Mega Man (original series)

The Mega Man series, known as Rockman (ロックマン) in Japan and often referred as the "original Mega Man" or "classic Mega Man", is the first series of the Mega Man franchise of games. The first game, Mega Man, was released on December 17, 1987 on the Famicom (FC) in Japan and on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America and Europe.

Most of the main games in the series are referred to as "Mega Man" (or "Rockman") followed by a number (2, 3, etc.). However, the ninth game in the classic series (not counting the "side-stories") is called Mega Man & Bass. The tenth official game in the classic series is titled Mega Man 9, while the eleventh one is titled Mega Man 10 both of which have a retro look, having the 8-bit appearance of the NES Mega Man games.

Story
Dr. Thomas Light was the first to create a lifelike humanoid robot. Using those plans he slowly and meticulously built himself a small lab assistant. He named the assistant Rock. He then created another robot housekeeper named Roll. Dr. Light shared his skills and plans with his assistant Dr. Wily, and together they made a breakthrough in robotics. They created six master robots to perform tasks that humans could not. All went well until Dr. Wily mysteriously reprogrammed each of the robots. He then proceeded to run off with all six reprogrammed robots. Before anyone could really get a hold of what was going on, Dr. Wily was on a world conquering rampage of the entire planet. Rock, having resisted the doctor's reprogramming, volunteered himself to be converted into a fighting machine to combat Dr. Wily's evil robots. Enter Mega Man. Mega Man fought and defeated all of the reprogrammed robots. He also fought and defeated Wily himself. However, in the last seconds of the battle, Dr. Wily was able to slip through Mega Man's grasp and escape. (Mega Man 1) Not taking the defeat lightly, Dr. Wily created eight of his own Master Robots. These eight were designed solely to fight and take down Mega Man. He sent them back to pick up where he left off in his previous attempt. Mega Man once again heads out to save the day. (Mega Man 2) After defeating Dr. Wily for the second time, the evil doctor vowed to mend his ways and make up for all his past mistakes by offering his assistance to Dr. Light once again. Together they built eight more robot masters and even began working on a giant peace-keeping robot called Gamma. Gamma was being constructed to keep the events of the past from ever happening again. In order to construct Gamma, special crystals were needed. Dr. Light and Dr. Wily built special mining robots to gather these crystal for them. During the mining process however some of the robots went berserk and drove out all of the humans. Mega Man was then sent to retrieve these special crystals for them, accompanied by his robotic dog Rush. It turns out that in the end Wily was behind the whole plan and was stealing the crystals for himself. As soon as he had stolen all of the crystals he activated Gamma and tried to use it to take over the world and defeat Mega Man. In the end Mega Man destroyed Gamma and had Wily in his grasp. The fighting had weakened the fortress they were in began to collapse and Mega Man was trapped under the rubble. Wily made his escape and the tower still crumbled. Proto Man rushed in and saved his brother's life. (Mega Man 3)

Timeline
Below is a basic timeline of the Mega Man series. See the game pages for more details of the story.

Main timeline:
 * Mega Man
 * Mega Man 2 (200X, as shown in the opening)
 * Mega Man 3 (200X, as shown in the Virtual Console manual)
 * Mega Man 4 (One year after Mega Man 3, as shown in the NES and Virtual Console manuals)
 * Mega Man 5 (20XX, as shown in the opening. About two months after Mega Man 4.)
 * Mega Man 6 (One year after Mega Man 5.)
 * Mega Man 7 (Six months after Mega Man 6, as shown in the opening)
 * Mega Man 8
 * Mega Man & Bass
 * Mega Man 9
 * Mega Man 10

Game Boy games:

The exact time those games take place in the story is unknown, but they happen sometime between the games listed in parentheses due to elements present on them.
 * Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (after Mega Man 2)
 * Mega Man II (after Mega Man 3)
 * Mega Man III (after Mega Man 4)
 * Mega Man IV (between Mega Man 5 and Mega Man 6)
 * Mega Man V (20XX, between Mega Man 5 and Mega Man 6)

Arcade games:


 * Mega Man: The Power Battle (After Mega Man 7)
 * Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters (Half a year after Mega Man 8)

Other games:


 * Mega Man: The Wily Wars (between Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 4)
 * Wily and Right's RockBoard: That's Paradise (After Mega Man 4)
 * Mega Man's Soccer
 * Super Adventure Rockman (After Mega Man 5)
 * Mega Man: Battle & Chase (After Mega Man 8)
 * Mega Man Powered Up
 * Mega Man Universe (Cancelled)

Licensed games:

Games that were licensed by Capcom. Their canon is questionable, and some may not be part of the Mega Man timeline. Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chousensha is the only to have been referred in a later game, Mega Man ZX Advent, namely. It is also the only licensed game to be included in the book R20 Rockman & Rockman X Official Complete Works.


 * Mega Man (PC)
 * Mega Man 3 (PC)
 * Mega Man (Game Gear)
 * Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chousensha
 * Rockman Strategy
 * Rockman Gold Empire