During today’s Capcom Spotlight, Mega Man series producer Shingo Izumi and Dual Override producer Hiroyuki Minamitani not only revealed the six finalists in the Robot Master Design Contest, but also showed the silhouettes of seven Robot Masters that the winning entry will appear alongside.
We love a good silhouette around here. They’re perfect fuel for speculation. There's a little guy on the far left, a two-headed bot, and... is that a witch and broom in the middle? A lot going on here!
Izumi and Minamitani also noted that more updates on Dual Override will be shared in the near future, so we may not have to wait long to learn their identities.
It is so good to be back. I remember back when MegaMan ZXA was announced, and from time to time, we had some silhouette reveal accompanied by some description on the Pseudoroid's nature. Same as well when we had MegaMan 11.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting cast. Love the diversity on silhouettes.
One of them looks like they're wearing a wizard or witches hat. I hope it's the latter. A witch female robot master would be awesome.
ReplyDeleteOne of them kinda looks like they have two heads.. SEARCHMAN IS BACK(no tf he aint what an i on about)
ReplyDeleteThat'll be one weird search man cause one head has a full body and if you look closely on the side of it, you can see the outline of other body attached to it. Maybe they're conjoined where they do acrobatics.
DeleteThat's what I was thinking when I was really looking at it
DeleteI think a conjoined twins robot master would be crazy cool though
I hope it's something cool like that and not just 2 different robot masters silhouettes overlapping in an odd way
Looks more like a robot master that can make a duplicate of himself Gemini man style or fighting two similar bosses at once like you did against the beetle boss in MMZ or the cat-like boss in ZXA. I can tell they are separate entities and not one body.
DeleteWould be funny if he was like Rack’n’Ruin from Transformers.
Deleteclock men
DeleteOne in the middle looks like it has the crazy glue tip piece. Maybe glue or sticky man perhaps?
ReplyDeleteI've seen a lot of people interpret that middle guy as either a satellite or turret based robot master, but a glue based robot master would be pretty neat (Bond Man real?)
DeleteI'm seeing a shoulder cannon of some sort.
ReplyDeleteHappy to see an official update of progress after a couple months.
ReplyDeleteAlso the purple aura in the background gives off evil energy vibes, even like the virus in the X series. Interesting...
ReplyDeleteAs interesting as it may seem, I recall a user who frequently visited The Megaman Network over 16 years ago who was convinced Capcom was going to connect the Classic Series to the X Series with Mega Man 10 and pointed to the Roboenza as proof (as in being the protoform of the Maverick Virus that Zero carried before he fought Sigma); but this user had previously said the connection was going to happen in Mega Man 9 prior to its release, almost implying the series would've ended there and then lead directly into X being discovered. So, forgive me if I don't sound too enthusiastic about seeing purple glows in the background.
DeleteI doubt they will connect it directly, just like I don't think X9 would have anything to do with Elf Wars. Elf wars is further in the future than X8 by a lot, I bet. Maybe 22XX. Of course I think the time gap between X6 and X7 is large since the world seems mostly restored after X6, and X8 being a large gap between X7 because it takes time to build an orbital elevator, even though oddly Wily in MM10 had one built, but he and Light were ahead of their time by a lot; not normal humanity and normal reploids building or inventing stuff. Likely the time gap is larger than that to the Elf Wars + not connecting it allows for more sequels. Also no hint of cyber elves at all or Zero going to sleep after X8 anytime soon.
DeleteUnless they are sure they don't want more sequels, and any game from there after in that series will have to be placed between games, then they won't connect it.
On a side note, I see many being silly saying Master Thomas wanting to reset the world in ZXA would tie into the MM Legends flooding, but they ignore the massive time gap between ZX and Legends, the fact that the Elder system (probably does not exist yet) let alone Master system isn't even built yet, and in Legends, Master and/or Elder system ruins are also under water, so the flooding happened after they were already built. Maybe Nino Island in L2 had fish reaverbots and the key added later, or just ocean based reaverbots entered it later to guard the key on command. Also many enemies, Sigma included, wanted to reset the world, so a villain wanting to reset the world and flooding seem unconnected.
DeleteClimate change + wars were said to be the reason when I was reading convos or details of questions about Legends 3. Maybe originally, it was from the bad ending of X5 as you see the continents shattered on the map in X5 before the final stages only if most of the colony hits and X wanting to build Elysium, they were released near the same time, and you see meteor craters in the ocean and on islands that may have been the pieces of a shattered Eurasia hitting earth tying into the bad Maverick Zero ending, but that was retconned long ago. The map in Legends 2 has a number system with distance probably representing kilometers in the hundreds, so probably coves 1000km, and Forbidden Island being the north pole and the large ice island (or continent) probably northern Europe remnants. Elysium seemingly had an orbital elevator tied to the bottom (5 Island Adventure hints at that and the elevator is destroyed leaving a tower without a top). I can imagine humans escaped to Elysium and destroyed it behind them to isolate whatever enemy at the time and prevent them from following them easily (probably Elder system).
Oh, that reminds me of something I wanted to say before I forget. I was watching on YouTube someone recapping the story of the Classic series, but when they got to the two Arcade games (The Power Battle & The Power Fighters) I heard something strange: In short, the two games are separate from the mainline games story because the series splits into two timelines after the event of Mega Man 7, with Power Fighters taking the place of Mega Man 8 due to the involvement of Duo and a 'unknown energy', and both games endings for Mega Man and Bass making allusions to X & Zero respectively are the connecting points. In other words, Power Fighters is the penultimate game that's going to end the Classic series & will eventually lead into the X series in this branch, while the other one continues on with 8-11 and keep Mega Man and friends going on their merry way (at least, that's the interpretation I got from his recap).
DeleteI've never heard anything like this since I've first heard of the Power Battle & Power Fighters, and I've never read any story info. that suggested a split timeline, but this sounds like something the user I previously mentioned would probably have believed in the years between the release of Mega Man 8 and the overseas release of Mega Man & Bass along with the arcade games release on the Anniversary Collection.
@Gary Daniel
DeleteI don’t know if it would be an immediate connection, but similarities are hard to ignore (I don’t think the “Master” term connecting them is a coincidence). And it’s known the IC games had the goal in mind of leading into Legends as early as Zero 2.
@1tonyvale
Hmm… While it’s silly to imagine Mega Man 8 and X4 not taking place in the same timeline, I can see the appeal. One of my biggest problems with the 20XX series is how long it’s gone on (in-universe) despite revolving around two men who were in old age from the very beginning. It *needs* an upward limit on how long it can last, but it’s the series with the most entries…
So yeah, I’m definitely for putting a cap on 20XX at some point, might as well be for the closest we’ll get to a transition game.
There's been in-depth fan theories getting posted on the internet for ages. It's also important to note that Capcom themselves never really fleshed the lore out to begin with, because I don't think they really anticipated how passionate the fanbase might be about it.
DeleteThat's why it took until the 15th anniversary (Rockman Perfect Memories) before they even tried to address it in some way. That book is really what ended up catapulting the world of fan theories. Back in the late 90s, most "fan sites" were relatively simple webpages where you can view game walkthroughs created by the site owner, download sprites, and WAV files of music. There were a few messageboards that we would post on and sometimes you'd see the occasional theory or fanfiction, but it wasn't that prevalent until that book was released.
I was on staff at The Mega Man Network back in the early 2000s. Between the forums and the IRC channel, we would spend hours debating the games and timeline of events. Here we are 25 years later and low and behold we're still saying a lot of the same stuff, just with a few more games helping evolve the theories somewhat. Of course I'm not putting down anyone's passion or theory around the games, just saying that not much is likely to change over the next 25 years.
Overall I think Capcom likes to give themselves a lot of flexibility in the future of the franchise, which is why we'll never see a "transition" game or certain questions truly answered. I think they like to take an angle of "Look at this fun story that COULD have happened" and leave it at that.
@Mature haven't they basically admitted that with the Zero series? That it's just one potential future?
DeleteNot to derail the comments section further, but seeing a former staffer of the TMMN talking about the early internet days brought back a strong memory; one that I'm curious to ask about: Prior to the release of Rockman Perfect Memories, I remember a debate/discussion amongst the community about the Protoman Castle bosses in Mega Man 5 and their designation. Basically, the consensus was the first three bosses (Green, Gray, Purple) were 'Sentinel Bots' (or something like that) and only the fourth bot (the red one that impersonated Proto Man) was who Wily called "Dark Man" in the games, but then the staffers of Mega Man 5 wrote (presumably in RPM) that all 4 bosses were Dark Man and I vaguely remember the reaction essentially breaking down to "Not True!", "That Doesn't Make Sense!" , "YOUR LYING!" (you get the idea). @MatureMMFan, I want to ask if this was how I remembered it way back when (& before anyone else asks, I also remember most had dismissed the Ruby-Spears cartoon referring to Dark Man 2 as Dark Man as just the studio staffers changing elements from the games for the sake of changing it).
DeleteYes, Jark; of course not an immediate connection, but considering that the world of ZX with its tech, style of robots, no quantum refractors, and the buildings and structures looking nothing like the style of the ancients' ruins, I think if there is to be a Legends connection, it would take place in some other MM series between ZX and Legends and is still quite far off.
DeleteAlso 'master' can be thrown around for any leader. Not really that special, Just as there is no connection to Megaman Juno and the model hosts in ZX also sharing the title Megaman, I'm sure there is no connection to Master Thomas and 'The Master' on Elysium. They are very different not just in looks and story and personality, but massive gaps of time.
None of the structures, Elysium and its tech to let humans be immortal without hunger or disease, etc even exist in ZX either. I think the time gap is way too large. It could have been the year 4XXX before the Ancient tech and structures were created and dotting the entirety of the planet, 3000 years on Elysium for the master and other humans escaping earth after things on earth went to hell probably from some battles, and quite a big time gap of many generations or even 500 or 1000 years between Trigger's first battle with Sera and him being found reset as a carbon baby since it is mentioned that the carbons were searching for what was then the mother lode for generations, and the carbons describing her and Trigger's battle as a battle involving a goddess in legend. Also Juno probably awakened multiple times to purge Kattelox every near 100 years before meeting Trigger again. That would then add up to around 8XXX, the supposed millennia Legends takes place in.
One thing I do notice by the time of Legends is 100 years here and there loses meaning. I guess the world is pretty stagnate each time Juno wakes up since Juno with each awakening expects the world and the system to be the same and purge carbons as usual. He was an odd entity, seemingly doing nothing but sleeping and sometimes purging carbons. Not an existence enjoyed by a conscious entity, I would think. I wonder if purging the carbons was going in favor of or against the master system.
@RS Proto Man:
DeleteYes, that is what they've said. There's even an interview from the producer of X4 back when that game was first released where he says that the X series is just one of a number of potential futures for the Classic series. It goes to my point that Capcom doesn't really mind branching/converging timelines and I think they're less interested in rock-solid continuity and more in just making fun games.
If you read enough interviews over the years, whenever someone points out a continuity issue, the producer/artist usually kind of laughs it off and compliments the interviewer's passion or attention to detail. To them it's not really a big deal, which is why when people clamor for an "X9 that leads to the Elf Wars" or "ZX3 that connects to Legends", they're missing the point. It isn't going to be a neat, linear timeline as much as you want it to and Capcom doesn't care about connecting them because they're isn't necessarily anything to connect.
@1tonyvalle:
I remember the Dark Man debate! It made sense in your head when first playing the game and it was hard to shake. I also remember the debates of Zero being Rush, X still being Classic Mega Man, etc. They seem ridiculous now, but back in the 90s, we didn't really have a "knowledge base" of Mega Man lore like we do now. A lot of it was likely playground rumors that spread among fans and eventually bled over to the early fan sites. When books like Rockman Memories and Rockman Perfect Memories eventually got translated, it gave us a lot more to chew over.
On an unrelated note, I like some of these videos lately...some good megaman videos using AI with good music used in a good quality way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWgkATwfCLc
DeleteAnother nice one on that same channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG2UrGbGtoQ
And I like this from another channel (good yellow devil theme on the 2nd half of the video in this showcase): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z7EdsX650k
I want a witch robot master to happen so badly. A. I'm a huge sucker for character designs of wizards, witches, sorcerers/sorceresses, mages, warlocks, etc etc. And B. The idea of a sci-fi robot world like Mega Man just out of nowhere having a robot that just knows fantasy magic is really funny to me.
ReplyDeleteI really hope the one with a hat is a wizard, it would be really epic.
ReplyDelete