The Mega Man 11 Name Game

As the release of Mega Man 11 draws ever nearer, Capcom has been revealing the identities of the eight new Robot Masters one by one, but we now know who the two remaining bots are. Er, maybe.

Thanks to some datamining and a tweet from @OtherEhm on Twitter, it appears that the remaining two Robot Masters may be known as “Acid Man” and “Tundra Man.”

Except that they also may not.

The accuracy here seems likely, as the tweet was made two days ago, and also revealed Rubber Man before his official announcement yesterday.

“Wait, ‘Rubber who?'” you might be asking.

That’s the thing here: It seems that Capcom is making a most unusual move with Mega Man 11 by changing the names of some of the Robot Masters as they look to bring the title to audiences around the world.

In addition to Rubber/Bounce Man, the recently-revealed Impact Man is also known as Pile Man in Japan, according to the official Rockman 11 website. As such, it’s possible that Tundra Man and/or Acid Man (the latter seems especially likely) could also see name changes for the western version of the game as well.

Of course, this isn’t altogether unheard of — at least, not in the larger Mega Man franchise. While main characters see name changes quite often, Robot Masters are usually left alone in this regard.

On the other hand, we all know that Mavericks are another story entirely, as Mega Man X5‘s eight monikers were changed to make them a Guns ‘n Roses tribute band. This exception is what makes things all the stranger in this Classic series installment, though, as Capcom saw fit to walk things back with the release of Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2, “to better align the naming of the Mega Man X5 Mavericks across all regions for better narrative cohesion across the series, making the names more aligned with the original Japanese version release.”

Of course, unlike those name changes, these still fit in nicely with the naming convention of all the other 80+ Robot Masters. Had nothing been said, would you have even suspected anything?

Nonetheless, it does beg the question of why they didn’t just go with the western names all around, rather than potentially incite another round of “his real name is ____!” arguments among the fans.

Source: OtherEhm, via GoNintendo and Midori

LBD "Nytetrayn"

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

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