Code: Island Attackers

Inconsistencies in the ZX Series
Written by Rebel40000
As most probably know, the ZX series is one of the two new Mega Man series introduced by Capcom, with the second installment, ZX Advent (ZXA), being released late last year. Personally speaking, I love the ZX games and think that they are excellent additions to the overall series, but after playing ZXA I have discovered a few startling inconsistencies with the first game, ZX.

First and foremost, is the mysterious Biometal Model W. In the original ZX, it was explained (to the best of my understanding) that Model W was created due to the destruction of the space weapon Ragnarok from Zero 4, causing Weil (the main antagonist from the Zero series) to become welded to the wreckage of Ragnarok as it crashed into Earth. Though Weil himself passes on, his spirit, trapped in the wreckage of Ragnarok, leads to the freak creation of Model W. Later on the Resistance, now called the Guardians, discover a fragment of Model W, which causes Serpent, a part of the Guardians, to go postal and try and obtain the power of Model W for himself, thus leading into ZX. Ciel, the leader of the Guardians at the time, uses data of X, Zero, and the Four Guardians to create the other Biometals and manages to lock away the rest of Model W deep underground, requiring an intricate password which can only be obtained by having the six Biometals.

The entire game leads you to believe that Serpent was in posession of the single Model W fragment, which connected to the rest of the Biometal which was located underground. Of course, at the end of the game Model W is freed and Serpent merges with it, but is destroyed by Vent/Aile, apparently taking Model W with him. This is where ZXA comes into play. Now, if you have been paying attention to what I've said to this point, you should know that the Model W that was locked away was pretty important, right? After all, you needed a flippin' password to get to it (six, no less!). Well, ZXA takes everything about ZX and completely throws it out the window. Seriously, near the beginning of the game when Master Albert reveals that he is actually the antagonist, he pulls out not one, but around four Model W fragments! Now, okay, I can buy that there probably was more than one Model W fragment. It makes sense. What doesn't make sense is why are there so many giant Model W's lying around, well... everywhere? In ZX, it was pretty much established that Serpent absolutely had to get underground to where the giant Model W was. But in ZXA, you discover giant chunks of Model W's in so many places, and according to the game there are even more! Why then did Serpent go to all the trouble to get to that one stinking Model W when he could have just gone elsewhere? It makes no sense to me!

For arguments sake, you could say that the chunks of Model W you discovered were actually caused by Model W's apparent "destruction" at the end of ZX, thus explaining why there are so many and why they are seemingly everywhere. The only problem with this explaination is that when Albert manages to put all of the Model W chunks back together again it creates a giant floating monstrosity known as Ouroborous, which looks like a snake biting it's own tail. It looks nothing like what Serpent turned into at the end ZX!

So what in the world was so special about this giant Model W in ZX again? I could make a few assumptions. The first being is that at the time, that was all that was assumed to be of Model W. Ciel probably didn't know that Model W was actually multiple parts and just thought that the bad boy she spotted was it, not counting the fragment. The only thing that perplexes me is that when you finally encounter Vent/Aile in ZXA, they pretty much act like they have been dealing with these other Model W's lying around for a while, although considering the fact that we have no idea what they've been doing during the time between ZX and ZXA who knows what they found out on their own. Perhaps they were even going over this pointless topic themselves!

This slightly brings me to my next point. What in the world is Model W anyway? This might seem like a silly question but let's be serious about it: All of the other Biometals, Models X, Z, H, F, L, P, O, and even A all serve the same exact function... to Megamerge and become a Mega Man. Yes, even Model A, who had the additional ability of transforming into other people. Megamerging is probably the most key-defining trait of the Biometals. So why is it that Model W is so freaking different? When you first play ZX, the fragment Serpent has looks at least a little like Model X and Model Z, but when you discover the rest of the blasted thing it looks more like some mutated Reaverbot from the Legends series. Plus all of it's abilities are nothing like the rest of the Biometals. Oh yeah, sure Serpent and Albert went into a slightly similar Mega Man-looking form at the end of the game (my guess is the true Model W Mega Man form), but what the heck is that giant robot-thing that Serpent turns into supposed to be? An OMEGA MAN? Also, why is it that Model W is somehow able to control people's minds? It caused Serpent to literally go postal and kill... but the rest of the Biometal's lack any of those special mind powers. True the other Biometals were based off Model W, so it could be a bit of an X/Reploid repeat. But the biggest concern I have is WHY IS MODEL W SO GOD-AWFUL BIG!? I mean, nothing can explain this one... Ciel at the very least knew about the giant Model W in ZX, and yet she made the rest of the Biometal's as itty-bitty as possible. I mean, is it really necessary to have something so big!? Why does Model W have all of these crazy powers, coupled with a massive size, with hundreds of different chunks, parts, fragments, and more? Why is it so different?

Again, Ciel based her Biometal's off of this, so I should be attacking their designs if anything. But even Model O, which was probably the second-closest Biometal to being naturally-made, looks just like the others! What the Hell, man. I guess the only logical way to put it is that Capcom just wanted something intimidating, so they just made it so that Model W was the biggest mother that you could ever lay eyes upon... and perhaps they wanted to make Model W look startling different compared to the rest of the Biometals. But I can't really be certain of that one.

In all: Capcom likes to think about the here and now. Screw the future details!

Code: Island Attackers is not associated with Capcom; Mega Man and all other related characters are copyright © to Capcom Co., Ltd.
Island Attackers and other related materials are copyright © to Rebel40000, founder of the team. All rights are reserved.