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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: NemoTheCaptain

The relationship between humans and robots is an eternal topic.

Capcom launched the all-Chinese "Locke EXE Collection" on April 14, bringing the long-silent brand back to the eyes of the broad masses of players. "Locke Man", born on FC, is the starting point, while subsequent works such as "Locke people X / Zero / Dash" evolve on more powerful hosts, and the plot moves into a more profound era of cyberpunk, exploring the eternal topic of "the relationship between humans and robots", which is as deep as science fiction. In order to make it easier to explain the plot, I will introduce the works according to the timeline of the game story rather than the actual release order.

The previous article: a short cartoon reveals the history of the birth of the Yuanzu "Locke people"

As mentioned in a previous article on full evolution, the story of the original "Locke people" was set in the 21st century, when the robotics industry was in a state of rapid development, but two authorities in robotics, Dr. Wright and Dr. Willie, clashed, and Willie secretly modified six of Wright's industrial robots to turn them into weapons. In desperation, Wright transformed his home robot Locke into a fighting Locke, and finally defeated Willie.

In Locke 11, Dr. Wiley recalls his bad relationship with Dr. Wright when he was in college. Willie wants to give robots more power, while Wright wants to give robots the ability to think comparable to humans. In the end, the robotics committee chose Wright's direction, and the two doctors fell out with each other.

From today's point of view, both ideas have their own reasons, and even Willie's ideas are more realistic. Assuming that robots have a thinking ability comparable to that of human beings, will humans really look at robots in the same way? Even if a human face a robot with a friendly attitude, can he still maintain his attitude when the robot attacks humans because of virus infection and other reasons?

Young Wright and Willie hate Willie's repeated sabotage in the "Yuanzu Locke" series, only because of his personal feud with Wright. From the perspective of tools, Willie actually loves robots very much, and he is keen to enhance the power of robots, but he does not want robots to become intelligent species comparable to human beings, because tools do not need such wisdom. Dr. Wright had a good wish to develop a thinking robot, but posterity opened Pandora's box.

The original Locke X, which was released on the SFC mainframe in 1993, set the plot in the 22nd century and opened a new chapter. At first, Capcom only asked Keiji Inagawa to launch a new work for SFC, but Inamagi's own goal was more than that. Rice Boat's wall-climbing system for "Locke X" improves the mobility of the protagonist and reduces the difficulty of the game. In terms of human setting and plot, the rice boat also wants to have a comprehensive evolution.

Rice Boat initially hoped to make a big change in the image of the protagonist, but the boss felt that this image was too different from the traditional Locke people. In this regard, the rice boat played a secret ferry. In previous works, Inaga Keiji was responsible for designing the protagonist, and another art hero was responsible for supporting roles. This time, Jia Zhi designed a traditional blue robot X as the main character, while Rice Boat revised the previous draft into a blues-like red robot Zero as a supporting role.

The draft of the new protagonist of Keiji Inagawa's design

X designed by Jiazhiyong

Many years later, Zero, designed by Inaga Keiji, admitted that Zero, his own son, has always been the protagonist in his heart, and X is the supporting role. Rice boat borrows Star Wars as an example: the mediocre Luke Skywalker is the nominal protagonist, the recalcitrant Han Solo is more popular, and the latter is not the protagonist but better than the protagonist, as is the relationship between X and Zero. Rice Boat has always wanted to turn Zero into an operable protagonist, he just needs to wait patiently, when Zero has accumulated enough popularity, everything makes sense.

Keiji Inagawa's mentor Beicun Ling also admits that the protagonists in other works are often red and the supporting roles are often blue, but Beicun prefers low-key and withdrawn characters, which is why he set the Yuanzu Locke to blue. In the heart of rice boat, the heroic hero like Zero is the protagonist. X was designed by Jiazhi, but this role is a continuation of the idea of Beicun in the heart of the rice boat. The gentle character of the Yuanzu Locke people has been inherited and carried forward in X, which is also a trace of respect retained by the rice boat to Beicun.

The opening animation of "Locke X" is the manual of the protagonist X, and Wright left a key message on the screen: "X is the first robot whose thinking ability is comparable to that of human beings. X represents infinite possibilities and infinite danger." if X is the enemy of human beings, I am afraid there is no power on earth to stop him. It will take 30 years to check the reliability of X, I will not live to that day, and no one can take over my work, so I can only put X in the airtight cabin, please do not open the airtight capsule before the inspection is over. "

X stayed in the capsule for 100 years, and it was not until the 22nd century that another scholar, Dr. Kane, discovered the capsule. With X as a reference, Kane produced a large number of thinking robots, but Kane did not thoroughly understand Wright's technology, and the "distress loop", the core component of X, was not fully understood by Kane.

The "distress loop" is the key to X's ability to think. This component makes X feel distressed when faced with a choice, so X develops a gentle character of "look before you leap." X's resistance to the robot virus is also perfect, the virus will only consume X's physical strength at most, and will never change X's mind.

As a result, Wright achieved his goal, and X is an extremely reliable robot. Kane failed in the process of imitating Wright. Kane's thinking robots will be changed by viruses. Robots that are enemies of humans are called "anti-rioters". For this reason, human beings have gathered a group of powerful robots to form "anti-random hunters" and let them deal with anti-rioters. Sigma, made by Kane, was originally the commander of anti-random hunters.

Sigma was originally a kind and reliable robot. After Wright died, his mind roamed the Internet in the form of data. In the 22nd century, Wright's data thinking made new armor for X. On the other hand, Wright's old rival, Willie, also built a powerful robot, Zero, whose data thinking also roamed the 22nd century web.

X is Wright's perfect work, Willie did not achieve the goal of making Zero, because Zero did not listen to Willie's orders, Willie tried to create a virus to make Zero obey, but the virus was not completed. In this way, Willie locked the unfinished Zero and the virus in the airtight capsule before he died.

Zero wakes up later than X in the 22nd century, and Zero wakes up like a crazy beast, trying to tear up everything in front of him. Sigma barely defeated Zero, but the battle triggered an unexpected butterfly effect. Zero and Sigma were both changed by the virus, and their positions changed by 180 degrees. The originally crazy Zero turned into a cold, vengeful anti-chaos hunter, while the originally good Sigma became an evil anti-rioter. When Sigma went to war against the humans, a large number of anti-chaos hunters turned to Sigma, and X and Zero fought against Sigma's legions.

These background stories have become the precious wealth left to Capcom by Keiji Inaga. Unlike the step-by-step scriptwriter, Rice Boat established a long-term plot for the "Locke X" series as early as 1993, and until 2000, "Locke X5" still followed the original outline of the Rice Boat.

The excellent soundtrack of the original "Locke X" played a key role in the plot performance, and the performance of the composer Yamamoto was amazing. Yamamoto studied piano in primary school, but became infatuated with guitar, bass and drums in high school. He formed a band in high school and became a rock youth. Since then, Yamamoto's conservatory of music has offered electronic music courses, and he recorded his class assignments into audition tapes to qualify for the Capcom.

Yamamoto Yamamoto, who is obsessed with rock and roll, does not think he is a player when he joined the Capcom. He thinks the arcade hall is a dangerous place. As for console games, he has only been exposed to a few RPG on a friend's FC. After joining Capcom, he immediately bought a SFC console remediation game. Yamamoto first wrote a few songs for FC's "SD whirlwind" and then contributed a soundtrack to SFC's "whirlwind 2". "Rockman X" is the first time he has taken the lead, composing 27 of the 32 soundtracks, a classic game that changed his career.

For "Locke X", Yamamoto received instructions that "the soundtrack needs a firm sense of speed, but it also reflects the entanglement and melancholy of the robot." At first glance, this contradictory instruction makes Yamamoto unable to understand. Until one day, Yamamoto rode his bike along the bank of Dianchuan, and Yamamoto finally understood this temperament when he saw the setting sun. Then he wrote a soundtrack for the preface to the highway, a song that reflects X's inner entanglement: a robot who hates fighting and forges forward for peace.

For the straightforward Zero, Yamamoto takes the opposite way of thinking. When I first wrote the theme song for Zero, the plot animation of the game had not yet been completed, and Yamamoto wrote a longer song for Zero. After the completion of the animation, Yamamoto saw the thunderous action of Zero and decided to shorten the prelude of the song, cut off the second half of the melody, and the simplified soundtrack was more in line with the length of the animation. Such adjustments have long been the norm for RPG, but they are rare in action games.

When it comes to his favorite soundtrack, Yamamoto chose the first level of Sigma: after defeating the initial 8 Boss, X and Zero stormed into Sigma's headquarters, and the game entered the best part of the game, but the pace of the soundtrack slowed down, giving players an unprecedented sense of heaviness. The long melody seems to be flowing with time, and everything in front of us is just a drop in the ocean in history. This is not the first war between robots, nor will it be the last, the sad fate of robots will not end here, X will face a longer battle in the future. Such a unique arrangement makes it hard for players to let go for a long time.

Zero's debut at the highway checkpoint

X rendezvous with Zero at Sigma headquarters Yamamoto felt he had done his best in Locke X. he wanted to try other types, so he gave up the sequel, Locke X2, but the style he established for the series is still in use today. At first, Yamamoto did not have the consciousness to create "game music". He thought he was just an ordinary composer, until "Locke X" made him realize the charm of the combination of music and game performance. From then on, his interest in games transcended music. Without this change, he would have left Capcom after a few years of work. Now that he is middle-aged, Yamamoto has already put on weight, and even though his thickened fingers are out of touch with the guitar, he still struggles as the director of the Capcom recording studio.

In terms of system, "Locke X" puts more emphasis on collecting elements than "Yuanzu Locke". Inaga Keiji said that this refers to the popular RPG game. Players want the protagonist to have more room for growth, and collecting elements meets this wish. The default physical strength of X is not as good as that of the Yuanzu Rocks. Collecting props can greatly increase the upper limit of physical strength, and all kinds of armor can also provide new abilities.

The Locke X team achieved their goal: a game with a deeper plot, a more hardline character, a more flexible operation, a more reasonable difficulty and a stronger sense of speed. In the minds of SFC players, "Rockman X" is a hardline action game second only to "Super Galactic Warrior".

Red fighting God 1994 "Locke X2" and 1995 "Locke X3" still stay on the SFC platform, the system has not changed significantly. The 1997 Rockman X4 landed on Sony PS and Sega Saturn and won the house. Zero officially became the protagonist in "Rockman X4", and the gorgeous lightsaber rub made players shout for fun.

In terms of the plot, Rice Boat said bluntly that "this story is tailor-made for Zero." The game CD contains a large number of plot animations. In the recollection part, the initial battle between Zero and Sigma changes everything, and this core setting previously existed only within Capcom, and this is the first time this backstory has been revealed to players.

More importantly, most of the Boss of the Locke X4 were not infected with the virus, and they chose to fight in a clear-headed state of mind. Human mistrust of robots has reached a level of paranoia, and Sigma sparked an all-out war. The plot of this film also becomes a pain in Zero's heart. His best friend Carnier and lover Alice successively fall under his lightsaber. For the cold Zero, only these two scars make him feel a dull pain.

Before the duel between Carnier and Zero, Zero never showed mercy to the rebels, but the experience of this work also left him in pain and doubt: "I used to be a rebel in the past? is this the real me? in the end, I can't save anyone... does all robots end up turning into rebels?"

Keiji Inagawa, who had become the second development minister by this time, thought that the story of the "Locke X" series was coming to an end, so he shifted resources to other more important works. The development of "Locke X5" was handed over to the third Development Department of Sanjidaye. Keiji Inagawa is only responsible for the plot outline and does not participate in the actual development.

On the surface, the final Boss of "Locke X5" is still Sigma, but this time Dr. Wiley's data thinking provides behind-the-scenes help for Sigma. Willie not only built a new body for Sigma, but also perfected the details of the virus. Sigma smashed a large man-made satellite at the earth not to destroy the environment on the earth's surface, but to awaken the deepest memories of Zero with the vast number of viruses in the satellite.

In order to prevent the satellite from falling, X and Zero reduce their physical strength when they come into contact with the virus, and Zero becomes more powerful when they come into contact with the virus, an anomaly that implies Willie's secret of making Zero. Anti-random hunters try to intercept satellites through particle cannons and space shuttles. The plot of the game is random. If two interceptions fail, the satellite will fall to the ground. Zero, who comes into contact with massive viruses, will obey Willie's orders and face off with X. Unlike other robots that become crazy after exposure to the virus, Zero, which is full of viruses, is in a calm state of mind, which is the command that Willie engraved in Zero's deepest memory.

"Rockman X5" was released on the PS mainframe in 2000, because the strength of the third development department is not as strong as that of the second development department, the team of this work is full of novices, and the quality of the game is lower than before. Rice Boat had hoped that the plot of the "Rockman X" series would come to an end, and then turned to the "Locke Zero" series, but the third development department insisted on developing a sequel.

"Locke X6" landed on PS in 2001, and the plot from the beginning of this film was divorced from the planning of the rice boat, resulting in an extremely chaotic plot relationship between "Locke X" and "Locke Zero". "Rockman X7" on the PS2 host in 2003 is a failed 3D work, the new protagonist Axl's past has become a mystery, his life experience has not yet been made public.

The new protagonist of the riddle of "Rockman X7" Axl2004 "Locke X8" on the PS2 mainframe chooses a compromise route of 3D screen and 2D game. word-of-mouth has obviously rebounded, but sales are still not up to standard. In 2005, the "Anti-random Hunter X" on the PSP handset is a copy of the original "Locke X". The PSP version has been completely renovated in terms of screen, level and plot, and the game also comes with the prequel animation "Sigma Day" in order to explain the background story.

Despite the sincerity of the PSP copy, sales are still poor, resulting in the cancellation of the planned copy of "Locke X2" and the sequel "Locke X9". It wasn't until the sales of "Rockman X Collection" sold more than one million in 2018 that the "Locke X" series had a glimmer of hope of making a comeback.

The "Locke Zero" series on GBA is outsourced by Inti Creates, and most developers have been involved in the production of "Locke X2" and "Locke 7" in the SFC era, and are familiar with 2D action games. At this time, "Locke people" is in the most productive era, the second development department is responsible for the ARPG play "Locke EXE" series, the third development department is responsible for the traditional "Locke X" series, and the Inti Creates responsible for the "Locke Zero" series needs to be different from their peers in terms of human setting, plot or play.

With a half-joking attitude, Inti Creates wanted to set the final Boss of the original "Zero of Locke" to X, but Keiji Inaga unexpectedly agreed, and then the third development department asked to change the plot. "Zero of Locke" changed the final Boss from a real X to a fake Copy-X in a month before its release.

The original planned operational protagonists of "Zero of the Rocks" are Zero and Cher. Cher was originally set up as a partially mechanized human, and eventually Cher became a pure human without a mechanized body, leaving only Zero as an operable character.

Cher and Zero in the initial setting

In the early setting, the decisive battle between X and Zero, "Locke Zero", was set in the more distant 23rd century, and its painting style refers to Shiro's authentic cartoon "Shell attack Mobile team". It has a strong cyberpunk style, and all kinds of mechanical structures are full of plugs and oil stains. With the progress of technology, the limbs of robots have shrunk significantly, and their shells have changed from metal to lighter polymers, making it difficult to tell the difference between robots and humans in appearance.

Many "Zero" plots are influenced by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. "Rockman X" mentions Asimov's famous first law of robots, "Robots can't hurt humans," while the plot of "Locke Man" refers to Asimov's novel "two hundred people." In the game, an old-looking robot named Andrew, he once fell in love with a human woman, and then the woman grew old, but Andrew was still young, and the woman began to avoid Andrew, so Andrew transformed himself into an old man. After the woman's death, everything becomes a memory that exists only in Andrew's mind, and the plot is similar to the novel "two hundred people".

In addition to plot considerations, the change in human settings is also related to the rhythm of the game. Inti Creates pursues the fastest sense of speed, and Zero moves as fast as lightning. In this case, the large armor with edges and corners affects the flexibility of movement, and lighter armor can bring more flexible feel.

Zero's armor becomes lighter in the finished story, Cher is a talented scientist, the real X is tired of the war and chooses to retire. Cher makes a replica Copy-X. At this time, the earth is lack of energy, in order to protect the interests of human beings, Copy-X determines that there are too many robots. Through the excuse of "dealing with the rebels", Copy-X destroyed a large number of robots for unwarranted reasons, and Cher, who deeply blamed himself, awakened the legendary red fighting god, hoping that Zero could defeat Copy-X.

Interestingly, Copy-X claims to be a perfect imitation, boasting that its combat effectiveness and achievement are higher than that of X. Copy-X thought he had created a utopia of unprecedented prosperity for mankind, so he ignored the situation of robots. Zero has an incisive comment on this: "X is not a simple guy like you, he also has distress and other seemingly cowardly emotions, but that is why he can become a hero."

According to the frequency of annual production, the Zero vs. Copy-X "Locke Zero" series launched four works for the GBA handset between 2002 and 2005, which sold more than several "Locke X" works in the same period, and the development cost of GBA games is also lower than that of PS and PS2. In theory, as long as the developer agrees, with the popularity of the red fighting god, "Locke Zero" can continue on the handset forever with its 2D form. However, Inti Creates does not want to tie developers to a series forever, and the story is coming to an end.

In the Zero3 of the Rocks, X has lost his body and his data thinking has escaped into the Internet. The follow-up "Zero4 of Locke" became the dusk of the gods, and in order to protect man's last natural habitat on Earth, Zero fought in a burning atmosphere and turned into a meteor across the sky, and an era ended.

Human-computer Integration "Locke ZX," which was released on NDS handsets in 2006, pushed the timeline to the 25th century, when humans and robots coexisted. Humans can be transformed into robots, but neither of them can live forever to avoid energy shortages. The remaining materials of former heroes such as Zero and X have been transformed into "life metal" by later generations, and mortals can transform and master the ability of heroes by virtue of various metal modules.

Module A was added to the 2007 NDS sequel "ZXA of the Rocks", which obviously comes from Axl, but the plot of "X9 of the Rocks" is not made public to Inti Creates, and the ending of Axl is still uncertain. "ZXA of the Rocks" does not point out this origin in the plot.

The two NDS games of Metal Module A, which inherits the ability of Axl, continue the excellent picture, music and feel of the GBA era, and the process becomes a maze exploration similar to "Galactic Warrior". Inti Creates's lack of experience in the development of such processes, problems with map and ability design, and the fact that the protagonist has changed from a red god to a few mortals has led to a decline in sales of the two games and the cancellation of the sequel "ZXC of the Rockman".

After leaving Capcom, Keiji Inagawa teamed up with Inti Creates to create the Locke spirit sequel "Grey Blue Thunder" in 2014. Inti Creates's map design level has also been improved in the "Super confused Star Wars Zero" series, which began in 2017. From today's point of view, NDS's two games are just early experiments by developers.

In 2020, Capcom launched the "Locke Zero / ZX Collection", probably because Inaga Jingji had an unhappy relationship with Capcom after leaving office. Capcom has not handed over any outsourced business to Inti Creates since then, and the development of this collection has not been participated by Inti Creates. Even if "Locke ZXC" is revived later, it is likely to be developed independently by Capcom.

Although players do not know the specific story of "ZXC of Locke", players know how this timeline changed thousands of years later: most of the earth's land was submerged by the sea, purebred humans almost disappeared, and a mixed life called "carbon man" became a new resident of the earth. The appearance of the carbon man is highly similar to that of human beings, but it can directly replace part of the physical body with machines, and there is no rejection, which marks a further step in the integration of humans and robots. This is the Earth of "Dash of the Rocks". Although its worldview is not beautiful, the game shows players a cheerful character and natural beauty, and its style is imitated by MiyazakiHayao.

The sunny style of "Rockman Dash"Locke Man Dash", which was released on the PS platform in 1997, is a 3D ARPG game. Inagawa's team originally conceived a huge world, but the function of PS severely limited the expressiveness of the game, and the broad and gorgeous scenes on the map became narrow and rough after 3D, resulting in the failure of game sales. The Rockman Dash2, which went on sale on PS in 2000, has made a few improvements to the system, but sales are still poor.

Rice ship believes that if "Locke Dash3" can log on to PS2, it can make a real leap with stronger capabilities, but Capcom requires the second development department to shift its focus to the "Ghost Warrior" series, which will be put on hold for 10 years. In 2010, the 3DS version of "Locke Dash3" was released, and then the rice boat left Capcom, resulting in the cancellation of the 3DS version.

The cancelled 3DS version of "Locke Dash3" Hideo Kojima has said that he is not interested in 2D "Locke" games, but he appreciates the performance of the "Locke Dash" series in the 3D world. He suggested that Rice Boat abandon the "Ghost Warrior" series and continue to develop the "Locke Dash" series, but it is impossible for Capcom to adopt such a plan from a sales point of view.

Rice Boat himself says the Locke Dash series has changed his point of view as a producer. In the past, he thought that he could succeed as long as he made the game he was satisfied with, but "Dash of Locke" let him know that it was all self-moving. Successful games need to take into account player needs and hardware limitations, both of which are ignored by Dash of the Rockman.

Most players do not have a strong demand for 3D "Rockman", and it is reasonable for "Locke Dash" to fail in sales. In addition, as an old mainframe launched in 1994, PS's 3D performance is ahead of Saturn and other competitors, and has achieved the goal of the times. on the contrary, it is the rice boat that has put forward an idea ahead of the times, which naturally cannot be implemented on the old mainframe.

Although "Locke Dash" has become a sad series, the second development department still has something to gain. The team summed up the experience and developed the popular "Locke EXE" series under the functional limitations of GBA, which can be said to have lost and gained.

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