With the Mega Man X Legacy Collection launching next month, fans are plenty excited for a run through the Blue Bomber’s sequel series anthology, especially given that there hasn’t been a new X game in quite some time. Indeed, general opinion seems to be that the series gradually worsened as it went on, but there were some cool developments in later games, like how the Mavericks in Mega Man X5 were all named in reference to the rock band Guns ‘N’ Roses in the West.
This naming, however, was actually just due to a localizer who happened to be a fan, and the original names of the characters in Japan were much different. For this upcoming collection, Capcom has opted to revert the names to the original ones from the Japanese version; here’s a statement that the company gave to GameSpot on the matter:
In our mission to make these collections an authentic Mega Man X experience, we took the opportunity 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. We hope that fans appreciate our intent to unify the Mega Man X Maverick-naming convention all these years later.
What do you think? Are you glad that Capcom is changing this reference? Do you think other changes will be made to some of the other games? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
[source gamespot.com]
Comments 72
Well, that's unfortunate.
No problems with that. I always rather have the content be as true to the conception that the creators and developers intended.
Bummer. I don't care what the reason was, those names were cool.
I've only played up to X4. Although people usually say 5 to 8 are weaker games, I'm going to play them when I get the collection. I didn't know this thing regarding the American names. Pretty stupid thing the translator did in my opinion. As I don't have any "emotional attachment" to X5, it's not an issue to me.
Can anyone post the Japanese and the "Guns N Roses" names for the sake of comparison?
Bad decision!
Don't Cry
Has there been an article about the Mega Man X Collection being split? The first part is on the cartridge and the second is download code, just like the Legacy Collection.
So we changing the titles to Rock Man now as well?
I mean, may as well, naming conventions and all. Would be talking out the Capcom sphincter if they don't at this point.
A little off topic but I saw Guns 'N' Roses back in September. They totally killed it
Well, sometimes rights to music and musicians can be either pricier later down the line or just not worth the hassle of chasing up a music label to ask "Hey is it still okay to use this song/name reference?".
Take the WWE Network for example who replace a lot of wrestler entrance music that they don't own the rights to, which include big name bands and singers. Heck, one Summerslam the New Dat sung a parody of the New York song. That moment is not on the Network or even DVD. After all, the music industry still looks down at illegally downloaded music and some do try to back any "censor the Internet" laws government try to pass.
I'm guessing Capcom did not think it was worth either pushing back the Collection to get the AKO from Guns and Roses, or going ahead and possible getting sued. No huge less, 1 game outta 9 being changed and hey, its not the original disc is being patched (Even if it might cost you an arm or leg these days.).
Let's see: Rock and Roll, Blues, Rush to the Beat of a Tango, Bass and Treble..............Nope I see no reason why the names needed to be changed since the recurring theme is music. It makes perfect sense to leave them as they were. Dark Necrobat doesn't exist but Dark Dizzy does!
I am sure some people will be bummed, but it makes sense to me, an outsider, to have the names be closer to their original intent from the content creator.
@John_Deacon Not sure about the Japanese names but these are the Guns N' Roses mavericks.
Axle the Red
Duff McWhalen
Grizzly Slash
Squid Adler
Izzy Glow
I'd rather play what I grew up knowing.
No need to Star Wars Special Edition the oldies.
Or......or.....why not just have the option to change their names between the Japanese and English versions? That way no one would be disappointed. I mean if you can change all of the dialogue in the game with the press of a button, why not just the boss names?
This means they'll use their Engrish names? Lol.
What's next? They'll change the three Chrono Trigger bosses' names (who were also named after musicians)?
"Yokosou to the janguru! We got tanoshī and gēmuzu!"
I imagine if Mega Man X5 was released today and the localizers replaced the names of the Mavericks with YouTube stars or something stupid like that there would be an uproar on this site. Boy, I can’t wait until the uproar in 2030 on how they removed the doge reference in Triforce Heros.
I could almost cry.... 😢😢 tears of joy that is. ❤️❤️🎊
I have always HATED that Capcom chose this route back then. The Mega Man X boss naming convention has always been an animal or plant reference. The Capcom woman who made this God-awful decision in the 90's ruined it for me and I think the rest of the series's translated names were also tainted as a result. So glad there's a fix to this and this just makes, as weird as it sounds, me want to own this game even more.
Only a hardcore Mega Man fan would have my strange emotional trigger 😜😊👍🏻
That's a shame, but not a deal breaker. Also, awesome sub-header.
I don't even listen to Guns 'n' Roses and I'm disappointed. Mega Man X5 was the only Mega Man game I had as a kid, and I always loved the cool-sounding names of the bosses. Now they're so generic, I could scarcely recognize them. I guess I won't be getting rid of my GCN Mega Man X Collection any time soon...
So they are calling Mega Man, Rock Man too?
So to make it closer to the Japanese Megaman will revert to Rockman, Protoman to Bluesman, and Colorman to Coloredman! The last one will really cause controversy so yeah go ahead and do that!
Well guess that means I won't be buying this then. Now I am glad I picked up the PS2 version of Mega Man X Collection a few months ago.
@GameOtaku So would you be okay if a new Mega Man X game came out and let’s say a new boss named Beaver Bomber to Justin Beaver? It fits the music theme right?
Original Name/Better Name:
Crescent Grizzly/Grizzly Slash
Tidal Whale/Duff McWhalen
Volt Kraken/Squid Adler
Shining Firefly/Izzy Glow
Dark Necrobat/Dark Dizzy
Spiral Pegasus/The Skiver
Burn Dinorex/Mattrex
Spike Rosered/Axl the Red
I like all but 2 names. I don't care if they revert but they were clever and still better than the originals 😐
Typical Capcom still finding more reasons to make their fans hate them as if not including Mega Man X5-X8 on the cartridge wasn't already bad enough.
Yay. I've always preferred the Mavericks to have adjective followed by animal/plant names.
Duff McWhalen was such an amazing name. Kind of a shame to lose that.
@MegaMari0
Axle the Red
@Mrtoad
I'd be 100% ok with that.
@retro_player_22 : There is a separate retail release of Collection 2 which includes a cartridge (the double pack only includes a download code though).
Annoyingly, that only leaves Collection 2 of the original Mega Man collection without any sort of cartridge release.
Booo, I have no patience for this sort of thing, whoever made this decision can get in the ring, I’ll tell them “You’re crazy”... before making them knock on heavens door, but then don’t cry they might patch it day one or even yesterday else they could have a civil war on their hands... I thought this collection would be one in a million, so sweet it would belong in the garden of Eden but instead it’s gonna leave me crying in the cold November rain.
Hopefully X6 will be getting some sort of the same treatment. "Blaze Heatnix", "Shield Sheldon"
@Gauchorino Completely agree...
I always preferred the Japanese boss names in MegaMan X, stuff like Icy Penguigo, Burnin’ Noumander and Launcher Octopuld were just more fun than the reformatted names of the Western release.
Of course Boomer Kuwanger stayed the same because I assume the translators weren’t able to work out what creature he was based on!
@GameOtaku The music themed names where a thing of the original series, even "Rockman" was only acknowledge as "X" in game.
And for 4 straight games Mavericks where named "Something"+"Animal". I think I'm taking Dark Necrobat over Dark Dizzy... What's a Dark Dizzy anyway?
The memes are disappearing! We just need Duff McWhalen to scream, "Don't forget me!"
@DanteBQ
Axle the Reds stage has roses with guns in it! What's more perfect!? Those names were fun and original, more fun than using storm twice for bird brained Mavericks! Wouldn't a spinning attack make you dizzy?
@Paraka
I couldn't agree more, sadly they want to cash in on a franchise known in the west as Megaman.
@OorWullie
The only one here who spelled GN'R correctly as
Guns N' Roses!
It's not Guns ´n´ Roses or something like that..!
#EvenMorePapistThanThePope
Totally estranged right now.
But in the end, well... anything goes, let's not start a civil war.
@OorWullie Not being much of a fan, it makes more sense to use the Japanese names rather than one dude's vision cos he loves GNR.
A bit stupid if you grew up with the western version, imagine if they release Super Mario World as a virtual console game and rename the enemy Reznor back to the Japanese original BuiBui!
Anyone remember Dr Robotnik, or King Koopa? I do, and I survived. Welcome to change.
Cleansing history
Nuuuu, the Western names were so much cooler!
Cya
Raziel-chan
Clearly done to avoid a lawsuit. Love G N’ R but smart move.
@Tasuki Seriously? Wow...thats....dumb. Not even X Collection 1?
I mean in this instance I dont get a choice. X4-6 have never been rereleased here before so...
Mmm makes sense to e mostly because
A) Those weren't the original names and they aren't minor characters.
B) There could be a issue with names rights. It's why JoJo's Bizzare Adventure has issues outside of Japan. Capcom already dealt with that with Megaman Legends because Sony wouldn't let thhem change it.
@Stocksy
You just won the comment section.
@DanteBQ
When you walk home drunk after dark.
Having never played past X3, I'm not all that fussed about it.
Good riddance to those ill-conceived names.
Well done, Capcom, for righting an 18-year-old wrong.
I'm good with that, I'll still be calling Duff McWhalen for a while tho..
Was this only for America or Europe had the same Gn´R names?
@Tempestryke same only played x1-3, so 4-8 will be all new to me. Though I must say I like the Guns N' Roses themed names lol.
The bigger problem is that it's been held hostage with the later and terrible X games from the PS2 era
@Silly_G I spat out my drink laughing. Thank you.
@Knuckles-Fajita How is that dumb? I have the proper version on PS2 why would I buy another copy when it's been Lucased?
@Tasuki You're quite lucky you have various re-releases to chose from you know.
I wasn't a huge fan of X5, but I thought that the Maverick names were a bit off, like they were trying too hard to be unique, but now I know it's because of them being named after Guns N Roses. I glanced a list of the real Maverick names, but I'll save the surprise for when I replay this game again. More importantly, I'm looking forward to playing X7 and X8 at last (for better or worse lol).
Mega man is a better name than Rockman. The Guns N’ Roses names were just random and I didn’t like them, even though I like some Guns N’ Roses songs.
Either way though, I just want the new (Japanese) names to be better
Aww, that's terrible.
Rockman sounds great. I played Marvel vs Capcom back on the Dreamcast and of course JP version. Rockman just sounds great and lets hope they will use the original name!
@Alucard83 Now that you mentioned, although Capcom would never do that after so many years, this is something that wouldn't bother me at all. Both names have been familiar to me since the NES times because I think I played half of the 6 original games American and half Japanese. At the time I didn't understand why there was a difference, but I always enjoyed both names. NES japanese cartridges, in most cases, were the only option available, so rokuman that is!
Anyone else here get the feeling you're about to crumble into dust? No, just me? Alright then
Got the Japanese physical editions of BOTH collections (X Legacy 1 and X Legacy 2) preordered . And Okami HD too now, so I'm good ^^.
Doesnt matter to me, just wish Command Mission was included...
I guess I don't know why companies don't just include both versions. Like with NES remix. Where you had the Japanese version and the American version and you could just switch between them. It didn't add much, but was does a text patch take up in space anyways? I just like the little add-ons like that when I'm collecting.
@HobbitGamer
Haha, seriously. Add "Princess Toadstool" to that list too.
RIP Duff McWhalen
We will miss you
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