"Unfortunate" doesn't begin to describe my series, this game rewards blind luck and nothing else, I am beyond convinced at this point. After getting completely tooled by scheduling with my opponent changing times on me last minute and refusing to provide confirmation prior to the day of the match as to play times, losing this way somehow felt even worse than I had thought possible. My preparation was superior, my play was superior, and I lost, so I don't see a reason to continue engaging in an activity where what is within my control is overwhelmingly outweighed by what is not.

I am done with competitive Pokemon, and you won't get a fond farewell. This community is infected to its roots with a degenerative disease that grows stronger over time but stops short of killing its host. Tournaments used to have a competitive spirit at their heart, this has been transplanted and replaced with an artificial organ that feeds on vitriol and mockery from insecure little boys that heckle by the sidelines and tear each other to shreds over scraps of attention. The environment we fostered has trapped us all like this in a vicious cycle, and escaping it requires acceptance of the harshest reality we all scramble to explain away, that none of the countless straining efforts we put ourselves through here will ever amount to one single shining glimmer of significance. I would make this the end, but World Cup is still ongoing, and I would never leave so many great friends out to dry, so I'll suffer through a few more games for them.

One last thing before I leave you all to react with disdain, ridicule, and self-righteous fervor, before you do everything in your power to minimize my words and thoughts, box them up and shove them to some cobwebbed corner of your memory, and hope they disappear forever as a stain on your finite time ground to dust. From this moment on, nothing you say matters to me. The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth before my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than anything you can conceive, while I carry on, brimming with joy distilled from detachment.

Beautiful and fun to explore. I forgot that I was playing og and not the definitive, so we’ll get to that eventually. Simple but effective visual storytelling is really cool. I think the combat is pretty lacking though. What’s there just isn’t good, just being pressing some auto attack button, and the bosses (if you can call them that) are pretty nothing. The escape sequences though? Beautiful stuff. I overall left loving the game though. I will say, don’t go into it expecting some metroidvania though? It’s more linear, and that’s totally fine, just what the game goes for. Really enjoyed it, but the combat does just make enemies kind of a hassle, and it impacted my enjoyment enough, unfortunately.

Going to get it out of the way, localization is dog water. I’m not going to comment on the plot as the English script is riddled with mistranslations and the hilariously bad voicing, so maybe it’s better in Japan, but legitimately some of the funniest bad acting in America. Beyond that? Excellent gameplay in both routes. Zero’s so satisfying moveset wise, you can do his story without backtracks, and X is possibly at his best here, owing to one of the most fun armor sets in the series. Graphically, it’s some damn gorgeous, vibrant 32-bit spriting that uses the backgrounds really nicely. This game’s X and Zero sprites are likely synonymous with your childhood if you played Flash games, and rightfully so. They’re animated very well, hitboxes are good, and it feels precise, if a tad heavier than on SNES, which is averted if you dash jump more. X’s weapon game is great here, but Zero is everyone’s main attraction. There’s nothing that walls him off like X5, and he’s there right from the start. The boss rush is even fun as Zero just because they let you use those techniques you’ve learned on them. Though poorly dubbed, the animated cutscenes still look very good and add to the charm. Easily one of my favorite games of all time, and probably my favorite in the X series, even if I’ve not rerun it as much as I have X1. This game is just Him.

I started with Tunnel Rhino and that helped a lot more with backtracking, cutting backtracks to Blast Hornet and Blizzard Buffalo’s stages. Neat! Collision damage, and detection feel decidedly off with this one. The early game is pretty punishing on that, and the final boss’s hitbox is famously off. I also died to a crushing hazard abruptly after the final boss during an escape sequence, so yeah man. Ride armors can make the game feel kind of cluttered in terms of items but it’s not bad, and the order I did this time helped a lot. Not gonna say the entire soundtrack is bad, because that’d be a lie, but Neon Tiger is just penis music, and Blizzard Buffalo’s stage sounds like it’s mid-loop on start. I think it’s the weak link of the front half of the series, but still enjoyable, though maybe not as much on a first run due to a learning curve, and better than pretty much the entire back half of the series. Also has a pretty good weapon selection, which is great.

Fantastic sequel, built off a preexisting framework, BUT it also introduces some series staples here. Air dashing would become synonymous with leg parts, until becoming a built-in feature in X7 and X8, and the giga attack was introduced. I don’t necessarily USE the giga attack, but the very concept that made X5’s boss rush tolerable (nova strike) is born from this staple and that’s worth a mention. Good stage design, fun routing, generally more precise platforming which mostly hits. There are a lot of ways you can work around backtracking while still following the weakness chain and yeah, it rules for that. Lots of fun tech here. Why am I docking it half a star? Most of the weapons SUCK. I got some use from the sonic slicer and speed burner is pretty great for platforming, but that’s about it. You can do some platforming with strike chain, too, but jesus christ it’s jank. Also some boss fights can just be so slow, like Wheel Gator taking forever to show himself or Crystal Snail murdering framerate. Still, a great sequel even if it doesn’t wow me quite as much as the first game.

I would lie to my mom about having extracurriculars in high school when in reality I’d run home to speedrun this game because I’d had a route with just one backtrack (that I still use to this date). I’m definitely rusty compared to then, but I’ve still got it. I adore this game so much. It’s one of my favorites of all time and probably always will be. It only takes me about an hour or so, but it’s damn magic. I did a hadouken run this time even though I just beat bosses off muscle memory. Peak gaming and an incredibly good jump on point due to being easy by Mega Man standards and incredibly designed.

Built on a fundamentally weak game technically, and it locks the day/night cycle in Kitakami until you beat its main story? Which is really fucking weird. But the story is solid and I like that the dlcs are genuinely connected this round, and love the balancing changes and batch of mons it introduces and brings back. More interesting terrain than Paldea, level scaling is solid, and some challenge is there. Good stuff, honestly. Idk what I’m supoosed to say, it’s cute and fun and pretty good for the small part of a large package.

Stockholm syndrome
Stock•holm syn•drome
/ˈstäkˌhō(l)m,ˈstäkōm ˈsinˌdrōm/
noun
feelings of trust or affection felt in many cases of kidnapping or hostage-taking by a victim toward a captor.

I definitely left the game liking it more this time. However, gonna be up front there are serious problems I have. Switching to model A automatically for every boss and warp station you activate slows a LOT down. Pseudoroids are slow, with limited as hell use once you get the biometals. Since the story is part of a very incomplete whole, it’s basically gibberish. And due to this the other four Mega Men in the story feel like totally wasted antagonists, who you literally only fight once. Pseudoroids don’t get enough gameplay use and are mostly slow and cumbersome to use. The voice acting is on the tier of X7, where it’s dragging down an already bad story. I don’t play Mega Man for the story, but when you throw a heavily voiced story at me, and it’s bad, I’m calling it out. ZX worked because it really was just a fanservice bomb, and the plot held no weight. Not so much the case here. However, the game’s fun as hell. It’s still fun to explore and control, though the way the Metroidvania aspects have been heavily stepped back is very odd to me? Was this not ZX’s entire thing? Ashe is especially fun to use; you can do some damn nasty tricks with the laser shot. Soundtrack is fun, and stage design is good as well, sometimes mandating you use powers you previously gained, so it does benefit from the linearity. There’s potential here, and a good deal hits, but a good deal also doesn’t. I’m glad quests aren’t labeled as missions though, holy shit. Found myself doing far less of them but that’s a vital QoL change. Generally, this feels less like a step forward or backward but moreso a sideways one. I just happened to click more with what ZX did than its sequel. Prometheus and Pandora are shining gems amidst the story, but again, they’re part of an unfinished narrative, so kinda punished for giving a damn lol.

Holy kino. If you ignore the story drop off, this plays incredibly. It’s also really fun fanservice. I just mention the story as this is a direct sequel to the Zero games, which have a very good overarching narrative. Wouldn’t mention otherwise; playing a Mega Man platformer for the story is like watching porn for the setpieces. But this game is stellar. I don’t really get the complaints about the minimap, if only for the fact that it’s one of the most straightforward Metroidvanias I’ve played, with 3 warps that serve as central hubs so it’s impossible to get lost. Could the map be labeled better? Yeah, but doors are also kind of loudly screaming zone locations at you, so there’s that.

Okay, so. I’ll get out of the way that it simplifies things a bit much, and that does lessen how I feel on it versus 2 and 3. And the OST is notably a tad off, some tracks are just not good. Others still totally hit. I did an EX skill run this time, and something clicked that previously had not. The weather system dares to ask, what if X6’s nightmare system actually functioned, and had a reward to it, whilst providing a fun way of using the weapon chain in a game you don’t really need it in. Similarly, I think this can make up for the loss of the recoil rod and a lot of 3 and 2’s customizability, as it’s far easier to get a Zero loaded up on Z skills that you can chain together. Didn’t really think much of the system until this run, and it really improved how I feel on the game. It turned from something I thought was pretty great to something I fucking loved. Again, I don’t love the simplified Elf system or how it handled parts, and the knuckle, while cool, is situational, but yeah. I like the game a lot. Finale is still utterly perfect and the story is once again, really good. It’s the only time Mega Man really contributed to a narrative-based series, (as ZX was canned before tying up its loose ends), and it’s great for it. I just can’t make myself do anything but love this game in spite of its faults; my experience was so purely good.

Kind of incredible how a game manages to use the Doc Robot concept from MM3, yet actually use it well through unique stage designs and new, fair boss patterns for the returning bosses, without managing to feel bloated. There’s just so much player control and customizability between all the chips and ex skills here too. Not only is the game fun on a first run, but it is on every subsequent one. This is my second run through this week because I find this so gripping gameplay wise. It just doesn’t get old. New Game+ without the hiccups of Zero 1’s life system, Zero1 and 2’s weapon exp system, or X8’s stage design. Fuck yeah man. Love this game. Also the story’s great, too. Though it’s in the Zero sub series so that shouldn’t be a shock. But hey, fantastic video game where you just so happen to bash the fash.

“Ciel.
Trans me now.”
Congrats Zero 🏳️‍⚧️!

Only docking a half star because the forms are a cool feature but getting some of them is just asking to get your rank docked.