Topic: Rockman Zero Collection Official Website goes live!!

[Flame]

by the time you get the saber, when youve got the gold max armor, Zero is useless anyway, and it SHOWS. Gold max can double air dash, hell, it can air dash PERIOD, amongst things like special weapons, charging them, and less damage... and then a saber wave.
Not to mention Zero is slower than X, and bigger.

[blackbeltdude]

Can I get a facepalm image?

It's hardly THAT bad.

The Akihabara incident, with "Suspect Kato", was a pretty volatile topic back in 08. Definitely sad, too. Go look it up, if you haven't, as it's at least a good means to understand why censorship is as hard in Japan as it is now.

But any way, again, I doubt very seriously that putting "juice" in a Rockman or Mega Man title will be that big of a selling point. The "God of War" crowd that makes up a sizable part of the American audience won't care. The people who already have played/owned the titles will also be more likely to be nonplussed by the idea. And Capcom would have to settle for at least a "T" rating, because the ESRB wouldn't tolerate anything else for such a display of "violence". That would do more to limit the audience that they can market this game towards, and why would they want that kind of handicap on possible sales numbers?  

So, I've read up on the Akihabara incident, and from what I can find, there didn't seem to be too big of a volatile reaction to violence afterwords (this is of course going off of Wikipedia, so please keep that in mind ). Like, this doesn't seem like the kind of thing that'd sky-rocket a rating from E to M (or even T), because of blood. The things that were affected by it were pretty specific and kind of had a temporal reasoning behind them (Sentai daggers, and delaying a MGS4 event). That's not saying that it's had no impact on violent media in Japan, but I think you may be giving it too much credit (Madworld had rating issues in just about every territory but America).

But to get more on track... I agree it's not much of a selling point on the grounds that it looks bloody, but if Capcom said "added content" and was referring to that, they'd pretty much be correct (they could say uncut, etc). The idea that the package has something that's better than before is what would attract people to re-buying the games; I really don't see it as something that would hurt sales. Unless of course, it did bump up the ratings to T, but even then, I don't see how.

ZX is E, and ZXA is E 10+ (but the descriptors are both cartoon violence). And this "blood" is pretty much only present when things are cut open (as far as I recall). And like other people said, X4 had a way more violent deception of it, so I don't see how it could be left out this time. It just doesn't make sense for a collection, which should be a culmination of the series' own quality, to leave out a bit of extra polish. I'd be surprised if it bumped the rating up to T (I would expect E 10+).

But hell, I'm looking forward to this, regardless of what's included.

[Flame]

Lol. X4 was K-A, and even then after re-rating, was only "E"

[HokutoNoBen]

So, I've read up on the Akihabara incident, and from what I can find, there didn't seem to be too big of a volatile reaction to violence afterwords (this is of course going off of Wikipedia, so please keep that in mind ).

...Well, there you go.

The more wide spread effect has been cause to crack down further on censorship in Japanese games (and this is on the heels of another incident that happened in '05).

As a result, you don't see blood in any Japanese game that's lower than a CERO C, now a days. That's just the way things are.   

[Hypershell]

Awesome, I got the Z-Saber with my Gold Max Armor! Hey Zero, check this sh...i... oh.

(BAD END)

You expected them to put two Z-Sabers in X3?

Besides, the Z-Saber isn't a "normal" upgrade, it's only available under very specific circumstances (Vile killed early, and playing as Zero against a miniboss; something you ordinarily wouldn't bother with because at no other point is it even possible in the game).  And it is ludicrously overpowered, even without the armor upgrade's saber wave, it's still a 2-hit kill on any boss.

That is nowhere *NEAR* the scope of Inti's antics in the Zero-series.  The X-series has carried ranking systems for four titles now and at no point was there ever any punishment for upgrades that were a regular part of game progress, like Heart Tanks.  In Z1 (and to a lesser extent Z2), Cyber-Elves are your *ONLY* defensive upgrades.  Forsaking them is the equivalent of playing an X game armorless with no Heart Tanks.  Doable, certainly, but it's senseless for the game to attempt to enforce it as the default, much less to do so by making the bosses pansy out on you if you refuse those restrictions.  Ultimate Mode is the only way a fully powered player fights a fully powered boss, making such a feat completely impossible in 3 of Inti's 6 Zero/ZX games.  And Ultimate Mode is also ridiculously easy.  Whether UM is available or not, there is something wrong with that setup.

The Ultimate Armor/Black Zero in X5 and in X8 are the exceptions in the punished for overpowered mode rule

X1 - Hadouken
X2 - Shoryuken
X3 - Golden Armor
X4 - Ultimate Armor (What, I'm supposed to buy lacking Stock Charge as a punishment?  Nevermind that this is already the easiest game of the main series to begin with)
X6 - Same UA/BZ as X5, except Black Zero is even stronger with Saber Plus taking the place of X5's virus busting effect, and UA all the more valuable what with how sucktacular the Blade Buster is.
X7 - New Game Plus chip whoring
XCM - Ultimate Armor/Absolute Zero

Whatever rule you're looking for, it's not in MegaMan.  The only X-series game that actually does punish you for being overpowered is Xtreme2's reduction in part slots once you've completed the armor.  And even that's more of an exploit than anything, since the head part is worthless anyway (unless you have your heart set on the Shotokan moves), you're considerably MORE powerful by leaving it behind.

Losing Zero in X3 isn't much of a loss, either.  He's not accessible at any point after the stage in which you obtain the Z-Saber, and under normal circumstances X would have interrupted at the Mosquitus gate and you'd never see Zero again in that stage anyway.  So for all practical purposes you've lost nothing, except for three token non-playable appearances ("Let's split up!", "Used Doppler's program on my saber!", and "Credits jogging"), none of which impact the end result of the story (Zero's still alive, just pending repairs), and one is not even applicable to future ports of the game.

by the time you get the saber, when youve got the gold max armor, Zero is useless anyway, and it SHOWS. Gold max can double air dash, hell, it can air dash PERIOD, amongst things like special weapons, charging them, and less damage... and then a saber wave.

Valid points, but he still has the better buster.

[Zx]

You know, it would be cool if they change that big talking box in Z1.

[Align]

And use later character art for the mugshots?

[Reg]

Good news, indeed. I already own all four Zero games, but I'll still buy this if it gets localized. As for extras, I'm not getting my hopes up until I hear anything more.

[Klavier Gavin]

http://www.capcom.co.jp/rockman/zero/index.html

New [parasitic bomb] on the site, Story & Characters and System.


Can see a translation of the story here.

[Hypershell]

Oh, there's going to be a LOT of fanon to contend with for that one....

Personally, I'd take any timeline that lists Zero's birth as "1XX years ago" with a rather large bag of salt.  That contradicts even the existence of the Elf Wars, nevermind the X-series speculation.

[Zan]

Playing devil's advocate here.... but, is there any reason why Zero's birth has to happen in 20XX instead of 21XX? Why can't Wily produce Zero even beyond death?

[Hypershell]

I suppose that would depend on how human-looking Wily's avatar while working is.  Although, the fact that we've already seen Zero's plans in Classic-series timeframe makes that very odd.

The level to which one has to condense the timeline to get any sense out of that is pretty crazy, though.  The first hundred years are offed by Elf Wars alone.  From there back to Zero's seal, MINIMUM of 50, although that in itself clashes a bit with a few tidbits (mainly any hope of fitting X's Z1 dialogue into the timeline).  That leaves, maximum, 49 years between Zero's birth and first inter-series seal, during which we need to fit the entire X-series and a decent gap before and after.

Consider that the gap from the copyright of Cain's computer (2114) to the discovery of the Force Metal meteor (2202) is 88 years.

BROKEN TIMELINE

That or Cain has some damn ancient equipment.

[Zan]

I'd go with Cain's ancient equipment. We already knew from Inafune and others that the gap from classic to X is "more than 100 years". With "20XX", having X sealed much earlier than 2014 seems to be kinda out there.

[Hypershell]

That was a joke stolen from our AIM conversation.  My point is, maximum 49 years from Zero's birth to Zero's pre-Elf Wars stasis, is simply nuts.  Pretty much the entire X-series, including the Classic-to-X series gap, needs to be rewritten in order to accommodate it.  Furthermore, in pressing the limits of that estimate, we wind up very obviously closer to 200 years than to 100.  The fact that they would offer the "1XX" estimate in spite of that is rather senseless.

Posted on: April 09, 2010, 04:45:00 PM......


It just hit me, there's another angle to consider here.  On the website, all of this story information is under "Zero 0", with "Zero 1", "Zero 2", etc., being separate and currently unavailable options.  The timeline covers Zero's sealing, the separation of Zero's mind from his body, and "Project Elpizo", which is seemingly the official backing of Weil's philosophy.  But there is no mention of Weil himself, Omega, Copy Zero, the cursing of Dark Elf, the end of the Elf Wars, and the establishment of Neo Arcadia.  Surely Project Elpizo should be before all of that.

I'm tempted to say that the dates of this timeline refer to the Elf Wars and not to Zero-series.  The "Elf Wars/Maverick Wars" bit may be referring to the overall scope of the wars and not to the date of the Elf Wars specifically (which should be, according to MMZOCW's timeline, after Dark Elf's curse, thus after Project Elpizo).  On the other hand, the "Zero 0" label appears in the System section as well, and there appears to simply be their "general series info" tab.

[Zan]

I think there's a bit of leeway on the order of certain parts. But there's no going around the "1XX". Time is counted from the ZERO-series back.

[Hypershell]

Well, it was a thought.  And even if it's not true now, we could very well be revisiting the idea in a few years whenever the next time is that Inti/Capcom decides to throw us a gi-hugic curve ball.