Suddenly Inafune had to ret-con his own works, attempting to bridge the unnecessary gap. Mega Man Zero was meant to be the continuation of the series, but the subsequent release of X6 and more made the continuity muddled and senseless.
#MEGA MAN X4 RELEASE DATE SERIES#
Though we didn't hear of Inafune's intent to end the series with X5 until years later-the game was released in North America in 2001-it retroactively makes sense of many of Capcom's moves afterwards. That's why the game itself has a real feel of finality to it," Inafune said in the Official Complete Works in 2009. "I had very little to do with 'X5.' I just told the team to 'finish off the series with this title,' and left it at that. The Mega Man creator, for his part, had largely removed himself from the process. Zero dies no matter which ending you get, which Inafune intended to close the book on the X spin-off series and lead neatly into the "Mega Man Zero" series on Gameboy Advance. In fact, this was meant to be the swan song for Zero himself. That story confirmed that Zero was the harbinger of the Maverick Virus, now renamed the Zero Virus. This also lent it multiple endings, not just between X and Zero, but also based on the success of the mission and other story events. The story centered on a crashing space station and efforts to stop the destruction, giving both a time limit to finish missions, and making collectables more valuable to increase the chances of success. X5 did add some new tweaks of its own, however. Even the undeniably silly choice to name the bosses after Guns N Roses band members couldn't sully that aspect. The level design and bosses were still rock-solid, as Capcom had developed a knack for these kinds of encounters. While it was by no means a bad game, it gave us glimpses of some bad habits for the series itself, and Capcom's treatment of it. Accompanied by fellow spin-off Mega Man Legends, the Blue Bomber appeared to have a bright future ahead. On the whole, X4 was a sign of a promising sign for the Mega Man series. It certainly put the spotlight more on Zero, who series creator Keiji Inafune wanted to star in the new spin-off from the start. Wily, and that Zero was something of a sleeper cell to deliver it. This also tied back to the original series, with heavy implications that the Maverick "virus" was created by Dr. Sigma was ultimately the villain again, but X4 laid the groundwork to explain that Zero himself had been a Maverick when Sigma was a Hunter. All of the gameplay components from the SNES games were in place, from refillable health tanks to an assortment of eight animalistic bosses.Īs adding Zero gave a new wrinkle to the gameplay, the story got its own dose of complexity. This emphasized a melee style of play, without the ability to pick up power-up parts as the player could when taking control of X. Though X3 allowed you to play as X's partner Zero in short bursts, X4 gave him a starring role as the second fully playable character. It was also, for better or worse, where the series started to go off the rails.
The developments forged by Mega Man X4 and X5 took some positive steps: more characters in a richer world, a more contiguous story, and a largely familiar feeling of action-platformer done bigger and better. The X series, more directly tied to the Super NES, felt like a better fit for the new generation of hardware.
Mega Man had made a shaky step into the PS1 era with Mega Man 8, after appearing only once on the previous generation. They’re as much a historical document of Mega Man’s decline as they are solid platformers of their day. As the series has slid in popularity and all but vanished from Capcom's line-up, we can trace many of its later developments to these two games. These two unique entries in the series mark a turning point in the franchise’s history. Mega Man X4 and X5 are hitting PlayStation Network as PS1 Classics over the next two weeks.