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.

I played this game till the point where I started to not have any fun fighting like 80% of the roster, so that should tell you everything you need to know about how much time you'll likely spend in this game if you get properly invested in it.

Update: After creating a roulette wheel for every single weapon/style combo in the game and using it to dictate what I use in my hunts, I've begun to have some SERIOUS fun playing this again. Let me tell you, the game becomes a LOT more interesting once you're forced to use a trash style or something you normally wouldn't use in standard quests, shit like that goes a long way in keeping the game fresh after having already poured over 1000 hours into it.

(Like with Xtreme 1, I emulated this because fuck using a tiny ass Game Boy to play this game)

X1
X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
Xtreme

Mega Man Xtreme 2 is overall a pretty significant step up from Xtreme 1 in all aspects, but it still kinda falls flat in some others. This game is pretty much solely remembered in general for its continuity elements (i.e. that this is the first canonical appearance of Zeros love interest Iris prior to the plot of X4 or that the main event in this game, the Erasure Incident gets referenced in a line of dialogue from X6), but I'll touch into the plot in a later paragraph because for a portable game there's some hint of ambition here.

First notable point aside from the continuity is the fact that Zero is a fully playable character in this game while in Xtreme 1 he was kinda just a support character that X could summon to do a screen nuke or something. Fortunately his moveset pretty much stems from his playable appearances in X4 & X5 rather than in X3, so you can expect blisteringly fast and precise gameplay with his Z-Saber. He also still gets new techniques from bosses which are occasionally needed to grab collectibles. However his Z-Saber has the range of a fucking toothpick (compared to the PS1 games it feels WAY shorter) so you really have to get up close moreso than those games, and unlike X5 he doesn't even have his Buster, although you can attribute this to the limited amount of buttons on the Game Boy, so it is understandable. Not much else to say about playable Zero here as the rest of what I have to say ties into the next paragraph.

Next point of discussion is the progression. It's handled in the same manner as Xtreme 1 (fight 4 mavericks, beat the fortress stages, fight another 4 mavericks, fortress again then do Extreme Mode which has you do all 8 mavericks before doing the fortress), but this time they do something unique with it. At the main menu you can pick to play as either X or Zero which puts you into a new save file. Once you go through the fortress for the first time, you start the second half of mavericks as either Zero or X depending on who you picked on the main menu. This helps to freshen the experience, as you go from one distinct style of gameplay to a whole other style of gameplay, so you have to adapt again once you get to that second half. Furthermore, you have more incentive to go through Extreme Mode this time around, as not only does this allow you to tackle any stage as either X or Zero, but the true final boss (spoiler alert: it's Sigma) is locked behind it. However, in some godforsaken decision, only the hunter who lands the finishing blow on a maverick in Extreme Mode gets the special ability (say you beat Wire Sponge as Zero in Extreme Mode. He gets the Lightning technique while X gets jack shit). Fortunately if you still want all the collectibles then you can negate this by... fighting each maverick with whoever fought them previously (so have X fight Neon Tiger, Launch Octopus, Volt Catfish and Flame Mammoth while using Zero for Wire Sponge, Blast Hornet, Overdrive Ostrich and Tunnel Rhino). And because you have to decide who gets the Life Ups like in X5 it comes off as being a punch in the face to players who wanted to try doing a stage with a different character, especially once you factor in that some collectibles become impossible to get if you do a stage as the wrong character.

This then brings me onto my next point; the level design. Like with Xtreme 1, all the stage bosses in Xtreme 2 come from the SNES X games. I spoiled this in my last paragraph, but this time there's a few bosses from Mega Man X3 in the mix, including Neon Tiger, Volt Catfish, Blast Hornet and Tunnel Rhino. However, not all of the stages are ripped straight from their original games as they do a few things different, in some cases even going for an entirely new gimmick such as Neon Tigers stage having you go through a dense woodland akin to Sting Chameleons stage from X1, or Blast Hornets stage having you scale a fleet of aircraft akin to Storm Owls stage from X4, or Volt Catfishs stage being moreso based on Toxic Seahorses stage from X3, and they play with this pretty significantly, as in a few sections you have to avoid large waves of water which eventually become charged with electricity, making them go from simply pushing you back to being a straight-up OHKO upon contact. These are the kind of fun twists on the level design that Xtreme 1 was sorely missing (also Blast Hornets theme in this game is based on the PS1 version of it as opposed to the SNES version, thought I'd add that on).

Something else Xtreme 2 does well is the items. The usual 8 Life Ups are here alongside only 2 Sub-Tanks, and X & Zero both get their own separate sets of armor capsules to improve their abilities. X gets his Second Armor back from X2, complete with the vertical air dash from X3, and let me tell you, having an air dash makes getting Flame Mammoths armor capsule a total joke. Zeros armor isn't anything major to write home about, but the extra defense is nice to have. Again just beware that in Xtreme mode if you do Wire Sponge or Tunnel Rhino as X then some of Zeros armor capsules become impossible to obtain, and doing Flame Mammoth as Zero makes one of Xs armor capsules impossible to get, and because of a point I'll bring up later, it's important to balance out the heart tanks among both of them.

Next up I wanna talk about the plot, because as I mentioned in the intro, despite being a Game Boy title (and a Mega Man X game where the plots are generally hit or miss), there's an actual effort to be found here. If you care about spoilers for a 22 year old game for some reason, skip past this paragraph. Anyway a new phenomena known as the Erasure Incident has been occurring in Xs world, where innocent Reploids have been losing their spirits, essentially being left as empty husks.. X and Zero travel to the Laguz Island where this event originated from, and supporting them in this mission is none other than IRIS from X4, allowing us to see what the Maverick Hunters relationship with her was like prior to the Repliforce conflict from that game. It's then revealed that the ringleaders of the Erasure Incident are Berkana, a reploid designed to resemble and fight like a witch (also the only other female antagonist in the mainline X series aside from Iris), and Gareth, who resembles and fights like a knight. For most of the game they seem to be doing it on their own accord until you get to Extreme Mode where it's revealed that they were just doing Sigmas bidding. Predictable, but the new duo of antagonists are pretty cool and unique. A pretty solid plot overall, not unlike X4s dumb plot, but that's for a review at another stage. Also as I mentioned in the intro, this games plot gets referenced in X6, albeit only on a single line of dialogue.

Going on from that is the bosses, most of which which have received a few changes such as Neon Tiger losing the ultimate i-frame attack he loved to spam in X3 when he was at low health so you could barely damage him, or Launch Octopus overall feeling slower than he was in X1 alongside him no longer recovering HP if he caught you with his tornado. Those are the only real major ones with all the other ones not really changing the fight that much. The new bosses are all pretty neat as well, Berkana in particular stood out to me as she takes away some of your controls in a few specific attacks while still letting you use tools to survive her onslaught. The Sigma battle is pretty unique as well as not only is it an entirely original body, but it forces you to use both X and Zero to defeat him, something I'm surprised is only done for this single fight, and it's not even something that gets done in Mega Man X7 and X8 which brings back the switching mechanic (post review note: I forgot that X8s Sigma battle forces you to do a teammate switch to get out of a hard knockdown, but that's only a single instance of it). But then on the other hand you have the fucking tank boss in the second fortress stage, which makes Gate and Nightmare Mother look like nothing when it comes to discussing the worst Mega Man X boss IMO. At the start you have enough space to dodge exactly (1) attack before it closes in on you and strips away that breathing room while onslaughting you with projectiles. And because its attacks hit like a freight train, you have no other choice but to tank its hits and hope its health bar goes down before yours does. You can knock it back as Zero, but it only works for so long as it continues to pelt you with projectiles. And you have to beat this fucker THREE TIMES to get the true ending. For me its the worst Mega Man X boss by a landslide and it isn't even close, so it sticks out like a sore thumb when bringing up Xtreme 2s bosses.

Another gripe I have is that the wall jumping controls still feel pretty clunky. Sometimes X or Zero won't even move while I'm holding down the D-Pad and I have no idea why. That's the only real gripe I have with the core-gameplay, and it didn't really become a serious problem that much throughout the playthrough.

In the end, a pretty good step up from Xtreme 1 with having quite a few original ideas and an ambitious plot, as well as a (flawed) implementation of playable Zero. However fuck having to do the worst boss in the series 3 times to get the true ending, as well as having some pretty fucking janky wall jump controls (although this was present in Xtreme 1 too). It's serviceable enough as an actual Mega Man X game let alone a portable experience, so I can recommend this more than Xtreme 1 as it isn't a COMPLETE rehash of existing content.

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection)

X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

After only reviewing the general X Legacy Collection and the Xtreme duology on here previously, I'm finally getting into the nitty gritty of the X series: the actual 8 main console platformers starting with X1, a game which was originally supposed to just be next-gen Mega Man at the time but it ended up starting the more serious and edgy sequel to classic Mega Man. None of the robots from the classic series are around anymore, and Dr Light is now only around in the form of special capsules I'l discuss later. Now I'm not here to discuss the circumstances surrounding this game, I'm here to discuss the game itself, which is revered as not just one of the best Mega Man games, but one of the greatest sidescrollers period.

First thing to consider when discussing Mega Man X is the gameplay. Now even from my very limited experience with the classic series (I've tried to get into it many times over the years but I got walled by some thing or the other each time, but now that I've gotten through all 10 of the main MMX platformers I think I'm ready to give it another shot) I can still see just how much X expands upon it gameplay wise. In the classic series you could only really walk, jump, slide & shoot, whereas the X series introduces some revolutionary new features (at the time), those being the ability to dash and wall jump. This not only substantially improves your movement, but also gives you some very helpful new tools in approaching platforming and dodging boss attacks, and believe me, the level design absolutely takes advantage of Xs new movement options, more on that in a bit. X himself functions similarly to Mega Man at his core, as he has his standard Buster complete with the charge attack that the old Mega Man started to use from Mega Man 4, and with Xs Variable Weapon System, he can still get new weapons based on the foes he defeats throughout the game.

Anyway, with expanded gameplay and movement options naturally comes changes to the level design, and MAN does this game have some killer level design, doing a phenomenal job at both easing you into the games mechanics and making full use of the mechanics. The intro stage (a feature that first appeared in this game) starts off slow, with some smaller platforming sections and slow enemies to ease you in, as at this point you can't dash yet. Then that goes on to Chill Penguins stage, which also starts off slow, but then you come across a special capsule in the middle of your path with a hologram of Xs creator Dr Light in it. You step in it and BOOM, you now get the ability to dash, and the level design for the rest of the stage takes advantage of this to good effect, throwing at you some tighter sections of platforming and groups of enemies that you can either choose to engage or just ignore with your newfound dash. Easily some of the best level design in any game I've played when it comes to teaching you the games mechanics.

Although this new level design leads into something that this series puts more of an emphasis on than in the classic series: items. Mega Man X by default starts with significantly less health than the original Mega Man did, but X can increase his maximum health by collecting special heart-shaped items called Life Ups that are scattered in each of the 8 regular stages. E-Tanks have also been re-worked into items that you keep permanently after getting them, but to actually use them you must first fill them up by getting health regens while X is at full HP. Not exactly a fan of this as if you fuck up a boss fight you've been saving your E-Tanks for then you have to go and spend time filling them up again, but it still works regardless, especially with a change that Mega Man X4 introduces that I'll discuss when I review that game. As I mentioned in my paragraph about the level design, there are also special capsules created by Dr Light designed to improve a specific ability of X upon enter them, culminating in a badass set of armor that makes X look as if he means fucking business. There's 4 in total, with the Head upgrade giving Mega Man X the ability to break blocks above him, the Chest upgrade reducing the damage he takes by 50%, the Buster upgrade which gives him an extra level for his charge attack alongside the ability to charge up special weapons, the Leg upgrade giving him the ability to dash, and a secret capsule that allows X to perform the Hadouken from Street Fighter. This is a fucking amazing concept, and it's something I always look forward to when visiting any game in this series. Additionally, while these abilities are rather simple compared to later armors in the X series, this one did set out the standards for almost all of the later armors (Head upgrade does whatever the fuck the devs want, Chest upgrade is some sort of defense tool, Buster upgrade powers up your charge attack alongside being able to charge your special weapons and Leg upgrade improves your mobility in some way), as all but a few armors abide by this formula. Unique to this game (as well as X3 & X6) is that some stages will change in a way if you beat a certain stage beforehand. These few stage changes all work in your favor, removing certain hazards such as Spark Mandrills stage losing all of the electricity-based hazards if you beat Storm Eagle first, or Flame Mammoths stage being frozen over if you beat Chill Penguin first, allowing you to cross over what would usually be lava and getting that stages Life Up. While minor, it does encourage replayability by getting you to try out different routes and see which is optimal for you.

Why does X need these parts? Well they were for the event of a conflict... which this games plot revolves around. Mega Man X takes place about a century after the classic series, where advanced robots known as reploids now thrive among the human race. Reploids, unlike the robots from the classic series, were designed with the ability to have their own free will, allowing them to do as they please. Mega Man X, the main protagonist (duh) is the pioneer for the reploids, as he was found by a scientist known as Dr Cain many years after Dr Light sealed him away to test his systems to prevent him from going rogue. Dr Cain being so impressed by Mega Man X decided to mass produce reploids based on him. However, Cains reploids didn't go through the same system testing as Mega Man X, resulting in some them going rogue and being labelled as "mavericks". To combat this, the Maverick Hunter organisation was established, with Dr Cain helping out in its foundation. Sigma, the most advanced reploid at the time of this game was put in charge of the Maverick Hunters. However following an unfortunate encounter that I will not spoil until I get to the game where it's revealed, Sigma himself went maverick and waged a war against humanity. This is where Mega Man X comes into the fray and joins the Maverick Hunters, but he immediately gets bested by a maverick known as Vile, who gets interrupted and repelled by fellow Maverick Hunter Zero before he can finish off X. X ponders that he wasn't strong enough to defeat Vile before Zero encourages him that he can become stronger by defeating 8 of Sigmas henchmen while Zero tracks down Sigmas fortress. X defeats the 8 henchmen, finding Dr Lights armor capsules along the way and meets up with Zero, where they work together to storm Sigmas fortress. The 2 hunters encounter Vile again who still proves to be too strong for X despite his newfound power. Zero intervenes by sacrificing himself by destroying Viles special ride armor to even out the battle between him and X. X defeats Vile before running into Zero who's been reduced to a literal fucking torso by his sacrifice. If you didn't get the Buster upgrade from a Dr Light capsule before this point, then Zero gives X his own arm to equip, giving X the same abilities as Dr Lights Buster upgrade. After some words of encouragement from Zero, X powers through the fortress, besting the 8 mavericks he fought previously before encountering Sigma himself. After a long and hard fight against both Sigma and his dog Velguarder, X triumphs over him and GTFOs as the fortress begins to crumble. The story ends with X staring at the destruction of Sigmas fortress while he ponders over his decision to fight these mavericks and whether it was truly the right choice or not. The credits roll before being followed up by a post-credits scene where Sigma vows to return and get his revenge on X. It's a serviceable enough plot, immediately establishing itself as being more serious than the classic games, but not too seriously like some later games, and establishes X having a pacifist side in him despite his combat ability, as although he wishes for peace, he still chooses to fight as he knows it's the only way at times. Pretty interesting way to write a protagonist, especially in the 90s.

With the plot covered, that leads into the bosses that Sigma has under his wing. These fuckers are FUN, as despite having their ways of fucking you up, they do still have their patterns and weaknesses you can use to your advantage. This all culminates in Sting Chameleon IMO, as this guy is HARD if you choose to take him on with only your Buster. He has his patterns, but he's still very much capable of fucking you up both up-close and at range, but if you're having too much effort taking him out? Beat Boomer Kuwanger first, and watch as Sting Chameleon absolutely crumbles to your Boomerang Cutters. Some of the best designed bosses in the series in my opinion, as their attacks are fair, but if you so choose, you can lock down a few certain bosses with their weaknesses. Also shout outs to Sigma Fortress 4, the last Sigma level that's solely dedicated to the battle against Sigma himself. The devs must've known that fucker would be HARD, so they give you a spot right before the boss room to fill up your E-Tanks and gather extra lives. Very generous for a game on the SNES.

All I have left to talk about now are some minor compliments and gripes. Visually speaking, the game has held up like fine wine even to this day. The graphics still look smooth and beautiful, and the OST absolutely kicks ass (shout outs to Storm Eagles theme for being one of the best tunes from the SNES X games, that shit rocks HARD. Sigma Fortress 1 is another amazing tune that just feels both climactic and urgent at the same time, symbolizing that this is not only the end of Xs journey to stop this war, but also the most dangerous and urgent part of it. It also feels like it takes on a whole new meaning after you beat Vile and see Zeros sacrifice). The only major gripes I have are that your boss orders do feel kinda linear, as unless you're specifically challenging yourself then you're always gonna start on Chill Penguin for that leg upgrade (thank God the dash is something you get from the beginning from the next game). The armor upgrades in this game do feel somewhat simple as well, but that's just with the hindsight of the later armors from this series.

In conclusion, yeah this certainly has earned its title as one of the greatest sidescrollers of all time, and honestly a good starting point into the franchise. It's near flawless IMO, although there are a few minor tweeks that it could do with. Fortunately these are removed in the later games, so those should be fun to look at.

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection)

X1
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

With Mega Man X putting Sigma out of the picture in the previous game, Maverick incidents have gradually became less and less frequent while peace gets restored to the world. 6 months pass and the Maverick Hunters have tracked down the final remnants of Sigmas forces to an abandoned warehouse in Mega Man X2, a sequel to the first Mega Man X released only a year after that. Surely with a release that quickly after the previous game, that can't be a good sign about the quality of this game... right...? If you couldn't guess by my rating, no it absolutely fucking isn't a bad game, in fact being my overall favorite game in the entire X series. It's an overall improvement over the first game in all but a few extremely minor aspects that I will discuss in this review alongside this games range of strengths.

First major thing that changes between X1 and X2 is the gameplay. Fundamentally they're near identical, so what's exactly changed? The answer to that question is that X can now dash from the very beginning of the game, whereas in X1 it was tied to a Light Capsule. This simple change is a total fucking gamechanger as it allows your boss orders to be a LOT more varied unlike in X1 where you'd almost always start off with Chill Penguin. This is really the only major gameplay change between X1 and X2, but man is it a welcome one.

With that out of the way the next logical thing to talk about would be the items, in particular that the Dr Light Capsules are back to give X a brand new set of armor (dubbed the Second Armor) with different abilities than X1s armor. The Head piece allows X to scan the area around him for secret paths. The Chest piece gives him a 50% damage reduction and also allows him to convert received damage into a screen nuke called the Giga Crush, the Buster upgrade gives X a new stronger tier of charge shot that allows him to fire two charge shots back to back, alongside being able to charge his special weapons, the Leg piece grants X the ability to dash while airborne and like in X1 there's a secret capsule that allows him to perform another Street Fighter move, this time around it's the Shoryuken. This is a damn good set of armor, with the double charge shot being an absolute beast of an attack that goes through bosses i-frames and the air dash being another new helpful tool for movement and avoiding boss attacks. Only real gripe I have though is that the Head piece is worthless, but are these ever really useful outside of a certain later armors head piece? The 8 Life Ups and the 4 E-Tanks are back, alongside a set of 3 new items that I will wait until I get to this games plot to discuss. Only major gripe I have with the items however is that some of them can feel WAY too cryptic for new players to find, and I get that this was probably intentional due to the way the Head piece of Xs armor functions in this game, but even that feels rather cryptic to find as well as it's hidden underneath what seemingly looks like a bottomless pit in Crystal Snails stage. Despite that though there is lots of fun to be had when you do know where the items are.

With these returning items comes level design to accommodate them, which this game does WELL. X2 is significant as this is one of 2 Mega Man X games alongside X7 that you can 100% without having to backtrack for any items you couldn't get previously if you followed the correct order. This does require a bit of sequence breaking, as you must first beat Wire Sponge and then use the Strike Chain to get the Buster capsule in Wheel Gators stage (which you're intended to get with an air dash) and then damage boost of an enemy later in that same stage to get the Life Up (which you're intended to get with a charged Speed Burner). While I can get the Life Up just fine with damage boosting but I usually just wait till I have the air dash to get the Buster Capsule as trying to get it with the Strike Chain requires a pretty precise chain of inputs. Anyway I'm getting sidetracked, X2 has some damn good level design with gimmicks that don't feel too intrusive, like destroying an enemy submarine in Bubble Crabs stage, avoiding spotlights in Magna Centipedes stage or changing gravity in Morph Moths stage. This game also saw the introduction of the Ride Chaser, a mechanic that would become very infamous in the later games solely due to a certain stage in Mega Man X5. X2s Ride Chaser is significant as it's the only instance of it where you can turn left and right with it so you have a lot more control over it, and you are intended to use it to get a Life Up in Overdrive Ostrichs stage but doing that's a pain so you can just sequence break it with a charged Speed Burner instead. All in all, some very good level design for what are among some of my favorite levels in the entire series.

Next up is the plot. 6 months have passed since Sigmas defeat in X1 and the Maverick Hunters have tracked down the last remnants of Sigmas army to an abandoned warehouse that's been converted into a factory for producing mechaniloids. X rushes in, accompanied by an unnamed Maverick Hunter dubbed the "Green Biker Dude" by fans, to storm the warehouse and stop the Maverick production. After destroying a mechaniloid, the scene cuts to X being watched by a trio of undefined Mavericks called Serges, Agile and Violen who vow to avenge Sigma and stop X. After defeating 2 stage bosses, it's revealed that Zeros body was salvaged from Sigmas old fortress!... however his body has fallen into the hands of that Maverick trio from earlier, dubbed the X-Hunters, who contact X and challenge him to a fight against the 3 of them for Zeros 3 parts: his head, his body and his arms, otherwise he gets resurrected as a Maverick under the X-Hunters controls. There's still hope however, as the main part needed to give life to Zero, his control chip, is in the hands of Dr Cain. Following this the X-Hunters make themselves present across optional areas in any 3 of the remaining 6 Maverick stages, and here the story goes off into 2 different branches depending on whether you fight these guys in the Maverick stages or not, but regardless the story plays out the same for the most part: X defeats the remaining 6 Mavericks, and if you fail to gather all of Zeros parts from the X-Hunters then they raid Dr Cains lab to steal his control chip and any other parts you may have collected, but if you do get all of Zeros parts then Dr Cain will begin trying to revive Zero. X powers through the X-Hunters' secret base at the North Pole, defeating the X-Hunters for good alongside re-fighting the 8 stage bosses he fought earlier. However once that's over, Sigma reveals himself to X, likely having been brought back by the X-Hunters off screen. X makes his way to Sigma where he's confronted by him alongside either a.) the real Zero revived as a Maverick who you must fight or b.) a fake Zero (that may or may not have been the inspiration for Black Zero in the later games) that quickly gets destroyed by the real Zero. These scenarios obviously vary on if you got all of Zeros parts or not. Regardless Sigmas plans to defeat X with Zero are thwarted, and X confronts Sigma himself, who reveals his true nature as a computer virus that can brainwash reploids into becoming Mavericks. Sigma is defeated, the X-Hunters' base is destroyed and X ponders AGAIN about how much fighting does he have to do to achieve peace in the world, this ending also beginning the foreshadowing of the X vs Zero battle in X5. It's a good step up from X1s already serviceable plot, with the sub-plot of resurrecting Zero being a nice twist on what would also be just another serviceable plot, and that leads me into discussing the bosses.

Going onto the bosses, X2 rocks another well-designed set of them like in X1. Less of them can be locked into a pattern, but more of them have unique gimmicks to make them more of a threat, most notably Magna Centipede who can take away one of your abilities at random if you get hit by his tail attack, but if you hit him with Silk Shot you break his tail, preventing him from using that attack for the remainder of the fight. Or Morph Moth, who starts off as a cocoon who only really swings around and throws trash at you, but goes through a metamorphosis once you get him down to half health where his attacks are a LOT more varied. Or Overdrive Ostrich who has the ability to leap at you from the background if you off-screen him. Or Flame Stag whos whole fight revolves around vertical combat. It's hard to decide between this, X4 or X8 which has my favorite set of bosses. Furthermore the special weapons you get from the bosses are all great fun to use as well. Speed Burner for instance is effectively just a glorified double air dash once charged up allowing for some fun sequence breaks (and hell, some items like extra lives are PLACED in such a way that you have to chain an air dash with a charged Speed Burner). Silk Shot, when charged up in areas that seemingly look like dead ends net you a shit tonne of health regens which is useful for quickly filling your E-Tanks up (this is cryptic but it's still a damn good application of the weapon). Crystal Hunter is another favorite of mines as it allows you to freeze enemies to turn them into platforms. Also located in each of the 8 Maverick stages are special rooms that are used for you to engage with an X-Hunter should any of them be on that stage, and beating them nets you a part of Zero. There's Violen who primarily attacks with his big mace in a rather unpredictable pattern, Agile who primarily attacks with projectiles and fast sword strikes in a much more predictable pattern, and Serges who plants bombs from atop a platform that's equipped with a shield that you can only get through with charged shots. Failure to defeat all 3 of these guys in the Maverick stages means having to fight Zero right before Sigma in the final level, but as they're optional you only have to fight them if you want to. This creates a LOT of variety in your routes if you do decide to go after the X-Hunters for Zeros parts, as where they appear is completely random, and even getting to their rooms in some cases can be a bitch itself, particularly in Bubble Crabs stage as that's where the submarine eventually goes to, but to trigger the X-Hunter encounter I think you either have to get there before the submarine does or just destroy it before it can get there which is easily done with a Giga Crush. Anyway as I mentioned earlier you fight Zero in the final act right before Sigma if you fail to defeat the X-Hunters here, and unfortunately he is really fucking predictable, as you can lock him into spamming his ground punch and punish accordingly, allowing you to reserve your energy for Sigma, who is also somewhat easier due to his damage output being toned WAY down compared to X1. Even on my last playthrough I only had to use 1 E-Tank across the whole fight even with fucking up in getting Zeros parts. IMO it's the 2nd easiest Sigma battle, with X6s Sigma being the easiest, but more on that whenever I get to X6.

Last thing really is minor complaints, such as that a few of the tracks can be ear-grating, but not the point where I want to lower the volume, or that the English version removes all the teases to Serges being Dr. Wily from the classic series. The OST is a little weaker than X1s but it still has its high points (shoutouts go to the Intro Stage, Flame Stag, Bubble Crab, Wheel Gator, X-Hunter Stage 1/2, X-Hunter Stage 3, Zeros theme and the Credits), and the visuals are a step up too, most notably for me in Overdrive Ostrichs stage due to the distinct desert theme alongside the mirage effect alongside Wheel Gators stage where you can see the screen shake from the vibrations of the giant tank travelling across the ground.

So in conclusion, this is an absolutely worthy sequel to X1, and a HUGE step up in all but the most minor aspects, hell I'd even go as far as to say it's the absolute peak of the entire X series. So if you loved what you got in X1, absolutely try this as you'll be sure to enjoy this one a LOT with the sheer amount of replayability it has thanks to the fun level design & bosses, and if you liked this, then absolutely try Mega Man X3, which I will review in due time.

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection)

X1
X2
X4
X5
X6
X7
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

(2 reviews in 1 day because I must've been that desperate to review this game right after X2.) 1 year hot off the release of Mega Man X2, Capcom released Mega Man X3 for the SNES... in late 1995, a point in time where the PS1 was already out & establishing itself to a major competitor in the gaming industry, and that led to this game selling like shit and going for a fucking kidney online as a result. Hell, even the PS1 re-release goes for a hefty chunk of cash online too as its English version was only released in PAL territories (who did NOT like Mega Man during the 90s) while North America got jack shit due to Sonys stances on 2D games being on the PS1 at the time (North America would later get an official release of the PS1 version of X3 as part of the Mega Man X Collection on the PS2/GameCube, while the more modern X Legacy Collection uses the SNES version of X3). This game, rather than being developed in house at Capcom, was instead primarily developed by the 3rd party studio Minakuchi Engineering due to Capcoms internal developers being hard at work on Mega Man 8/Mega Man X4 at the time, and depending on what way you look at it, it shows in a few areas, particularly in the level design. Anyway history lesson aside, X3 is definitely one of the more divisive games in the X series. Just look at the most liked reviews for it on this site for instance and you'll see a LOT of slack thrown at it for one reason or another, and judging by the rating I've given it you can probably guess that I'm in the camp of people that very much likes this game, and I will say that some of the slack this game gets is a flat-out skill issue that I'll elaborate on later in this review.

First off, as this is Mega Man X, gameplay is one of the most important parts of the game to discuss, and in this case, whether you like it or not, the core gameplay is EXACTLY the same as X2. X still has his default abilities from that game including the ability to dash, while the air dash is still tied to his armor, which you could say keeps the gameplay consistent between the 2 games and I will 100% agree with that.

Instead the gameplay changes that X3 brings to the table come in the form of something entirely new, and the first instance of something that would become a staple for the series from this point forward: PLAYABLE ZERO!!!! Even the game knows this is a big fucking deal as you have to use him for a portion of the games intro stage while a kickass track plays in the background to get you hyped to finally play as this guy. Zero himself controls near identically to X, complete with the double charge shot that X got from the Buster capsule in X2, and if you charge up all the way as Zero you can even attack with a Z-Saber strike that shreds through even the most bulky of enemies like nothing. Unfortunately from this point Zeros playable debut begins to crumble (even I must admit I hyped him up a bit too much in this review). His hitbox is noticeably larger than Xs, he can barely take a hit for the life of him (seriously, despite the fact that his HP is maxed out from the get go he can only take like 4-6 hits before going down), you can't fight all but one specific boss with him, you can only use him ONCE in a stage (if you switched back to X whether you did it on your own terms or you were forced to due to reaching a boss encounter you can't switch back to him for the remainder of the stage), he can't pick up collectibles like E-Tanks and Armor capsules, and he only has ONE life across the whole game, so if you die even once as him, you have to EAT SHIT as Zero takes a time out for the remainder of the playthrough. Overall, his inclusion feels VERY haphazard so you're better off never using him outside of getting a specific item in the fortress levels, and fortunately he gets redeemed in the very next game.

Anyway with the big new gameplay addition here being rather haphazardly implemented next up is the level design. It's somewhat of a step down from the stellar level design seen in X1 and X2 with a fair amount of straight hallways and shafts that have a rising platform at the bottom, so if you want to make things interesting just say "fuck them rising platforms" and sequence break via wall-jumping up those shafts instead (well, assuming those shafts don't have spikes coating both the walls). Each stage also has 2-3 boss rooms, 1 for encounters with a certain duo of antagonists I'll discuss later, 1 for a midboss and 1 for the stage boss. The former being complete RNG on if you'll actually get a boss encounter or not, leading to the pace kinda being halted as you watch the screen slowly scroll right only for there not to be a boss waiting for you. Then there's fucking Doppler Stage 2, INFAMOUS for the notorious section right before the boss where... you ride on extremely slow moving snails while enemies come down to attack you. IMO, this is the only actually awful part of X3s level design, but fortunately it only lasts like 1 minute in a 2-3 hour long game if you know what you're doing so it is at least over rather quickly in the grand scheme of things

That's really it for the criticisms I have with the level design, so I'll list the other end of it where the level design is fun and provides a good challenge, in particular Tunnel Rhinos stage, where rocks will fall on to your path that you have to maneuver around to avoid taking damage, Blizzard Buffalos stage where you have to traverse across ice that fucks with your movement, or the first fortress level which is one big movement test as you must use air dashes or wall jumps to traverse underneath a spiked ceiling that closes in on you followed by having to time your wall jumps in some sort of rhythm to get up a shaft where the walls are quickly closing in on you. If the rest of the game was like this then I'd probably be content in giving this game a rating higher than 4 stars, but eh, even if the rest of the stages aren't like this I still have a lot of fun blasting through all of them

Now another gripe I see get thrown about relates to blind jumps where you can't see where you're falling until it's too late. There are instances of this in Toxic Seahorse and Blast Hornets stages but I honestly think the criticism towards this is a pure fucking skill issue as there's walls that are very conveniently placed next to them that you can cling to in order to slow your descent down, therefore giving you more time to see and react to what's directly below you, a tip that will become VERY helpful for 2 certain later games in the X series.

X3 also introduces a few more collectibles into the mix in regards to the item game. The usual 8 Life Ups, 4 E-Tanks and 4 Armor Capsules are still obviously around, but X3 also features new E-Tank-esque items that enable you to pilot different kinds of Ride Armors, a mechanic that was just sorta there in X1 and X2 that gets expanded upon here and I really do like the Ride Armors in X3 as despite the limited instances where you can use them, they're a LOT of fun once you get the proper space to use them and wreak havoc. There's the Chimera Ride Armor that's just X1s Ride Armor, the Kangaroo that's reminiscent of X2s Ride Armor minus the hover attribute, the Hawk that utilizes ranged attacks and steals borrows the hover from X2s Ride Armor, and the Frog which is the only Ride Armor that's adept at underwater usage. Ride Armors are required for a few items, but to even use them you must first find an empty Chimera Ride Armor that's chilling in Blast Hornets stage and destroy the object it's bound to for them to become accessible.

This, I admit, feels cryptic, and depending on your boss order you may not even get to use Ride Armors until your 7th or 8th Maverick and this leads me into another point: the backtracking, which is something I also see X3 get a fair amount of slack for with people saying that there's """a lot""" of it, but you can mitigate this a bit because as long as the first 3 bosses in your order include Tunnel Rhino, Blizzard Buffalo & Blast Hornet then that will cut down on a LOT of backtracking. Tunnel Rhino gives you the Tornado Fang special weapon which opens up a few key items (including the Life Up in Blizzard Buffalos stage), Blizzard Buffalos stage houses the Leg upgrade which is also crucial in getting various items and Blast Hornets stage gives you the Ride Armor & makes Gravity Beetles Life Up accessible. Alternatively, you can visit Neon Tiger at this point where you can access the Buster upgrade alongside the other 2 items there, but it's really up to preference on which boss you're more comfortable in fighting if you do decide to take the least backtracking route (in my case for example I prefer going to Blast Hornet as he generally goes down quicker due to his lack of invulnerability periods like Neon Tiger, and I just like having earlier access to the Ride Armors). Anyway, with that the backtracking reaches around the same level or slightly higher than X1s depending on whenever you tackle Gravity Beetle as you need his weapon to get the Chest upgrade in Volt Catfishs stage, so I genuinely don't understand why people rile on X3 so much for supposedly having a lot of backtracking, when in reality it's comparable to X1 when you follow the right stage order.

Also I just realised I haven't even discussed what Xs SEXY looking new armor gives him in this game (I swear to God, this is the closest X has ever gotten to resembling a fucking Gundam). The Head piece allows X to view a map of the stage chosen upon entering it, showing you a rough idea of where items are, the Chest upgrade giving X the usual 50% damage reduction alongside a new shield that further increases his defense for a brief duration after getting hit, the Buster upgrade allowing X to stack a regular shot on top of a charge shot to create an even larger charge shot alongside charged special weapons, and the Leg upgrade allowing X to air dash both horizontally and directly upward. Despite it being my favorite armor visually, I'm mixed on its functions as I'm a massive fan of the upwards air dash, while the map is accurate enough to be serviceable, but the Buster upgrade here is just plain sloppy due to it's VERY lengthy animation + diminishing damage, and you're better off just using lower tiers of the charge shot or by using both the shots one at a time rather than together.

But that's not the end of armor discussion, as new to X3 are special chips that enhance a certain armor parts abilities, with the Head chip allowing X to restore HP/E-Tank energy by standing still, the Chest chip giving X an even stronger shield upon taking damage than the regular Chest piece, the Buster chip enabling X to use the Hyper Charge, a special ability that allows X to rapid fire charge shots that also sorta acts like this games giga attack as you gain energy for it by taking damage, and the Leg chip allowing X to chain 2 air dashes together. However to prevent the player from having all of these busted abilities together the game only allows you to equip one chip at a time, and you're locked with whatever chip you equip for the rest of the game unless you reset your save file (19/10/2023 post review note: I recently found out that the PS1 version of X3 actually allows you to change your currently equipped chip whenever you want, so perhaps there's actual gameplay-related incentive to play that version instead). This would be fine and dandy until you realize that there's a hidden capsule in the first fortress stage that gives you all 4 chip upgrades AT ONCE (and also turns Xs armor golden), eliminating any sense of risk or customization once you find out you can just get all 4 of these upgrades later on anyway, and in a sense it acts as a replacement for the Street Fighter moves from the first 2 X games as the way you find all 3 of these capsules are very similar.

X can also earn Zeros saber for himself if you fight a very certain boss in the fortress levels as Zero that will delete 50% of a bosses health in one hit, but this is easily one of the most cryptic secrets in this entire series (one that already has plenty of cryptic secrets at that), solely due to the fact that you have to actively go against what the game's been teaching you (that only X can fight bosses while Zero has to sit out) to get it.

I think I've rambled on about the item game in X3 for too long so perfect timing to move onto the plot, which I'm gonna try and condense further as I think my paragraphs on X1 and X2s plots felt too long. Anyway in summary it's X and Zero stopping the reploid scientist Dr Doppler who was credited for having developed a cure to the Sigma Virus, a phenomena that was previously turning innocent reploids into Mavericks. However Doppler turned Maverick himself and waged a war against humanity while constructing a new body for Sigma in the process. Bit & Byte, Dopplers right hand men, set out to fight X once 2 stage bosses are defeated and Vile is back from the dead to seek revenge on X following his previous defeat in X1, this time sporting one of the bulkiest Ride Armors you'll ever see, FUCK I wish I got to pilot this fucker. Not much else to say about this plot asides from the fact that if X2 teased the X vs Zero battle in X5, then this game just straight up confirms it with the line "To save mankind, he must destroy Zero". VERY abrupt conclusion but it matches what the writers were trying to go for. In general, just kinda feels like a filler plot, especially since starting from the next few games the writers try and go all out with continuity elements that don't really acknowledge this game that much.

Next up is the bosses, and this one's a fucking doozy. Their patterns are overall much more simple than the first 2 games and pretty much all 8 of the stage bosses can be put into a lock with weaknesses. To compensate, the bosses (alongside even basic stage enemies) do much more damage to X compared to the previous games (the crab fuckers in Tunnel Rhinos stage alongside Tunnel Rhino himself for example can delete up to 50% of Xs HP without upgrades from a single attack). People criticize X3 for this but I can't help but think that this is another HARD skill issue as it punishes people who try and face tank everything in the hopes of winning via attrition while rewarding pattern recognition much more than any of the other X games and forcing you to actually be careful/strategic when engaging with even basic ass mooks in the stages. Besides, if you're playing X3 then you've presumably already played X1 and X2, so you should have a fair grasp as to how X controls & moves, and even from the very beginning you have more than enough tools to dodge enemy attacks. And that's not even mentioning the final battle against Sigma, who is IMO one of the funnest Sigma fights in the series as it's the literal epitome of X3s boss ideologies (a simple pattern with attacks that you don't want to face tank due to the damage they do even to a fully upgraded X). In a way it's like the inverse of X2s Sigma battle, whos attacks could barely fucking scratch fully upgraded X and was made even more generous by the fact that he would spawn in mooks that could drop health regens.

Anyway this also leads into a gripe I see get thrown around in regards to the least backtracking order of X3, as you have to fight a fair amount of bosses without weaknesses, but as these guys already have simple enough patterns before weaknesses get factored in, this is another criticism that's just a hard skill issue.

You have a chance of encountering Bit & Byte, Dopplers henchmen, once you beat 2 stage bosses, and Vile can also be encountered via secret capsules located in Blizzard Buffalos stage, Crush Crawfishs stage and Volt Catfishs stage, also once 2 stage bosses are defeated. It's also worth noting that you can still find Viles capsules in stages you've already completed, which is helpful if you're aiming to get the Z-Saber for X. Basically, the outcome of the battle is based on if you land the finishing blow on Bit, Byte and Vile with their weakness or not. If you use their weakness, they explode right there and then signifying their defeat for good, but if you don't then they flee the scene for a later rematch in Dopplers fortress. To get the Z-Saber you must defeat Vile with his weakness (Ray Splasher) during his initial encounter and that'll change about the stage where he'd normally be fought at in Dopplers fortress, swapping around some of the enemies and also triggering the appearance of the midboss you must defeat as Zero.

The special weapons aren't anything major to write home about, but Frost Shield from Blizzard Buffalo in particular deserves a shoutout for being my single favorite special weapon in the X series due to its good damage output and the fact that enemies defeated with it are more likely to drop health regens, making E-Tank filling easy and fast until you can get the Golden Armor in Dopplers fortress. Ray Splasher is another fun one to mess around with as it kinda functions like a Gatling Gun, and those are always fun to use in games right? Parasitic Bomb is another good defensive weapon for whenever you want to reserve your Frost Shield energy (e.g. in Toxic Seahorses stage) as it will freeze enemies in place, allowing you to dash right through them without taking any damage. In fact X3 emphasizes the use of special weapons for anything other than weakness/item fodder WAY more than the previous 2 games, as there's plenty of stage enemies who can tank enough buster hits to get a hit in on you but will still go down in 1 hit from a specific special weapon, so despite the weapons themselves being serviceable for the most part, you're still very much incentivised to use them even when you're only navigating through stages, something that I wish more X games did to this same volume.

Visually speaking, X3s visuals aren't too major but they are still serviceable, personal standouts for me being Gravity Beetles stage, Blizzard Buffalos stage, Volt Catfishs stage and Toxic Seahorses stage. This is a hot take but the soundtrack is my personal favorite from the entire X series, as it vibes with me very well due to me being a junkie for rock music (shoutouts go to the Intro Stage, Blast Hornets theme, Blizzard Buffalos theme, Volt Catfishs theme, Toxic Seahorses theme, Crush Crawfishs theme and Doppler Fortress 1) with the only major weak point in it being Neon Tigers theme. Now, this is where I must also discuss the port that this game got on the PS1, alongside the Sega Saturn and Windows 98. Nothing is different gameplay wise, but the sound effects and some visuals are of much higher quality, there's new soundtracks of varying genres rather than sticking to rock (shout outs to that versions rendition of Doppler 1 for sounding more like 80s pop music than grunge rock), and there's FMV cutscenes for each of the 8 stage bosses alongside the intro & ending. It even features a direct save feature as well so you can quickly pick up from where you left off without having to spend a minute inputting a password. Not exactly the most recommendable unless this is your only way to play X3 and/or you wanna see those FMV cutscenes, upgraded sound effects and remixed audio, since as I mentioned at the start, copies of this version are also VERY expensive and its only re-release was as part of the PS2/GameCube X Collection. Regardless, I'd say it still pulls its weight as an upgraded port of X3.

In conclusion, Mega Man X3 is still very much a worthy sequel to X1 and X2 despite its flaws (like the Buster upgrade in this game) and haphazard inclusions of playable Zero & the armor chips, but aside from that I feel like a fair chunk of the hate this game gets is purely just a skill issue, namely the easy workarounds to the blind drops and enemy damage output as well as the backtracking that can largely be mitigated by having your first 3 bosses consist of Tunnel Rhino, Blizzard Buffalo & Blast Hornet. Anyway, I only recommend this one if you really enjoyed what you got in X1 and X2, because if you liked that then there's plenty of enjoyment to be found here, however even then, X3 isn't exactly the most welcoming game to newcomers in particular as the enemy damage output may seem daunting at first, but once you learn the overall stage layouts and boss patterns it's a pretty damn fun one to re-visit and one that REALLY holds its weight alongside the other 2 SNES Mega Man X games. Anyhow, next up is the series' proper shift into new hardware with Mega Man X4 on the PS1/Sega Saturn/PC, one that a fair amount of people say is the peak of the series, so how will that one properly hold up?

This game is just Monster Hunter for people who have parents that think Monster Hunter is too violent for them. Anyway the game's grindy as fuck if you're a F2P guy, but if you fork out money for the max amount of gem apples then any semblance of grinding goes out the window outside of level ups. And as this is a Kirby game directed by Shinya Kumazaki there's a LOT of fanservice for more dedicated fans of the series, but I did like what they did with Galacta Kni- er I mean Aeon Hero due to him having three seperate forms with their own unique attacks. This is a much shorter review as I haven't touched this game in years but it was an instance of a free-to-play game actually being fun although due to it being free-to-play then you do have to contend with lots of grinding outside of blowing cash for Gem Apples. In the end, a game that can be recommended to anyone as it's fucking Kirby, but also due to it being Kumazaki-era Kirby dedicated fans will enjoy this one a LOT more due to references and fanservice.

Another shorter review for my profiles standards, this time on a game that I haven't touched in well over a decade but still remember like yesterday thanks to nostalgia goggles. The team gimmick is one of the most unique and well-done gimmicks in a Sonic game & the level design uses each strength of the teams to full effect and the music is just fucking awesome. However to get the true ending you not only have to effectively do the same game 4 times via different campaigns (mind you, one of those campaigns turns the game moreso into a fucking Rareware-esque collectathon rather than a Sonic game), but Chaos Emeralds are tied to Special Stages again which have some of the shittiest controls to ever grace a video game, so overall the game has neat ideas with awesome set-pieces that begin to crumble once you realize you have to contend with both extreme tedium and terrible controls to 100% it. I plan on returning to this one in the future to see how exactly it's held up for me since I last played it as a kid (but given how clearly I still remember everything, I'm predicting my opinion won't change much).

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection... but as of my birthday I now actually own a physical copy of this games PC release)

X1
X2
X3
X5
X6
X7
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

With a new generation of consoles comes brand new hardware to take advantage of, and Capcom absolutely went guns blazing with the new hardware as seen in Mega Man X4, the first proper Mega Man X game to not be developed for the SNES. This game marked a few notable shifts in the X series: this is was the first X game in which Keiji Inafune did not have a role in the promotional artwork, instead being primarily handled by Haruki Suetsugu from this point till Mega Man X6. This was also when the writers started trying harder to create a more ambitious plot that would interlink across multiple games, a practice first tried in X2. Lastly, some gameplay mechanics would undergo changes here that would become staples in later games. Also this doesn't link into any points in my review but I thought I'd share another random bit of history like in my X3 review: in that same review I mentioned that Sony had an extremely stingy attitude towards 2D games being on the PS1 as they were looking for more 3D games on that system, therefore leading to the PS1 version of Mega Man X3 never releasing in North America until the PS2/GameCube X Collection in 2006. Sonys stances also led to Mega Man X4 never getting released like X3, but Capcom fired back by threatening to not release future games for the PS1, most notably Resident Evil 2, quickly leading to Sony breaking out of that attitude as losing a game like RE2 would be WAY too detrimental for the PS1s overall library, so they noped out and both western territories would fortunately get X4. Also goes to show the faith and respect that Capcom had for Mega Man in the 90s, whatever happened to that attitude?

Speaking of gameplay, Zero's back to kick ass alongside X, and his attacks have underwent a MASSIVE re-imagining from X3, where he just felt like X but with a larger hitbox and occasionally swung with his saber. Once you get past the main menu you have to pick between playing as X or Zero, and you're locked with whoever you pick here for the rest of your playthrough (all that changes is a couple of bosses, and that Zero has no armor capsules to find). However I usually just stick with X due to a certain boss later on in the game that's a complete pain in the ass with Zero, but more on that whenever I get around to the bosses. So what does Zero bring to the table compared to X? Well, unlike in X3, his combat revolves ENTIRELY around his saber, while there he only really uses it for one attack while mostly sticking to his Buster in that game, which ironically enough is completely absent in X4. His saber swings all pack a punch and his moves can all be seamlessly interlinked into longer combos that also pack a punch against enemies and can be used to tear through bosses HP. Furthermore, like how X can acquire new special weapons when defeating bosses, Zero will acquire new techniques which are naturally integrated into his moveset when he gets them, rather than something you have to manually equip (it is worth noting that Zeros techniques are tied to a separate button from his regular attacks, what button it is varies on the version you're playing on). His techniques range from standard utility like a double jump or an air dash, gap-closers or even a screen nuke. However this power comes at a price, and like in X3 Zero naturally has lower defenses than X, but fortunately it isn't to the extremes at it was in that game. Furthermore outside of the aforementioned screen nuke, Zero does not have any sort of ranged attacks, you MUST get up close and personal with enemies to do any damage to them. This accumulates in a specific boss in the fortress levels that's just a complete pain in the ass to fight as Zero. I'll wait till I discuss the bosses before really going into detail on it, but for that sole reason I stick to X more often when I play X4 despite Zero himself being a fun and unique twist on the standard Mega Man X format, but I still really do enjoy the odd playthrough here and there where I use Zero outside of that boss. Anyway, the core gameplay is identical to X2 and X3, but as this game has more detailed sprites than the SNES games then that does lead to some actions feeling significantly different to use, most notably the dash, where you can really see the extra frames of windup and endlag involved with that action here than in X1-3, but to combat that you can make more use of dash jumps to help maintain the smoother movement that the SNES X games had. Another minor change introduced in X4 is that X can still use regular Buster attacks WHILE having a special weapon ready, allowing you to approach bosses in a MUCH more strategic/flexible fashion IMO as it allows you to get some quick hits in with your X-Buster while using their weakness to reset their pattern out of a bothersome attack. Now that I think about it's moreso of a gamechanger for Xs combat if anything rather than just a minor addition.

X4s level design also underwent a major revision. Stages are now split into two separate halves that are split up by a loading screen. Getting a game over now only sends you back to the start of whatever section of the stage you're in rather than back to the stage select, therefore kinda reducing the impact of lives as the penalty for getting a game over is drastically reduced compared to the SNES games. That's not to say the levels themselves aren't fun however, far from it. These are some of the most masterfully-crafted levels in the entire series, with not a single one feeling overall intrusive to the broader experience. You have stages like the Volcano (Magma Dragoon) or Cyberspace (Cyber Peacock) that have an emphasis on platforming, with the latter also having an emphasis on speed alongside that as you must get through sections within a certain time limit to get items. You also have stages like Air Force (Storm Owl) or Military Train (Slash Beast) where the platforming is more laid back in place of blasting your way through enemy hordes with some of the coolest setpieces in the game visually. Furthermore, even the fortress stages in this game are designed in such a way to take full advantage of the special weapons/techniques that X/Zero have acquired throughout the game down to the enemy placements and specific platforming sections, something that I wish other fortress stages in the X series did as well. Unfortunately I do have a few gripes with X4s level design, in particular the second part of Cyber Peacocks stage, which introduces this anti-gravity gimmick and... doesn't really do anything with it. No puzzles that gradually become more complex, no items that are placed in a way to take advantage of this... just an extremely linear section with the anti-gravity feature just making it look like a puzzle rather than actually being one. Furthermore, the last fortress stage features both the signature boss rush AND the final boss, so if you leave to fill up your E-Tanks for the final boss then you have to do the boss rush again.

That brings me into X4s item game. The 4 armor capsules and 8 Life Ups are back, but the E-Tanks in particular have been tweaked significantly: in the SNES games you could get up to 4 E-Tanks which were all dedicated to restoring HP, but here there's just 3 E-Tanks, and only 2 of them are dedicated to restoring HP while the 3rd is dedicated to restoring special weapon energy. This is a cool idea on paper to help give the E-Tanks more function than just health recovery, but because of the abilities that X gains from his armor in this game then it ends up becoming one of the most worthless items in the entire game, but at least it actually becomes useful in the later X games. Anyway speaking of armor, X4 also kicked off another new trend for the series: multiple armor sets in the same game starting on the Fourth Armor. The Head piece enables X to use his special weapons without expending ANY energy (as long as he doesn't charge them up), and that's why the special weapon E-Tank comes off as being worthless. The Chest piece gives X the usual 50% damage reduction alongside being able to convert damage taken into energy for the Nova Strike: a special attack where X is propelled forward while doing a shit tonne of damage to enemies and bosses. There's 2 Buster pieces this time around, one of which enabling X to use the Stock Charge Shot, where he stores up to 4 charge shots and fire them back to back, and the other enabling X to use the Plasma Shot, where he fires this HUGE ball of plasma that leaves behind plasma orbs as it travels that absolutely shreds stage enemies (both of them enable charged special weapons too). And the Leg piece gives X the air dash alongside the ability to hover for a few seconds. Very solid set of armor overall, with the leg pieces hover kind of getting in the way outside of the final boss where it's an extremely nice tool to have. I also usually stick with the Plasma Shot as it's simply a more powerful charge attack that's in line with almost every other buster upgrade, but from time to time (such as in my last playthrough of X4) I'll mix it up by taking the Stock Charge Shot and it's actually a pretty underrated ability as you can quickly get through bosses health bars with it, and it's surprisingly fun despite the time it takes to get used to it. But that's not the end of Xs armors in this game, as this game also sees the introduction of the Ultimate Armor. Mechanically-wise it's identical to the Fourth Armor with the Plasma Shot, but you can use the Nova Strike an unlimited amount of times rather than having to build up the energy to use it first. As this is an absolutely game-breaking set of armor, the only way to get it is via a secret chain of button inputs on the main menu, and there isn't a single point in X4 that I think is hard enough to warrant using the Ultimate Armor. Zero also his own secret button input chain that turns him into Black Zero, that in this game is nothing more than a palette swap of Zero that strangely still keeps the red afterimages of Zero during his dash. Anyway X4 also has an entirely new item called the EX Tank which increases your default amount of extra lives from 2 to 4. This also just feels worthless as it was introduced in the first X game to not seriously penalize you for getting a game over, and unlike the first 3 X games there is no secret capsule that only appears after getting all the other items, giving less incentive to get this outside of a pure 100% save file. Additionally, X4s items just don't feel as rewarding to get imo as only a few of them are placed in actually clever spots, but there are still a few that I enjoy getting such as the Buster capsule or the items in the Marine Base.

Mega Man X4 as I alluded to earlier also puts a lot more effort into the plot. I don't feel like describing it all so I'll just discuss my general opinions on it here. Anyway, the higher-ups of Repliforce are some of the BIGGEST fucking morons I've ever seen in any form of fictional media. The entire plot of this game could've been EASILY avoided if they didn't have the mindset of "DERRRRR MUH PRIDE" and actually followed the advice of the Maverick Hunters, allowing them to clear their image while avoiding this whole war in the first place. The Maverick Hunters themselves are also at fault as well, primarily due to how fucking direct with their statement to the Colonel that Repliforce will be considered as Mavericks rather than slowly explaining the whole situation to them while also allowing them to give their side of the situation too. I will say however that Double is one of the greatest and most hammy villains in the whole X series (partly due to the voice acting he has, more on that in a later paragraph), with the plot very carefully teasing the twist that he's a bad guy throughout. Furthermore, each of the boss intros features a short sentence outlining just exactly why you're even fighting these guys, which while small, amounts to giving the stage bosses more character than what the bosses across the first 3 games had, so that's neat.

Rant on the plot over, so that brings me onto X4s bosses, which are some of the most well-designed bosses in the series. Their patterns are a LOT more varied than X3s bosses but none of them reach the point where you'll be at them for ages without using weaknesses on your first time around. Storm Owl, Magma Dragoon and Double in particular stood out as being my favorite bosses from X4, the former two having a fair and varied pattern but they can absolutely fuck you up if you aren't careful, and Double in particular feeling like an X3 boss as his pattern his very basic that actually becomes more challenging if you try and use his weakness. Anyway that brings me onto my next point regarding the bosses. Remember how I stated that I usually stick with X in my X4 runs because of a specific boss that's a complete fucking pain in the ass to beat as Zero? That boss is the General of the Repliforce who's fought in the fortress stage. FUCK THIS GUY, he's very reminiscent of Kaiser Sigma from X3 (both are fat fucks that have a weakpoint that's the size of a peanut), but General takes more of a beating WHILE doing comparable damage to Kaiser Sigma, and the General isn't even the final boss of X4! He's simple enough as X, but as Zero it's a LOT more painful due to Zero having no ranged attacks at all that work against him (you can try his screen nuke but that'll just pelt off his armor), and due to Zeros lack of armor upgrades, Generals attacks hit him way harder than they do to X. This is a fight that boils down to pixel-perfect positioning, and hell even the final Sigma battle felt like a joke as Zero compared to this fat fuck with the difference in difficulty. (22/10/2023 post-review note: so I decided to do another playthrough of X4 as Zero this evening and when I got to the General fight I kicked his ass without even using an E-Tank, and I haven't even played X4 in a few weeks. Was I wrong after all?)

Well fuck I followed up one rant with another rant, but fortunately I have a lot of good things to say about X4s presentation. At the start of the review I alluded to the fact that the devs made full use of the 5th generation hardware when making this game, and believe me, they fucking did, with it showing as early as the FUCKING CAPCOM TITLE CARD at the beginning of the game. This game opts to use sprite-based graphics as Mega Man games traditionally did as opposed to going in the 3D direction like many other games in this time, and that resulted in this game having absolutely TIMELESS visuals in an era where like 80% of the games have visually held up like hot fucking garbage. I'd even go as far as to admit that it's the best looking game on the PS1 IMO, as even compared to other sprite-based titles on that system, X4 is on a league of its own. Additionally like with X3s PS1 port and Mega Man 8, X4 features FMV cutscenes to help present the story. The animation in them is decent... but the English voice acting is not at all decent. X4s voice acting is something that's been the topic of jokes and memes for years so I won't dwell on it too much but I will just share some of the more notable instances of this games shitty voice acting so anyone who reads this can see for themselves. This flashback cutscene of Sigmas encounter with Zero that would lead to Sigma becoming a Maverick stands out due to the surprisingly good choreography in that fight alongside the serviceable voice acting, making it easily my favorite of this games cutscenes and one that I usually don't skip. Additionally, the original Japanese voice acting is actually really fucking good for the games entire duration and I'd recommend checking out those versions of the cutscenes whenever you get the chance to. The OST is also jam-packed with really good tracks too fortunately, but that's to be expected from a Mega Man X game. I said in my review on X3 that that games OST was my favorite X OST but I think I said that pre-maturely as I can't decide between that, this and a certain other X game on which is my actual favorite (shout outs in X4s ost go to both Intro Stage themes, Cyber Peacocks theme, Jet Stingrays theme, Storm Owls theme and Slash Beasts theme). Definitely give it a listen whenever you feel like it as it consistently stays great throughout it.

In conclusion, Mega Man X4 is an absolutely amazing Mega Man X experience in both gameplay and visuals that is also a good starting point into the series now that I think about it due to the generous level design and how you aren't as punished for getting a game over. Both X and Zero have extremely fun and rewarding gameplay styles and the new tools that they acquire are also very fun to mess around with. The visuals are absolutely amazing for 5th gen standards and the soundtrack is great, although the plot isn't so hot and the voice acting has certainly showed its age, but with the core gameplay and levels being so fun then does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Anyway that's it for the first half of the X series, one that's regarded to contain games of very consistent quality, as after this point come the games that make up the VERY divisive second half of the X series, starting with Mega Man X5, again for the PS1/PC. That's one that people either love or hate with no inbetween, so that should be interesting to review.

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection)

X1
X2
X3
X4
X6
X7
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

After 4 games that are usually regarded as being consistently good, it would only be natural that a series like Mega Man X would eventually receive an entry as divisive among its fans as Mega Man X5 for the PS1 (and PC later down the line too). I personally have to give this game credit for being the game to get me interested in playing the whole Mega Man X series to begin with after hearing some of its tracks in various outside media over the years, but it is ironic, given how you can see that this is my lowest rated console X game so far (but believe me, it isn't THE lowest). X5 is a game that's somewhat of a strange case, as while it does a LOT of elements right, there's also elements that it absolutely fucks up, but fortunately not to the point where it doesn't absolutely ruin the game otherwise I wouldn't have gave this game 3 stars. I'm not gonna spend too long on this introduction as like all the other mainline X games, I have a lot to say about this one too.

First things first with X5 is the gameplay. X and Zero are both fully playable again, retaining all the default abilities that they had in Mega Man X4. Like that game you pick between who you want to play as once you get past the title screen, but UNLIKE that game you aren't locked into one character for your entire save file. Instead you're allowed to pick who you want to play as before the start of each level, but to compromise, both X and Zero have a unique perk, but only ONE will take effect depending on who you pick on the character select screen at the start. If you pick X, you get the Fourth Armor from the get go, while picking Zero enables him to use his Z-Buster, a ranged attack that he was sorely missing in X4. Unfortunately Zeros Buster shots are VERY sluggish, they don't do enough damage to warrant their long windup and they can only be fired from a stand still. So if you're a newcomer into X5, ALWAYS pick X unless you absolutely need a ranged attack as Zero, because having an entire set of armor for X from the get go is way too good to not pass up on.

Speaking of armors, they have received a pretty significant tweak in this game, as in the first 4 X games you would immediately receive the effect of an armor capsule upon entering it, but in X5 you have to find ALL 4 of an armors capsules in order to receive any of the benefits. This is justified in-lore with "security reasons" but it was probably just because the devs didn't have the time and/or willpower to create a shit tonne of different sprite sheets, and it becomes even more justified once I get around to discussing this games items.

Also new to X5 are support calls delivered to X & Zero Metal Gear Solid style by the new supporting character Alia. These are cool on paper but in gameplay they just get in the way too much as 1.) They're mandatory so you have to sit through them or button mash, 2.) They lock you in place until you've gotten through with them which severely fucks with the games pacing and 3.) There's NOTHING INTERESTING BEING SAID IN THEM, so if the devs really were trying to mimic MGS with this then they missed the mark on what made the calls in that game actually good: they actually provided helpful information and didn't tell you to jump over a pit of spikes or something else mundane. Actually now that I'm on this point I should also discuss that X5 doesn't even have skippable cutscenes, which while not amounting to much for new players, is still one of numerous factors that make this game a slog to re-visit (and believe me, I've beaten this game 3 times for achievements sake in the X Legacy Collection. Just got my 3rd playthrough of it done earlier today).

Anyway back to actual core gameplay: also new to X5 is the ability to crouch in place by holding down on your controllers left stick/D-Pad. This is something I thought wouldn't really amount to much when I first played this game, but I actually found it to be a damn good tool to have in this game alongside the next game. It lowers the trajectory of your attacks which is REALLY helpful for hitting smaller enemies that would be a nuisance otherwise, and due to it also making your hitbox smaller it also acts as a surprisingly good evasion tool when fighting a few specific bosses.

Lastly: X5 introduces another gameplay mechanic that would become a series staple from this point until X8: that being special parts that X and Zero can equip to improve their abilities. These can range from simply gaining more HP from health regens, being able to fire a fully charged shot by simply pressing the shoot button or increased dash speed, and this IMO is a mechanic that was LONG overdue for this series, but like some of the other new additions I discussed earlier, this one was also implemented poorly. Basically, bosses in this game have levels akin to JRPGs, and the higher their level is, the more rewards you'll get. At level 1 they'll only give you the special weapon/Zero technique that's tied to them, but at level 4 and above you can choose to give X or Zero a boost to their max HP or special weapon energy alongside the special weapon/technique & at level 8 and above you can make a special part alongside the HP/special weapon boost AND the special weapon/technique. It's a very good concept in paper, but the game does jack shit to explain how to actually get the bosses levels to the point where you can start getting parts from them. The biggest factor is how much time is left on the in-game time limit (yes this game has a time limit but that's to be discussed when I get to the plot) when you enter their stages, alongside a few other factors like your hunter rank and getting game overs after having already unlocked the fortress stages. The easiest way to get the parts is to repeatedly game over until you have either 11 hours left on the time limit as Zero (dropping down to 10 hours when going into your first proper stage) or 9-10 hours left as X (going down to 8/9 hours when going into your first proper stage. I'm not sure of the EXACT remaining time needed as I have started at 10 hours only for my first boss to be level 7). However unless you have a guide and/or you already know which option gives you which part then you won't know what part you'll be getting as the game doesn't tell you when picking between HP/special weapon energy what part you'll be getting, further adding to the botched inclusion of them in this game, as it's all needlessly convoluted unless you already know how the parts system works or seek out external sources to find out how it works.

X5s level design on the other half is still fortunately decent. Aside from the atrocity that is Tidal Whale/Duff McWhalens level (extremely tedious autoscroller with 3 midbosses that you have to backtrack to up to 2 times to get all the items) I do find plenty of fun in these levels, as it takes a lot of X4s mechanics and does more with them to create more of a challenge, most infamously Volt Kraken/Squid Adlers stage, a stage that starts off with a Ride Chaser segment that involves some VERY tight and precise platforming and also throws a jump at you before the "Ready" text even leaves the screen (that does make this stage the perfect way to get boss levels to the point where they start dropping parts), overall making X4s Ride Chaser stage look like childs play in comparison.

My personal favorite stages in X5 are probably Spiral Pegasus/The Skivers stage or Burn Dinorex/Mattrexs stage, the formers being having you travelling through an air space with autoscrollers but not to the extreme of Whales stage while also having a badass setpiece alongside a neat gimmick that revolves around defusing bombs and some nice item placement, while the latter is a Volcano level with a Ride Armor, very reminiscent of Magma Dragoons level, but the level makes use of branching paths that are both very unique from one another: one has you jumping across platforms suspended over lava while you get aggro'd by an enemy that's effectively a shoutout to Mega Man 2s Mecha Dragon while the other has you travelling through the lava with a Ride Armor that saves you from getting OHKO'd by the lava normally. Spike Rosereds stage is another pretty cool one, as it lacks any major gimmicks and is one of the few stages in X5 that allows you to go ham with the speed that the Mega Man X series is known for. It also features vine enemies suspended over bottemless pits, and you'd think that getting hit by them would just be a cheap shot but their placements are subtly indicated by their tips peaking out from where they're positioned so once you know their placements you can either choose to approach them carefully, or if you're skilled enough, dash right past them before they can even jump the gun on you, therefore making it another X5 stage I like a lot due to the aforementioned reasons. Again, all very fun and unique twists on X4s level design for the most part (except for Tidal Whales stage. Fuck Tidal Whales stage, single worst stage in the Mega Man X series IMO).

Anyway the only major gripe I have with X5s level design is the item placement, as the items for the most part are placed in such a way that that they're either out on the open or require a specific armor to reach them with no inbetween (this also leads to ridiculous amounts of backtracking even if you follow any optimal stage order). There are a few items that avert this rule such as the armor capsule in Dark Necrobat/Dark Dizzys stage that requires you to guide the F-Laser through a very tight passage to blow up the wall that's blocking you from getting it. This is one of the more enjoyable items to get as the level designers knew that players would have difficulty in getting this so they put in a refill for special weapon energy alongside spikes that you can use to lose a life and restore all your energy for the F-Laser if all else fails. All in all a fun item to go for in all of my playthroughs of X5 and if all the items were collected like this then it would honestly have the best level design/item placement in the series IMO.

Speaking of which, the items! For the most part they're exactly the same as in X4, although as I mentioned earlier you can also gain additional upgrades to your max HP or special weapon energy after beating bosses at level 4 or higher. I also forgot to mention in my X4 review that E-Tanks got another re-work in that game which would persist for the rest of the series. That being you don't need to be at full HP anymore to get energy for your E-Tanks, as health pickups now go towards both your current HP AND your E-Tanks! This is another much-needed re-work as it made E-Tank farming in the first 3 X games rather annoying if you accidentally walked into an enemy and took damage because that meant one health pickup was going down the drain, so the fact that that was removed starting in X4 was a major step in the right direction for the series.

Anyhow while X4 had 2 different armors for X in that game, X5 now has 4 armors. Alongside the returning Fourth Armor (Plasma Shot variant and in a somewhat nerfed state as it no longer has the Nova Strike or unlimited special weapon energy) & Ultimate Armor, this game introduces the Falcon Armor, which grants X with the ability to straight up fly for a few seconds while also making him invincible during said flight alongside a Giga Attack that covers the entire screen, but his charge shot is significantly weaker (but can pierce through walls), he can't charge up special weapons and he doesn't have a traditional air dash. I'd say the Falcon Armor is pretty nifty. I mean you're straight up invincible to everything besides insta-kill hazards while you fly with it and one of the special parts even makes you move faster while flying, indirectly mitigating the armors lack of a traditional air dash. With this you can trivialize pretty much every level in the game as you can just go through everything with your flight without taking much of a beating in return, but its weak charge shot alongside the inability to charge special weapons will be sure to make bosses more of a drag, not exactly my cup of tea personally so I usually stick to the Fourth Armor for the most part, but I do find my uses in the Falcon Armor too despite that.

Alongside that is the Gaea Armor which gives X a BEASTLY charge shot while also giving him a close-ranged Giga Attack that makes very short work of mid bosses, spike immunity and the ability to cling onto walls without sliding down, but at the cost of reduced range on his buster shots, a slower dash and not being able to use any special weapons at all. In execution though, it's clear the level design favors the Falcon Armor while the Gaea Armor is kinda just Life Up fodder but it is VERY useful against a certain boss in the fortress levels, but the new armors in X5 still strike a very nice balance between mobility and raw damage (the Falcon Armor trivializes levels with its flight, the Gaea Armor trivializes bosses with its fast & powerful charge shots and the Fourth Armor kinda strikes a nice balance between the 2 extremes as the Plasma Shot makes getting through levels a breeze and its respectable damage alongside the ability to charge up special weapons make the bosses not too bad as well). Something worth noting however is that the Head piece of the Gaea Armor has NO confirmed functionality whatever (the Maverick Hunters Field Guide book amusingly lampshades this by having its function listed as [DATA CORRUPTED], and I admittedly got a good laugh out of reading that part of the book) but you still have to collect it anyway because well, that's how Xs armors have always worked throughout this series.

Furthermore this is one of the few instances where you can unlock the Ultimate Armor through normal gameplay, being accessed via a hidden capsule in the 3rd fortress stage that you must visit as armorless X, making it a neat secret while fortunately not being the most cryptic glances at X3 (this same capsule also gives Zero his Black armor, which gives him the innate effects of a few certain parts without having them equipped, and what's also neat is that you can get the effects for BOTH X and Zero out of this capsule on the same file which I always liked). The Ultimate Armor itself functions identically to how it worked in X4 except it no longer has unlimited special weapon energy, but that isn't the biggest hit in the world if you ask me, as X5 already has various ways to let you prolong your special weapons for as long as possible.

However the big BIG gripe I have with X5s items is that life/special weapon energy upgrades only go towards one character rather than getting split among both of them, so you really do have to be mindful when going for those Life Ups and whichever character you beat a boss with, as THEIR energy upgrades ALSO go towards one character too. It's a very dumb decision that unfortunately doesn't get fixed until way later on in the series.

Next up is the plot, which is very in depth so I'll just give the key rundowns of it alongside my opinion. The reason as to why this game has a time limit is because a ginormous space colony has been put on a collision course with the Earth by an agent of Sigma, and to stop it the Maverick Hunters must deploy a cannon known as the Enigma, and if that fails (which it very likely will as it only has like a 10% success rate with optimum conditions) then they deploy a shuttle (which fortunately has WAY more generous RNG when the optimum conditions are met). If both of those fail, the the Earth gets fucked as the colony crashes into it, and due to the spreading of Sigmas virus across the Earth at the beginning of the game, this leads to Zero being brainwashed into going Maverick & fighting X, which also prevents you from using Zero for the rest of the game if you trigger this scenario, and due to the fact that only one hunter gets the life upgrades, any that you invested into Zero go with him if you get this ending, but fortunately all it takes is a little bit of save scumming to remedy this as despite being RNG-based, the shuttle RNG is actually very generous fortunately (also fun story, I recently started a run where I purposely got the bad ending where I used both the cannon and the shuttle without any parts. On my first attempt at the shuttle it fucking succeeded in destroying the colony, and my jaw just dropped when that happened for a good few minutes because the odds of the shuttle succeeding without any parts is the exact same as the odds of the cannon succeeding with optimal conditions. Just thought I'd bring that up in this review in regards to the RNG) but still, why the FUCK is this even in the game, and how did it ever pass over the devs radars?

Also yeah, the highly anticipated X vs Zero battle that the previous 3 games foreshadowed finally takes place in X5. Now if you get the bad ending then the battle feels really fucking climactic in regards to the games context, but if you play as Zero or get the good ending then the reasoning for its occurrence is goddamn Repliforce-tiers of stupidity as X and Zero both make schizophrenic accusations towards each other on if one or the other has gone Maverick or not leading to a GODDAMN FIGHT TO THE DEATH over baseless accusations. Anyway after this point Sigma intervenes & you go fuck him up, but regardless of whatever outcome you get in regards to the colony then Zero seemingly fucking dies for the good in this game and that leads me into another point: that this games plot has an overall sense of finality to it, likely because Keiji Inafune solely requested that X5 be the last game in the X series so that it could then link into the Mega Man Zero series on the GBA, where Zero comes back about a century after the X series ends, but fortunately this didn't end up being the last X game. X6s plot seems to imply that the canonical outcome of X5s plot was the good ending where the colony was destroyed... which is the very same ending where X and Zero fight to the death over baseless accusations. If THAT was what this series ended on then that would leave a VERY sour taste in my mouth, so fortunately we live in the timeline where it didn't and the X series continued on regardless, and I will NEVER understand why X6 gets scorn for continuing the story beyond this sloppily-written ending.

There is some nice attention to detail in regards to the bosses however, as their dialogues towards X and Zero vary on if you encounter them after unlocking the fortress levels are not. It doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things but I still find it neat regardless. Another thing I REALLY find neat is the introduction of supporting characters like Alia and Signas, which add in a sense of worldbuilding by making the Maverick Hunters really feel like a co-ordinated team of Reploids as before this, X and Zero were really the only fucking competent protagonists on screen. Likewise, the game also shows the long-term impacts that the Repliforce conflict from X4 has had on the world, as some of the stage bosses are ex-Repliforce members, Zero has developed a colder personality and the previous Maverick Hunter commander stepped down in shame over that event, leading to Signas becoming the Hunters new commander. This I like as it shows that these events have actual real consequences on the characters of Xs world rather than having everyone just immediately move on from the last big event in the previous games.

This leads me into X5s bosses. Overall they kinda feel simpler than in the previous games, but I'd say they're in between X3 and X2s bosses in regards to the complexity of their patterns. It does have Volt Kraken however, who's the funnest boss in the entire X series IMO (his attacks have range, he can cover the ground in electricity and he likes to get up close to you but there's a lot more vertical space in his arena to take advantage of). The Sigma battle is another one of my favorites as it feels very reminiscent of X1s Sigma battle in both phases, but while he's become stronger and has some extra attacks, you also have a significant new tool to deal with him in the form of your crouch. The battle against Zero is something that's been hyped up for the past 3 X games before this, and the fight with him in the bad ending is certainly deserving of this hype as he straight up has an insta-kill move alongside a shit tonne of attack and health, otherwise he's near-identical to the Zero battle in X2 unfortunately. When playing as Zero however the fight is a lot more interesting, as you fight X with his Ultimate Armor equipped, complete with some of his special weapons seen in Mega Man X4 (what the fuck, why wasn't I allowed to use Double Cyclone or Frost Tower in this game???). Anyway the rest of the fortress bosses are unique twists on previous bosses, including a Devil fight that can attack with blocks from BOTH sides of the arena, block movements that follow a random pattern as opposed to the same order like the Yellow Devil and the ability to morph into the Wily Machine from Mega Man 6 & Rangda Bangda from X1, the latter of which is so absolutely trivialized by the Gaea Armor that you just have to see it in action, even despite the new tricks the boss itself gets as well because the Gaea Armor takes away all threat in what would be its most dangerous attack: the wall jumping phase, as you can just chill on the spikes and pelt the weakspot with charged shots as it moves around in a very telegraphed pattern.

However another major gripe I have with the bosses is that once you get to the boss rush they all have health bars that are the size of a fucking planet so they take FOREVER to bring down and that plays a big part in making X5 kind of a slog to replay. I can get Sigma having a ginormous health bar, but why the FUCK does it also apply to EIGHT bosses you already fight beforehand? This can be remedied somewhat fortunately as you'll likely have the Ultimate Armor at this point so you can just spam Nova Strikes and watch their health bars drop like nothing, but FUCK I'd be wrong in saying it didn't pad the game out regardless, even compared to other Mega Man boss rushes.

The special weapons aren't anything to write home about either. Maybe it's because I've honed my skills in this series to the point where I can Buster-only all but the most troublesome of bosses, but I never really found much use in most of them outside of instances where they're required for items. However I did find good use in C-Shot to keep Tidal Whale still while he spams his extremely fucking cheap desperation attack alongside Tri-Thunder to get some good damage in on the Devil boss (more than the Buster could ever manage) and charging up the F-Laser to make quick work of the Ride Arrmor enemies in the virus stages. Actually now that I'm typing this I think I did find a decent amount of usage in X5s special weapons, so was I wrong all along??? That's not even mentioning my single favorite special weapon in X5, Dark Hold which feels like one big fucking Jojo reference as 1.) It enables you to freeze everything in place and 2.) you get it from Dark Necrobat who has vampire-esque themes in his design. But with the fact that this game released only a couple of years after Capcoms own Jojo fighting game then everything matches up too well for Dark Hold to be anything but a Jojo reference. Additionally Zeros techniques function like his techniques in X4 for the most part, but one of his techniques in this game is notable as it takes away his ability to do the Saber Dash Cancel glitch, and because that's so fucking useful for the boss rush, whenever I do a Zero run of X5 I just skip the boss that technique comes from (Spiral Pegasus/The Skiver) to give myself a smoother experience with him in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, I can't help but feel as if X5s presentation is notably weaker than X4s, particularly in regards to the visuals which just kinda look cheap & dated overall when compared to X4s absolutely timeless visuals. Gone are the FMV cutscenes (which while sad is understandable as I hear that X4 didn't sell too hot to warrant Capcom blowing more money on another set of animated cutscenes) and in their place are traditional powerpoint-esque cutscenes that still do fortunately rock good art pieces.

Now remember when I said in the introduction that X5 was what got me to try out the X series? Well I can attribute this games absolutely killer OST to that. I first heard the iconic X vs Zero theme in Smash Bros and I thought that was a fucking banger, but nothing really came out of that for a few years until I heard Squid Adler/Volt Krakens theme in a random Monster Hunter video and THAT was what eventually got me to purchase both the X Legacy Collections so I will forever be grateful of that theme for introducing me to such an awesome series. Those tracks aside, other stand outs in X5s OST include Shining Firefly/Izzy Glows theme, Spiral Pegasus/The Skivers theme, Dark Necobat/Dark Dizzys theme and the 1st Sigma theme. Alongside X3 and X4s OSTs, this is the third of my favorite X series OSTs.

This review was certainly fun to do. In conclusion, Mega Man X5 certainly feels like an ambitious step forward for the X series with the mechanics it introduces and the story elements it brings to the table. However what it does try and introduce is done in VERY questionable ways, most notably the parts system and the boss levels. RNG endings can be negated by save scumming, but it's still very questionable that even the shuttle isn't guaranteed to work with all the parts for it collected. If you're a newcomer who's already beaten X1-4 then I'd certainly recommend checking X5 out (just be sure to PICK X at the beginning and not Zero), as it's certainly a lot of fun on a first playthrough but just becomes a slog on re-visits due to the mandatory dialogue fucking up the pacing of the game (as well as everything about the ocean level). Anyway, next up is Mega Man X6, the final X game to be released on the PS1. That's one that I think will be VERY interesting to review, as despite the general consensus surrounding it, I am part of the very small group of people who has actual praises to sing about that game.

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection)

X1
X2
X3
X4
X5
X7
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

Mega Man X5 was initially requested to be the final game in the X series, and it certainly showed as that games plot had an overall sense of finality in it what with the seeming destruction of Zero for good here that would originally lead into the then-upcoming Mega Man Zero series on the GBA, alongside the metric fuck tonne of fanservice throughout X5 that I completely forgot to mention in my review of that game. Anyhow that peace would not last for long, as barely a year after that, Mega Man X6 came along for the PS1. This is not only the final X game for that platform, but also the final X game to primarily use sprite-based presentation, as the 3 X games that came after this primarily stick to 3D models. X6 however is INFAMOUS for the terrible reputation it has among the Mega Man community for reasons I'll try touching upon in this review, so anyone who knows anything about this game will likely be surprised that I gave this game a 4 star rating. Now it's no secret that X6 underwent a rushed development (it released barely a year following X5 after all) and that led to a LOT of things in this game not really getting any QA testing, so much so that it actually comes around full circle and the lack of QA testing unintentionally results in this game actually posing a genuine challenge. So if X4 & X5 felt as if they were teaching you the core mechanics of the PS1 X games, then X6 feels like some sort of a "final exam" for everything you learnt throughout the previous games, as X6 will absolutely test your skills when it comes to various aspects from throughout the X series such as movement timings, attack observations, boss order planning etc.

When it comes to gameplay in X6, at its core it's the exact same as in X4 and X5, so what you've become accustomed to in those games will easily carry over to X6. A big new gameplay change however comes in the fact that X has inherited Zeros saber to honor his legacy following the ending of X5, but due to his lack in competence with it compared to Zero his attacks with the saber are a lot more limited, really boiling down to a single swing on the ground as well a single swing while airborne. The game works with this a LOT, as even from the intro stage you're taught that there's some obstacles that can't be overcome with the X-Buster so you'll have to use the saber instead. Additionally, the new armors that X acquires in this game power up the saber in multiple ways, but more on that whenever I discuss the items. It's a mechanic you wouldn't think much off, but the game absolutely runs with it by playing with it/expanding upon it in various ways, and I do have to commend the devs for that as in gameplay I've found plenty of uses for the saber compared to just traditionally blasting everything with the X-Buster. Additionally, against bosses its also a good tool to have due to its multi-hit properties compared to Xs Buster shots and special weapons which are single hits.

Going onto Zeros side of things (spoiler alert: Zero's back despite what happened to him in X5), he's received a pretty significant overhaul in this game compared to X5. His attacks have brand new sprites that fortunately still seamlessly chain into one another, and his Z-Buster has been buffed HARD compared to how it was previously, as it's significantly faster and actually does enough damage to balance out its only real drawback and that's that you can still only use it from a standstill. Furthermore he has his double jump from the get go in X6 while they were tied to his techniques in X4 and X5. This is easily the funnest iteration of Zero in the X series IMO as he has a tool to adapt to any situation that arises and there is no challenge in this game that you'll have trouble overcoming as him compared to say, X4 with the fucking General boss fight or X5 where you can REALLY feel his reduced defenses moreso than any other X game. In fact, you'll have an EASIER time in X6 as Zero than as X due to points I'll discuss later as he virtually has no weaknesses outside of his defense, but it fortunately isn't to the extreme as it was in X5.

Speaking of X5, the parts system returns from that game but it's been streamlined a LOT and therefore it's way less convoluted/easier for a newcomer to understand. But to explain that first requires explaining reploid hostages. This was a mechanic that was introduced in X5, but that barely amounted to much as every single hostage in that game gave you some health regen, an extra life and nothing else. In this game however while some of them still do give you extra lives/health regens only, some of them will now give you Life Ups or special parts, therefore giving you WAY more incentive to go after them here than in X5. However, some of these reploid hostages are placed next to a VEEEEEERY certain enemy that heavily ties into the games plot, and if both of them are on screen at once that enemy will go towards the hostage & infect them, there by turning them into enemies. If that happens, whatever they were carrying is fucking GONE unless you abuse save-scumming, but fortunately (foreshadowing towards my paragraph on the level design) the only parts that you really need to beat the game are tied to reploids that are not placed nearby any of these enemies. However that's not to say that losing the other parts permanently isn't bullshit either and the fact that the enemies move rather slowly/you can just save-scum to prevent it doesn't hide that fact. Permanently miss-able content of any caliber is a fucking blight upon the gaming industry and the day where games stop having that bullshit forever should be regarded as an international holiday.

Anyway that aside once you get the part you can immediately equip it from the stage select screen so long as your hunter rank is high enough. The hunter rank was another feature that X5 introduced that I completely forgot to discuss but the key rundown is that like the parts system it was needlessly fucking convoluted with all the factors involved in raising it & that it had a minor role to play in boss levels. Here it has been simplified fortunately, as it raises as you collect Nightmare Souls, an item that drops from the enemies I discussed earlier. X & Zero both have their own separate hunter ranks & their own separate Nightmare Soul counters, and they both have 5 slots for equipping parts at maximum but you can't equip any at the start. 1 of these slots becomes opened up as you raise X/Zeros hunter rank by collecting Nightmare Souls for 5 slots overall as I mentioned earlier, which again is WAY easier for a newcomer to comprehend than X5s part/hunter rank system so they can expect to achieve results rather smoothly with even just a basic idea of the games mechanics.

There's not really much to say about the parts themselves, as for the most part they're identical to X5s parts, and I alluded to this earlier, but something to note about the parts is that if you're playing as X then the Jumper part is mandatory to beat the game depending on what armor you bring into the stage where it's required (and as I also alluded to earlier, this part is tied a reploid that you can't lose to any of those certain enemies).

Anyway, Alias support calls are back from X5, but they've went through a major overhaul too, as aside from more major instances, THEY'RE FINALLY OPTIONAL so the pacing of the game overall remains consistent throughout its run, helped even more by the fact that cutscenes can actually be skipped here, and that's one of the reasons why I find it more enjoyable to replay X6 than X5.

Following this comes the level design of X6, and boy discussing this one is MUCH more of a fucking doozy than discussing X3s bosses. Compared to the previous 2 games, X6 is much more varied in its level design and doesn't really choose to expand on established mechanics like X5 did with X4s mechanics. There are still a few levels that don't abide by this trend like Weapon Center (Infinity Mijinions stage) where the platforming is laid back in favor of blasting through hordes of enemies and midbosses, very reminiscent of Military Train from X4 but what that stage had an awesome set piece as you platformed across a train, this has an EVEN COOLER set piece as you get attacked from the background by DISCOUNT MEGATRON and FUCK this makes it easily my favorite level from X6 for the set piece alone. The only major gripes I have with it are 1.) it's rather short and 2.) the item placement which I'll discuss overall later in this paragraph.

That point about Weapon Center brings me onto another point: that X6s levels are all over the fucking place in terms of length. Alongside the Weapon Center when it comes to short levels is Laser Institute (Shield Sheldons stage) that you can easily get through in like 30-40 seconds when you know what you're doing, while on the other end of the spectrum is stages such as Recycle Lab (Metal Shark Players stage) where you must avoid a trash compactor by finding dips in the level terrain to hide in, with the safe spots gradually becoming more scarce and dangerous the further you progress into the level and eventually accumulating with a safe spot that's suspended over spikes. It's comparable to the ocean level from X5 but unlike that there's actual enjoyment to be found in Recycle Lab. Both are slow-paced levels but whereas with X5s ocean level the only thing that was threatening you was an extremely slow midboss while here you're under threat of a trash compactor hazard that's an insta kill if you get crushed by it, and that makes this stage a LOT more engaging. The major gripes I have with it are the severe lack of checkpoints and that some enemies are placed inside the trash compactor where anything that isn't a Giga Attack or saber swing won't be able to hit them. Otherwise an actually fun slow-paced level in a Mega Man X game by forcing you to actually be careful of when you make your moves otherwise you get crushed (and it's ironic as this was my least favorite stage when I first played X6 but whenever I came back to it I eventually warmed up to it. This will be a recurring theme throughout this review).

Another infamous level from X6 is the Magma Area (Blaze Heatnixs stage) where the level revolves around fighting a specific donut-shaped midboss with the area you fight them in gradually becoming more and more dangerous which forces you to approach each fight in a different matter... until you learn that Giga Attacks or any other sort of move that covers the entire screen makes VERY quick work of them without much effort. With that knowledge then this level goes from being one of the most infuriating levels in the game to being one you can blaze through VERY quickly once you know how to most efficiently approach the donut midbosses, actually making it a pretty fun time.

Each of the 8 stages also contains an alternate path that contains extra goodies as well as an encounter with a series of separate bosses from what you'd fight normally. It's a neat concept, but just be warned that it is possible to pre-maturely enter one of these alternate paths and get softlocked as a result (e.g. the alternate path in Amazon Area that requires the use of Xs Blade Armor or the Hyper Dash part, or just High Max in general, more on him in my paragraphs about the bosses in X6), and also if you like figuring out optimal routes then that's just not a thing here as items are also located in these alternate paths so there's no away around avoiding lots of backtracking.

With all that out of the way I now want to discuss some of the most common gripes I see get thrown around in regards to X6s level design, starting off with supposed blind jumps. Not much to say about this one, just that in all but one instance of them there's walls for you to cling to so you can slow your descent down and see what's coming up at a more reactable pace. The second and more notable gripe is about lots and lots of spikes or other insta kill hazards. While I can agree that the game does love throwing insta kill hazards at you especially in the final stages all but the mentioned example of them are accompanied by a healthy supply of enemies that you can use to just damage boost through them without much difficulty, and this tip becomes ESPECIALLY useful when getting some of the items in Inami Temple (Rainy Turtloids stage) where the game intends for you to air dash through extremely tight passages coated with spikes on both ends but every one of those passages is located nearby enemies that you can use to damage boost through those passages and get all the items without much difficulty.

This thoroughly leads me into the item placement in X6s levels. On one hand it's a step from from X4/X5s item placement as more of them are tied to do or die situations or require clever usage of X/Zeros tools to get them, but then on the other hand you have shit like this where the level designers clearly gave up on putting the items in clever spots. Keep in mind that the aforementioned example is located at the start of the alternate route in Weapon Center, right behind where you spawn at, REALLY fucking cheap and lazy item placement if you ask me. Sticking with that (while also diverging from the item placement at the same time) the entire alternate route in Weapon Center stands as the only real instance of dogshit level design in X6 IMO as it involves jumping across poles while collecting Reploid hostages that are VERY conveniently placed mere pixels away from a gang of Nightmare guys, so if you're trying to do a full 100% run of this game then make sure to save your game right before focusing on this section as you'll very likely have to restart a few times to get everything there. Now that I think about it, hiding items behind what are seemingly dead ends where the camera won't pan over until you move over to them is a trope that's repeated quite frequently when it comes to X6s item placement, but there are at least a few times where the game subtly indicates that there's something behind what looks like a dead end such as the armor capsule in Amazon Area or the alternate path in North Pole Area. It would be nice if they did that with the rest of the stages here, but in the end, this is X6 after all.

There's also Central Museum, where its overall RNG-based nature also finds its way into the item placement, which fucking sucks on paper, but in execution I felt as if the RNG for actually spawning in the rooms with the items was still rather generous (God, now imagine if this had Enigma-levels of RNG instead, otherwise I'd probably be ranting about it more). Fortunately those are the only real examples where the item placement really takes a dip, otherwise I enjoy getting the items here more than I did in X4 and X5 overall.

Anyhow I wanted to save the most spicy point for last when it comes to the core level design in X6: the fucking fortress stages. I'll start off by being blunt and say I actually like the fortress levels in X6. These levels WILL test your skills harder than any other level in this game, as it goes absolutely guns blazing with the spikes (ones that you can't damage boost through at that) and putting them on tight openings leading to instances where you have to pull of a precise jump or an air dash to get through, and once you do nail the timing down for the movement in these stages then it's just chefs kiss. Feel free to call me a masochist but IMO it's THE most satisfying and rewarding set of fortress levels out of any Mega Man X game with X5 and X8s fortress levels being close runner ups. However I still think it's fucking bullshit that unless you have the Jumper part equipped then the game punishes you for using a certain set of Xs armor with a jump you can't even cross, making this the first (and to my knowledge only X game) that's unbeatable without any upgrades as X (post review note: I forgot about Xtreme 2). The level does also have alternate paths after one of the bosses that very depending on what character you use in it. If you use X that alternate path involves acid rain from Inami Temple that also contains the aforementioned jump that you need a specific armor or part to even get across while as Zero you get the trash compactor from Recycle Lab again, made even more dangerous as now some of your safe spots to avoid getting crushed are suspended over bottomless pits, a very logical conclusion of a previously established mechanic while refraining from making it feel bullshit. There are enemies placed in such a way to fuck you up while you crouch to avoid getting crushed but the easy work around to this is to run into them while the compactor is coming down so that the enemies get crushed while your i-frames are active from the contact damage.

And wow I never even mentioned the Nightmare system, EASILY my least favorite part about X6. Function-wise it acts identically to the terrain changes seen in X1 & X3, but while there they helped you out by removing hazards and allowing some items to be obtained, here they're overall a complete fucking pain in the ass and so my routes in X6 are constructed in a way that avoids this stupid mechanic as much as possible. They actively work against you by adding in more hazards to each stage. What stage is affected is based on whatever the last stage you visited was (and ANY kind of visit counts, whether you manually exit back to the stage select, game over or actually beat the boss, the latter of which will trigger its appropriate Nightmare effect PERMANENTLY). For example, visiting Weapon Center will trigger the Nightmare effect in Amazon Area and Inami Temple, or visiting Magma Area will trigger the Nightmare effect in North Pole Area and Weapon Center. The gripe I have is that despite the fact they're an overall detriment to the player by adding intrusive hazards to stages affected by it, you're largely on your own when figuring out how the Nightmare effect exactly works. I was previously going to discuss how it's poorly explained until I realized that stages currently affected by the Nightmare are clearly indicated by the bosses icon being highlighted in red (although if you trigger a permanent Nightmare effect after beating a boss then a specific stage will still be affected won't even be highlighted), but you are still on your own in finding out which stages trigger Nightmare effects in other stages. Either learn how a new mechanic works the hard way by experiencing it first hand and getting punished hard as a result or just consult to a guide to find out how the effect works and how to work around it, pick your poison. Anyway I do like the few instances where the Nightmare effect is cleverly utilized in the level design. Examples of this being the effect that Recycle Lab triggers in Magma Area being required to reach some of the items in that stage, or Magma Areas effect on North Pole Area being required to reach that stages alternate path which is where the Jumper part is located. I like this, and I wished that the level designers played with the effect in more ways like this as it would lead to some VERY creative level design/item placement, but I guess we can't always have nice things in the end. The worst one however is the Nightmare Darkness, the effect that Weapon Center has on Amazon Area and Inami Temple which pretty much deletes your entire FOV of the surrounding area, in stages with bottomless pits, chip damage hazards and so on nonetheless. REALLY fucking annoying stuff and so to completely avoid that I make sure I've gotten every item and Reploid hostage in both Amazon Area and Inami Temple prior to taking on Infinity Mijinion because MAN trying to go through the former 2 stages with the darkness enabled is a complete fucking pain in the ass and I don't recommend it.

The item game in X6 is pretty much identical to how it was in X5. There's 8 Life Ups, 3 E-Tanks, the EX Tank and 8 Light Capsules again to find, and as I mentioned earlier, reploid hostages will also give you additional Life Ups too.

Anyway like with X5, X6 has 4 different armors for X to utilize. The Falcon Armor and the Ultimate Armor both return (now only being available through a button input again sadly), but the former has received a few tweaks, specifically that it can now charge up special weapons (something it couldn't do in X5), but the charged Buster shot, while overall being stronger than in X5, no longer pierces through walls and the armors flight has now been reworked into a traditional air dash, overall striking a good balance between combat and mobility, which is especially needed as X has the Falcon Armor from the get go in this game like how he had the Fourth Armor from the get go in X5.

Anyhow, alongside those 2 comes the Blade Armor, an armor that visually makes X look like a samurai crossed with a Gundam. The Head piece just doubles Xs special weapon capacity while reducing energy consumption for his special weapons. The Chest piece gives X 50% damage reduction while converting damage taken into energy for something of a multi-tiered Giga Attack. The Buster piece lets X charge his special weapons alongside enabling him to use a weaker Plasma Shot AND having the saber come out of the barrel rather than X holding it. And the leg piece gives X a more powerful air dash that he can also go up and down with akin to the Third Armor, with X also freezing in place when you get ready to do an air dash, allowing you to be more accurate with your trajectory which comes in VERY handy for getting through some of the spike gaps in the fortress levels. This is one of my favorite X armors IMO, both in terms of visuals and in terms of functionality, as it's just so fun to mess around with due to the tools you have at your disposal with it.

Alongside the Blade Armor however also comes the Shadow Armor. This is one of the most unique armors in the entire X series when it comes to visuals as this makes X look more like a ninja than a mecha wannabe like all of his other armors, but in terms of how it functions it's very reminiscent of the Gaea Armor from X5 but with extra mobility compared to that armor, as their abilities are very similar (clinging to walls without any descent, spike immunity, close-ranged Giga Attack but no access to special weapons), but the Shadow Armor has a few new attributes of its own, including the ability to cling to ceilings with it and attack from there, lemons that fire in random directions rather than straight forward, and a powerful saber strike taking the place of its charge attack as opposed to a standard charge shot. With level design like X6s, there's WAY more incentive to use the Shadow Armor for more than just getting a few items and nothing else, and the extra mobility compared to the Gaea Armor does make it VERY fun to use. Again, be mindful that if you decide to bring the Shadow Armor into the fortress levels (which mind you, you likely will want to because of all the spikes), BRING THE JUMPER PART otherwise it's straight-up impossible to beat due to a very specific jump that's too wide to get across without an air dash (which the Shadow Armor lacks) or parts. All in all a damn good set of armors, and overall I REALLY dig how they play with the fact that X has the Z-Saber in this game by powering it up in multiple ways, something that's very worth revisiting X6 for IMO.

The plot of X6 is another interesting case. It goes off the good ending of X5 where the Maverick Hunters succeed in destroying the colony and picks up the story 3 weeks following the events of that game. A common misconception is that this game combines elements from both the good AND bad endings of X5 but that's false for the most part, as even in the good ending Alia (at least I think) mentions that it will take a while to repair the damage caused by the colonys destruction, and this is further supported by the short time gap between X5 and X6. If anything the only part of X5 that's getting retconned in this game is the very last shot of X vowing to honor Zeros legacy which while being minor as it's never explained whenever X actually acquires the saber, is also something the devs absolutely took personally when thinking of new gameplay mechanics for this game.

Anyway the overall premise of the plot is rather interesting with a new villain called Gate taking the center stage as the main antagonist following Sigmas supposed defeat at the end of X5 (spoiler alert: Gate revives Sigma by the end of X6). Alia also gets tied into this nicely as this game gives her a backstory, highlighting how she was a companion of Gate who regrettably helped in taking down his creations (who act as the stage bosses in this game). Gates creations were disposed of only out of pure jealousy by other scientists and so following the discovery of some of Zeros DNA at the crash site of the colony he carries out revenge on those who wronged him by triggering the Nightmare phenomena and inviting "lower-class" Reploids into an "investigation" of the phenomena in order to lure them into being put down, and that's how you get the reploid hostages located in each of the 8 stages. With Zeros DNA, Gate creates the Zero Nightmare, an Ax-Crazy clone of Zero as well as High Max, a reploid so highly advanced that he's completely impervious to all attacks but those from Gates other creations, and accompanying Gate in these en devours is the reploid scientist Isoc who's very obviously another vessel for Dr Wily akin to Serges from X2 given his attitude towards X and Zero, and the fact that his voice actor previously played the role of Wily in Mega Man 8.

Once you beat the Zero Nightmare, the real Zero reveals himself to still be alive in one of the biggest ass pulls in all of fiction. The Japanese version simply states that Zero didn't know how the fuck he came back and THAT would've simply worked better than hiding himself while he repairs himself. Speaking of that, this leads me into a big gripe I have with the story in X6: THE FUCKING GODAWFUL TRANSLATION. HOLY. FUCK. IS IT BAD. Now I never payed much heed to X4 and X5s iffy translations as they were still completely serviceable despite the mishaps involved with them, but MAN I can't avoid talking about it here. So many errors, so many typos, so MUCH incorrect grammar. It ranges moreso into "so bad it's good" territory as I admittedly got a couple of laughs out of the poorly translated dialogue, but that doesn't save the fact that this is easily the lowest point of Mega Man translation, keeping in line with the overall rushed nature of X6. Anyway overall, aside from the godawful translation X6s plot is certainly unique for Mega Man X standards.

Next up is the bosses, and when it comes to Mega Man X6, the bosses here have some RIDICULOUS unbalancing. Sticking to the stage bosses, all of them are fairly manageable for the most part and are actually kinda fun when you aren't tearing through their health bars with SDCs or Guard Shell shenanigans although Blaze Heatnix can be kinda annoying given how basically sneezing on him will trigger his i-frames. But then there's Infinity Mijinion whos fight can get out of control VERY quickly if you don't focus on the clones that he produces as you do damage to him, so you have to balance your attacks across both Mijinion himself and his clones so that the fight doesn't devolve into pure chaos. A neat idea but still, wtf where they thinking???

Anyway, most of my discussion on X6s bosses is reserved for the fortress level bosses. Nightmare Mother is the first boss you encounter in the fortress levels and it immediately proves to be a big difficulty spike compared to the rest of X6. Random patterns when it moves around the room with 0 indication as to whether it'll move clockwise or anticlockwise, a weakspot that's only vulnerable while it's attacking and also doesn't take much damage alongside said attacks consisting of a barrage of projectiles that require you to be a god at the game in order to dodge. One of the biggest clusterfucks out of any boss in this series if you ask me, and it's somewhat reminiscent of X5s Shadow Devil fight but with a bigger emphasis on RNG patterns. Fortunately Zero with the Jumper part will give you a LOT of leeway in dodging Nightmare Mothers rotation attack, and charged Metal Anchor shots with X will make very quick work of its health bar, so a lot of the frustration surrounding it is alleviated with that knowledge. Then there's High Max who has a very interesting strategy regarding how you approach his fight. As X, you must hit him with an X-Buster attack to stun him, then use that window to hit him with a special weapon, the Nova Strike or the Shadow Armors charged attack to actually get damage in. As Zero, just hitting him with any of your techniques seems to do the job in getting damage on him. The problem is that your attacks do literal scratch damage (minus the Nova Strike because that still hits him HARD) while his attacks hit like a truck in return, therefore making the fight feel like more of an endurance test if anything as patience is key in taking this fucker down. However, High Max has nothing on the literal king of endurance, Gate, whose fight will either end in respectable time or drag on for way longer than it should depending on how he's feeling. The way the fight works is that Gate is impervious to ALL of your attacks so the only way to damage him is to attack the energy balls he shoots out until they burst, travelling both left and right, & if they reach contact with Gate, they do damage. The fight however is suspended over a bottomless pit so on top of dodging Gates attacks you have to be mindful of your platforming so that you don't fall down and have to restart, and Gates pattern is VERY slow and has some RNG involved in whether he'll chuck out an energy ball or not, so therefore the fight really isn't anything worse than boring IMO. After that is Sigma, who has one of his easiest incarnations in this game if you ask me. Due to his unfinished state (in-lore) he only has like two attacks in his first phase that are both extremely slow (if you're using Zero you can literally just sit there and pelt him with Z-Buster hits. You'll either beat him or leave him with VERY little health by the time he actually attacks you, it's something that needs to be seen to be believed) and in his 2nd phase any sort of saber attack will just rip through his health bar like its nothing, but his attacks still hit HARD so you can't just unga bunga him without losing nearly your entire health bar in the process. Despite his difficulty, I still had a lot of fun with this games Sigma battle and it's an epic way to conclude this game due to reasons I'll mention when I discuss the presentation in X6.

I also mentioned earlier that each of the 8 stages has an alternate path that ends in a special boss encounter. The first of these encounters is the Zero Nightmare, who for the most part fights like Zero did in his boss fight in X5, albeit with a new teleportation move and a rapid fire buster. This is how the Zero fight in X5 SHOULD HAVE been in my eyes, as that was pretty much just a copy/paste of the X2 Zero battle which made it feel very anti-climactic. Once you beat the Zero Nightmare, this unlocks Zero as a playable character and the boss of the alternate areas instead becomes High Max, and beating him unlocks early access to the fortress levels. Finally, every subsequent visit has you encounter Dynamo from X5 who fights identically here as in that game, but attacking him with his weakness triggers him to drop LOTS of Nightmare Souls, so he's really just around for you to grind those suckers up so you can equip more parts at once. It is worth noting however that it is possible to soft lock yourself if you encounter High Max in any of the 8 alternate paths without any special weapons acquired as you won't be able to damage him, so should you run into this situation, you'll have to let yourself get a game over at his hands so you can continue progressing through the game normally. This is one BIG fucking oversight that I'm surprised they never picked up on due to how fucking significant it is (then again, it is fucking X6 after all so what was I expecting).

This brings me into the special weapons, which I had a LOT of fun using in X6. Yammar Option is a very nice defensive tool as it summons 3 dragonflies that surround X and Zero which you can also control yourself to attack nearby enemies, Ice Burst is a nice tool for helping out on tricky platforming sections (and I believe is also mandatory to get past the start of the first fortress level as X), Guard Shell has a glitch with Zero where if you attack an enemy while the Guard Shell is in their hitbox then they take more damage so that weapon is fun to use for the wrong reason, Ensuizan is also glitched as if you use it on a platform that disappears then Zero becomes invincible to all but bottomless pits and crushing hazards, and you can even make use of this glitch in the fights against Gate and Sigma. Metal Anchor when charged up becomes a glorified screen nuke that not only shout outs Storm Eagle but also makes quick work of the donuts in Magma Area. Magma Blade is another fun weapon to use simply because rather than enhancing Xs Buster it instead enhances the saber and MAN it was such a missed opportunity to not have any more of Xs special weapons here power up the saber. Pretty solid set of special weapons/Zero techniques this time around... even if some of them are fun to use for unintended purposes.

In regards to the presentation, X6s visuals IMO are a step up from X5. The stage visuals still look cheap at times but more effort was certainly put into the cutscenes as they all rock unique illustrations alongside actual voice acting albeit only in Japanese. I've already mentioned the atrocious translation of the dialogue in these cutscenes and I don't feel like rambling about them again. The music is also obviously really fucking good, with the highlights of it IMO being the themes for the Magma Area, Weapon Center, Inami Temple, Recycle Lab, Boss battles, Gates Laboratory, High Max and Sigma, whose theme in this game is a hard rock-centric medley of his themes from X1 and X2 which makes this fight ironically feel WAY more climactic than his X5 fight. Very solid set of tunes all around, what else needs to be said?

This was another fun review to make, even if it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to say and how I'd go about saying it. In conclusion, I'd only recommend X6 to the most die hard of fans who got thorough enjoyment out of the first 5 X games. It unintentionally pushes the memorization aspect of the X series to the absolute maximum so therefore if you're a newcomer and/or a blind player then you're going to get punished HARD if you don't know how to get around some of the insta-kill hazards alongside the mechanics the game poorly explains potentially leading you into a soft-lock, but with hindsight and knowledge of what to expect then this game IMO becomes one of the most rewarding games in the X series and also one that's VERY fun to replay compared to say, X5 where the dialogue and overall slower pacing of the game makes it a slog to replay. However it has one of the worst translations to ever grace a video game so you better not get too invested in the plot despite how unique it is. Anyway, next up in the X series is another new hardware leap with Mega Man X7 for the PS2, a game that's a clusterfuck in its own right... but not in a fun way like this game.

I haven't played it that much yet to really scratch the surface of it but from my first impressions I can tell that this is gonna be one to keep me hooked. The original SNES F-Zero always stood as one of the weaker games in that series IMO due to the lack of content, the random bumper cars and how you got hard punished for crashing by having your vehicle turn into a pinball for a few seconds, but I can't deny that it was still an absolutely revolutionary game, as not only did it help to show off what the SNES was truly capable of hardware-wise, but it also paved out part of the entire racing game landscape in this day and age. But then F-Zero 99 was revealed in a Nintendo Direct a few weeks ago and I admittedly was rather upset (then again I actually had expectations from modern day Nintendo, so what the fuck was I doing). 20 years since the last installment in this series and THIS is what they came up with? But after finally getting around to playing it... HOLY. FUCK. THIS is what the SNES game SHOULD'VE been. Multiplayer? Checked and THEN SOME. F-Zero X boosting? Check. The ability to actually practice on every track? Check. Even the sky road, a new gimmick introduced in this game is a welcome addition as despite being a glorified comeback mechanic, it still feels natural and not bullshit as to even access it you must first gather enough golden orbs on the track to fill up a gauge underneath your vehicles health bar, therefore meaning you have to actually work for that shit. Combat is also way more emphasized here as if you get a KO on an opponent then your vehicles energy gets a full restore to allow you to get a few more boosts in and possibly squeeze out a win, making it another fun addition to the SNES formula, even if your combat options are more limited than in F-Zero X/GX/Climax. Furthermore the balancing is WAY better this time around, as the strengths and weaknesses of all the vehicles are heavily emphasized here so you're incited to use more than just the Fire Stingray once you figure out how to play the game. The Blue Falcon is still the ideal beginner vehicle as it's the most balanced in every stat, the Golden Fox is for more expert players as despite its awful durability, handling and top speed, you get greatly rewarded for working around those with top-class acceleration and the longest boost, the Wild Gooses top-class durability makes it an ideal pick if you're paranoid about your energy in regards to the amount of vehicles you'll be trying to pass and the Fire Stingrays high top speed makes it adept at the longer tracks. Each vehicle has a proper niche to fill and there's actual reasons to use all 4 of them this time around, therefore providing some balancing that was SORELY missing in the SNES game. This is a shorter review but all in all I really do feel as if the 20 year wait for something F-Zero related was absolutely worth it, and whether or not you're an F-Zero junkie like I am or not I highly recommend this. This game is still getting content updates at the time of me typing this, and I hope to God the devs treat it well, as depending on what they add in then I have absolute faith in saying that this is one of the single best multiplayer games on the Switch.

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection. Also fair warning that I get angry a few times in this review)

X1
X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. In the eyes of the overall Mega Man community, that's the best way to describe going from Mega Man X6 to this game, both of which are of entirely different extremes. In the case of X6 it's due to the extremely tight level design and poorly explained mechanics which can result in you getting soft-locked that make that game VERY punishing towards newcomers/blind players, but once you gain hindsight of what that game throws at you & figure out how to get around it then that game becomes VERY fun to play on re-visits, while this is an extreme for an entirely different reason. Anyway, it's Mega Man X7, a game with just as bad if not even worse of a reputation than what X6 has. It's a game that's been burned into the ground for well over 20 years since its initial release in 2003 for a plethora of reasons, with some even going as far as to say it's one of the worst games to ever be put out by a AAA developer. X7 is another interesting game in my case as IMO it's not as bad as everyone hypes it up to be, however that's not say it's a good game, far from it. It still stands as the single weakest Mega Man X game in my opinion with Xtreme 1 and X5 being runners up. I tried my hardest to find things to like about this game as underneath everything this game does wrong there's a game that really does try its hardest to take the Mega Man X series in an innovative new direction (post-review note: I think this entire statement was rather premature).

The big new changes that X7 brings to the table come in the gameplay. There's a LOT to discuss here so I'll get the minor new change out of the way first, that being that X can now naturally use the air dash as it's no longer tied to any armor upgrades in this game. I'm surprised it took them this long to give X a natural air dash, but better late than never I suppose. However the level design barely capitalizes on the natural air dash like how X2 & X3 did with Xs natural ground dash so instead of becoming a key feature it ends up being one that's just nice to have in the grand scheme of things. With that out of the way that then leads into one of 2 major new gameplay changes in X7: 3D environments. Yes, after 6 games X & Zero have finally learned how to move about the X-Axis in more ways than just left and right. Now you'd think that with this would come brand new abilities for X & Zero to use to adapt to the 3D space, but the devs just chose to play it safe, and so they retain all the standard abilities that they had in X6, and I do have to commend them for that, as bringing a series known for fast-paced 2D sidescrollers into the 3D space is no easy feat, so why not keep it simple and retain all the functions that players are familiar with? Anyway with this game embracing 3D that leads me into the fact that due to this, X7 has a different gameplay engine than X4-X6 alongside brand new 3D models for its assets. UNFORTUNATELY the new engine leads to gameplay/movement that's nowhere near as fun as it was in the previous X games. Everything (most notably your jumps and wall jumps) feel a LOT more clunky, and even dashes feel notably slower than before. Additionally with 3D environments also comes concerns regarding the camera, and for some ungodly reason THE CAMERA IS TIED TO WHAT WOULD USUALLY BE THE FUCKING SPECIAL WEAPON BUTTONS (on a PS2/PS4 controller for instance it's L1/R1 while special weapons are mapped to the right stick or as I used a keyboard the camera is by default the D/C keys while the special weapons have been moved to the Q/E keys). The real kicker however is that despite how you can set your own action mapping in the options, YOU CAN'T SWAP THE CAMERA/SPECIAL WEAPON CONTROLS. Why the FUCK was this still even a thing in 2003??? Other 3D games learned how to properly do camera controls even before X7, so there's ZERO excuse here. Needless to say this games camera sucks, but fortunately there's only one real instance where it becomes a genuine problem. Furthermore, the game also introduces a lock-on for X that while nice to have for the 3D sections, takes away any semblance of challenge when it comes to fighting enemies in 2D sections. The devs of previous X games knew that having a lock-on in a 2D plain would be fucking busted and so therefore it was only ever tied to certain special weapons e.g. Homing Torpedo in X1 or Aiming Laser in X4. In those previous games, you had to jump if you wanted to aim your shots at an enemy that was normally out of your reach. It's the basic fucking ideology of Mega Man combat as a whole, so by giving X a lock-on regardless of whatever weapon he has equipped just goes against the fundamentals that the franchise had been building up in the 15 years prior to X7. Then there's Zero, and good GOD what did they do to you????? Man he did NOT translate well when going from sprites to 3D models. His default saber combo is so goddamn slow and even his techniques have a hefty amount of wind up to them as well, but at least his attacks hit like a truck so that at least gives him a niche as boss fodder. That's it for the 3D discussion & the implications it brought to the table, and overall it unfortunately was NOT implemented well. The 2nd major gameplay change comes in the fact that alongside X & Zero, the new hunter Axl has joined the fray to turn the group from a duo into a TRIO. Axl controls similarly to X but without a traditional charge shot, and so to compensate he can hover in the air for a few seconds and he has a new charge shot that enables Axl to gain the abilities of some stage enemies. This is thankfully a very unique mechanic and helps to give Axl his own identity as a playable character compared to X. I have 2 main gripes with this. The first is that the level design doesn't take advantage of this NOWHERE near as much as it could, and the second is that IT'S SO GODDAMN HARD TO ACTUALLY USE. It does jack shit for damage and to even copy an enemy you must land the finishing blow on them with the copy shot, however due to the aforementioned lack of damage you're better off chipping down the enemys health with Axls regular attacks, but doing that also runs the risk of you accidentally blowing the fucker up due to stage enemies not having any sort of indicator for their HP. So you either have to do it the quick way that involves accidentally blowing the enemy up or the safe way that takes fucking ages due to the lack of damage on Axls copy shots. Pick your poison. Furthermore, some of the enemies that Axl can copy have some BEEFY health bars, in particular the boulder-chucking guys in Soldier Stonekongs stage, so you can only imagine what trying to copy those fuckers are like, but get this, YOU'RE ACTUALLY REQUIRED to copy one of those fuckers in particular to get a few reploid hostages that are chilling behind a large bed of spikes that only those enemies can safely cross. Oh yeah, reploid hostages return from X6, however the Nightmare guys aren't around in this game to corrupt them and deny you their goodies, so what did they do to compromise? THEY MADE IT SO THAT ANY ENEMY CAN DEFEAT THEM, and like in X6, the items they carry are FUCKING GONE PERMANENTLY SHOULD YOU LOSE THEM & save-scumming is the only way to remedy this. So in short, they DOUBLED DOWN on the aspect that people fucking hated about reploid hostages in X6 rather than trying to tone them back... I just.... WHY???? Did they not just listen to ANY of the criticism that people had with X6? Anyway alongside the hostages comes the return of the parts system, but it's received a bit of a tweak. Whereas in X5 & X6 they were items you could equip or unequip at any time in the stage select, they act kind of like a skill tree in X7. X, Zero & Axl all have 3 different types of part-based upgrades that are separated into rows, and the parts that reploid hostages give you don't actually have any pre-defined mechanic. Instead the mechanic they give to X/Zero/Axl is dependent on wherever they're placed at on a specific character, providing some sort of freedom if you will on how you choose to upgrade your characters. The part upgrades themselves still act similarly as to how they did in X6, providing abilities such as faster buster charging, damage reduction, faster dash speed, a more powerful Z-Saber etc. Overall it's a very unique spin on the parts mechanic and one of the few things I have to commend X7 for. Another gameplay mechanic that X7 actually does well is the return of the character swapping mechanic from Mega Man Xtreme 2. While being a neat mechanic, its true function is to give you a glorified second health bar, as the level design barely takes advantage of it unfortunately. They also fucked up Alia again as she's back to being a total fucking pace-breaker like she was in X5, arguably even worse than in that game how when you're trying to equip parts from reploid hostages she explains EVERY FUCKING TIME that reploids give you special parts, like I GET IT, you don't have to explain it to me every time. Even trying to save your game or return to the stage select feels like a chore as she asks every time if you're 100% SURE that you want to do it or not which also severely fucks with the games overall pacing. That's really it for the core gameplay changes in X7, NOT a good start for this review overall.

Next up is the level design and I quite frankly don't have much to say about this. The level design in X7 ranges from boring at best (e.g. Soldier Stonekongs stage, Splash Warflys, Ride Boarskis stage etc.) to downright frustrating at worst, most notably Flame Hyenards stage, which is split up into one VERY long 2D section and one VERY long 3D section with the only checkpoints being at the start of the 3D section and the boss. A helpful tip I found regarding it however is that the reploid hostages that are placed nearby the bombs can be easily cheesed by running away to off-screen them. The bombs will still blow up but the reploid hostages will still be intact, alleviating a LOT of the frustration that would be otherwise involved with getting them. Wind Crowrangs stage is another infamous one as the camera works against your favor in the first section where you have to platform across a fleet of planes while janky controls pose a challenge in getting that stages Life Up. I don't even have much to say about the item placement either, just that the game LOVES to hide them behind walls/platforms in the 3D sections, most notably in Splash Warflys stage and Ride Boarskis stage. I do have to give credit to Ride Boarskis stage now that I think about it as it at least tries to do something creative with the Ride Chaser by having you disarm a bunch of bombs on a track as opposed to simply going from point A to point B, but at the same time the Ride Chaser is VEEEEEERY slow which takes away a lot of the fun in using them when compared to X4 and X5s Ride Chasers. Also, some of the bombs are placed near-parallel to reploid hostages so unless you have TAS-level reflexes then it's likely going to take you multiple trips around the track to get everything. I don't have much to comment on regarding the fortress levels here either. The first level is an extremely slow autoscroller which involves a couple of blind jumps here and there while everything after that stage consists of extremely basic platforming sections. However I will say that I like what they did with the tried and true boss rush making its stage a literal graveyard as opposed to just consisting of teleporters you'd go through in the previous X games. That's the only real compliment I have to give to X7s level design, as otherwise they're some of the most forgettable levels in this series.

Then there's the item game in X7. Like with X6 there's the 8 Life Ups, 3 E-Tanks and the EX Tank, but now for the first time since X3 there's only one armor for X to find, this time being the Glide Armor. The Head piece enables nearby items to be drawn to X, the Chest piece gives X 50% damage reduction alongside knockback resistance & a Giga Attack that gets build up by taking damage, the Buster piece adds smaller homing blasts to Xs charge shot that I've barely ever noticed alongside charged special weapons and the Leg piece gives X the ability to glide through the air. This is easily one of the weakest armors that X has adorned throughout the series IMO as it barely does anything interesting, and I've barely ever noticed some of its supposed """key features""" in standard gameplay, in particular the head and buster upgrades effects. Compare it to say, X5s Falcon Armor where it spices up the armor formula by favoring mobility over combat, or X6s Shadow Armor which played with the fact that X used Zeros saber in that game by giving him a charged saber swing that hit like a TRUCK, and you'll really see just how lackluster the Glide Armor feels. I will say however that the knockback resistance REALLY helps out due to the increased prevalence of it in X7 as it can straight up lead to you getting launched into bottomless pits or any other insta kill hazard that you can't get out of due to the fact that control is taken away from you when your character gets knocked back, but most of the time it just breaks the pace and nothing more.

Going on from that is the plot, GOOD FUCKING GOD THE PLOT. Due to 6 (8 if counting the Xtreme duology) back-to-back games where he's been involved in conflicts that have seen the demises of countless humans & reploids alike, X has decided to step back from the Maverick Hunters front lines in the hopes of """finding more peaceful solutions to the fighting""", put in LOTS of quotations because well, HE DOESN'T DO ANY OF THAT, HE JUST SITS THERE AND SCREAMS "WHY MUST REPLOIDS FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT" EVERY TIME HE'S ON SCREEN. This is some HARD character assassination if I've ever seen it, as what made X such a unique protagonist is that despite his pacifist side, he still chose to engage in the conflict as he KNEW it was the only way at times, and to have him fully embrace his pacifist side is something that doesn't and will NEVER work regardless of how much effort you put into the writing of it. And BECAUSE X is now suddenly allergic to violence do you wanna know what this also means? THAT X IS AN UNLOCKABLE CHARACTER IN HIS OWN FUCKING GAME. WHY. THE. FUCK. WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS OKAY?! WHY WOULD YOU MAKE THE MAIN PROTAGONIST AN UNLOCKABLE CHARACTER IN HIS OWN GODDAMN GAME?! Anyway BECAUSE of that Zero's on his own for a portion of the game, but he enlists the help of Axl following the intro stage who has a target on his head set by the vigilante group Red Alert, who had taken to putting down Mavericks following Xs decision to step down from fighting, but because their methods of combating Mavericks gradually became more and more violent Axl fucked off from the group, but his ability to copy reploids is a key asset to Red Alert and so their leader, Red tries his hardest to get Axl back into the group. Throughout the game you get cutscenes where Red is seen talking to this guy called "The Professor" and the game doesn't even try to hide that this guy is Sigma, but fortunately he's in a much better state of mind than he was in X6, so there's that... I guess???!!!! X returns to the front lines once you either rescue 64 reploid hostages or by beating all 8 of the stage of the stage bosses, but regardless of whenever you unlock him it's WAY too late as by the point you get him Zero and Axl will both be at MUCH more powerful states due to the parts they'll have acquired throughout the game. Also as I type this I can't help but pay attention to X right in the center of the box art, so that makes me think: Like how X5/X6 tried to mimic MGS with Alias support calls that fell flat on their head, was this game trying to mimic MGS2 by tricking you into thinking you'd be playing as the main protagonist from the previous game? Because if so then that fucking fell flat on its head too as MGS2 did it in a MUCH smarter way that also didn't have character assassination involved in it. That's all I have to say about X7s plot, in general this is the WORST plot in the entire X series without question (a minor note I felt like adding on is that I like how Red is teased as having experienced the Repliforce conflict from X4 which adds in some nice continuity and also helps to further establish Red as a character. Not that it suddenly redeems X7s plot, but it's just a minor thing that I like about it).

That brings me into X7s bosses, and these are just plain forgettable. The only bosses I actually enjoyed fighting here were Wind Crowrang and Sigmas 1st form, purely for the fact that both of them are confined purely to a 2D plain and have actually engaging attacks. There was also Flame Hyenard which was more on the frustrating end due to the buggy physics involved with being on moving objects in X7 which kinda fuck with your controls. And then there's fucking Red who's the culmination of everything wrong with X7s gameplay. He's akin to Gate from X6 as like that fight, Red is fought on platforms that are suspended over a bottomless pit, and rather than slowly moving around like Gate did, Red opts to teleport from platform to platform. However your enemy in this fight is not Red, BUT RATHER THE FUCKING GODAWFUL CAMERA. I played this shit with a keyboard and to make sure I didn't blindly run into a bottomless pit I'd have to stop in place to move the camera and get a better scope of the stage, but that would result in me losing out on an opening to actually attack Red which therefore results in the fight being a total fucking slog in the end. Now that leads me into discussing the health bar of X7s bosses: I hear they have really fucking beefy health bars in the games English release but that must be a NTSC only trait, as I played the "English (UK)" version of it that's featured in the X Legacy Collection and I never thought the bosses really had large health bars as they still went down in respectable time, so therefore if you for some godforsaken reason want to play X7, then either the PAL or the Japanese releases are the way to go if you want to minimize frustration (not that it minimizes much, but still).

Now X7s presentation is a real fucking doozy. First off I'll admit that the 3D models look GREAT and do a damn good job at encapsulating the games overall art direction as they're all VERY vibrant. However they barely have any animation in the in-game cutscenes as their actions just feel devoid of life. Then there's the voice acting... which is some of THE funniest voice acting I've ever heard in my life. For the cutscenes specifically it's comparable to the atrocious voice acting found in X4, but in the bosses then it NEVER fails to make me just fucking burst into laughter with the audio editing and how many sound clips are being overlapped at once. There's the obvious example in Flame Hyenards fight but other instances such as the fights against Ride Boarski and Tornado Tonion also make me fucking lose it from all the laughing I did during those fights. There's NO way people on the dev team were able to take that shit seriously (if they even tested it at all). The original PS2 release also suffers from some HARD optimization issues that were fortunately fixed up in the X Legacy Collection, most notably frame rate chugs during boss fights alongside frequent load screens that are also on the lengthy end, so good thing the more accessible version of X7 is the one that's actually optimized... I guess...? I can give credit to the music however, as at least THAT'S consistently good throughout X7s entire run. From it, my personal shout outs include Vanishing Gungaroos theme, Tornado Tonions theme, Flame Hyenards theme, the Boss theme, the 1st Sigma theme and Signas' theme. In general, a spec of gold among an overall pile of trash.

This review was certainly amusing, as I started off by saying that X7 isn't as bad as everyone hypes it up to be (and I initially give this game a 2 star rating to boot), but after taking the time to not only replay the game but to also think about the points I'd discuss in this review and how I'd go about discussing them, I really do see just how fundamentally flawed of a game X7 is & now I really do think this game deserves the hate it gets, as despite how innovative it could have been it just falls so fucking flat on its head that even if you enjoyed X1-X6 then I really can't recommend this game unless you really want to see where the fuck it went wrong. The controls are clunky, the level design is extremely bland, the plot is irredeemable, there's mechanics from X6 that the devs made no effort at all to fix and the audio editing in the boss fights will destroy your ears if you don't think it's peak humor like I do, while the few actually positive tidbits like the music can easily be found in outside sources, therefore resulting in these aspects coming together to make what's easily the worst Mega Man X game in my eyes by a LONG SHOT. Also if this is your first time reading any of my reviews then I greatly apologize as I'm usually not as negative in any other of my reviews... but regardless, I'm glad I have this game over with, as next up is Mega Man X8 on the PS2, which as it stands is currently the last mainline Mega Man X game, so I wonder how that one truly holds up.

(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection)

X1
X2
X3
X4
X5
X6
X7
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

It's certainly impressive that the Mega Man franchise, let alone the X series didn't immediately go under following the absolute disaster that was Mega Man X7. If most other series had a game like that then they'd likely never see the light of day ever again as seen throughout time with games like Duke Nukem Forever or Sonic Free Riders, but as Capcom in the 2000s had a literal Gatling Gun with Mega Man games for ammo, they still saw LOTS of potential in it despite their huge mishap, as not only did the X series still receive new installments but new Mega Man sub-series were still created after this in the form of the Star Force series and the ZX duology. Anyway, as I just mentioned, the X series still powered on after X7 and that led to the release of Mega Man X8 for the PS2. Even though this came following X7 it's still clear that game had a hard impact on the X series, as even 19 years on (man this game is nearly as old as I am), X8 still stands as the latest mainline entry in the Mega Man X series, and it is kind of unfortunate because overall the game feels like some sort of apology for X7 as it's a MASSIVE step up from that game, removing pretty much every aspect of bullshit from that game while also bringing back fan-favorite mechanics from the first 4 X games. Also another minor thing is that I'm gonna try and change up my usual structure for longer reviews here by breaking up my points into smaller paragraphs as to not make it feel cluttered or anything, as previously I'd have very big paragraphs dedicated to each core aspect of the game I was reviewing (and depending on how satisfied I am with the final review then I might go and tweak my previous reviews to match this structure as well).

The first major change in X8 comes in the gameplay department. Rather than expanding upon the 3D mechanics introduced in X7, this game chooses to go back to the traditional sidescrolling that the X series has always been known for. It's a change that sounds like a bummer, but it was likely done with the best intentions due to how terribly X7 incorporated 3D mechanics into the Mega Man X formula, so anyone without a single digit IQ would know that sticking to what the series was used to was the much better decision overall. Furthermore, due to the 3D presentation in X8 the game plays with this a LOT when it comes to the level design by having instances where enemies and bosses will attack not only from the background but from the FOREGROUND as well, making it a very unique twist on the regular MMX formula as this is something that even X7 barely tried doing.

Anyway, going on from that is the controls, and I just have to say this, but WOW. Even Capcom must've known X7s controls/movement were trash, so gone are the garbage clunky controls from that game and in its place is arguably THE MOST precise controls and movement from the entire X series, at times they even feel a little too precise as the movements of the heroes feels SO GODDAMN FAST AND PRECISE. I'd even go as far as to say these are the BEST controls in any X game, even beating out the controls of the SNES games which I thought were already smooth enough, because MAN it's fun to zip around without any sort of weight to your character.

Going on from the controls, Axl's back alongside X & Zero and this game makes WAY more of an effort to give him his own identity here compared to X, as in X7 he shared a lot of Xs moves and they even shared the same set of special weapons for the most part. In X8 Axl has his own unique set of special weapons separate from X that come in the form of various separate firearms (while Xs special weapons are just enhancements to his X-Buster). Axl can blast at enemies while he hovers, his copy shot is actually useful and to further set him apart from X, he can continuously fire as long as the attack button is held, therefore giving you actual genuine reason to use him.

This brings me into the fact that X8 arguably as the most balanced set of playable characters in the entire X series, as each of their strengths and weaknesses are emphasized a LOT not just in the level design, but in the way they control too. Zero is as you'd expect: fast & powerful close-ranged attacks with his saber alongside a double jump to make platforming easier, but he has the shortest dash and he lacks any sort of projectile, while Axl is more utility focused due to the rapid fire properties on his weapons that can also be aimed up and down alongside his hover which grants extra air time (mandatory in getting some collectables too), but he can only shoot from a stand still & his individual shots do sub-par damage (however due to his rapid fire, the damage quickly stacks up), and lastly X strikes a middle-ground as he is also a projectile-oriented character, and while he can attack while moving, he can only fire straight ahead of him and so jumping is once again the key in aiming your shots (oh yeah, the sloppy lock-on from X7 has also been removed, HURRAY!).

Each character has their own actual reasons to use them & is something that actually leads to a little bit of a strategy element as the team mechanic returns from X7, and believe me, it is utilized HARD in X8 with the big gameplay-related change it brings to the table being that if one character loses all their health, it automatically switches over to the other character in your team, while in X7 you'd just lose a life if that happened, so fortunately it's cutting out an extremely pointless feature that most people would just bypass. However, coming into contact with insta-kill hazards such as spikes or bottomless pits will NOT force you to switch to the other character, so there is still some balancing involved with it. Furthermore, X8 also introduces the double attack, a move where both characters in your team work together to perform a screen nuke which obliterates all enemies on the screen and does hefty damage to bosses.

While being more of a nice to have feature overall, the game does actually reward you for landing the finishing blow on a boss with a double attack as it leads to a VERY hefty bonus in determining your ranking at the end of each stage. While in the previous 3 X games your rank would have actual effects on the game of varying function, here it's just a pure measurement of performance and contributes NOTHING to the overall experience. Overall, it's simple to understand doesn't have much of an effect on the game like ranks in the previous 3 games, a very solid implementation of the rank system if you ask me.

This leads me into the difficulty options for X8. Difficulty options have been present in the X series ever since X5 but in all of my reviews of the games that had them I completely forgot to ever mention them, so it's a good thing I've finally remembered about them in the game where they have the overall biggest impact on the experience. I'll go more in-depth on its specific implications at more appropriate stages in the review so I'll get the big factor out of the way here and that's that you can't fight the final boss if you play the game on easy difficulty, so even if you're a newcomer to X8 then I must recommend that you play it exclusively on normal or hard, as that's how you get access the final boss. Even the X Legacy Collection encourages it as the basic completion achievement for X8 requires that you do it on normal difficulty or higher, simply because that's how you get the final boss.

The parts system returns once again in X8 but it's received a MASSIVE overhaul, as they're FINALLY no longer tied to Reploid hostages, who have been scrapped for good from X8. THANK GOD for this change because trying to get all of those suckers in X6 and X7 did get pretty frustrating at times as if an enemy got to them then you weren't getting the goodies they were carrying unless you used save-scumming, so I'm glad they got rid of it here. Instead, parts are acquired through a shop, which while being something that the Classic series did before, is a first for the X series. And it's not just parts like a more powerful Buster/Saber or reduced damage intake, but also entirely new blades for Zero alongside items like Life Ups and E-Tanks that you would pick up on the field in the previous 9 X games. To even get these items from the shop, you must collect a currency known as metals that are located in each of the stages and also drop from enemies. The metals do come in varying quantities but it is still easy to rack up a good amount of them in respectable time, therefore making the shop system (and to an extent the entire part rework in X8) a very welcome addition IMO as it makes getting some of the items a lot more straightforward.

Going on from that, a rather strange new gameplay addition that X8 brings to the table is the expansion of the navigator system. This was a system that was just pure unbridled filler in the previous 3 games as Alia would just tell you meaningless stuff that you could easily figure out on your own, but the navigator system in X8... is actually rather well done and is ACTUALLY helpful for once. First things first, alongside Alia there's 2 new navigators in the form of Pallette and Layer. Pallettes information primarily revolves around the stages as she gives you hints as to where collectibles are, Layers information revolves around enemies as she gives you ideas and tips based on the bosses that you encounter throughout the game and Alia strikes a balance between giving you more basic tips for stages and enemies alike. At the start of each stage you can choose from one of the three navigators alongside the 2 hunters to make up your team, but alternatively you can choose to go in without any navigators assistance at all. As I mentioned earlier, these are actually helpful this time around and if you're a newcomer to X8 then I'd genuinely recommend actually paying attention to what they say, in particular Pallettes tips as without her then some of the items can feel rather cryptic. Furthermore the 3 navigators can even be unlocked as secret playable characters, but the way they fight matches that of the 3 hunters (Alias gameplay matches Xs, Layers gameplay matches Zeros and Pallettes gameplay matches Axls). Overall it's a mechanic they didn't need to expand upon but they did anyway, but the way they did it is actually genuinely well done.

The last major change to the gameplay is that getting game overs now functions as it did in the SNES X games, where getting a game over sends you all the way back to the start of the stage rather than back to the last checkpoint, so lives are now of actual importance this time around. On easy difficulty you have infinite lives, but on normal you have 2 by default with up to 3 more being purchasable in the shop and on hard you're locked to 3 lives with no way of getting more, and this, combined with the level design that I'll discuss next, results in X8 being one of the harder games in the X series in my honest opinion.

Speaking of that, X8 has some rather interesting level design when it comes to Mega Man X standards. Now this series is no stranger to having levels that entirely revolve around gimmicks, but X8 dials it up to 11 as pretty much every level has a specific gimmick tied to it. Booster Forest (Bamboo Pandamoniums stage) for instance has one of the funner gimmicks IMO as it revolves entirely around getting a Ride Armor through the stage by throwing in platforming challenges that do genuinely feel like a puzzle, and the game greatly rewards you for getting the Ride Armor through the stage by allowing you to get items alongside a much easier boss at the end. Troia Base has another fun gimmick as it involves a series of minigames that all revolve around beating the same kind of enemy, but each time they change it up so as to not make it feel repetitive or anything, & the game even rewards good performance in these mini games with collectibles and even a battle against Cut Man from the classic series if you get the best rank in every one of them, therefore making it my personal favorite level from X8 due to the way it plays with its gimmick, how it rewards you for your performance and even classic series fanservice if you manage to play REALLY well.

However due to X8s extremely varied level design there's also multiple instances where it isn't so great. The first instance is Dynasty (Gigabolt Man-O-Wars stage) where all that you do is chase Man-O-War with a Ride Chaser and nothing else, easily do-able in like 30 seconds so long as you can keep on top of him. This stage IMO feels like pure filler and this is further boosted by the fact that there aren't even any items to collect in the stage, and as far as I'm aware this is the ONLY Maverick stage in any of the X games to not have any items located in it. Then there's Central White (Avalanche Yetis stage) which is another Ride Chaser stage except this one goes on for WAY too long instead as alongside rather lengthy sections that involve platforming & blasting enemies there's also 2 midbosses who are more than capable of eating up your resources which is NOT good since you need both of your hunters active to get this stages items, both of which are located right at the very end of the stage). Additionally, the level designers seemed to have a thing or two for insta kill hazards as a few certain stages (Primrose, Troia Base, Inferno and Sigmas Palace) go ALL OUT with the spikes as you must make careful movements like wall jumps or air dashes to get across, but like with Gates Laboratory in X6, nailing down the movement timings in these sections provides a VERY BIG feeling of satisfaction, so at least I can say that about the level design, however this is why I also think X8 is among the hardest games in the X series (alongside X3 & X6), as having the game over system from the SNES X games alongside level design like this will surely put your movement skills to the absolute test.

This leads me into the item placement of X8, and at first glance it seems to be VERY convoluted, as X8 pretty much has every single trope associated with previous games item placements all in one package. You've got items that need charged special weapons, items that require Zeros double jump, items that require Axls copy shot, Armor capsules that only X can access etc. There are more than what I listed, so it's very understandable that you'd think it's convoluted. However, X8 has a new-game+ feature, a mechanic that was introduced in X7 that I also forgot to discuss in my review of that game. With this mode, all the items that you collected in your previous run of the game get carried over to a new save file, and X8 honestly feels like it was designed with the new-game+ in mind as trying to get every item in one single run will lead to a LOT of backtracking. I'm talking, people who complain about X3s backtracking would likely have a mental breakdown if they tried to get all of X8s items in one run. So my recommendation is to only go after the items you can get on a first run while backtracking for a few items and save the rest of them for a new-game+ run of the game. You'll have a LOT more fun if you approach X8 that way as by the end of the new-game+ run you should have pretty much every item in the game acquired. The stage that encapsulates this the best IMO is Inferno (Burn Roosters stage) as it has an armor capsule that only X can access, an item that requires Axl to copy a certain enemy, and an item that requires one of Zeros blades, and said weapon is unlocked from an item located in this very stage. If you're trying to get every item in X8 in one run then you'll have to backtrack here up to 3 times depending on the team you use for it, so that's part of why the new-game+ feature is so damn helpful in smoothly 100&'ing this game.

Going on from that is the items themselves in X8. I mentioned earlier that Life Ups and E-Tanks are now items that you buy in the in-game shop using metals, so alongside the traditional armor capsules, then what is there to collect? The answer to that question is that X8 introduces the brand new collectible, Rare Metals. Barring Dynasty, each stage has 2-3 Rare Metals located in each of them. Rare Metals enable brand new items to be acquired in the shop, INCLUDING E-Tanks so therefore you technically are still collecting them. Zeros new weapons are also tied to Rare Metals alongside other very helpful perks such as Shock Buffers and converting damage taken from enemy attacks into energy for your special weapons. Overall, despite some of the opinions surrounding them, I don't mind the Rare Metals and I think they spice up Mega Man Xs usual item formula in a unique way. A minor thing that I find amusing is that X8 gets rid of the EX Tank from X4-X7..... in the first game SINCE X4 where extra lives actually matter since game overs send you back to the stage select again regardless of where it happened at.

Then on the other end of the items are the special armors in this game, and X8 has far and away the most unique armor system in the entire X series. Basically, the way it works is that the first armor capsule you find, regardless of the stage you find it in will give you the Neutral Armor which while changing up Xs appearance significantly, doesn't actually enhance any of his abilities. That's because true to its name, the Neutral Armor acts as a template for the two new armors that X can find in this game, the Icarus Armor which gives it red highlights, and the Hermes Armor which gives it blue highlights. Not only does X immediately acquire the benefits of armor capsules in this game unlike in X5/X6, but X can also MIX & MATCH between the parts of the Icarus and Hermes armors to create an armor set that's most comfortable to use. However, the game still encourages using either of the full armors as that's the only way to use their Giga Attacks. Because of this, X8s armor system is EASILY my favorite armor system even if the armors themselves aren't my favorite (they're still a tonne of fun to use however). I'm happy they eventually did it here because it was understandably a feature that wasn't present in X5/X6 which also had multiple armors for X to collect. However that's not the end of the discussions about Xs armor, as after being absent from X7, the Ultimate Armor makes its triumphant return here with a brand new look and abilities to go along aside it. It still retains most of its core functions as its X4 counterpart like unlimited special weapon energy, Plasma Shots and the Nova Strike, but the latter of which is now tied to a cool-down gauge so it isn't as spammable. However the Nova Strike itself is WAY stronger than it was in X4-X6, as here it's pretty much an insta-kill on bosses, only leaving them with 1-4 units of health left for reasons I'll discuss when I get around to the bosses. The hover ability that it previously had has now been replaced with the Shoryuken, making its return from X2/Xtreme 2. Like in X5, you can even unlock the Ultimate Armor if you get every X-related item in the shop and start a new-game+ run, so that's pretty neat. Overall, a damn fun set of armors that X has at his disposal here alongside a fun system to boot, so what isn't there to love?

But X isn't alone with new abilities to play with in X8, as Zero & Axl both get their own unique armors to boot albeit only in palette swaps as opposed to new designs for both of them. Zeros black armor returns after being absent in X7, where it gives him a boost to his attack and speed but at the cost of reduced defense, and Axl gets the white armor which enhances his speed and allows him to hover while firing for an indefinite amount of time. Pretty neat abilities overall, but Black Zero is an absolute BEAST in combat if you can get around his reduced defenses and make full use of his increased attack. Additionally, as I alluded to numerous times throughout the review, Zero also has a plethora of new weapons to use rather than just his standard saber, with the more notable weapons being the D-Glaive, a returning weapon from X7 that gives Zero MUCH more range on his attacks and the Sigma Blade, a weapon that becomes available after beating the final boss which defeats pretty much every stage enemy in one hit, making it a VERY ideal tool for getting some of the Rare Metals in Troia Base. Overall, Zeros new weapons are a tonne of fun to use in X8, not just the aforementioned examples, but the other ones I didn't mention too, and like the armor customization, I'm surprised it took them this long to implement new weapons for Zero as well, but better late than never I suppose.

After that comes the plot of X8 which I don't wanna dwell on for too long as this review is already getting long and I haven't even discussed the bosses or presentation yet. First things first, X has his actual character back after the character assassination he underwent in X7 and I've NEVER been more happy to see him back to the determined yet pacifistic fighter he's always been and you can clearly see his determination in the way he speaks not only to Sigma, but to the returning Vile as well, with a new color scheme that makes no effort at all to hide the fact that he's a shout out to Boba Fett. While there's been no explanation as to how he came back, his character hasn't changed a BIT since X3 as he's still very much a glutton for chaos and to be a threat to the Maverick Hunters.

Zeros character also underwent some redemption from X7 as he, like X overall feels WAY more determined to the task at hand, so much so that it not only leads to Zeros awesome monologue at the end of the game, but it even stems into his dialogue with Layer, the latter of which CLEARLY shows signs of romantic interest to Zero while he doesn't buy it. You could say this is because he's still scarred after what happened with Iris, but it's still pretty humorous nonetheless. And then there's Axl and... well. He CERTAINLY speaks like an optimistic new hunter who wants to one day be among the leagues of X and Zero, but it works so well as that's the EXACT kind of character he has here. X has also fortunately warmed up to Axl in the time between X7 and this game as now he's a proper part of the Maverick Hunters and all 3 of them have a VERY good dynamic together. Overall, while not the most groundbreaking characterization in the world, it's still leaps and bounds better than X7s characterizations and further helps to make these guys feel like an actual proper team.

And then there's the story itself. It expands upon Axls copy abilities that were established in X7 as X8 shows that now an entirely new type of Reploids have been constructed with Axls copy ability, dubbed the "New Generation Reploids". These Reploids have the DNA of Sigma ingrained into them as a method of ensuring that they don't go Maverick, but the main antagonist of this game (spoiler alert: it isn't Sigma) reveals that because of this, the New Generation Reploids have the ability to go Maverick at will, which is actually a pretty unique way of expending on the reasons for Reploids going Maverick, as before this the most common causes were because of corruption via a virus, undying loyalty to individuals like Sigma/Gate or because of misinterpretations like the Repliforce. Because of the dangerous nature of these Reploids and countless Maverick incidents already, humans and other Reploids alike decide to book it and go the moon in hopes of living peacefully there, and to do this the Jakob Elevator is created. However while this going on a Maverick attack occurs at Noahs Park (real subtle with the Christianity elements there Capcom) and X, Zero & Axl head to the scene, where after disposing of the mechanoloid responsible for the attack they discover that the head of the project, Lumine has been kidnapped by Vile, and from there they deal with other Maverick activity while figuring out what Vile & Sigma want with Lumine. I won't spoil the rest of the plot as it is pretty interesting and I'd be here all day discussing it, but overall, despite simply being nothing groundbreaking on its own, it's VERY unique for Mega Man X standards.

That then links into the bosses of X8. In general, the bosses all have a new major gimmick attached to them known as their Overdrive State, where once you get them down to a certain amount of health (around 25% on normal and 50% on hard, while on easy they don't enter it at all. This is also why the Nova Strike doesn't immediately wipe their entire health bars) they gain i-frames and release their strongest attack on you. These attacks hit HARD, and in some cases they insta-kill you such as Bamboo Pandamoniums overdrive, but at the same time they're very telegraphed and you have more than enough time and space to dodge them. They're a neat addition overall and work VERY well with X8s bosses as not a single one of them feels cheap, chaotic or ear-grating with their voice clips. Burn Roosters fight in particular is significant as unlike pretty much every other boss in the X series, the stage doesn't immediately end once you beat him, but rather you have to go through an escape sequence by climbing up platforms while lava rises below you. Why this is the only fight to do it, I don't know, but it still helps in making him feel more unique than not just other fire bosses, but fellow fire bird Blaze Heatnix from X6, as both of them do have quite a few attacks that are similar to each other and even have similar weakness as well.

Additionally, like you could randomly encounter Bit & Byte in X3, you can randomly encounter Vile throughout the 8 Maverick stages where you must fight him until you eventually repel him with enough damage taken. Like with the Bit/Byte encounters in X3, X8 has rooms dedicated to Vile encounters, but even if you don't encounter him there'll still be something there to deal with before you can move forward such as in Primrose where you must dodge through blocks that move up and down or in Inferno where you get faced with a mook rush that you can use to gather up some metals for the shop. Vile himself is a pretty fun fight with the array of attacks that he uses, and there's even some instances where you WANT him to show up such as in Primrose, as the hazard that you have to deal with otherwise can be rather frustrating if your luck isn't great. You then encounter Vile again for the last time in the fortress stages where he not only has a new attack that's VERY fun to dodge, but he also finally uses a Ride Armor again and to even damage him you have to knock him off the Ride Armor and damage him while he's on his own, a VERY unique way to do a Vile fight if you ask me rather than just separating it into 2 phases like how X1 and X3 did it.

And then there's the final boss who is definitely one of the more unique final bosses as he attacks with an array of moves from the previous 8 Mavericks and even has their same weaknesses depending on the attacks that he uses. However his second phase just feels cheap as once you get his HP into overdrive range you're on a time limit. Fail to defeat him in time (I think it's around 30 seconds) and he hits you with an insta kill move. The game doesn't give you much indication that there's a time limit to this attack either so that's why I think it's rather cheap, and as he LOVES to make himself invincible on and off during this phase I make sure I have Ultimate Armor X on my team so I can one-tap him with the Nova Strike as that does alleviate a lot of the stress involved with it, but to unlock White Axl the legitimate way you have to land the finishing blow on him as Axl... which is easier said than done if anything.

Moving on from that I do want to take time to talk about X8s presentation, because it's actually really damn good. For starters, there's ACTUALLY GOOD ENGLISH VOICE ACTING in a Mega Man X game. CRAZY, I KNOW? Mark Gatha, Lucas Gilbertson and Jeffrey Watson all return from X Command Mission to provide the voices for their respective characters, and MAN do they do a good job at encapsulating their personalities. Mark absolutely nails down Xs determined yet compassionate personality, Lucas does a damn good job at showing the calm & colder personality of Zero and Jeffery encapsulates Axls nature as the younger rookie of the three. And then there's Roger Rhodes whose performance accurately matches Viles status as an Ax-Crazy Reploid who enjoys the thrill of violence and fighting the Maverick Hunters. Additionally, Dave Pettitt who voiced Epsilon in X Command Mission returns to X8 to provide a ridiculously hammy voice for Sigma, but man does he do it WELL, as X4 AND X7 both seemed to indicate that a hammy voice was in Sigmas nature, so while it was natural that the voice direction would gravitate more towards that same kind of nature, it's just done so much better here.

Performance-wise, I do at least know that the original PS2 version of X8 had some notable load times that were drastically cut down in the X Legacy Collection version of it, and this same version also seems to make the overall visuals/UI look more smooth which is always appreciated. However the X Legacy Collection uses the original PC version of X8 which is notable for removing the infinite metal glitch, which isn't too substantial outside of getting things like the playable navigators or the Sigma Blade which require a LOT of metals so there's unfortunately no way around grinding for metals if you want those items.

Lastly, as per Mega Man X fashion, X8 has a damn good OST. Personal shout outs from it go to Bamboo Pandamoniums theme, Burn Roosters theme, Avalanche Yetis theme and Sigmas theme. All in all, good tunes in a Mega Man X game, go figure.

In conclusion, Mega Man X8 is a MASSIVE step up from X7 in virtually every aspect, and felt like the beginning of a path to redemption for the X series following that game. The gameplay/movement is the best it's ever been, the level design is actually interesting and there's a LOT of content that'll keep you engaged for a while, although the level design can take a dip at times but not to the point where it'll ruin the game. However, the damage was likely already dealt by X7 as even today X8 still stands as the latest mainline entry in this series, and it is sad because X8 is genuinely a pretty solid platformer and therefore I definitely recommend this one to all Mega Man X fans, as you'd still be forgiven for skipping right over X7 and going straight to this game as well, there's actual fun to be found in the gameplay here. Anyhow with all 10 of the main MMX platformers reviewed on here I do have to admit that discussing all the major entries in this series was something I had a lot of fun doing even if few people actually read them and if I came off as being negative a few times in them (COUGH X7), and I'll certainly try to retain this long structure for reviews of different games later down the line, however this won't be the last time I'll be talking about Mega Man X, as there are still a few minor entries/spinoffs I'm yet to delve into, starting with one I mentioned a few times near the end of this very review, Mega Man X: Command Mission for the PS2/GameCube. That's a game I'm still in the midst of playing through as of the time of me typing this out (unfortunately I haven't had much time to play it recently as I wait for my GameCube adapter to come), so it'll be a while before I get around to reviewing that game, but I will just say that it's a Mega Man X game that ISN'T a platformer, so that's gonna be interesting to discuss.