Reflecting on Mega Man X
Every so often, perhaps as a form of withdrawal from the challenges I face in the day to day, my mind will occasionally reach back and attempt to remember some of the good times I've had in the past. Unsurprisingly, Mega Man games are a large part of those good memories I indulge in.
I found myself listening to Mega Man X music the other day while I was commuting this morning, and that got me thinking, "Gee...There's got to be a reason why the first three X games were awesome, the fourth was okay, and Numbers 5 through 7 blew total ass." I mean, don't get me wrong, there are good things about some of those games, but...
Okay. X1? Perfection. X2? The addition of optional side bosses and the Ride Chaser hoverbikes were terrific. X3? Oh, sweet lord. How tough do you want to make your life? The challenge rating got kicked up BUNCHES, and you get to screw around with Zero for a while.
And then X4 happened. Well, plotwise, full of holes, but still fun to play. Zero gets way more love in X4 than X does, which works out fine. But X4 also introduced something which, unfortunately, became a staple of every game after.
I'm talking, of course, about the "unavoidable Landchaser pursuit" bit. In X4, you get a whole fricking stage of it with Stingray. In X5, they link it to an armor upgrade. In X6...Wait, did X6 have one? Huh. Can't remember. But then, most of that game is forgettable. "Mysterious Hunter" my ass, Capcom, we all know whose cock you were wanking...
In X7, it was outright ludicrous. In X8, they decided that the concept was SO GREAT (It wasn't) that we got TWO STAGES of that crap instead of one.
What happened after X4? What made the magic disappear, the plotlines, meager as they were, vanish entirely (Aside from X8, which actually DID have an enjoyable plotline, but made up for it with the aforementioned Landchaser segments), and the gameplay focus/replay value drop tremendously?
The company changed. It wasn't about making a great game, it was just about making a game, period. Inafune wanted the X series done with in X5. He'd moved on mentally to Mega Man Zero, to try new things. The company disagreed, and we ended up with...well, a mess. and not the fun kind of mess.
There are good things about X5. The sense of urgency, for one. "World dies in 16 hours!" is a fantastic mechanic to ratchet up the adrenaline to start with, but having Dynamo come after Hunter base all the time got irritating. And if one Hunter was off on a mission, how could that SAME Hunter turn around and fight him? Seriously. If I used Zero to take out Crescent Grizzly, then X should be the one minding the fort and having to take out the bounty hunter. Having to wind the clock down to get the best powerups from the bosses was annoying as hell. And then there was the Enigma Cannon/Shuttle nonsense...So clearly, they got more WRONG with X5 than they got right. Some nice music notwithstanding.
Then rolled around X6.
Yeah, not talking about that game. Because UGH.
X7? Nice idea, wrong in the application. And I didn't even PAY for that one, got it free in a contest. The controls were...well, abysmal. Axl was nigh useless, Zero's hitbox was ridiculous, and the ONLY reason to even bother with rescuing reploids (Seriously, it was a dumb mechanic in X6 and they revived it and made it WORSE) was to get X sooner so he could just show up and blow everything apart.
Oddly enough, when I feel the need to play a Playstation 1/2 era Mega Man X game, it's X8 that I end up plugging in. Why? Well, for one, tighter controls and gameplay. A return to the sidescrolling format. Axl no longer sucked. Matter of fact, aside from lacking armor powers, he killed off bosses WAY FASTER than X ever did. And his Copy shot made sense, and didn't require charging.
If only I didn't have to play those two stupid Landchaser stages....
I know this is years after the fact, and it comes off as rambling, but what the heck. It's been forever since I posted something here that wasn't a "Friends Only" Blue Ink Review.
We can only hope, now that Inafune and Comcept are knee deep in Mighty Number 9's development (The beta shows that some tweaking to the tightness of Beck's controls is still needed), they'll get back to the idea of making GREAT games, and new gimmicks that make sense. The Landchasers in X2 made sense. They were optional, but so much fun to ride. Then they became...ugh...mandatory.
Unsurprisingly, you don't have to worry about Landchaser segments in Mega Man Zero games.
I WONDER WHY.
-Erico
I found myself listening to Mega Man X music the other day while I was commuting this morning, and that got me thinking, "Gee...There's got to be a reason why the first three X games were awesome, the fourth was okay, and Numbers 5 through 7 blew total ass." I mean, don't get me wrong, there are good things about some of those games, but...
Okay. X1? Perfection. X2? The addition of optional side bosses and the Ride Chaser hoverbikes were terrific. X3? Oh, sweet lord. How tough do you want to make your life? The challenge rating got kicked up BUNCHES, and you get to screw around with Zero for a while.
And then X4 happened. Well, plotwise, full of holes, but still fun to play. Zero gets way more love in X4 than X does, which works out fine. But X4 also introduced something which, unfortunately, became a staple of every game after.
I'm talking, of course, about the "unavoidable Landchaser pursuit" bit. In X4, you get a whole fricking stage of it with Stingray. In X5, they link it to an armor upgrade. In X6...Wait, did X6 have one? Huh. Can't remember. But then, most of that game is forgettable. "Mysterious Hunter" my ass, Capcom, we all know whose cock you were wanking...
In X7, it was outright ludicrous. In X8, they decided that the concept was SO GREAT (It wasn't) that we got TWO STAGES of that crap instead of one.
What happened after X4? What made the magic disappear, the plotlines, meager as they were, vanish entirely (Aside from X8, which actually DID have an enjoyable plotline, but made up for it with the aforementioned Landchaser segments), and the gameplay focus/replay value drop tremendously?
The company changed. It wasn't about making a great game, it was just about making a game, period. Inafune wanted the X series done with in X5. He'd moved on mentally to Mega Man Zero, to try new things. The company disagreed, and we ended up with...well, a mess. and not the fun kind of mess.
There are good things about X5. The sense of urgency, for one. "World dies in 16 hours!" is a fantastic mechanic to ratchet up the adrenaline to start with, but having Dynamo come after Hunter base all the time got irritating. And if one Hunter was off on a mission, how could that SAME Hunter turn around and fight him? Seriously. If I used Zero to take out Crescent Grizzly, then X should be the one minding the fort and having to take out the bounty hunter. Having to wind the clock down to get the best powerups from the bosses was annoying as hell. And then there was the Enigma Cannon/Shuttle nonsense...So clearly, they got more WRONG with X5 than they got right. Some nice music notwithstanding.
Then rolled around X6.
Yeah, not talking about that game. Because UGH.
X7? Nice idea, wrong in the application. And I didn't even PAY for that one, got it free in a contest. The controls were...well, abysmal. Axl was nigh useless, Zero's hitbox was ridiculous, and the ONLY reason to even bother with rescuing reploids (Seriously, it was a dumb mechanic in X6 and they revived it and made it WORSE) was to get X sooner so he could just show up and blow everything apart.
Oddly enough, when I feel the need to play a Playstation 1/2 era Mega Man X game, it's X8 that I end up plugging in. Why? Well, for one, tighter controls and gameplay. A return to the sidescrolling format. Axl no longer sucked. Matter of fact, aside from lacking armor powers, he killed off bosses WAY FASTER than X ever did. And his Copy shot made sense, and didn't require charging.
If only I didn't have to play those two stupid Landchaser stages....
I know this is years after the fact, and it comes off as rambling, but what the heck. It's been forever since I posted something here that wasn't a "Friends Only" Blue Ink Review.
We can only hope, now that Inafune and Comcept are knee deep in Mighty Number 9's development (The beta shows that some tweaking to the tightness of Beck's controls is still needed), they'll get back to the idea of making GREAT games, and new gimmicks that make sense. The Landchasers in X2 made sense. They were optional, but so much fun to ride. Then they became...ugh...mandatory.
Unsurprisingly, you don't have to worry about Landchaser segments in Mega Man Zero games.
I WONDER WHY.
-Erico