CAPCOM [u]will[/u] be releasing this into the US during 2010. The company doesn’t want to take any spotlight away from Mega Man 10, so no official announcement, but the ink on the paper has dried for the localization of this one. Since all 4 games were already localized, it’s literally just copy-pasting the dialog files and a few images here and there. Will be easier if CAPCOM USA is keeping the censorship. If they decide to remove it, that might take a bit longer (we’re talking a few days of tweaking it back in).
I think they’re keeping the censorship to make the ESRB process easier (since if nothing changes; same rating can be applied).
I liked MMZ2 and MMZ3 because of the “you have to get S-rank” mechanic. Even if many of the EX skills sucked or just were OK, it was still something worth doing.
But the plot was … well, the series finally convinced me that it’s worse than they don’t care: they care, but they suck at it.
Accord to Inafune, he wanted Zero to be the main hero of what became Rockman X, but industry politics and the popularity of Rockman made that impossible. So he squeezed Zero in there, and slowly made it so that Zero was cooler. Fast forward some years, and we get Rockman Zero.
Also according to Inafune, Rockman Zero was originally intended to have X gone irregular, however the executives in charge didn’t like the idea of their company mascot becoming an insane genocidal reploid killing monster, so they half heartedly made the ultimate evil a clone instead. While RMZ 2 thru 4 were poorly planned, the story in RMZ was pretty interesting. If they kept the original plan of making X turn evil, it would have been even more epic. It was also intended that X being the final boss would be a secret, with the look of the Pantheon and Four Guardians making the player wonder, “why do these guys look like X?”
No, I think that would have been an improvement, but still lame. See, that’s the whole problem with the “plotline”. They can’t get past the plot development that happened between the original series, and the X series. For hundreds of years (or more) nobody ever manages to create artificially sentient robots other than Wily and Light? Really? They’re still building new robots based off designs hundreds of years old that they know from bloody experience to be fatally flawed?
I’m sorry, but that’s just too ridiculous for me to buy anymore. By the time of Rockman Zero, nobody would be talking about 'reploids" anymore, they would have been a dead-end technology end-of-lifed decades ago. Light was a scientist, and the things he invented might have been awesome, but they’re obsolete, in the same way the work of a master blacksmith is still damn impressive, but not actually relevant to the everyday operation of the world anymore.
There was supposed to be some sort of Cataclysm between the times of the original series and X, which is supposed to explain why the original robots are dead, and technology stagnated (also why Rock, Roll, Rush and the others are gone). Advances were made between X and Zero, but there was also the remainder of the Maverick Wars and the start of the Elf Wars. At the end of Zero, Neo Arcadia (the only center of human population left) was destroyed, and humanity was basically back to the starting block. By ZX technology had advanced were EVERYONE is half human and half reploid. Then waaaaaaay down the road Legend kicks in. Network and Star Force are alternate realities.
Well you have to remember that the original series is intended to be comedic. X is when it became serious. Zero is when it really got serious. ZX is back to X levels of seriousness. Legends goes back to being more comedic than X, but not as much as the original series.
Technology really advanced between X and Zero - reploids are really streamlined and use biotechnologies (Zero machines are not as “clunky” as the X lineage). Tech really advanced from Zero to ZX - humans and reploids are basically the same at that point. Legend appears to have lost tech, but then a Cataclysm probably happened after ZX… or people learned to abandon technology, since it was causing so much troubles (reploids have been nothing but that really).
EDIT
Also… there are various levels of robots in the Rockmanverse. From lowest to highest: mechanoid, robot master, reploid, hybrid (of human and reploid).
Anyone could build a mechanoid (these basic baddies you blow up; like Mets and Sniper Joe). Also during the time of Rockman 8 and beyond, everyone could build a robot master (which is what Rock and Roll are). Wily nor Light built Splash Woman or Commando Man - it’s implied there are lots of robot masters… Rock only fights the ones that go crazy. That was the extent of human advancement before the Cataclysm. Reploids are based off X and Zero. From there people crated more and more advanced reploids. Ciel created Copy X, who was supposed to be an EXACT duplicate of X… only without the memories and experience. Hybrids are even more so advanced… and Ciel would have been loooong dead before they came around.
Look at the bright side: at least the formula of taking a kiddy title, and suddenly making it dark for an older audience, doesn’t occur with all kiddy games.
It wouldn’t be THAT much of a stretch to make a MegaTen / Pokemon crossover. (Well, not much of a stretch, if you smoke large quantities of something illegal.)
