Mega Man X/YMMV

"Sigma: That's right, folks! I'll do it again, and again! I will make X and Zero mine! Now, come and get me!"
 * Alas, Poor Villain: Upon Sigma's defeat in the first game, Sigma laments X's decision to side with humanity.
 * Vile is also given this treatment in the Vile Mode ending of Maverick Hunter X.
 * Alternate Character Interpretation:
 * Most people see X as either a strong hunter who truly wants peace, or a spineless wimp who relies on Zero to save his ass at the slightest hint of danger.
 * Zero is seen off duty as either a warrior who does nothing but train, or a goof and a prankster who loves partying.
 * Axl either has no grasp of how serious things are or is a promising rookie desperate to prove himself.
 * The fact that there's a certain amount of Depending on the Writer to characterization in this series doesn't help. Compare X in X7 and Command Mission, for instance.
 * Repliforce: Villains? Innocents declared villains by a government too quick to judge them? Or dangerous morons with incredible firepower that needed to be stopped?
 * Dr. Light, regarding Zero. Does he really have no idea as to who created Zero, or is he just hiding it from him and/or X?
 * There's also the recurring idea that he's messing with X for his own amusement due to the ridiculous placement of some of the capsules. This is probably not canon.
 * Angst? What Angst?:
 * In X8 it is revealed that the New Generation reploids (and by extension, Axl himself) were built via the manipulations of Sigma, who considers them his children. This bothers Axl roughly a thousand times less than Zero's similar origin eats at him; in fact, he's the only one of the three not driven into a Heroic BSOD by the Hannibal Lecture delivered soon after. It helps that Sigma and Lumine don't press the point (when Axl outright asks Lumine whether Sigma's influence will affect his sanity, Lumine dismisses him), unlike what Sigma does with Zero.
 * Zero was having nightmare visions of a crazy, disappearing block-loving old man even before Sigma started playing with his head, though.
 * Also, Zero's history comes with a Super-Powered Evil Side. Axl has no such problems.
 * Also of note is his lack of angst over being forced to kill his adopted father. In his defense, Axl didn't really deal the killing blow. He just beat the guy in a fight. It was Red's decision to set the place to blow if he lost and to go down with it.
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: Zero's inclusion in Tatsunokovs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars and, more recently, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 briefly brought the X series characters off of the shelves where they've been since 2006.
 * Pandering to the Base: According to supplementary articles, Inafune personally chose Zero to be included in the former game. Make something of that if you will.
 * X FINALLY appears in an official Capcom vs. Whatever game: Project X Zone.
 * Anticlimax Boss:
 * Dr. Doppler in X3. His attack pattern is almost insultingly easy, though his ability to absorb your attacks can make the fight seem harder than it is.
 * Iris in X4. Compared to Double in X's route, Iris isn't terribly difficult.
 * X in X5. You realize how inconvenient charge attacks are when they telegraph every move X makes as a boss. You'll also realize why it's important to move while charging.
 * Zero in X5. Also like X, the battle isn't very spectacular due to the fact that Zero's AI makes him spam his easily avoided (with some practice anyways, but you're certain to get some) Giga Attack over and over again. This results in a decidely unspectacular battle.
 * Sigma in his X6 form, especially since he's fought after Gate (and his goddamned laboratory.) Subverted for his second form, however.
 * Base Breaker: A fan's introduction to Axl matters more than a little in terms of what that person thinks of him. Was it X7, where most of the dialogue is about him, the voice acting is awful, and the title character is a no-show for much of the way? Was it Command Mission, where his powers are at their coolest, outright turning into bosses (a Mega Manning variant his Expy later takes to the traditional platformers) and able to become immune to pretty much everything at will? Or was it X8, where he's fun to use, gets a nifty moment in the storyline without stepping on X or Zero's screentime, but annoyingly necessary for item collection?
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: Right here.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome:
 * Zero's many leitmotifs are usually among the most memorable tracks in a given game of the series. Especially true of the tracks from the first game. Many, many tracks, as listed here.
 * The Ending to Mega Man X1 is one of the most overlooked awesome songs in the series to this troper.
 * Complete Monster: Most of this series' villains are either infected with a virus that impairs their moral agency, Well Intentioned Extremists, a mix of both, or just plain not heinous enough to qualify. However, the fourth game still gives us a clear-cut monster in minor villain Magma Dragoon, who sabotaged Sky Lagoon and crashed it onto the city below, killing thousands and causing the Repliforce coup just because he wanted a chance to fight X or Zero.
 * Die for Our Ship:
 * Despite actually dying in canon, many fangirls still want to say this to Iris for "stealing" their Zero.
 * Strangled by the Red String: It doesn't help that she only appears in one game, only for said game to kill her off (there was the prequel, but there's not much in that game regarding their relationship, either), giving the fans the feeling of the whole thing being rushed.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Fangirls like to think that Vile is secretly sexy under his helmet and try to slash him with X (despite trying to kill him multiple times), and that Dynamo is a lovable goof who joins the Hunters and is paired with Alia (despite nearly destroying the world with a Colony Drop). Lumine is also starting to get this treatment.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse:
 * Zero and the Green Biker Dude. Zero's English voice actor for the later games, Lucas Gilbertson, has the darkhorse thing going for him a bit, too. iX, a manga-only character, is also especially popular among sprite fan artists.
 * Marino.
 * Cinnamon, too, to the point where she's one of the first revealed playable characters for Mega Man Online.
 * And out of the Maverick bosses, Magma Dragoon is probably the most popular, his Street Fighter inspired moveset probably helps. Storm Eagle is also popular thanks to his badass design.
 * Wheel Gator is this in the YouChewPoop community.
 * Epileptic Trees:
 * After the "X is the original Mega Man after an upgrade" theory got Jossed, more than a few fans have decided that he might be Bass from the original series. Unlikely as all hell, but yeah, people still think it.
 * Everything about Dr. Wily's existence in this series counts as this. Here are a couple of popular ones:
 * Turned Against His Master
 * Body Surf: See the Epileptic Tree about the X-Hunters below. Also, Isoc from X6.
 * Alternately, he's just using the Time Skimmer he used to obtain Quint.
 * Speculation on whether or not Serges is Dr. Wily, because of his physical resemblance and strange interest towards Zero. An even more outlandish theory is that Wily somehow "lives on" in all three X-Hunters.
 * To elaborate, Serges was able to repair and upgrade Zero (or possibly made his new body entirely from scratch), despite Zero being notoriously difficult to analyse and repair, due to his Black Box status. Arguably, the only one who could show such an understanding would be Wily himself. Also, in the Japanese script, he expresses regret over being defeated by "Light's robotic memento". Maybe he just knows his history?
 * Made worse by the fact that the manga adaptation leaps to the conclusion that Serges is Dr. Wily.
 * Although the repairing/recreating can be explained: By X2, Sigma has figured out who built Zero. It stands to reason that this knowledge came with schematics, which he would of course have provided Serges with to allow him to do his job.
 * Due to Axl's ending, many fans suspect that Lumine has somehow transferred his consciousness into Axl after his defeat.
 * Fanon Discontinuity:
 * It has been a long debate whether the series after X5 (where ) was canon. However, an official artbook released for the Mega Man Zero series subtly hints at their canonicity.
 * Doesn't stop some fans from disputing the issue, though. (Despite the fact that Inafune still works with what he's given regardless of what happened after X6).
 * First Installment Wins: It's very rare to see anyone argue otherwise. In fact, most fans agree that X4 and X5 are the only games which even begin to approach the original in quality, to say nothing of surpassing it.
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment: The ending of X2 has Zero easily destroy a weaker clone of himself. Hmm...
 * Game Breaker:
 * Zero's Z-Saber in X3. It can down all of the bosses, even Sigma, in two hits.
 * The appropriately-named Ultimate Armor. However, it can be obtained legally only twice, and the second time requires One Hundred Percent Completion for character upgrades; oh, and defeating the last boss.
 * More conventionally, the Falcon Armor from X5 made the rest of the game a breeze from then on. It could fly for a very generous amount of time, letting you bypass entire sections of levels, its charged attack went through walls (the beam is thin to balance it out, but this is nothing an average player couldn't compensate for) so you could hit enemies that were otherwise difficult to kill, and the flying itself could kill enemies by letting the energy field damage them. Word of God said that it is, after all, made Purposefully Overpowered, being an armor that is above all other armor.
 * X himself is a Game Breaker for X7. Probably to make up for his retirement and the absence of the Ultimate Armor in said game. He lacks Axl's Copy Shot, but is pretty much a superior clone of him in every other respect.
 * Zero's Z-buster from X6. No, really. It has the strange trait of dealing more damage the closer Zero stands to an enemy, so if he fires it at point blank, look out. And it's still freakin' powerful if used from a fair distance.
 * Guard Shell, normally (emphasis on "normally") a shield that reflects projectiles, becomes a cold blooded tool of murder with Zero. Essentially, it increases Zero's Saber slash hit number AND ignores Mercy Invincibility. You can basically enter a boss stage, summon the shield, and chop the boss in 3-5 seconds.
 * Good Bad Bugs:
 * Dashing at an enemy while firing a normal shot dealt double damage in X and X2; "fixed" in the third game. In the PC port of X8, Zero (and Layer) can fly!
 * In X4, standing on Colonel's saber swing area when he fires his Sword Beams doesn't do any damage.
 * Vile in Maverick Hunter X can use his shoulder or leg weapons to stop his descent, allowing him to move horizontally through the air. Use a weapon with low enough energy requirements and you can practically levitate into places early that would normally require a late game weapon upgrade for.
 * Harsher in Hindsight:
 * At least in story order -- while X taking a beam saber through the chest in The Day Of Sigma cues a Moment of Awesome, it's also reminiscent of...something more permanent that happened to him later on., especially considering the parallels drawn by one character between Sigma and Elpizo.
 * Similarly, in the same OVA, Sigma launches a missile strike against Abel City (although with the intention of giving Reploids a future). In Zero 3, the Neo Arcadian Government (specifically Copy X and Dr. Weil) launched a missile strike against Area Z-3038, a human population, of which the missile contained Omega, so they could acquire the Dark Elf, an action that was implied to have resulted in severe casualties in the city.
 * Also, in X4, Sigma tells General that humanity, and by extension the Maverick Hunters, are perfectly willing to destroy anything that doesn't obey humanity absolutely. The Zero series shows just how correct Sigma turned out to be, with main bad guy in Zero 3 even stating that humanity enjoys controlling everything, considering it to be the ultimate joy. Of course, considering who's saying that...
 * Hilarious in Hindsight:
 * At one point in Day Of Sigma, X wonders what could have caused the Maverick uprisings. Funny when you realize who he's talking to (and it's not Sigma).
 * Ryotaro Okiayu also voiced Proto Man...
 * More voice acting realisations: Johnny Yong Bosch (Zero's voice actor in Marvel vs. Capcom 3) voices another Zero...
 * Zero's new level 3 Hyper is a Sword Beam, which is remotely similar to the one used by three other guys voiced by Bosch.
 * Pair Zero with Dante and you'll realize their connection from their voices.
 * The X3 finale. X scrambles desperately away from Sigma to avoid possession and freaks out at a dead end, then Dr. Doppler or Zero shows up and gives his life (minus the sacrifice in Zero's case) so that Sigma will not infect X with The Virus and take over everything with all the wonderful armors and weapons and whatnot. It turns out, Sigma can't actually do any of this; the whole thing was pointless.
 * Sigma is the original Maverick, as he's the first Reploid who's infected by Zero (as seen in one cutscene in X4). Now a guy claims that he's the original Maverick.
 * Martei, a mermaid-based Reploid who becomes X's Love Interest in the manga, was introduced before the release of Mega Man 9, which included mermaid Robot Master Splash Woman. The original Mega Man is sometimes shipped with her.
 * Egregion, the enormous dragon intro stage Boss in X4, who was originally named Eregion. Apparently named from one of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, yet it also brings to mind another piece of literature...
 * It Was His Sled:
 * Ask anyone just remotely familiar with Mega Man if they know who Zero truly is.
 * Also, he dies just as much as Dr. Wily gets owned. Pfft.
 * Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Zero is paired with pretty much everybody. Iris (by default, and in a way that interferes with no others), Bass, X, Dynamo, Alia, Layer, Ciel, any of the Guardians, Roll...even Axl is not immune.
 * Memetic Badass: Pop a wheelie and die, GBD!
 * Memetic Molester:
 * Sigma has become a liiiiiittle too obsessed with the two main heroes...

"1. He spits out an egg that releases four baby birds. It is the easiest to deal with, but can be hard to jump over because the birds spread out quickly. You can destroy them with a charge shot if you are fast enough, but this makes it hard to save the shot for the boss himself. 2. He lands and shoots a Storm Tornado at you. This pushes you back with a lot of force, so you need to dash to avoid the doom pits. Hitting him is also very hard here. 3. He stands on the ground and flaps his wings. This is the best time to hit him, but he barely ever does it. 4. But 90% of the time he flies around randomly. This makes him hard to hit without being hurt. It's almost, if not more ridiculous than Air-Man."
 * There's also a fine scene in X7 where he comes up behind Red and attempts to wrap what looks like tentacles around him, while bellowing: "Give me your power!"
 * Memetic Mutation: What are you fighting for?
 * Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground! Burn to the ground! Burn! Burn to the ground! Burn!
 * It's now somewhat an official meme - just look at this Ar tonelico video.
 * Although the line wasn't even spoken by any of the characters -- only used in level descriptions, any parody written after X8 is guaranteed to have X dramatically vow to stop "Sigma.. .the cause of the entire situation!" This only gets more likely if Sigma is actually not responsible for any situation.
 * "Damn!"
 * On this site, there have been times that either of the series' two incarnations of Zero has been compared to this Zero.
 * Alia's upgrade.
 * "BE MY NAVIGATOR!"
 * The Ze-ERO series, a series of MADs (a rough equivalent of Youtube Poop) that mainly involves characters from this series, on Nico Nico Douga (and some of it have been exported to YouTube as well). Warning: NSFW.
 * NOT A CHARGE SHOT!
 * Crack Pairing: Said series usually pairs Vile with Misao from Lucky Star, probably inspired by the latter's "Sugeendatte Va" Image Song. (Remember, Vile's name in Japan is VAVA.)
 * Memetic Outfit: If anyone doesn't know Zero because of his badassery, it would be because of his Booblights...
 * Moral Event Horizon: If Sigma using The Virus to turn Reploids Maverick (which could be considered Mind Rape) counts.
 * In Maverick Hunter X's The Day of Sigma OVA, he goes sailing over this in two different ways in the same scene: Goading X to shoot him while he's using Zero as a shield and laughing at his hesitance to pull the trigger, and bombing Abel City to hell as a way to kickstart his rebellion.
 * Most Annoying Sound:
 * Flame Hyenard from X7. "Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn to the ground! Burn to the ground!" Oh, and Alia in said game as well.
 * In the Japanese version, he frequently shouts "Moero!" which exactly means "Burn!" Less annoying, but still.
 * Ride Boarski, also from X7. "Here goes nothing! You punk! You punk! You punk! You punk!"
 * Most Wonderful Sound: The sound of Zero's buster charging before he saves X at the start of X1.
 * Narm: In X4, the poor voice acting ruins what is supposed to be a legitimately affecting scene between Zero and Iris and instead makes it absolutely hilarious.
 * X's voice actor before Mark Gatha. It doesn't help at all that she was the voice of Mega Man in Mega Man 8, which means that X has a high-pitched, girly voice.
 * Never Live It Down: Fans mistook Zero for dying and coming back for countless times. In reality, for this series, he has only died twice.
 * No Yay:
 * Vile/X. Dear god, why?
 * Anything involving Sigma.
 * Lumine/Axl.
 * Anyone with Red or Dynamo.
 * Periphery Demographic: While most fans despised Axl, there's a few fans (mostly made of young women) who can't resist his Shotacon charm.
 * Player Punch: So the series finally allowed Zero to be fully playable? Iris dies. In fact, she was probably introduced into the story just to invoke the trope to Zero.
 * Porting Disaster: The iOS port of the first game, and how. Not only does it load less smoothly than the SNES version (despite the system being more powerful), it contains poorly redrawn graphics, generic text, and a lot of the artwork cribbed from the PSP remake of the game, which they could have released a modified port of instead. But here's the kicker: you can buy all the weapons and health boosts with real money, without acquiring them the proper way. From the very beginning of the game. Considering Capcom's already questionable handling of the series in recent years, this only added even more fuel to the fire.
 * Relationship Writing Fumble: X and Zero are just friends in canon, but their interactions with each other often tend to be...suggestive. No wonder fans use them as the biggest source of Ho Yay in the series.
 * Retroactive Recognition: Try to recognize Zero in this clip from Clannad. It will really boggle your mind.
 * Rescued From the Scrappy Heap:
 * The aforementioned Replacement Scrappy Axl gets this in X8 when he delivers a Shut UP, Hannibal to the Big Bad. With bullets. He also has a less annoying voice, a better personality, and a different playstyle that wasn't a weaker version of X's, making him a fun character to use (having infinite ammo for his special weapons helped).
 * Alia as well in X8, due to having a more tolerable voice and being a hidden playable character.
 * Ron the Death Eater: Zero is sometimes subjected to this. Probably results from overdoing his Jerkass Facade.
 * The Scrappy: Lifesaver, for instigating the fight between X and Zero in X5.
 * There's also Axl, but only in X7.
 * Flame Hyenard is this in the same game, for two different reasons.
 * Scrappy Level:
 * Any mission involving the use of the Ride Chasers. Ironically, X6 doesn't have any of these levels, though most of the game's stages are Scrappy Levels enough.
 * X8 made up for it with two Ride Chaser stages, though.
 * The only level in X8 that isn't a total pain in the ass is Bamboo's stage, which becomes pretty hard if you're going for One Hundred Percent Completion.
 * Scrappy Mechanic: Rescuing hostages, especially in Mega Man X6 and X7. Not only do they possess important parts that can be Lost Forever if you screw up, but rescuing them can be a Luck-Based Mission at times as well.
 * Last Lousy Point: In Mijinion's secret area, in particular. All the hostages are in mid-air, and there are a LOT of Nightmares hanging around. Most of them require a blind jump; if you miss and the Nightmare appears on the same screen as the hostage (it WILL happen to casual players), say goodbye to the latter forever.
 * Seasonal Rot: It's almost universally believed that this series starts to rot after X5, especially considering Inafune had moved on to the Zero series at that time.
 * Replacement Scrappy: Axl for X in X7. He gets better in X8, in terms of both gameplay and character.
 * Sophomore Slump: While X2 isn't reviled in the same way that X6 and X7 often are, it's usually considered to be one of the least memorable games in the series, due to the rather generic storyline and the lack of any real advancement in the gameplay mechanics.
 * Straw Man Has a Point:
 * The series has done this for all sides of the conflict (Maverick, Hunters, and Humans) since the fourth game. A lot of the later games have Mavericks fighting because they feel Reploids don't get a fair shake, that the governments are too willing to declare them Mavericks, stemming from Repliforce being declared Mavericks for an incident they were not guilty of. At the same time, the Maverick Hunters are increasingly seen as Knight Templar with a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. However, these same Mavericks, free-willed or not, refuse to negotiate and try to kill the heroes in a fit of paranoia (when they're not outright genocidal), fueling the same problems that they rebelled to stop. Furthermore, the Repliforce was not declared Maverick on a whim. They're an army answerable to the world governments, and their refusal to stand down in light of an atrocity they were implicated in looks extremely suspicious. Eventually, even the main characters begin to show the strain of dealing with so much moral ambiguity and admit that the villains, while usually wrong in both methods and goals, have a point.
 * Especially in Mega Man X8, where many of the Mavericks, depending on who you reach them with, will try to discuss their point of view and point out some pretty obvious facts about the state of the world. Bamboo Pandamonium reminds X that the very first rockets created were for war, and that humanity has been seemingly trying to destroy itself for centuries. Burn Rooster angrily tells the Hunters to listen to the voices of all the Reploids that were retired and sent to the volcano waste-disposal center, asking how many of them were destroyed for reasons other than being truly Maverick (infected by the Maverick Virus). Even Sigma (as well as ) points out that the world is worn out and crumbling, and when you look back through the games and see that everything is mechanical, even the animals and plants, you think that maybe Earth and humanity really are running out of steam.
 * That One Boss:
 * Bit and Byte in X3. They only appear randomly after a set number of Mavericks are destroyed, and good luck if you don't have the right weapon against them. Byte in particular: He's not all that difficult if you know what you're doing, but he uses an absolutely cheap and never-before-seen gimmick to utterly rape the unprepared. He throws a device on the wall that slowly repels X. He'll charge at you shortly after it attaches. If he hits you, he'll punch you into the ceiling, wait for you to fall, punch you into the opposite wall, and repeat the pattern. You cannot break free from the punch combo, and it's his one and only attack, so he can easily loop it until half your health bar is gone. He's too big to jump over, so you have to either execute a well-timed up air dash or dash-jump at the wall and use the split-second of hang time you have to dash-jump over him. Oh, and whenever he hits the wall, if you aren't in mid-air, you're on your butt, so you better have hopped over him before he hits.
 * From the same game, Sigma and Kaiser Sigma. Sigma's swapped out his lightsaber and Wolverine Claws for a Captain America-esque shield, which defends him from all attacks as long as it's bared. His main attack consists of spraying fireballs all over the place, which have an unpredictable pattern and do huge damage. They can be avoided by air-dashing to the wall Sigma's adjacent to, so of course he begins throwing his shield to knock you out of the sky. And when you do bring him down, you get to face Kaiser Sigma, who takes up a quarter of the screen, fills another quarter of it with floating mines, has a weak spot about the size of a pinhead, and keeps his back to you for half the match. Oh, and when he's dead, you have to do an escape segment with rising lava eager to nip away your last few bars of health.
 * General is huge, is only vulnerable in his head, and does a nasty amount of Collision Damage. Zero can only use melee attacks. You do the math. X, on the other hand, has little problems against him.
 * The Bospider from the first game, due to the speed and the timing needed to hit before it regains its invincibility.
 * The same game has Storm Eagle. He is hard to hit in between attacks because he is about half way up the screen. When you fight him, there is a doom pit on either side. He has four attacks, listed below. At least he's kind enough to scream whenever he's about to fly from either side of the scream.

"1. He fires off his Wing Spiral attack at you, which can take up to half of the screen and push you. 2. He will now dash at you, or Shadow Dash (Where he fires off a fake copy of himself at you). These can also push you to an edge quickly. 3. Like Eagle, The Skiver will randomly float up into the air. He will either charge at your location, or fire off the Wing Spiral. 4. If you thought Eagle's random flying was bad, Skiver's will now come from 5 possible directions compared to Eagle's 2 directions. Oh, and this attack for Storm Eagle only did damage. For The Skiver: this does damage and shoves you at least half way across the screen, or a third of the arena. 5. Did I forget to mention that this time he has anywhere from 2 to 4 times the health of Eagle and the platform you fight on is now smaller? Yeah, have fun with that."
 * How could one forget Armored Armadillo? He has 3 strategies: guarding, bouncing off the walls, and shooting his energy shots. He's invincible whenever he isn't shooting at you, as he will most likely block your attack. Guess what he decides to never do 90% of the time. Fortunately, Spark Mandrill's weapon helps much.
 * The Yellow Devil from the original Mega Man comes back as one of the final stage bosses in X5, now with a slick touch of dark color, more confusing patterns, and an alternate form that can One-Hit Kill. It comes after the Scrappy Level to boot.
 * If you thought Storm Eagle was bad, The Skiver/Spiral Pegasus from X5 will be a nightmare. Here are the wonderful changes made to him. Fortunately, though, his weakness (the Dark Hold) will make him stop dead, allowing X or Zero to attack him easily. You will have a hard time with X, as he's only got his charged shots while the Dark Hold is active, but Zero still has his saber skills.


 * Infinity Mijinion in X6. His main gimmick is cloning himself, hence his name. His clones have the uncanny ability to get in your way a whole bunch until you forget which one's the real one. It doesn't help that even getting to him is a huge problem because the entire stage is spent fighting a giant miniboss, which is no walk in the park either. Heck, this is a case in which using the boss' weakness probably makes the battle harder. Trying to even hit Mijinion with the uncharged Guard Shell is difficult, if only because it only works against one of his attacks (which is barely used, mind you), but if it does hit, it creates another clone. It wouldn't even be that bad if the clones didn't have so much health, usually taking three charged normal shots to destroy.
 * The Sub Boss of Blaze Heatnix's stage. Which you fight multiple times over the course of the entire stage. The worst offender is the part where you fight it while forced-scrolling upwards on very small footholds. Which the sub-boss is bigger than. It doesn't help that there's insta-kill lava covering half the fucking screen. Said miniboss, with Zero at least, is cake if you've beaten Mijinion first. Slap it with the Giga Attack twice and it's gone.
 * The real bastard is Gate. Invulnerable to all your attacks, so you have to turn his back on him, and tends to fly right into you. His attacks are ALSO hard to turn back on him since they need to be level with him, and then hit him in the face as they break from damage. The most damning part of the fight is the arena. There is no floor, so you're liable to fall to your death more often than not. The only good thing about this battle is that you freeze in place when Gate runs out of health, so there's no risk of falling to your death after beating him senseless.
 * X7. Let's go over them.
 * Snipe Anteator. On paper, his weakness was the "Moving Wheel." In the game, you could barely get said weapon to hit him. Even if you could, it actually did LESS damage than a fully charged X-Buster. Translation: Just use X already. Oh wait, you have to unlock him first.
 * Then there is Flame Hyenard. You had to damage a mech travelling over hot lava so you could get to him. This is easier said than done since the camera can screw you over. Then you fight Flame Hyenard. He splits himself into clones that shout "BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND!" The weapon he's weak against actually works, but if you're using X or Axl, you'll run out of ammo long before he is dead. The other option is to fight Hyenard on the mech's neck instead of the back, removing the clones (and their annoying group-bumping, which does not damage but pushes you to the middle so the trio can continue to screw with your sanity) but "unlocking" the missiles, which come often and land on your head. The fact that the neck is thin compared to the back means also that you are going to have a harder time dodging both the fireballs and the missiles.
 * And then there is Red. If you don't have Zero, good luck to you. You have to target Red from a distance. Since the camera enjoys screwing you, this becomes a problem. Dodging his attacks is problematic because you're not fighting on solid ground. You're fighting on platforms with a hole in between each one. Fall and you die. Get hit while jumping and you will die. He constantly teleports around on those platforms and there is no way to predict where he will end up. The only way to finish the fight quickly is to use Zero and take Collision damage while slashing him.
 * If you collect all of Zero's parts from the X-Hunters in X2, then you'll be able to skip the battle against Zero at the end of the game. If you don't, you're in trouble at the end of the game before you battle Sigma. The only weapon that really hurts him -- the Speed Burner -- is hard to hit him with, and his attacks are hard to dodge. And after you've beaten him (probably draining all your Sub-Tanks in the process), you still have to fight Sigma. The moral of the story is to get all of his parts, no matter how hard they are to get early in the game.
 * Oh, and Violen is the worst of the three fights you have to do to get the Zero Parts, considering he liked the idea of Armadillo's invincible attacks, but decided to make them even less predictable.
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Later versions of X3, such as in the X collection, had the synthesized SNES music replaced with sampled music, and the classic X sound effects were completely replaced. Not everyone was happy about that...
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
 * There's a short prophecy that was introduced at the end of X3, stating that "To save mankind, X must destroy ". Two games later, the prophecy was fullfilled, but in a twisted way. The battle doesn't involve the fate of mankind directly (at least in the true/canon ending; the alternate path, however, shows another side), but instead it's simply about a question of trust between two friends.
 * The games vaguely allude to reploids falsely being called Maverick and destroyed for unfair reasons, thus indicating the Hunters themselves could be corrupt, but was never really explored. There's also the fact that the Hunters fight to protect humans, and yet humans are never seen or heard from in the games (except Dr. Cain). It's not until the fourth Mega Man Zero game that we ever see the human perspective on the Maverick wars.
 * The whole thing about being alive somehow that they started in X5. There, it was blatant, with his giant logo in the background, a Nostalgia Level and bosses, and he actually talks to Zero when he awakens his . It was all but dropped later, with only a few subtle hints in X6, regarding Isoc, and from then on absolutely nothing. Rumor has it that Executive Meddling made them drop it because it was supposed to be resolved in the Zero series. It never was.
 * Tier-Induced Scrappy: Take a fighting game in which Zero appears. Any game. SvC Chaos: SNK vs Capcom. Tatsunoko VS Capcom: Ultimate All Stars. Marvel VS Capcom 3. Whereever he is, he's always packed up with effective specials, goddamn powerful supers, and wine-o-cheesy combos. Proof? Look. No, not look. STARE. Would you say he's a definite candidate for a tournament ban or a new member of The Four Gods after you watched it?
 * Nope, because to balance it out, it doesn't take a ton of hits to kill him.
 * Too Cool to Live: Zero originally died because of this. Subverted, of course.
 * Toy Ship: Axl is often shipped with Pallette or Cinnamon, both considered young characters.
 * Uncanny Valley: This iOS port. Good lord.
 * Viewer Gender Confusion:
 * Because of his long hair, sleek body and -- no other way to say it -- Booblights, many people think Zero is a girl. Well, now everybody knows the truth, but then again, there's some who don't know or outright rejected that truth. Pointed out in this fanart.
 * Lumine. It's difficult to explain without looking at him. The fact that he has womanly voice doesn't help.
 * Wangst: Most of the endings feature some form of this on X's part.
 * What Measure Is a Non-Badass?: While X is not as popular as Zero because of this, he's also supported by Fan Dumb who think Rock and Trigger aren't "manly enough".
 * The Woobie:
 * Again, two of the three main characters (hint: the ones that aren't Axl).
 * Also, some of the Mavericks that were infected or deemed Maverick, most notably those of the wrongly accused Repliforce in X4, though YMMV on the Repliforce given that they were not innocent of the multitudes of crimes they proceeded to commit over what was essentially a robotic dick-waggling contest.
 * Woolseyism: The name change for Bit and Byte changing them from an obscure mythological reference into something memorable, if not a bit Narmy.