A new trailer for the Mega Man X Legacy Collection shows off the games’ Challenge Mode, which pits the player against two bosses at the same time. However, the trailer hides a more interesting detail for those who are familiar with the history of the Mega Man X series.
In the Mega Man X games, the main bosses, known as Mavericks, generally had names that refereed to their abilities and the animal they were modeled after, such as Chill Penguin or Spark Mandrill. In X5, however, there was a rather interesting localization decision. In the Japanese version, the bosses had names like Crescent Grizzly and Tidal Whale. In America, their names were changed to reference the band Guns N’ Roses. Crescent Grizzly became Grizzly Slash, Tidal Whale became Duff McWhalen, and Burn Dinorex became Mattrex to name a few. However, these names will be dropped for the original Japanese names in the Mega Man X Legacy Collection games.
The reasoning for the original localization idea can be traced back to Alyson Court, the English voice for Resident Evil’s Claire Redfield. Back when the original X5 was being localized, the translator and voice actor was helping her then-husband with localization. According to several tweets she made back in 2011, he was a big fan of Guns N’ Roses, which influenced his decisions on the boss names. In addition, various characters were thematically named after musical elements. A good example would be the characters Rockman (Mega Man’s Japanese name) and Roll, Bass and Treble, and the blue bird robot Beat.
Capcom, in a statement made to Gamespot, who first noticed the name change, said the following:
In our mission to make these collections an authentic Mega Man Xexperience, 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.
The Mega Man X Legacy Collection will release July 24 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.