Before wrapping up this blog of
mine next month, I suddenly realized I haven't talked much about the Mega Man X
games yet! Of course, I have ignored the Legends, Battle Network and Star
Force sub series in here too, but X is more special to me and many others, so let's do this.
Ah yes, Mega Man X, with its amazing soundtrack, nice difficulty, excellent Mavericks and memorable final stages and end boss. I have played this game lots of times in the past and time after time I kept dying at Sigma's final form until I finally beat him for once, using 4 Sub Tanks and then figuring out his weakness!
Re-branding Mega Man like this for a more "adult" approach was the best thing Capcom decided, because the X sub series is mainly respected because of the very first right here on the SNES.
Rating: 8.7
Magna Centipede
A stellar sequel with another uplifting and kick ass soundtrack, the story continues with 8 new Mavericks, and this time also X Hunters to fight. Once again will you be able to select the stages in any order, and also collect Dr.Light capsules with body upgrades along the way.
With the C4 chip implemented, the graphics also got a boost, and the gameplay remains as blazing and fast paced as it was previously.
Rating: 8.4
Blast Hornet
Somewhat of an underdog, this is the second hardest X game for me. The soundtrack definitely takes a more guitar based approach instead of the bass and the drums being largely present previously, and you get a sneak preview with Zero.
Anyway, X3 is pretty detailed for a SNES game and it's pretty hard to
kill the Mavericks without their weaknesses. In overall, Mega Man X3, which was once
very rare to find, will definitely keep you busy with its difficult
stages.
Rating: 8.5
Jet Stingray
The first time I played X4 in the early 2000's I was amazed at the graphics and sounds it was making. Playing with X felt very fresh compared to the 3 X games before X4, and I still have a lot of fun with this game even today.
I was very impressed with the Mavericks and the soundtrack this time, Split Mushroom being my favorite Maverick. And X4 even has a very hard and epic end boss for both hunters to defeat as well! This is easily my favorite X game for it's presentation, nostalgia and general gameplay.
(Just ignore the awful voice acting!)
Rating: 9.5
Dark Necrobat
After reading much of X5's story for quite some years on forums and how much people said that X5 was their favorite X game, I waited with anticipation to play this game some day. But since I have beaten it afterwards, I was only satisfied with the story itself really.
The Mavericks here had less interesting names based on a real life music band, I did not like the level design, some of the music was actually boring(A rare sight to see in a Mega Man game for me)and the game felt unfinished.
Rating: 7.8
Shield Sheldon
The level design in this game however is actually funny, with its many enemies on 1 screen and high HP on many enemies, I actually thank the designers to let me play such a frustrating game on Hard mode.
X6, the hardest X game for me, really challenged me with its absurd hard stages, bosses and the many dangerous ways of dying in just 1 hit. Featuring cool Mavericks and a great soundtrack again, unlike X5, X6 will keep you even longer busy than X3 and some of you will definitely even hate the game.
Definitely a guilty pleasure game.
Rating: 8.2
Wind Crowrang
Perhaps if you by chance thought X6 was bad, then take a look at this. After finally playing it, there is no doubt that X7 is the worst X game out there. The 3D idea was good, but it miserably is designed here to let you wrestle with the controls, certainly at the beginning when it takes time to adjust.
The clunky gameplay is badly done and most of the time, I repeatedly killed everything in front of me while not trying to scout the areas much, I just wanted to be done with the stages. Speaking of, the stages are ugly, the enemies are passable but the boss fights themselves are ridiculous.
For example, Flame Hyenard’s ways of attacking and Snipe Anteater’s habit of hiding behind a cylinder. Story is with the exception of Axl’s DNA ability a big excuse for the regular Irregular events to happen, throwing 8 Mavericks at your way.
At least the soundtrack is actually pretty good, I like Wind Crowrang’s theme for example. It was annoying that the dialogue could not be sped up, the navigation menus, same thing and the voice acting is some of the worst I have ever heard, for some of the characters.
Zero’s voice sounds like Duke Nukem, Axl has a high pitched voice and the version I was playing happened to sometimes have different audio for the sentences that were being shown as dialogue. Plus, the voice acting would change from English to Japanese at certain scenes, what a strange and bizarre execution.
And then there is the controversial method of unlocking the series main character, X. I understand that X literally stepped out of the spotlight for a while, but I never would had guessed that Capcom would implement this.
As for myself, I have no problem with unlocking him, but it remains an odd decision. X7 really is a huge mistake, luckily the next one fixes up a lot of issues.
Rating: 5.9
Gravity Antonion
A vast improvement over its predecessor, but not quite on par with the other titles in the series. My main concern is that the auto scrolling levels although fun, can be quite frustrating as well, plus a certain “cute” enemy was way too much used in like every stage, giving not much enemy variety.
The story goes quite insane with its copy business, but at least it’s more interesting than a stupid duel. The bosses are an improvement, yet it seems almost none of them really stood out for me… with the exception of Gravity Antonion.
The music is vastly different from every other X title, and it has some nice songs, but most of it is largely forgettable and not as outstanding as say, X2. Gameplay is more faithful towards the older games, I’d rather replay those more than this though.Well you know what I mean. An enormous cliffhanger is at the end of X8, but Capcom’s got other cliffhangers to work on as well, including ZX Advent and Legends 2.
Rating: 7.5
Depth Dragoon
Set over a hundred years later plot wise, Command Mission surprisingly works as a Mega Man RPG. With memorable music and a normal difficulty it's a blast to play, plus lots of extra's like music, videos, sketches, trophies and all kinds of data can be acquired.
The overworld is pretty well done and interesting because the story has gone fast forward in the far future beyond Sigma's returns. I would like to see a sequel to this because honestly nothing felt wrong when playing this, it all made sense. A very fresh take on the series if you ask me.
Rating: 8.6
