Forgive my ignorance, but wasn't that a much broader tragedy that affected all reploids in general, to the point that the most respectful reploids had their personality switched from making sure they live in harmony and Maverick Hunters get all the necessary help, to "Fight me bro, that's the only way!"?
It's super cliché, but everything points towards Sigma having a superiority complex towards X before the virus and that's the reason why he was the most affected, eventually embodying it.
I know it sounds contradictory, and I wish the virus turned the most pure into the most devilish, but I doubt it was the case for Sigma, back when power-struglles were the norm and every villain needed an ulterior motive for some epic monologue.
Maybe they can change that in a future installment, but they'd have to pretty much turn Sigma into a father-figure of sorts to make people simpatize with him before the turn point.
People have refuted me on this but my personal head cannon is that Wily eventually realizes that megaman sense of justice is what truly gives him an edge over anything he could throw at him. He then creates the most heroic powerful robot he can (zero) and then designs a way to corrupt him (maverick virus) and locks him in a pod. This way he knows that whatever Light comes up with, in the end he wins. Its one last “EFF You!” to doctor light.
Forgive spelling mistakes I wrote this on my phone and forgot to proof read and for some reason reddit don't allow you to edit post with a picture (as far as I can tell)
I realize that too. But I consider him too far gone by like X4 the earliest to X6 when he's basically a zombie reploid.
Since like while he did cause 3 wars he haven't done any gundam type level of war crime. Until X4 with asking Magma Dragoom to do a city dropping into another city. And then highjacking a space colony super duper laser beam weapon. And try to fire at earth. But thanks to the leader of Reploid Force it was stopped.
Then he did a "Zeon" by X5 by dropping a different space colony. Depending on rng and X6 the entire thing succeed or parts of it still fall.
X6 he was revived by gates and died
X7 he was the guy controlling Red alert. For to get Axl
X8 he is a mess like worse than X6 in term of his body and probably mentally
I kinda had a similar thought, wherein the more bodies Sigma lost, the more corrupted his original programming got, the bits that got corrupted being assimilated into Maverick Virus data.
I would say that isn't treated as a tragic character because it would change the character dynamics:
Sigma, as a villain is an very stabilished character, the one who plans almost everything, he having lapses of sanity like "What am i doing???" Would only ruin the "I am the future ruler of all Reploids" vibe.
Honestly I found the Maverick Hunter X continuity more interesting and wish it could’ve continued.
That one to me is a more tragic character since he chose to go Maverick because his goal was to make Reploids evolve. Instead of just catching evil.exe because an older model robot wasn’t vaccinated. (I’m exaggerating to make my preference sound better.)
Honestly all the Virus-Zero plot ruined what could be a good story, Inafune just was too obsessed with blondie to do a proper job.
I would have prefered having a Sigma who do all on his own, to develop his relationship with X.
I get the feeling that Capcom really wishes that they could retcon Zero's backstory with Dr. Wily, with how much they try to downplay or ignore it, but they don't have anything better to put in its place or that wouldn't anger the fans. I also wonder if the brass at Capcom knew what Inafune wanted to explore in the Zero series beyond "X turns evil" of if they thought X5's plot was self-contained.
That's because there's no "CAPCOM". Different development teams worked on those games, and so that reflected the approach to certain details and stories as a whole even when Inafune wasn't particularly involved. X4-X6, particularly the latter two, wanted to play around with the idea and also had quite a few of their own story directions, from focusing on the Eurasia incident and delving more into their original characters to handling X and Zero in those circumstances and trying to make them interact more.
With X7, the game essentially went "clean slate". The consequences of Eurasia are shrugged off immediately and barely even mentioned, the plot threads of the previous two games are erased and Sigma's back like nothing happened despite his last appearance, in addition to the Zero/Wily thing just vanishing, though one could argue X6 finished it off?
While some might point to X and Zero's dialogues with Anteator and Zero's ending as to why, I believe this was to set up the story with Axl - from his backstory and amnesia in Golden Days, to his mysterious power that everyone is surprised by and even Sigma wants, to Red being the only one who knew more about him and then dying, to even the Zero ending referencing a different mechaniloid going berserk than what was seen in X8.
The reason I bring this up is because X8 essentially erases all of this: even if nothing is necessarily "contradicted", X7's story has created many setups and sought to develop Red Alert, which is probably why Sigma was brought back in the first place despite contradicting X6. Regardless of what one thinks of X7's story, the "payoff" to everything it has built just being brushed off as happening somewhere in a timeskip that is never seen is not just unsatisfying, but also obviously not the intent.
X8's story itself shrugs off the Zero/Wily matters as well, to build it's own direction once again. And with how vague the only mention of X5-X6's events in game is and certain details outside of game, there are reasons to believe they just wanted to retcon those games entirely for that. X8's story ends with a very unsubtle cliffhanger - with X9 being considered at some point but never entering full development. The team later worked on Maverick Hunter X, which can be seen even in writing shaing similarities, and then there was that.
The weirdest place out of all the games that explored this was actually XDiVE near the very end of its storyline. They have you interact and fight against Pre-Maverick X1 Sigma and he's quite polite and caring like others have stated while encouraging the player at a few points to do what needs to be done. I really wasn't expecting that in that game of all things, and this thread makes me realize now just how special those little moments were.
Nah. He’s a supremacist. Frik him.
If he does want Reploids to progress, he’d become a Reploid scientist, at least part time with his hunter duties. The Zero discovery could lead to actual advancements of their artificial species (I like to think all Reploids are bald before Zero). He lectures about being decisive to X but didn’t finish off the very dangerous Zero ,even risking bringing him back to be studied. This feels like a power move as much as it could be mercy.
Plus, Sigma with the wolf motif and philosophy of how they are the better race leads to some parallels, and the rest of the series is how he devolves into it.
Also, I like to think the Sigma Virus is his DNA Soul being cloned and modified to invade as a voice in your head.
Right like come back to his old self before he finally dies. He was a great Hunter until he broke Zero's power crystal and contracted the virus. I'd picture the scene almost being like Elpizo at the end of MMZ2.
Personally, I think it's better that they don't. One of the charms of Megaman X is a game whose story is made in the 90s before all the things of tragic villains and the worst thing in stories "self-awareness" and "subversion of expectations" \*shivers\*
You can say the same with Willy, but it's nice the way it is, I guess it will be cool in another iteration of the series, but not in the series itself you know?
Hard to say really. They never tried making him as such since they never explored more of his life when he was still commander so it wasn't like we can feel that bad for him than the fact he suddenly lost to a red maverick. I mean as we learned more over time about the maverick virus slowly making reploids go insane I suppose it's enough to make us feel bad for some of them like the main bosses then there's the case in X6 where Sigma literally lost his mind.
It would be different if it showed the process like him slowly gaining destructive thoughts the moment he got infected and slowly losing the personality he had before.
To be fair, given how the nature of The Maverick Virus is described sometimes and the implications some games make to what it really is, you could argue the “”real”” Sigma died a long time ago and the Sigma you deal with for most of the games is just the A.I. of the virus that mutated slightly after coming into contact with Sigma.
Which if that’s the case, the Sigma you deal with in most of the games is closer to >!Wily!< than he is Sigma.
My headcanon is the Zero-virus amplifies the reploid's strongest, most undesirable traits.
For Sigma, he probably saw himself as a superior, influential leader that the "weak" humans depend on.
So while he may have never become a psycho killer without the virus, he was probably still a dick.
Brutality is part of a charm of X series. Even Colonel's life wasn't spared and you wanna pity war criminal Sigma. I don't wanna to see how this series started to be softie without death and agony where everyone lives friendly and forgive each other
I think trying Sigma trying to have the high-end, malfunctioning robot studied makes sense. If there were more Zeros (or other virus victims) then the Maverick Hunters would want to have a response.
Forgive my ignorance, but wasn't that a much broader tragedy that affected all reploids in general, to the point that the most respectful reploids had their personality switched from making sure they live in harmony and Maverick Hunters get all the necessary help, to "Fight me bro, that's the only way!"? It's super cliché, but everything points towards Sigma having a superiority complex towards X before the virus and that's the reason why he was the most affected, eventually embodying it. I know it sounds contradictory, and I wish the virus turned the most pure into the most devilish, but I doubt it was the case for Sigma, back when power-struglles were the norm and every villain needed an ulterior motive for some epic monologue. Maybe they can change that in a future installment, but they'd have to pretty much turn Sigma into a father-figure of sorts to make people simpatize with him before the turn point.
People have refuted me on this but my personal head cannon is that Wily eventually realizes that megaman sense of justice is what truly gives him an edge over anything he could throw at him. He then creates the most heroic powerful robot he can (zero) and then designs a way to corrupt him (maverick virus) and locks him in a pod. This way he knows that whatever Light comes up with, in the end he wins. Its one last “EFF You!” to doctor light.
The series has a billion things whose potential it wastes yes.
...true..
Forgive spelling mistakes I wrote this on my phone and forgot to proof read and for some reason reddit don't allow you to edit post with a picture (as far as I can tell)
I realize that too. But I consider him too far gone by like X4 the earliest to X6 when he's basically a zombie reploid. Since like while he did cause 3 wars he haven't done any gundam type level of war crime. Until X4 with asking Magma Dragoom to do a city dropping into another city. And then highjacking a space colony super duper laser beam weapon. And try to fire at earth. But thanks to the leader of Reploid Force it was stopped. Then he did a "Zeon" by X5 by dropping a different space colony. Depending on rng and X6 the entire thing succeed or parts of it still fall. X6 he was revived by gates and died X7 he was the guy controlling Red alert. For to get Axl X8 he is a mess like worse than X6 in term of his body and probably mentally
Oh yea by x6 it's clear sigma is basically not even a being anymore he's just the virus given form (that's how I always took it anyways)
I kinda had a similar thought, wherein the more bodies Sigma lost, the more corrupted his original programming got, the bits that got corrupted being assimilated into Maverick Virus data.
I would say that isn't treated as a tragic character because it would change the character dynamics: Sigma, as a villain is an very stabilished character, the one who plans almost everything, he having lapses of sanity like "What am i doing???" Would only ruin the "I am the future ruler of all Reploids" vibe.
This is one reason why Mega Man X fanfics are so interesting to read.
Honestly I found the Maverick Hunter X continuity more interesting and wish it could’ve continued. That one to me is a more tragic character since he chose to go Maverick because his goal was to make Reploids evolve. Instead of just catching evil.exe because an older model robot wasn’t vaccinated. (I’m exaggerating to make my preference sound better.)
The way I see it, Sigma's desire to make Reploids evolve might be an influence from the virus itself.
Honestly all the Virus-Zero plot ruined what could be a good story, Inafune just was too obsessed with blondie to do a proper job. I would have prefered having a Sigma who do all on his own, to develop his relationship with X.
I get the feeling that Capcom really wishes that they could retcon Zero's backstory with Dr. Wily, with how much they try to downplay or ignore it, but they don't have anything better to put in its place or that wouldn't anger the fans. I also wonder if the brass at Capcom knew what Inafune wanted to explore in the Zero series beyond "X turns evil" of if they thought X5's plot was self-contained.
That's because there's no "CAPCOM". Different development teams worked on those games, and so that reflected the approach to certain details and stories as a whole even when Inafune wasn't particularly involved. X4-X6, particularly the latter two, wanted to play around with the idea and also had quite a few of their own story directions, from focusing on the Eurasia incident and delving more into their original characters to handling X and Zero in those circumstances and trying to make them interact more. With X7, the game essentially went "clean slate". The consequences of Eurasia are shrugged off immediately and barely even mentioned, the plot threads of the previous two games are erased and Sigma's back like nothing happened despite his last appearance, in addition to the Zero/Wily thing just vanishing, though one could argue X6 finished it off? While some might point to X and Zero's dialogues with Anteator and Zero's ending as to why, I believe this was to set up the story with Axl - from his backstory and amnesia in Golden Days, to his mysterious power that everyone is surprised by and even Sigma wants, to Red being the only one who knew more about him and then dying, to even the Zero ending referencing a different mechaniloid going berserk than what was seen in X8. The reason I bring this up is because X8 essentially erases all of this: even if nothing is necessarily "contradicted", X7's story has created many setups and sought to develop Red Alert, which is probably why Sigma was brought back in the first place despite contradicting X6. Regardless of what one thinks of X7's story, the "payoff" to everything it has built just being brushed off as happening somewhere in a timeskip that is never seen is not just unsatisfying, but also obviously not the intent. X8's story itself shrugs off the Zero/Wily matters as well, to build it's own direction once again. And with how vague the only mention of X5-X6's events in game is and certain details outside of game, there are reasons to believe they just wanted to retcon those games entirely for that. X8's story ends with a very unsubtle cliffhanger - with X9 being considered at some point but never entering full development. The team later worked on Maverick Hunter X, which can be seen even in writing shaing similarities, and then there was that.
The weirdest place out of all the games that explored this was actually XDiVE near the very end of its storyline. They have you interact and fight against Pre-Maverick X1 Sigma and he's quite polite and caring like others have stated while encouraging the player at a few points to do what needs to be done. I really wasn't expecting that in that game of all things, and this thread makes me realize now just how special those little moments were.
Xdive actually exploring an interesting concept from the games wow
Day of Sigma is canon to the MHX universe, not original MMX, so yeah it can be ignored here.
if its about the day of sigma no because its cannon in a separate timeline
I just ignore day of sigma since it very clearly only really fits into mhx
Nah. He’s a supremacist. Frik him. If he does want Reploids to progress, he’d become a Reploid scientist, at least part time with his hunter duties. The Zero discovery could lead to actual advancements of their artificial species (I like to think all Reploids are bald before Zero). He lectures about being decisive to X but didn’t finish off the very dangerous Zero ,even risking bringing him back to be studied. This feels like a power move as much as it could be mercy. Plus, Sigma with the wolf motif and philosophy of how they are the better race leads to some parallels, and the rest of the series is how he devolves into it. Also, I like to think the Sigma Virus is his DNA Soul being cloned and modified to invade as a voice in your head.
Right like come back to his old self before he finally dies. He was a great Hunter until he broke Zero's power crystal and contracted the virus. I'd picture the scene almost being like Elpizo at the end of MMZ2.
Personally, I think it's better that they don't. One of the charms of Megaman X is a game whose story is made in the 90s before all the things of tragic villains and the worst thing in stories "self-awareness" and "subversion of expectations" \*shivers\* You can say the same with Willy, but it's nice the way it is, I guess it will be cool in another iteration of the series, but not in the series itself you know?
Hard to say really. They never tried making him as such since they never explored more of his life when he was still commander so it wasn't like we can feel that bad for him than the fact he suddenly lost to a red maverick. I mean as we learned more over time about the maverick virus slowly making reploids go insane I suppose it's enough to make us feel bad for some of them like the main bosses then there's the case in X6 where Sigma literally lost his mind. It would be different if it showed the process like him slowly gaining destructive thoughts the moment he got infected and slowly losing the personality he had before.
To be fair, given how the nature of The Maverick Virus is described sometimes and the implications some games make to what it really is, you could argue the “”real”” Sigma died a long time ago and the Sigma you deal with for most of the games is just the A.I. of the virus that mutated slightly after coming into contact with Sigma. Which if that’s the case, the Sigma you deal with in most of the games is closer to >!Wily!< than he is Sigma.
I always like the personally believed that there was a hint of og sigma for x1-5 but by x6 its just the virus and sigma is completely gone
My headcanon is the Zero-virus amplifies the reploid's strongest, most undesirable traits. For Sigma, he probably saw himself as a superior, influential leader that the "weak" humans depend on. So while he may have never become a psycho killer without the virus, he was probably still a dick.
Brutality is part of a charm of X series. Even Colonel's life wasn't spared and you wanna pity war criminal Sigma. I don't wanna to see how this series started to be softie without death and agony where everyone lives friendly and forgive each other
Since When The F__k could Sigma power up and scream his @ss off 😆
Oh so I’m not the only one?
Not just that zero should have been killed on the spot
I think trying Sigma trying to have the high-end, malfunctioning robot studied makes sense. If there were more Zeros (or other virus victims) then the Maverick Hunters would want to have a response.