Character Spotlight: Megaman

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Name: Megaman

Archetype: Fighter

Class: Weapons Master

Game(s): Various Megaman series, various fighting games, Capcom cameos

Skills/Attributes:

• Able to absorb defeated foes’ powers and weapons
• Able to learn and use new abilities from upgrade stations/programs
• Skilled in various energy weapons and projectiles
• Extremely agile (especially with upgrades)
• Resourceful
• Determined

Overview:

Megaman is a powerful robot (or robot program, depending on what games you’re playing) with the ability to absorb fallen foes’ abilities.  He has a signature arm cannon, which can adapt to different types of projectiles, shield, and programs picked up from various upgrade pods, bosses, and parts.  With these skills and his generally well-rounded combat applications, Megaman falls within the Fighter archetype, with a class of Weapons Master.

Megaman has been a highly requested character in the lifespan of the blog, but he comes with his own special challenges.  Characters like Samus Aran and Master Chief are difficult because a lot of their abilities come from their Power Suits.  Megaman is even more difficult in this respect, as he’s a completely inorganic character.  He gains strength in ways that we, as organic constructs, honestly can’t.  We aren’t capable of instantly downloading new upgrades or skills, as we need to build our bodies into what we want them to be over time.

That said, we’re going to do our best to emulate the ultimate Super Fighting Robot!

In The Megaman Workout, we’re going to look to build a strong, agile, and well-rounded physical base for ourselves.  Megaman isn’t really known for feats of raw strength, necessarily, so we’re not going to look to build a huge physique or massive power.  Instead, we want to build a body that’s adaptable, well-rounded, and able to attempt basically any physical pursuit one could desire.  One of the things we’re going to focus on more than usual is flexibility and range of motion, as these things are invaluable when learning new abilities and keeping yourself safe from injury.

In The Skills of Megaman we’re first going to look at Megaman’s combat style.  Now, if this were Zero, we’d have an easier time, as his propensity towards more traditional weapons means he’s easily translatable into the real world.  Unfortunately, Megaman’s blaster doesn’t even act like a normal gun, nevermind his myriad special abilities from various robot bosses.  Instead, we’re going to look at general combat adaptability.  After combat style, we’re going to investigate some of Megaman’s non-combat abilities.  Finally, we’re going to look at how to properly absorb and quickly learn a new skill set, which is arguably Megaman’s strongest and most well-known skill.

The Mind of Megaman is going to be an interesting post.  As a simple platformer, the Megaman games may not seem to have much psychological depth.  When you think about it, however, across all the games, Megaman’s main purpose is to actually kill malformed versions of his own kind.  He’s been tasked with rooting out rogue robots, programs, and machines, where humans could not.  It’s not like he’s an unfeeling machine, either.  Megaman’s been shown to have sentience, a conscience, and genuine emotions.  What sort of effects does being a living weapon have on a person?

So, that’s our road map!  Next post will be this Thursday, with The Megaman Workout!  Until then, remember to live boldly, change the world, and continue to be awesome!

Dan “DaRatmastah” Wallace

PS:

Check out The Megas for some awesome Megaman themed music!