I've been waiting on this game for quite a while. A Mega Man X fangame with Touhou characters? Sounded right up my alley. Honestly, it's quite good!
First off, don't let the name of the game fool you. Outside of the "8 stages in any order, followed by 4 castle stages" progression structure and how the game generally plays, many of the main features of the X series aren't really present here. There's only like, three different weapons here: your normal shot and its charged variants, a bomb that, when upgraded, clears bullets around you, and a barrier that takes a few hits for you and costs three bombs. No special weapons from bosses or anything. There aren't as many upgrades to explore for and collect, either. In addition to the one dropped by the boss, every stage has one hidden P item, which are used to buy upgrades in the shop. It's pretty basic; besides the obligatory health and charge time upgrades, you also have upgrades that make your bomb more useful, allow you to aim your shots, strengthen you when you're low on HP, etc. It's neat stuff, but nothing very exciting.
Although the hallmarks of the X series may come off as half-baked in this game, I didn't really mind too much; I was never THAT big on that stuff. The level and boss design is much more important to me. And I'd say that Udongein X delivers on that front. Each and every level is well-crafted, and maintains a consistent level of quality. Unlike most of the X games, there was never really a point where I was like "wow, I'm not having fun at all!" Even when I was running into the same set of spikes over and over, I could still confidently say that I was enjoying myself. A few of them even have some really fun gimmicks. Seija's stage flipping feature was nice, and Doremy's hori shmup gimmick is so much better than literally every non-traditional stage in the X series, by virtue of actually being an enjoyable experience. I do have one problem with the stages though. The enemy variety. It's not a problem in EVERY stage, to be fair, but I did get a little tired of seeing the same two fairies and kedamas everywhere.
Speaking of enemies, the bosses are a joy to fight. They were a lot closer to Mega Man Zero fights instead of X boss fights, where you have to put a little effort into learning the boss patterns to succeed. The lack of weaknesses or subtanks further prevents any brute-forcing. A few of them can feel just a TAD bit bullshit, like Seija and the final boss' dash attack (yeah, fuck that one move in particular).
All things considered, it's a pretty good game. I keep flip-flopping between 7 and 8 out of ten because while it feels a little barebones and unpolished, the core design is very solid. Don't tell anyone I said this, but it mogs the FUCK out of like, half the X series. I'd definitely recommend it if you're a fan of action platformers and Touhou. Looking forward to Konpaku Zero!
First off, don't let the name of the game fool you. Outside of the "8 stages in any order, followed by 4 castle stages" progression structure and how the game generally plays, many of the main features of the X series aren't really present here. There's only like, three different weapons here: your normal shot and its charged variants, a bomb that, when upgraded, clears bullets around you, and a barrier that takes a few hits for you and costs three bombs. No special weapons from bosses or anything. There aren't as many upgrades to explore for and collect, either. In addition to the one dropped by the boss, every stage has one hidden P item, which are used to buy upgrades in the shop. It's pretty basic; besides the obligatory health and charge time upgrades, you also have upgrades that make your bomb more useful, allow you to aim your shots, strengthen you when you're low on HP, etc. It's neat stuff, but nothing very exciting.
Although the hallmarks of the X series may come off as half-baked in this game, I didn't really mind too much; I was never THAT big on that stuff. The level and boss design is much more important to me. And I'd say that Udongein X delivers on that front. Each and every level is well-crafted, and maintains a consistent level of quality. Unlike most of the X games, there was never really a point where I was like "wow, I'm not having fun at all!" Even when I was running into the same set of spikes over and over, I could still confidently say that I was enjoying myself. A few of them even have some really fun gimmicks. Seija's stage flipping feature was nice, and Doremy's hori shmup gimmick is so much better than literally every non-traditional stage in the X series, by virtue of actually being an enjoyable experience. I do have one problem with the stages though. The enemy variety. It's not a problem in EVERY stage, to be fair, but I did get a little tired of seeing the same two fairies and kedamas everywhere.
Speaking of enemies, the bosses are a joy to fight. They were a lot closer to Mega Man Zero fights instead of X boss fights, where you have to put a little effort into learning the boss patterns to succeed. The lack of weaknesses or subtanks further prevents any brute-forcing. A few of them can feel just a TAD bit bullshit, like Seija and the final boss' dash attack (yeah, fuck that one move in particular).
All things considered, it's a pretty good game. I keep flip-flopping between 7 and 8 out of ten because while it feels a little barebones and unpolished, the core design is very solid. Don't tell anyone I said this, but it mogs the FUCK out of like, half the X series. I'd definitely recommend it if you're a fan of action platformers and Touhou. Looking forward to Konpaku Zero!
2 Comments
Hol' up bro
X4, the best game in the X series?? Surely you meant to type X5.
X4, the best game in the X series?? Surely you meant to type X5.
This comment was deleted
raccoons4444
2 years ago