You know, I was planning on making a long review for each of these Mega Man X games I’m playing, but I don’t have it in me for this one. It’s Mega Man X7, what else do I need to add that hasn’t already been talked about a million times. Boring gameplay where auto lock on ruins all the challenge previous games had, a lame story, bad characterization for X, 3D gameplay that makes fighting enemies pointless, slow and lethargic menus and cutscenes, Alia is still a nuisance, ugly looking graphics, terrible stages, obnoxious bosses, and, to top it all off, the worst final stages of any Mega Man game (at least from the ones I’ve played): Palace Road and Crimson Palace. This game is worse than X6, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

If I had to give this game some positives … I mean it’s slightly better than Devil May Cry 2, because at least this game introduced Axl, has a pretty good soundtrack, and I can get a little ironic enjoyment out of some cutscenes. Overall though, yeah one of the worst games I’ve ever played. X8 better be miles better than this pile of crap or else I will quit being a Mega Man fan. /j

X7 is another game in the series that I had been very excited to get to because of how legendarily bad it seemed to be. Granted I played it without the infamously awful English voice acting (which isn't just poorly done but also badly encoded to the point of being literally painful to listen to), but I was still very hyped to get to this game. Imagine my surprise when it ended up being so much more than I expected it to be! This is definitely a game I understand the hate for, but I do think to a point it's not really deserved to such an extent. It took me about 5 hours to complete the Japanese version of the game.

Both in art style and presentation, this game starts out to seem to try and make a break with past X games and start something a bit new. Almost like Sonic Adventure 2 is a game largely about Shadow the Hedgehog more than Sonic, this game centers around a new character, Axel, far more than it does the titular character X. An AWOL member of the military group Red Alert, Axel escapes to join up with the Maverick Hunters after believing that a corrupting influence has mysteriously and suddenly changed Red Alerts leader Red (no points for guessing that that influence is Sigma :b). It's not exactly a great story, once again, but it does its job and hits the general watermark of post-X4 stories.

When I say this game is more about Axel than it is about X, I really mean that, because X isn't even a playable character at the start, and you unlock him 3/4ths or so through the game (either by rescuing most of the injured reploids or by beating all 8 main stages). Axel has a directional aiming not unlike how Bass does in Rock Man & Bass, but he also has the ability to copy enemy forms and run around as them. Now, that's an ability that's never really utilized all that well, but it's still something cool in spirit. "Cool in spirit" is an issue this game has quite often, really, such as how you can swap between characters mid-mission on the fly, but you only have Axel and Zero at the start. That wouldn't be much of a problem in and of itself, but this game repeats one of the worst mistakes of X6 in how upgrades from rescued injured reploids are only applied to the character who did it. That's entirely aside from the fact that due to the heavy use of 3D in the game, Zero is quite often useless by virtue of the stage design.

Before talking about the infamous 3D problem, I'm gonna give a brief aside to talk about how the injured reploids are handled in this game. Very much like the last game, they're scattered throughout the main stages and upgrades and extra lives are granted for rescuing them. They're theoretically more vulnerable than ever, as now any enemy can kill them and not just some special type, but they're honestly very rarely in actual danger compared to how the reploids in X6 were. They also give upgrades differently, as while the way health upgrades are still dived out to whomever rescued that reploid, the part system used in X5 and X6 is now just general upgrade chips that can be plugged into one of your characters at the end of the mission they were found in. There still aren't nearly enough of these parts to fully kit out two characters, let alone all three (not even close), but it's an improvement on the upgrade system, even if they do once again trivialize the presence of multiple playable characters through this system.

Now, onto the stage design, which is a bit mixed. You have fully 2D sections (2.5D, effectively), you have side-scrolling 3D segments, and you have more top-down 3D segments. Compared to other X games, this game feels very awkward to play. Your movement is slow and heavy, and you're even given an auto-targeting mechanism for your guns (very similarly to Mega Man Legends) in order to make the 3D parts manageable at all. That said, taken as a 3D action platformer on its own merits, removed from the other X games, X7 is a surprisingly solid experience.

It's certainly not going to win any awards, no, but compared to basically all of the other post-X4 Rock Man X games, I think it has some of the best stage design out of the bunch (and it definitely has my favorite final boss of the bunch). The stages aren't super hard, and the bosses are by and large pretty easy, but it also keeps the really forgiving and well done checkpoint system of X6 for when things do get tricky (and that's something I really appreciate). It all adds up to an experience so competent that it had me really surprised considering the train wreck I had been told to expect.

The presentation is overall pretty nice. Some of the character models look pretty messed up, especially X, but a lot of the newer stuff looks quite nice (at least for an early 2000's PS2 game). This game also not only has VA (which is pretty darn good in Japanese, as stated earlier), but also 3D animated cutscenes that are pretty darn well directed (with the last one in particular being really fun). The music is probably the only more lackluster part of this, with none of the music really leaping out as really special in any one way or another.


Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. This game feels like if someone looked at Rock Man X6 and thought "What if this was more like Sonic Adventure?" and then executed on that thought. They both have very similar feelings in that they're tentative first steps forward for each respective series (or in Mega Man's case, sub-series) into the 3D age (though Sonic has the very good excuse of being made like five years earlier XD), and while they don't really nail it, it's a pretty darn solid first try. A lot of the design was clearly based around Axel's playstyle, and he may as well be the only character in the game. With the way the upgrade system works and the way the levels are designed, the game is really best enjoyed acting like he IS the only main character, and had this game been called "Mega Man Axel" instead of "Mega Man X7", it probably would've been received a bit better. This is a game I have a much easier time recommending as a fan of 3D action platformers than I do as a fan of the Mega Man X games, and it's ultimately really difficult to meaningfully compare this to other games in the franchise in many ways. If you're a fan of 3D platformers and want something a bit different, this is something worth checking out (especially if you can handle the Japanese version, so you can get its much less outright broken voice acting ^^;).

We get it, it's the Devil May Cry 2 of the Mega Man games.
Does it play that horribly and is this such a awful game?
Well, honestly? No. There are much worse.

Is it mediocre? Yes. But I personally enjoyed it (at least the 2D sections, some 3D ones are bad by all means).
Only real huge gripe I have is how slow the dialogues can feel and the impossibility to skip cutscenes. Oh, and ofc how dumb some Mavericks boss fights are.

My actual thoughts while playing X7 for the first time:

"Oh, this isn't so bad. The lock-on's annoying and the graphical style is painful to look at, but there are some neat concepts at play here. This could actually be fun."

(Game Enters 3D)

"...Oh."

Fácil a maior aberração que joguei na vida, NADA FUNCIONA NESSA DESGRAÇA TUDO É UMA BOSTA.

Desde o gameplay com a transição tão suave quanto a batida de um Trem, até coisas bestas que Megaman sempre fez com muito carinho desde 1986, O Som que se resume a BURN AT THE GROUND, os disparos da Buster que atrasam, não vou nem falar dos personagens mortos. Zero que era um irmão trans mais velho pro X virou um incel, X virou um emo do Kamatacho, Axl é uma criança mimada, a única que se """"""""""""salva""""""" é a Alia que ainda é legal de ver o back story.

Visualmente o jogo parece um vômito, a trilha sonora é triste e irritante, coisa que o X6 era espetáculo que era a música e o design de chefes a lá Scoot Pilgrim, foram pro saco parecendo coisa de IA, eu nem sei de onde tiraram pro Signas virar um tarado.

Sigma e "Red" que porra é essa?
Câmera que mais atrapalha que nunca ajuda, Zero é um zero a esquerda na gameplay, namoral...... Passa longe desse pedaço de lixo radioativo, o jogo que assassinou a saga X, o pior erro da humanidade só recomendo pra galera ou como forma de tortura física e pra adquirir Depressão e chorar.

The plot of Mega Man X7 takes place in the 22nd century, during an age when humans coexist with humanoid robots called "Reploids". As some Reploids participate in violent and destructive crime, a police organization called the "Maverick Hunters" has been established to stamp out this activity. Maverick crime is rising in newly constructed cities. As this new crime wave hits, X retires, tired from the never-ending battles. A new group of vigilantes, Red Alert, is introduced. One of their members, Axl, decides he has had enough of their "murdering" and tries to leave the group. Red, the group's leader, is angered by Axl deserting, and goes on a rampage to get Axl back.

I can only imagine what must’ve happened behind the scenes for this game to turn out the way it did and I feel so bad for the developers who worked on it. This is pretty much as bad as it gets. It doesn’t feel good to control, nothing interesting happens, it isn’t visually interesting, I can’t remember any of the music in the game, the sound mixing genuinely hurts to listen to. Something must have been seriously awry with the pipeline around this time at Capcom for Devil May Cry 2 and this to happen back to back.

My thesis of that review was that it’s important to play games that are commonly trashed on to see how you feel, I feel less so with this one, at least to completion. It still warrants at least a brief look. I maintain that games like Mega Man X7 still act as cautionary tales and serve as examples of what to avoid, as harsh as that is.

بفعل المستحيل و اكتب ايجابيات لاحظتها و انا ألعب
الزعماء في الحقيقة جيدين
اذا اخذت وقت عشان صدق تشوفهم و تفهمهم بتلاحظ انهم اكثر زعماء منوعين بالسلسلة
كون اللعبة ثلاثية الأبعاد يروج لها الشيء طبعًا, قدروا يحطون افكار ما كان يمديهم يسوونها في ألعاب سابقة
غير هذا
هذي اكس 7
ايش احتاج اقول غير هذا

I was considering giving this a five-star review just because I actually had a really good time suffering through the opening stage. It's funny how awful this game is. Realistically, I shouldn't give this more credit than it deserves lol.

The one credit I'll give is that I think Axl is kinda cute. He's the Raiden of Rockman X, and though he plays terribly, Zero also controls like shit in this game, and that's not a reason to hate HIM.

Out of principle, I'll play the rest of the game someday. I just don't have it in me to bother right now.