Well after spending my time learning & beating the 4 games in this collection and moving on to X5 on the 2nd collection, all I can ask myself is what IS Zero fighting for? Oh and X3 is very rough until you find a few Heart Tanks I guess. Anyway, it's 4 masterfully crafted 2D sidescrollers all in one bundle, alongside a full-on sound test for each of the 4 games, a whole menu dedicated to presenting merchandise for this series as well as concept art for each game, and "The Day of Sigma" OVA, which outlines Sigmas descent into becoming a Maverick and ties into the start of X1 (depending on what way you look at it, this OVA may retcon a major plot point that gets established in X4, so take that as you will). So overall, what isn't there to love?
Edit after getting all 52 achievements: Absolutely get this half of the collection specifically even if you're just itching to get into this series (the 2nd half of the collection includes games which are harder to recommend to anyone besides die-hard fans, but that's for a later stage). All 4 of the games included are of very consistent quality, but as I went into depth on each of them on here after making this review, I'll just give my key rundowns on each of them;
>Mega Man X1: An absolutely fantastic way to kick off this series, taking the pre-established Mega Man formula and putting a very big twist on it to create a brand new experience compared to those games. Also introduces core foundations that the rest of this series would stay true to.
>Mega Man X2: A game that's always an absolute treat to play. The gameplay & abilities that X can find are both extremely fun, the level design is top-class and the bosses are in that exact sweet spot between easy & hard with a few of them even changing up how you go through the game which promotes replayability. Easily my favorite game in this series.
>Mega Man X3: The weakest of the 4 games here IMO, but it's still an extremely fun game nonetheless alongside having my personal favorite OST from any X game. However I think this one gets a lot of undeserved slack from people who aren't very good at the game.
>Mega Man X4: This one stands as the easiest game in this series IMO as it's rather generous with its level design and game overs, but visually speaking it's the best looking X game by a long shot. Also has some of the funnest bosses to do without weaknesses if you ask me.
Now moving on from that, also featured in this collection is the Rookie Hunter mode, intended to lower the games difficulty to help newcomers ease into the series. This "lowering the games difficulty" is the understatement of the century, as it moreso turns X into a flat-out God! Contact damage just ceases to exist, and in the PS1 games you no longer get insta-killed by spikes & falling into a pit just places you at the nearest platform. It's absolutely crazy for something that's just supposed to make the games easier.
This brings me onto my next point: the achievements (otherwise called "Hunter Medals" in this game). There's 52 achievements in total (104 in total if talking about both collections but I'll talk about that whenever I'm done with it), breaking down to 11 for each of the 4 games, 3 for the X-Challenge and 6 for miscellaneous stuff. Each of the 4 games has an achievement that involves doing a complete run through of them without ever turning on Rookie Hunter mode. Now if you've already beaten them then this should be a walk in the park but if you're NEW to the series like I was when going into this collection then it gives you an incentive to well... play the games as the developers originally intended. The achievements in the 1st collection aren't too bad for the most part, with the only really bad one being where you have to beat X3s Sigma battle without the Golden Armor which is a pretty damn hard feat to pull off, even with Zeros Saber, but besides that all of them are fairly reasonable to do without resorting to Rookie Hunter cheese.
The X-Challenge mode is also a neat little side-mode alongside the 4 games present. What it is is a mode that pits you up against a duo of various bosses from throughout X1-X6 in sections of 3 stages for 9 sections overall. Before the first stage in each section you can pick from a selection of like 8 or 9 pre-determined special weapons (each one is the weakness of any of the 6 bosses in each section, pick based on whichever of the boss you struggle with more). There are a couple of very creative boss duos here and there such as Dr Doppler and Godkarmachine, as well as some of the boss duos they pit you up against being pretty evil as well (the one against Iris and Double at the very end can feel more like a bullet hell at times). There is apparently a secret final stage that only unlocks after clearing X-Challenge on hard difficulty, so that's something I'll have to endure through at some point in order to unlock that final stage. Regardless, still a very fun mode no matter your skill level.
However, I have noticed some minor input lag from time to time, but it's nowhere near enough to make the game unplayable (keyboard with Vsync enabled) and I can still do some pretty tight sections such as that one wall climb section in Doppler Stage 1 even with it. Additionally, the SNES games can look kinda jarring as the default resolution for them in the Legacy Collection is slightly stretched from their original releases. But unless you seriously look out for them then it's something you'll barely ever notice in regular gameplay aside from Xs health bar looking kinda off.
In conclusion, a pretty damn good package all things considered that pretty regularly goes on sale on Steam at least. With 4 very fun platformers (that are additionally more accessible without emulation thanks to this collection, as their original copies are getting pretty damn expensive, ESPECIALLY with X2, X3 and X4) and a whole bunch of neat extras, I'd definitely recommend this one to anyone even just looking to get into the Mega Man X series. X-Challenge is a fun mode to at least check out once (but it probably thrives on replays once you know what each stage contains... like any Mega Man X game in existence). There are a couple of presentation issues here and there like the odd pixels in the SNES games or the small input lag but they aren't seriously gamebreaking or anything and won't ruin your experience. So again, a package that's well worth the money mostly for newer fans, but more dedicated fans will get some fun out of it as well thanks to the extras and side-modes.
Edit after getting all 52 achievements: Absolutely get this half of the collection specifically even if you're just itching to get into this series (the 2nd half of the collection includes games which are harder to recommend to anyone besides die-hard fans, but that's for a later stage). All 4 of the games included are of very consistent quality, but as I went into depth on each of them on here after making this review, I'll just give my key rundowns on each of them;
>Mega Man X1: An absolutely fantastic way to kick off this series, taking the pre-established Mega Man formula and putting a very big twist on it to create a brand new experience compared to those games. Also introduces core foundations that the rest of this series would stay true to.
>Mega Man X2: A game that's always an absolute treat to play. The gameplay & abilities that X can find are both extremely fun, the level design is top-class and the bosses are in that exact sweet spot between easy & hard with a few of them even changing up how you go through the game which promotes replayability. Easily my favorite game in this series.
>Mega Man X3: The weakest of the 4 games here IMO, but it's still an extremely fun game nonetheless alongside having my personal favorite OST from any X game. However I think this one gets a lot of undeserved slack from people who aren't very good at the game.
>Mega Man X4: This one stands as the easiest game in this series IMO as it's rather generous with its level design and game overs, but visually speaking it's the best looking X game by a long shot. Also has some of the funnest bosses to do without weaknesses if you ask me.
Now moving on from that, also featured in this collection is the Rookie Hunter mode, intended to lower the games difficulty to help newcomers ease into the series. This "lowering the games difficulty" is the understatement of the century, as it moreso turns X into a flat-out God! Contact damage just ceases to exist, and in the PS1 games you no longer get insta-killed by spikes & falling into a pit just places you at the nearest platform. It's absolutely crazy for something that's just supposed to make the games easier.
This brings me onto my next point: the achievements (otherwise called "Hunter Medals" in this game). There's 52 achievements in total (104 in total if talking about both collections but I'll talk about that whenever I'm done with it), breaking down to 11 for each of the 4 games, 3 for the X-Challenge and 6 for miscellaneous stuff. Each of the 4 games has an achievement that involves doing a complete run through of them without ever turning on Rookie Hunter mode. Now if you've already beaten them then this should be a walk in the park but if you're NEW to the series like I was when going into this collection then it gives you an incentive to well... play the games as the developers originally intended. The achievements in the 1st collection aren't too bad for the most part, with the only really bad one being where you have to beat X3s Sigma battle without the Golden Armor which is a pretty damn hard feat to pull off, even with Zeros Saber, but besides that all of them are fairly reasonable to do without resorting to Rookie Hunter cheese.
The X-Challenge mode is also a neat little side-mode alongside the 4 games present. What it is is a mode that pits you up against a duo of various bosses from throughout X1-X6 in sections of 3 stages for 9 sections overall. Before the first stage in each section you can pick from a selection of like 8 or 9 pre-determined special weapons (each one is the weakness of any of the 6 bosses in each section, pick based on whichever of the boss you struggle with more). There are a couple of very creative boss duos here and there such as Dr Doppler and Godkarmachine, as well as some of the boss duos they pit you up against being pretty evil as well (the one against Iris and Double at the very end can feel more like a bullet hell at times). There is apparently a secret final stage that only unlocks after clearing X-Challenge on hard difficulty, so that's something I'll have to endure through at some point in order to unlock that final stage. Regardless, still a very fun mode no matter your skill level.
However, I have noticed some minor input lag from time to time, but it's nowhere near enough to make the game unplayable (keyboard with Vsync enabled) and I can still do some pretty tight sections such as that one wall climb section in Doppler Stage 1 even with it. Additionally, the SNES games can look kinda jarring as the default resolution for them in the Legacy Collection is slightly stretched from their original releases. But unless you seriously look out for them then it's something you'll barely ever notice in regular gameplay aside from Xs health bar looking kinda off.
In conclusion, a pretty damn good package all things considered that pretty regularly goes on sale on Steam at least. With 4 very fun platformers (that are additionally more accessible without emulation thanks to this collection, as their original copies are getting pretty damn expensive, ESPECIALLY with X2, X3 and X4) and a whole bunch of neat extras, I'd definitely recommend this one to anyone even just looking to get into the Mega Man X series. X-Challenge is a fun mode to at least check out once (but it probably thrives on replays once you know what each stage contains... like any Mega Man X game in existence). There are a couple of presentation issues here and there like the odd pixels in the SNES games or the small input lag but they aren't seriously gamebreaking or anything and won't ruin your experience. So again, a package that's well worth the money mostly for newer fans, but more dedicated fans will get some fun out of it as well thanks to the extras and side-modes.
2 Comments
@Spinnerweb I knew someone would comment on my username LMAO, but thanks as well
Spinnerweb
8 months ago