A word about the Mega Man sequel series.
While classic Mega Man reigns supreme in my heart, there's room enough there for its many sequel series, which tell the stories of the Blue Bomber's successors in the decades and centuries that followed. The X series centers around the struggle between Mavericks and Maverick Hunters—free-thinking robots that oppose their human creators, and free-thinking robots that aim to preserve peace, respectively—which has its roots in the conflict between Dr. Light and Dr. Wily in the Classic series. The Zero series chronicles the journey of a hero from the X series who finds himself displaced from his own time, caught in the middle of a war between the forces of the once-utopian Neo Arcadia and the robots and humans that oppose their abuse of power. By the time of the ZX series, the distinction between human and machine has become negligible, and clashes occur over the conflicting goals and desires of those who seek and possess Biometal, which grants the user amazing transformative powers. Legends is the first true departure from the Classic series, featuring a new style of 3D gameplay and taking place so far in the future that the heroes might as well be in another universe.
These games put a much greater focus on story and exploration, and the gameplay is noticeably more involved: the most complex Classic game is about on par with the least complex spinoff game. X feels like the next evolution of the franchise—new characters and new moves, but still immediately recognizable as Mega Man. Zero begins to take that fast-paced action in a different direction by adding more RPG elements to the mix, and ZX refines those elements while adding a few modifications of its own. Legends is the most RPG-like of them all, with towns and shopping and genuine dungeon crawls. Each series has its own appeal, and though each one is sufficiently self-contained, there are enough threads connecting them to weave together an interesting larger picture of the world they inhabit.
In this section:
- Mega Man X1-5
- Mega Man X6-8 + Command Mission
- Mega Man X Portable Games
- Mega Man Zero Series
- Mega Man ZX Series
- Mega Man Legends Series
These games put a much greater focus on story and exploration, and the gameplay is noticeably more involved: the most complex Classic game is about on par with the least complex spinoff game. X feels like the next evolution of the franchise—new characters and new moves, but still immediately recognizable as Mega Man. Zero begins to take that fast-paced action in a different direction by adding more RPG elements to the mix, and ZX refines those elements while adding a few modifications of its own. Legends is the most RPG-like of them all, with towns and shopping and genuine dungeon crawls. Each series has its own appeal, and though each one is sufficiently self-contained, there are enough threads connecting them to weave together an interesting larger picture of the world they inhabit.
In this section:
- Mega Man X1-5
- Mega Man X6-8 + Command Mission
- Mega Man X Portable Games
- Mega Man Zero Series
- Mega Man ZX Series
- Mega Man Legends Series