21XX:
Megaman fights crazed Mavericks
yet still dies from spikes.
Additional Comments:
I absolutely love Megaman. If Megaman were a Megawoman, I'd pretend to be evil Grapple Man, and get into a wrestling match with her. But seriously, I love Megaman. Again, another franchise that reminds me of my gaming youth, it just never gets old to me. But though I love Megaman, I love Megaman X even more. The X series seems like an even more futuristic version of the Megaman series, with allusions to the now deceased Dr. Light and your previous version which needed to "mature" in a stasis pod until the right time. Which I guess is a hundred years from the normal Megaman universe (?). Really, it's the same as Megaman except for a few important distinctions: 1) Dr. Wily isn't the main boss, another android/virus caled Sigma is, 2) all the enemies are named after animals, 3) no more E-tanks, this time it's refillable Sub-tanks (which I prefer), 4) the music is all guitar driven, as interpreted by a keyboard player (sounds better than you'd think), 5) you have a "brother" named Zero, and 6) you can upgrade Megaman!!
When I was first exposed to these games as a teen, I don't know if I ever beat them, but I know that I played and loved ever single one. When I picked them up to play and beat once and for all, I just decided to play the SNES trilogy as a whole and comment that way instead of one at a time. And playing them back to back, I definitely have strong opinions about which is the best and why.
I know the music can sometimes sound cheesy, but I love it--especially in the first game. C'mon, Storm Eagle?! That's awesome! And Zero's theme, Spark Mandrill?!!! Yes! And I think I like the music from the first game the best, though the third game was a little better than the second in its musical score. Such as Blizzard Buffalo, Gravity Beetle, and Toxic Seahorse.
The upgrades are far better on X3, and seems like Capcom really paid attention to fans or game mechanics or both, because the powerups are just great. Though I love the first game, only two of the X powerups are of any use: the gun and chest. The other two are just lazy upgrades.
Overall, I think X2 is the best of the trilogy as far as everything combined. There are things I like more in X and X3, but it seems to me that X2 just had the right mix.
Of course, I have complaints, but they're really just minor nit-picky things. The thing that I think is the funniest thing about almost every Megaman game is that the first enemy on any stage is either jumpy or flying. Usually jumpy with shooty added for effect. The games are pretty tough for Megaman games, I think. And X3 is the hardest. With as many cool additions in X3 like the upgrade chips, gold armor, playable Zero, and acquiring Zero's beam sabre, the thing I hated the most was that you had to do everything JUST right to get the things that you really wanted, which just so happened to be the things that killed Sigma the easiest. Plus, I know there's a Megaman X Collection for the PS2, but since I didn't have that available, I just played the SNES versions. Which is good and bad. I kind of wish I had the Collection just for the extras and the cutscenes.
If you haven't played this series, you really need to. It's, in my opinion, some of the best Megaman games out there--even some of the best SNES games!
Megaman X, you just got beat!
Rating: 4.5 sub-tanks out of 5
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