RetroHate

Forget-Me-Man

Greetings all you retro ladies and old-school gents! Today’s RetroHate is actually on the same game series I covered last time: Mega Man. But this time we’ll be covering a completely different aspect of the Blue Bomber’s bumbling exploits, so strap on those Mettaur helmets, cause this one’s gonna be a Charge Shot!

So here I am, I just finished a Mega Man game, got all the robot masters’ weapons, defeated Wily & even maxed out my E-Tanks. Now I pop in the next Mega Man game and BAM! Back to square one. No E-Tanks, no special weapons, nothing. Umm… Light? WHERE’S ALL MAH STUFF MAN? I had the Quick Boomerang, the Leaf Shield, the Metal Blade and at least three E-Tanks. What happened? You have a yard sale to fund the next Rush upgrade module?

Ok, let’s look at this from a lore/mythos perspective. Mega Man was designed to absorb and emulate his opponents’ powers and weapons after defeating them. By the end of each game you have about eight or so special weapons obtained from Wily’s robots that you can switch between on the fly and a few extra energy tanks if you’re the secret-hunting type. Yet, as soon as the next Mega Man adventure begins, Mega Man is back to his basic pea-shooting “buster” and stock energy pool. Now some of the Mega Man games, according to the canon, take place mere weeks after the previous one. So what, may I ask, happened to all those weapons and upgrades? Does Mega Man just forget them? Can he only “remember” so many weapon load-outs at any given time? If so, why don’t I start out with the previous game’s weapons & then swap them out as I obtain new ones? Is this another side-effect of Dr. Light’s shoddy workmanship? OR… get your tin-foil hats ready, does Dr. Light remove all these weapons & upgrades on purpose? GASP! Conspiracy! Could it be that Dr. Light has to remove all of Mega Man’s weapons and upgrades? If Mega Man retained all his weapons and upgrades from each game, it wouldn’t be long before he would be a one-robot walking machine of death and destruction.  Would Mega Man actually “go Maverick” once he realized just how powerful and superior he was to every living thing on Earth?

To me, this is the only logical, nay, acceptable answer. Anything else would be just stupid and further fuel my Large Hateron Canon. Don’t get me wrong, I actually like Mega Man especially the later X/Zero and Battle Network series; but dang-blast-it if  it doesn’t just annoy the funk right out of me sometimes.