Mega Man X is like the Chrono Trigger of '90s action platformers; genre-transcendingly good by virtue of having great presentation, excelling at everything it does with no notable weak points, and being extremely welcoming to novices - it feels like what you would get if you eugenically bred platformers for a hundred generations. As with Chrono Trigger, there are some who would see its relatively low difficulty as a weak point, and its extreme polish as sterility; however, it's really hard to argue with how refined and slick the entire experience is. The hidden items and power-ups are rewarding to find, and the levels are short enough that backtracking through them rarely feels like a chore. The controls are smooth, intuitive, and satisfying (bar one little niggle I'll get into later). The bosses have their own unique gimmicks and a wide repertoire of moves, but never feel unfair because you always fight them in a large enough space that their attacks don't "gotcha" you out of nowhere. I know that the difficulty curve works from experience; this was one of the first games I completed (sans cheats) as a kid because it was so good at teaching and motivating me to get better that I went from trundling along and DPS-racing every enemy I came across to flying past obstacles while holding down my charge shot within a few days of picking it up.
Some of the negatives:
- The four Sigma stages sagged a little, with their rehashed bosses and lack of secrets or power-ups to discover making them feel like padding
- The one negative on the controls was the fact that double-tapping left or right would cause X to dash; given that some bosses require careful adjustment of positioning through little 'baby steps', it felt way too easy to accidentally dash straight into an oncoming attack. I wish there were a way to disable this in the options and have the dash tied only to a button.
- Earlier games in the Mega Man series felt a bit railroady in terms of needing you to have the exact right weapon in order to hit a boss' weakpoint; I feel like MMX occupies the other extreme, where you can play nearly the entire game with the buster only and all the cool weapons you acquire being heavily situational. They're super cool, but the low difficulty means that you're never really incentivized to get really familiar with their use.
That said... if the above points are the worst thing about your game, you did an exceptional job. This was a formative experience in my video gaming life and a must-play for anyone at all interested in this genre.
Some of the negatives:
- The four Sigma stages sagged a little, with their rehashed bosses and lack of secrets or power-ups to discover making them feel like padding
- The one negative on the controls was the fact that double-tapping left or right would cause X to dash; given that some bosses require careful adjustment of positioning through little 'baby steps', it felt way too easy to accidentally dash straight into an oncoming attack. I wish there were a way to disable this in the options and have the dash tied only to a button.
- Earlier games in the Mega Man series felt a bit railroady in terms of needing you to have the exact right weapon in order to hit a boss' weakpoint; I feel like MMX occupies the other extreme, where you can play nearly the entire game with the buster only and all the cool weapons you acquire being heavily situational. They're super cool, but the low difficulty means that you're never really incentivized to get really familiar with their use.
That said... if the above points are the worst thing about your game, you did an exceptional job. This was a formative experience in my video gaming life and a must-play for anyone at all interested in this genre.