Mega Man X was a series in a somewhat privileged position of being both a subfranchise of something institutional AND built on the back of its own titanically successful and acclaimed first entry. The question of what IS Mega Man X exactly is one that’s been on the table from the beginning and it’s a blessing and a curse. Is it the new flagship evolution of Mega Man or a spinoff? Is it a killer app franchise for the Super Nintendo or another jewel in Sony’s growing crown? Are we dedicating ourselves to narrative in these games or not? Is this series where we play with the possibility space in terms of gameplay in the Mega Man framework? The answer to all of these questions, basically, has always been both yes and no, and in my opinion it’s paid off a lot more often than not so far. Here at what is very obviously a finale, even though very soon it will turn out not to be one, the successes are perhaps more mixed than they’ve been at the series’ highest points, but swinging hard and only connecting halfway is something I admire in a series as famous for its overblown stagnation as it is for anything else.

X5’s narrative is a lot like its gameplay, in that it’s not doing much new for the series but it IS coloring in the lines with some fresh ink. Sigma’s back and this time he’s got a VIRUS except I guess the virus was a thing this whole TIME and it was ACTUALLY the thing that makes people maverick and not the fact that they’re mad about being slaves, which is a stupid fucking choice but WHATEVER it’s Mega Man X it’s hard to be super mad about that particular aspect of these games five deep. In classic MMX fashion, though, the mechanics of the Sigma Virus are extremely, vague, like it also is said to be like harming the environment somehow? It’s the thing that destabilizes the space colony? It seems to have something to do with Zero’s mysterious past (mysterious if you’re five years old I mean), even though Sigma is surprised when he puts together Zero’s origin at the end of the game? Who can say, these things don’t really matter. What matters is the tutorial level ends with a giant Sigma face bursting out of the statue of liberty and then when you blow it up that like, triggers a colony drop or something? I forget the exact mechanics, but it spreads the Sigma Virus all over the world AND starts the countdown for a big orbiting space colony to crash into the earth, which seems needless when you’ve already turned basically everybody on Earth into a Maverick which as far as I know is what he wants??? THIS IS A FOOL’S ERRAND NONE OF THIS MATTERS.

What matters in this game, basically, is X and Zero concluding their character arcs, for a loose definition of those terms, and I think that as low as the bar I’ve set for this series is, X5 clears it. This is the first time these stupid boys and their melancholy has actually had any heft to it, and a lot of that has to do with the stakes of the game. All the stuff that we’ve come to expect from an X game is here: X is upset that he has to kill people who won’t listen to him, aware that the cycle of violence he perpetuates is cruel but unable to appreciate how needless and evil his position as an enforcer of the state is and that that is a primary driver of the misery he loathes. Zero may understand things better or he may not but he doesn’t care, really. He wants to do the job and go home, even when the home he wants to go to at the end of the day is increasingly ruinous; his characteristic angst and introspection seem more justified here in a truly apocalyptic setting as it seems the questions he’s always had about himself are taking on a global importance.

What sells this stuff so much better is the borderline abject bleakness of the game. The framing device for why you’re going from stage to stage has nothing to do with hunting and killing guys for maybe the first time in the series; instead you’re going around to collect parts to enhance the ramshackle rail gun and space shuttle the heroes have cobbled together in a desperate bid to shoot the falling space colony out of the sky. The entire game is haunted by the timer counting down to the impact, losing an hour every time you enter a stage. Every time though, X or Zero are met by the people who live in or own the places you’re going to, stealing from essentially, and some of them are typically MMX villains, maligning their place in society but framed as worthy of dismissal by the game because they’re also bloodthirsty mavericks. Just as many, though, are guys who sincerely would want to help with the effort to save the Earth if not for the fact that they’ve been affected by the Sigma Virus too, and they’ve been taken by it, or they feel it coming for them, and they ask to be put down. That’s the world we’re all fighting to save. One where, as far as we can tell, almost everybody is like this now. According to the text of the game we’re just all fated to be evil killers. It seems like this is reversed in the endings but it’s not REALLY addressed? It’s entirely possible it’s only the people in the heroes’ bunker who escaped. I’m sure this is all completely swept under the rug in Mega Man X6 but in a game that is widely known to have been intended as a series finale it’s a dark spot to leave things on, even when the good ending leaves off on a Mega Man Carries On The Fight note.

I don’t know how much there really is to say about what HAPPENS in the game. They pay off the X vs Zero fight that they’ve been teasing since X2 in the most comically anti-climactic way possible UNLESS you’re on the path for Da Bad Ending which you basically would have to be trying to do on purpose even given the random elements of the game. There are some new characters here, the most impactful one being Alia, the boys’ new Support Radio Guy, and from a narrative perspective I like her a lot, she gives a lot of color commentary on the world which I appreciate and again think enhances the general atmosphere of the game. There’s also this guy Dynamo who is like the secondary villain of the game and he is extremely funny he gets hyped up super hard but he only exists to be the Between Stages Miniboss that Mega Man games like to do, you fight him twice and he’s just gone he’s completely a non-character I love him, fucking loser.

I think this might be a hot take but I think the presentation is pretty great here too. I’m not sure WHAT happened between X4 and now beyond a general uptick in output of both Mega Man games and Capcom games in general in the late 90s/early 2000s, and maybe the looming hardware changeover had something to do with it, but it’s clear there’s less money on the screen here than in X4, which was a lavish production. X5 by comparison does come off looking a little shabby. Sprites that are carried over from the previous game look about as good as they did there which makes it even more noticeable that new ones, while beautifully drawn, animate a lot more stiffly and with fewer frames. Colors pop just a little bit less. They repeat the rotating staircase background in one level and it’s been completely biffed, the perspective is entirely off. Probably the most immediately obvious thing is that hand animated and voice acted cutscenes are OUT, replaced by sprite slideshows and text boxes. I can’t say I miss the anime cutscenes? The new ones are well drawn, and the music and slideshow animations pull enough weight that I didn’t mind at all that a lot of the big ones are digitized cells now instead. I honestly think they fit the tone a little better.

This extends to the play as well. I’ve decided that these PS1 era X games are not my favorites in the series in terms of game feel but X5 offers a LOT of options for tinkering with the way characters move and feel. I think it works out better than X4 in that regard even if the individual level designs aren’t as strong. They repeat a lot of gimmicks which is fine. I’m on the record as preferring this style of giving every level a specific gameplay hook in addition to an aesthetic one, and X5 keeps the variety up throughout. It’s a strong sleight of levels on paper kind of hamstrung by so-so implementation. A really good autoscroller rendered impotent by being too slow to be challenging; switch-based door obstacles that slow things down but don’t require effort to solve; a gravity swapping mechanic that is cool to look at but doesn’t meaningfully affect the way that you play. It’s not a DESERT out there – Burn Dinorex’s stage has a path split in the second half and both paths are cool, with one being a really challenging autoscrolling miniboss fight and the other being the game’s ride armor power fantasy segment. Cresent Gizzly’s stage is a fast-paced series of segments where you jump from truck to truck as you destroy them and it just feels sick. It’s a mixed bag with high highs and very medium lows which is a pretty good spot to find oneself in.

Surely though no one can talk about Mega Man X5 without spending some time talking about the veritable cavalcade of new and mostly very weird mechanics that it slathers over the top of the Mega Man formula to what I would call largely positive outcomes. The biggest one is the aforementioned ticking clock that hangs over the majority of the game; once you stop the threat of the colony in-universe that does go away and you can peruse the stages for collectibles at your leisure. Along with the timers the bosses all have a power level that goes higher the longer you take to beat them. I THINK this only affects their health? It’s a weird choice. When you refight them at the end of the game they’re all level 96 it’s truly tedious. However, if you get a good rank on their stage or fight them at a high enough level you can be rewarded with parts when you beat a boss, which can be developed in your hub menu into equippable items that change all kinds of parameters on X and Zero. They take two in-game hours to develop and you’re limited in equips but they affect shit like movement speed, special moves, attack potency, it’s really versatile. That’s another thing: rather than having separate campaigns, you select X or Zero at the start of every stage and levels are CLEARLY designed with one or the other in mind. It’s never as bad as say, Mega Man & Bass but you can spot it. Zero also just fuckin eats every boss in the game for lunch, tears through them like tissue paper, it’s bananas. There are little guys throughout the stages that you can go out of your way to save and some of them are tricky. There are RNG elements to multiple story points for how things will play into like three different endings. There’s so much WEIRD SHIT going on in this game and you can ignore basically all of it. The only really obtrusive new addition is that Alia interrupts you in every stage with the world’s most obnoxious text box tutorials which are never helpful and a very baffling thing to start doing in game 5 or like, 17 depending on how you’re looking at it.

That one frustration aside though I came out of X5 a lot more positive than I was expecting, given the general reputation of the latter half of the X series. It tries some new stuff and it’s almost entirely successful, which is never a guarantee when Mega Mans go out on a limb. Way more impressively though it ties the story and characters of the X games (well, mostly Zero, come on), which is, generously, a stupid heaping mess that I hate, into something that resembles a satisfying ending. We all know it’s not in any way an ending and that it would go on to have two separate continuations, the well-liked Mega Man Zero and the uh, well, Mega Man X6 is famously the sequel to Mega Man X5. I hope I like that one too! But on its own terms, taken for what it is, I think what we have here is very cool.

This got 40/40 in Famitsu, so I imported it immediately. The game was £45 and the express shipping was £25; UPS then asked for £30 in 'priority' import handling fees.

I played through the story in an afternoon, checked all the super moves and then never played it again.

Two years later, I saw the English-language version in a bargain bin at a local game shop for £15.

It’s better than whatever Silent Hill: Ascension was at least (as low a bar as that could be), but still just… exists I guess. Another short “PT” style thing but focused on mental health and bullying through social media. It’s a genuine topic to explore for SH to its credit, but the execution is extremely heavy handed, and its poor dialogue and voice acting let it down further. From a gameplay standpoint the chase sequences were more annoying than anything also, especially the last one. While it’s free and takes just about 2 hours, I’d still hesitate to say it’s worth the time

I'm currently 20 years old. Having not been alive to see them, I've had somewhat of a fascination with the 1990s ever since I was very little. 90s games and animation in particular have always had a grip on my brain, being so off the wall, so different from what I would see on TV and the games my siblings were playing. Even now, I'm always playing 4th gen games of basically random quality while a lot of my friends are talking about whatever the big new game is that I'm totally clueless on. This month's was Pizza Tower, which piqued my interest because I had actually heard about it years ago. From everything I've seen over time, it looked like a game right up my alley, so I decided recently to give it a go.

At its core, Pizza Tower is an ode to all that 90s stuff that I love. It's a bit ugly in style, but in that deliberate Ren & Stimpy or Ed, Edd n' Eddy kinda way, and I warmed up to it almost immediately. There's also a ton of recognizable 4th gen influence here, but the most obvious gameplay comparison, the one proudly worn on Pizza Tower's sleeve, is Wario Land 4. If Wario Land 4 is this purely satisfying to play, then I might as well get around to it as soon as possible. This game is so fucking fun, dude. It's such a blast from start to finish. I love the movement so much, how expressive it is, how fun it is to goof around with. The music is killer as well, only elevating the aesthetic and overall experience further. It really feels like you're playing through an old cartoon series.

My only gripe I can think of is with the bosses. They're not that bad, but they're considerably less intuitive than the core gameplay. It's sometimes hard to tell when you can hit them, though this isn't an issue with the earlier ones. They also each have double the health displayed on screen, which is just really bizarre to me. As soon as you deplete it, it refills and a second phase begins with more shit flying around. I don't have a problem with a second phase, I just wish the full health was more clearly illustrated, you know? Anyway, it might just be that I'm not very good, but each of the bosses took me several tries. I find that it really disrupts the flow of the high-octane levels inbetween. Though I suppose if they attempted to keep that speed going, there's a chance it would end up with Sonic Advance 2-esque bosses. That would probably be much worse.

At the end of the day, yeah this is really fucking good. Believe the hype, etc etc. It's clear a lot of love was put into this, and I think the 5 or so years it spent in development turned out to be totally worth it. Whether you're some kind of 90s nostalgist (or someone who's just into that kinda stuff like I am) or you just like really fast, speedrun-friendly games, Pizza Tower should be quite a treat for you.

"But McPig, it's just a game like Wario Land 4! How do we give it its own identity?"

McPig takes a bite out of his 23rd pizza slice today-- Supreme with stuffed crust.

"Any of you fellas ever play Sonic Rush?"

It's been so long since any game, indie or otherwise, has worn its heart on its sleeve the way Pizza Tower does. Over 5 years of time in the oven and it shows in every screen, every frame, every button press, every bite. Pizza Tower has more than deserved its right to stand amongst the greatest culinary triumphs of the single-chef indie scene alongside Cave Story, Stardew Valley, Hypnospace Outlaw, etc, joining the ranks of my personal 5-star favorite dishes.

There's something truly special about the way Pizza Tower sprinkles its influences to spice up its unique blend of score attack. It's not just the Wario Land heritage, its the way Tour de Pizza has taken its recipe and made a pie so perfectly seasoned and crisped, down to its crust. It's more than just a familiar flavor on a new dish. It's the ultra responsive and gooey momentum that makes combo racking so addictive. It's the undeniably charming SatAM flavor of every frame of animation that makes its slapstick marinate so effortlessly with its gameplay. It's the ear candy soundtrack so infectious and diverse, taking pieces from different cultural dishes like chiptune, new jack swing, tropical house, disco; all appreciated, never appropriated. Every bite culminating in a finale so unexpected, spicy, and cathartic; one of the most memorable last courses I've ever eaten and unlike anything I've ever tasted. Even after a week I still cannot stop thinking about it.

Pizza Tower was a daunting dish for such a small team of chefs to cook, and was something I was watching from outside the oven with such interest that I was genuinely worried it might come out overcooked, or maybe not even come out at all. I'm so glad to say this was not the case.

Bellísimo.

What I Look For In a Life Partner: stereotypically Italian, makes pizza and knows how to perform a spinning piledriver.

You know what I'm tired of? Player characters who only do wimpy attacks like jumping on their enemies, or swiping with their dinky-ass little broadswords. What are ya gonna do with that buster sword? Tickle me to death? I'm here to grapple with every goddamn thing I see, and uppercut them through the ceiling straight into other enemies, initiating a combo and gaining points like an even more sadistic version of bowling. Like a demented pizza-making freight train I dash around colliding into everyone like an Ed Edd n' Eddy character straight outta Hell with nothing to lose. I do a sick body splash too. You see that stupid sunglasses-wearin' pineapple guy? I'm gonna beat the daylights outta him. I hate him! He ruins every pizza he touches! I'm gonna smash you into the ground Pineapple Man!!! BOOM! POW! SMACK!

BRUTALITY IS ME! I AM THE BRUTALIZER!

It kind of goes without saying what Pizza Tower is attempting to mimic. I mean, you know why I'm playing this, and I know why you're probably interested in it. Hell, it even has a golf stage perhaps as an allusion to the third game. Mario is jealous! He is so mad that Wario has better games than him! He can't take it anymore! He politicked to Nintendo and made Wario sit behind a desk to develop microgames for wee ant babies, while Mario continued to hog the spotlight! Denying us more pure Wario games with shoulder charging and butt smashing action! Say no more though, because a wacky Italian pizza chef straight out of some kind of What A Cartoon-ass 90s era CN show is here to deliver the good shit.

In the case of whether you're wondering if it pulls it off well, I personally think it passes with multiple flying colors of some sort. I would even go as far as to say it adds enough to become it's own identity regardless of it's painfully obvious inspiration. Peppino is a big-time brawler that I mesh with as well as tomato sauce and mozzarella, and just when you think the transformations are gonna start repeating they instead just keep cranking out more. Well, except near the end, they kinda go overboard on a certain one involving a semi-ranged weapon that people tend to hate in multiplayer. Still pastrami cool though, and it's gonna be really satisfying once you start making this game your main squeeze and master it to the nth degree.

THE CHECKLIST:
•Heavyweight character move-set with professional wrestling moves [X]
•Collecting shit, but not too much shit. [X]
•Blast Processing [X]
•Sick Boss Fights [X]
•Cartoon Aesthetic [X]

Yup, that's a bunch of boxes checked. Vee is in love maybe. Pizza Tower, I choo-choo-choose you to be my Valentine. Swoon