saber is certainly based on Star Wars' Light Saber).
  • The Mega Man Zero series uses a lot of mythological references for names and even events. Not stopping at that, many other names are actual words in European languages, such as French and German.
• Hulk Davidson, the second boss in the game Viewtiful Joe, also produced by Capcom, asks the hero, "What, you think you're some kinda MEGA MAN or somethin'?", as an obvious reference to the franchise.
• In the first Mega Man game, the boss that utilizes rocks as a weapon is known as Guts Man -- not Rockman -- due to the original Japanese name for Mega Man. Guts is a phrase commonly associated with strength and vigor.
• In a few episodes of South Park, various characters mention and play with a line of action figures that resemble Power Rangers and go by the name "Mega Man". The writers were unaware of who Mega Man was when they made the episode.
• At the end of the first game the text says "Fight Mega Man! For everlasting Peace!" the "for everlasting peace" is a quote that occasionally appears in other Mega Man games.
• In the more recent Mega Man games the word "WARNING" will flash across the screen right before the boss appears.

See also

• List of Mega Man games
• Lists of Mega Man characters
• Mega Man NT Warrior

References