Game:

Mega Man X (1993)

Category:

Tutorial

Duration: 7:32

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5

(Not to be confused of course with Mega Man 10, which there is one of those now... my how the times have changed!)

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret right now... I'm something of a Mega Man freak. I don't even know how it happened, exactly, but suddenly I've played way too much of Capcom's little Blue Bomber.

I can say this, however: Mega Man X was my gateway drug. This is the game that sucked me in more than my limited experiences with the classic series ever could, and it's because of this game that I became hopelessly committed to the madhouse that would be the house that Rock built for decades thereafter.

I have long wanted to somehow find a means of breaking into the Mega Man universe (sue me, Castlevania was simpler to jump straight in with), but it's so huge and the games so numerous, and I really didn't want to begin with the original NES title, because it's not nearly as exciting. So I decided on a whim that I would introduce you, dear viewer, in the same fashion that I was formally inducted into the state of true blue Mega Man mania.

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One thing that particularly strikes me is how much story there actually is surrounding Mega Man X... but how little of it actually shows through in the game itself. In fact, an entire fourth of the instruction manual is dedicated to "The Journal of Dr. Cain," which says much more about the game's background.

Dr. Cain seems to be something of a jack-of-all-trades scientist, dabbling in botany, archaeology, and robotics. Searching for some of plants in the fossil record led him to unearth the ruins of Dr. Light's lab. He finds a capsule containing the titular Mega Man X, complete with the specifications and warning screens we see in the game's startup sequences.

The diagnostic period the warning mentions has already passed when Dr. Cain discovers the capsule, and it's already been deemed safe to be opened. Cain meets "X" and is marveled by the technological leap he represents. X essentially possesses as much humanity as actual humans do, even capable of questioning the meaning of his own existence and finding himself unsure of what he should do with himself and what his creator had in mind for him.

Dr. Cain is further astounded as he looks over the research accompanying and explaining the particulars of X's designs and already has his sights set upon applying the technology he himself admits he doesn't quite understand. With X's help, he develops the first of a whole new breed of robot, the "Reploid" (an "android" as "replicated" from X's design specifications), which immediately go into mass-production. No way can this possibly prove to be a problem. (That thirty-year diagnostic capsule couldn't possibly have been an important part of X's development.)

After about a year since the discovery of X and mere months after they'd gone into full-scale production, Reploids have proven invaluable to people, working alongside humans and learning to accomplish even extremely complex tasks, they have practically proven themselves a necessity for quickly-advancing civilization.

As the number of Reploids in use grow, reports of irregular behavior crop up, even involving cases of humans being injured (who needs that pesky first law of robotics?), and these incidents become known as the works of "maverick" Reploids. Since they can't very well stop using or even producing Reploids, the solution is that there should be even more specialized Reploids designated as "hunters" to stop the cases of maverick behavior. Cain assigns one of his latest designs, a Reploid named Sigma, to lead the Maverick Hunters. (Surely a plan of assigning a force of Reploids to stop Reploids from running amok doesn't have any potential flaws in it.)

Then, the "unthinkable" happens! Sigma himself goes maverick and most of the Maverick Hunters go along with him. So now, powerful state-of-the-art machines with human-level intelligence and great destructive capabilities specifically designed for battle are now waging war on humanity because they can, and humans using their brethren for such trivialities of advancing human civilization is simply holding back the potential for Reploid development.

X takes this whole thing rather badly, him being the progenitor of the Reploids and all, and he decides that he wants to help do something about it. He seeks to aid the new leader of the Maverick Hunters, Zero.

Thus opens our first stage, the Central Highway. It is by all means a tutorial and primer for all basic gameplay functions. The boss fight at the end also happens to be a defining moment of characterization for X, Zero, and Vile, the otherwise unnamed assailant.

Note that the only "successful" outcome for the fight is to get hit by one of Vile's paralyzing energy balls. You can't beat him (or even know if your attacks are having any effect for that matter), and you can actually get yourself killed if you touch him when your health is low enough to cue him to start firing them.

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