This is another game I played when I was little but could never beat. I got stuck on the Sigma levels and could just never complete them. However, I was talking about it with MrPopo and Gunstar in the Slack the other day, and they mentioned how to get past the certain area I had been stuck on. I decided to use my Classic Controller Pro with my SNES Classic and give this one another go. I ended up 100%-ing it (even got the Hadouken ^w^) and beating it in a little under two hours, and I only used save states for time-saving purposes (I needed to retry Sigma quite a few times, and didn't really care to hadouken my way through the first two forms every single time XP).
Mega Man X takes place far in the future from the original Mega Man games (although who knows exactly how far). X and Zero are maverick hunters who used to work with Sigma, who has gone mad and wants to kill all the humans to make a world just for robots. The story isn't terribly important and a decent deal of the back story is in the manual (I assume, as a good portion of stuff I just didn't understand and had to infer from context). The presentation is very nice for an earlier SNES game though, and the music is absolutely excellent~
The main gimmick and difference of this game compared to the original MM series is that there are hidden power ups in each stage. Every stage has an upgrade to your maximum health, half of the eight Maverick stages have a sub-tank (no more E-tanks for you!), and half of them also have an upgrade for Mega Man's general abilities. These upgrades for his fighting abilities are one of the game's greatest strengths as well as one of its greatest weaknesses.
For starters, the first upgrade you get (or rather the first one you're intended to get) is a dash move. I have never found performing the dash all the comfortable or easy to do if I need to do it in conjunction with wall climbing (another new mechanic in this game) and/or charging your weapon, even though the game does let you rebind all the buttons if you want. The bright side is, however, that that is why I used the Classic Controller Pro to play this on my SNES Mini. It made hitting the shoulder buttons way easier than the awkward way that pressing buttons on the original SNES controller works (at least when you have to hit them in conjunction with anything on the face of the controller).
From a larger design element, the hidden nature of these ability upgrades really mess with the pace of the game, and they also really advantage someone who already knows where they are. If you've never played Mega Man X before, you'll likely have a very difficult time if you don't do Chill Penguin's stage first, you won't have the charge move, and doing any of the other stages will be far harder (although I think still technically possible) since the game seems to think you'll have that. You also better get all of the secret powers (hadouken aside, which is super secret on purpose, and requires all other upgrades to get, but can one-hit any boss if you get it!), because that allows you to charge your weapons other than your Mega Buster, and the invincibility granted by Sting Chameleon's charge move (among other benefits from the powers) are gonna be pretty invaluable during Sigma's stages. The secret powers are neat in concept, but they're so necessary (and I think may genuinely be necessary because I don't think you can damage Sigma without the buster upgrade, the last of the four normal ones) that them being hidden is more frustrating than fun for me. If you just look up where they are (or like me, remember where they were from watching AGDQ a couple years back ^^;), it isn't so bad, but it makes playing the game blind far more frustrating than the original Mega Man games.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. I still prefer the way the classic Mega Man games work compared to X, but I still had a lot of fun with this game. It's an excellent action game I'm glad I finally went back to finish after giving up on it so many years ago.
Mega Man X takes place far in the future from the original Mega Man games (although who knows exactly how far). X and Zero are maverick hunters who used to work with Sigma, who has gone mad and wants to kill all the humans to make a world just for robots. The story isn't terribly important and a decent deal of the back story is in the manual (I assume, as a good portion of stuff I just didn't understand and had to infer from context). The presentation is very nice for an earlier SNES game though, and the music is absolutely excellent~
The main gimmick and difference of this game compared to the original MM series is that there are hidden power ups in each stage. Every stage has an upgrade to your maximum health, half of the eight Maverick stages have a sub-tank (no more E-tanks for you!), and half of them also have an upgrade for Mega Man's general abilities. These upgrades for his fighting abilities are one of the game's greatest strengths as well as one of its greatest weaknesses.
For starters, the first upgrade you get (or rather the first one you're intended to get) is a dash move. I have never found performing the dash all the comfortable or easy to do if I need to do it in conjunction with wall climbing (another new mechanic in this game) and/or charging your weapon, even though the game does let you rebind all the buttons if you want. The bright side is, however, that that is why I used the Classic Controller Pro to play this on my SNES Mini. It made hitting the shoulder buttons way easier than the awkward way that pressing buttons on the original SNES controller works (at least when you have to hit them in conjunction with anything on the face of the controller).
From a larger design element, the hidden nature of these ability upgrades really mess with the pace of the game, and they also really advantage someone who already knows where they are. If you've never played Mega Man X before, you'll likely have a very difficult time if you don't do Chill Penguin's stage first, you won't have the charge move, and doing any of the other stages will be far harder (although I think still technically possible) since the game seems to think you'll have that. You also better get all of the secret powers (hadouken aside, which is super secret on purpose, and requires all other upgrades to get, but can one-hit any boss if you get it!), because that allows you to charge your weapons other than your Mega Buster, and the invincibility granted by Sting Chameleon's charge move (among other benefits from the powers) are gonna be pretty invaluable during Sigma's stages. The secret powers are neat in concept, but they're so necessary (and I think may genuinely be necessary because I don't think you can damage Sigma without the buster upgrade, the last of the four normal ones) that them being hidden is more frustrating than fun for me. If you just look up where they are (or like me, remember where they were from watching AGDQ a couple years back ^^;), it isn't so bad, but it makes playing the game blind far more frustrating than the original Mega Man games.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. I still prefer the way the classic Mega Man games work compared to X, but I still had a lot of fun with this game. It's an excellent action game I'm glad I finally went back to finish after giving up on it so many years ago.