You don't like X because of how he was portrayed in a poorly dubbed cutscene in X4? MegaMan 8 nearly ruined my perception of classic MegaMan until I started just pressing start every time to skip those scenes and never hear that god awful portrayal of him ever again. I had ten years of preconceived notions of MegaMan's personality and voice prior to that which I decided I wasn't willing to give up on. I did the same for X.
X's personality, by extension, is very similar to MegaMan's. MegaMan was the most powerful robot, who wielded the omni-powerful mimic ability. All the robot masters had a unique power, MegaMan was no different, except that his power was the power to copy and use anyone else's power. That basically made him nearly unstoppable. What kind of personality should or could be trusted with such power? MegaMan wielded that power, but at the same time hated fighting, and only fought when it was necessary.
I could get philosophical about it and relate him to Plato's philosopher king, the one most fit to wield power, yet also the one most unlikely to wield it due to personal ethics and wisdom. Or I could get nerdy and draw a Spiderman reference to Uncle Ben and the great responsibility coming with great power bit, but I won't. As I think the ending to MegaMan 2 really summed up MegaMan's character without ever saying a word, or rather without a single line of dialog text. It was abstract, and left up to the interpretation of the player. As a child, it was a very powerful, and somewhat emotional game ending.
MegaMan 1 ended with MegaMan simply walking home after the battle, back to his surrogate "father", Dr. Light, and his robotic twin sister, Roll. Touching in its own way, but not very thought provoking. As a kid, I remember thinking, "Cool, super robot kicked ass and went home to his family."
MegaMan 2 sets you up for the climax from the very beginning of the game with the intro scene. It recounts the story of the first game, followed by the set-up for the second, with Dr. Wily striking back with his own set of eight robots, MegaMan himself being one of Dr. Light's original eight. The camera pans up the side of a skyscraper, as the tempo of the theme music picks up, stopping at the top, revealing a lone, helmetless MegaMan watching over the city, as if to say, "I must head into battle once more, there is no other choice."
Upon completing the game, MegaMan walks home once more, as the seasons change, but he looks solemn, almost sad. Not a conquering hero, nor a powerful, ****y humanoid robot with an attitude. MegaMan seems to be coming to the realization that he is destined to fight, not just once, but twice now, and trying to come to grips with the fact that this likely won't be the end of it. The sequence finishes with him arriving on a hill top near his home, abandoning his battle helmet, seeking to enjoy the peace while it lasts.
Well, that was my boyhood interpretation of it anyway, and it really solidified my enjoyment of the protagonist and the series, as MegaMan seemed to have some depth to him as a character beyond just being a super robot killing machine.
X was not much different, found in the future, felt somehow responsible for the reploids going berserk, and felt compelled to fight, despite hating it. Before X4 came along and made him seem really weak hearted and gullible, I had my own notion and perception of X. In X1 he fought and defeated Sigma, but at the cost of the one friend and mentor of sorts, Zero. The ending to X1 was probably the most pivotal to me, as X was alone, on that cliffside, staring at the ruins of the chaos he had caused. The credit scroll with him running down the highway almost seemed like X was thinking back on the reploids before they went maverick, yet he had to kill them to put an end to the fighting. I felt sorry for him, in this new century, many years after the original MegaMan timeline, without friends, without support, forced to carry on alone. He too would continue to fight, despite his own desires.
X2 came along and right off the bat in the opening cut scene we see that X had risen in the ranks of the Hunters, and commanded his own unit, seeking to root out the remnants of the mavericks. X2 was my favorite game in the X series. These mavericks, setting their sights on X, call themselves "X-hunters", and came along dangling the carrot of Zero's potential revival by holding his body parts hostage. Somewhat tamed by the fact that the characters are all robots, it was still a tad gruesome to think these guys were trying to play on X's emotions by goading him into a trap with Zero's dismembered body. X fought on, unrelenting, to a rematch with Sigma and a cryptic clue to Zero's origins and true purpose.
It was the best game to to me in an "Empire Strikes Back" sort of way with the odds all stacked against the hero, but him coming through adversity to face a startling truth that may lead to his eventual undoing.
I never let those goofball animated scenes in X4 change my perception of the character, the first 3 games had already established for me and my own perceptions was what X was all about. I really liked the X character, and never thought of him as weak, but it is also possible I just believed what I wanted to believe too.
That was overall, just part of what made MegaMan and X such great characters was that much of the story was left up to personal interpretation. I'll stop there, as I may have already lost some of you to "Oh my gawd, wall of text snoozefest!!" status by this point.
