This was my favorite game from the 'Genesis 6-pak' I grew up with and why wouldn't it be? It's got the same great composer that 'Streets of Rage' had only this one has some great gameplay to compliment the soundtrack. It may play slower than it's more popular sequel but don't sleep on this one, it's real damn good too.

There's an invisible bar on each side of the screen that you can't attack through but you can be attacked through, the magic all feels underpowered unless Tyris spends half the game maxing hers out, Gilius is the only character that seems to have any range to his attacks, and the endgame is littered with enemies that can hack anywhere from one bar to three bars of health from you before you can even react. Oh, and there's two extra stages compared to the arcade version which exist to pad out a stunningly short game.

I hated 'Golden Axe' as a kid and as an adult, I still hate it. Even the arcade version looks like ass. At least they did better with 'The Revenge of Death Adder' I suppose.

The concept that originally spawned Sonic the Hedgehog is reborn as a stretchy-armed star kid headbutting thugs out of his galaxy while wandering through some of the most vivid graphics the Genesis ever saw. The soundtrack is absolutely exquisite, that difficulty curve is smooth like butter, and the controls are tighter than my pants after an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I've lived for years under the assumption that this is the best game on the Sega Genesis. I've yet to be proven wrong.

A physics-based puzzle game on the Sega Genesis... Wild.

The physics work for the most part but there are times where the interactions between objects go all wonky and everything falls apart. That and being underwater with an item feels TERRIBLE. There's a healthy amount of stages and the soundtrack is super underrated so this game gets a recommendation from me.

Some of the stages are too gimmicky for their own good, some weapons suffer the same issue, and Zero continues to struggle at keeping up with his projectile-based coworkers. At the same time however, it's the most competent game in the series since 'X4' and the 2.5D design forms some stages is a nice touch. Additionally, it also brings some sense of finality to the endless fight against Sigma.

'Mega Man X8' is a mixed bag but even the weakest prize from that bag is still leagues better than most of what we've gotten from the past three games.

Yikes, yikes, yikes...

The games looks terrible, everyone feels slower than ever, the auto-targeting neutralizes half the challenge of playing with X and Axl and, oh yea, you can't play as X until you've rescued half the Reploids! They're not in as many terrible places as the previous game but they do offer up upgrade chips which only serve to make X feel even more underpowered than he already does until a new game plus kicks in... assuming you'd even get that far. Some of the music is still good so at least that's something?

I grew up playing this so I'm used to its bullshit but there's no denying that this feels like a bigger rush job than 'Mega Man X6' did...

SOMEHOW.

Hastily pieced together for release months after the supposed end of the series, the game is balls-to-the-wall hard because its level design is all over the place and the nightmare system which adds further hinderances only worsens the experience. The disc I have is so scratched up that for years, the nightmare effects would permanently layer on top of one another and I thought it was normal because that's just how sloppily the game is designed. Some of Zero's weapons can actually get him killed if activated in the wrong place and while the Reploid rescue system from 'X5' is built upon, some of them are left so out of the way or directly next to danger, almost guaranteeing their loss. The music is really good though and brings the game up half a star but yea, you could've let this cook for another couple of months and it only would've come out burnt; there's no fixing a lot of these issues without completely rebuilding its foundation.

Originally designed as the end of the X series, 'X5' now hides new armors behind a full set requirement, X and Zero can be used whenever desired, and the music is as good as ever. Unfortunately, bosses become punishment sponges towards the end of the game, some stage gimmicks actively hurt the overall experience of some levels, I never fully grasped how the upgrade system was supposed to work, and if you can find it, the Ultimate Armor breaks the game in half. The story is good and there's a great sense of finality in it but this is kind of a messy sequel surrounding a solid core experience.

Seemingly the last time that people were really blown away by a 'Mega Man' game, 'X4' jumps onto new hardware in high form. Both X and Zero get some seriously awesome weapons with good tactical use, we get some meaty bits of franchise lore, and the music is some of the best in the series. While the animated cutscenes can be awkward, THAT one is nothing short of peak 'Mega Man' in my opinion.

I'm going back and forth between a 4.5* rating and a perfect rating. It all comes down to how much I'm willing to overlook just how terribly executed the Aiming Laser weapon is...

The biggest problem here is enemy placement. Baddies appear in places that almost guarantee a few unnecessary hits just to progress such as either side of an elevator platform moving up towards some spikes. That said, there's a lot of secret stuff in this game from the Ride Armors to the Golden Armor to the Z-Saber itself. Additionally, that butt rock soundtrack hits all the right notes with me. While I do like this one better than 'X2,' it's a sloppy improvement at best.

Weaker than its predecessor on all fronts, it's still stands taller than other no-name action platformers of the time. Two games into a series where bosses are based on animals and we're already scraping 'sponge' off the bottom of the barrel?

A reinvention of the established 'Mega Man' norms results in one of the greatest action platformers ever made. Despite there being dialogue, most of the story is told without it and the game brilliantly teaches you new mechanics without you even realizing it. Its vivid graphics and impressive soundtrack top off one of the few games I'd call truly perfect.

This remake addresses the damage issues from the original and balances it all out, resulting in a much more enjoyable experience. There's also a plethora of extra characters to play as including the bosses who take extra damage when fighting the robot master who they're weak against. Fire Man can kill Oil Man in three hits and it actually makes sense. On top of that, there's a stage creator I got more mileage out of than the core game itself.

The chibi artstyle may turn some off but this is an absolutely exquisite remake. Now I sit and hope for a console port...

Marketed as a celebration of the 'Mega Man X' series, this so-called game is in fact an exploitation of the series and of the franchise in general. It controls like ass and the gacha system was either completely busted or explained so poorly as to render it all useless. The game did do some intriguing things eventually such as the existence of Iris Alter but it ultimately served little purpose other than the blatant monetization of nostalgia.

The game rots now in a shallow grave, forgotten by the masses it exploited. Who says there's no justice in this world?

A massive improvement over the original on all fronts, it definitely took me a while to warm up to the sequel considering I'd grown up playing the original. Everything is polished to a mirror sheen and while I hesitate to give it full marks, I also can't see how the game could've been any better that this.