The Let's Play Archive

Mega Man Zero 1

by Simply Simon

Part 1: Opening Post continued: Facts and Characters

Mega Man Zero Opening Post: Characteristics




A New Page Turned [Opening Thoughts on Zero 1]


Basic Facts


Links


Cast

Zero: Our protagonist who we'll play as. He's a robot, which would make people in his universe assume he's a Reploid, named so because pretty much every robot is a replica ripped off from Mega Man X's original blueprints. Zero's uniquely built, though, by long-dead Dr. Wily of Mega Man classic antagonist fame. In the past, he and X teamed up under the banner of the Maverick Hunters to fights rogue Reploids (the Mavericks), which is what happened in the X games. A whole lot of other things, mostly stupid, went down. At the beginning of this game, Zero is awakened by Ciel from a long sleep in an abandoned laboratory. This conveniently led him to forget everything stupid that went down, making him pretty much a blank slate. His deeds are still famous, and he's considered a legend, though.
His personality could probably be summed up with „stoic badass“. He's not a robot of many words. Unless something really drastic happens, he'll probably just shrug anything off without much comment. When Ciel asks him to help, he'll often do it without complaint or comment; as such, his motivation is pretty much left entirely in the dark. One can only assume that Zero operates under a strong sense of duty: He sees a cause worth fighting for, and just does what needs to be done. In order to do so, he's not afraid to disobey orders. As he has little qualms to kill anyone standing in his way and violence is his usual method of dealing with a problem, he's definitely got a dark side to him. I already wrote about ten times as much about him than he has lines in the game; he's pretty one-dimensional, but doesn't need more depth really, as most of the plot is about the people he interacts with, not him personally.


Resistance

Ciel: She's a very bright and accomplished scientist even at the young at of 14, which has an explanation in-universe along the lines of „genetically altered“ and „ancestors who also excelled at what she does“, but is probably better summed up with „Japan“. Most of her backstory isn't in the game, but it doesn't matter overly much, browsing the Mega Man Knowledge Base a little will probably tell you more than you ever want to know. For this and the following games, all that's important is her role as the main woman telling Zero what to do. She awakened him in the first place with a plea for help, as the resistance faction led by her had some major problems with not getting wiped out completely. She's pretty timid and shy, yet has strong beliefs and ideals. She's also pretty naive, though, which leads to her making some pretty serious mistakes at points, the most grave we're going to find about far later. Ciel is also French for „sky“, by the way; most names in the series are French, for some reason.

Passy: Passy is a Cyber-Elf, which are being made of „pure energy“ who have conscious thought and intelligence, yet are made with the intention of being sacrificed to perform a minor task. That's...needlessly cruel, and will get touched upon a few times by the game, yet never explained. She obviously had become a friend for Ciel, so when she sacrifices herself doing exactly what she was built for, the absurdity of giving your throwaway machines a personality is immediately apparent.

Cerveau: His name means "intelligence", fitting (and not very creative) for an engineer. He supplies Zero with weapons, two of them, to be exact. Other than that, his role is pretty limited, as is his personality. The only thing one could learn from his optional dialogue is that he's rather unsure of himself and his scientific prowess, though he gets inspired by Zero, mostly to research more cool stuff for him to use. That's fine.

Andrew: He doesn't have a French name, as he and his story of love, loss and interspecies relationships is a reference to Bicentennial Man, where the main character is also named Andrew. He's an old Reploid not only in appearance (as that is usually fixed), but generally. Done a lot in his time. Now he's become a little senile and never quite gets that Zero is a fated hero, which is refreshing. He just wants him to try his best and kick many butts. Andrew is great.

Dande: He got his name from Ciel, and it means nothing I could find. Fits his role in the story. Mainly there to admire Zero and bemoan his own uselessness.

Alouette: Ciel also named her, but contrary to Dande, picked the French translation of "lark" from the dictionary. Alouette is a little girl Reploid who's very close to Ciel, who is like a mother or big sister to her, and in turn, Alouette helps Ciel a lot to not despair because the situation is so shitty. She's got a lot of pretty sweet lines, as she also cares a lot about Cyber Elves and wonders why they have to die, which is very sensible. In particular, she cares about the baby Elf missing from Ciel's room...after Zero steals it, which you can do if you're Rank A or S. Alouette dreams of being a scientist like Ciel and study Elves when she grows up...which is impossible as she's a Reploid and won't age. Yeah, she's a little depressing to talk to.

Hibou: The "owl" is a useless fat fuck who is just there to be in the way. He likes eating Energy Crystals and claims that he can't really be faulted for being like he is as he was built fat and will stay that way. Just wants Zero to be his friend, ultimately. Shouldn't have extorted so many Crystals from us just to move his ass then.

Milan: Probably the most competent of the resistance members. As such, he promptly gets killed in the introduction. Shame, really. His name means "kite" (the bird).


Neo Arcadia

I'll go into more detail on those four, the "Guardians", once more of the story is known.

Sage Harpuia is lightning-affiliated, likes to fly around and uses two beam sabers. He is the calm and collected leader of the Guardians.

Fighting Fefnir is fire-elemental, with two huge guns and an attitude. He's about as stereotypical I LOVE BATTLE ARGH as his name and element suggest.

Faerie Leviathan on the other hand isn't a fragile little doll, or an aloof ice queen following her affiliation; she's easily as eager to duke things out as Fefnir, and might be even more unhinged than he. Uses a spear in combat.

Hidden Phantom screams "mystery oooh" and doesn't give a fuck, evoking memories of classic Proto Man. He doesn't have an element and is a goddamn Ninja, go guess his attack style.


???

Mystery Voice: Appears on a computer screen and gives Zero his signature weapon...downloaded from the internet or something? Identity so far unconfirmed, but maybe the symbol he uses can provide a little hint...