Legacy of Metal/YMMV

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Seeing as the Mega Man series is awash in this stuff, some useful notes:
  • Wily and Light are old partners, as in the US manuals. Wily's Fallen Hero status is a major force in their characterization, as Wily wasn't always evil. A lab accident made him insane.
  • Mr. X is not Dr. Wily in a Paper-Thin Disguise at first; there is a real Mr. X (not his actual name, mind) who is a shady character before aiding the Second Rainbow. Wily kills him and takes up the identity to further his plan.
  • Rock deals with minor levels of the Fantastic Racism which will only get worse until the Zero series. He's not quite a full android, but he's the closest robot to one throughout his existence (Zero notwithstanding, and he's just a puppet of The Virus at this point).
  • X sticks mostly to the "noble warrior hamstrung by his doubts" interpretation, with forays into the "macho killer" whenever his hand is forced. These are half CMOA and half Nightmare Fuel; the characters, including X himself, treat it as such.
  • Zero starts off as a hardass and mellows out over time, although it's not so much that he's changing as he needs to be less and less a mentor to X - the rest of his character emerges as they start to interact as equals. He will drink and joke around but is not irresponsible out of battle. He Cannot Spit It Out with regards to Ciel; Iris doesn't play much of a role.
  • Roll does not use her broom to fight and cannot beat down Zero all by her lonesome.
• Complete Monster: Former Vice President Dran Grevis. Wily: "He tried to kill us years ago...he killed Schroeder instead. Now, he nearly killed you just so I would make him more damned war robots. He won't stop, Tom. He's never stopped. It's been twelve Goddamn years, and he still insists on spreading misery and pain."
  • Wily, tragically, becomes this.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: Many.
  • Given the latter's eventual track record, Rock fighting Zero to defeat is definitely this.
  • Any of X's Curbstomp Battles, but especially one-shotting Vile with the Hadouken.
  • Zero apparently went through the entirety of X5 with just one arm and no chance to rest.
  • But Blues gets the big one - in the verse, teleportation is incredibly dangerous to humans. Which means that in the Mega Man 4 endgame, he could not merely warp in with Kalinka in tow. No, he rescues Kalinka - a small, helpless child - and keeps them both alive on a weeks-long journey through the wilderness with Wily's forces pursuing all the while. He succeeds just in time to stop Mega Man and Dr. Cossack from killing each other. Big Damn Heroes indeed! The best part of it all is just how understated it is in his narration - Rock is utterly in awe of the feat, but Blues just glazes over it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Much of The Sound of Mavericks revolves around X's severe distrust in an easy, peaceful solution to the Maverick problem. Guess what he spends Mega Man X7 doing?
• Motive Decay: By the end of his life, Wily doesn't care about anything but beating Mega Man. Justified by his worsening brain damage due to constant use of warp and cloaking devices.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Shadows of a Hunter suggests some epic action sequences throughout its summary of X5; sadly none of them get much in the way of detail.
• Robo Ship: Blues/Kalinka is teased, as is at least one-sided X/Kalinka. Zero and Ciel eventually seem to figure the whole thing out, as do a few minor couples.
• Tear Jerker: Whispers In Time.
  • How about the sacrifice of RD-224?
  • Blues's activation, the second time.
  • If you've read some of Erico's previous works, almost all of Guiding Rainbow's Light, as events unfold despite everyone's efforts to stop them. In particular, the inevitability of Blues leaving and Wily getting brain damage.
  • Vanessa's death.