Getting Past Bad Early Impressions

As we near the 30th anniversary of Mega Man X, I wanted to take a moment to talk about one of my first encounters with this version of the Blue Bomber, as well as others, and how first impressions aren’t always the right impression.

They say you should never judge a book by its cover, and while it’s true, it can be hard to get past that. After all, a cover is there to make a first impression, to compel you to invest your time, energy, and perhaps even your money into whatever it is they’re trying to sell you on.

And let’s face it, if anyone should be well-versed in not judging something by its cover, it’s Mega Man fans. After all, back in the day, a lot of people were introduced to the series by first encountering one of these:

But as time wore on, box art would not be the first impression a game might make on a person — at least, not the hardcore enthusiasts. For those people, there would be video game magazines, which would in turn open the door for video game websites to let people see what they could expect from an upcoming title well before a piece of package art would be decided on.

Earlier this year, I talked about how I saw the transition from the Classic series to the X series at the time. However… there was a piece of the story I left out.

Somewhere along the timeline of pre-release hype for Mega Man X, there was an image of X which started to get passed around:

I’ll make no bones about it: As a kid, I did not like this image of X. For starters, I’ll note that this was still during the period where it was commonly believed that Mega Man and Mega Man X were the same guy. And as a portrayal of one of my favorite robot heroes, this just felt like too much. Too different, too fast. “Not my Mega Man,” you might say.

I don’t think I liked the mask, and I wasn’t fond of how the eyes were done, either, what with lacking whites and all. And while I’ve grown to like more detail in things sometimes, the design just felt too busy to me. Or maybe not busy enough? For all that detail, and there was only like, two colors outside of what little of his face we could see, making it easy for a lot of it to be lost in there.

Kind of makes me wonder how Kid Me would have reacted if Zero had been the hero instead, as originally intended. Maybe better; at least then, it would seem more clear that it was supposed to be a different guy.

Now, it wasn’t uncommon for magazines back then to use their own in-house artists to produce their own art, often with some neat results, rather than use whatever was (or perhaps more likely, wasn’t) available from press kits of the time. But I knew this couldn’t be one of those, because both EGM and GamePro (and maybe others) were featuring it:

Curiously, I don’t think it’s ever been featured in any Japanese art books or guides — at least, not the Mega Man X Official Complete Works, that I saw. That leaves the question of where it came from.

That was pretty much the only art we had of the game, while everything else was screenshots. I started to wonder if I was going to like this game, at least as a Mega Man game, after all.

But as the release drew ever closer, more images came to the fore. We got to see X, in the true blue, unmasked form we all know and love, and the finished version of the First Armor, now in a full spectrum of colors, as well as how one would gradually transition into becoming the other by upgrading his parts. This, I was much more into.

Side note: Yes, I know X gets a similar mask with the Shadow Armor. Yes, it is awesome, but that’s also a specially-themed armor and, as we would know by this point, only temporary.

Eventually, the day came. I bought it. I played it. I loved it. And it stands to me as one of the best games in the Mega Man franchise of all time.

It wouldn’t be the last time I’d have some doubts upon looking at a Mega Man game, though.

Unfortunately, my memory is a little foggy as to what my first exposure to Mega Man Legends — formerly Mega Man Nova for like a week, and Mega Man Neo before that — was. This was during the rise of the internet, after all, and new information was coming from all sorts of various directions.

That aside, I do remember the first time that really stuck. It was in the November 1997 issue of PSM, the unofficial PlayStation Magazine (the one with Zero and MegaMan Volnutt on the cover).

I think I remember some confusion, because while Volnutt had a helmet on the cover, the first image of him on the inside looked like this:

No helmet. None in any of the screenshots, either. That made me a little uncertain about this new Blue Bomber, who was a little better established at the outset as being a new Mega Man this time around.

Fortunately, my fears were soon allayed. Further in the article was a picture of Volnutt with his helmet, and a caption pointed out that you could put it on and take it off as you please. I thought that was really cool, though I also thought that with all those buttons on a PlayStation controller, maybe one would be dedicated to having it form and, er, unform around his head. You know, like in the intro for Mega Man 2.

I know there’s a little contention about whether he should wear the helmet or not, but keep in mind: with the exception of those in the Battle Network universe, a Mega Man’s helmet is basically his symbol, like the bat or big “S” on Batman or Superman’s chests. And it’s not like I don’t like a helmetless Mega Man; I still really hope I can manage to get my hands on the Kotobukiya Mega Man 11 model kit for that very reason, since he can have it both ways.

As for Mega Man Legends, I wear the helmet while in serious battle or in ruins, and take it off when I’m running around town and such. Yeah, a button would make that easier, but I’m just that dedicated to the bit that I do it anyway.

All that stuff aside, I was unsure about some other things, like the general aesthetics of the armor and the “LEGO men” and other strange things. But I remembered my initial misgivings about Mega Man X, and decided to wait it out and see for myself.

Suffice to say, I’m very glad that I did. I tried an imported demo disc of Rockman DASH at my local Microplay, and even in Japanese I couldn’t read or understand, I fell in love instantly.

Fast-forward a few more years, and it was time for yet another new Mega Man series. And once again, my first glimpse of the main character left me feeling a bit uncertain…

I don’t remember precisely where I first saw the image of what would come to be known as Mega Man Battle Network — I thought it was IGN, but their archives don’t seem to back that up at all. So maybe it was this scan of CoroCoro that first brought it to my attention. Or another comic or magazine someone scanned in back when that was still an elite thing to be able to do. But I do remember it was that very image.

It wasn’t the greatest first impression. I didn’t really mind most of it — it’s a pretty cool design, after all. But here we go with the mask again, though I think I was more averse to the art style in general. That is, the odd posture shown here, and the neck just felt unusually long to me… at least at the time.

But again, I remembered the first time I saw art of X, and put those thoughts aside. Soon enough, my concerns would prove to be unfounded — the actual character art used for most of the series was pretty dang slick, and the mask only came out for battle, as a rule. Heck, if anything, it felt like MegaMan.EXE didn’t wear the mask enough, at least in the anime that would soon follow. And it was kind of weird that he was the only one to wear one, at that.

It’s funny how opinions can change over time.

Anyway, I’ve kept that moment in time with me all of my life, particularly when something new with Mega Man comes up. I remember how I just wasn’t into how the hero looked in what would become one of my favorite games of all time, and if I’d somehow managed to follow through on that feeling, what I could have missed out on. And I always try to remind myself not to let first impressions color my opinion on something, because while it might look weird or contrary to what I think my tastes are, everything that comes after can still be pretty damn good.

Happy 30th, X! And happy 36th, Mega Man! And just the whole dang lot of you!

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GamePro, EGM, and PSM images via Retromags. CoroCoro Comics scan via Protodude’s Rockman Corner.