This is a game I'd been meaning to get to during my Mega Man Mega Marathon a few months back, but got burned out on Mega Man before I could get to it. It also wasn't super duper easy to procure a copy, so that also kept me away. However, as luck would have it, in looking for more games to play for this TR's GameCube theme, I managed to find a copy of the relatively quite rare GameCube version for sale in town for a price I couldn't say no to~. I had heard good things about it from tons of people, and I had those things more or less all around confirmed for me over the course of playing it. It took me around 26 hours to beat the main story of the Japanese version of the game on real hardware, and then I spent around another 3 hours doing the post-game extra content and extra bosses.
Rock Man X: Command Mission may have Zero and X and Axel in it, but it's more like a story inspired by the state of things that Rock Man X7 left things in rather than a direct continuation in any sense. X and Zero work for the military to hunt down Mavericks (or as the Japanese versions call them, "Irregulars"), but other than that, this is a side-story at least and a totally different continuity at most from the rest of the Rock Man X storyline. That said, this game put together by members of the team of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and Rock Man X7 is quite the impressive achievement in bringing a truly unique-feeling Rock Man RPG experience to life.
The whole conceit of the game is that the world of reploids has been revolutionized by the discovery of a powerful new technology: Force Metal. It has properties that give incredible potential for power in reploids and machines that use it, and it becomes the focal point of the world's society very quickly. However, when the prime spot for the mining and processing of Force Metal is suddenly attacked by Irregulars, X and Zero are sent off to solve this crisis presented to the world before Force Metal is monopolized by the wrong hands.
While this is still very much a Rock Man X game in its world and character design, this is easily one of the best written games in the X series (as one would hope of a narrative-driven RPG). For starters, it's one of the sage few games in the series to actually address in any way, shape, or form the fact that X's whole deal as an Irregular Hunter basically makes him a super cop just hunting down government-identified terrorists, and that he's potentially just a tool for wannabee demagogues because his conviction towards hunting Irregulars is so unyielding. Beyond that, you can also definitely see the influence of the Breath of Fire members of the development team with the strong themes about leadership and the importance of a good, self-sacrificing leader.
It's a story that moves very quickly, and speeds through character moments quite fast, but it still manages to do its relatively large cast justice more often than it doesn't. Enemies range from seriously cruel to delightfully wacky in a way that doesn't break the tone, and the good guys are also staffed with a fun range of characters with their own motivations and personalities. It's certainly not the best written RPG of its generation, but it's a surprisingly well done swansong for Capcom's days of making straight turn-based RPGs. My only real complaints are around a twist in the end kinda compromising Zero's story arc, and the fact that it's just so short. Though in a sense, while leaving the player simply wanting more of your story isn't a great place to leave them hanging in, it's certainly a sign of a job well done.
The RPG mechanics of the game don't really play like anything else I can think of, other than a bit like Final Fantasy X in how you can do mid-battle party swapping in your team of 3 (although it seems like that was a very popular mechanic to steal from FFX, so Capcom aren't unique in that regards XD). Each party member goes into battle with their main weapon and sub weapons, with the former being bound to A and the latter being bound to X and Y. You get weapon energy at the start of every turn, and while your turn will end if you fire your main weapon, you can also spend weapon energy on firing your sub-weapons beforehand. In addition, you can also save up your weapon energy to activate a super move whose power is determined by how well you complete a little mini-game before hand, which can range in simplicity from simply holding down A to spinning the C-stick clockwise (something you'll do a LOT because that's the healer's free healing super move XP). You also have a super mode you can activate for a few turns, but it only gets its charges restored when you either level up or do a full heal (or use a special healing item of which there are only a set number in the game).
Even though you don't really have armor to equip, as you only have weapons to equip (though they do affect things like defense and speed as well as attack), the story-important Force Metal also plays a role in what are basically accessories. Each character has a certain number of Force Metal slots they can equip them in and a certain number of points they can allocate to it, and more powerful Force Metals generally take more points to equip. You can mitigate that by dedicating a Force Metal equipping slot to a special Force Metal that just gives you more points to allocate, or you can just equip over your limit and run the risk of negative side effects happening during battle as a result (much like the system Mega Man Battle Network uses).
The game's combat flows really quickly as a result of it being so many quick button presses with quick (sometimes too quick, and impairs readability) animations, which makes the large amount of random encounters not feel so overbearing. The random encounters are actually the main difference between the GameCube and PS2 ports of this game, as while the GC version may run at 60 FPS instead of the PS2's 30 FPS, encounter rate is tied to framerate, so you're going to get double the random encounters. The difficulty curve tends to lean towards the high side, though, so having more monsters to grind XP from isn't the worst thing in the world. Having good Force Metals equipped and a party you're comfortable using as efficiently as possible is key to survival, and while this certainly isn't the hardest RPG of the generation (there are hidden extra hyper forms for Zero and X and stealable super Force Metals that can tilt things in your favor by a LOT, making even the super hard post-game bosses much more manageable), it certainly surprised me with just how tough it often was, even in the first several chapters.
The presentation is really well done. The character designs do often err towards being on the more overdesigned side, but they're still very pretty and memorable. The music is also very good. The environments and dungeons to tend to be very simple and samey, however, with most of them being fairly unimpressive corridors, giving the game a very linear bent. Granted that linearity and uncreative dungeon design is really one of the most critical things I can level at the game from a mechanical or design standpoint, which isn't a bad place to be.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. I thought this game would be just okay, but I ended up really enjoying it. It's for sure an RPG on the GameCube and PS2 worth checking out, especially if you're a Mega Man fan who likes RPGs. It manages to make not just a really fun Mega Man RPG, but a great RPG in its own right, and that's possibly the singular most impressive thing it manages to do.
Rock Man X: Command Mission may have Zero and X and Axel in it, but it's more like a story inspired by the state of things that Rock Man X7 left things in rather than a direct continuation in any sense. X and Zero work for the military to hunt down Mavericks (or as the Japanese versions call them, "Irregulars"), but other than that, this is a side-story at least and a totally different continuity at most from the rest of the Rock Man X storyline. That said, this game put together by members of the team of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter and Rock Man X7 is quite the impressive achievement in bringing a truly unique-feeling Rock Man RPG experience to life.
The whole conceit of the game is that the world of reploids has been revolutionized by the discovery of a powerful new technology: Force Metal. It has properties that give incredible potential for power in reploids and machines that use it, and it becomes the focal point of the world's society very quickly. However, when the prime spot for the mining and processing of Force Metal is suddenly attacked by Irregulars, X and Zero are sent off to solve this crisis presented to the world before Force Metal is monopolized by the wrong hands.
While this is still very much a Rock Man X game in its world and character design, this is easily one of the best written games in the X series (as one would hope of a narrative-driven RPG). For starters, it's one of the sage few games in the series to actually address in any way, shape, or form the fact that X's whole deal as an Irregular Hunter basically makes him a super cop just hunting down government-identified terrorists, and that he's potentially just a tool for wannabee demagogues because his conviction towards hunting Irregulars is so unyielding. Beyond that, you can also definitely see the influence of the Breath of Fire members of the development team with the strong themes about leadership and the importance of a good, self-sacrificing leader.
It's a story that moves very quickly, and speeds through character moments quite fast, but it still manages to do its relatively large cast justice more often than it doesn't. Enemies range from seriously cruel to delightfully wacky in a way that doesn't break the tone, and the good guys are also staffed with a fun range of characters with their own motivations and personalities. It's certainly not the best written RPG of its generation, but it's a surprisingly well done swansong for Capcom's days of making straight turn-based RPGs. My only real complaints are around a twist in the end kinda compromising Zero's story arc, and the fact that it's just so short. Though in a sense, while leaving the player simply wanting more of your story isn't a great place to leave them hanging in, it's certainly a sign of a job well done.
The RPG mechanics of the game don't really play like anything else I can think of, other than a bit like Final Fantasy X in how you can do mid-battle party swapping in your team of 3 (although it seems like that was a very popular mechanic to steal from FFX, so Capcom aren't unique in that regards XD). Each party member goes into battle with their main weapon and sub weapons, with the former being bound to A and the latter being bound to X and Y. You get weapon energy at the start of every turn, and while your turn will end if you fire your main weapon, you can also spend weapon energy on firing your sub-weapons beforehand. In addition, you can also save up your weapon energy to activate a super move whose power is determined by how well you complete a little mini-game before hand, which can range in simplicity from simply holding down A to spinning the C-stick clockwise (something you'll do a LOT because that's the healer's free healing super move XP). You also have a super mode you can activate for a few turns, but it only gets its charges restored when you either level up or do a full heal (or use a special healing item of which there are only a set number in the game).
Even though you don't really have armor to equip, as you only have weapons to equip (though they do affect things like defense and speed as well as attack), the story-important Force Metal also plays a role in what are basically accessories. Each character has a certain number of Force Metal slots they can equip them in and a certain number of points they can allocate to it, and more powerful Force Metals generally take more points to equip. You can mitigate that by dedicating a Force Metal equipping slot to a special Force Metal that just gives you more points to allocate, or you can just equip over your limit and run the risk of negative side effects happening during battle as a result (much like the system Mega Man Battle Network uses).
The game's combat flows really quickly as a result of it being so many quick button presses with quick (sometimes too quick, and impairs readability) animations, which makes the large amount of random encounters not feel so overbearing. The random encounters are actually the main difference between the GameCube and PS2 ports of this game, as while the GC version may run at 60 FPS instead of the PS2's 30 FPS, encounter rate is tied to framerate, so you're going to get double the random encounters. The difficulty curve tends to lean towards the high side, though, so having more monsters to grind XP from isn't the worst thing in the world. Having good Force Metals equipped and a party you're comfortable using as efficiently as possible is key to survival, and while this certainly isn't the hardest RPG of the generation (there are hidden extra hyper forms for Zero and X and stealable super Force Metals that can tilt things in your favor by a LOT, making even the super hard post-game bosses much more manageable), it certainly surprised me with just how tough it often was, even in the first several chapters.
The presentation is really well done. The character designs do often err towards being on the more overdesigned side, but they're still very pretty and memorable. The music is also very good. The environments and dungeons to tend to be very simple and samey, however, with most of them being fairly unimpressive corridors, giving the game a very linear bent. Granted that linearity and uncreative dungeon design is really one of the most critical things I can level at the game from a mechanical or design standpoint, which isn't a bad place to be.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. I thought this game would be just okay, but I ended up really enjoying it. It's for sure an RPG on the GameCube and PS2 worth checking out, especially if you're a Mega Man fan who likes RPGs. It manages to make not just a really fun Mega Man RPG, but a great RPG in its own right, and that's possibly the singular most impressive thing it manages to do.