An official design document from Mega Man X1 has been spotted at Rockman Unite – the 30th anniversary event currently taking place in Hirakata and Hanayashiki Park. This piece (original on the left, translation on right) is an official character relationship chart which – according to a now-deleted tweet from Mega Man 5's planner Ichiro Mihara – was written between Mega Man 5 and X1's development in 1993.
So a couple cool things of note. Firstly, if Mihara is correct, this outright confirms the Dr. Wily-Zero relationship was planned from the very start. This backs up a comment from Keiji Inafune made in MM25: Mega Man & Mega Man X Official Complete Works. Second, according to this document, Dr. Wily used Proto Man as a reference when creating Zero (bear in mind Bass did not exist at this point). Third, it appears Dr. Wily died just after completing Zero. And finally, providing further credence to comments made in Mega Man Zero: Official Complete Works, Dr. Wily's virus turned Zero good since he was 'already the baddest robo by design'. UPDATE: The "missing data" portion has been spotted! It says, "for the sake of behavioral research." Thanks Tony and #20!
All in all, really interesting stuff that shows just how far back the Mega Man X backstory was established. Since Rockman Unite is just starting out, who knows what other neat pieces of history we'll be seeing for the first time?
Thanks to N2_EXE for finding this and Number 20 for the translation!
This is beyond awesome. How should we interpret the dotted lines?
ReplyDeleteMaybe it means that certain things have an influence on others.
DeleteFor example: Mega Man influenced X's design, the robot virus changed both Zero and Sigma's personalities, etc...
The dotted lines likely mean that it inspired or contributed to whatever it's pointing to. I'm guessing this based on the idea that X has a dotted line that points to the references which lead to the creation (solid line) of the Reploids.
Deletenow that's what we call building the foundation to create the series.
ReplyDeleteReally cool. It's neat to see that they had this much of the overall the story planned so early on. I always thought that the whole Zero virus thing was cooked up around the time X4 was being developed.
ReplyDeleteI hope someone gets a shot of the lower-left corner of the design document. I'm really curious what the details are there.
Zero being made by Wily is "suggested" (very clearly) at the end of X2 ("He's the last of the Doctor's creations")
DeleteThen X3's ending dropped the first suggestion of "X and Zero are destined to fight".
X4 just made it explicit and more of a central plot point.
I do find it intriguing the virus did basically turned Zero the opposite of what Wily intended for him. So does that mean the pain Zero was experiencing in the X4 anime cutscene was him having his personality forcefully altered from destroyer to good guy?
ReplyDeleteCould very well be a thing but we dont have enough info on that yet. I am assuming its something along those lines if it is then it would add a lot of weight to the game and how it shapes zero early on
DeleteThe "W on crystal" must be some kind of "Rebooting Operative System" screen, it finally makes sense why he became "good" at that very moment
Deletei wager wily had protections on zero that conflicted with the virus resulting in a reformat.
DeleteAlso have to remember, in X5 the possible outcome of Zero awakening leads to him being evil still, but he's way calmer then he was in the X4 flash back. There's bits of lore that says Wily couldn't control Zero, so he never used him, so its save to say that while it made him good, the virus was originally meant to just make him less chaotic in working for Wily.
DeleteSigma also says the virus during X5 simply purifies Zero's body, and seeing as all cases of him being infected makes him stronger. Its possible that Wily sealed off most of Zero's powers as a fail safe in case he couldn't control him, the more he awakened to the true robot Wily wanted him to be, the more of his dormant power drawn out (able to one shot X if you take to long to beat him in X5, and Sigma saying he didn't get enough of the virus no matter what outcome you get in X5 implies that Zero's true power is beyond anything else in the series at that).
At least this is my theory on how this works.
it's canon that wily sealed zero and never used him to kill megaman and the others so i always thought the w was a restraint to keep him from leaving the lab and causing havoc as well as keeping the virus inside the pod from bringing him to his true form too early. i also think that since wily died immediatly after sealing zero and was still alive spiritually through the virus like how dr. light uploaded himself mentally to the light capsules that the zero virus was made by wily subconciously giving sigma the diagnostics to fully control not only an awakened zero but other reploids as well since the virus only managed to infect reploids due to dr. cain half hazardly mass producing x's design and not giving them the diagnostics to be free from corruption like x.
DeleteIt's funny that the Maverick Hunters are seemingly formed before there's any revolution to fight against? No wonder it ends up paving the way for Neo Arcadia.
ReplyDeletethere were maverick outbreaks priod to sigmas rebellion. by nature of reploid choice as opposed to the virus.
DeleteThere was a threat it was isolated reploids going mavrick the uprising was sigmas doing
DeleteIt was always obvious, but this confirms that Roboenza is a precursor to the Maverick / sigma virus then. The direct dotted line between X and Classic Mega Man is the most interesting piece of this, IMO. Was it intended for X to be the same core robot as classic, just upgraded, in the original universe plan? Because it's been reinforced for years that they are separate creations.
ReplyDeletei'd like to point out Dr.Wily is so smart that he made a robot that was bad to robotic bone with virus that corrupt his badness to goodness. even in death, he still a screw up
ReplyDeleteI have a picture of the missing data on the bottom left corner.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.imgur.com/a/mvZPe
Thanks very much! Did you go? Were you able to take any other pictures of that wall? A lot of interesting looking art on there.
DeleteSo the missing line was.... "For the sake of behavioral research".
I went to the one in Hanayashiki Park, and even did the "scavenger hunt". Got a pin out of it. Also ate some Mega Man themed food, an omelette shaped like the Yellow Devil. There was some concept art I've never seen before, and I say this as someone who owns the latest Mega Man 20+5 art book and combed through it thoroughly. When I get back from Japan I'll post all the pics I took somewhere.
DeleteYooooooo excellent!
DeleteThanks Tony! You're the man.
Delete(It would be nice if this were linked in the original article for the sake of completeness.)
Made an album of all the pics I took of the event.
Deletehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/148264019@N04/sets/72157692673508854
Hanayashiki Park is a small amusement park that costs 1000 yen to get in. It costs 500 yen to partake in the Rockman event itself, which is the book. The tote bag bumps up the price to 700/800 yen (I forgot). Then you follow the book and its instructions. My Japanese is pretty limited so I had a tough time, but with the help of staff I was able to figure it out (still need to know enough super basic Japanese to communicate with them, like colors and over and under and whatnot). I got a pin out of it, and which pin you get is random. I'm happy with the Mega Man sprite pin I got. You can also see a page of exclusive goods sold at this event, which is mostly keychains with art.
Awesome, man. Permission to post/link to this? Great work!
DeletePermission granted to post/link an article out of this :)
DeleteTruly great. Thanks on behalf of everyone else geeking out about these but unable to attend themselves!
DeleteParts of this document don't quite line up with the games' timeline. In the Zero/Sigma flashback in X4, Zero was already evil or ruthless. It wasn't until Sigma broke the crystal on his head that Zero turned good. Unless it's describing that that happens later in the timeline or is giving a general description. Like Zero was designed to be the most evil robot but turned out to be the most heroic instead in an ironic turn of events.
ReplyDeleteHere's the raw Japanese(transcribed by me after looking up the kanji since Google scanned some of them wrong) of that part for anyone that knows the language really well:
もしもと最悪ロボとに開発されていたため逆に正義となる。
Cheers to anyone knowledgeable!