1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,930 Cole but Yeah. 2 00:00:00,930 --> 00:00:04,820 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, it takes a while to settle into stuff. I just hit go on the recording by the way, but um no, I'll trim off whatever. 3 00:00:04,820 --> 00:00:08,030 Cole Yeah, I, I, I saw that. It was like, oh no. Oh no, I'm good. 4 00:00:08,030 --> 00:00:10,610 Andrew Pinkston I will have to massage it either way. 5 00:00:10,610 --> 00:00:11,350 Cole Okay, cool. Anyway, fuck this guy. 6 00:00:11,350 --> 00:00:12,410 Andrew Pinkston so 7 00:00:12,410 --> 00:00:13,170 Cole Am I right, Zach? 8 00:00:13,170 --> 00:00:29,390 Andrew Pinkston i hate I hate this guy. Let's go home. zach Oh yeah, I'm in the room with him. I got to play cool. I feel like I should play the Beach Boys song right now. like God only knows what I'd be without you. 9 00:00:29,390 --> 00:00:31,460 Andrew Pinkston All right, Cole, we're doing Mega Man again. At least you're gonna. 10 00:00:31,460 --> 00:00:34,610 Cole We're doing, yeah, yeah. 11 00:00:34,610 --> 00:00:34,660 Andrew Pinkston Are we out of Mega Man content? 12 00:00:34,660 --> 00:00:37,300 Cole um 13 00:00:37,300 --> 00:00:38,180 Andrew Pinkston No, we have more to tap into, apparently. 14 00:00:38,180 --> 00:00:55,590 Cole Never. um Not factoring in the lack of Mega Man content for probably, oh god, the last game was Mega Man 11. I think that was 2018 or something, and that was Mega Man Classic. 15 00:00:55,590 --> 00:00:55,900 Andrew Pinkston Oh, wow. 16 00:00:55,900 --> 00:01:19,500 Cole um we we basically haven't had any main title Mega Man games for years. And everyone's like, hey, give me more Mega Man, but then all these people left the company and all this other stuff. So everyone has to basically ride that nostalgia train until infinity. um So we're going to go back to the Game Boy Advance era again. 17 00:01:19,500 --> 00:01:27,790 Cole because ah they were like, Capcom's like, hey, you know what? Mega Man's so great. Let's do two Mega Man games on the Game Boy Advance at the same time. 18 00:01:27,790 --> 00:01:29,230 Andrew Pinkston Cheese. 19 00:01:29,230 --> 00:01:35,130 Cole So we got Mega Man Battle Network, which, hey, you know, if you haven't listened to that one, go listen to that episode. 20 00:01:35,130 --> 00:01:35,310 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 21 00:01:35,310 --> 00:01:47,120 Cole um Because that was the that was the series where that was the ah Thomas Light ah has sex ah timeline, and this is the ah 22 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:47,920 Andrew Pinkston Virgin. 23 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:57,110 Cole This is the Virgin Thomas Lite timeline, which has, but it turns out, much more disastrous consequences than ever thought. 24 00:01:57,110 --> 00:02:09,270 Andrew Pinkston Okay, ah can we orient ourselves around the different compartments or silos of Mega Man franchise? So let me let me check my my knowledge with you really quick, cool. 25 00:02:09,270 --> 00:02:14,830 Andrew Pinkston So we've got Mega Man Classic that came out for the Nintendo, original Nintendo. 26 00:02:14,830 --> 00:02:16,230 Cole Yeah, the original NES, yeah. 27 00:02:16,230 --> 00:02:24,280 Andrew Pinkston Zurko way back, I don't know when specifically. ah It got up to Mega Man, what, how many came out? 28 00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:32,090 Cole So not count not factoring in spin-offs, remakes, or anything like that, there is Mega Man 1 through 11. 29 00:02:32,090 --> 00:02:34,180 Andrew Pinkston jeez on the n nes yeah i feel like that's i think i think you're right i think it's like 30 00:02:34,180 --> 00:02:42,350 Cole Oh, sorry, wait, NES. Um, that, I think it got to, what was it, like seven? 31 00:02:42,350 --> 00:02:54,380 Cole One through six. It was one through six because when Mega Man 7 came out, it had a graphical overhaul to be on the Super Nintendo or like whatever other system it came out on. 32 00:02:54,380 --> 00:02:56,550 Cole So it couldn't operate on the n NES. 33 00:02:56,550 --> 00:02:59,180 Andrew Pinkston Okay, then there's Mega Man X. 34 00:02:59,180 --> 00:02:59,700 Cole Yes. 35 00:02:59,700 --> 00:03:06,600 Andrew Pinkston not Not saying X as in Roman numeral 10, but actual X, different character, different Mega Man that I think takes place ah significantly forward in the time of things from the story. 36 00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:12,420 Cole Yes. 37 00:03:12,420 --> 00:03:15,970 Cole Right, ill I'll go over some of the details of the chronological stuff of this because it does pertain to it, but yeah, yeah. 38 00:03:15,970 --> 00:03:27,550 Andrew Pinkston Okay, okay. slow down we're just check We're just checking my understanding, that's all, okay? Then there's Mega Man Zero that I think happens in the same timeline, and that's even further forward than X. 39 00:03:27,550 --> 00:03:28,910 Cole Like a couple hundred years. 40 00:03:28,910 --> 00:03:48,670 Andrew Pinkston Okay, just a couple hundred years, whatever. like You know, but difference of a bronze age and industrial evolution, but whatever. So you got Mega Man Zero. And then you've got a completely different timeline that we've already discussed, which is the Mega Man Battle Network timeline in which I guess Baro never, or does get laid. 41 00:03:48,670 --> 00:03:51,630 Andrew Pinkston And that's a whole other timeline, like kind of like, kind of like, uh, 42 00:03:51,630 --> 00:03:57,050 Cole Yeah. Yeah. 43 00:03:57,050 --> 00:04:00,610 Andrew Pinkston Is there anything like that? Is there anything that hinges on somebody you have back to the future? 44 00:04:00,610 --> 00:04:02,730 Cole Like a pivotal, a pivotal moment. 45 00:04:02,730 --> 00:04:03,490 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 46 00:04:03,490 --> 00:04:04,720 Cole ah Who knew that the coin flip was literally determined by if a man was able to get laid or not. 47 00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:08,410 Andrew Pinkston Adam and Eve. 48 00:04:08,410 --> 00:04:11,590 Cole Did he have enough Riz? You know? 49 00:04:11,590 --> 00:04:11,800 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 50 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:12,680 Cole My god. 51 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:14,400 Andrew Pinkston Is that all of it, Cole? Those three? 52 00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:16,480 Cole Um, so, um, there are, there are a few sort of Mega Man spinoff games. 53 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:22,970 Andrew Pinkston Or four? 54 00:04:22,970 --> 00:04:23,080 Cole Um, yeah, like as it turns out, Mega Man Battle Network has its own timeline because it had its own sequel, which factored in space. 55 00:04:23,080 --> 00:04:33,730 Andrew Pinkston Oh no, there's more of them. 56 00:04:33,730 --> 00:04:35,860 Cole Um, and as in like outer space with like aliens and shit. 57 00:04:35,860 --> 00:04:40,170 Andrew Pinkston This is in, like, outer space? 58 00:04:40,170 --> 00:04:42,200 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Wow. I didn't know that. 59 00:04:42,200 --> 00:05:04,910 Cole Yeah, ah that those ones came out on the on the on the DS there. I'm trying to think. And then um I remember mentioned I mentioned it last time because there was um there' that Mega Man that was released on the PS1, which as it turns out is also a distant future of the classic series as it turns out. 60 00:05:04,910 --> 00:05:10,090 Andrew Pinkston What Mega Man's at? Because the one I'm thinking of is Mega Man X4 on PS1. 61 00:05:10,090 --> 00:05:12,660 Cole Well, Mega Man Legends is actually the distant future. 62 00:05:12,660 --> 00:05:16,560 Andrew Pinkston a Okay. 63 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:17,720 Cole So, yeah, we are... 64 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:21,140 Andrew Pinkston All right. i thought it was I thought it was simple, but it's not. I thought it was... 65 00:05:21,140 --> 00:05:21,870 Cole No, there as it turns out, there are many Mega Man and there are many continuities, but but let's let's not get super nitty gritty about it, because we're we're talking about Mega Man Zero today, and that's at least pretty straightforward. 66 00:05:21,870 --> 00:05:34,440 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 67 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:39,260 Andrew Pinkston All right. Okay. Kick it off, dude. Take us in. 68 00:05:39,260 --> 00:05:53,600 Cole ah So anyway, so Dr. Thomas Light and Dr. Albert Wiley were two robotic scientists ah in the years of 20XX because they kind of just don't really give you a determinate date. 69 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:53,910 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 70 00:05:53,910 --> 00:05:54,050 Cole um So these two guys are the the foremost leading experts of robotics. 71 00:05:54,050 --> 00:05:58,610 Andrew Pinkston Sure. 72 00:05:58,610 --> 00:06:00,460 Andrew Pinkston We'll see 2007. 73 00:06:00,460 --> 00:06:15,950 Cole Sure, you know, it's ah it's a retro futuristic version, like we wish we had robots in 2007. The goals of these two men, of course, were to create robots that could integrate in society and complete jobs that the average person wouldn't be able to do. 74 00:06:15,950 --> 00:06:17,680 Cole So, you know, despite. 75 00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:19,900 Andrew Pinkston all of who the 76 00:06:19,900 --> 00:06:58,260 Cole Yeah. you know, Elon Musk wishes, you know. um but so so But the two of them, of course, despite how brilliant they are, it clearly shows that Thomas Light is a much more superior and successful roboticist. So um Albert Wiley gets a little... ah an inferiority complex and decides to just go fucking crazy um and attempts to take over the world to prove his genius by taking robots Light already made or in some cases making his own and then causing Chex Notes 11 games worth of problems. 77 00:06:58,260 --> 00:06:59,320 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 78 00:06:59,320 --> 00:06:59,590 Cole um 79 00:06:59,590 --> 00:07:01,160 Andrew Pinkston yeah Were they friends at some point or just? 80 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:04,990 Cole the It seems like they were friends and colleagues in their early years and one of the things that happened was that when they both proposed different technologies that would help bring robots 81 00:07:04,990 --> 00:07:13,960 Andrew Pinkston Got it. Okay. 82 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:22,170 Cole further in development, Wiley was going the route of empowering them to grant them increased speed and strength, which could in theory be weaponized and was rejected. 83 00:07:22,170 --> 00:07:23,740 Andrew Pinkston Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 84 00:07:23,740 --> 00:07:37,400 Cole While Thomas Light said, how about rather than just having robots be three laws compliant like Asimov's three laws of robotics, how about we give them free will and intelligence and the ability to make their own decisions? 85 00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:42,380 Cole And that was the next step in robotics. So 86 00:07:42,380 --> 00:07:46,340 Andrew Pinkston and Everyone accepted that? That sounds far more dangerous. 87 00:07:46,340 --> 00:07:53,730 Cole Yes, as it turns out, after we by the time we hit Mega Man Zero era, it turns out to be a wild mistake. 88 00:07:53,730 --> 00:07:54,600 Andrew Pinkston Okay, all right. 89 00:07:54,600 --> 00:08:10,280 Cole Now, regardless of who did what and how long it went and how many games there were, the end result was was that these two guys were getting older. um By the time we get to see the two of them in action in Mega Man 1, they're about in their mid-50s at this point. 90 00:08:10,280 --> 00:08:11,140 Andrew Pinkston Am I right? 91 00:08:11,140 --> 00:08:27,780 Cole um And so while Dr. Light feels like he has reached the limits of what he's capable of doing in his current era and with Mega Man, he decides to start developing a next generation robot called X. 92 00:08:27,780 --> 00:08:40,190 Cole um At this time, he realizes that if he wants to make the next best thing in terms of robotics, he needs to make sure that he stress tests the shit out of this thing before he even lets it out of the can. 93 00:08:40,190 --> 00:08:40,540 Cole so 94 00:08:40,540 --> 00:08:41,440 Andrew Pinkston All right. 95 00:08:41,440 --> 00:09:02,580 Cole This is advanced hardware and software and AI development that will, as we will learn, goes on for over 200 years of operation. But he needs to put him in an augmented simulated reality for morality testing for the next 30 years. 96 00:09:02,580 --> 00:09:04,040 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 97 00:09:04,040 --> 00:09:19,710 Cole Now, he realizes, of course, he can't do it, so he also develops an AI system of himself that he'll be able to kind of put out into the world. That way, when X finds him in the future, he'll be able to give him upgrades and advice and so on, as if he was still alive. 98 00:09:19,710 --> 00:09:23,070 Andrew Pinkston Because he's just gonna outlive his is going to outlive him at this stage. 99 00:09:23,070 --> 00:09:37,130 Cole Oh, by multitudes of decades. Like, a couple centuries? No big deal. I'll see you there in spirit. So... Wily ah puts him in the fridge and says, all right, cool, see a sun and then dies. 100 00:09:37,130 --> 00:09:40,890 Andrew Pinkston okay so Is all this going on during the Mega Man classic? 101 00:09:40,890 --> 00:09:48,290 Cole This is going this is set effectively after the things that we see go on between Wily and Mega Man. 102 00:09:48,290 --> 00:09:48,390 Andrew Pinkston Okay, okay. 103 00:09:48,390 --> 00:09:49,960 Cole This is sort of the end of that. 104 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:56,370 Andrew Pinkston So, Wylie and Light's rivalry is the Mega Man classic saga, and Mega Man's just kind of what, like Light's instrument, Dr. 105 00:09:56,370 --> 00:10:00,230 Cole Mm hmm. 106 00:10:00,230 --> 00:10:00,850 Cole Yeah, and and every, ah you know, ah Thomas Light ends up making a bunch of the robots that are in society that we fight against, and then Wiley takes control of them because the only thing he's mostly good at doing is hijacking other people's stuff and improving on it. 107 00:10:00,850 --> 00:10:14,200 Andrew Pinkston Light's instrument. 108 00:10:14,200 --> 00:10:15,800 Andrew Pinkston Okay, okay. 109 00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:27,590 Cole um Now, at the same time as as Light is making X, Wiley is also making his own machine, and he calls it zero. 110 00:10:27,590 --> 00:10:27,910 Cole um 111 00:10:27,910 --> 00:10:29,250 Andrew Pinkston Oh, shit. 112 00:10:29,250 --> 00:10:29,480 Cole So, so when you're playing Mega Man X1 and you're in the intro level when X is running down the highway, going up against Vile and getting his fucking ass whipped and then Zero shows up? 113 00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:36,330 Andrew Pinkston I didn't know that. 114 00:10:36,330 --> 00:10:39,570 Andrew Pinkston Yes, dude. 115 00:10:39,570 --> 00:10:44,320 Andrew Pinkston Is that the dude who looks like Boba Fett, but he's in like a Gundam? 116 00:10:44,320 --> 00:10:45,730 Cole He's in a giant mech, yeah. 117 00:10:45,730 --> 00:10:47,860 Andrew Pinkston Oh, the coolest character in that game. 118 00:10:47,860 --> 00:10:48,330 Cole Yeah, um, Vi- uh, he- yeah. 119 00:10:48,330 --> 00:10:51,630 Andrew Pinkston Is Vile, not Zero. 120 00:10:51,630 --> 00:10:51,650 Cole So, Vile is the purple guy, Zero is the long-haired red guy. 121 00:10:51,650 --> 00:10:57,850 Andrew Pinkston No, no, no, Vile. Yes. who fucking decks him. He shows up and like ripped his arm off. 122 00:10:57,850 --> 00:10:59,110 Cole Yeah, he just shows up and one shots him. 123 00:10:59,110 --> 00:11:07,650 Andrew Pinkston I'm not saying he's the most powerful. I'm just saying he's the coolest. All right, Zach. All right. You're right. You're right. You were recognized as the one who was right. 124 00:11:07,650 --> 00:11:26,730 Cole So, but it establishes here that although Wiley wanted to make a robot that would compete against Light's creation, by the time we see them in X1 and as it goes through X1 through X6, they actually turn out to be incredibly good friends and allies, despite what they were originally created as. 125 00:11:26,730 --> 00:11:37,710 Cole Now, obviously, something's going on with Zero by the time Wylie tries to let him out into the world. He is erratic, unstable, uncontrollable, and attacks anyone or anything. 126 00:11:37,710 --> 00:11:46,890 Cole So Wylie has to shut his ass down and throw him in a pod and seal him away. And then Wylie dies, and then we fast forward about 100 years. 127 00:11:46,890 --> 00:11:48,780 Andrew Pinkston This is zero, he goes like berserk or something. 128 00:11:48,780 --> 00:11:49,920 Cole He goes berserk. From the get-go, something Wylie did or didn't do made Zero go batshit insane. 129 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:57,100 Andrew Pinkston Oh, interesting. 130 00:11:57,100 --> 00:11:57,970 Cole um And so we Right so we so they see on the way we will now fast forward ah to the ah Very quickly and rapidly studied history of Mega Man X as done by me someone who has never played the X games so we will now go to the next part where Someone finds X sealed away in a rundown laboratory about a hundred years later 131 00:11:57,970 --> 00:12:27,030 Andrew Pinkston When? Because he doesn't attack X in the game, does he? Okay. 132 00:12:27,030 --> 00:12:27,610 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 133 00:12:27,610 --> 00:12:42,000 Cole Dr. Kane takes the blueprints or copies or attempts to replicate X's robotic body, and he uses it as a template to create the next step of robotics, and these beings are called Reploids. 134 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:43,130 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 135 00:12:43,130 --> 00:13:18,470 Cole They have advanced AI, they are free thinking, they have free will, um and they are more powerful than their older robotic counterparts from 100 years ago. It's also around this time that Zero also gets found by reploids who have begun to make their way throughout the world. They're obviously, you know, it's like they're the engineers, they're the workers and everything. This one guy, Sigma, finds Zero, sealed away and wakes him up, but Zero obviously goes on a berserker rampage and attacks everyone. 136 00:13:18,470 --> 00:13:19,650 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 137 00:13:19,650 --> 00:13:26,860 Cole Sigma takes Zero out by breaking a crystal that he has on his forehead, the giant triangular crystal on his forehead. 138 00:13:26,860 --> 00:13:27,870 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 139 00:13:27,870 --> 00:13:30,100 Cole But something happens in this encounter. 140 00:13:30,100 --> 00:13:31,700 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 141 00:13:31,700 --> 00:13:44,380 Cole ah Zero functionally gets a reset from his berserk personality to the one that we get to see in the games, as someone who's a very controlled warrior, someone who's very powerful. 142 00:13:44,380 --> 00:13:48,980 Cole Sigma gets a virus inside of him from this exchange. 143 00:13:48,980 --> 00:13:50,460 Andrew Pinkston Oh, shit. Was it the virus that was making him crazy? 144 00:13:50,460 --> 00:13:54,010 Cole and it was the virus that was making him crazy so 145 00:13:54,010 --> 00:13:57,930 Andrew Pinkston Wow. whoa It's like 28 days later, but robot edition. 146 00:13:57,930 --> 00:14:27,950 Cole So, so, Wiley may or may not have developed a virus or program inside Zero, but something about it was incompatible with his circuitry, and therefore, Wiley couldn't figure out the issue. But we fast forward, Sigma gets this virus, and then he not only goes crazy, he also starts spreading this virus around in the 21... 28 or whatever, you know, like in the future. 147 00:14:27,950 --> 00:14:43,160 Cole And then it's at this point that any reploid that is being infected this with this virus that originated from zero, is are become becomes ah they're called mafrics because they are defying their programming and fighting against humanity and laying waste, everything. 148 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:46,160 Andrew Pinkston right They're going rogue, going maverick. 149 00:14:46,160 --> 00:14:46,350 Cole Now, they're the enemies, yeah. 150 00:14:46,350 --> 00:14:50,810 Andrew Pinkston yeah they're They're the enemies in the game. They're bosses. yeah They're like the bosses. 151 00:14:50,810 --> 00:15:02,010 Cole So ah X, of course, once he finally awakens in this modern day era, ah joins what becomes like this organization that's called the Maverick Hunters. 152 00:15:02,010 --> 00:15:02,480 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 153 00:15:02,480 --> 00:15:16,490 Cole And Zero becomes a part of the organization because he's got his cool buster. And he's like, well, he doesn't know he's the start of it. No one figured out anything until like years later. But they're like, we're going to be part of the Maverick Hunters so we can fight against Mavericks and protect humanity. 154 00:15:16,490 --> 00:15:32,930 Cole um But what ends up happening over the course of the X-Series is that not only do Zero's origins come to light about who and what he is, Sigma also just fucks up so much shit and he just doesn't fucking die. 155 00:15:32,930 --> 00:15:33,980 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 156 00:15:33,980 --> 00:15:34,820 Cole He... you fight him at the end of X1, and he c- Yeah, 157 00:15:34,820 --> 00:15:42,900 Andrew Pinkston He's kind of an intimidating villain, dude. He's like Ganondorf. He's like a robotic Ganondorf. He's like a huge chin and shit. like he He's pretty intimidating. 158 00:15:42,900 --> 00:15:44,560 Cole he's got the Giga Chad chin and... 159 00:15:44,560 --> 00:15:46,650 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, I remember that. I was gonna say. 160 00:15:46,650 --> 00:16:08,500 Cole So not not going into the nuances of, like, who are these characters in relation to each other and, like, what ends up happening, but the core of it, of course, is X and Zero having this initially friendly rivalry that eventually picks up into a necessary intervention of X having to put Zero down because the virus comes back to him um and all this other stuff. 161 00:16:08,500 --> 00:16:10,290 Andrew Pinkston Oh, shit. whoa 162 00:16:10,290 --> 00:16:19,830 Cole um But one key thing, of course, is despite everything that happens and everything to including like a charge counter attack level asteroid drop. 163 00:16:19,830 --> 00:16:21,180 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. Hmm. 164 00:16:21,180 --> 00:16:21,990 Cole Like, which actually, sorry, let me take that back. 165 00:16:21,990 --> 00:16:24,760 Andrew Pinkston These. 166 00:16:24,760 --> 00:16:31,850 Cole It's the equivalent of the the start of the year one war in Gundam by actually having something drop under Earth. 167 00:16:31,850 --> 00:16:32,680 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 168 00:16:32,680 --> 00:16:36,810 Cole um And. ah Numerous things, of course, like this is literally 169 00:16:36,810 --> 00:16:39,990 Andrew Pinkston You can't just say Gundam Wing, can you? You can't even do it. 170 00:16:39,990 --> 00:16:42,000 Cole Yeah, I don't want to say it, but you know. 171 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:43,540 Andrew Pinkston That's how Gundam Wing starts. They drop a colony. 172 00:16:43,540 --> 00:16:45,800 Cole Yeah, that's true. Just true. Fair enough. Fair enough. um 173 00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:47,040 Andrew Pinkston After colony. 174 00:16:47,040 --> 00:17:15,300 Cole so um Zero it during all this time despite the fact that he's being affected by this virus is still like a noble warrior and is clearly not what Wylie intended for him to be. And X continues to be the sort of paragon of virtue who wants to fight for the continued peace within the world just like Thomas Light trained him effectively to be within this 30-year ah morality testing. 175 00:17:15,300 --> 00:17:32,540 Cole Um, we then, you know, they have their rivalry, they have their fight. Sigma finally gets properly defeated. And, um, eventually what ends up happening is studies are done on Zero's body and the virus that he created. 176 00:17:32,540 --> 00:17:34,260 Cole And eventually they did find a cure for it. 177 00:17:34,260 --> 00:17:36,220 Andrew Pinkston Mm hmm. 178 00:17:36,220 --> 00:18:15,440 Cole Um, but as a trade-off, Zero said, I'm going to put myself away and seal myself to prevent any risk or chance of this virus coming back out. um So he puts himself to basically cryogenic sleep for an undisclosed amount of time. And X says, I will continue the fight and lead humanity on into the future, both humankind and reploid kind. As part of this, he creates this kind of like big huge cityscape utopia called Neo Arcadia that becomes like the main hub city, country of humanity and reploids. 179 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:32,940 Cole Also around this time, a big cataclysmic-like event, like apocalyptic level event, occurs. And we then fast forward to Mega Man Zero. 180 00:18:32,940 --> 00:18:37,390 Cole um So this is where stuff's gonna get super freaking funky. 181 00:18:37,390 --> 00:18:37,610 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 182 00:18:37,610 --> 00:18:44,560 Cole Um, so that is the setup to this whole thing. Now let's go take a look at it from the game development side really quick. So Game Boy Advance games, you know, it's kind of crazy to have two, two, a company make two concurrent series around the same time. 183 00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:52,400 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 184 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:52,560 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 185 00:18:52,560 --> 00:19:01,460 Cole These four games came out around between 2002 and 2005. And the battle network was like, what was it? I said 2001 to 2006 or something. 186 00:19:01,460 --> 00:19:01,520 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 187 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:01,820 Cole So. 188 00:19:01,820 --> 00:19:04,880 Andrew Pinkston Well, we're talking about zero now, right? 189 00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:05,580 Cole Yeah, we're talking about Mainmen Zero. 190 00:19:05,580 --> 00:19:06,080 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 191 00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:06,340 Cole So. 192 00:19:06,340 --> 00:19:07,430 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. Cause X covers like super Nintendo PS one. 193 00:19:07,430 --> 00:19:10,980 Cole um 194 00:19:10,980 --> 00:19:11,070 Andrew Pinkston p s one and They had like anime and in it. 195 00:19:11,070 --> 00:19:14,250 Cole One. 196 00:19:14,250 --> 00:19:15,940 Andrew Pinkston I remember that like was the first time I had seen something like that. 197 00:19:15,940 --> 00:19:17,360 Cole Yeah, they cut scenes and everything, yeah. 198 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:27,330 Andrew Pinkston Oh yeah. On a game. Right. It was like, this is a full fucking blown anime. Uh, zero like had a squeaky foot kind of like sell from dragon ball Z. Like when he would walk, he would make like a, 199 00:19:27,330 --> 00:19:28,600 Cole Yeah, when he would move, yeah. 200 00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:38,520 Andrew Pinkston Yeah yeah like I was dude it was sitting this is this was x4 so I beat x which was difficult I beat x4 and I beat x5 those are like the the three that I beat x5 being the hardest and playing is 0 and x4 and x5 was a tougher route like it's way easier to play as x than it is 0 Oh interesting 201 00:19:38,520 --> 00:19:49,970 Cole Mm-hmm. 202 00:19:49,970 --> 00:19:52,960 Cole Well, because you you get to play keep away with Exus Buster compared to getting in everyone's faces with Zero Z Saber. 203 00:19:52,960 --> 00:20:06,080 Andrew Pinkston Exactly. Yeah. You have to get in melee, melee with everybody. Like he does a lot of damage, but the other thing is, is that he, it could be X five. He, he can't move and swipe at the same time. 204 00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:07,880 Andrew Pinkston Like he has to like do a combo. Cole Mm-hmm. 205 00:20:07,880 --> 00:20:12,980 Andrew Pinkston I think you can jump swipe, but like, if you're standing on the ground, he just felt way rigid, you know, like, 206 00:20:12,980 --> 00:20:24,470 Cole Yeah, one of the one of the things that was obviously different was that we're a light-designed X to still have like the adaptability of Mega Man. So you beat all these bosses, you get their powers and everything. 207 00:20:24,470 --> 00:20:27,150 Andrew Pinkston you pick up their gear yeah you get some kind of suit ye right Yeah, he's definitely, he's definitely the advanced player. 208 00:20:27,150 --> 00:20:50,390 Cole Zero was just simply made of sterner stuff, stronger material, but the only thing he could do was learn techniques. So like you said, there was the combo system where you could sometimes do certain button inputs to do like an uppercut swing or a stabbing dive or stuff like that. So it was a little bit played quite a bit different. 209 00:20:50,390 --> 00:20:55,990 Andrew Pinkston Because like me and Brad, my my brother would play it and he he loved zero, so he would like pick zero before I could get to it. 210 00:20:55,990 --> 00:20:56,440 Cole Mm hmm. 211 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:16,100 Andrew Pinkston And I'd just be like cruising through levels, you know. I remember there was like this, there was an X5, I think, there was this boss that's like this ball of black goo that he's really tough like for the zero player because there's these cubes that fly from left to right in the boss room and you have to be like on point jumping between them, but it's all about boss order when you're talking X because he'll give you 212 00:21:16,100 --> 00:21:21,650 Cole hu 213 00:21:21,650 --> 00:21:26,380 Andrew Pinkston Like if you kill boss A, it'll give you the thing that that boss B is weak to. right because you Yeah, because you start out with this tile and you don't really know the right order of who you should be going after first. 214 00:21:26,380 --> 00:21:31,570 Cole Yeah, and so on, yeah. 215 00:21:31,570 --> 00:21:42,990 Andrew Pinkston Like you could just attack it randomly, but there's I think a right sequence of boss order that makes the game easier. But by the time you get to that black goo guy, it's kind of near the wind down of the game, right? 216 00:21:42,990 --> 00:21:46,500 Andrew Pinkston Like the game's kind of winding down. It's not like one of the Mavericks on the tile but that intro screen. 217 00:21:46,500 --> 00:21:49,240 Cole Yeah. Probably something in between the missions or something. 218 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:55,700 Andrew Pinkston i I don't remember what it was, but it was a suit that basically like made X look just like straight up like a ninja, like black and had like a mask and everything. 219 00:21:55,700 --> 00:21:56,340 Cole yeah because because Yeah, because he also had all those adaptable armors and stuff. 220 00:21:56,340 --> 00:21:59,770 Andrew Pinkston Oh, that's cool. 221 00:21:59,770 --> 00:21:59,970 Cole Like he had the hyper armor and 222 00:21:59,970 --> 00:22:04,120 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, and um looking he would shoot like shurukens or something and they would just shred these blocks out of the way. 223 00:22:04,120 --> 00:22:06,460 Cole yeah 224 00:22:06,460 --> 00:22:21,290 Andrew Pinkston So it was like this laughably easy boss for X, but my brother spent like two weeks on this thing with Zero, dude. So like if you pick Zero, you're you're signing up for like the tough, tough route and and those games when they're together, when you can be either or. 225 00:22:21,290 --> 00:22:23,570 Andrew Pinkston I think they made an X6 and that's when they brought that annoying dude around. 226 00:22:23,570 --> 00:22:50,060 Cole They did. so well they yeah so So this is where sort of like the dev stuff comes into play, right? um So around the time that Mega Man 01 was being developed, X6 was probably getting wrapped up or about to get shipped or whatever, and the intent was that X5 would be like the transition point to go into continuing to the Zero series. 227 00:22:50,060 --> 00:22:51,050 Andrew Pinkston okay 228 00:22:51,050 --> 00:22:52,910 Cole Unfortunately, as usual, the upper suits of Capcom were like, but mean we need to milk this fucking cow dry, baby, let's fucking do it. 229 00:22:52,910 --> 00:22:58,690 Andrew Pinkston Okay No, we need another one baby 230 00:22:58,690 --> 00:23:03,520 Andrew Pinkston X5 was good. That was a good game. X4 and 5 were so good. 231 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:13,410 Cole So KG Dafune was still kicking around and he was one of the lead producers at the time. And he was also an artist. Zero was actually his creation compared to like Mega Man. So he was like, cool. 232 00:23:13,410 --> 00:23:15,340 Andrew Pinkston Oh, that's cool. Nice. 233 00:23:15,340 --> 00:23:30,990 Cole So we're going to do these zero games. And they were like, you got to make X6. He's like, fuck. ah Sure. All right, whatever. So but how do you like, I already said that like Capcom already has like the A team and the B team when it comes to like game dev and stuff. 234 00:23:30,990 --> 00:23:42,420 Cole and They're already doing, like, there's a team doing the Battle Network series, and now there's he needs this other team to do X6, so he's like, huh, what do I do? 235 00:23:42,420 --> 00:23:48,830 Cole So, he reaches out, or they reach out, like, Capcom reaches out to a company that's called Indie Creates. 236 00:23:48,830 --> 00:23:50,140 Andrew Pinkston so cool. 237 00:23:50,140 --> 00:24:07,910 Cole um This was a company that was made by ex-CapCom employees in 1996 and they they are probably hands down one of the best side scroller game creators there is because they still kind of like make them today. 238 00:24:07,910 --> 00:24:07,990 Cole It is tight tight controls. 239 00:24:07,990 --> 00:24:10,620 Andrew Pinkston in 240 00:24:10,620 --> 00:24:32,710 Cole um It's your side scrolling hack and slash jump and shoot like dream of of like platforming and everything. Um, so they they get to work and the again proof of concept mega min zero one comes out in 2002 and um It is A bit a little bit different and a little bit samey. 241 00:24:32,710 --> 00:24:44,360 Cole They had to simplify some things because we're still working with the gameboy advance um, so you're not going to have the same sort of graphical fidelity of what uh, super dented or ps1 or whatever can handle so 242 00:24:44,360 --> 00:24:48,880 Andrew Pinkston Yes, we're at the PS, like it says on on top of the PS1 generation at this point. 243 00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:49,480 Cole yeah So they had to kind of ah redesign everything from the ground up and sort of graphically reimagine what these characters in Zero would look like. 244 00:24:49,480 --> 00:25:01,420 Andrew Pinkston Yes. 245 00:25:01,420 --> 00:25:04,040 Andrew Pinkston Yes, dude, they look so different. 246 00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:16,560 Cole Um, Toru Nakayama, I think is his name. I'll have to look it up again soon. But he just gets to work. And I really like this dude's artwork. Like, I think he makes Zero looks completely lean, like futuristic, sleek. 247 00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:18,160 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 248 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:29,840 Cole Like, this is the future that you would expect, you know? But it also translates super well to the sprites in the game because you need that thing to fit in that tiny little screen. You don't have the same real estate. 249 00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:43,730 Cole um And that's just visually at the same time, um despite the fact that, like I said, the controls are tighter. like You can dash jump and dash slash, and you can wall jump and do all this other crazy stuff with zero. 250 00:25:43,730 --> 00:25:46,360 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, it's a game made for zero. like He's not a side act like alternate character. 251 00:25:46,360 --> 00:25:49,480 Cole Yeah. 252 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:58,330 Cole No, I mean, like come on, he is basically, if I mean, X is the poster boy, but zero is just one step right behind him, you know? um 253 00:25:58,330 --> 00:26:05,640 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, it's definitely a difference. like they're definite like The zero from X is definitely different than the zero same the zero from zero. 254 00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:14,250 Cole Yeah. um Now, on top of this, you actually have an interchangeable weapon system in the background of this. 255 00:26:14,250 --> 00:26:14,770 Andrew Pinkston oh that's cool 256 00:26:14,770 --> 00:26:29,080 Cole ah Zero doesn't just have a Z-Saber. He also has a gun. He doesn't have a Z-Buster. It wasn't part of his, quote unquote, upgrade. But he does have a Buster. So you're able to have your sword and your Buster at the same time charge one of them. 257 00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:40,000 Cole You can still charge your weapons with the B button or whatever your button attack button is. And then you can use one of your trigger buttons to charge your step weapon. So you'll always have something on the charge in the background while you're hacking and slashing your way through a level. 258 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:44,530 Andrew Pinkston Oh that's cool. Hmm. 259 00:26:44,530 --> 00:26:56,850 Cole Um, depending on which game between one through four, you do get additional sub weapons. There's oftentimes a bouncing shield that can reflect pellets. Like if someone shoots their buster, you can block it. 260 00:26:56,850 --> 00:27:01,080 Cole Um, there are certain rods that are able to like pogo off of stuff or chain, like hook onto stuff. 261 00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:02,990 Andrew Pinkston Oh, cool. 262 00:27:02,990 --> 00:27:03,420 Cole Um, and. 263 00:27:03,420 --> 00:27:06,920 Andrew Pinkston It's like Hollow Knight kind of took that note from there for sure. Oh, yeah. 264 00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:25,800 Cole yeah And um instead of a complex ah weapon A beats we ah beats boss C, and etc., because we're not playing as X, um there's a simplified elemental system, very similar to like what Mega Man Battle Network was doing. 265 00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:41,920 Cole except it's centered around electricity, fire, and ice. And don't ask me how those three can relate like a rock, paper, scissors, wheel. Fire beats ice, ice beats lightning, lightning beats fire because I don't know, shut the fuck up. 266 00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:42,210 Cole Um, but these three elements become the centerpieces of like the boss designs and the characters that are made and some of the characters that will go over in a bit about like who they are, why are they the way they are and so on. 267 00:27:42,210 --> 00:27:55,230 Andrew Pinkston no 268 00:27:55,230 --> 00:28:07,780 Cole So. But game development wise, they got to do it pretty quick and it creates, we're able to bust out these games super quick with, and they creates possibly some of the best narrative of any Mega Man game yet. 269 00:28:07,780 --> 00:28:08,260 Cole It is. 270 00:28:08,260 --> 00:28:10,290 Andrew Pinkston Okay, that's what we're here for then. 271 00:28:10,290 --> 00:28:15,950 Cole So. outside of what Zero Can It Can't do in battle and like, I don't know, it's a side-scrolling Mega Man game. 272 00:28:15,950 --> 00:28:18,120 Andrew Pinkston Isn't zero fucking hard though too? Like it is not an easy game. 273 00:28:18,120 --> 00:28:31,240 Cole Oh, and this? Yes, and this is the thing. So not only is it a Mega Man game, and not only is this game Nintendo hard as the trope is called because some of these games tend to be mercilessly brutal. 274 00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:32,760 Andrew Pinkston Oh yeah. 275 00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:40,220 Cole Spikes, open pits, if you get hit like stunned off the side of the edge, you will fall and you will die, you'll lose a life, you'll restart the level kind of thing. 276 00:28:40,220 --> 00:28:41,090 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 277 00:28:41,090 --> 00:28:41,780 Cole um You have a life bar that's tiny, tiny. 278 00:28:41,780 --> 00:28:46,350 Andrew Pinkston I remember being tough. I played zero and it was tough. 279 00:28:46,350 --> 00:29:16,530 Cole And they also have a, they kind of effectively have a point system that ranks you whenever you complete a mission. um You get ranked S through F, if depending on how fast or ineffective and effective and how you are like, get through the level in a minute. Okay, cool. We'll rank you on that. How many enemies do you kill? How much damage do you take? g Did you find any collectibles? And then of course, do you use, um There's a system of things called cyber elves, which I'll go over in a bit later. 280 00:29:16,530 --> 00:29:21,510 Cole But do you use these consumables in the mission, if you do, with dock points? 281 00:29:21,510 --> 00:29:23,080 Andrew Pinkston Wow. Really? 282 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:23,100 Cole Yeah. 283 00:29:23,100 --> 00:29:25,340 Andrew Pinkston Okay. I really don't want it to be easy. 284 00:29:25,340 --> 00:29:26,980 Cole No, and... and and Well, um if if you... 285 00:29:26,980 --> 00:29:32,820 Andrew Pinkston Do points do anything for you or is it just like a brag thing? Like can you cash in points for upgrades or? 286 00:29:32,820 --> 00:29:33,340 Cole ah 287 00:29:33,340 --> 00:29:35,710 Andrew Pinkston If you don't remember. 288 00:29:35,710 --> 00:29:42,560 Cole depends and It depends on the game, but you do get to unlock ah certain techniques in later games. So a lot of Zero's moves that he had in X5 and everything, like the flaming uppercut, the blade wave or whatever, um that is affected by your score. 289 00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:53,120 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Yeah. 290 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:58,030 Cole And if you do badly, you don't get the effect. And if you do super well, you do get the effect. It also unlocks like super moves from bosses, depending on the game. 291 00:29:58,030 --> 00:30:01,520 Andrew Pinkston no 292 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:09,840 Cole so a sort of extra incentive to play super duper well. But if you're like an eight-year-old playing these games, you have no freaking idea what you're doing. 293 00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:10,360 Andrew Pinkston Oh, yeah. 294 00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:22,440 Cole You're flying around trying to survive. um So gameplay and all this other stuff aside, let's go right back into the setup, to the lore. 295 00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:23,420 Andrew Pinkston All right. 296 00:30:23,420 --> 00:30:47,310 Cole So as I had mentioned, X said he would become the leader of Neorakadia, the defender of humanity, and continue to fight because that's what he was programmed to do. And Zero's gone effectively at this point. We will go again forward another hundred years approximately. We're now in 22XX or whatever. 297 00:30:47,310 --> 00:31:13,740 Cole Humans are continuously living in peace ah in Neo Arcadia, but Neo Arcadia is also the only place humans live. The rest of the planet at some point had effectively become inhospitable to them, like just isn't gonna work. And they're living the they're living in the lap of luxury. X is the best, coolest leader ever for humans, protecting them from everything, but there's a trade-off. 298 00:31:13,740 --> 00:31:17,600 Cole Reploids are second-rate citizens, and they're being pushed to the brink ah because there's an energy crisis going on. 299 00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:22,860 Andrew Pinkston No. 300 00:31:22,860 --> 00:31:23,900 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 301 00:31:23,900 --> 00:31:29,220 Cole Whatever help fuels Reploids at this point in time, there isn't enough to go around. 302 00:31:29,220 --> 00:31:30,400 Andrew Pinkston Gasoline. 303 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:46,440 Cole Gasol, yeah, we'll just yeah like make it steampunk or something. you know We'll figure it out. Problem solved. um So, X also, at the same time, is very quickly and casually calling any reploid a maverick and sentencing them to death. 304 00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,480 Andrew Pinkston The hell's gone out? What the? Holy crap. 305 00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:49,530 Cole so 306 00:31:49,530 --> 00:31:50,420 Andrew Pinkston He's gone all like God Emperor of Dune on everybody. 307 00:31:50,420 --> 00:31:57,320 Cole So... Yeah, dude, he just said, oh wait, you're eating too much of this of these E crystals that everyone needs? 308 00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:59,570 Andrew Pinkston Straight to jail. 309 00:31:59,570 --> 00:32:01,270 Cole Maverick. Can't kill him. 310 00:32:01,270 --> 00:32:03,090 Andrew Pinkston and Whoa. Oh my gosh. 311 00:32:03,090 --> 00:32:03,900 Cole So, what what are replays supposed to do? 312 00:32:03,900 --> 00:32:06,100 Andrew Pinkston That's brutal. 313 00:32:06,100 --> 00:32:12,670 Cole I mean, like, sure, you know, light said, let's give them free will and everything, but now X is going in full fascist mode, and replays are possibly at risk or on the brink, so what what are replays to do? 314 00:32:12,670 --> 00:32:18,850 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 315 00:32:18,850 --> 00:32:30,020 Cole So, a certain subset of, quote unquote, Mavericks, who, you know, back then, were in during X times, like, there at least, but there was a virus or something. 316 00:32:30,020 --> 00:32:32,480 Andrew Pinkston Right, there's a reason they're going berserk. like it's It's the zero berserk virus that's creeping through everybody back then. 317 00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,860 Cole But, 318 00:32:36,860 --> 00:33:18,840 Cole back then but they figured that out they figured that out about 100 years ago so like what the heck is going on so these basically more or less just robotic people are banging together kind of in ruins or behind the scenes that they're like well what are we going to be doing well Humanity still has some good people in it. And there's this 14-year-old girl called CL. She's a very accomplished and somewhat of a prodigy in terms of robotics and science. So she's like, let's go into hiding and get on out of here. And we're going to see what we can do to help save people and fight back against this fascist regime of whatever X is doing. 319 00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:19,360 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 320 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:26,420 Cole But in order to do that, like these reploids, they're not like x or 0. They're not that strong. So we got to find 0. 321 00:33:26,420 --> 00:33:30,240 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 322 00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:31,180 Cole So this group called the Resistance goes out searching, trying to find records, anything that can lead them to to this supposed hero. 323 00:33:31,180 --> 00:33:41,460 Andrew Pinkston ah 324 00:33:41,460 --> 00:33:41,510 Andrew Pinkston like Somebody who can contest X. 325 00:33:41,510 --> 00:33:43,420 Cole and 326 00:33:43,420 --> 00:33:43,680 Andrew Pinkston like Okay. 327 00:33:43,680 --> 00:34:08,690 Cole Yeah, and so eventually they find this sort of abandoned laboratory somewhere deep, sealed away, really out of the way, like it was borderline impossible for anyone to find it. And they trip an alarm and suddenly, well, they're being rushed by these things called mechanicaloids. They're basically just automatons. They're big, huge, blocky, 328 00:34:08,690 --> 00:34:19,020 Cole And these guys just start shooting lasers, and all these Reploids who are trying to protect CL, they're just getting eviscerated. Like blowing up, slashing half, like nothing they could do. 329 00:34:19,020 --> 00:34:19,470 Andrew Pinkston Things. 330 00:34:19,470 --> 00:34:28,660 Cole They got guns of their own, does nothing against these things. They are iron fortresses, bullets are flying off of them, it's an absolute massacre. 331 00:34:28,660 --> 00:34:29,650 Andrew Pinkston Crap. 332 00:34:29,650 --> 00:34:43,970 Cole CL and one of this one of these other reploids and and this is where I kind of mentioned a subsystem of something called a cyber elf. There's these little electronic entities that you can find and exist in this world now at some point 333 00:34:43,970 --> 00:34:47,430 Andrew Pinkston Sorry, I thought I thought I heard you say cyber elf. I must have. 334 00:34:47,430 --> 00:34:48,890 Cole Nope, you did not mishear. They're these tiny little electronic sprites that exist that are basically sentient computer programs. 335 00:34:48,890 --> 00:34:56,040 Andrew Pinkston Oh, okay. 336 00:34:56,040 --> 00:35:09,100 Cole While replates are, in the physical reality, digital highways and stuff still exist. And as a part of this, cyber elves come into existence and they can influence computers, they can repair... 337 00:35:09,100 --> 00:35:09,170 Andrew Pinkston Like a battle network. 338 00:35:09,170 --> 00:35:14,600 Cole They can repair... Yeah, like, there's still some sort of cyberspace ghost in the cells. 339 00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:19,390 Andrew Pinkston That's the pussy timeline, Zach. That's not this timeline. I'm getting the two confused. 340 00:35:19,390 --> 00:35:48,280 Cole different time same thing different thing you know um so cl has one of these cyber elves with her and this thing this this little tiny sprite has a purpose as eventually cl this retboyed and the cyber elf break into uh the ah lab, and there is a red figure hanging from this derelict so set of like pipes and wiring. 341 00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:53,850 Cole His arms are destroyed, his hair's fraying, his helmet's cracked, but for her, this's like well this obviously has to be zero. 342 00:35:53,850 --> 00:35:57,470 Andrew Pinkston The heck? 343 00:35:57,470 --> 00:35:57,880 Cole But 344 00:35:57,880 --> 00:35:59,060 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 345 00:35:59,060 --> 00:36:14,510 Cole The machines, they're coming down the hallway, and it's not just these giant golem-looking things that are, like, eviscerating the stuff. They're these tiny foot soldiers, about human-sized, that are blue, that have an arm cannon, kind of vaguely look like X, but with a single mono-red eye. 346 00:36:14,510 --> 00:36:17,470 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. Dang. 347 00:36:17,470 --> 00:36:26,750 Cole And they are creeping through the darkness towards them, and they shoot the Reploid down, and then it's just CL and against an army. 348 00:36:26,750 --> 00:36:28,240 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 349 00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:28,970 Cole So there's this book. 350 00:36:28,970 --> 00:36:30,550 Andrew Pinkston Of X dolls, like whatever they are. 351 00:36:30,550 --> 00:36:32,970 Cole Yeah, they're they're called pantheons. They are the foot soldiers everywhere. 352 00:36:32,970 --> 00:36:34,670 Andrew Pinkston Pantheons. 353 00:36:34,670 --> 00:36:48,080 Cole And CL realizes like, well, what am I going to do in this case? Like this robot's destroyed. What can I do? And so the cyber elf, her little friend, it's called Passy, is like, all right, well, it's time for me to do the thing I was meant to do. 354 00:36:48,080 --> 00:37:03,200 Cole And she sacrifices herself. Her energy is used to reanimate zero. And in a flash of light, his arms repair, his systems come back online. 355 00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:08,700 Cole His theme from Mega Man X and the first one starts going full blast in Game Boy Advance audio. 356 00:37:08,700 --> 00:37:11,000 Andrew Pinkston ah Sick, dude. 357 00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:11,230 Cole And there's a brief little cutscene of him standing there in just a background of white, feet to top, like foot to head, just going like, all right, you know what time it is. 358 00:37:11,230 --> 00:37:21,890 Andrew Pinkston Sick. ah that one 359 00:37:21,890 --> 00:37:24,000 Cole You're fucking playing to zero. 360 00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:24,120 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 361 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:47,170 Cole And so, Zero picks up the gun from the Reploid, his systems reconfigure it to use his own energy as as a bullet instead of whatever stuff exists in it. And CL's like, I need you to get me the fuck out of here. And Zero says nothing but you just start mowing down these guys as fast as you can pull the trigger. 362 00:37:47,170 --> 00:37:55,290 Cole And you're running through this derelict, broken down lab, just shooting stuff, making stuff blow up, and CL's following you, it's an escort mission. 363 00:37:55,290 --> 00:37:55,410 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, yeah. 364 00:37:55,410 --> 00:38:10,510 Cole um And which then, after he saves her, they they go to a dead end, and she's like, dang it, how do we get out of here? Well, the four of Blake's, and as they both fall, he immediately grabs her, and they fall like... 365 00:38:10,510 --> 00:38:20,840 Cole five, six, seven stories deep into this hole and he just thankfully manages to save her. She's like, well, this kind of just proves the point that you're zero. He still hasn't said anything at this point. 366 00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:22,250 Cole Now a single word is uttered by him. 367 00:38:22,250 --> 00:38:23,820 Andrew Pinkston Oh, he said plenty. 368 00:38:23,820 --> 00:38:36,510 Cole um And then just when they think they're safe and they're heading towards this teleporter that will take them back to their little hidden resistance space, a giant hand comes bursting out of a wall and grabs her. 369 00:38:36,510 --> 00:38:37,350 Andrew Pinkston The fuck? 370 00:38:37,350 --> 00:38:39,990 Cole and drags her into the darkness, Zero chases after her, and it's one of those big golem things. 371 00:38:39,990 --> 00:38:43,740 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. 372 00:38:43,740 --> 00:39:01,040 Cole So Zero just starts unloading this gun on this thing. You're you're in a tiny enclosed space, this thing hits you with its laser, you're basically dead in like maybe two or three hits if you're not careful, and it's dropping blocks from the ceiling onto you, and Zero's like, this gun is shit, I can't do anything. 373 00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:02,120 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 374 00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:27,830 Cole And all hope is lost until one of the screens in this lab that they're in flickers on. And in this little silhouette, there's this sort of ah blue halo illuminated figure. And it says here, take this. And out from this digitized space, a familiar saber gets thrown out. A green saber hits the floor. 375 00:39:27,830 --> 00:39:29,860 Andrew Pinkston what we need baby huh 376 00:39:29,860 --> 00:39:36,990 Cole And Zero picks up his Z-saber like the days of old and just one-shots this thing. 377 00:39:36,990 --> 00:39:57,130 Cole um So now we're at this point where it's like, okay, so what the heck is going on? Who are you, little girl? Who am I? What's going on? Well, it turns out Zero doesn't remember anything. ah Guess it must be because of the poor condition of the lab, but he's got hibernation sickness, as they described it in the first game. 378 00:39:57,130 --> 00:39:57,830 Andrew Pinkston Got it. 379 00:39:57,830 --> 00:40:33,520 Cole ah So he has no idea who he is, and CL's like, well, look, we're looking for this red figure named Zero, and we think you're the real deal. And he's like, ah okay, how do you know that? She's like, ah well, you saved me, and that's pretty much as good as we're going to have to work with. And he's like... Cool. She's like, well, this is where we live in this piece of shit hole. ah We're all in trouble, and X is mowing us down. We need someone to stop him. And he says, all right, bet. So he, rather than ask questions or try to figure out what's going on, he says, all right, cool. You believe in me, I'll help you out, because that's just who he is fundamentally. 380 00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:38,250 Andrew Pinkston So they don't know who, or zero doesn't know ah anything. Doesn't know who X is that they had a relationship before that they've fought in this war together. 381 00:40:38,250 --> 00:40:42,330 Cole Nope. Nothing. Zero. Nada. 382 00:40:42,330 --> 00:40:44,190 Andrew Pinkston None of that. Okay. 383 00:40:44,190 --> 00:40:51,970 Cole So all he knows is he's got a sword and he's going to use it and go kick some ass for these people because they asked him politely. 384 00:40:51,970 --> 00:40:53,300 Andrew Pinkston All right. yeah 385 00:40:53,300 --> 00:41:07,030 Cole So it is now, ah Mega Man Zero One is a very strange ah version of like this what the Zero series becomes because it's not like Mission Select picked a boss, go off and do it. 386 00:41:07,030 --> 00:41:07,810 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 387 00:41:07,810 --> 00:41:15,490 Cole um Because it's it turns out the world that you're in in this game is actually kind of like a Metroidvania. all the levels interconnect into each other in some way. 388 00:41:15,490 --> 00:41:17,650 Andrew Pinkston Oh. 389 00:41:17,650 --> 00:41:17,980 Cole And you can go backtrack and all this other stuff. 390 00:41:17,980 --> 00:41:19,830 Andrew Pinkston That's cool. 391 00:41:19,830 --> 00:41:32,360 Cole There's also a terrible level ah web ah level up weapon system where the more you use a weapon, the more moves you can do. So you go from one slash to two slashes to three slashes to a charge attack to all this other stuff. 392 00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:34,560 Cole And it's it's it's bad. It's terrible. 393 00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:37,460 Andrew Pinkston So it's kind of like a Skyrim-esque type, look like you have to keep doing the thing. 394 00:41:37,460 --> 00:42:04,000 Cole Yeah. you know he Yeah, except you don't level up your speech or your sneak by sneaking around. You have to, like, hit all these enemies and all this other stuff. And again, it's notoriously hard. Even doing a dash attack after, like, zooming towards something or doing a jump attack or anything, sure, it does more damage, but it still doesn't change the fact that you're still going to be dead in two or three hits if you're not careful and you still need to level up your weapon to have, like, these combo moves and, yeah, it's a whole thing. 395 00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:14,480 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, i I remember dabbling with it for a while and I was like, man, this game is fucking hard. Well, I'm just not a zero guy. I can't play a zero. And then I think Brad might've beat it. 396 00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:16,020 Andrew Pinkston I'll have to ask him. Zero was like his guy. 397 00:42:16,020 --> 00:42:24,870 Cole And I guess I didn't establish. There is a collection out on modern consoles and stuff and on PCs. So if you wanted to get it and replay it, it has ah they made a bunch of like quality of life features, including like saves, like these quick saves, depending if you go fight a boss. 398 00:42:24,870 --> 00:42:32,640 Andrew Pinkston o Okay. 399 00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:33,660 Andrew Pinkston okay 400 00:42:33,660 --> 00:42:40,350 Cole So it doesn't penalize you. You can keep your lives. And you know you can retry as often as many times as you want. 401 00:42:40,350 --> 00:42:40,660 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 402 00:42:40,660 --> 00:43:12,270 Cole um They clearly could have learned a lesson back like, you know, 20 years ago, but, ah you know, it is what it is. They made their games. They shipped it. It was hard as fuck. um So CL says, you know, ah go to these places because we're basically going to try to like sabotage Neo Arcadia and all these army forces or whatever. And it's like, OK, cool. You go hijack a train. ah You go to a hidden submarine place, you go to the desert to fight off an army. 403 00:43:12,270 --> 00:43:22,980 Cole um And it's pretty standard stuff. The bosses are pretty cool There's these other reploids that are called Mutos reploids that are based off of animals. So there's like a Sung bu Kong monkey robot with a staff um There's I'm trying to think of another one off the top my head There's like an elemental gear thing that like shoots fire and ice and lightning at you and you have to try to like cut off its arms and kill it um and 404 00:43:22,980 --> 00:43:27,160 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 405 00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:42,570 Andrew Pinkston Oh, that's cool. 406 00:43:42,570 --> 00:43:42,970 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, they're like usually like animal. 407 00:43:42,970 --> 00:43:44,710 Cole and 408 00:43:44,710 --> 00:43:51,310 Andrew Pinkston I mean, in the X games, they were like, there was a slash beast and a walrus and a, I think it was straight up like a whale at some point. 409 00:43:51,310 --> 00:43:52,440 Cole Yeah, there's probably a whale or something. 410 00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:52,550 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 411 00:43:52,550 --> 00:43:53,110 Cole Yeah, like they always did that. 412 00:43:53,110 --> 00:43:53,870 Andrew Pinkston yeah 413 00:43:53,870 --> 00:44:04,410 Cole But these particular ones, like they're the most advanced versions of what those were back in X and more sleek, more animalistic, more than anything. 414 00:44:04,410 --> 00:44:15,860 Cole There's like a giant ice bear, like a polar bear and all this other stuff. It's it's pretty if there's a giant um elephant that also turns into Sonic the Hedgehog. 415 00:44:15,860 --> 00:44:16,810 Andrew Pinkston but straight up or 416 00:44:16,810 --> 00:44:42,860 Cole go and spin dashing on you and bouncing off walls, and if you get hit, like it's ah it's a hole it's a whole thing. um so But Zero's causing ripples when he starts doing all these little projects here and there. ah Up until this point, no one's been able to contest Neo Arcadia in any significant way, so X sends out his four guardians. 417 00:44:42,860 --> 00:44:57,100 Cole And these guys are serious business. Not only do they kind of have like the same sleek look that Zero does, but they also are the leaders of their respective armies. and They control the elements, so you get these four characters that start cracking back. 418 00:44:57,100 --> 00:45:04,220 Cole You got um the ice ah controller of water, Fairy Leviathan. You have the ruler of skies and lightning, Sage Harpuya. 419 00:45:04,220 --> 00:45:08,030 Andrew Pinkston okay 420 00:45:08,030 --> 00:45:23,390 Cole The ah fighting Thefner, who's like a red-hot dude with like a gun and like grapple moves and all this other stuff. And then you have their intelligence guy, who's a non-elemental ninja called ah Fuck, what was his full name? 421 00:45:23,390 --> 00:45:23,510 Cole Something phantom. 422 00:45:23,510 --> 00:45:24,910 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Hmm. 423 00:45:24,910 --> 00:45:39,220 Cole um But they're basically the forehands, like the limbs of X and his control over near Arcadia. And, but of course, when you start establishing these characters, they're like, all right, you're like a 200 year old robot. 424 00:45:39,220 --> 00:45:49,360 Cole Like, we're just going to kick your ass and like go to bed afterward, you know? But then they get their asses beat by this guy and they're like, yo, that was sick. Let's do this again. And you're just like, OK, you guys are a bunch of freaks. 425 00:45:49,360 --> 00:46:07,750 Cole Like, get over it. But um so yeah, so you fight all these bosses and they're like, dang, like you're pretty strong. ah Sure hope X knows what he's gonna do with you later, but you better watch out. you You better not keep this up. And Zero's like, whatever, I'm just gonna beat you and move on. 426 00:46:07,750 --> 00:46:36,550 Cole It reaches a point where zeroes cause so much trouble that they're going to zero in on where the resistance base is full of all these like innocent robots. And they're going to just literally just zero all of them. like Just merc all of them, kill them all, get it over with. So you do you go through a base, save everyone, slash up all these ah robots. And then they're like, OK, we need to go on the offensive. We're going to go fight X like on his turf. 427 00:46:36,550 --> 00:46:57,160 Cole um Fast forward a bit, and, um, CL, like, just before you hit New York area, and you're about to go through the typical Capcom bus boss rush, CL's like, alright, now you're probably wondering why a 14-year-old girl, human girl, is in the middle of all this story. 428 00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:00,300 Cole Why am I bringing her up? What's her shtick? What's going on? 429 00:47:00,300 --> 00:47:00,900 Andrew Pinkston Mm-hmm. 430 00:47:00,900 --> 00:47:06,580 Cole Well, it turns out X isn't X. 431 00:47:06,580 --> 00:47:10,320 Andrew Pinkston Huh? He's not the... the dude from... 432 00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:12,030 Cole He's not, he's not the, he's no, no. 433 00:47:12,030 --> 00:47:14,430 Andrew Pinkston It's Sigma. 434 00:47:14,430 --> 00:47:14,640 Cole So CL says that X isn't the same X that everyone know. 435 00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:21,320 Andrew Pinkston Oh. 436 00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:28,540 Cole And as a matter of fact, anything that's been going on in the Arcadia is her fault. She has a direct rate responsibility for this. 437 00:47:28,540 --> 00:47:30,360 Andrew Pinkston What? 438 00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:34,710 Cole You're like, you're a 14 year old girl. What's going on? She's like, well, 439 00:47:34,710 --> 00:47:38,310 Andrew Pinkston She's Sigma. 440 00:47:38,310 --> 00:47:38,470 Cole Not actually. 441 00:47:38,470 --> 00:47:39,210 Andrew Pinkston who Who are these people? 442 00:47:39,210 --> 00:47:50,570 Cole see So as it turns out, X disappeared at some point within the last 20 years, maybe even a little bit more. 443 00:47:50,570 --> 00:48:12,730 Cole And the scientists, the human scientists at near Acadia um were trying to like, how do we keep a populace of both humans and reploids from going crazy because of a benevolent leader and an icon disappearing from the public eye without so much upset. 444 00:48:12,730 --> 00:48:13,990 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 445 00:48:13,990 --> 00:48:19,510 Cole So they go into a bit of genetic engineering ah with humans and they're like, we need super smart people to be born ASAP for whatever reason, you know, I don't know. 446 00:48:19,510 --> 00:48:24,460 Andrew Pinkston Oh. 447 00:48:24,460 --> 00:48:37,230 Cole But one of these ah test tube babies was CL and CL at the age of nine was tasked with building a replica of X. 448 00:48:37,230 --> 00:48:48,680 Cole So they give her his schematics and she gets to work and she creates physically a one-to-one replica of X from the ground up. 449 00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:49,380 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. 450 00:48:49,380 --> 00:49:00,890 Cole But what happens when you start an AI in a robot, a very powerful strong robot that does not have the 30 years of morality testing that X did? 451 00:49:00,890 --> 00:49:01,980 Andrew Pinkston Right. 452 00:49:01,980 --> 00:49:20,030 Cole So this dude thinks and is operating as if he's doing what he's meant to do, what he's built to do, but he's doing it at the detriment of reploids while keeping humans as safe as possible, but basically they're just cheap at this point, you know? 453 00:49:20,030 --> 00:49:26,450 Cole So she's like, we need to kill him and you need to kill him for me because I made this and it's my mistake and it needs to be remedied. 454 00:49:26,450 --> 00:49:30,330 Andrew Pinkston So is, is the real X out there or is that something for a later? 455 00:49:30,330 --> 00:49:31,580 Cole That is something for later. We will we will get to that. 456 00:49:31,580 --> 00:49:34,450 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Okay. Okay. 457 00:49:34,450 --> 00:49:48,580 Cole ah so um Also, I forgot to mention this. During the entirety of this first adventure, this little cyber elf, this little spirit, shows up every once in a while and talks to Zero. 458 00:49:48,580 --> 00:49:48,910 Andrew Pinkston Is that the one that like gave up its life for zero or. 459 00:49:48,910 --> 00:49:56,440 Cole And he says, you ah no, this is the one that gave him the Z-saber at the very beginning. 460 00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:56,640 Andrew Pinkston Oh, okay. 461 00:49:56,640 --> 00:50:09,270 Cole um He's like, ah you know, keep it up, you'll find stuff out, we'll see you there, or blah blah blah, and Zara's like, okay cool, I don't know who the hell you are, but alright. 462 00:50:09,270 --> 00:50:26,970 Cole So we get to Aeneur Arcadia after like a long grueling gauntlet of the Black Jelly Boss ah that comes up out of nowhere, and um all these crazy cool replays that they throw at you, and you get to fight against the Four Guardians again, you get to fight against the 463 00:50:26,970 --> 00:50:28,330 Andrew Pinkston Classic Capcom. 464 00:50:28,330 --> 00:50:28,390 Cole Class of Capcom, you can't not have a boss rush. 465 00:50:28,390 --> 00:50:30,850 Andrew Pinkston Classic right there. You got have that fucking boss rush at the end. 466 00:50:30,850 --> 00:50:32,980 Cole and 467 00:50:32,980 --> 00:50:34,470 Andrew Pinkston God damn. 468 00:50:34,470 --> 00:50:45,550 Cole But one of them, ah one of the Guardians, the ninja guy phantoms, like, you're not getting near X, you may have defeated me, but I'm gonna blow myself up. And you're like, wait, what? 469 00:50:45,550 --> 00:50:56,350 Cole And then if you actually stop by him, you actually get damaged by the explosion, but it's not enough damage to kill you, so that he just kills himself for no reason. You're just like, Capcom, what was the plan here? 470 00:50:56,350 --> 00:51:00,490 Andrew Pinkston how Yeah. 471 00:51:00,490 --> 00:51:26,720 Cole It's game one, like what's happening? So anyway. So you go forward and you finally meet him. You finally meet him in his throne room. And there he is being like, hey, what's up, Zero? Long time no see. And the three guardians, the three remaining guardians show up and they're like, no, we got this. And he's like, get out of here. You've done your part. You failed. It's my turn. So. 472 00:51:26,720 --> 00:51:43,880 Cole It's 1v1, you're in this big room, and X is like, ah you know, you're just another Maverick, you can't be Zero. I mean, look look at this place, it's a Utopia, humans are safe, and Zero's like, okay, I don't really remember much, but that sounds like a bunch of bullshit. 473 00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:58,540 Cole and you're not you're not the real x anyway you're just a fake and he's like all right cool kendo fake do this and he turns on his own hyper armor like the one x used to have it's angelic he's got wings he's able to shift his elements and he's like 474 00:51:58,540 --> 00:52:01,180 Andrew Pinkston Like, yeah, do all the X like, oh, okay. 475 00:52:01,180 --> 00:52:18,880 Cole He's got, like, a dash move. He can shoot out different elemental shots. Like, he is effectively X. He's dashing around. he's He's kicking at you. He's shooting at you. But, you know, you're zero. You're playing the zero. You've kind of figured everything else out as you're playing through this game. And you beat him. And he's like... 476 00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:24,050 Cole having a hissy fit because he's basically like five years old or whatever at this point and he's just like like screw you and Zero's like I might not remember but my body seems to remember and that you're a freaking fake and you're not as powerful as him you'll never be as powerful as him so 477 00:52:24,050 --> 00:52:37,060 Andrew Pinkston What the hell? 478 00:52:37,060 --> 00:52:41,270 Andrew Pinkston Yes. If you'd fucking rock my ass at this point, like there's no way. 479 00:52:41,270 --> 00:52:54,500 Cole so x is like this copy x is like fine then so he overclocks and he transforms himself with this giant seraphic form he loses his legs he gets halo and he demolishes the floor so now you're on this tiny platform while he is shooting laser beams and all this other stuff at you and but then you know you're you're zero you're the badass you're the fucking guy you you clip his wings and 480 00:52:54,500 --> 00:53:07,020 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. 481 00:53:07,020 --> 00:53:10,160 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, you are him 482 00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:33,280 Cole in this very, oh god, the sprite worker in this game, like these games are so cool, like the bits and pieces of him fall off and he just crumbles to pieces, and all that's left of him is his torso, his face like blown out and cracked with like a fake eye, like a lens underneath it, and he's like, well, this is an unfortunate situation to be in. 483 00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,270 Cole I'm gonna blow up this room! And Zero's like, oh shit. 484 00:53:35,270 --> 00:53:37,930 Andrew Pinkston no 485 00:53:37,930 --> 00:53:38,000 Andrew Pinkston Everybody's blowing themselves up. 486 00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:52,550 Cole So, So he dashes out of the room as quickly as he can, the giant explosion engulfs this section of near Arcadia, and Zero is shown again, laying down the ground. 487 00:53:52,550 --> 00:53:58,050 Cole White is just eclipsing him. We don't know where he is, what's going on, did he die, what happened? But this Cyber Elf pops down out of the sky again, this one that's been following him and gave him the Z-Saber. 488 00:53:58,050 --> 00:54:07,260 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, what happened? OK. 489 00:54:07,260 --> 00:54:16,250 Cole This time, a silhouette ah comes out. You can't quite make it out, but you can see this kind of blue silhouette with a red crystal on his forehead. 490 00:54:16,250 --> 00:54:17,940 Andrew Pinkston yes dude sorry bull 491 00:54:17,940 --> 00:54:34,760 Cole And he says, thank you for taking out my copy. I ah trust the future of this fight to you, because the fight's not yet over. I just can't be here right now. And he fades away, and he disappears, and Zero's in the middle of the desert. 492 00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:40,040 Cole ruins as far as the eye can see, and he picks himself up and he says, don't worry buddy, I got this. 493 00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:41,580 Andrew Pinkston Yes, Straight up that call or something. 494 00:54:41,580 --> 00:54:44,110 Cole and 495 00:54:44,110 --> 00:54:45,280 Cole And... What? 496 00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:46,520 Andrew Pinkston Did you call him buddy? 497 00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:47,750 Cole No, he didn't call him buddy, but he's like, alright then, i'll I'll do it because you asked, and um he... 498 00:54:47,750 --> 00:54:54,330 Andrew Pinkston Okay. um Okay. 499 00:54:54,330 --> 00:55:06,220 Cole He turns in this scene that he's in, and all you see is this image, like it it pans back and forth, and there's this army of these those X knockoffs, those like mono red-eyed pantheons, and there are like hundreds around him. 500 00:55:06,220 --> 00:55:12,690 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 501 00:55:12,690 --> 00:55:26,700 Cole And he's like, no problem, I got this, I'll keep fighting until, you know, I can't kip i can't pick myself up. and the last thing you see is I'm slashing through one of them and you hit the credits and you're like, okay, cool. 502 00:55:26,700 --> 00:55:29,300 Cole So what's next? 503 00:55:29,300 --> 00:55:31,800 Andrew Pinkston What's next? Yeah, like what's next? 504 00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:46,060 Cole Well, this is where stuff really picks up. um And now we'll go into Mega Man Zero too. Everything's all brand new and shiny and you get more weapons and all this other stuff, but this is where the story beats really, really pick up. 505 00:55:46,060 --> 00:56:00,620 Cole But let's start with, the very first thing that happens at the beginning of the first game. Zero had gone on a single one-man army fight against Neo Arcadia by himself for a year. 506 00:56:00,620 --> 00:56:02,080 Andrew Pinkston Jeez. 507 00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:11,750 Cole And when you see him at the beginning of the second game, there's an intense sandstorm blowing by. He's walking through the desert. He's got a cloak over him. 508 00:56:11,750 --> 00:56:11,850 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 509 00:56:11,850 --> 00:56:22,870 Cole He's got one of those like brown, tattered, but super cool cloak. And he's walking through. they're like So anyway, it's been a year. This stuff's been going on. He beat Copy X, blah, blah, blah. 510 00:56:22,870 --> 00:56:34,050 Cole And then, of course, more of those pantheons show up because they can't get enough of the smoke. And he's like, cool. All right. His new theme in the second game starts picking up. 511 00:56:34,050 --> 00:56:40,190 Cole He throws his cloak off of himself, and he's once again, if you're back in the back in the action. 512 00:56:40,190 --> 00:56:40,330 Andrew Pinkston yeah 513 00:56:40,330 --> 00:56:57,850 Cole um But it has been a year. So after Zero fights through this desert of like zombie robots and vulture robots and a giant like scorpion robot, he's reached his physical max, and he collapses in the desert. 514 00:56:57,850 --> 00:57:00,760 Cole his like armor's all broken apart and, well, yeah. 515 00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:07,920 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. We're getting your zeroed again. We're getting your zero zeroed again. 516 00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:25,640 Cole But then ah someone shows up from the desert out of nowhere, and it's the the green master of lightning, Sage Harpuya, who shows up and is like, well, Zero, what are we going to do here? And then he picks him up and takes him back to the Resistance. 517 00:57:25,640 --> 00:57:26,510 Andrew Pinkston okay 518 00:57:26,510 --> 00:57:49,080 Cole Well, like, huh, this guy has a sense of honor. That's pretty funky. um So what's happened in the last year? What's going on? So while Zero's been going off fighting, CL and her portion of Resistance Robots have met up with another group of reploids, and they join forces together to create the quote-unquote new Resistance Movement. 519 00:57:49,080 --> 00:57:50,090 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 520 00:57:50,090 --> 00:58:15,900 Cole they're they're functionally more powerful. They have a large group of people who are trained to be, they basically dress up like they're in the army. And their leader is this guy who calls himself El Pizzo. And he's like, all right, we need to organize, we need to strike out and strike back against near Arcadia, and we're going to do it together. And CL's like, 521 00:58:15,900 --> 00:58:31,330 Cole Okay, you can do that, but I need time to try to solve the energy crisis situation that's going on in the Arcadia. So that way we can save reploids and they don't need to act like this anymore and people can live normally. 522 00:58:31,330 --> 00:58:31,920 Cole so 523 00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:32,380 Andrew Pinkston Well, who's leading the neo Arcadia people at this point because X copy got dropped. 524 00:58:32,380 --> 00:58:37,660 Cole but you know 525 00:58:37,660 --> 00:58:50,350 Cole Well, as it turns out, the Guardians are basically playing this, like, political game where it's like, alright, propaganda time. Uh, X is on...sabbatical. 526 00:58:50,350 --> 00:58:51,080 Cole He's...he's away for now, but don't worry about it. 527 00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:52,630 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 528 00:58:52,630 --> 00:59:04,270 Cole We got it covered. Why is there only three Guardians? Don't ask about that. He blew...he definitely totally didn't blow himself up for no reason. We don't ask questions you don't want the answers to. 529 00:59:04,270 --> 00:59:10,640 Cole Stop talking. so Despite, you know, how do you keep that type of information to reps for like a year? It's ridiculous. 530 00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:12,180 Andrew Pinkston hu 531 00:59:12,180 --> 00:59:25,590 Cole But they're effectively the leaders at this point. So the resistance has been growing in strength and they found a new fancy base with like working machinery and stuff and they've quadrupled the amount of people that they have. 532 00:59:25,590 --> 00:59:25,930 Cole in And so it's like, okay, 533 00:59:25,930 --> 00:59:29,680 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, they're coming up. 534 00:59:29,680 --> 00:59:40,250 Cole see yeah then Zero shows up. And well, well that starts to undermine El Pizzo, who's like, look, we were supposed to do this big operation. We called it Operation Righteous Strike. 535 00:59:40,250 --> 00:59:48,950 Cole We're going to strike out against the New Arcadians and fight for our freedom. And then Zero shows up and he's like, OK, first of all, that's dumb. What do you think I've been doing for a year? 536 00:59:48,950 --> 00:59:49,040 Andrew Pinkston yeah 537 00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:54,570 Cole This shit doesn't work. So he's like, what we need to do is we need to do small scale attacks, you know attack their supply lines, like take out an energy plant or a manufacturing plant or two. 538 00:59:54,570 --> 00:59:59,610 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 539 00:59:59,610 --> 00:59:59,680 Andrew Pinkston Ball bearing plant. 540 00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:13,840 Cole like, guerara tactics, you know? Like, that's how we're gonna be able to get through this. And LPs, I was like, okay, fine. I will defer to you for now, but the minute, the second I get the okay, we're blowing them the fuck up. 541 01:00:13,840 --> 01:00:25,460 Cole We're getting we're doing this operation registry. And it's like, OK, sure. So this time, in Mega Man Zero 2, you have a more typical Mega Man X screen selection. 542 01:00:25,460 --> 01:00:25,550 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 543 01:00:25,550 --> 01:00:37,980 Cole ah You don't have a full eight bosses to go fight. This time, you only have ah four bosses to fight before the next sequence of events happens, and then the next four missions come up, and then you go through your regular boss rush. 544 01:00:37,980 --> 01:00:39,290 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 545 01:00:39,290 --> 01:01:16,730 Cole um But before you do that, CL's like, hey, so we found this thing called a baby elf. It's, it's, compared to the regular cybrels who at this point have, ah they're the consumables that you've been using. They can kill small enemies. They can help save you from falling in a pit as a one-time effect. Some of them can even increase your health bar at the cost of you getting a penalty on your final score when you complete a mission. So you can actually augment yourself to be pretty strong and have like quadruple amount of life that you would have had when you started. 546 01:01:16,730 --> 01:01:27,380 Cole Um, but these cyber elves are kind of small, uh, like they're, they're, they're not as powerful as it turns out as what these baby elves are capable of. 547 01:01:27,380 --> 01:01:28,580 Andrew Pinkston weird okay 548 01:01:28,580 --> 01:01:47,290 Cole And all they know is, is that there's two of them and they found one of them circumstantially because El Pizzo brought it with him to the resistance and CL's using it to study how to create her sort of perpetual energy machine that she hasn't quite figured out yet. 549 01:01:47,290 --> 01:01:47,760 Cole But this this will be ah this will be a plot that comes up later. 550 01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:53,140 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, let us know. Okay. 551 01:01:53,140 --> 01:02:06,210 Cole So Zero begins all these ah small attacks here and there. And they're like, oh, hey, we found another baby elf. That's really cool. Let's bring it back to base. But then X shows up in a spectral form again. 552 01:02:06,210 --> 01:02:06,480 Andrew Pinkston The real act. 553 01:02:06,480 --> 01:02:18,820 Cole He's like, hey, Zero, hear me out. This thing's actually a lot more important than you think it is. and ah He's like, and I'm a cyber elf, so what am I talking about? 554 01:02:18,820 --> 01:02:30,090 Cole He's like, things are in play right now that you don't understand, and these two baby elves are an indicator of something to come. You should keep an eye out for what comes next. 555 01:02:30,090 --> 01:02:32,430 Cole And Zero's like, I mean, 556 01:02:32,430 --> 01:02:34,210 Andrew Pinkston That's not very helpful, but all right. 557 01:02:34,210 --> 01:02:43,990 Cole Yeah, you know everyone's this is the one thing the about the zero series that always kills me Is that up until like the end of zero three and four? It's cryptic bullshit. You're like x just fucking tell me what the fuck is going on He's like, no, no. 558 01:02:43,990 --> 01:02:48,080 Andrew Pinkston yeah 559 01:02:48,080 --> 01:03:19,590 Cole No, you have to play through the game and you're like, oh my god, man fine. All right, no problem um so then you do the first set of missions and you find this baby elf and you're like cool so now the two of them they seem to be resonating together they seem to recognize one another the energy is really unique but we don't really know much more else about them and suddenly LPs is like all right everyone it's time to march out and attack near Arcadia and they're like ah 560 01:03:19,590 --> 01:03:29,450 Cole Okay, that seems like a really bad idea. You shouldn't do that, like, ceiling zero, like, nuh-uh, veto, nuh-uh. He's like, but I'm the boss now, yet they'd be the boss. This is what we're doing. 561 01:03:29,450 --> 01:03:30,490 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 562 01:03:30,490 --> 01:03:35,450 Cole Anyway, uh, it's a complete fucking disaster. Everyone gets eviscerated. 563 01:03:35,450 --> 01:03:35,890 Andrew Pinkston Dang. Oh my gosh. 564 01:03:35,890 --> 01:03:36,970 Cole They send, like, 565 01:03:36,970 --> 01:03:38,210 Andrew Pinkston Who would have predicted such an outcome? 566 01:03:38,210 --> 01:03:47,280 Cole Who could have seen this coming? like They sent, like I don't know how many, like it's Game Boy Advance limitations. There's probably only maybe 10 characters in a room at a time. But like let's just say a small army of 400 Reploids just get eviscerated. 567 01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:51,760 Andrew Pinkston Yes. 568 01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:53,350 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 569 01:03:53,350 --> 01:03:56,350 Cole And the only one who survives is El Pizzo. 570 01:03:56,350 --> 01:03:58,140 Andrew Pinkston Of course. 571 01:03:58,140 --> 01:04:18,600 Cole And they're like, ah hey, can you go rescue these guys? And he shows up and he's like, well, hey, by the way, they're all dead, El Pizzo's ahead. fine I guess I'll go save him. So you find him and he's had his ass beat by the three remaining guardians and They're like, all right, you know what? 572 01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:30,290 Cole We thought we learned our lesson last time, but this time, we're really we're just not even going to take our chances. We're going to send up a nuke. We're going to launch a missile at the base and just end this. You're like, oh, shit. 573 01:04:30,290 --> 01:04:42,610 Cole So Zero has then launched off into into the air. And it's probably one of the coolest sequences in the game. You're literally jumping off. You know this um those kind of bug helicopters in X1 when you're on the highway? 574 01:04:42,610 --> 01:04:44,020 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. 575 01:04:44,020 --> 01:04:51,420 Cole So you're riding basically on the back of those chasing a big ship to get inside of it to deactivate the bomb. 576 01:04:51,420 --> 01:04:52,710 Andrew Pinkston wow That's cool. 577 01:04:52,710 --> 01:05:06,790 Cole So it's this cool, like, like you're not timed, thankfully, as if that wasn't going to be difficult enough. But the platforming on this level at the intro is super duper hard, because if you miss your jump or get shot in the air, you just fall to your death. 578 01:05:06,790 --> 01:05:07,600 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 579 01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:16,050 Cole So they're like, all right, zero, we're flying overhead. You're going to drop down on them and going to go rate the thing. And you're like, OK, cool. The sickest music in the background is going on. You're like this awesome. 580 01:05:16,050 --> 01:05:17,860 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 581 01:05:17,860 --> 01:05:28,460 Cole So you jump on the ship and they're like, OK, it's just like, how am I going to take out the bomb? Like I could like I could just like slash it. They're like, can you do can you diffuse a bomb? 582 01:05:28,460 --> 01:05:41,170 Cole He's like. so I can slash it, right? They're like, no. And CL's like, I'm going to go on the ship. You're going to teleport me on the ship with this like local short-range trans server thing, because they have teleportation in the future. 583 01:05:41,170 --> 01:05:49,250 Cole And they're like, port me in. I'm going to deactivate it. Then you're gonna I'm going to port out. And then you're going to jump off the ship. And we'll get away with it. And we'll save everyone. So he's like, OK. 584 01:05:49,250 --> 01:05:51,160 Andrew Pinkston seem Seems good, let's do it. 585 01:05:51,160 --> 01:06:02,070 Cole So for a couple minutes, you do a timed escort mission where they send a bunch of enemies at you and they all try to shoot the little girl. Like, cool, I got a shield. You can't you can't get past me. 586 01:06:02,070 --> 01:06:06,940 Cole And then just when you think you're safe, you jump off the ship and then, of course, a boss enemy attacks you. 587 01:06:06,940 --> 01:06:07,420 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 588 01:06:07,420 --> 01:06:21,600 Cole And this this bug enemy, because, of course, the je Japan has to do this. You know what they do? like um but like They do like bug fights, like they there's the bug with the single horn and the bug with the pincers. 589 01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:22,710 Andrew Pinkston Mm-hmm. 590 01:06:22,710 --> 01:06:23,900 Cole I can't remember. like Yeah, it's like a Hercules beetle and stuff. 591 01:06:23,900 --> 01:06:27,190 Andrew Pinkston Oh, it's like a Hercules beetle or yeah I don't have time for this. 592 01:06:27,190 --> 01:06:36,810 Cole Well, as it turns out, the brother of a random beetle boss that you beat in the first game is out for his revenge in the second game and you're like, huh, that's some continuity, cool, kill me. 593 01:06:36,810 --> 01:06:36,970 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 594 01:06:36,970 --> 01:06:38,080 Cole I don't have time for this. You equip the ice chip because he's electricity and you kill him. 595 01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:40,930 Andrew Pinkston Yeah Okay 596 01:06:40,930 --> 01:07:01,870 Cole You're like, cool, get the hell out. In the meantime, from the the bot like the the attack on the Arcadia and this bomb rush, well, the cyber elves disappeared. The two baby elves were taken away by El Pizzo, and he is off his fucking rocker. He is laughing insane. You know when you get like those like 597 01:07:01,870 --> 01:07:01,960 Andrew Pinkston He's high on baby elf, is that what this is? 598 01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:11,540 Cole um Well, you kind of know like when you get that little like dolly zoom on someone who's kind of going insane or when you see the thing in the anime where they zoom in their eyes and everything gets all like distorted like but Yeah, like you see him peeking into a camera and being like I'm gonna go find the the the strongest power there is in this world and I'm gonna go find the dark elf and you're like 599 01:07:11,540 --> 01:07:28,110 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're cracked, yeah. 600 01:07:28,110 --> 01:07:28,490 Andrew Pinkston What the fuck? 601 01:07:28,490 --> 01:07:39,400 Cole What? What the fuck? Like, dude, what are you talking about? Like, we get it. You went through, like, the most traumatic thing you've ever gone through, but you're literally, like, you're you' tweaking out, bro. 602 01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:50,340 Cole Like, calm down. He's like, oh, well, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go fight New Arcadia by myself once I find it. And there's nothing you can do. And they're like, zero. Can you bring this crazy boy back to us? 603 01:07:50,340 --> 01:07:51,370 Cole and He's like, yeah, okay, cool. 604 01:07:51,370 --> 01:07:55,950 Andrew Pinkston Is anyone able to do anything besides zero in this timeline? 605 01:07:55,950 --> 01:08:02,050 Cole Well, and here's the thing, right? any Anyone who is capable of doing anything is currently in Neo Arcadia's side. 606 01:08:02,050 --> 01:08:03,040 Andrew Pinkston Yes, okay. 607 01:08:03,040 --> 01:08:16,950 Cole That's the problem. No one else is able to compete with Zero in a fight, but at the same time, anyone else who isn't like um a Mutos Reploid or the Guardians is competent in any way. 608 01:08:16,950 --> 01:08:21,200 Cole So it's literally just, yeah, you are the main playable character, he's gonna be the one to do it. 609 01:08:21,200 --> 01:08:22,240 Andrew Pinkston Yes. 610 01:08:22,240 --> 01:08:28,620 Cole So you go through another section of boss fights, you go up against the three guardians again, and they're just like, what is this guy up to? 611 01:08:28,620 --> 01:08:31,100 Andrew Pinkston Again, dude. God. 612 01:08:31,100 --> 01:08:41,840 Cole He keeps s slipping away, like they can't seem to track him, they can't seem to find him, but then Zero shows up and they're like, well, all right, Zero, let's fight. He's like, didn't I beat you last game? And they're like, ah we got some new stuff. 613 01:08:41,840 --> 01:08:43,270 Andrew Pinkston I bet. 614 01:08:43,270 --> 01:08:45,160 Cole They're basically the same as the first game. 615 01:08:45,160 --> 01:08:45,620 Andrew Pinkston Really? 616 01:08:45,620 --> 01:08:57,510 Cole And they're like, ah, man, Zero, it's so cool when we fight. Don't die now. And you're like, Okay, you guys need to, like, quit getting this horny about this? Like, this is fucking weird, okay? 617 01:08:57,510 --> 01:09:01,550 Andrew Pinkston Is it just an asset flip from the first game? Like the moves are the same. It's the same boss fight. 618 01:09:01,550 --> 01:09:04,020 Cole Like, they do have some additions, like, there's something Zero can do that he couldn't do in the first game, but a lot of the things about the Zero series is, like, they do keep a lot of the assets, but they're able to, like, tighten things up and make things more efficient and clean everything up. 619 01:09:04,020 --> 01:09:14,620 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 620 01:09:14,620 --> 01:09:20,320 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. That's how they're able to do it year after year, I guess. Yeah, right. 621 01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:26,820 Cole Yeah, because I did one in 2002, 2000, yeah, it's like 2002, three, four, and then five, and then that was it. 622 01:09:26,820 --> 01:09:29,530 Andrew Pinkston When you love it, right? When you love it. 623 01:09:29,530 --> 01:09:46,600 Cole So, then they're like, okay, we're narrowing down where he's going, but he's going to this, he's going to this hidden base in the Arcadia, and we don't know, but he' he says, he's trying to find this thing called a dark elf, and he finds the first half, 624 01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:54,570 Cole and it's normally you get to see these like little balls of light that are maybe about the size of like if you fit a pokeball in your hand or like a but this thing's like huge it's like five or six times the size of any of these sprites and it seems to like be slightly translucent 625 01:09:54,570 --> 01:10:05,200 Andrew Pinkston he 626 01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:05,980 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 627 01:10:05,980 --> 01:10:17,280 Cole And at this point, X shows up again. He's like, okay, zero. I don't know what the fuck you've been doing up to this point, but you need to like pick up the pace here. Cause like, this is the most dangerous shit. 628 01:10:17,280 --> 01:10:26,620 Cole And he's like, and if El Pizzo, this guy finds the seal of the other half. It's we're in word for in for a big world of hurt. 629 01:10:26,620 --> 01:10:26,760 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 630 01:10:26,760 --> 01:10:28,270 Cole So I was like, okay, fine. So it's not sigma. 631 01:10:28,270 --> 01:10:32,060 Andrew Pinkston It's Sigma. The Dark Elf is Sigma. Oh, damn. 632 01:10:32,060 --> 01:10:34,750 Cole My God. No. So. 633 01:10:34,750 --> 01:10:35,200 Andrew Pinkston but How many times, dude? 634 01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:49,730 Cole this as you're going through the next boss rush you are again going up against the guardians again and they're like that hey guess what but we we we uh we're holding back it's like what and so like x did like like copy x did in the first game as you beat him in the final boss they go through this transformation that they call an armed phenomenon and they 635 01:10:49,730 --> 01:11:04,600 Andrew Pinkston Of course you were. All right, Piccolo, take it off and let's go. God. 636 01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:14,290 Cole transform a leviathan who is kind of the sleek robot lady with a spear transforms into a giant mermaid with like any fighter underwater and uh feffnir who's only dude like a dude with two arm cannons transforms into a giant tank 637 01:11:14,290 --> 01:11:24,210 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 638 01:11:24,210 --> 01:11:41,190 Cole And finally, you go up against Harpuya, who's kind of had like all these avian traits, but this time he's he's on his knees in front of Elpizo. Elpizo actually kicked his ass too, and he's like, alright, I need you to play interference for me while I go off to the final seal of the Dark Elf. 639 01:11:41,190 --> 01:11:41,620 Andrew Pinkston Interesting. 640 01:11:41,620 --> 01:11:56,870 Cole And so he uses the baby elves to super empower him, and compared to the other two who willingly fought Zero, Harpuya's like, you need to kill me right now when he overclocks and comes this like giant helicopter bird. 641 01:11:56,870 --> 01:11:57,120 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 642 01:11:57,120 --> 01:12:04,850 Cole And so throughout all these fights, like despite the fact that the Guardians kind of aren't really characters, but they kind of are like, you're like, on the one hand, they are respectable, they are honorable, they want to fight because I guess, you know, that gives them meaning or purpose or they get off on it or whatever. 643 01:12:04,850 --> 01:12:14,090 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 644 01:12:14,090 --> 01:12:24,610 Cole But They also do the the thing is that they do fight for near Arcadia Under the pretense that they are fighting for humanity and that zero and these things are being maverick. 645 01:12:24,610 --> 01:12:25,220 Cole So They are They're not going crazy. 646 01:12:25,220 --> 01:12:28,340 Andrew Pinkston Right. 647 01:12:28,340 --> 01:12:28,530 Andrew Pinkston They're misguided. 648 01:12:28,530 --> 01:12:30,880 Cole They're not being influenced by anything but they're misguided because they don't know because like they they are 649 01:12:30,880 --> 01:12:37,530 Andrew Pinkston misguided 650 01:12:37,530 --> 01:12:39,100 Cole As it turns out, they're actually made from the quote-unquote DNA of the actual X, like the X that we know. 651 01:12:39,100 --> 01:12:46,370 Andrew Pinkston They're misguided. Oh, that's cool. Okay. 652 01:12:46,370 --> 01:12:53,400 Cole Robotics and reploids eventually evolve where, like, something about them began to have this sort of trace element that was the equivalent of, like, human DNA, and they use that to make the basis of the four guardians, and they all kind of take, like, aspects of them. 653 01:12:53,400 --> 01:13:01,220 Andrew Pinkston Scene C. 654 01:13:01,220 --> 01:13:01,850 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 655 01:13:01,850 --> 01:13:09,140 Cole And they are still, of course, acting under the pretense and belief that the X that they were fighting for in the first game is actually X. 656 01:13:09,140 --> 01:13:09,660 Andrew Pinkston Right. 657 01:13:09,660 --> 01:13:25,510 Cole So again, misguided. They don't know any better. So, Zero beats Harpuya, and Harpuya is like, you should you should have finished the job. And Zero's like, look, like you're honorable, and you give me the credit due, and blah, blah, blah. 658 01:13:25,510 --> 01:13:55,830 Cole But I'm going to go stop this El Pizzo guy, because he looks like he's going freaking nuts. Fast forward, boss rush time. We do the whole thing again. Hey, the beetle boss bros, this time they're back to fight you together? No, they're still dead. No big deal. But we're doing boss rushes and whatever. That is what you do. But the higher you climb this tower, like there's this energy that's flowing in the background that's flowing up towards the peak of the tower. And you're just like, this is like a really high tech like set up. Like what is this place? 659 01:13:55,830 --> 01:14:01,300 Cole And when you go up to the top, and it's the final boss fight, and El Pizzo is standing in this room, he's standing in front of the body of X. 660 01:14:01,300 --> 01:14:05,410 Andrew Pinkston Huh. 661 01:14:05,410 --> 01:14:05,610 Cole And X is hooked up to this machine, it's this giant sphere with like a lot of like pipes and tech... 662 01:14:05,610 --> 01:14:12,100 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. 663 01:14:12,100 --> 01:14:13,590 Andrew Pinkston X is the dark elf. 664 01:14:13,590 --> 01:14:13,740 Cole My brother in Christ, you could shut the fuck up for a second and let me get to it, we're so close! 665 01:14:13,740 --> 01:14:18,560 Andrew Pinkston We found him. 666 01:14:18,560 --> 01:14:19,890 Andrew Pinkston quite 667 01:14:19,890 --> 01:14:24,950 Cole So El Pizzo's like, hold on a second there Zero, you're interrupting me and freezes him in place. 668 01:14:24,950 --> 01:14:25,820 Andrew Pinkston okay 669 01:14:25,820 --> 01:14:45,350 Cole because he's got all these powers from like the baby elf and half of the dark elf, which is their mother. And then he stabs the empty, non-responsive body of X, and it explodes in this huge, like it's it's the most horrific thing if you played as X, like X games as a kid. 670 01:14:45,350 --> 01:14:45,450 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 671 01:14:45,450 --> 01:14:52,150 Cole And Zero's like, oh fuck, there's nothing I can do, because this this pink floozy of a dude frozen me and in place, 672 01:14:52,150 --> 01:14:55,230 Andrew Pinkston Does it look like the X from the original games or is his art treatment like... 673 01:14:55,230 --> 01:15:03,230 Cole So his art tree, like he has the coloration of like a later X, but it has the same style as like these games have. 674 01:15:03,230 --> 01:15:05,120 Andrew Pinkston Of these games? Ok, ok. 675 01:15:05,120 --> 01:15:10,250 Cole But he has like the coloration of like, let's say like an X six or an X eight zero would have. 676 01:15:10,250 --> 01:15:12,200 Andrew Pinkston Mmkay. 677 01:15:12,200 --> 01:15:28,350 Cole So this body of X explodes and the other half of the dark elf comes out and the two halves merge together. And you do kind of have to remember like this is these things are like living electronic computer programs. 678 01:15:28,350 --> 01:15:28,840 Andrew Pinkston Mm-hmm 679 01:15:28,840 --> 01:15:45,540 Cole so whatever the heck this thing is like on top of being able to reformat something into different forms like it it's clearly powerful it gives this dude like this much power to stop people in place and influence people's minds so of course el pizzo all caught up on on this magic angel juice or elf juice or whatever the heck is going on here is like all right dark elf make me all powerful and it transforms his body and 680 01:15:45,540 --> 01:15:57,550 Andrew Pinkston Yeah 681 01:15:57,550 --> 01:16:00,850 Cole You think he was pretty a badass, but of course you're playing Zero, so you beat his ass, of course. 682 01:16:00,850 --> 01:16:01,830 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, yeah. 683 01:16:01,830 --> 01:16:15,100 Cole And of course, he also throws a hissy fit, because who doesn't throw a hissy fit when they get beat in a Mega Man game at this point? He's like, cool, time to overclock. Well, compared to the armed phenomena phenomenon transformations that Leviathan and Fefnir and X had, this seemed more organic, weirdly enough. 684 01:16:15,100 --> 01:16:22,550 Andrew Pinkston Oh, 685 01:16:22,550 --> 01:16:22,910 Cole Things are being forcibly transformed, and 686 01:16:22,910 --> 01:16:26,680 Andrew Pinkston God. 687 01:16:26,680 --> 01:16:50,280 Cole He seems to just lose all sense of self as the the Dark Elf and the Baby Elves empower him to this freakish monstrosity. And, of course, you're zero, so you beat him. And as his body is there, re-transformed back to his form, the the the Dark Elf ah says zero. 688 01:16:50,280 --> 01:16:58,670 Cole Like it's the first time we've heard it say anything. The baby elves have kind of like made noises or they're 689 01:16:58,670 --> 01:17:13,730 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 690 01:17:13,730 --> 01:17:29,020 Cole As Elpiso's lying dead on the floor thinking that it's my time to move on and I've made mistakes and I recognize the error of my way, Zero, thank you, the elf, the elf, transformed at this point, makes him into a cyber elf. 691 01:17:29,020 --> 01:17:34,200 Cole And then she transforms back into her dark self and flies away. 692 01:17:34,200 --> 01:17:35,480 Andrew Pinkston okay 693 01:17:35,480 --> 01:17:41,730 Cole And X shows up and says like, It's unfortunate that you couldn't save my body and now we have to go after it because this is only the tip of the iceberg. 694 01:17:41,730 --> 01:17:47,370 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 695 01:17:47,370 --> 01:17:56,270 Cole This is only the start of what comes next because if we don't control her or try to take like try to get the baby elves back, like it's it's good to be bad. 696 01:17:56,270 --> 01:17:58,320 Andrew Pinkston You said that last time, bro. 697 01:17:58,320 --> 01:18:00,280 Cole And that's the end. 698 01:18:00,280 --> 01:18:02,020 Andrew Pinkston When does this end? 699 01:18:02,020 --> 01:18:03,700 Cole All right, X3 time. 700 01:18:03,700 --> 01:18:04,560 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 701 01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:19,080 Cole Except not really. The end cutscene on Zero Two opens up on what could seems to be like a really cold room with like, you know when gas is hanging low in like those scenes where things are really cold? 702 01:18:19,080 --> 01:18:20,910 Andrew Pinkston e Right. 703 01:18:20,910 --> 01:18:32,240 Cole There's this big door, it's red and blinking and it's made of dark metal and you hear this low guttural groaning noise, like something beestle is behind it. 704 01:18:32,240 --> 01:18:41,490 Cole And then a scientist, like an old guy, like scientist voice comes on says, all right, I guess it's time to for the plan to deploy. 705 01:18:41,490 --> 01:18:41,790 Andrew Pinkston Oh shit. 706 01:18:41,790 --> 01:18:54,350 Cole And now we go to X, ah we go to zero three a couple months later and ah zero and CL and some resistance soldiers are out on patrol because they're trying to find the dark elf. 707 01:18:54,350 --> 01:19:09,540 Cole And sensors picked up a signature in this frozen hellish wasteland And as the snowstorm kind of dissipates, they see this giant sort-like structure in the distance. 708 01:19:09,540 --> 01:19:12,070 Cole Something had fallen from space recently, and there's this strong signal coming there. 709 01:19:12,070 --> 01:19:13,820 Andrew Pinkston well 710 01:19:13,820 --> 01:19:18,080 Cole They're like, what the fuck is going on? So Harpuya shows up again. 711 01:19:18,080 --> 01:19:19,840 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. 712 01:19:19,840 --> 01:19:29,330 Cole It's been some time, but it's a couple of months later. And he shows up, and he's like, you need to leave this area right now. And they're like, are we not going to fight? and He's like, I don't have time for you. And he disappears. 713 01:19:29,330 --> 01:19:29,520 Andrew Pinkston this was the This is the bird guardian guy. 714 01:19:29,520 --> 01:19:31,350 Cole i mean here This is the Bird Guardian guy. 715 01:19:31,350 --> 01:19:32,840 Andrew Pinkston the hell Okay, okay. 716 01:19:32,840 --> 01:19:43,430 Cole And then you hear the groan again. You hear the same groan just in the distance, and they're like, what the fuck is going on? And Zero's like, okay, near KU forces are showing up. 717 01:19:43,430 --> 01:19:46,590 Cole Everyone get back to base. I'm going to go check out what the heck this thing is. 718 01:19:46,590 --> 01:19:47,630 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 719 01:19:47,630 --> 01:19:53,520 Cole So he gets inside the sword-like structure, and it's huge. It's ginormous. It's basically like an entire building, like a skyscraper in size all by itself. 720 01:19:53,520 --> 01:19:58,300 Andrew Pinkston Oh, whoa. 721 01:19:58,300 --> 01:20:06,300 Cole And he goes up there, and the other two guardians, Fefnir and Leviathan, are just getting their asses beat. Whatever is off-screen, is throwing off these giant claw-like fists at them and throwing them around. 722 01:20:06,300 --> 01:20:11,200 Andrew Pinkston Huh. 723 01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:27,340 Cole And you're just like, what the fuck is going on here? And then you see it. It's this thing that's probably about like four or five times the size. It's this huge robot with like ah kind of like a knight motif, and it's got this giant cross-like sword on its back. 724 01:20:27,340 --> 01:20:28,040 Andrew Pinkston That's pretty cool. 725 01:20:28,040 --> 01:20:36,000 Cole And you're like, uh, what the hell is this? And the other two are like, uh, we don't know, but good luck. See you later. And they peace out. So it was like, fuck fine. 726 01:20:36,000 --> 01:20:36,760 Andrew Pinkston but Thanks, so guardians. 727 01:20:36,760 --> 01:20:48,020 Cole All right, let's get to it. And so you fight this thing and you fight it off. And you're like, what the heck is like, okay, we beat it. We can move on, right? 728 01:20:48,020 --> 01:20:54,030 Cole And then it reactivates again and it picks itself up and it's like, Oh, I didn't do anything. What the heck is this thing? 729 01:20:54,030 --> 01:20:55,790 Andrew Pinkston Hello. 730 01:20:55,790 --> 01:21:07,570 Cole So Harpuya shows up and says, all right, enough of this. We're going to finish this thing now together. And Zero's like, oh, OK, cool. Yeah, let's do it. And then a voice says, stop. 731 01:21:07,570 --> 01:21:07,710 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 732 01:21:07,710 --> 01:21:11,030 Cole And copy X shows up again. 733 01:21:11,030 --> 01:21:12,920 Andrew Pinkston Copy X, not real X. 734 01:21:12,920 --> 01:21:13,790 Cole Not real X, because you've got to remember. 735 01:21:13,790 --> 01:21:15,520 Andrew Pinkston What? Does anyone stay down? 736 01:21:15,520 --> 01:21:20,410 Cole X, yeah well well, we'll see why in a second here. So as we've established at this point, 737 01:21:20,410 --> 01:21:22,250 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 738 01:21:22,250 --> 01:21:51,880 Cole The real X existed in two forms. There was a cyber elf form that seems to be incredibly cryptic and disappearing in and out of the story. And then there was this physical body which was destroyed because it was being used to seal the half of the dark elf. So, Copy X shows up and he's got this weird speech impediment. He's like, Harpuya, like, you know, you you should stand down. You shouldn't need to do this with our honored get ah get get guest. And you're like, what? 739 01:21:51,880 --> 01:21:53,240 Andrew Pinkston He's like glitching out. 740 01:21:53,240 --> 01:21:54,260 Cole He's glitching out. Yeah. And then someone else shows up. 741 01:21:54,260 --> 01:21:59,500 Andrew Pinkston Yes. 742 01:21:59,500 --> 01:22:10,150 Cole This figure that's covered in like this black futuristic robe and his head is sealed in like this orange, like triangle. 743 01:22:10,150 --> 01:22:13,600 Cole I don't know how to describe it. The guy's kind of shaped like a pyramid. It's kind of funny, but this guy shows up and he's like, my name is Dr. 744 01:22:13,600 --> 01:22:18,000 Andrew Pinkston okay 745 01:22:18,000 --> 01:22:29,450 Cole Weil. And, uh, B and Omega are now under the coverage like of protection from Near Arcadia, and X is like, yes. 746 01:22:29,450 --> 01:22:36,890 Cole it can ah The reason I'm here is because of Dr. Wile, who repaired me. I would also like to point out before we continue, this guy is not Dr. 747 01:22:36,890 --> 01:22:36,990 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 748 01:22:36,990 --> 01:22:37,490 Cole Wile. 749 01:22:37,490 --> 01:22:39,020 Andrew Pinkston Okay, that's what I was just saying. 750 01:22:39,020 --> 01:22:49,680 Cole If you were thinking this, and there's some there's some hypothetical stuff where people may think he is, or like a distant relative, or somehow Dr. Wile got puss and it's his descendant. 751 01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:50,190 Cole That's not not what's happening here. 752 01:22:50,190 --> 01:22:53,680 Andrew Pinkston Yeah no. 753 01:22:53,680 --> 01:23:05,260 Cole So, but this guy, whoever this guy is, this is the guy we heard in the background at the end of X2, and we're just, or sorry, X2, Zero Two, and we're like, okay, but who is this guy? He's obviously evil, what's his deal, right? 754 01:23:05,260 --> 01:23:14,800 Cole And he looks really robotic, like he's floating around, he's covered up in this suit, we're like, what is he? We don't know who he is or what his deal is, but 755 01:23:14,800 --> 01:23:16,340 Andrew Pinkston yeah 756 01:23:16,340 --> 01:23:33,130 Cole All we know is is that they're establishing X and the Arcadia are saying, we are going to find the Dark Elf. And if you get in our way, we will stop you. And they're like, well, and so make a guy the big knight figure that they was just beating everyone down. 757 01:23:33,130 --> 01:23:38,160 Cole It's clearly a serious business, but we still should be trying to find our way to getting of of getting this guy. So now it's a race against Neo-Ricadia trying to find the baby elves and the dark elf, because at this point we still don't know what they are exactly, what they're doing or where they're going or what their goal is. 758 01:23:38,160 --> 01:23:45,430 Andrew Pinkston okay 759 01:23:45,430 --> 01:23:51,060 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Hmm. 760 01:23:51,060 --> 01:24:07,320 Cole And as it turns out, the baby elves were actually not together with her, they're trying to find her because she ran off by herself. Something about her interaction with Zero sparked something, like some familiarity, but he couldn't quite place it because he's still an amnesiac at this point. 761 01:24:07,320 --> 01:24:24,870 Cole um So he the only thing we know at this point for Zero is that he's been pretty stoic, doesn't comment a whole lot, is very mission focused, and despite his kind of relationship with X, he still doesn't quite remember him to the same extent when they were maverick hunters back in X era. 762 01:24:24,870 --> 01:24:41,230 Cole um But he still also doesn't know. And and and one of the things I just remembered, before all these guys, before X and Omega and Dr. Weil, peace out. Dr. Weil looks at Zero and says, you've gotten pretty far with that body. Let's see how far it'll take you. And then he peaces out. 763 01:24:41,230 --> 01:24:42,260 Andrew Pinkston Interesting. So he makes a comment about like how he looks. 764 01:24:42,260 --> 01:24:44,930 Cole like 765 01:24:44,930 --> 01:24:57,090 Cole Yeah. So we then go through our ah the the do the for emission, select screen bits first, get the interlude part, then we do another for, and then we get to the end fight. 766 01:24:57,090 --> 01:24:57,600 Andrew Pinkston who 767 01:24:57,600 --> 01:25:03,800 Cole The first goal, the first few goals of the game are as such. The first goal is find the dark elf. Well, as you're going through all these levels, the dark elf and the baby elf are influencing things in a way where like other mechanoloids or all these machines are also getting transformations very much like how Opizo had. 768 01:25:03,800 --> 01:25:17,910 Andrew Pinkston Right. 769 01:25:17,910 --> 01:25:32,150 Cole So whatever is going on, like this thing can just be in proximity to stuff and make them transform forcibly and fight against Zero. Like, it's it has infection-like qualities just by proximity, so we don't know what's going on here or why it's happening. 770 01:25:32,150 --> 01:25:35,270 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, seems like extreme. Okay. 771 01:25:35,270 --> 01:25:50,900 Cole So, Zero's first school, of course, is finding the baby elves, and he does find them. And they're at this point, they're starting to become a little more mouthy. They're like, pop a while, told us we need to beat you, and you're trying to hurt mama, and we're gonna and you're like, am I literally going to go fight two fucking children with a sword? 772 01:25:50,900 --> 01:25:51,040 Cole Like, all right, ah these are little balls of light, but all right. 773 01:25:51,040 --> 01:25:54,480 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 774 01:25:54,480 --> 01:26:04,010 Cole bru so you So you do find the baby elves and But ah you you actually end up destroying them ah in one of your fights because at this point, regardless of what they are or what they're doing, it doesn't change the fact that they're actively attempting to be a threat. 775 01:26:04,010 --> 01:26:13,700 Andrew Pinkston Oh. 776 01:26:13,700 --> 01:26:35,350 Cole um The next part of course that's been going on in behind the scenes is that within the two months that CL was starting to develop her power ah energy system, like some perpetual, like it converted a black matter into like energy or something, but whatever it did, it was enough to theoretically solve the energy crisis issue. 777 01:26:35,350 --> 01:27:04,720 Cole that replays we're having within near Akkadian they're like hey by the way um we know you got that if you don't give it to us we'll like consider you terrorists if you know since we already have been doing that and we'll take it by force and all this other stuff and see i was like okay i mean i thought we could negotiate at least but you know okay you can be crazy um and then we fast forward a bit where Uh, they're like, Oh, Hey, we found the dark elf. 778 01:27:04,720 --> 01:27:11,300 Cole We're going to launch a nuke into the city to make sure that we have complete clear access to getting it another. 779 01:27:11,300 --> 01:27:13,690 Andrew Pinkston And another nuke. 780 01:27:13,690 --> 01:27:16,130 Cole Yes, of course. You know what? This is fallout now. Like, you know, we just got to be able to like, Hey, you know how you got to spend money to make money. 781 01:27:16,130 --> 01:27:20,010 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. ah preers 782 01:27:20,010 --> 01:27:20,770 Cole You got to use nukes, get more nukes. 783 01:27:20,770 --> 01:27:21,990 Andrew Pinkston Got to have nukes to have nukes. 784 01:27:21,990 --> 01:27:47,360 Cole That's how it works. And they're like, Oh, yeah. um And then also at the same time, while they're gonna be doing this thing, you're like, alright, Copy X, it's time for our fight. He's like, fine then. So you 1v1 this Copy X, and as usual, like, he's just not up to snuff. Even with all these repair jobs that Dr. Wilde did to him, it's still not quite enough for him to kick your ass. 785 01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:58,380 Cole And then he's like, cool, it's time for me to go armed phenomenon again. I'll fight you at max power. I don't know why all these bosses think they come back like the second or third time and they can fight zero and it'll be different, but what anime protect like what anim anime boss like doesn't do this, you know? 786 01:27:58,380 --> 01:28:02,930 Andrew Pinkston Right. Yeah. 787 01:28:02,930 --> 01:28:07,900 Cole But as he tries to transform a bomb triggers inside of him and he explodes. 788 01:28:07,900 --> 01:28:08,980 Andrew Pinkston Oh my gosh. 789 01:28:08,980 --> 01:28:47,210 Cole And you're like, oh my God, like what the fuck did Wile do? So Wile then is like, cool, by the way, this was all according to plan. Everyone in Neo Arcadia, I am now your ruler. and So that includes like like ah control of the armies, control of manufacturing, like everything top to bottom. This guy, Dr. Wile, this random dude who showed up out of nowhere and is like causing so much trouble. He's like, I'm gonna be the boss now, you're gonna have to deal with it. ah And now I'm gonna like, we will, anytime you see zero, we're gonna make sure that we, 790 01:28:47,210 --> 01:29:15,230 Cole make sure that we destroy this guy. So you're like, okay, but but who are these guys? Like, what is going on here? Why is this stuff happening? What is the dark elf? What are the baby elves? Who's Dr. Weil? What is Omega? In the background, one on one of the missions, you actually go to a sunken library, like something that keeps electronic records. And in the records, they're like, there was a war that occurred about 100 years ago. 791 01:29:15,230 --> 01:29:28,060 Cole But the data's like destroyed or corrupted and it only says, reploids, deaths, humans, deaths, elf wars, dark elf, something, something. 792 01:29:28,060 --> 01:29:28,650 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. Okay. 793 01:29:28,650 --> 01:29:41,090 Cole And so they're like, okay, the pieces are being set. And X, of course, as usual is in the background being cryptic, like, all this stuff, it's it's happening. I hope you can remember more. And Zero's like, bro, like I haven't remembered shit. 794 01:29:41,090 --> 01:29:42,490 Cole Like what are you talking about? 795 01:29:42,490 --> 01:29:43,260 Andrew Pinkston yeah 796 01:29:43,260 --> 01:30:14,870 Cole um and then again we go to the missile thing they're like all right it's time to get the dark elf and omega's on it and zero's like okay so hey remember the last bomb i don't have time i'm gonna jump on the rocket and ciel's like you do it's a it's a it's a what he's like we don't have time jumping on the rocket let's do it and you jump on the rocket and it takes off and of course you barely managed to survive as this missile crashes into human civilians this time. 797 01:30:14,870 --> 01:30:15,190 Andrew Pinkston Damn. 798 01:30:15,190 --> 01:30:15,550 Cole It just eviscerates this entire town and this time ah Omega is there to get the thing that Weil wants and it's the Dark Elf and they fuse together and his armor changes and they're like okay well 799 01:30:15,550 --> 01:30:31,330 Andrew Pinkston whoa 800 01:30:31,330 --> 01:30:41,950 Cole ah That's bad, and this time like Omega's been juiced up, like whatever influence that the Dark Elf has, it's not corrupting him the same way that everyone else was being affected. 801 01:30:41,950 --> 01:30:42,450 Andrew Pinkston Mm. 802 01:30:42,450 --> 01:30:59,340 Cole Like his form is still the same, he's just ah got a golden coat now kind of thing. um And so Harpuya was it also at ground zero thinking he could do something, but Zero just grabs him and is like, you're coming back to base with us, you dumb fuck, and they teleport back. 803 01:30:59,340 --> 01:31:11,460 Cole But Wiles, like, all right, everyone, it's time to do the thing. And he snaps his fingers, and all reploids within the resistance base turn their guns on zero after he gets back to the base. 804 01:31:11,460 --> 01:31:13,430 Andrew Pinkston Oh man. They've been hacked or something. 805 01:31:13,430 --> 01:31:13,500 Cole they've been So whatever's been going on with Omega and Dr. 806 01:31:13,500 --> 01:31:17,940 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 807 01:31:17,940 --> 01:31:31,050 Cole Wile, well, the the combination of them allowed them to exert control over every reploid within, like, a thousand, ten thousand mile radius around them. 808 01:31:31,050 --> 01:31:37,800 Cole And and that included all the Reploids in the Resistance base, except Zero, because he's not a Reploid, he's a robot. 809 01:31:37,800 --> 01:31:39,320 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 810 01:31:39,320 --> 01:31:48,800 Cole So ah everyone turns their guns, they start speaking as if they're speaking, ah they're being spoken to through Wile, like Wile is using them as his mouthpiece. 811 01:31:48,800 --> 01:31:50,700 Andrew Pinkston I think he's just completely commandeered them. 812 01:31:50,700 --> 01:32:14,130 Cole Yeah, and and so they're like, uh, okay. And then they also turn their guns towards CL because they're like, listen, you didn't, you didn't pony up with the energy thing. So we obviously not only got to take it, but we're taking over your base. This whole thing was foolish. We're going to kill you now. Then X shows up in his form and he's like, all right, enough of this. And turns the effect off. 813 01:32:14,130 --> 01:32:14,210 Cole in the immediate area. 814 01:32:14,210 --> 01:32:15,850 Andrew Pinkston This is the real X. 815 01:32:15,850 --> 01:32:17,350 Cole Yeah, this is the real, yeah. 816 01:32:17,350 --> 01:32:17,480 Andrew Pinkston Oh. 817 01:32:17,480 --> 01:32:32,020 Cole Copy X finally bit the dust properly, and real X comes out in cyber-elf form, and in the immediate proximity of the ah ah resistance base, he exerts his power to save them from the effect. 818 01:32:32,020 --> 01:32:32,710 Andrew Pinkston okay 819 01:32:32,710 --> 01:32:43,620 Cole And so they're like, okay. ah we We need to talk. we need to We need to get this thing figured out because you need to know what you're fighting against exactly. 820 01:32:43,620 --> 01:32:53,070 Cole And they're also like, oh hey, by the way, the corrupted file's been uncorrupted. Let's take a look at it. So, back during the era of X, 821 01:32:53,070 --> 01:32:54,310 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Okay. 822 01:32:54,310 --> 01:33:13,770 Cole um they realized that the maverick virus, whether it was the sigma virus, whether it was the zero virus or whatever that it was. Whatever originated from zero needed to be stopped in some way. So zero did two things within that time frame. 823 01:33:13,770 --> 01:33:35,870 Cole He sealed his body away for research purposes to a bunch of human scientists to start doing research to see if they could basically make the the computer equivalent of a viral cure. And he had his control chip, his like processing unit, whatever made him, him, was taken out of his body in order to remove the secondary factor of his body going crazy. 824 01:33:35,870 --> 01:33:36,780 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 825 01:33:36,780 --> 01:33:47,920 Cole At this time, an unknown scientist managed to reverse engineer and create the first cyber elf known as the mother elf. 826 01:33:47,920 --> 01:33:54,800 Cole This was basically the virus made into a computer sentient computer program. 827 01:33:54,800 --> 01:33:55,270 Andrew Pinkston okay 828 01:33:55,270 --> 01:34:04,930 Cole And with a wave of its non-existent hand or whatever, it cured every single trace of the sigma virus from every single reploid in existence. 829 01:34:04,930 --> 01:34:05,860 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. All right. 830 01:34:05,860 --> 01:34:13,440 Cole they managed to figure it out. So whatever Wiley did back in 2007 or whatever was zero managed managed to get figured out. 831 01:34:13,440 --> 01:34:16,820 Andrew Pinkston Classic. 832 01:34:16,820 --> 01:34:31,100 Cole But another scientist at the time thought that it was insane that people would have gone through such lengths to cure a virus when the real answer was that reploids needed to be brought down or destroyed. 833 01:34:31,100 --> 01:34:32,800 Andrew Pinkston Hmm, huh. 834 01:34:32,800 --> 01:35:03,920 Cole So the scientists around this time created a giant reploid of his own. Dr. Weil created Omega. and the intent was for him to use Omega, was he was a Reploid in function, but he was completely 100% subservient a while, to wild two forcibly take control of the Mother Elf and use its powers in conjunction with his body to exert control over all Reploids and take them all under his control. 835 01:35:03,920 --> 01:35:11,020 Andrew Pinkston So there's like this back door through in all the reploids because of this mother elf hearing slash inoculating slash repurposing the the maverick virus, I guess. 836 01:35:11,020 --> 01:35:17,560 Cole yeah like it was the yeah so at the time he also corrupts it making it the dark elf and the biggest war the world had ever seen like i remember the last time we're talking about mega man you were like oh so this is like the post-apocalyptic future this is the post-apocalyptic future the fight the the damage and fights and events that occurred 837 01:35:17,560 --> 01:35:35,520 Andrew Pinkston So it's okay. 838 01:35:35,520 --> 01:35:41,480 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 839 01:35:41,480 --> 01:35:52,720 Cole From this elf the elf wars that x and and eventually zero was brought back to operation to fight against this thing it caused a 90 death rate of all red ploids in existence and Humanity was brought down by 60% So if we're talking what is the world population right now? 840 01:35:52,720 --> 01:36:03,890 Andrew Pinkston Oh my gosh. Hmm. 841 01:36:03,890 --> 01:36:05,410 Cole Have we finally had a billion like we should have sort like so 842 01:36:05,410 --> 01:36:08,780 Andrew Pinkston Oh yeah, yeah, we're just over it. 843 01:36:08,780 --> 01:36:12,800 Cole 60% of the current human population just gone. 844 01:36:12,800 --> 01:36:14,280 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, that's crazy. 845 01:36:14,280 --> 01:36:25,100 Cole And it was like quick. This was like if we thought, I don't know, we're going back to Gundam for a bit, but like we thought the colony drop was insane. Like this was infinitely more devastating. 846 01:36:25,100 --> 01:36:33,020 Cole The landscape was forever changed. Nature was nearly brought back to like non-existence, like absolute devastation. 847 01:36:33,020 --> 01:36:33,150 Andrew Pinkston Jeez. 848 01:36:33,150 --> 01:36:59,940 Cole So Two things had occurred at that point when they finally managed to stop Omega. They did several things. They sealed away the dark elf and split it into two halves. The baby elves, who were actually sub-control programs that were made in the image of the mother elf, like they were basically mini copies of her, while made them and they got sealed away and disappeared somewhere. 849 01:36:59,940 --> 01:37:27,870 Cole Omega was then sealed away rather than destroyed because X said, we will not kill them. We will judge them accordingly. Shoots them off into space in a giant sword-like structure. And then Dr. Weil, for his penance, was sentenced to roam the world for eternity in an immortal life, and scientists mocked him up this like regenerative suit. 850 01:37:27,870 --> 01:37:28,700 Andrew Pinkston Well, it's kind of biblical almost. 851 01:37:28,700 --> 01:37:32,750 Cole and they stuck him in it. 852 01:37:32,750 --> 01:37:33,580 Cole Oh, we're, working yeah. 853 01:37:33,580 --> 01:37:35,110 Andrew Pinkston Oh, yeah. 854 01:37:35,110 --> 01:37:47,800 Cole so we've So, but the one thing that was established is that Dr. Weil is actually a human and he's managed to survive possibly over like 100, 150, 200 years because of this regenerative suit. 855 01:37:47,800 --> 01:37:49,600 Andrew Pinkston Huh. 856 01:37:49,600 --> 01:37:50,520 Cole And so he was banished from near Arcadia. 857 01:37:50,520 --> 01:37:52,220 Andrew Pinkston Right. 858 01:37:52,220 --> 01:38:01,140 Cole I think, I believe he was sent up with Omega and cursed to roam the world forever. 859 01:38:01,140 --> 01:38:13,830 Cole So then when you think about it, it's like, yeah, this dude went freaking crazy and he wanted to get his revenge against people, except he also caused the biggest genocidal apocalyptic event ever known to man, period. 860 01:38:13,830 --> 01:38:14,010 Andrew Pinkston yeah yeah 861 01:38:14,010 --> 01:38:31,270 Cole So he still comes back and he's like, it's time to fuck this up even more. So he comes back, he manages to take the Dark Elf over, and he makes himself the uncontested leader of Nier Arcadia, both humankind and Reploidkind. 862 01:38:31,270 --> 01:38:40,820 Cole And you're like, OK, so how do we beat that? And X is like, well, we've got to go do the boss rush, and we've got to go fight Omega. 863 01:38:40,820 --> 01:38:42,790 Andrew Pinkston yeah baby more boss rush we cap comment out 864 01:38:42,790 --> 01:38:48,420 Cole One more. so So this time, you do not fight against the Guardians. 865 01:38:48,420 --> 01:38:49,100 Andrew Pinkston and 866 01:38:49,100 --> 01:39:00,610 Cole But the boss rush up to this point had been ah comprised of eight Reploids who also, they initially look human, but they transform into their animal robot forms. 867 01:39:00,610 --> 01:39:01,090 Andrew Pinkston yeah 868 01:39:01,090 --> 01:39:09,730 Cole And these eight robots, these eight replays were actually the ones that originally sentenced Wile to his exile and his unique condition. 869 01:39:09,730 --> 01:39:10,650 Andrew Pinkston yeah baby more boss rush week cap comment out 870 01:39:10,650 --> 01:39:19,610 Cole Then he came back, basically rewrote their code and sent them back out as his attack dogs. As sort of like a cruel form of punishment of like, all right, you did this to me, I'll do it back to you now. 871 01:39:19,610 --> 01:39:23,310 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. yeah Yeah, 872 01:39:23,310 --> 01:39:25,160 Cole ah And then this time you kill them and they sort of have this sort of like clarity of realizing that they were not only influenced by like the Dark Elf but while and they're like, oh We fucked up bad and they explode and you're like cool. 873 01:39:25,160 --> 01:39:35,660 Andrew Pinkston wild. 874 01:39:35,660 --> 01:39:38,890 Cole Well, huh? That's creepy and weird But there's still something that's been going on in the background the piece of of something that hasn't been quite figured out yet. 875 01:39:38,890 --> 01:39:47,770 Andrew Pinkston yeah well 876 01:39:47,770 --> 01:40:08,510 Cole And the thing was what Wiles said to Zero at the beginning of the game, you're getting pretty far on that body of yours. So you go up and you go up against Omega, and he's the most powerful he's ever been. He's got the Dark Elf boosting up his power. And Wiles like, okay, A, guess what? I'm a human being. 877 01:40:08,510 --> 01:40:19,350 Cole He's like, oh, I thought you were a Reploid. He's like, no. And he's like, cool. I'm not three. I'm not three laws compliant, by the way. I don't give a shit what you are. I'll fucking kill you. um You're like, cool, zero. That's great. 878 01:40:19,350 --> 01:40:22,230 Cole You got to fight Omega first. And then while says. 879 01:40:22,230 --> 01:40:24,650 Andrew Pinkston Interesting that that like comes up. 880 01:40:24,650 --> 01:40:58,000 Cole And then while says, um by the way, your body is a fake. It's a replica. everything Everything that you've been doing up to this point has been under the guise of you being Zero, but these foolish reploids and this foolish human truly believe that you are Zero. And Zero's like, anyway, I don't care about that. Let's fight. So this time compared to other boss fights, it's a three-boss sequence. You fight against Omega in his regular night form, and then he 881 01:40:58,000 --> 01:41:14,310 Cole gets overclocked by the elf and he becomes this giant gargantuan boss that seems to be an amalgamation of zero X and his body and he's got like cannons the size of like skyscrapers scrapers and unfortunately we hit Game Boy Advance limitations and then you realize it's actually kind of a pushover because it's just the game cannot handle anything of that size like it's 882 01:41:14,310 --> 01:41:25,280 Andrew Pinkston She is. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. 883 01:41:25,280 --> 01:41:37,150 Cole multitudes big but of course You beat, you beat second phase Omega and Zero finds himself within the ruins where he was found in the first game. 884 01:41:37,150 --> 01:41:38,440 Andrew Pinkston Whoa. 885 01:41:38,440 --> 01:41:39,710 Cole And you're like, huh, so the ah the abandoned ah yeah place where he was being sealed was actually deep, deep, deep within near Acadia the whole time. 886 01:41:39,710 --> 01:41:50,560 Andrew Pinkston Full circle. 887 01:41:50,560 --> 01:42:21,600 Cole Like, whatever's been going on here in this place has been going on for centuries and this seems to be the centerpiece of it. It's like, okay, Well, turns out, Wile did do something that we didn't know about, and as it turns out, as a flash of light appears and the remainders of Omega's body breaks apart, ah so a horned silhouette stands in the darkness, and then you realize, wait a minute, that's zero standing right in front of me. 888 01:42:21,600 --> 01:42:22,910 Andrew Pinkston Like the OG. 889 01:42:22,910 --> 01:42:27,090 Cole Like, unfortunately not the OG, not the X-Design, but it is a darker palette version of the Zero that you've been playing for the last three games. 890 01:42:27,090 --> 01:42:31,030 Andrew Pinkston Oh. 891 01:42:31,030 --> 01:42:34,480 Andrew Pinkston Oh, man. 892 01:42:34,480 --> 01:42:48,610 Cole So as it turns out, on top of While causing this huge heinous disaster, he knew that there was one single body that could act as a proper conduit for the Dark Elf, and that was Zero's original body that was sealed away. 893 01:42:48,610 --> 01:42:49,610 Andrew Pinkston oh man 894 01:42:49,610 --> 01:43:15,890 Cole So when the doctors were doing the reverse engineering of a replica body to ensure that there was no trace of the virus and they were doing the research and the control chip, like the the whatever memory chip that was zero was implanted into it, Dr. Wiles went out, took the body and put it inside Omega to act as like the firmware, the battery, the hardware to ah to be able to to handle it. 895 01:43:15,890 --> 01:43:18,170 Cole So your final boss is you. 896 01:43:18,170 --> 01:43:18,190 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 897 01:43:18,190 --> 01:43:26,070 Cole Except this dude is throwing out full charge attacks from the get-go, launching out three full charge blasts out of his cannon, and you're just like, holy holy fuck. 898 01:43:26,070 --> 01:43:26,720 Andrew Pinkston The end game sounds crazy in this this one. 899 01:43:26,720 --> 01:43:29,850 Cole Whoa, jeez. 900 01:43:29,850 --> 01:43:41,130 Cole And there's fire everywhere. Like, you were in the bowels of hell. You were fighting a mirror match of of of epic proportions. The hardest soundtrack you've ever heard, like an organ's going on in the background. 901 01:43:41,130 --> 01:43:41,190 Andrew Pinkston Well, that's cool. 902 01:43:41,190 --> 01:43:56,480 Cole Like, it is it's going. And, of course, you're not just fighting Zero. You're fighting an empowered Zero that is just the physical embodiment of everything Dr. Wily intended Zero to be initially. 903 01:43:56,480 --> 01:43:58,030 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. 904 01:43:58,030 --> 01:44:04,930 Cole But of course, at this point, you played these three games in a row. You're pretty good with the controls. You just counter everything he does. 905 01:44:04,930 --> 01:44:04,990 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 906 01:44:04,990 --> 01:44:14,060 Cole You hit him with charge attacks. You hit him with Buster shots. You've been getting all these really cool weapons in the background. You've got like, there's like these charged taunt fuzz that you have that can like, you can pogo stick off of them over enemies. 907 01:44:14,060 --> 01:44:17,640 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 908 01:44:17,640 --> 01:44:29,600 Cole And it's just, it's really cool. But finally, you land the final strike on Omega. And at this point he's called Omega Zero because, hey, mask is off, you know who you're up against. 909 01:44:29,600 --> 01:44:41,230 Cole And Zero drops down to his knees right in front of the the Omega that's on his knees too, and Omega stands up and starts getting regenerated by the Mother Elf. 910 01:44:41,230 --> 01:44:41,930 Andrew Pinkston God damn it dude. 911 01:44:41,930 --> 01:44:49,610 Cole You're like, Dammit, we're this far, are you kidding me? But who's gonna save the day? The Three Guardians. They show up for one last rodeo. 912 01:44:49,610 --> 01:44:52,990 Andrew Pinkston Oh my gosh. 913 01:44:52,990 --> 01:45:30,440 Cole Fefnir's blasting this guy with his cannons, and Harpui and Leviathan are slashing him with their weapons, and... that now the mother l ah the the dark elf pops out and realizes and and starts transforming back to her mother elf form because whatever's been going on in the background, whether it's interactions with Zero or X influencing her or whatever, she's starting to return to herself and Wiles like, no, my plans, this can't happen. And they're like, finish them off. And of course, as usual, you just go up. It's a cutscene. Like you get full control and you just go charge attack on this guy and just one shot him at the end. 914 01:45:30,440 --> 01:45:30,590 Cole And finally, 915 01:45:30,590 --> 01:45:33,030 Andrew Pinkston d 916 01:45:33,030 --> 01:45:50,220 Cole ah regardless of, you know, maybe it's hard to say what Zero's mentality is at this point, but the explosion goes off and Zero wakes up on the rooftop of the um ah resistance base. 917 01:45:50,220 --> 01:46:06,390 Cole because X, with the last of his power, carried his body back and gave a message to him and said, unfortunately, the physical anchor that kept me here is no longer present, and I can't keep going. So... 918 01:46:06,390 --> 01:46:38,130 Cole uh x fades away his powers are spent truly this time x has passed on but zero is still left remaining to fight and the mother elf has returned to the world and has moved on to somewhere else probably did hide away and zero realizes that not only was ciel ah she wasn't misguided putting her trust in him as being the original Zero regardless of his body or not like this is the guy that we played with back in like the X series and fought with like this is this is the guy but despite the fact that we're now going nearly two hours into this we're still not done because that motherfucker while is still not dead 919 01:46:38,130 --> 01:46:49,720 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, interesting. 920 01:46:49,720 --> 01:46:52,270 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, he wasn't really in ah that kerfuffle, huh? 921 01:46:52,270 --> 01:47:03,550 Cole No, and he's like, damn, all right. Well, it's a good thing I'm the leader of this giant place right now. What could I possibly do with it? So welcome to fascism part two, aka Mega Man 04. 922 01:47:03,550 --> 01:47:13,540 Cole We need to wrap this shit up because X03, like how X5 was meant to be the ending, that was supposed to wrap it all up, but they just didn't quite have the room to do it. 923 01:47:13,540 --> 01:47:16,160 Andrew Pinkston yeah Yes, okay. 924 01:47:16,160 --> 01:47:27,530 Cole So they're like, all right. one more game and this will be the definitive end of this quad trilogy. But you're like, what else can we fucking do here? 925 01:47:27,530 --> 01:47:28,090 Cole What is next? 926 01:47:28,090 --> 01:47:29,280 Andrew Pinkston the Do tell us, Capcom, what can we do? 927 01:47:29,280 --> 01:47:31,980 Cole walking 928 01:47:31,980 --> 01:48:05,940 Cole So, zero is, of course, like, the last hope we got and while is off the fucking chain humans are running away from near Arcadia in droves like actual flesh and blood humans we begin the game with a convoy of trucks driving towards this place called area zero area zero over the last hundred years has become a paradise of nature back in 929 01:48:05,940 --> 01:48:23,440 Cole Mega Man X5 during the Eurasia incident. This is what that thing is called. Reploids dropped a... um shoot. Your one Mega Man... not Mega Man. Gundam. Colony drop. 930 01:48:23,440 --> 01:48:53,260 Cole The colony dropped on Australia, except they dropped it on the planet this time. And it has its own environmental control system. And it uses the environmental control system to spontaneously create a bunch of plant life. Life was effectively coming back to the planet's surface. So the humans like, well, if we can't hide in near Arcadia and human even humans are being now ah like arrested or killed or whatever by Dr. Weil, we need to get the fuck out of here. 931 01:48:53,260 --> 01:48:53,570 Andrew Pinkston Crazy. 932 01:48:53,570 --> 01:49:20,630 Cole And so they're heading towards this area Zero plays as sort of like the last bastion of humanity. And they're being attacked, of course. So Zero has to step in on his own convoy and jump on top of all these trucks that are going like full till 100 miles an hour down this dirt track. And he's just killing all the bosses and everything. And they're like, cool. Hey, by the way, we're also racist towards Reploids. Stay the hell away from us. And he's like, OK, you guys do realize, like, 933 01:49:20,630 --> 01:49:42,920 Cole a bowl that hits you and you die, right? Like, what are you talking about? They're like, well, we can't trust you. We can't trust any Reploids because now, like, even Dr. Wiles going crazy and sicking them on all of us here. And so it's like, okay. This is kind of where the weird human element comes into play finally, despite the fact that we've had CL the whole time. So it's like, 934 01:49:42,920 --> 01:49:48,410 Cole Humans have grown to be distrustful of Reploids because of the last few years in the game. 935 01:49:48,410 --> 01:49:48,470 Andrew Pinkston Right. 936 01:49:48,470 --> 01:50:01,100 Cole X wasn't reputable despite, like, X disappeared, the copy X information got out, and then they realized that they were being lied to possibly for decades or hundreds, like, a hundred years at this point. 937 01:50:01,100 --> 01:50:12,160 Cole And then, when Dr. Weil started going all crazy and taking over and making their quality of life drop, they realized that they were basically sheep the whole time. And they're like, we don't know what's going on. We don't know the truth of anything. 938 01:50:12,160 --> 01:50:23,310 Cole And we need to figure out what's going on. Why is this happening? And how can we have our agency back? So one of the characters of this human convoy, ah her name is Nej. 939 01:50:23,310 --> 01:50:32,870 Cole She is a reporter. And sure her goal is to like go in all these places, these really highly dangerous places. She's kind of like your Louis Lane, basically. 940 01:50:32,870 --> 01:50:33,080 Andrew Pinkston who Yeah. 941 01:50:33,080 --> 01:51:01,510 Cole And she's like, well, Like, I'm gonna find out what's going on and I've already got a good start and all this other stuff and like, cool, okay. What is a camera to a gun? Are you insane right now? Like, get out of here. So Zero, it goes on these missions because Dr. Weil says, we're gonna go find these humans and we're gonna make them forced to come back to Neo Arcadia by destroying everything in Area Zero. 942 01:51:01,510 --> 01:51:13,590 Cole So how does he do this? He sends out eight Reploids called the Ein... shoot. The Ein... what are the Norse names? Einherar or whatever? 943 01:51:13,590 --> 01:51:15,380 Cole it's It's like full Norse mythology at this point. 944 01:51:15,380 --> 01:51:15,470 Andrew Pinkston Oh, yes. 945 01:51:15,470 --> 01:51:38,260 Cole yeah The warriors, they're like the Valkyries. they're called like they're So they all go to all these places controlling like the the environmental control systems to like freeze things over, set things on fire, have perpetual lightning storms, anything that would destroy this paradise and send these humans back under the regime and everything. 946 01:51:38,260 --> 01:51:52,640 Cole And so Zero goes out to fight them. um Then Zero meets this guy called Kraft. He's a battle military reploid who has like a gun and combat knives and he's like kind of he he's pretty cool and he's actually one of the tougher bosses of the game at this point if you thought you could have like you thought you had you sometimes have like iframes and stuff his stuff like pierces through it if you happen to have that type of effect like this dude's a badass 947 01:51:52,640 --> 01:52:10,400 Andrew Pinkston looks pretty huh wild 948 01:52:10,400 --> 01:52:23,690 Cole But then he sees Nage and he's like, what the fuck are you doing here? And Cyril's like, what the fuck does that mean? What do you mean? And then Kraft takes Nage and disappears. And it's like, what what the fuck is going on with this? 949 01:52:23,690 --> 01:52:23,830 Cole And the humans are like, oh, hey, by the way, you gotta to go savor. 950 01:52:23,830 --> 01:52:25,860 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 951 01:52:25,860 --> 01:52:39,620 Cole And it's like, but we're reploids. And they're like, yeah, but like, we kind of like her and we're starting to respect you and blah, blah, blah. So Neige and Kraft have a romance between each other, a robot and a person, real bicentennial man situation here. 952 01:52:39,620 --> 01:52:41,250 Andrew Pinkston oh Nice. 953 01:52:41,250 --> 01:52:42,200 Cole um So Kraft is realizing that he doesn't have to have a life of being just a machine that fights, and Neige realizes that humans and reploids aren't actually that dissimilar at this point. 954 01:52:42,200 --> 01:52:55,340 Andrew Pinkston Nice. 955 01:52:55,340 --> 01:53:02,950 Cole If you didn't know any better, they're basically one-to-one in terms of like real life, morality, conscience, all this other stuff. 956 01:53:02,950 --> 01:53:06,590 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, like they've evolved. 957 01:53:06,590 --> 01:53:21,790 Cole But they thought they'd had to break up because Kraft was still following Weil's orders with no real reason to do it. And Kraft at this point is realizing the way Zero fights for these people and everything that's been going on with the destruction of Area Zero. 958 01:53:21,790 --> 01:53:39,920 Cole Kraft's like, I've made a mistake. I gotta go correct it. So, Weil says, hey, so, while you've been playing ball with all of my robots, I'm gonna fire a death laser from space. 959 01:53:39,920 --> 01:53:41,080 Andrew Pinkston Okay. No more nukes. 960 01:53:41,080 --> 01:53:47,210 Cole You're like, wait, what? We're skipping past the newt part. We're going with like, microwave laser from space. 961 01:53:47,210 --> 01:53:47,910 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 962 01:53:47,910 --> 01:53:54,130 Cole So, he had made a flying space station called Ragnarok, 963 01:53:54,130 --> 01:53:55,740 Andrew Pinkston Nice. 964 01:53:55,740 --> 01:53:56,020 Cole and we're still, yeah, we're going full tilt, like we're taking all the Norse mythology stuff. 965 01:53:56,020 --> 01:54:01,870 Andrew Pinkston He's on the Viking theme still. 966 01:54:01,870 --> 01:54:26,540 Cole I don't, I think there was a Yggdrasil somewhere in here, I can't really remember, blah blah blah. So he fires the Razor in area zero as a warning shot. he says okay well if you keep this up i'm gonna fire it again and you won't have much of a choice and everyone's like okay um how the fuck do we get to space like we can't do that just yet um and then just when you think everything's over like the humans are protected like they got removed somewhere the laser fires again but this time the laser fires on neo-arcadia 967 01:54:26,540 --> 01:54:35,640 Andrew Pinkston Huh. 968 01:54:35,640 --> 01:54:41,920 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Yeah. Jeez. 969 01:54:41,920 --> 01:54:43,120 Andrew Pinkston well okay 970 01:54:43,120 --> 01:54:53,380 Cole and we're talking about again another population of like millions possibly billions of people in this mega city cyberpunk dystopian future place so the laser fires and kills like millions of people and you're like why did wile do that like is he already going off the chain and they're like 971 01:54:53,380 --> 01:55:05,820 Andrew Pinkston yeah ge 972 01:55:05,820 --> 01:55:10,010 Cole ah We just got word that that was ah Kraft who shot the laser. 973 01:55:10,010 --> 01:55:10,160 Andrew Pinkston Huh. 974 01:55:10,160 --> 01:55:18,470 Cole You're just like, what the fuck? So he communicates with ah the resistance and is like, I have to kill Wylde. That's why I shot. 975 01:55:18,470 --> 01:55:18,560 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 976 01:55:18,560 --> 01:55:21,670 Cole And you know what? It didn't fucking work. 977 01:55:21,670 --> 01:55:21,870 Andrew Pinkston Oh, cool. 978 01:55:21,870 --> 01:55:36,100 Cole But he was going to try and do it again because this guy, this robot that's so desperate to have some sense of control, thought it didn't matter the casualties as long as Wylde died. ah Unfortunately, it failed, and so Zero, using cyberspace, was digitally transferred himself physically into digital space, beamed himself up through the digital network as like a signal into the base, fought craft, and you're like, great. 979 01:55:36,100 --> 01:55:50,430 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 980 01:55:50,430 --> 01:55:58,740 Cole Okay, destroy the control panel, we're good to go. And then you hear Dr. Weil laughing through the microphone. 981 01:55:58,740 --> 01:55:58,760 Andrew Pinkston okay 982 01:55:58,760 --> 01:56:16,400 Cole And he's like, I'm here too, bitch. I survived. And you know what? where I got you exactly where I wanted you. And you're like, oh crap. So now it's zero versus while all juiced up with the technology that Ragnarok has to offer. 983 01:56:16,400 --> 01:56:23,110 Cole He's fully armored. He can teleport around. For ah for an old guy who's like part, like he's an android or a, or, uh, no, that's not the right word. 984 01:56:23,110 --> 01:56:27,180 Andrew Pinkston Okay. Cyborg. 985 01:56:27,180 --> 01:56:32,210 Cole Cyborg, like the most juiced up old man Cyborg you've ever seen in your life, puts Robocop to shame, just starts teleporting around, summoning old ah robots from games past in the Zero series to like fight you and you're like, he fuses with ah like a weapon system and you kill him and he disappears off the screen and you're like, 986 01:56:32,210 --> 01:56:40,040 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. 987 01:56:40,040 --> 01:56:50,240 Andrew Pinkston Of course. Jeez. 988 01:56:50,240 --> 01:57:13,740 Cole ah Okay, and then Ragnarok starts to explode and Zero's suddenly standing outside of the, like on the roof of it. You can see the horizon of the atmosphere in the background. Wires are flickering out in space as it's rushing towards Earth and Zero's like, 989 01:57:13,740 --> 01:57:40,350 Cole Okay, so all we need to do is like blow up the core and then we'll we ah have Ragnarok break up in the atmosphere. Easy peasy. But of course, no one can stay down and you hear a while laughing as his broken body flies back up from the depths and he's like, I'm not done with you bet yet. We're coming down with me as we descend on area zero, causing another apocalypse now moment. 990 01:57:40,350 --> 01:57:44,910 Cole And then you see two minutes and 30 seconds pop up on your screen as as as these pipes start flowing into the back of Wile's broken body, and he fuses with the engine core of Ragnarok. 991 01:57:44,910 --> 01:57:56,370 Andrew Pinkston oh no it's all a metro ah and so 992 01:57:56,370 --> 01:58:08,660 Cole He is the most mix of like machine and weird flesh, as you've ever did seen, and he's just like, let's let's fucking dance, Zero, at the end of our time. 993 01:58:08,660 --> 01:58:12,210 Cole ah as ah this heartbreaking kick-ass theme pops to the background and you've got two minutes and 30 seconds to go through three full health bar equivalents of while as you're descending in the atmosphere. 994 01:58:12,210 --> 01:58:19,850 Andrew Pinkston Oh no. It's all on Metroid. 995 01:58:19,850 --> 01:58:22,540 Andrew Pinkston Oh my gosh. 996 01:58:22,540 --> 01:58:50,850 Cole And at this whole time, CL's like, you gotta get off, and Zero's like, no chance. I got no chance. If I don't stop this, everyone's dead, including me. So... you beat the clock, you have wild blow up in his engine, and Ragnarok breaks up in the atmosphere, and Zero fades into the white light in red of ah but burning pieces, and that's it. 997 01:58:50,850 --> 01:58:52,200 Andrew Pinkston goes with them. 998 01:58:52,200 --> 01:58:54,070 Cole He goes down with the ship. 999 01:58:54,070 --> 01:58:54,350 Andrew Pinkston Oh, whoa. 1000 01:58:54,350 --> 01:59:05,530 Cole CL and the Resistance run out. They see shooting stars, the broken pieces of Ragnarok flying through the atmosphere, but there's no radio connection with zero, nothing, just... 1001 01:59:05,530 --> 01:59:14,440 Andrew Pinkston What a weird appendix. It felt like it ended really good on the third one, but then you get out here and you're like, this just feels like an ex, like the DLC to the third one, you know? 1002 01:59:14,440 --> 01:59:51,890 Cole Yeah. um And then at the very end of the game, the credits roll and you see the ah crater with the rising sun in the background and the broken helmet of Zero in the rubble. He effectively, 100%, totally definitely has died saving humanity against Wile's original intentions. If anything, after the whole trilogy of classic X and now Zero, despite everything Dr. Riley intended back 200, 300 years beforehand, it wasn't 1003 01:59:51,890 --> 01:59:56,480 Cole ah lights creation that ended up saving humanity, it was zero. 1004 01:59:56,480 --> 01:59:59,990 Andrew Pinkston Jeez. That's pretty cool. 1005 01:59:59,990 --> 02:00:16,330 Cole um And yeah, you you end the game, Zero's story is finally over, they're both at rest, both him and X are at peace, and we definitely totally didn't get a sequel. 1006 02:00:16,330 --> 02:00:20,390 Andrew Pinkston we deaf therere I'm going to type in MegaMan05 right quick. Let's see if he's telling the truth. 1007 02:00:20,390 --> 02:00:28,160 Cole ah Hey, I would like you to type in Mega Man ZX cuz we're going full Power Rangers, baby. We're fucking It's not over you just can't keep a good guy down forever Don't worry about it 1008 02:00:28,160 --> 02:00:45,920 Andrew Pinkston ZX. Oh my God. Oh my God. What the hell is this? MegaMan0 ZX Legacy Collection. so I guess both of these are available, right? like 1009 02:00:45,920 --> 02:00:54,800 Cole Yeah, it is a bundle deal. What ended up happening was, you know, Cash Cow new game system was coming out called the DS. 1010 02:00:54,800 --> 02:00:55,230 Andrew Pinkston Mm hmm. 1011 02:00:55,230 --> 02:00:58,580 Cole And so they realized they can make a couple extra sequels out of it. 1012 02:00:58,580 --> 02:00:58,590 Cole And that was a sequel. It was supposed to be a sequel trilogy, but it only got it caught off on the second game. And it's a little unfortunate, but oh well, it is what it is. 1013 02:00:58,590 --> 02:01:05,770 Andrew Pinkston Cash come. 1014 02:01:05,770 --> 02:01:09,500 Andrew Pinkston Ran out of gas. 1015 02:01:09,500 --> 02:01:24,310 Cole But yeah, like Mega Man Zero was, despite the fact how the fourth game, yes, did kind of feel very abrupt. And I probably skipped a lot of details, like how CL might have been the descendant of the scientist that made Zero's body 200 years beforehand. 1016 02:01:24,310 --> 02:01:25,620 Andrew Pinkston OK. That's cool. 1017 02:01:25,620 --> 02:01:38,350 Cole and ah possibly that Wily somehow converted his will into an AI that became the maverick virus that was in Zero. 1018 02:01:38,350 --> 02:01:38,440 Andrew Pinkston Oh. 1019 02:01:38,440 --> 02:01:53,250 Cole um There's a lot of stuff in the background that went on this these games. And then of course, um Capcom's like, hey, can you make X6 through 8? And then Nifune is like, oh, for God's sakes, maybe. 1020 02:01:53,250 --> 02:02:03,530 Cole Um, but yeah, like, and also this is rated like E 10. And I'm like, you literally just talked about like a 90% death rate of a, of a race of beings and like, uh, uh, unknown destruction. 1021 02:02:03,530 --> 02:02:08,650 Andrew Pinkston Right, billions of people. 1022 02:02:08,650 --> 02:02:15,200 Cole I'm like, this is not a kid's game. Who who said that? But yeah, Mega Man, Mega Man zero is pretty fucking cool. 1023 02:02:15,200 --> 02:02:25,720 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, it is. quick It's yeah way deeper than I thought it was. Like I played the first one for a little bit, like I said, kind of handed it over. If you only look at the art, it looks kind of. But it seems like it's. 1024 02:02:25,720 --> 02:02:27,370 Cole it's ah It's a little different, right? 1025 02:02:27,370 --> 02:02:35,140 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, it is way different, way different. Definitely a darker tone, though, to it because I've been like flip it. Yeah, honestly, like it's it's definitely. 1026 02:02:35,140 --> 02:02:35,380 Cole if you If you take a look at the artwork, there's like a there's something called the Mega Man Zero Complete Works and it goes in the background of like concept art and lore stuff in behind the scenes and like what was X doing and what was the trade-off point between X and Copy X and where did CL get involved in all this? 1027 02:02:35,380 --> 02:02:53,990 Andrew Pinkston like 1028 02:02:53,990 --> 02:02:54,260 Andrew Pinkston me 1029 02:02:54,260 --> 02:03:08,770 Cole The who's the who? in you learn that like some characters also did like bombing runs and all this other stuff like the most egregious war crimes you could think of and you're like in this little pixelated game are you are you kidding me this is the gay boy advance man and and 1030 02:03:08,770 --> 02:03:15,660 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, wild, how much? so You can tell they put some like effort into it for real. It's just so crazy that like 1031 02:03:15,660 --> 02:03:30,020 Cole And Indie Creates then went on, like they were the company that made the four games. They made Mega Man, ZX, and ZX Advent. And then they made their own spin-off series called Azure Striker Gunvaults. 1032 02:03:30,020 --> 02:03:30,150 Andrew Pinkston what okay 1033 02:03:30,150 --> 02:03:57,200 Cole And they're all about that time attack, side-scrolling platformer, shoot-em-up genre. um dave They've made a lot of cool games. They're kind of a little quirky and weird though when you look more into their stuff, but they nailed. They nailed the lore, presentation, the gameplay. Everything about Zero could not be what it was if it wasn't for this company. 1034 02:03:57,200 --> 02:04:09,700 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, I really enjoyed that. That was pretty wild. I did not expect to have that level of depth. The Game Boy Advance was a ah good console, man. They had some really crazy banger games on it. 1035 02:04:09,700 --> 02:04:11,720 Cole yeah ah if If I could put two games on the top of the list that made me break my Game Boy Advance, like the right ah the right on the D-pad and the R-tricker, would be because of Mega Man Zero 2 and Mega Man Battle Network 6. 1036 02:04:11,720 --> 02:04:15,650 Andrew Pinkston It was a... 1037 02:04:15,650 --> 02:04:24,730 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 1038 02:04:24,730 --> 02:04:26,380 Andrew Pinkston yeah 1039 02:04:26,380 --> 02:04:29,610 Cole Those were the games that I played the absolute shit out of. 1040 02:04:29,610 --> 02:04:33,770 Andrew Pinkston Yeah. Yeah. And they were kind of coming out in tandem, right? Like these, these theories. 1041 02:04:33,770 --> 02:05:03,730 Cole Yeah, so like they go hand in hand. And then, of course, like kind of to wrap everything up kind of all together, because ah Nintendo's like, hey, here's all these e-reader cards and all these event things and all this other stuff. um In Mega Man Battle Network, you could find references to Mega Man Zero. One of the battleships that you could use, like the the card that you could use, was a card called the Z Saber that defected the silhouette of Zero. 1042 02:05:03,730 --> 02:05:04,580 Andrew Pinkston Oh, cool. 1043 02:05:04,580 --> 02:05:04,810 Cole And then in Mega Man 0.3, if you use the e-reader cards, you could summon Mega Man battle network enemies in the cyberspace areas that you would go to. 1044 02:05:04,810 --> 02:05:17,490 Andrew Pinkston That's very cool. 1045 02:05:17,490 --> 02:05:18,220 Andrew Pinkston Huh. 1046 02:05:18,220 --> 02:05:22,910 Cole And so you'd have like all their little side-scrolling enemies there doing the exact same stuff that they were doing in the battle network series. 1047 02:05:22,910 --> 02:05:24,090 Andrew Pinkston Just a little crossover. 1048 02:05:24,090 --> 02:05:30,270 Cole And yeah, and because, you know hey, same company, Nintendo's like, here's a gimmick, do the gimmick. And Capcom's like, yeah, OK, cool. 1049 02:05:30,270 --> 02:05:38,100 Andrew Pinkston Yeah, they liked doing that, right? like What is it? Oracle Ages and Oracle Seasons had like, yeah, yeah they were doing a bit of those. 1050 02:05:38,100 --> 02:05:43,800 Cole why where where's the or Where's that Oracle bundle? That would be a cool thing for Nintendo to release. But ah yeah, so the Mega Man Battle Network Collection and the Mega Man Zero ZX Collection are available for out there. 1051 02:05:43,800 --> 02:05:53,300 Andrew Pinkston I bet they will. 1052 02:05:53,300 --> 02:05:58,440 Cole Or you know you can, like I don't know, get an emulator, a Game Boy Advance emulator, and play those things. 1053 02:05:58,440 --> 02:05:58,520 Andrew Pinkston I just get it. 1054 02:05:58,520 --> 02:06:02,240 Cole But you want it on the big screen? That'd be they'd be the way to do it. 1055 02:06:02,240 --> 02:06:05,290 Andrew Pinkston That's the way I'd do it. I wonder how it'd look, like the fidelity they're bringing it up. 1056 02:06:05,290 --> 02:06:08,290 Cole It actually, oh, it's crisp. It's actually really good. I played it on PC. 1057 02:06:08,290 --> 02:06:09,590 Andrew Pinkston Okay. 1058 02:06:09,590 --> 02:06:18,630 Cole ah They have like a bunch of filters, a bunch of settings. They have their own little time attack multiplayer thing where you and a friend of yours can like race against each other, like not in the same thing, but you have like a ghost that you kind of like follow. 1059 02:06:18,630 --> 02:06:23,730 Andrew Pinkston Hell yeah. That's cool. 1060 02:06:23,730 --> 02:06:33,690 Cole And yeah, they, they souped it up. They really did their work and getting collection out there. And then they somehow even managed to make the DS games that are part of the ZX collection to work on a single screen. 1061 02:06:33,690 --> 02:06:38,090 Andrew Pinkston Hmm. That's sick. Oh yeah. Cause yeah, DS was the dual screen. I forgot about that. 1062 02:06:38,090 --> 02:06:40,610 Cole The dual screen, yeah. 1063 02:06:40,610 --> 02:06:45,570 Andrew Pinkston Well, thanks for doing that call. That was pretty wild. yeah Good Lord. Holy smokes. 1064 02:06:45,570 --> 02:06:48,700 Cole Thanks for my two-hour TED Talk. 1065 02:06:48,700 --> 02:06:50,620 Andrew Pinkston There's just a ton of lore there. That's pretty cool. 1066 02:06:50,620 --> 02:06:50,990 Cole oh and All because Dr. 1067 02:06:50,990 --> 02:06:55,500 Andrew Pinkston 400 years later, 400 years later, 200 years later. 1068 02:06:55,500 --> 02:06:56,800 Cole Light didn't get any puss. 1069 02:06:56,800 --> 02:06:57,800 Andrew Pinkston yeah That's the, that's the clincher.