Now spike resistant,
X makes his best game so far,
now with more armors!
Additional Comments:
What a game! After playing the previous game, I was a little reluctant to play another in this series, because, in my mind they'd reached rock bottom with X4--even though I didn't hate the game. But, right away, this game shows you that it's not like X4. In fact, this really is the best in the series. From what I understand, this was made soon after the release of X4, and because of the timing, was made by another developer. THANK GOD. This time around there are no anime cutscenes, no cheesy voiceacting, and best of all, a lot of great ideas for the franchise. The first great idea is that you start off with X's completed armor upgrades from X4--what a brilliant idea! I've always thought how stupid it was that X always reverted to a weakened state in between the games. And...these are supposed to be episodes in a story, so why would he just lose the armor? So that's a great idea. The next great idea was that you can choose between X and Zero on any level. That means that you don't have to play the game twice to see how Zero plays. Again, brilliant! The story employs a different structure than previous games, which is a good thing. The absence of cutscenes actually improve the quality of the story, in my opinion. It keeps it simple and straightforward, like all Megaman games, and cuts the fat by eliminating confusing and cheesy character arcs. The next great new thing is the addition of new armors--similar to the white armor pieces you normally collect. This time you have a Gaea armor and Falcon armor, which you can select before the beginning of the level. Zero even gets an armor upgrade, which is awesome. The Gaea armor makes you more resistant to damage, impervious to spikes (finally!), and able to destroy stronger blocks you find in levels. It's major drawbacks are that it's offensive power is very weak and short, and you can't use any enemy weapon powers. The Falcon armor gives you the ability to fly, but doesn't have much defense or offense. Though you really don't need the armors for much, which is a negative, the positive side is that you do need them if you want to collect all the heart pieces. And if you really want to beat the game, you absolutely need all the heart pieces. Though I wish the armors were more useful, having to get them for heart pieces is very interesting and adds more gameplay than your standard playthrough. Also, it's very hard to get some of these pieces. It took me FOREVER to get one of the Falcon armor pieces.
This game also had a lot of throwbacks to the X series. There were Sigma levels that copied levels from Megaman 2 and Megaman X. There were a lot of musical throwbacks from previous bosses in the franchise. And I liked these. The music was really great. In fact, it is the best in the franchise thus far. Some of my faves being the character select screen, Squid Adler, Izzy Glow, The Skiver and the Mission Report. In fact, I enjoyed almost all of the tracks. They really did a great job with the guitar sound. I don't think it's actual guitar recorded, but a keyboard synthesizing the guitar. And if I'm correct, they did a darn good job at hiding the tell-tale signs of keyboard to guitar synthesizing.
They also had a timed aspect of the game for the story mode. While I don't normally care for that, they did a decent job with it here. It adds some dramatic tension while throwing something new into the fray. They also have a strange Guns N Roses obsession in this game. All the bosses save for Sigma are named after someone in GNR. Strange...
They even deviate somewhat from the standard Sigma pattern. Normally, the final boss, Sigma, has three parts to defeat. I hate this normally because Sigma is so dog-gone hard that in the last version, you basically have little to no spare energy in the E-tanks, so you almost have to be flawless in your fight. On top of that, they usually change Sigma's tactics after taking down half his energy. Well, in this game, there are only two versions of Sigma, but the second version has twice as much energy as the first. So, while technically it's similar, you only have four tactics to beat instead of six--which is a godsend!
But the best parts about the game are these: crouch and a game difficulty choice. Awesome!
All in all the best Megaman X game in the franchise. It seems a little dated, but not it's too bad.
Rating: 4.5 new armor pieces out of 5
Nano-win: The Crouch!!!!
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