The Great Mega Man Mainline Survey Stupidity!

[UltraViolet64]

Recently, I had been recommended this video on Youtube about a hundred thousand times, regarding the question of how many mainline Super Mario games there are. After finally watching the video, I found it pretty interesting (by the way, the original Yoshi's Island is 100% mainline and I won't back down on this.) This got me to thinking. "How many Mega Man games are generally agreed to be mainline titles?" So, about a week ago, I decided to ask members of the Mega Man fan community what their opinions were. I tediously went through the list of every single Mega Man game ever published (as well as some that technically aren't video games at all, just to be as thorough as possible), divided them all by series, meticulously ordered them all by order of release date, and created a giant Google Forms survey that I shared in my Facebook group, Mega Man Hell & Bass, which currently stands at 6.6K members. My good buddy Bowen Aero also shared the link to the survey in a couple of MM fan Discord servers he happened to be a part of, including the MMLS server, so some of those reading this probably participated in it.

I let the survey run for about a week, occasionally peeking at the results and scratching my head, and earlier today I closed the poll to collect and organize the data. Now that the results are in and organized, I figured this would be the best place to make a long-form post about this. Without further ado, let's look at this all, shall we?

GENERAL INFORMATION

I only got a sample size of 47 total participants. It's rather small, especially considering how many people could have potentially taken part and didn't, but it's frankly more than I expected, which was about 15. I also gave the option to skip series, so people only had to give an opinion on series they considered themselves educated about. This said, each individual series has an individual sample size, so it's important that I disclose the exact number for each so as to give a clearer picture of each set of percentages.

Mega Man Classic: 45 participants

Mega Man X: 45 participants

Mega Man Legends: 40 participants

Mega Man Battle Network: 38 participants

Mega Man Zero: 43 participants
Mega Man ZX: 42 participants

Mega Man Star Force: 36 participants

I separated certain games on the Mega Man Battle Network survey based on their Japanese release dates. White Version is separated from Blue Version because White Version is the original Rockman.EXE 3, whereas Blue Version is Rockman.EXE 3 Black, which released separately in Japan. Team ProtoMan is separated from Team Colonel because Team Colonel released two months later in Japan. Any split-version games that share the same Japanese release date, such as Battle Network 4 and 6, are only given one entry on the poll. This had a...weird side effect, as you'll see shortly.

The only mandatory question on the entire survey was the very first question, "Do you consider yourself an expert on Mega Man?" The results were 63.8% yes, 36.2% no. 30 to 17. Ultimately, this doesn't really affect the overall question, but just thought it was an interesting tidbit. Now that this is handled, let's talk about the results. Rather interesting, I have to say.

UNANIMOUSLY AGREED TO BE MAINLINE (100%)

Mega Man Classic
Mega Man 2 / Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo (NES, 1988)

Mega Man 4 / Rockman 4: Aratanaru Yabō!! (NES, 1991)

Mega Man 8 / Rockman 8: Metal Heroes (PSX/Saturn, 1996)

Mega Man X

Mega Man X / Rockman X (SNES, 1993)

Mega Man X3 / Rockman X3 (SNES, 1995)

Mega Man Zero

Mega Man Zero / Rockman Zero (GBA, 2002)

Mega Man Zero 2 / Rockman Zero2 (GBA, 2003)

Mega Man Zero 4 / Rockman Zero4 (GBA, 2004)

Mega Man ZX

Mega Man ZX / Rockman ZX (DS, 2006)

Mega Man ZX Advent / Rockman ZX Advent (DS, 2007)

Mega Man Star Force

Mega Man Star Force: Leo, Pegasus & Dragon / Shooting Star Rockman: Leo, Pegasus & Dragon (DS, 2006)

Right out of the gate, you can see that this is already pretty strange. A very large chunk of numbered titles in this franchise are not actually 100% unanimously considered mainline, even if only by one or two votes. I especially have to call into question the one person who voted Zero 1, 2 and 4 as mainline, but not 3 for some reason. Perhaps a misclick, perhaps a troll, perhaps a bizarre personal opinion. The world may never know. Also curious is the complete lack of Legends or Battle Network titles. Somehow, not a single title in either series reached 100%. Rather odd, but I suspect that there was trolling afoot in regards to those two. Let's press onwards.

ALMOST-UNANIMOUSLY AGREED TO BE MAINLINE (90%-99%)

Mega Man Classic

Mega Man / Rockman (NES, 1987) - 95.6%

Mega Man 3 / Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo?! (NES, 1990) - 95.6%

Mega Man 5 / Rockman 5: Blues no Wana!? (NES, 1992) - 93.3%

Mega Man 6 / Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!! (NES, 1993) - 97.8%

Mega Man 7 / Rockman 7: Shukumei no Taiketsu! (SNES, 1995) - 97.8%

Mega Man 9 / Rockman 9: Yabō no Fukkatsu!! (Wii/PS3/Xbox 360, 2008) - 95.6%

Mega Man 10 / Rockman 10: Uchū kara no Kyōi!! (Wii/PS3/Xbox 360, 2010) - 95.6%

Mega Man 11 / Rockman 11: Unmei no Haguruma!! (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch, 2018) - 95.6%

Mega Man X

Mega Man X2 / Rockman X2 (SNES, 1994) - 95.6%

Mega Man X4 / Rockman X4 (PSX/Saturn/PC, 1997) - 97.8%

Mega Man X5 / Rockman X5 (PSX/PC, 2000) - 95.6%

Mega Man X6 / Rockman X6 (PSX, 2001) - 95.6%

Mega Man X7 / Rockman X7 (PS2/PC, 2003) - 95.6%

Mega Man X8 / Rockman X8 (PS2/PC, 2004) - 93.3%

Mega Man Legends

Mega Man Legends / Rockman DASH: Hagane no Boukenshin (PSX/PC, 1997) - 97.5%

Mega Man Legends 2 / Rockman DASH 2 - Episode 2: Ōinaru Isan (PSX/PC, 2000) - 95%

Mega Man Battle Network

Mega Man Battle Network / Battle Network Rockman.EXE (GBA, 2001) - 92.1%

Mega Man Battle Network 2 / Battle Network Rockman.EXE 2 (GBA, 2001) - 97.4%

Mega Man Battle Network 3 White Version / Battle Network Rockman.EXE 3 (GBA, 2002) - 94.7%

Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue Version / Battle Network Rockman.EXE 3: Black (GBA, 2003) - 94.7%

Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun & Blue Moon / Rockman.EXE 4: Tournament Red Sun & Tournament Blue Moon (GBA, 2003) - 92.1%

Mega Man Battle Network 5 Team Colonel / Rockman.EXE 5: Team of Colonel (GBA, 2005) - 97.4%

Mega Man Zero

Mega Man Zero 3 / Rockman Zero3 (GBA, 2004) - 97.7%

Mega Man Star Force

Mega Man Star Force 2: Zerker x Ninja & Zerker x Saurian / Shooting Star Rockman 2: Berserker x Shinobi & Berserker x Dinosaur (DS, 2007) - 97.2%

Mega Man Star Force 3: Black Ace & Red Joker / Shooting Star Rockman 3: Black Ace & Red Joker (DS, 2008) - 91.7%

As one can see, this is where most of the numbered titles went. A margin of only one to three votes kept these from being unanimous, which is frankly kind of silly if you ask me. You can see some very weird trends in here. The Star Force series seemed to have diminishing returns in terms of mainline acceptance as it went along, and god only knows what's going on in the Battle Network series. I suppose it's time to address the elephant in the room regarding that...which I'll do with the next section.

GENERALLY UNDERSTOOD AS MAINLINE (75%-89.9%)

Mega Man Classic

Mega Man & Bass / Rockman & Forte (SNES, 1998) - 77.8%

Mega Man Legends

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne / Tron ni Kobun: Rockman DASH Series (PSX, 1999) - 75%

Mega Man Battle Network

Mega Man Battle Network 5 Team ProtoMan / Rockman.EXE 5: Team of Blues (GBA, 2004) - 89.5%

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS / Rockman.EXE 5 DS: Twin Leaders (DS, 2005) - 81.6%

Mega Man Battle Network 6 Cybeast Falzar & Cybeast Gregar / Rockman.EXE 6: Dennōjū Falzer & Dennōjū Glaga (GBA, 2006) - 81.6%

MM&B and TMoTB are about where I expected them to be, but that's not what we're concerned about. No, no. Somehow, through reasoning beyond my understanding, Team ProtoMan is at 89.5% while Team Colonel sits at 97.4%. To make matters even weirder, up until a day ago, Team Colonel was the only Battle Network game that sat at 100% in the poll. I cannot fathom why this would be the case, even factoring in my admittedly minimal understanding of the Battle Network series. This is like asserting that Pokemon Red is a mainline title, but not Blue. This discrepancy doesn't exist for BN3 White & Blue Versions, which received the exact same amount of votes as one another, which just baffles me even further. If there are any Battle Network buffs reading this, please fill me in on what's going on here if there's any reason beyond simple bias. (I'd also like an explanation regarding BN6 being substantially less accepted the other numbered titles, if you have any.)

To prevent this post from becoming an absolute sea of text, I'll continue the results in the thread.

[UltraViolet64]

From here, there is a sizable dip in percentage results, so this seemed like a natural spot for a break.

DIVISIVE (40%-50%)

Mega Man Classic

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge / Rockman World (Game Boy, 1991) - 44.4%

Mega Man II / Rockman World 2 (Game Boy, 1991) - 48.9%

Mega Man III / Rockman World 3 (Game Boy, 1992) - 46.7%

Mega Man IV / Rockman World 4 (Game Boy, 1993) - 46.7%

Mega Man V / Rockman World 5 (Game Boy, 1994) - 44.4%

Rockman Complete Works (PSX, 1999) - 40%

Rockman 4 Complete Works (PSX, 1999) - 40%

Rockman 5 Complete Works (PSX, 1999) - 40%

Mega Man & Bass / Rockman & Forte (GBA, 2002) - 40%

Mega Man X

Mega Man Xtreme 2 / Rockman X2: Soul Eraser (GBC, 2001) - 40%

Mega Man X Legacy Collection / Rockman X Anniversary Collection (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch, 2018) - 40%

Mega Man Legends

Mega Man 64 / Rockman DASH: Hagane no Boukenshin (N64, 2001) - 47.5%

Mega Man Battle Network

Mega Man Network Transmission / Rockman.EXE Transmission (GCN, 2003) - 42.1%

This is where I fully anticipated the Game Boy games to show up, and they were the titles I was most curious about the consensus on. They aren't quite split down the middle, but they're pretty close. The collection games/rereleases also started turning up here, and have been split up rather puzzlingly. I'm not sure why Complete Works 1, 4 and 5 and the first X Legacy Collection are split off from their respective partners, but I suppose that's just par for the course at this point.

[Dashe]

Huh, that was you? Awesome work putting that together! I was in the 47.5% who considered 5-island to be mainline, just because it seems to have a place in the Legends timeline between 1 and 2. I wonder how many people voting in it even knew what that game was? Same deal on MoTB, it very clearly sits in the chronology before Mega Man Legends 1. Honestly, Legends has a very linear chronology compared with a lot of other brands of Mega Man where you get a ton of these games where you're like...what is this even. Chances are with this series, if it has plot, it's a mainline entry. Even if the developers were very reckless about what platform to put it on.

[UltraViolet64]

Sorry for not posting this all in one straight shot. There's a lot of these games and I was very exhausted after typing those first two posts. No matter, let's press onwards.

CONTENTIOUS (30%-39.9%)

Mega Man Classic

Mega Man: The Wily Wars / Rockman Mega World (Mega Drive, 1994) - 31.1%

Rockman 2 Complete Works (PSX, 1999) - 37.8%

Rockman 3 Complete Works (PSX, 1999) - 37.8%

Rockman 6 Complete Works (PSX, 1999) - 37.8%

Mega Man Anniversary Collection (PS2/Xbox/GCN, 2004) - 33.3%

Mega Man Powered Up / Rockman Rockman (PSP, 2006) - 37.8%

Mega Man Legacy Collection / Rockman Classics Collection (3DS/PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch, 2015) - 37.8%

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 / Rockman Classics Collection 2 (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch, 2017) - 37.8%

Mega Man X

Mega Man Xtreme / Rockman X: Cyber Mission (GBC, 2000) - 37.8%

Mega Man X: Command Mission / Rockman X: Command Mission (PS2/GCN, 2004) - 37.8%

Mega Man Maverick Hunter X / Irregular Hunter X (PSP, 2005) - 35.6%

Mega Man X Collection (PS2/GCN, 2006) - 37.8%

Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 / Rockman X Anniversary Collection 2 (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch, 2018) - 37.8%

Mega Man Battle Network

Rockman.EXE 4.5 Real Operation (GBA, 2004) - 34.2%

Mega Man Zero

Mega Man Zero Collection / Rockman Zero Collection (DS, 2010) - 39.5%

Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection / Rockman Zero & ZX Double Hero Collection (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch, 2020) - 37.2%

Mega Man ZX

Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection / Rockman Zero & ZX Double Hero Collection (PS4/Xbox One/PC/Switch, 2020) - 33.3%

As you can plainly see, this is where most of the collection games ended up, alongside the two PSP remakes. I guess the ones that people are biased towards ended up with more votes. Speaking of that...for some reason, Zero/ZX Legacy Collection has completely different vote counts in the Zero and ZX sections. The difference in their sample sizes was one vote, and the game got two less votes in the ZX section. So clearly there's someone who believes it counts as a mainline release for the Zero series, but not the ZX series. It's probably best I just stop asking questions, because the pursuit of answers will likely tax my sanity rather heavily.

[UltraViolet64]

This next category is the most interesting one to me. These games received too many votes to simply be written off as troll interference, so I have to assume there are people who genuinely carry the torch for these titles.

HAS ITS DEFENDERS (10%-29%)

Mega Man Classic

Wily & Right's RockBoard: That's Paradise (NES, 1993) - 17.8%

Mega Man (Game Gear, 1994) - 11.1%

Mega Man: The Power Battle / Rockman: The Power Battle (Arcade, 1995) - 20%

Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters / Rockman 2: The Power Fighters (Arcade, 1996) - 24.4%

Super Adventure Rockman (PSX/Saturn, 1998) - 17.8%

Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chōsensha (WonderSwan, 1999) - 15.6%

Rockman Battle & Fighters (Neo-Geo Pocket Color, 2000) - 11.1%

Mega Man Legends

Rockman DASH: 5tsu no Shima no Daibouken! (Mobile, 2008) - 12.5%

Mega Man Battle Network

Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge / Rockman.EXE Battle Chip GP (GBA, 2003) - 28.9%

Rockman.EXE N1 Battle (WonderSwan Color, 2003) - 13.2%

Rockman.EXE Phantom of Network (Mobile, 2005) - 13.2%

Rockman.EXE: The Medal Operation (Arcade, 2005) - 10.5%

Rockman.EXE Legend of Network (Mobile, 2007) - 15.8%

Rockman.EXE Operate Shooting Star (DS, 2009) - 21.1%

Somehow, this is the most sensible category of them all. Most of these games are typically not thought of as mainline titles, but there are a number of them I could absolutely see the argument for, so their results feel pretty justified. I think once you cross the Mega Man Soccer numbers, that's when it's enough results to be genuine. I'm pretty thoroughly convinced that the only people who voted for 5-Island Adventure are members of MMLS, though. 

[UltraViolet64]

This is where it gets just plain dumb. I have nothing to say besides that.

NEAR-UNANIMOUSLY UNDERSTOOD AS SPINOFFS/PROBABLY JUST MEMING (<10%)

Mega Man Classic

Mega Man (MS-DOS, 1990) - 6.7%

Mega Man 2 (Tiger Electronics, 1990) - 8.9%

Mega Man 3 (Tiger Electronics, 1991) - 6.7%

Mega Man 3: The Robots are Revolting (MS-DOS, 1992) - 8.9%

Mega Man's Soccer / Rockman's Soccer (SNES, 1994) - 8.9%

Mega Man Battle & Chase / Rockman: Battle & Chase (PSX, 1997) - 4.4%

Rockman IQ Xuànfēng (PC, 1998) - 4.4%

Rockman no Huángjīn Dìguó (PC, 1999) - 4.4%

Rockman Strategy (PC, 2001) - 6.7%

Rockman 123 (PC, 2002) - 6.7%

Rockman Collection Special Box (PSX/PS2, 2003) - 6.7%

Rockman Space Rescue (Mobile, 2003) - 2.2%

Rockman Bug Sweeper (Mobile, 2003) - 4.4%

Rockman Panic Fire (Mobile, 2003) - 4.4%

Rockman Slot (Mobile, 2003) - 4.4%

Rockman Power Battle Fighters (PS2, 2004) - 8.9%

Rockman GP (Mobile, 2004) - 2.2%

Rockman Tennis (Mobile, 2007) - 2.2%

Chokkan! Rockman (Mobile, 2008) - 2.2%

Mega Man Rush Marine (Mobile, 2009) - 6.7%

Rockman Diver (Mobile, 2011) - 2.2%

Rockman no Dot Art Logic (Mobile, 2011) - 2.2%

Rockman Solitaire (Mobile, 2012) - 4.4%

Rockman Poker (Mobile, 2012) - 4.4%

Street Fighter X Mega Man / Street Fighter X Rockman (PC, 2012) - 6.7%

Rockman Go Go! (Mobile, 2015) - 4.4%

Mega Man X

Rockman X3 Buster Battle (Handheld, 1995) - 4.4%

Rockman X (Handheld, 1998) - 4.4%

Rockman X Shùxué Xuànfēng (PC, 1998) - 2.2%

Rockman Collection Special Box (PSX/PS2, 2003) - 4.4%

Mega Man X DiVE / Rockman X DiVE (Mobile, 2020) - 8.9%

Mega Man Legends

Rockman DASH Zhěngjiù Dìqiú Dà Màoxiǎn (PC, 1999) - 2.5%

Kobun ga Tobun? (Mobile, 2001) - 2.5%

Oshioki Kobun (Mobile, 2001) - 2.5%

Kumitate Kobun (Mobile, 2001) - 2.5%

Roll-chan no 15 Panel (Mobile, 2002) - 5%

Rockman DASH Golf (Mobile, 2003) - 2.5%

Mega Man Battle Network

Rockman.EXE WS (WonderSwan Color, 2003) - 7.9%

Advanced PET (Handheld, 2003) - 2.6%

Progress PET (Handheld, 2004) - 2.6%

Link PET_EX (Handheld, 2005) - 5.3%

Rockman.EXE Battle Chip Stadium (Arcade, 2006) - 5.3%

Mega Man Star Force

Star Carrier (Handheld, 2007) - 2.8%

Shooting Star Rockman: Wave Change! On Air! (TV game, 2007) - 8.3%

Yeah, the only games here I can believe are people's earnest opinions are Battle & Chase, Rockman Strategy, Street Fighter X Mega Man, X DiVE and EXE WS. Every other game listed here was just someone having a laugh. Hmm, Legends 1 is only one vote away from being 100% unanimous, and each of the Servbot mobile games just coincidentally has one vote? How very curious indeed. You know who you are and you know what you did.

[UltraViolet64]

At last we have reached the bottom of this excessively pedantic and pointless thought exercise. Oh, rapture sublime! Only two topics left to discuss.

NO-HOPERS CLUB (0%)

Mega Man Classic

Rockman Pinball (Mobile, 2004)

Rockman VR: A Targeted Virtual World!! (VR, 2020)

Mega Man Battle Network

Plug-in PET (Handheld, 2002)

Mega Man Star Force

Transer (Handheld, 2006)

Four cases so unloved, they couldn't even get meme credit. Don't cry for them, they're already dead. This would be the end of the line, but I had to save one special case for last. And if you've been paying any attention to what we have so far, you can probably already guess what it is.

ROCKMAN XOVER IS A NIGHTMARE

This is totally my fault. In hindsight, I should have just had a separate yes/no question for whether people consider Rockman Xover, a mobile game from 2012, to be a mainline release or not. My line of thought was "Well, it doesn't belong to any specific series in naming, and it's one giant crossover between every other series, so why make a separate section for it? I'll just include it in every series." As I'm sure you can surmise, the results are fairly inconsistent. They don't vary super wildly, but they vary enough that the data is kind of useless. So here are the results for Rockman Xover.

Classic series votes: 6.7% (3 votes)

X series votes: 6.7% (3 votes)

Legends series votes: 5% (2 votes)

Battle Network series votes: 5.3% (2 votes)

Zero series votes: 7% (3 votes)

ZX series votes: 4.8% (2 votes)

Star Force series votes: 5.6% (2 votes)

Obviously, the percentages vary based on the sample size of each specific series, so it's kind of impossible to actually assign a percentage to it. Either way, it would evidently be placed in the <10% category, so it's not the end of the world, but I definitely screwed up in how I handled this one. So you can be as optimistic or pessimistic as you want on this one. This all said, I can finally stop writing about this. If you actually cared enough to read all of this, I very much appreciate your attention on this silly little indulgence of mine.