[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h_bx0PLxWg[/youtube]
Man, I love listening to that theme. It's powerfully bombastic, really upbeat, and reeks of awesome, not unlike the fact that Zero returns to the series in X2 with a vengeance. He matches X shot for shot and brings in a dramatically new element to the series: the Z-saber. People thought Zero was cool in X1? He just got way cooler in X2, and he's here to stay. God, he's so cool.
If you know me, then you're probably aware that's a fact I've come to begrudge recently. As I've reflected on where the Mega Man franchise has gone since Mega Man X, I came to feel like the franchise's 2D experiences have never gotten much better than the early half of the X series, and its level of story engagement not much better than what X1 or X4 had to offer. We got a good taste of more open-world gameplay that emphasizes talking to NPCs and using melee weapons in the Mega Man Zero and ZX series, and with those games came a greater and more consistent emphasis on individual dialogues with a small ragtag band of freedom fighters (or guardians/mercenaries in the ZX games) and predictable philosophical banter with every single enemy you fight--and they all spout the same high-and-mighty insane **** about creating a new world by destroying the current one. For me, none of those things feel like refinements of what I enjoyed best from the SNES X games: a tight, engaging plot with minimal dialogue and an equally tight and engaging game design. And I think all those things that the 2D experience has evolved thus far ('cept for the style of storytelling perhaps) can be traced back to Zero's return in X2.
As much as I loved the way he returned in X2, his glorious fanfare, nice redesign with new saber weapon, and a thrilling chance to fight him and all, I don't think he should have come back because his sole reason for doing so was to derail what was so well laid down in X1: X's journey to grow and discover his destiny. By returning in X2, X's destiny was immediately boiled down to having to destroy Zero--something that was unceremoniously pointed out to us at the end of X3, and something that was, uh, well, already accomplished in X1. X4 had virtually nothing to do with X other than to inadvertently allude to his hypothetical 180 Face Heel Turn in Mega Man Zero with a single ending cutscene. X5 actually ended up culminating X3's ending wiiiiith ... a somewhat lame rehash of X2's fight between X and Zero. Impressive? Eh.
Story contentions aside, what about the fundamental game experience? Zero had star appeal ever since he saved X from Vile in X1. Everybody loved him, everybody thought he was super cool (myself included), some people thought he was a girl, and naturally everyone wanted to play as him. Everyone wanted to be Zero. X would never come to match that mystique for the rest of his career, and to me that's one of the biggest failures of the X series in terms of story and game planning, as well as basic character development. To me it's also a sign of immature storytelling, but the Rule of Cool has a powerful way of offsetting those kinds of imperfections, and many might've rationalized that Zero died before his time and deserved to steal the spotlight. That aside, though, what did Zero eventually bring to the X series that changed everything? His saber. Before X2, Mega Man was generally all about jumping and shooting. Shoulda been called Jump n' Shoot Man X introduced dashing and wall-kicking, but X4 finally changed the game with all-saber gameplay. As an added bonus, you got to play as Zero! FOR THE ENTIRE GAME! Holy ****, son. It just got real. You were playing as the badass you always wanted to be, and MAN is his saber not nearly as strong as it was in X3. And he can't shoot a thing out of one buster anymore, let alone two. Well, okay, that makes sense. Wouldn't want to make the game too easy, right? And we can't just cut X out altogether, right?
To cut a long story short, I don't really hate Zero, and I don't begrudge people for liking him so much and how he impacted the series. But I think he should've stayed dead in X1, at least until another series like Mega Man Zero rolled around after the X series had a sound, satisfying conclusion (X5 wasn't it). Despite Inafune's subtle intentions, the X series started with and was supposed to be about X, and we know that because that's what we ended up getting with X1. It was a solid experience that set up a very particular theme, tone and focus for the rest of the series: X's growth and potential as a person, and how he resolves that with the burden of being a Maverick Hunter in a society full of crime and uncertainty. Zero died for all that. Would the game have been much different had X been Zero instead? Or had Zero never died at all? Well, in the first case, that would've cut out the character that served Zero's function in X1, so unless they always intended for there to be a personal parallel character to whoever you played as, the story and the experienced would've turned out much different. Maybe even less impactful. Or maybe they could've switched places, and (Mega Man) X's death in Zero's place would've served as symbolic to the new direction the franchise would go. As for the second case, they would've continued to be brothers in arms, not unlike Mega Man and Proto Man. I wouldn't have had a problem with that if they treated Zero more or less like they treated Proto Man: a secondary character that had relevance to the story and you could sometimes play as or borrow his stuff.
My basic point is by having both X and Zero as playable heroes in the same series, the focus for storytelling and game design is halved to ill effect. Especially when one of the more central guys on the team likes the not-main-character more and intends to make him the star at main-character's expense. Saber combat is cool and all, but I like it much better when it's synthesized with the kind of gameplay evolution that followed X1 with X2's double busters and air-dashing and X3's cross-charge with up-dash. I just think it better belonged in another spinoff series.