Heading to the X Dimension…
After finishing the Mega Man series I decided to make a start on the Mega Man X series, it’s similar to the original series, but has some changes, for example instead of a slide Mega Man can now dash, along with that he has the ability to wall jump. X also has the ability to upgrade his armour via terminals that are placed throughout the levels and when you find them a holographic Dr Light tells you what the upgrade is and what it does, this is a feature throughout the entire Mega Man X series.
Don’t worry X still has the ability to copy Robot Masters’ abilities, though Robot Masters are now Mavericks as they are corrupted via a virus, or hacking, some are labelled Mavericks as they decided the human race was inferior and needed to be wiped out. Mega Man X is a great lead into the X series giving you a taste of what could be done and I had high hopes for the series.
I went into Mega Man X2 thinking it would be a step up from X and I remember enjoying it more at the time. When thinking back to them both X and X2 X stands out to me as a more memorable game but I know when playing through X2 I enjoyed it more. It improved upon X in many ways and still felt as fresh. It’s kind of like Mega Man to Mega Man 2 where what came before was cracking, but the follow-up stepped beyond it.
Mega Man X3 was for me very disappointing, it did the things that its prequels did but worse. The game didn’t resonate in the same way and I didn’t enjoy it very much, I was hoping this was a blip and not the standard for which the series would continue.
Moving on the Mega Man X4 and the series made its jump to the 32-bit systems, the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. I played this on the Mega Man X Legacy Collection and I remember enjoying the game more than 3, in fact, I remember really enjoying the game and thinking it was a high-quality title that followed up X and X2 perfectly, it’s just a shame X3 came before it. The armour upgrades are probably my favourite in the series with the armour being extremely useful for moveability and power. Zero was also fully playable in this game, he is playable in X3 but it has restrictions.
A Really Mixed Bag.
Mega Man X5 I initially disliked, there’s a timer in the game that is counting down to a space colony heading to Earth on a crash course of doom. After finishing a level, or playing a level and leaving without beating the Maverick at the end of the stage the timer would count down 1 hour. I think there may be a better ending if you finish it without the timer counting down, but I realised a few “hours” in that I didn’t really care and just played the game as if the timer wasn’t there and ended up really up enjoying the game, and thought it was a bloody entertaining experience.
Oh, Mega Man X6, how I loathe thee, This is the worst experience I have had with Mega Man ever let alone the X series, but the entire franchise. The ball was truly dropped when making this title. I have no idea if the thought process was as simple as ‘let’s make a rubbish game to kill the franchise dead so we can make other games’ or ‘Hey, remember the worst aspects of the previous titles? Yeah, well, that’s how we’ll make X6 for shits and giggles’ I genuinely hate the game, and I am glad I never have to play it again, awful awful stuff.
Mega Man X7 is sort of the weird step-sister of the X series. It’s got the traditional 2D levels, but they added in 3D levels as well. I think it’s a fairly weak game, but I’m glad they tried to mix it up a bit after the shambles that was X6. I did enjoy the 2D sections and while they added a new playable character in Axl whose ability is to copy enemies’ abilities during stages and not just bosses I only used him until X became playable. I’m glad they improved on X6, but it’s still a fair way off the better games in the series.
Lastly, I have been playing through Mega Man X8. This is an improvement over the last two titles, but again not up there with the better four X games. It goes back to the 2D style of the games before X7 and keeps X, Zero and Axl as playable characters, but adds in 2 new operators who guide you through the levels and offer help and advice on the area you are in, in there’s weird readings around (which tend to be upgrade metals) and information on enemies and bosses. Overall the game is enjoyable, it has some weaker levels, mainly the auto scroller, but overall it was nice to enjoy the X series properly again. I will say the game is somewhat of a pain in the backside though, as you do have to go back to levels to collect upgrades more than in previous titles, you also have to make sure you take to two correct characters and even the right operator to get or know about the upgrades, I’ll also add that the final boss in this is much tougher than any other in the series, more so when you aren’t fully upgraded.
All in all, the Mega Man X series is a very mixed bag, you have maybe 3 excellent games, 2 decent games, 2 bad games and 1 truly awful abomination. I think one thing that rears its ugly head too often in the series is auto-scrolling levels, they are never fun and just spoil the good that’s there. I don’t know why the gamers are as varied as they are, maybe it was different directors of teams working on the games, but Mega Man does vary in quality it doesn’t vary anywhere near as much, there’s not a bad game, where X has 3. I’m looking forward to playing both Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX series and hope they are most consistent with their quality, I will update the blog with my thoughts, but as it stands OG Mega Man is the superior series and for me has the best titles with 2, 3 and 9.
