Mega Man ZX

Meta-Encapsulated Granule Awareness System, in case you were wondering.


Megamerge!

Mega Man ZX is another entry in Capcom's flagship series, set about two centuries after the events of Mega Man Zero. The wars between Human and Reploid have finally been ended through the process of modifying both races until they're completely indistinguishable from one another. Even so, the threat of Maverick attacks still remains, although the cause of these outbreaks are entirely different.

It currently consists of two games:

  • Mega Man ZX, starring Vent and Aile, a pair of orphaned Humans who are taken in by a courier service named "Giro Express" after its owner, the Reploid Giro. And are tasked with recovering a quartet of Biometals by a peacekeeping force known as Guardian, before they fall into the hands of Serpent, a popular (but evil) CEO looking to find the Biometals to further his own divine evolution.
  • Mega Man ZX Advent, which takes place four years after ZX and stars Grey and Ashe (the former's a Reploid, the latter's an augmented human like Vent and Aile), who team up with the Biometal Model A to uncover their mysterious pasts and stop Master Albert, a rogue member of the world's ruling triumvirate out to pull what Serpent tried in the last game, only a thousand times over.

Currently has a small growing character sheet. Please feel free to contribute.

Has no relation with BIOMETAL, a completely different game.

Tropes used in Mega Man ZX include:
  • All There in the Manual: The main residential city in ZX (i.e. Area C) is named Cinq Ville, but you'd only know that from the soundtracks.
  • Altum Videtur:
    • ZX's final battle theme is titled "Pallida Mors" (pale death).
    • The Biometals' passwords in the first game are split between this and Canis Latinicus.
  • Alluring Anglerfish: Lurerre from ZX is mostly shown as a robotic mermaid, but the "mermaid body" is actually her lure - her big, ugly body is offscreen most of the time, and sometimes appearing to launch a strong attack.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Happens once in the first game after you beat 4 Pseudoroids.
  • Amusement Park of Doom: The location where Vent and Aile's parents are killed before the start of ZX. And it's Mettaur-themed, no less.
  • Androids Are People, Too: Almost literally in this game - see Ridiculously-Human Robots below.
  • Arc Words: The "Game of Destiny" for Advent.
  • Artifact of Doom: The original Biometal, Model V/W, fits this like a glove. Granted, it holds the essence of the Complete Monster of the previous series...
    • The Corruption: Specifically, it corrupts people who tries to use its great power.
  • Attackable Pickup: Any large powerup can be carved into several smaller powerups of different types using a bladed weapon. So if you didn't need all that health or weapon energy, or you just don't care about 64 more E-Crystals at the moment, get out a saber.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: Partially subverted. The idea in ZX is to avoid hitting the enemy's weak point, because doing so makes it cost more to repair the enemy's Biometals (not that it costs very much in the first place[1]) once they're salvaged (and you don't get the boss plushie for the mobile in Prairie's room). Several medals in ZXA require that either you don't hit them or you hit only them.
  • Audio Adaptation: ZX Gigamix, a CD which contains the remixes of the themes in the games, as well as drama tracks, which serves as manuals.
  • Awesome Yet Practical: Model HX's tornado Charged Attack: a large tornado that goes straight up, trapping the opponent for many hits. Due to its nigh-Game Breaker status in ZX, Model H's variant in the sequel was toned down into twin tornadoes that traveled at differing angles.
  • Ax Crazy: Prometheus is a straight forward example, while Siarnaq appears to also be this despite coming off as emotionless.
  • Bag of Spilling: Despite the fact that you're not playing as the previous Hero/Heroine in Advent, the whole plot is the fact that the Big Bad (through Prometheus and Pandora) has stolen Vent/Aile's other Biometals and is putting them to use. He/she shows up looking for them later.
  • Best Boss Ever: Vulturon, who fights with The Power of Rock.
  • Big Bad:
    • If the ciphers in Advent were to be believed, Model W, a.k.a. Dr. Weil, Back from the Dead, was pulling the strings. Again.
    • Serpent and Master Albert are more traditional examples.
  • Big Badass Bird of Prey: Hivolt of ZX, Vulturon of Advent.
  • Blob Monster: The Lava Demon in ZX, the Mini Boss of Area K.
  • Bonus Boss:
  • Boss Rush: You know that this one was coming.
  • Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: Model A, once per pit, only on easy mode.
  • By the Power of Greyskull: "MEGAMERGE/ROCK-ON!"
  • Camp Gay: Rospark. A rose-based Reploid with a clownish voice who enjoys fighting Grey while acting like Ashe is full of cooties, has a large, pink very phallic rod at his groin area (but also another one on his head), and is a rose... Is there any other way to take that?
  • Canis Latinicus: The Latin used in the I Am the Trope example is a bit...off.
  • Chest Monster: Some life-up power ups are actually Mechaniloids in disguise. They glow purple while genuine life-ups glow orange.
  • The Chosen One: In a slightly different sense - here, being "the Chosen One of Model (insert letter here)" just means that you can access the Biometal's power; but since it's implied that Master Albert did the choosing, with his special blood donation, which means that the Mega Men are "destined" to be so, this trope is still played straight.
  • Clothes Make the Superman: The Biometals gives the user the armor and the powers of the respective Reploid.
  • Color-Coded Elements: Fire is orange/red, ice/water is blue/light blue, lightning/wind is green/yellow, and Non-Elemental is usually purple.
    • The colors of the area icons on Advent's world map correspond with the element of that level's boss.
  • Combat Tentacles: In Advent, we have Fantacles, as well as the miniboss Langbranch.
  • Continuity Nod: The series has several references to the Classic, X, and Zero series.
    • In fact, one whole level is essentially a remake of the intro level in the original Mega Man X. To really rub the point home the only model available at the time is Model X.
    • Prairie's room has some Mega Man Zero memorabilia, adding fuel to the Epileptic Tree that she was previously Alouette, Ciel's Kid Sidekick.
    • The final level of Advent, Ouroboros, has a striking resemblance to Ragnarok from Zero 4. This is because Ouroboros was made from hundreds of Model W, which were spawned from Ragnarok. Also, Model Z disappears inside, much like how Zero "disappears" in the destruction of Ragnarok.
    • Two of the cars from Mega Man Battle and Chase appear, and the E-Tank makes a triumphant return.
    • The operator in Hunter's Camp in Advent is named Nana, like the operator from Mega Man X Command Mission.
    • One of the missions you undertake at the Floating Ruins in ZX Advent have you searching the ruins for outdated artifacts; these include the L Tank from 4, the ever-recurring Energy Balancer, the Yashichi recovery item from the original and Mega Man 8 (called "Pinwheel" in-game), and the Lightbulb which served as life energy back in the original Mega Man. All four of these items are given explanations for their antiquity by the time of ZX (i.e. the L Tank was never mass-produced, etc.).
    • The entire Sage Trinity is named after the main scientists of the original series: Master Thomas = Dr. Light, Master Albert = Dr. Wily, and Master Mikhail = Dr. Cossack.
  • Courier: The Giro Express transporters are essentially this.
  • Creator Thumbprint: Arguably, but many characters listed in the character sheet (and even most NPCs) have Fingerless Gloves, big anklets and bracers, headphone-like ears, and black latex-like skin-tight suit that covers all of their skin (except for the face). This can be traced back to Zero series.
  • Crutch Character/Disc One Nuke: Model X, to an extent. What makes him useful is that his double buster can be used in quick succession For Massive Damage. He's still good after you finally get him back. Too bad you can't use him on the final boss. He's an immense help on the penultimate boss, and you probably want Model H on the last boss anyway.
  • Custom Uniform:
    • Prairie's suit is different than the other Guardians. But then again, she's their leader.
    • Also possibly Giro with his red coat, since his employees Vent and Aile wear blue shirts.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max:
    • Serpent in the first game has an ability to summon thunder strikes that could instantly take down the target, but he only does that in the cutscene of his first appearance. Probably justified with the fact that he was outdoor when he did that; he later appears in a cave and then in the Slither Inc. HQ.
    • Prometheus' signature wave attack ranges from just does heavy damage to anything it hit (Grey/Ashe in the cutscene on the first train level) to outright One-Hit Kill (Albert's decoy body in the cutscene on the Underwater Volcano level). Of course, it won't result in that in his boss fight.
    • Pandora is able to create Beehive Barriers, but she never do that in the boss fight.
    • Aeolus in the second game can float indefinitely in cutscenes, but when you (as the copied form of Model A) try to do that, you'll fall down slowly.
  • Cyborg/Transhuman: All of the humans in the ZX world; there's even a law for giving humans cybernetic implants, as said by Thomas.
  • Diagonal Cut/Half the Man He Used To Be: Blade weapons will result in this to the Mooks and Pseudoroids if it's used for the final blow. A carryover from the Zero series.
    • Hit Stop: When you kill the bosses. Also a carryover from the Zero series.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Grey and Ashe did, as they beat the uber-powered Albert.
  • Disadvantageous Disintegration: A milder variant in the first game: While you can still get the Biometals after beating the 8 bosses, the more you hit their weak points, the more damaged the Biometal gets, and thus the less energy they will be able to store.
  • Discontinuity Nod: Model A's true origins.
  • Doomsday Device: Albert's Ouroboros qualifies, as it's the instrument he used to "reset" the world. The theme song which is played in the instrument (yes, said instrument is also a stage) is even called Doomsday Device.
  • Double Entendre:
    • One of Ashe's first lines in ZXA: "Now that your appetites are whet for booty..." (Huh huh... she said "booty"...)
    • Before boarding the Ouroboros-bound Guardian Base, one of the Hunters says "What do you think the bounty might be on booty[2] that big? I'm getting excited just thinking about it!"
    • Chronoforce looking to "take my time manhandling you" during the Boss Rush rematch.
    • Just about everything Queenbee says could be subjected to this.
  • Dropped A Bridge On Them: Being popular characters from the Zero series, the 4 Guardians were included as Biometals in this series. However, you have to be dead before you can be a Biometal, so the Guardians were abruptly declared to have died at the end of Zero 3. Apparently by standing too close to Omega when he blew up.
  • Dual Boss:
    • Pandora and Prometheus. In the first game they at least have the decency to only attack one at a time, in the second... not so much.
    • Argoyle and Ugoyle from Advent. They also have many Combination Attacks that is quite hard to avoid.
  • Early Bird Boss:
    • Spidrill from the Tower of Verdure is potentially the second boss you fight. It does a lot of damage, has hard-to-dodge attacks, and you can die instantly from spikes. And you have little health at this point. To make matters worse, it's only a mini-boss.
    • The intro level in the second game also qualifies; unlike the first game which gives you Model X from the start, here you're forced to play with your base form wielding a standard peashooter.
  • Electric Jellyfish: Leganchor in ZX; subverted, he's An Ice Person.
  • Emotion Eater: Model W feeds on negative emotions (anger, sadness, fear, etc) to grow and be activated. This is probably because Model W is the essence of Complete Monster Dr. Weil, whose sole enjoyment in life was causing people to suffer. This is also justified on a deeper level; if you read the sourcebooks and extrapolate a little, it's implied that Dr. Weil's insanity was shaped partially by his own fear of Mavericks. Serpent powers up Model W by feeding it what is explicitly stated to be the souls of people who died while in the grip of fear!

Serpent: Model W, it's time! The despair and fear of this country are yours!

  • Emotionless Girl: Pandora, on the outside at least.
  • Empathic Weapon: Technically speaking, the Biometals.
  • Endgame Plus: Beating the first game in Normal or Hard mode makes you able to unlock a new form.
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: Purprill of ZX.
  • Everything's Better with Spinning:
  • Everything's Worse with Bees: Queenbee in Advent. The fact that she loves terror and despair just makes it worse.
  • Evil Laugh:
  • Evil Duo: Prometheus and Pandora.
  • Expy:
    • Aeolus, Atlas, Siarnaq, and Thetis for Harpuia, Fefnir, Phantom, and Leviathan are the most obvious ones. Their Biometals are even the same letter as the first letter of their counterparts' names!
    • The title character him/herself. Mega Man ZX is the Expy of Zero, gameplay-wise at least.
    • Girouette is one, to Zero himself. Both being Big Brother Mentors to the heroes, having blonde hair and red color schemes, and apparently sacrificing himself to save the heroes. Not to mention being the Biomatch for Model Z.
    • The similarity of two of the four "enemy Mega Men" with their original counterpart is scary. Aeolus and Siarnaq both carry some of Harpuia and Phantom's admirable traits, except probably for honor.
    • Like it or not, Model A and the Mega Man that results in the transformation, is still an Expy of The Scrappy of the X series.
    • Grey and Ashe themselves can be considered split-expies of Axl. Ashe has Axl's cheerfulness, cockiness and recklessness, while Grey is an amnesiac boy who wants to know about his origins, much like Axl.
    • Prairie may as well be an Expy of Ciel herself. Then there's also the fact that she is hinted at having romantic feelings for Giro.
    • The Sage Trinity are named after characters from previous Mega Man series (Albert Wily, Thomas Light, Mikhail Cossack). Played straight with Albert, who proves to be evil and treacherous like his namesake, but subverted by Thomas, who turned out to be a not-so-benevolent figure in ZXA's secret ending.
    • Pandora (more prevalent in civilian form) given similar hair color, hair length, hair style (barring the front) preference for white and blue (hue is different), and the fact that their nasty pasts drive them to madness may be a subtle one to Shion Sonozaki.
  • Extra Eyes Sensors/Eye Sensors Do Not Belong There: Many of the Pseudoroids and Serpent's One-Winged Angel Form have extra sets of eyes somewhere on their bodies, Some are rather hard to notice like Vulturon's[3] and some are rather obvious like Lurerre's, the mechanical nature of them means that it is more cool then creepy though... Until
  • Fan Service: Okay... so, in a non-sexual way, most of this game is fanservice. However, the Double Megamerge for Aile sure does take its time letting the armor on her legs activate, especially when Vent's just click into place.
  • The Fighting Narcissist: Vulturon of Advent.
  • Five-Bad Band: In the second game:
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: A carryover from Zero series.
  • Flunky Boss: Chronoforce can summon miniatures of himself from his shell.
    • Vulturon can use his guitar-shaped device to animate pieces of junk.
    • Hedgeshock can summon some mouse flunkies.
    • Queenbee has a Bee-Bee Gun variant.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Advent includes a minigame based on the NES Mega Man games. And then Mega Man 9 came out, done by the same developer, Inticreates.
    • There's also more foreshadowing on the Game of Destiny (which is then fully revealed in the second game) in the first game.
    • And in the second game, there's many Cryptic Conversations that involves, in Grey's words, "the 'HIM, HE and HIS' guy". He's then revealed to be Albert.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With:
    • In the first game, when you talk to the civilians when you're Megamerged, they'll flip out, as you'll be mistaken as a Maverick. You have to transform back into your human form first.
    • Played differently in the sequel where you can talk to the civilians in Model A form, and if you are using another form when you're going to talk to them (or when you're entering cutscenes), you'll automatically transform into the Model A form. justified in that said civilians are all Hunters and fully aware of Biometal, Pseudoroids and Mega Men, where as the civilians in ZX are just your average townsfolk.
  • Fun with Acronyms: M.E.G.A. (Meta-Encapsulated Granule Awareness)/R.O.C.K. (Rebirth Of Crystallized Knowledge).
  • Fusion Dance: Biometals X and Z (not the actual Mega Men) that form the title character.
    • The Biometals act as a Power Booster for humans and Reploids, turning them into "Mega Men" and granting them armored forms and abilities.
  • Gambit Pileup: Arguably in ZX Advent, due to the number of villainous factions and the fact that none of them particularly like with each other. Specifically, the enemy Mega Men are trying to accumulate Model Ws (as per Master Albert's Game of Destiny) in order to become incredibly powerful. Albert is just using them, however, to feed the Model Ws so that they'll become the Ouroboros. The Mega Men supposedly know this, and are planning to backstab Albert. Then there's Prometheus and Pandora, creations of Albert who in the previous game claimed to be the voices of Model W (after pretending to work for that game's Big Bad), but are now inclined to destroy everything that Albert made, including Model W. After the game is beaten, it turns out Master Thomas actually wants to reset the world as well, but in a different manner than Albery, hence why he wanted the latter killed. And quite likely, Model W itself is manipulating EVERYONE from behind the scenes, given its origin as explained in the first ZX game.
  • Gameplay Grading:
    • In the first game, your fight with the Pseudoroids is measured in Level 1-4; Level 4 means that the weak point didn't get hit, and Level 1 means that the weak point was hit a lot. The higher your success level, the longer the Overdrive Gauge the Biometal you acquired has (although if you get a Level 3 or lower, you can either repair the Biometals with a price, or doing a rematch with the same Pseudoroid later).
    • In the second game, you'll got bronze, silver or gold medal if you follow the Self-Imposed Challenge on the specific Pseudoroids. Collecting all 24 of them will grant you the "Model a" (note the lowercase).
  • Game Within a Game: There's an arcade in the first game where Vent/Aile (or, indirectly, you) can play some minigames.
  • Gangsta Style: Grey and Ashe use their guns like this.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: Rospark and Queenbee. 'Nuff said.
  • A God Am I: Master Albert.
  • Good Colors, Evil Colors: Isn't it interesting that all the protagonists in both games have green eyes, and all the non-Pseudoroid antagonists (including Master Thomas) ALL have red eyes? Giro has blue eyes, too, though that's kinda irrelevant.
  • Goomba Stomp: Bifrost's form can be used to crush enemies when you fall on them. Justified, he's frickin huge.
  • Gradual Regeneration: In Advent, the weapon energy is regenerating.
  • Granola Guy: Thetis in Advent, hell-bent on cleaning up the Earth's oceans.
  • Grim Reaper: Prometheus's motif.
  • Half-Identical Twins: Vent and Aile... maybe. Prometheus and Pandora as well.
  • Hand Cannon: Model F allows you to carry two of these and you can even punch with them, thus the name "Knuckle Busters".
  • Hartman Hips: Aile and Ashe. It's more pronounced in the cutscenes.
  • Heart Container: The Life Up items.
  • Heel Face Turn: After Grey/Ashe saves the mischievous Raiders, they thank him/her and want to join the Hunters. They also provide supplies for the broken train.
  • Henshin Hero: All of the ZX protagonists qualify, with the Biometals. Since the major villains use Biometals too, there are Henshin Villains as well.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Master Albert's demise comes from his own back-up body Grey and his unaltered descendent Ashe.
  • Holiday Mode: Advent had unique chips and items that could be attained in one of two rooms depending on the month. Adjusting the month in the DS settings can let you have those items quickly.
  • Homage: ZX Advent is one giant homage to X7/X8, as they have many matching story points. These are just a small portion of them:
    1. Axl doesn't know his past.
    2. Axl is a prototype of New Gen Reploids, and Lumine in particular.
    3. Axl is black and Lumine is gold.
    4. Lumine wants to become the ruler of the new world where the New Gen Reploids reign.
    5. Both Axl and Lumine can change forms.
    6. Lumine's battleground is high to the moon.
    7. Lumine can use the attack from 8 New Gen Mavericks, and he also has an angelic form.
    • Those facts are similar with (respectively)
    1. Model A and Grey/Ashe doesn't know their past.
    2. Model A is considered a "prototype" (or at least "small version") of Model W.
    3. Model A is black and Model W is gold.
    4. Albert wants to be the god of the new world.
    5. Both Mega Man Model A and Albert (via Model W) can change forms.
    6. Ouroboros, Albert's stage, is high to the sky.
    7. Albert can use the attack of the Enemy Mega Men, as well as Model A's homing shot and Model ZX's charge saber. He also has 6 wings, a tail and a halo (as Mega Man Model W.)

Grey: Who's this!? He's different from the other Mavericks...
Buckfire: Me not Maverick! Me Pseudoroid. Me Buckfire! You get away from Prometheus and Pandora, but not from I! Buckfire obey rule! Buckfire will pummel you into ground!

Model H: I am the wind that blows through the sky, Ventus Airus.
Model L: I am the water that flows across the land, Glacius Passio.
Model F: I am the fire that brings heat to all life, Flamma Wies.
Model P: I am the shadow that never leaves the side of justice, Umbra Profess.
Model X: I am the light that illuminates all possibilities, Lumine Infinitus...
Model Z: I am the courage that fights for beliefs, Fortitude Creed...

  • I Am Who?: The protagonists said this word-for-word in the games. The ones who play the trope the straightest is Grey and Ashe, as they don't know who they really are.
  • An Ice Person:
    • Model L enables you to control ice. In the second game, Thetis is its Biomatch.
    • Pandora, though she uses Model W instead.
  • I'm Having Soul Pains: In Advent, acquiring a Biometal's data causes Model A to unlock Exposition, causing Grey/Ashe intense pain. Acquiring Model Z and Model X's data also causes Aile/Vent to suffer backlash for some reason.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: The aforementioned Model OX. Arguably Model X as well, because of the methods of unlocking it.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Albert's throne in ZXA could transform into a three-headed dragon.
  • Interface Screw: Those annoying satellite dishes in Area L. Blue soundwaves will reverse your controls, while red ones will prevent you from attacking. Thankfully, the effect wears off, but it's enough for many players to consider Area L That One Level.
  • In the Blood:
    • Serpent says that the blood of the Model W's creator runs in Aile's veins. ZXA reveals that he was referring to Master Albert, who donated his blood to certain survivors of Maverick Raids, thus giving them the key for Megamerging. Those "Chosen Ones" (as seen in Aeolus' cipher) later become the Mega Men.
    • Played straighter with Ashe, as she is an actual descendent of Albert himself.
  • Invisible Monsters: Advent has these kind of robo-mooks; Model P's radar is useful on locating their position.
  • Ironic Episode Title: Advent (means "the second coming") is a second game of the series, yes, but the titular Mega Man ZX is not the hero of this game - They're replaced with Grey/Ashe and Model A.
  • It Is Pronounced ZEX: Rockman ZX (ロックマンゼクス Rokkuman Zekkusu).
  • I Wish It Was Real: This series are about kids who get the ability to transform into Mega Man. Subverted, though; from their point of view, their heroes are historical, rather than fictional.
  • The Jimmy Hart Version: ZX Advent's boss theme's guitar line sounds similar to the chiptune line in The Protomen's Due Vendetta. (ZXA came out in 2007 while the Protomen song in question came out in 2003.)
  • Joke Character: Model a (lowercase) in Advent, which plays like the original Mega Man. Although it does have a small advantage in being short and harder to hit. Also, easier to overlook on this as there are not really times when it would completely alter an area, the shots will go through walls that don't have the ability to reflect bullets.
  • Just Eat the MacGuffin: Advent actually demonstrates the Genre Savvy use of this trope. In the Quarry, Grey/Ashe have an encounter with Aile/Vent, and the two get in a fight over what to do with the Model W in its depths. The former finds the Model W fused to a Spidrill and are forced to destroy both. It turns out that destroying the Quarry's Model W was the whole reason Aile/Vent were there in the first place! Unfortunately, destroying it wasn't enough to keep Ouroboros from forming, but you have to give the gang credit for trying.
  • King of Beasts: Fistleo in ZX. He's also a Blood Knight with a slight god complex, to boot.
  • Large Ham: Master Albert and Prometheus, by far.
  • The Law of Conservation of Detail: Subverted in Advent due to its attempts to avert You All Look Familiar, where pretty much everyone you meet has different designs and personalities, except for the guys in uniform, who still act different. In other words, trying to rely on this trope to see who is important is completely pointless for this game. Though of course, as in all Mega Man games, the only ultimately really important ones are the robot animals/things actively shooting you.
  • Legacy Character: The Biometals, to X, Zero, 4 Guardians, Omega and Weil. Arguable case with Model A, as it's revealed that the "A" stands for "Albert", not "Axl", even though the Biometal is clearly based on the latter.
  • Lethal Joke Form: Chronoforce's form in Advent; it can't move at all on land, but is immune to attacks from attacks from above and its charge shot, the Time Bomb, is quite useful. You can even change form after it's activated.
  • Lethal Lava Land: Area K. Also a Scrappy Level on anything above Easy. Mainly because of Advancing Wall of Doom and Rise to the Challenge, both involving One-Hit Kill lava.
  • Lift of Doom: The final level in the first game has a lift section. Unlike most examples, it has no crushing platforms, only spike-lined walls and a lot of enemies.
  • Lighter and Softer: Compared to Zero.
  • Living Ship: Ouroboros stage has a heart-like machine that beats like a real heart, and also blood vessels-like lining in the background. Also, when Albert is defeated, the linings are colored grey, signifying that the Ouroboros is dead as well.
  • Locomotive Level/Traintop Battle: Buckfire's stage.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me:
  • Magical Mystery Doors: The Scrapyard level in the second game.
  • The Master: The Sage Trinity all have the title "Master" before their names. Two out of the three are evil.
  • Meaningful Echo:

Giro: Are you going to let some man you don't even know decide your destiny for you? Destiny is not something that is given to us by others. Destiny comes from the concept of "destine," or directing something towards a given end. Be the one doing the directing. Only you can decide your destiny.
Aile: Only I can decide my destiny...
Giro: Yes. Forget the past. It means nothing. The power you contain within is the key to creating your future.

      • Then in Advent, after the Quarry mission, she gives this to Grey:

Aile: Only you can decide your own destiny. No matter what anyone says you are. The power you contain within is the key to creating your future. That's what a special person said to me.
Grey: My destiny... My future.

Aile: Aren't you going to try and stop me?
Grey: That's not why I'm here.

      • And then, when Grey has trouble destroying the Mechaniloid revived by Model W, Aile comes to the rescue and destroying the Mechaniloid. Then we have this exchange:

Grey: Why did you help me? Didn't you come here to kill me?
Aile: That isn't why I came here either.

  • Meaningless Lives: The games has some extra lives scattered in easy-to-reach places. Combined with the save feature (especially since you can have an option to load your saved game if you get a Game Over), it becomes easier to farm extra lives.
  • Mechanical Lifeforms: The "humanoids" is the Fan Nickname for both humans and Reploids in the game, since they're nearly indistinguishable. See Ridiculously-Human Robots and Transhuman below.
  • Mega Manning:
    • Model A takes it further by transforming into defeated Bosses.
    • Why are you able to combine the powers of various Biometals? Because X had the Variable Weapons System, allowing for the use of different weapons. It's been adapted into Biometal form.
  • Mercy Invincibility: The games have the Extender chip that can extend the invincibility time.
  • Metroidvania: Both of them.
  • Mighty Glacier: Bifrost of Advent; he has a great attack power, but he moves very slowly. Bonus point of being An Ice Person, fulfilling the every sense of the trope name.
  • Monstrosity Equals Weakness: The first boss of Advent is the biggest opponent you'll fight in the game... and also the weakest boss.
  • Multiform Balance: More notably used in Advent, where you can transform into the bosses themselves, with each form having its own gimmicks and stats.
  • Multiple Life Bars: Layered life bars, especially.
  • Multishot: Buckfire can shoot 3 flame arrows at once. Naturally, so does the A-Trans version.
  • Musical Assassin: ZXA's Vulturon and his blatant use of The Power of Rock for evil.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Serpent.
  • No Transhumanism Allowed: Averted with the generally robust society of Reploids and cybernetically augmented humans, played straight with the bad guys being stopped from going overboard in their use of Model W to further their personal evolutions.
  • One-Letter Name: The Biometals are named as "Model (the first letter of the corresponding character)".
  • Operation Blank: Serpent's "Project Haven" in the first game, which aims for acquiring the Model W and activating it by feeding it with Cyber-elves "harvested" from the victims of "Maverick raids" that he secretly made himself.
  • Playing with Fire:
    • Model F enables you to control fire. In the second game, Atlas is its Biomatch.
    • Prometheus, although he uses Model W instead.
  • Pre-Explosion Glow: All Pseudoroids (as well as Albert) die this way. A carryover from Zero series.
  • Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Vent/Aile grow blonde hair when they transformed into Mega Man ZX.
    • Power Dyes Your Hair: However, in ZXA, since their actual hair is long already, they just turn blonde.
  • President Evil: Technically speaking, Master Albert again. And of course Master Thomas may count as well.
  • Previous Player Character Cameo: In Advent you meet either Vent (when playing as Ashe) or Aile (when playing as Grey) halfway through the story.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender:
    • Vent and Aile are pretty much Distaff/Spear Counterparts of each other. Their stories contain slight differences, but they play exactly the same.
    • The sequel averts this a bit; it introduces minor gameplay changes and divergent backstories depending on which character is selected. Also, Grey is Reploid and Ashe is human, unlike Vent/Aile who are both human. Additionally, bosses (and thus the player, since Model A is a Ditto Fighter) use different attacks depending on which character you choose.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: The enemy "Mega Men", as an allusion to their predecessors.
  • Ragnarok Proofing
  • Real Time Weapon Change: In Advent
  • Redemption Demotion : Expect the A-Trans versions of the other Mega Men to lack many of their boss quirks.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning:
    • The Enemy Mega Men and Albert. The latter combines it with Black Eyes of Evil.
    • Interestingly, as shown in Grey's intro cutscene, he had these, before they turned into Green Eyes. As Pandora stated, it's because his brainwashing was incomplete, so it's justified.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Inverted. Vent/Aile, the Blue Mega Man, is a hotheaded and impulsive boy/girl who tends to charge headfirst into situations. Girouette, the Red Mega Man, is his/her Big Brother Mentor who is calm, caring and level-headed.
  • Redshirt Army:
    • The Guardians in ZX, who seems to be an Expy to La Résistance in the Zero series.
    • The Hunters in Advent (who are arguably expys of the Caravaners, also from the Zero series) notably averts this. In fact, they get a Crowning Moment of Awesome at the beginning of the game for surviving against the resident Psycho for Hire, and even stole a Biometal out from under his nose.
  • Reflecting Laser: Ashe's charged shot.
  • Repeatable Quest: Rose and Huguet will request you to go to Area Lin order to gather some supplies for them. After going to three different sections each time, Rose will give you a sub tank. However, you can only obtain two sub-tanks for this and any subsequent attempt only nets a token thank you and a few Energy Crystals.
  • Retraux: The Mega Man a minigame in ZXA. If you're crazy enough, the 8-bit "Model a" can even be unlocked for the main game.
  • Revive Kills Zombie: Advent's final boss has some otherwise hard-to-avoid attacks if not for the fact that transforming into Chronoforce makes you immune to two of them, and another can be easily avoided by using Model H and upward-dashing then hovering over the blue lasers.
  • Rhino Rampage: Protectos of ZX.
  • Ridiculously-Human Robots: This is turned Up to Eleven (bordering in Ambiguous Robots) for the Reploids, as they're designed to become more like humans, and from the other side, humans are augmented with machinery. The only thing that differentiates them is the inverted red triangle on Reploids' head.
  • Ring Menu: Type 1 exists in both games, when you want to change forms. Type 2 exists in Advent, in the pause menu.
  • Robo Speak: Siarnaq.
  • Rollerblade Good: Argoyle and Ugoyle in Advent.
  • Save Point: Trans Servers, which double as Jump Points.
  • Schrödinger's Player Character: This extends into both games, as Aile's and Grey's storyline are connected, as are Vent's and Ashe's. There's actually some hints about connections between the two storylines. Both Vent and Aile are shown in one of the ciphers (Aeolus'). Also, in Ashe's storyline, there's a stage that was Grey's intro stage, but is inaccessible, the latter may imply that, if you play as Ashe, Grey dies in the intro stage, and if you play as Grey, Ashe is killed by Prometheus or dies in the Raider's plane crash.
  • Scenery Porn
  • Screw Destiny: The theme of this series.
    • In the first game, it's stated that the Mega Men (the ones who can use Biometals) have the power to either save the world, or destroy it. Also, in Aile's storyline, it's revealed by Serpent that she has the "blood" of Model W's creator (it's also revealed in the next game that all Mega Men have the "blood", which contains the DNA of said creator, Albert.) After she defeats Serpent, she briefly goes into a Heroic BSOD over her "heritage", and then Girouette appears to her as a Cyber-Elf, telling Aile that the blood is just blood and that only she controls her destiny.
    • In the sequel, after the Quarry mission, Aile/Vent gives Grey/Ashe essentially the same lecture.
    • It's later revealed that this is Prometheus and Pandora's ultimate goal, since Albert modified them to become permanently Megamerged, and they're destined to fight other Mega Men. They can't escape that destiny (possibly because Their Days Have Been Numbered by Albert), so they exact revenge on Albert by killing him and trying to hasten the "destiny of destruction". Unfortunately, they become Albert's Unwitting Pawns just as they reach their goal...
  • Sealed Good in a Can: The Biometals, all except for the original, which is a Sealed Evil in a Can.
  • Second-Hour Superpower: Model ZX in the first game counts as this. Also Model A in the second game.
  • Segmented Serpent: The Giga Aspis in the first game and their fiery Degraded Boss cousins in Advent.
  • Sequel Hook: At the end of Advent, Master Thomas revealing his plans.
  • Sequence Breaking: Allegedly, it is possible to get into area O long before it is time to.
  • Shaggy Dog Story: Pretty much the entire first game. Those Biometals you retrieved from the Pseudoroids? Stolen over the Time Skip and given to new enemies. The entire conflict with Serpent? Just a single part of the real Big Bad's game. That Model W you destroyed? It just broke into several large pieces, all of which are recovered by the bad guys. Oh, and it's also only one of several dozen or possibly hundreds of Model W's scattered across the world.
  • Shock and Awe:
    • Model H enables you to control lightning (as well as wind). In the second game, Aeolus is its Biomatch.
    • Pandora, but she instead uses Model W.
  • Shout Out:
    • Each cipher in ZXA uses the starting point of a Gundam timeline as its memory address. (Depending on who you ask, one's actually from Xenosaga.)
    • Super Robot fans will happily note that in Advent, the older Vent and Aile bear a suspicious resemblance to Evoluder Guy and Mikoto. It's all in the hairstyles.
    • During Vent's megamerge scene in Advent, Model ZX's hair makes it look like he has several glowing wings. Before that, his megamerge scene in the first game resembles a certain Gundam.
    • Some of the Pseudoroids have an uncanny resemblance to other characters. Fistleo's resemblence to Akuma has not gone unnoticed by many fans. Likewise, Hedgeshock/Tesrat looks like the robotic spawn of Sonic the Hedgehog and Pikachu.
    • The Sage Trinity are all named after the doctors from the classic series (Albert Wily, Thomas Light, Mikhail Cossack), though whether they have any actual relation to the characters is unknown. Interestingly while Wily's expy is traitorous and evil, so is Light's, as revealed in ZXA's secret ending.
    • If you select Ashe as the hero, Vent will appear in her storyline. Vent is a french name and read as "Van" (ヴァン). Thus, Vaan and Ashe, is the logical conclusion.
    • This page contains tons of Shout Outs for this series.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Prometheus (insanity and nihilism; elements of shadow and fire attacks) and Pandora (loneliness and solitude; ice and thunder attacks).
  • Social Darwinist: Serpent. Arguably Aeolus and Atlas. Master Albert kinda straddles the line between this and Nietzsche Wannabe.
  • Soul Jar: Quite likely, The Biometals are this to the respective Reploid/human they represent (though there's still many alternate theories).
    • Subverted for Model A; while it's called Model Albert, its personality differs a lot from Albert himself.
  • Spikes of Doom: Happily Married to Regenerating Blocks of Doom. And meet their unholy spawn, the Spiked Regenerating Blocks of Doom.
  • Spread Shot: Quite a few that are player-usable in Advent. Buckfire's flaming arrows and Hedgeshock's Charged Attack sparks are of the regular variety, while Rospark's thorns and Model P's shurikens are Spray Bursts.
  • The Starscream: Prometheus and Pandora again.
  • Stealth Pun: Camp Gay Rospark is a rose.
  • The Stinger: ZXA has one what reveals that the enemy Mega Men are Not Quite Dead and Master Thomas is not as benevolent as he appears.
  • Superhuman Transfusion: It's revealed in Advent that in order to be able to Megamerge, the "Chosen Ones" needs to be infused with Albert's blood, which contains his DNA, which is the key for Megamerging. It can be argued that the DNA is "datafied" as humans and reploids have machine parts. Not entirely played straight, but it's still there.
  • Super Mode: The Overdrive Invoke System in the first game. When activated (indicated by an aura), you can assign elemental affinities to your normal attacks (except for Model PX, which enables you to phase through the enemies while dashing). Your weapon energy will be consumed slowly when it's activated, and the Overdrive mode will stop if the energy is depleted, or if you get hit. You can also deactivate it manually.
  • Swiss Army Hero/Voluntary Shapeshifting: All of the protagonists qualify, with Grey/Ashe and Albert, though he's a villain specializing in the latter.
  • Tagline: From this Japanese promotional trailer: "When fate must be stood up to... people shall Rock On."
  • Talking Is a Free Action: The Pseudoroid bosses has a time to talk to the heroes before exploding. Even if they've been cut in half.
  • Talking Weapon: The Biometals are all qualify, except for Model W and Model O. Oddly enough, Models H, F, L and P becomes The Voiceless in the sequel, but that may be justified by them having evil users.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: In the first game, after a little lecture from the 6 Biometals, you get a brief moment of your protagonist's bright idealism, accompanied by Green Grass Gradation (the very upbeat and optimistic Area A music from the very beginning of the game), before commencing the final battle.
  • Theme Naming:
    • Borderline example with the first 8 Pseudoroids. Their first names share the initials to the Biometals they possess (Hivolt the Raptoroid, Lurerre the Abysroid, etc).
    • The Enemy Mega Men's names in the second game (as well as Prometheus and Pandora's names) are taken from Saturn's moons.
    • Meanwhile, Vent means "wind", Aile means "wing", and Girouette means "weather vane", all in French. Prairie means "meadow", and the operators in the first game have Floral Theme Naming in French (Gardénia, Tulip, and Marguerite). Fleuve means "river" and most of the Guardians' member are named after fishes, also in French. Everything Sounds Sexier in French, apparently.
    • Jumping from the above two, there's a "earth vs sky" theme within the good guys and the bad guys. Discounting Serpent, of course; but since he was formerly a good guy (a former Guardian member), this still sticks.
  • Title Drop: The name "Model ZX" is referenced during the Slither Inc's invasion to the Guardian HQ:

Pandora: You... The girl from before... Model X... Model Z... together...
Prometheus: Or should we just say Model ZX now?

  • Tomato in the Mirror: Aile and Ashe are revealed to be distant descendants of Master Albert, while Grey turns out to be one of his backup bodies.
  • Tomboyish Name:
    • Atlas (Mega Man F) from Advent is actually female.
    • Inverted: In Greek Mythology, Tethys and Thetis were both female figures and Siarnaq is named after an Inuit goddess.
  • Toy Time: The Area H stage in the first game. It's a bit of a subversion, since Vent and Aile's parents are implied to be dead here years ago.
  • Transformation Is a Free Action: Played with.
    • Subverted by the player characters of the first game; the first transformations into the Model X and Model A Mega Men don't take as long as they seem to, as the camera merely focuses on different parts of the body in separate shots - one could argue it's all happening at the same time. The first transformation into the Model ZX Mega Man does take a while, though presumably because of the bodily strain and the energy being released, which vapourises all of the enemies about to shoot Vent/Aile. However, during gameplay, Mega-merging still takes less than a second.
    • Subverted also by Serpent, who transforms in identical fashion to the hero's in-game transformation, and also by the four enemy Mega Men of Advent, who do take a few seconds, but release powerful phenomena when they do so, which protect and obscure them (respectively: surrounded by whirlwinds, engulfed in flames, encased in ice, wrapped in shadows) and are ready to go immediately afterwards.
    • Played very straight, however, by Vent/Aile in Advent (when they're met as enemies initially), whose transformations are ludicrously over-the-top and expository, especially Aile's. Also done by Albert, who initially blows away the walls and ceiling, but otherwise floats in the air while his transformation completes itself. Both instances take a very long time to complete, and in both cases, Grey/Ashe just stand and watch.
  • Transformation Sequence: Vent and Aile in the first game get two for each, one for Model X and another for Model ZX. The second game turn this Up to Eleven, for Vent, Aile, Grey, and Ashe. Most notably Aile, whose transformation seems to be a Shout-Out to typical Magical Girl transformations.
    • The Enemy Mega Men also have them, though they don't get animated cutscenes.
  • Transformation Trinket: The Biometals, which can produce Instant Armors as well as Cool Helmets.
  • Triang Relations: A minor one, mostly stemmed from this dialogue:

Prairie: Aile. I know it's a little late for this, but... I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you about Giro and his mission to watch over you. Please believe me when I say that we didn't want to deceive you. Giro's face always lit up so much when he talked about you... Giro... He loved you very much.
Aile: Prairie, did you have feelings for him?
Prairie: W-what!?
Aile: Hahaha! Maybe Giro resembles someone you cared about. Every time you talk about him, you look so happy. Don't worry, I won't hold it against you if you did like him. It's thanks to all of you that I'm finally able to fight for what's important.
Prairie: Aile...

    • Shipper on Deck: From the dialogue above, they seem to ship each other with Giro.
  • Tron Lines: When Vent/Aile transforms into Mega Man ZX during a cutscene, intricate green lines will appear in the head crystal while red lines will appear over the black body suit.
  • Tunnel King: Flammole in ZX. Well, he's a mole.
  • Unusual Ears: All of the humanoids have the headphone-like variant, occasionally with an antenna.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Serpent; also Master Albert, initially.
  • "Wake-Up Call" Boss: Chronoforce in ZX Advent, especially if he spams his pendulum attack. If you're really unlucky, he'll use it while using the Time Bomb, which makes it faster and harder to dodge.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Atlas and Thetis. In hindsight, Aeolus' and Albert's goals are actually nice too, it's just that they're too heavy on the "Extremist" side.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: Loaded with this, especially ZX Advent. Here's an example, and a more X-TREME example! Keep in mind that during gameplay, MegaMerging takes less than a second.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?:
    • This seems to be what happened with the names of all the Biometal Users in ZXA. While Atlas, Helios/Aeolus, Siarnaq, Tethys/Thetis, Prometheus and Pandora were all supposed to be Saturnian moons, when you look at them in the context of Greek Mythology, they appear to be a random collection of Titans and other mythological figures with no other real meanings behind their names.
    • Also, the Sage Trinity has nothing to do with a Trinity, God, or Christianity. Apparently, they are named that just because there is three of them and it's just a translation choice anyway (their Japanese name translates to the connotation-free "Three Sages").
    • Siarnaq is actually the name of a giant from Inuit mythology.
    • Also noteworthy is the fact Homer often referred to Helios as Titan or Hyperion - both moons of Saturn.
    • Prometheus was the Titan who stole the secret of fire from the gods. The character in question here is self-explanatory in that regard.
    • Pandora's Box was a legendary artefact that reputedly brought mass ruin upon the land in which it was opened. Pandora here turns out to be suppressing her true persona and agenda. She is outwardly calm and emotionless, but reveals herself to have an insane, vengeful side when the player gives her that extra push.
    • Fridge Brilliance: In mythology, neither Pandora nor Prometheus meant to do any damage. Guess what characters are revealed to having been coerced into fighting for Albert?.
  • Where It All Began: Thematic example. Ouroboros, the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, comes to resemble Ragnarok, as mentioned in the Continuity Nod above.
  • Whip It Good: Rospark's weapon.
  • White and Grey Morality: You can see that all of the villains (well, except Prometheus and Pandora, who just want revenge against their master, Albert) in the series have good intentions. It's just that they're corrupted by Model W.[4] Possibly a carryover theme from the Zero series.
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz: Justified, ZX stands for Zero]] and X.
  • You All Look Familiar: Advent not only averts this trope (except for the hunters when in uniform, and that's kinda justified), but Inti Creates went the extra mile and made almost every NPC character look completely different, and even gave them all amazingly elaborate designs. Yes, even the ones who have no importance whatsoever besides talking to you.
  • You Killed My Father: One of the Bosses in the first game is revealed to be behind the attack that took the life of Vent/Aile's parent(s).
  • Yuu Kobayashi: Voiced Model A.
  1. ↑ unless you're playing Hard Mode, in which case even the cheapest repair phase is ludicrously pricey
  2. ↑ the Ouroboros
  3. ↑ Look at his official artwork and think how he would look without his head.
  4. ↑ Rousseau Was Right occurs as well, since they might be the good guys if not for Model W.
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