Classics 4

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Graphics fidelity on terrain and general gorgeousness
2. Lighting: Lighting usage and especially usage of the color red
3. Foreshadowing: Foreshadowing is absolutely everywhere, with tons of hints and tidbits of what’s going on and why
4. Atmosphere: Atmosphere in the roaming, exploring sections is excellent and does a good job of selling the post apocalypse ‘reclaimed’ world
5. Atmosphere: Visual variety and style of the three tribes is quite excellent and distinct; between clothing and armor, tools and equipment, and infrastructure and architecture
6. Atmosphere: Second positive for the aforementioned
7. Voice Acting: Ashley Burch is a great actress in general but she does a fantastic job with Alloy in this one
8. Character: Rost was only present temporarily but he was quite well done as a character while he was there
9. World Building: The world building is just absolutely engaging and fascinating. I don’t have a better way to describe it except to say that I absolutely adore the world that was built; The world that was and the world that is and the connections between the two
10. World Building: World building / Carja (former marauders and slavers who now, by consequence, have a multicultural setup they’re trying to shuffle into an economic superpower rather than a military one, and their natural ‘castle’ allowing for force projection and multiplication)
11. World Building: World building / Past (garbage patch, endangered dolphins, destroying cities to fight the swarms, guaranteed citizenship)
12. Character: Teersa is surprisingly well done of a character; Reasonable, but also interesting in how adaptive she is
13. Secondary: Honor The Fallen, the mourning quest is actually quite heart-rending and touching in showcasing how people deal with their grief, as well as being very well voice acted and strong in its individuals and, as a final bonus, it showcases the shifting politics of the Carja away from the marauding force they used to be
14. World Building: Cauldrons are fascinating in almost every way. Visually impressive, perfectly logical in-lore, fascinating in their implications and usage
15. MSQ: The Faro Automated Solutions level. Oh my good God, Faro Automated Solutions. They reveal just enough that we can piece together the broad strokes of what happened and it is beautifully horrifying
16. MSQ: Grave-Hoard, the reality of Enduring Victory, and the General Herres’s reaction to the situation… legitimately tear-wrenching, even knowing it was coming
17. Character: Erend is a decent bro character and, as per usual for the archetype, bro characters rock
18. Character: Sylens is honestly my favorite character in the entire game. He’s mostly honest in that he just avoids unnecessary information, cares but mostly for his own sake, doesn’t put up with much but will if he has to, and is just generally fascinating, helped by…
19. Voice Acting: Lance Reddick, Sylens’ voice actor, is just fantastic here as he always is
20. Character: Avad is a surprisingly well portrayed ‘good king’, someone who wants to improve things and actively is working to and realizes that sudden change won’t work (indeed, the slow pace of change he’s already doing was already enough to lead to civil war)
21. MSQ: Deep Secrets of the Earth, and the final reveal of what Project Zero Dawn really is
22. Plot: The reality and research of the surprisingly mundane, grounded, down-to-earth solution that Project Zero Dawn really was
23. Moment: Honestly one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen in fiction is in that schooling area…
24. Moment: …the idea of people being trapped, inches and visible, from their future and paradise while they languish under the care of low level bots that are designed to handle children
25. Moment: And one final plus for one final reveal; The Crime of Ted Faro
26. Character: Ted Faro is a surprisingly interesting and fascinating character for how monstrously flawed and culpable he is
27. Outro: The Outro is pretty cool. Those who come together based on your quests, the final communication between Sobeck and GAIA, the fact that Elisabet made her way home and died there… and Sylens’ final scene
28. Consequence Storytelling: The story is, astonishingly, quite grounded and the nature of how logical and thought-out and believable it is absolutely adds to my enjoyment
29. Animation: Frozen Wilds: Suddenly good facial and body language animation
30. Character: Frozen Wilds: Gildun is an astonishingly good character for being only in one (side!) quest
31. Character: Frozen Wilds: Supporting cast and side quests are substantially better in the DLC than in the base game (the trio, Ourea, Aratak, Burgrend)
32. Plot: Frozen Wilds: The additional layers of CYAN and her relevance to GAIA, and HEPHAESTUS and the… utterly horrible nature of it
33. Voice Acting: Frozen Wilds: Noticeably improved voice acting from the vanilla game in general, most notably in the side characters
34. Babylon 5 Effect: The Babylon 5 Effect is real in this one, as my second playthrough really showed
35. Background Lore: A whooole lot of Background Lore, mostly in the pads but it’s there
36. Camera: Great Camerawork for most of the cutscenes
37. Doodads: Good Doodad utilization, mostly in the wilds
38. Internal Continuity: Good Internal Continuity
39. Intro: The Intro has several issues with it, but it does enough right that it adds to the overall positive
40. Music Direction: Good Music Direction, almost entirely for the ‘ruins of the past world’ scenes
41. Plot: A second positive for that fantastic Plot
42. Story Sequencing: Good Story Sequencing
43. Storyboarding: And some really good Storyboarding
44. Theme: There’s several Themes here (Human nature, owning up to responsibility, and the tragedy of ignorance) and they’re all good
45. Spritework: Spritework can be a visually interesting thing of course, but its primary purpose as a story positive has to do with how well it sells the story axis of the game. And the robotic beasts and monsters throughout do that in spades here…
46. Spritework: …for a full…
47. Spritework: …triple positive

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene: The scenes towards the end of the Proving just… sort of fail
2. Plot: While the main plot is actually awesome, several of its specific story beats are so legitimately predictable and badly executed that they detract from the otherwise excellent storytelling
3. Cutscene: The death of Ersa is, honestly, not particularly interesting and only succeeds at all because of Erand. It’s even worse because of the failed potential in her surviving while still having Erand take her place
4. Character: Several of the less developed characters are cliches to the point of being reductive to the narrative, which is mirrored by the weird Hollywoodization surrounding their events
5. Animation: Actively bad lip synching and animation in most cutscenes, made all the weirder by the good animation and lip synching in others (caused by framerate issues, fixed by capping at 30fps)
6. Animation: Actively bad animation in most cutscenes, especially in facial motion (bizarre ‘locked expressions’ for example)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Save: Good autosave, with lots of checkpoints and rarely screwing it up
2. HUD: HUD (visibility, lootable objects, etc.)
3. Intro: Arena design (Sawtooth fight) in the Intro (tutorialization and presentation of both mechanical and group fight types)
4. Fast Travel: Fast travel is the good type; find it, unlock it, do it from wherever, however…
5. Enemy Design: Enemy style and design (lots of types and fun enemies to fight)
6. Enemy Variety: Enemy attack patterns and variety (they charge, attack with hind quarters, and hesitate, exposing weak points… etc.)
7. Kit: Good combat kit. Knockdown, stealth hits, arrow types, traps, etc.
8. Terrain: Several legitimately well designed arenas for encounters
9. Boss: And several legitimately well designed boss encounters (first Deathbringer is wounded, fighting a Frostclaw with the shield canceller, etc.)
10. NG+: Good New Game + is, as always, a plus
11. Animations: Good Animations on enemies to help you know how to deal with them
12. Pacing: Good Pacing of gameplay sequences
13. Visual Continuity: Good Visual Continuity to help you figure out where you are and where to go
14. Visual Distinction: Quite good, despite the bloom problems, mostly in the color usage and HUD

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Crash: Severe crash issues
2. Crash: Severe repeated crash issues
3. Crash: Absolutely insane, unplayable, ridiculous levels of constant nonstop aggravating ripping my hair out crashes
4. Graphics: Dialogue depth of field
5. Fast Travel: Fast travel irritation in requiring rations that are either time consuming to come by (defeating the point) or require grinding to bypass
6. Level: Cauldrons are generally disinteresting gameplay wise, and actively bad at times, being jumping puzzles with only a singular path to success even when it otherwise makes no sense
7. Core Mechanic: Climbing is honestly kind of bad. You can only climb on very specific things and the controls have issues understanding that when you hit up you want to go up
8. Controls: Related to climbing but there’s just a sort of jank and difficulty in getting the game to do what you want it to. Very Assassin’s Creedy
9. HUD: HUD issues (entirely too easy to miss certain things, such as logs, either in the lack of color distinction or otherwise too limited visibility)
10. Outro: Frankly the Outro is disappointing, which is (as I’ve often said) unacceptable. A boring hold the line followed by a normal race through the burning city followed by just another Deathbringer fight
11. Tutorialization: The tutorialization of several aspects of the intro is badly done, most notably the ‘fighting humans’ tutorial
12. Audio Spam: Alloy occasionally just… talks to herself entirely too frequently and too much which actively gets irritating (such as telling me how to defeat a boss after I’ve already started doing it)
13. Outro: A second negative for honestly the entire Outro being not only lackluster, but actively boring

Story Positives:

1. Babylon 5 Effect: With 2B, among other things. Emotions are forbidden!
2. Intro: The Intro does a lot of quick and efficient establishing of setup, characters, and general theme
3. Voice Acting: Voice acting is quite good
4. World Building: World building via 9S slowly piecing things together, and 2B’s reactions to it
5. World Building: World building via machine village and…
6. Character: …Pascal is easily the best character in the game
7. Intro: The intro to Route B is honestly probably the most heart warming and heart rending scene in the entire game
8. Cutscene: Romeos and Juliets. Pisseth off! Hahaha
9. Secondary: Side quests have some great stuff and some good character moments
10. External Continuity: Surprisingly well designed tie into Drakengard and wonderful background lore dump about Project Gestalt
11. MSQ: The build up and moment of tragedy for Pascal, the machine village, and the kids…
12. Character: As much as I don’t like him, 9S is exceptionally well presented, especially in his excellent voice actor
13. Cutscene: The Terminals thinking themselves to death, rot in hell you bastards
14. Character: The bots, particularly 042, are surprisingly awesome for how ‘flat’ they are
15. Outro: The final credits sequence is a great showcasing of one of the game’s central themes about choosing what life means for yourself regardless of tangibles and accepting one another’s help, as well as giving it yourself in sacrificing your save to them
16. Animation: Good Animation usage for cutscenes
17. Babylon 5 Effect: A second positive for Babylon 5 Effect cuz… there’s a lot of it and it’s very interesting the second time through
18. Background Lore: Background Lore all over the place
19. Foreshadowing: That Foreshadowing, wow
20. Localization: Good Localization
21. Music Direction: Good usage of Music Direction to augment just about every scene
22. Outro: Great Outro… uh, all of them
23. Visual Storytelling: Lovely Visual Storytelling

Story Negatives:

1. Fake Drama: Some weird moments of artificial drama around ‘dying’ when they have the backups and they KNOW that, which ties into the overall problem of ‘overly dramatic’ness’ in several cutscenes
2. Character: Adam and Eve honestly just irritate me for all of their screen time
3. Plot: The sitcom plot point of misinformation in Route C is sitcom’y
4. Moment: The Pascal chain is severely hampered by the completely artificial choice at the end which completely makes the entire arc smash into a wall and fall flat on its face
5. Padding: The cutscenes that are different and those that aren’t are so inconsistent in Route B that you end up having to watch everything for fear of missing things, leading to a lot of repetition
6. Character: 9S is a fairly typical anime protag, but doesn’t have anything that really adds to him or pulls him up from being deliberately annoying
7. Visual Continuity: Issues with Visual Continuity, as the zones don’t really connect properly to each other
8. Spritework: Standing on consistency here, but the… oversexualization on display is a bit ridiculous (especially the ‘blow off your own dress’ option)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music: Music! THIS CANNOT CONTINUE
2. Yoshi Drums: Yoshi drums with regards to songs (notably boss songs and hacking sections)
3. Kit: Weapon variety and…
4. Core Combat: …comboing weapon attacks together
5. Core Combat: Bullet hell / Shmup format is well designed with the 3D format
6. Intro: The Intro quickly and expertly establishes its bullet hell nature, both major combat modes, and includes a nice big impressive boss
7. Boss: The Simone fight is visually impressive, fun, and enjoyable
8. Boss: Dark Colossus fight is awesome and fun
9. Cheats: Cheat chips
10. Kit: Customization of chips and pods for general kit
11. Alternate Leveling: Circuit fusing as alternate leveling
12. MSQ: 9S’s sections of hacking alongside 2B during the end of Route B
13. Boss: Swap section between 9S and 2B as they fight the last two pods
14. NG+: Good new game plus, as always, is a plus
15. NG+: Chapter Select
16. Boss: 9S’s final boss fight is, as it should be, unique (the hacking A2’s OS which makes the actual player’s menu screen)
17. Minigame: The final credits sequence
18. QoL: Pop ups informing about reaching chip cap, and the fact that chip setup is default across playables meaning no constantly swapping irritation
19. Power Progression Curve: Between chips and acquisition thereof, there’s a good smooth Power Progression Curve
20. Save: Good, smooth Save System

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Mid Mission Checkpointing: No save during intro mission, aka bad checkpointing
2. Launch: PC Port issues: Mouse controls are actively awful in addition to being objectively wrong, along with general M&K issues, keybinding issues, cutscenes having the wrong framerate
3. Difficulty Options: Lazy difficulty, aka health and damage
4. Backtracking: The backtracking in general
5. Map: The map is honestly actively bad
6. Visual Distinction: It’s so easy to lose who’s who in several sections since 9S and 2B look near identical at a distance and in the middle of a firefight // Route B has a little bit too much repetition from Route A in it
7. Overworld: That Overworld design is… not great. Far too many sections of difficulty in just getting around, nevermind a total lack of any flow or design to it
8. Walkthroughitis: A fairly large amount of Walkthroughitis

Story Positives:

1. Character: Origins intro ‘videos’, well done in animation, music, and voice acting
2. Architecture: Similar to several other CRPGs, a lot of the towns are well fleshed out and sprawling, lovingly detailed, zoomed in properly, and brilliant. Fort Joy, Arx, even Driftwood all feel like sprawling towns despite being tiny areas you can skip past in seconds…
3. Architecture: …so that’s a very strong…
4. Architecture: …triple
5. Storytelling Mechanic: Elves and the cannibalism memory thing is just absolutely fascinating and a great way to design a species
6. NPC Set Dressing: The random NPCs and their little stories on Fort Joy
7. Character: The effort put into humanizing most of the characters, even little side ones (and Magisters) on Fort Joy
8. Secondary: Quests on Fort Joy
9. Brickwork: Absolutely gorgeous brickwork in the ‘jungle/plains’ areas of the first two chapters…
10. Brickwork: …for a full…
11. Brickwork: …three positives
12. Doodads: And a full, insane triple Doodads positive for Fort Joy…
13. Doodads: …because holy crap…
14. Doodads: …this is some crazy attention to detail
15. Atmosphere: The hangings, and three families which sheltered Sourcerers, all really help add to the theme and vibe of the magister oppression
16. Storytelling Mechanic: The usage of recently deceased as a storytelling tool
17. Character: The impish pocket realm, and Xantessa
18. Character: Sebille. She starts out violent and brutal (literally threatens to kill the PC at their first meeting) and has a great, emotional arc and is wonderfully voice acted, getting across the impact of it all
19. Voice Acting: General quality throughout…
20. Voice Acting: …for a full…
21. Voice Acting: …triple positive
22. Voice Acting: An additional positive specifically for the ‘party member’ voice acting, aka the voice acting for the pre-generated characters
23. MSQ: The Doctor’s realm and the brilliant, Jaws-esque presentation thereof
24. Character: Lohse. Brilliant voice acting, a great arc of the embittered girl who desperately tries to work against those manipulating her, and concludes very satisfyingly
25. Character: The Doctor is arguably the best villain in the game, with one notable exception, being suitably terrifying not by virtue of being some big doom, but by his machinations and manipulations and how many pots he has his fingers in
26. Atmosphere: The game knows how to present horror very well. Aesthetically, presentation…
27. Atmosphere: …and in the concepts and ideas that make this setting as messed up and terrifying as it really is
28. Humor: The game manages to make me laugh to this day
29. Character: Red Prince. He, along with Sebille, have the most complete arcs and he’s a surprisingly well fleshed out character; an aristocrat who isn’t snobbish or rude, and in fact tries to espouse to being better than he is while constantly worrying over his worth, and ultimately a good and loyal friend
30. Plot: The Seven. Personalized mass genocide. This is honestly one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen in all of fiction…
31. Plot: …earning…
32. Plot: …three positives for it
33. Foreshadowing: Properly built up foreshadowing to the Seven
34. Babylon 5 Effect: The truth about the Seven completely reframes the entire game
35. Outro: The endings, epilogues, and slides are reasonably well done
36. Character: Beast. While he doesn’t really show up until the end game, he is still an intriguing character in his connection to the Queen and the dwarven plot // Fane is, of course, the central character and doesn’t really get the development he deserves, his plight is well portrayed whenever the game manages to focus on it // Ifan has some amusing and delightful reactions to the very, very, very final scenes with Lucien
37. Secondary: Secondary quests galore in the Reaper’s Coast…
38. Secondary: …for a double positive
39. Doodads: Reaper’s Coast is probably the most visually impressive area in the game…
40. Doodads: …for another…
41. Doodads: …triple positive
42. Doodads: While not at the level of the previous areas, the Nameless Isle is still legit…
43. Doodads: …for double positive range
44. Brickwork: We finally see a different tileset in Arx, and it’s enjoyable of course
45. Doodads: And those lovely doodads are back…
46. Doodads: …really fleshing out Arx…
47. Doodads: …to a crazy degree
48. Secondary: Also, side quests in the Nameless Isle
49. Secondary: And side quests in Arx
50. Background Lore: Good Background Lore present everywhere
51. NPC Set Dressing: The Reaper’s Coast (mostly the town, of course)
52. NPC Set Dressing: And again, for Arx
53. Internal Continuity: Game does a lot of good with Internal Continuity
54. Visual Storytelling: Virtually every area has good Visual Storytelling
55. World Building: Easily the best World Building in the franchise, probably doing the best job in the franchise of actually building a world around the game…
56. World Building: …for a full…
57. World Building: …triple positive
58. Internal Continuity: Acknowledgement of order of events in quests

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene: The sudden and frankly out of nowhere death of Siva is honestly a weird mis-step in the story and feels forced, especially since there’s nothing you can do about it at all (other than eat her afterwards)
2. Cutscene Incompetence: Isbeil bullcrap. A minor villain very far into the game totally GM Helicopter’s the situation in order to force a trap that, by total plot armor, doesn’t kill us when it should, and it’s all for no good effect
3. Outro: Most of the endings honestly feel a bit half baked compared to the main two, and the slanting of the presentation actually diminishes the enjoyment thereof
4. Audio Spam: While I like the dialogue in this game, the Banter of most random and town NPCs gets really repetitive really fast
5. Storytelling Mechanic: As usual for this type of game, not being able to bring the whole party (without a mod, that is) actively hurts the narrative

Gameplay Positives:

1. Co-Op: Co-op
2. Co-Op: Proper campaign co-op
3. Co-Op: Actual built in mechanics to support and aid co-op
4. Options: Surprising number of well designed options
5. Save: Ease of saving…
6. Save: …and quicksaves and quickloads…
7. Save: …and multiple quicksave and quickload slots
8. Save: There’s also autosaves, good spread of autosaves, and lots of autosave slots…
9. Save: …for another…
10. Save: …triple positive
11. Save: Bonus additional positive for being able to save mid conversation and combat
12. Minigame: GM mode!
13. Minigame: Arena mode!
14. Difficulty Options: Proper difficulty options (manually crafted encounters with different skills and AI on hard)…
15. Difficulty Options: …earning two positives
16. Starting Options: Character creation and customization is quite good, especially for custom characters
17. Terrain: The movable terrain gimmick and its usage…
18. Terrain: …for a full…
19. Terrain: …triple positive
20. Choice: Alternate options for helping with dialogue that don’t just involve a charisma or persuasion check
21. Core Combat: AP action economy
22. HUD: AP movement alottance, HUD for how much what costs, showcasing exact pathfinding, mouseovers showing relevant info…
23. HUD: …for double positives
24. Tutorialization: A very excellent tutorial section, which is fully optional, and quickly and easily introduces you to all the basics of interaction, terrain, puzzle, encounters, and dialogue…
25. Tutorialization: …for two positives
26. All Roads Lead To Rome: Fort Joy has many, many different paths of progression through it (NINE separate exits we counted just on this playthrough)…
27. All Roads Lead To Rome: …for a full…
28. All Roads Lead To Rome: …three positives
29. Choice: Variety of dialogue options to allow flavor of characterization in player choice
30. Choice: Second dialogue options positive
31. HUD: HUD information is generally good throughout. Exact information on tooltips, indicators of who is what in turn order and when a turn ends, etc.
32. Respec: Easy and accessible full, free respec…
33. Respec: …for a full…
34. Respec: …triple positive
35. Difficulty Mutators: Gift Bags as optional mutators and modifiers to gameplay and difficulty
36. Traversal: The pyramids offer a huge variety of movement options…
37. Traversal: …earning two positives by itself
38. Visual Distinction: Clear visual distinction so that despite the busy and lavish decor you can always tell what you’re looking at and what is what
39. Kit: Each individual skill tree has useful skills and utility skills
40. MSQ: The fact is, the ridiculous majority of this game is optional content. You can simply bypass whatever you want to (except for a few) and it’s awesome having that freedom
41. Builds: Between combat and chat skills you have a lot of options for builds…
42. Builds: …so that’s a solid…
43. Builds: …triple
44. Builds: Then there’s the skills themselves. Lots and lots of valid skills, many of which have synergies with each other, leading to…
45. Builds: …another…
46. Builds: …triple
47. Encounter: Puzzle design (Impish pocket realm, final dungeon, etc.)
48. Secondary: Many side quests with many paths through them on the island
49. Boss: The final Alexander fight is one of the better (and harder) encounters in the game. It starts as a ‘tactical’ fight against an archer, warrior, mage, and Alexander with lots of positioning, barrels, and options and then the worm spawns which is a straight stat boss (and near immunity to status effects, with high resistance to fire and poison) and challenges you in a totally different way. There’s at least 5 ways I know of to approach the fight and it’s awesome…
50. Boss: …for a full…
51. Boss: …triple positive
52. Encounters: Tons and tons and tons of manually crafted encounter design in Act 1…
53. Encounter: …for two positives
54. Encounter: Multitude of options through Act 2 encounters…
55. Encounter: …for two positives
56. Secondary: …multitude of options through Act 2 quests…
57. Secondary: …the fact that Act 2 is almost entirely optional despite containing the bulk of the quests, meaning the player can choose their path in whatever manner they want
58. All Roads Lead To Rome: While not AS insane as Fort Joy, the Reaper Coast is still filled to the brim with this kind of design…
59. All Roads Lead To Rome: …for two positives
60. All Roads Lead To Rome: And a bonus two for the final two acts…
61. All Roads Lead To Rome: …for, uh, two positives
62. Log: Dialogue log for stuff you’ve missed
63. QoL: Warning before point of no return
64. Enemy AI: Special mention for the Enemy AI, especially on hard…
65. Enemy AI: …worthy of two positives
66. Core Combat: Core Combat is, at its base, just plain fun (assuming you’re into turn based combat)
67. Encounter: Got to mention those encounters on the Nameless Isle
68. Encounter: And the wonderful ones on Arx…
69. Encounter: …for double positives
70. Enemy Variety: Enemy Variety is pretty decent, helped that they basically have your kit
71. Power Progression Curve: The Leveling is quite smooth and enjoyable, with noticeable increase in power each level
72. Intro: Second positive for the Intro and how much it does right… I think I’ve replayed just the Intro a dozen times
73. Kit: Thanks to the nature of the game, a lot of decent Kit for how to deal with encounters
74. Leveling: Very smooth leveling curve
75. Replayability: Thanks to the multitude of options in playstyle and choices…
76. Replayability: …with how you talk, act, and do quests, the game has fantastic Replayability
77. Encounter: A bonus for all the other encounters I missed
78. Viscerality: The game is also wonderful in its viscerality, mostly with how you can just burn and blow things up all over the place…
79. Viscerality: …earning two positives
80. Mod Tools: Available and well provided for…
81. Mod Tools: …for double positive
82. Mod Depth: Reasonable
83. Mod Accessibility: Pretty solid, with workshop support and in game menu support…
84. Mod Accessibility: …for double positives
85. Terrain: Wonderful terrain design across the Reaper Coast…
86. Terrain: …and well used throughout…
87. Terrain: …for triple positives
88. Terrain: Then there’s the Nameless Isle
89. Terrain: And Arx…
90. Terrain: …for two positives
91. Kit: So no given school is super well designed compared to the others, but they’re all well designed and each functions as a ‘class’, thus, two for Aerotheurge…
92. Kit: …a solid double
93. Kit: Geomancer…
94. Kit: …for a double
95. Kit: Huntsman…
96. Kit: …for a double
97. Kit: Hydrosophist…
98. Kit: …for a double
99. Kit: Necromancer…
100. Kit: …for a double
101. Kit: Polymorph…
102. Kit: …for a double
103. Kit: Pyrokinetic…
104. Kit: …for a double
105. Kit: Scoundrel…
106. Kit: …for a double
107. Kit: Summoning…
108. Kit: …for a double
109. Kit: And Warfare…
110. Kit: …for a double

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Unintentional Skipping: A little bit too easy to accidentally skip or miss the optional party dialogues
2. Starting Options: Forced restriction between Origin character and Custom character, and related limitations
3. Controls: Accidental mis-clicking issue
4. Inventory: Inventory management is honestly just kind of a time wasting pain
5. Inventory: Second inventory management negative
6. Info In Game: Early vendors are almost completely unmarked, making getting skills such a pain
7. Crash: Crashing issues (9 total)
8. Padding: Lack of option to speed up animation in combat which, after a while, really just drags things on
9. Padding: Animation dragging part two
10. Guidance: The in-game journal is actively bad, to the point where its effectively useless and is better off being ignored
11. Inventory: A combination of the HUD not being super useful in showcasing items across party, the game shotgunning loot at you en masse, the inventory being irritating to sort, and inability to check quest reward items for other party members
12. Guidance and Flow: A combined issue of an enormous quantity of content to go through which is made substantially worse by an almost total lack of proper direction (hints, guidelines, hubs, or chains)
13. Boss: The Isbeil bullcrap is more GM Helicoptering. The game forces you into a cutscene across the room just to ensure you lose the fight in a cutscene, then saves you in a cutscene entirely so they could set up a not-interesting boss fight which they could have done anyways, better, without the bullcrap in the previous room
14. Encounter: Arx flat mandates going through a rather difficult, terrain heavy fight (against an elite and repeated spawns) before being able to access the town
15. Level Scaling: The level scaling has a few balancing issues periodically
16. Secondary: The forced ‘screw you’ in the robbery quest in the tavern
17. Camera: Issues with some terrain
18. Kit: The specifics of which abilities require Source (and how much) feels a bit wonky in several cases
19. Enemy Design: The burning revenants. They can rez in one turn, have insane movement while in ‘dead’ form, and get back up with refilled fire and cursed fire arrows (with no cooldown)
20. Map: I should probably mention that the Map is actively bad. It’s hard to tell what you’re really looking at, and lacks any real notes or icons to help you figure out what’s where

Story Positives:

1. Animation: Little tidbits, but the best parts are the Pokemon in battle themselves
2. Architecture: As with most good Pokemon games there’s a decent amount of effort with scrolling, camera movement, and clustered buildings to make towns feel larger than they are
3. Brickwork: Grassy and foresty areas
4. Brickwork: Cityscape and related
5. Brickwork: Gyms! Lovingly stylized
6. Brickwork: Final bonus points for the seasons and how they add to things
7. Spritework: The pokemon themselves. I posit that Pokemon in general have never looked better than on the DS, and that’s something I stand behind to this day. This is going to be a big one… because we’ve got so, so many sprites…
8. Spritework: …that it defies the usual triple rule…
9. Spritework: …and instead spreads out to…
10. Spritework: …a crazy amount of…
11. Spritework: …positives…
12. Spritework: …in total
13. Spritework: Characters and objects…
14. Spritework: …for double positive
15. Theme: Themes (knowledge v. ideals, yin v. yang)
16. Writing: Brush stroke storytelling
17. Plot: Everything to do with Plasma’s plan and Ghetsis’ place in it
18. MSQ: Castelia intro, Castelia (set dressing, style, presentation, scale)
19. Cutscenes: Cutscene approach and direction (camera, details, blocking)
20. Pacing: The pacing of the game is actually quite good, bothering to weave back and forth between Gyms and the main plot of Plasma smoothly
21. Character: Bianca and her arc (coming to accept who she is)
22. Character: Cheren and his arc (deciding what he is and finding his core)
23. Character: Ghetsis’ overall characterization in absence. What he did with Plasma, the other Sages, the remainder of the Gym Leaders, and worst of all what he did to N for years. Easily one of the best villains in Pokemon history
24. Character: N is actually pretty interesting and follows a (brief) arc throughout, only hampered by not seeing enough of him
25. Outro: The final approach to Victory Road (and usage of Yoshi Drums)
26. Doodads: Good Doodad usage, mostly in towns, but it’s legit where it’s there
27. NPC Set Dressing: Great NPC Set Dressing for the cities…
28. NPC Set Dressing: …for two positives
29. World Building: One of the only Pokemon games with good World Building

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene Incompetence: There’s a fair bit of it and it’s aggravating how often we just… let people walk off without comment or incident…
2. Cutscene Incompetence: …for two negatives
3. Empty Text: Bit of an empty text problem, with lots of repetition and unnecessary or badly structured dialogue
4. Dialogue: The writing is just.. off in this one. I’m not sure if it always is, but it’s really noticeable here

Gameplay Positives:

1. Core Combat: The fundamental combat of Pokemon shines pretty well here. Turn based, nice menuing, the 6 and 4 dynamic…
2. Core Combat: …good stuff
3. Music: Some real bangers in this one…
4. Music: …for an easy double
5. Intro: Decent tutorials in NPCs and design of early areas
6. Core Combat: Low health music, mid-combat chatter, and camera movements in combat
7. Info In Game: Mid-combat info on moves and pokemon is a nice feature
8. Grind/Leveling: The xp scaling in leveling makes for good availability of catching up brand new pokemon (or ones left languishing in the bank)
9. QoL: Save cursor, shortcut, touchpad controls for menuing, quick and smooth menuing, TMs having infinite use, shops upgrade with badges so you can buy anywhere, item re-use in menu, rustling grass…
10. QoL: …for a double
11. Encounter Design: One thing Black and White does better than most pokemon games is the quality of the enemy team design. Good mons with good moves, abilities, and equips…
12. Encounter Design: …so that’s…
13. Encounter Design: …an easy triple
14. Boss: Did I mention the rival fights?
15. Boss: Cuz they’re legit too
16. Boss: Quite a few bosses are designed well, notably the gym leader fights…
17. Boss: …for another…
18. Boss: …triple
19. Outro: Boss: The Final Four fight gets special mention for the great variety, choose-your-own-order, and challenge of each…
20. Outro: Boss: …for a double
21. Outro: The final fights against N and Ghetsis are brilliantly designed and properly challenging final bosses (and even have heals and checkpoints in between!). These two fights aren’t THE best fights in the series (Arceus and Violet say hello)…
22. Outro: Boss: …but they’re still…
23. Outro: Boss: …some of the best
24. Postgame: Reasonably meaty, with some fun stuff to do and catch
25. Enemy AI: Great Enemy AI design, a rarity for the series
26. Fast Travel: Pretty much the usual thanks to Fly
27. Penalty For Failure: Without the issues of earlier games (limited economy) the ‘die and lose money but return to last Pokecenter’ is a decent penalty for failure
28. Minigame: The Musicals are fun little side Minigames
29. Visual Distinction: As is normal for the GBA/DS Pokemon games, very visually distinct
30. Build: Moves. So, very many moves to choose from leading to a lot of Build customization…
31. Build: …for a full…
32. Build: …three positives
33. Build: The Types of Pokemon themselves and subsequent weaknesses, strengths, immunities…
34. Build: …for a full…
35. Build: …three positives
36. Build: Oh yeah, and the actual Pokemon themselves…
37. Build: …for another…
38. Build: …three positives
39. Build: TMs and HMs…
40. Build: …for a full…
41. Build: …three positives
42. Build: Then there’s Abilities and how they can completely change how you use a given Pokemon or how you setup your team…
43. Build: …for a full…
44. Build: …three positives
45. Build: And finally, held items, which may not seem like much but can, again, vary up Build potential and variety substantially…
46. Build: …for a final…
47. Build: …three positives
48. HUD: Generally good in combat HUD
49. Interface: Icon design for the pokemon and items is easy to read at a glance
50. Itemization: Items in general. Types of balls, types of healing items, etc.
51. Replayability: Generally replayable…
52. Replayability: …and lots of varying pokemon and options for said replay
53. Unit Design: Bug makes a pretty strong showing in Gen 5. Sewaddle’s line is legit, Venipede, Joltik, Dwebble, Escavalier, and of course who can forget Volcarona? Really good spreads here…
54. Unit Design: …for an easy…
55. Unit Design: …triple
56. Unit Design: Dark is a bit lacking compared to some of the others in Gen 5 but still has some heavy hitters like the Krookodile and Zoroark lines, plus the pseudo legendary of Hydreigon…
57. Unit Design: …so it’s still a solid double
58. Unit Design: Dragon usually tends to be a bit behind the other Types in design and this is no exception, but the Haxorus line, Hydreigon line, and Druddigon are all still solidly designed Mons
59. Unit Design: Surprisingly few Electrics in Gen 5. Also includes some eyebrow raising Pokemon like Stunfisk. Still, Zebstrika, the Galvantula line, and Eelektross (ha ha GameFreak) are solidly designed
60. Unit Design: Fighting’s another small spread in Gen 5. The Machoke replacements of the Conkeldurr line are pretty well designed, Throh and Sawk have their own niche, Scrafty and Meinshao are good stuff, but otherwise it’s mostly legendaries
61. Unit Design: Fire’s in a really weird place here because it only has the starter (covered later), the legendary (also later), and then it’s just Darmanitan, Heatmor, Volcarona, and the Chandelure line. Thing is all of those are actually really good (especially Chandelure, yes I’m biased) so it still qualifies for a positive
62. Unit Design: Hey, Flying! Usual spread of side Flying (I mean even as of this time in history there’s only like four pure Flying types so whatever) but some decent stuff here. The Unfezant line, the Archeops successor to Aerodactyl, Swanna, Braviary, Mandibuzz… and, sigh, Swoobat
63. Unit Design: Ghost doesn’t have much representation but it does have some really solid stuff. Cofagrigus, Jellicent, the aforementioned Chandelure, Golurk… cool stuff here
64. Unit Design: Grass! Some absolutely fantastic grass types this time around. Whimsicott’s line, Lilligant’s line, Maractus, Sawsbuck, Amoonguss’s line (sigh), Ferrothorn’s line… good designs and good spread…
65. Unit Design: …for an easy double
66. Unit Design: So Ground and Ice don’t have enough for a positive, but there’s still some good stuff here… and I’m sorry, Vanilluxe’s line is well designed. Also special mention to Beartic and Garbodor’s line (what!)
67. Unit Design: Normal! Stoutland’s line seems simple but is actually good at multiple setups, Cinccino’s line is adorable and useful, Bouffalant is a solid Tauros 2.0, and Audino is weirdly decent…
68. Unit Design: …easy double
69. Unit Design: Gigalith’s line is just the old Geodude’s line but better in every way, I’m sorry. Also Klinklang may be… y’know, ridiculous, but it’s still well designed. Also special mention to Gothitelle’s line and Reuniclus’ line
70. Unit Design: Ahh Water. We have the Seismitoad line, Basculin, Carracosta’s line, and the weirdness that is Alomomola
71. Unit Design: So! As is pretty much the norm from like Gen 3 onwards, the Starter lines are exceptionally well designed top to bottom so they get their own positives, starting with Samurott’s line
72. Unit Design: Then we have Serperior’s line. Imagine, a grass Starter that’s good! I kid I kid
73. Unit Design: Finally, as usual for Fire starters, Emboar’s line is very good
74. Unit Design: I say this often but there’s just not much there to the Legendaries, Mythics, Mystics, and whatever else in most Pokemon games, and Gen 5 is no different. We have the three musketeers (sure), the storm weirdos, and the dragons that look like people in a costume. Still there’s some decent design to them gameplay wise so enjoy the positive
75. Kit: Hoo boy. So judging Kit at a certain point in Pokemon games is a bit of an issue considering the sheer quantity of abilities and the spread of their utility, design, and usage. Honestly I think at this point it’s more about which Types do not get a double positive to design. So starting off Bug is a solid single
76. Kit: Then Dark also qualifies
77. Kit: Now Dragon isn’t. There’s some decent stuff here, just not as good (and seriously, why is Dragon Rush’s accuracy so low?)
78. Kit: Electric is back into double territory (I mean Electric has always been solid)…
79. Kit: …for that double
80. Kit: Holy crap Fighting has so much going on. How do I even summarize that? By…
81. Kit: …giving it a solid double
82. Kit: Fire’s in a great spot too (it really benefited from splitting moves into Special or Physical)…
83. Kit: …so that’s a double
84. Kit: I was going to say ‘Flying is mostly just damaging moves’ until I read them all and schooled myself. Lots of optional buff and debuff stuff here…
85. Kit: …so enjoy that double
86. Kit: Ghost is, as always, held back but its lack of options, but is still solid for what’s there
87. Kit: Grass, as always, is just silly in its spread and design…
88. Kit: …so just take the double
89. Kit: Wow, Ground has more than like two moves! Some good stuff here, even if Sand Attack exists
90. Kit: Ice has developed well too, and includes the dangerous Freeze
91. Kit: There are just way too many Normal moves to properly gauge…
92. Kit: …so I’ll just say…
93. Kit: …here’s a triple
94. Kit: Poison manages its usual happy time debuff time
95. Kit: I’m actually shocked at how many Psychic moves there are, but also how much variety there is to them…
96. Kit: …so take the double
97. Kit: Poor Rock. Good on attack, low on variety. Still good though, and Sandstorm is legit
98. Kit: Steel has always been in a strange spot move wise, but it’s still got some solid self buff stuff. I also like Gyro Ball (the slower you are the more damage it does)
99. Kit: Of course Water has a solid spread…
100. Kit: …easy double
101. Itemization: Reusable TMs and good spread of them
102. Itemization: Also good economy in general
103. Itemization: Also also good spread of items throughout the game
104. Level: Gym designs are generally fun, if simple, dungeons
105. Guidance And Flow: Honestly pretty usual approach here. Still good though

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Save: Single save slot, per usual
2. Tutorialization: Forced, unskippable tutorial
3. Core Mechanic: RNG of catch mechanics have basically never not been anything other than bad in the franchise and this is no exception. Not as bad as several of the earlier ones though
4. Walkthroughitis: Walkthroughitis of evolving, finding, catching
5. Unskippable Cutscenes: They are a plague, I tell ya
6. Traversal: HMs and their usual mandatory nature
7. Encounter Rate: Only somewhat mitigated by Repels
8. Grind: Grindiness and leveling issues (the game creates a finite amount of ‘good’ xp in trainers, deliberately lowers the xp gain from infinite sources in terms of wild pokemon, then doesn’t give a good counter to that until the Audino chain later and many, many pokemon require high levels to hit their evolved forms)
9. Difficulty Curve: In addition to the finite xp pool problem, once you hit post-game everything gets a sudden 10-15 level jump which creates this rather sudden barrier to progressing since the best xp is off those same people who now crush you…
10. Grind: …which also contributes to the aforementioned grind
11. Info In Game: Or lack thereof. There’s some, but it’s a problem in basically every Pokemon game
12. Seconds In Minutes: Tons, as per all older Pokemon games. Accessing the box, moving around pokemon, swapping moves, using items, swapping inventory, everything just sort of takes longer than it should…
13. Seconds In Minutes: …for two negatives
14. Interface: Functionally an aggregate. Plenty of design issues that, again, boil down to ‘older RPGs’
15. Core Mechanic: Trading in general is whatever, but locking evolutions behind trading is problematic for a lot of reasons. If you don’t have an internet connection (AND are willing to pay for said service) and/or don’t have anyone local to trade with then there’s entire evolutions you’re just locked out of forever and there’s nothing you can do about that

Story Positives:

1. Atmosphere: Adventurous tone and feel, helped by the ‘expedition’ gameplay
2. Localization: Dialogue is nicely localized (love the archaic tone)
3. MSQ: Occasional bits of mild humor, and a playable ‘ending’ (barely) with new dialogue
4. Visual Storytelling: Surprisingly good Visual Storytelling in several areas, most notably the destroyed town

Story Negatives:

1. Spritework: We played the Switch version and man they’re ugly

Gameplay Positives:

1. Pacing: Slowly expanding progression, ‘expedition’ gameplay (until the grind wall, your ‘power level’ slowly expands the areas you can reach, which slowly expands the power level, in a nice loop)
2. Overworld: Similar to its FFI counterpart, surprisingly well designed
3. Power Progression Curve: Significant increases in power at each level and equipment
4. Guidance and Flow: Helpful NPCs that give good directions
5. QoL: General convenience features

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Grind: Grind curve. The game is actually quite smooth right up until you have to fight the first real boss (the Green Dragon) at which point we had to just stop playing and go grind for over an hour
2. Grind: A second negative for honestly just an aggravating, second grind wall at the last dungeon
3. Encounter Rate: Man, that Encounter Rate is just rough
4. Encounter Rate: Aaand a second Encounter Rate negative
5. Trash: Early on it’s fine, good even. But by about the halfway point in the game it quickly delves into just slogging through endless waves of bleck

Innovators and Codifiers: 1

1. Innovator: Effectively began the JRPG genre

Story Positives:

1. Intro: The Intro is reasonably well designed, establishing connection to 1, stakes, characters, and showcasing the seriousness of the situation quite well
2. MSQ: The surreal horror of ‘Midenhall’ and the final dungeon is still a pretty neat sequence and one of the better sections of the story
3. Localization: Lovely dialogue localization
4. Atmosphere: DQ Effect is on full display in several towns
5. External Continuity: To 1, of course
6. Outro: Playable ending, and a nice happy ending to the trilogy

Story Negatives:

1. Spritework: Continuing the trend of the Switch ports, the spritework is awful

Gameplay Positives:

1. Fast Travel: Good fast travel (unlock as you go, warp from anywhere outside)
2. Intro: The Intro is actually pretty good, with good guided overworld design and naturally locked ‘barriers’ at certain points that open up as you gain new party members, and a clear and defined goal and quest, with reasonable progression and difficulty

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Encounter Rate: Encounter rate is honestly pretty bad
2. Encounter Rate: Encounter rate… is really, really bad
3. Grind: The leveling curve is smooth, but only as a consequence of a nonstop barrage of encounters, which makes the overwhelming majority of the game… honestly quite boring, as you just sort of turn off 80% of your brain to mash through. In short, it has the Trash Problem in spades
4. MSQ: The section where you can, randomly, lose a party member with very little hints or clues about how to restore them, and can do so effectively the moment you gain the ship is… not great
5. Overworld: The overworld design is actively hostile, and generally not designed (no thought put into guidance past the party members, the ship totally re-arranges the open world aspect without clues to proper order despite clear difficulty path, active annoyance in finding certain areas even in the remake, etc.)
6. Overworld: This might be one of the worst Overworlds I’ve seen in gaming, up there with Final Fantasy II (appropriately)
7. Trash: So the Dragon Quest series is no stranger to bad trash design, but this might be the single worst one of the bunch. Lots and lots and lots and lots of enemies constantly pounding the walls of the party, while being an awful combination of draining, too hard, and boring…
8. Trash: …earning a solid…
9. Trash: …triple negative
10. Walkthroughitis: There are several cases of this, where NPCs kind of direct you but not really, and there’s no clear indicator of so many things
11. Level: The Road to Rendarak is just awful dungeon design. Close quarter visibility with lots of ‘pick the right choice with no indicators or go back a room’ design (in multiple areas, with multiple styles) on top of being gargantuan, and a maze, and with lots of legitimate looping dead ends (very little treasure too)
12. Grind: The grind wall right at the very end of the game is just bad
13. Outro: The final boss gauntlet is pure bullcrap. It’s a lot of ‘difficult’ bosses in a row quite a ways from the ability to recover, but what really makes it awful is the pure RNG nature of each fight (which means things either go fine or awful), made even worse by the bosses who have Fullheal and can just use it
14. Outro: The final dungeon is lackluster, with bad music, and the irritating boss rush, right after enduring hell, alongside the Road, and everything about it is awful
15. Boss: Second negative for Boss design
16. Encounter Rate: A third negative for some of the worst Encounter Rates in video gaming, often times going no more than three steps before another encounter
17. Outro: A final negative for that entire awful, awful, awful Outro

Innovators and Codifiers: 1

1. Innovator: Origination of Dragon Quest Effect

Story Positives:

1. Localization: Localization is on point and…
2. Humor: …the puns and humor are awesome
3. Prime Opt: Local stories are neat, bite-sized short stories and tie in to the visual variety of each area
4. MSQ: The founding of Mr Redburg, the rise of the despot, and the fall into republic are legitimately amusing to go through
5. Brickwork: The brickwork is quite nice, and adds to the visual storytelling
6. MSQ: The Alefgard section and the good usage of external continuity work pretty well, in addition to this being a surprisingly amusing twist
7. Intro: The Intro is reasonably good at establishing the overall tone (mini-adventures, FFIII style)
8. External Continuity: Bonus points for usage of External Continuity connecting it to 1 and 2

Story Negatives:

1. Spritework: As per the usual for the Switch ports, blegh

Gameplay Positives:

1. Core Combat: The Tactics concept, and its use in combat (optional too)
2. Kit: The build party members, multi-classing system
3. Inventory: Inventory system (sortable bag and tooltips on transfers, as well as stacking and limited combat usage)
4. Overworld: Overworld design is legitimately quite good, especially with the inclusion of the map
5. Power Progression Curve: Staircase leveling as per the standard for the time
6. QoL: Several, including quicksave and Heal All
7. Fast Travel: Good Fast Travel (even in the underworld!)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Info In Game: The total lack of information on Personalities, what they effect, and how much they do
2. Encounter Rate: Encounter rate is, as usual, just too high
3. Encounter Rate: Second negative for Encounter Rate
4. Encounter Rate: And a third negative for absolutely ridiculously high Encounter Rate
5. Boss: Orochi and Boss Troll grindwall
6. Grind: Grind issues
7. Outro: The Outro… is honestly quite badly designed. The Alefgard sequence should feel like a cool endgame bit, but instead it’s about 20 minutes of content stretched across 4ish hours of grinding just to be able to cross the finish line
8. Grind: The mega grind of post game is legitimately ridiculous
9. Boss: Orochi respawning is such a dick move
10. Trash: So it’s not as bad as it was in 2, but the game once again falls into the Dragon Quest standard of bad trash design
11. Unskippable Cutscenes: Quite possibly the first JRPG Unskippables in history
12. Level: Trial and error dungeon design
13. Walkthroughitis: Several moments where the game pretty much expects you to know what to do next

Innovators and Codifiers: 1

1. Codifier: JRPGs

Story Positives:

1. Character: Angelus is surprisingly interesting and awesome despite everything
2. Outro: Ending A is nice, and Ending B is hysterical, Ending D is even funnier
3. Character: Manah and the Watchers
4. Background Lore: Weapon lore

Story Negatives:

1. Dialogue: Dialogue is just all over the place, and often for the worst
2. Character: Inuart remains one of the worst narrative points and characters in the game
3. Pacing: Pacing issues combined with…
4. Story Sequencing: …the story just sort of… happens, sometimes too quickly, sometimes too slowly, mostly off camera, and almost always told-not-shown)
5. Theme: Did you know you’re evil?! Because you’re evil! You evil evilness!
6. Character: General character unlikeableness
7. Cutscene Incompetence: There’s a fair bit of it but it gets worst when we get to the point of failing to stop Inuart
8. Character: Fairy is just… the worst, and in this game that is saying a lot
9. Voice Direction: Voice Acting (probably directing) has issues at times
10. Outro: Ending C is just kind of… off. No build up, no payoff, just sort of there
11. Outro: General nonsense towards the end (admittedly hampered by the localization)
12. Atmosphere: While the Atmosphere and Tone are deliberate, it doesn’t make the general gloom and slog better
13. Cutscene: The opening Cinematic is good… and is a total bait and switch, having effectively nothing to do with the rest of the game
14. Doodads: The game has an almost total lack of Doodad utilization, making every indoor and outdoors area look vast, bland, and boring…
15. Doodads: …earning it…
16. Doodads: …three negatives
17. Intro: Special mention to the Intro being generally all over the place, arguably confusing, and generally bad
18. Pacing: Second negative for story Pacing being just… absolutely all over the map
19. Padding: And the pacing is probably bad in part because of the big swaths of Padding
20. Plot: The core Plot is what I’d call actively bad
21. World Building: The near total absence of World Building actively hurts the narrative, as there’s no investment and the world as presented makes no damned sense
22. Consequence Storytelling: Related to the aforementioend World Building problem. Nothing really… is
23. Brickwork: I know this is a PS2 game but man, this is actively bad… repetitive and blurry both…
24. Brickwork: …leading to a full…
25. Brickwork: …three negatives
26. Spritework: This is a rare one, as I try not to pick on early 3D games, but man the enemy units in this game look… bad, nevermind the weird factor

Gameplay Positives:

1. Level: Some of the dragon missions are legitimately fun to play… specifically the ones in the air, not the ground support ones
2. NG+: Chapter select and ability to swap around missions and maps more or less at will
3. Outro: The Mother Beast fight is very creative and even gives the player some moments of respite in the middle of the ‘fight’

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: Controls on both ground and air suck
2. Camera: Camera (distance and controls both)
3. Music: Already bad…
4. Music: …but worse with the repetition
5. Graphics: Render radius is actively awful and detrimental to every ground section
6. Kit: Or total lack thereof
7. Core Combat: Ground combat is just one long boring awful slog
8. Core Combat: Ground combat remains just terrible throughout
9. Core Combat: Third negative for slog
10. Enemy Design: Super accurate archers who screw you over while on the dragon
11. Trash: So, this is a game that mimics Dynasty Warriors style combat, with none of the features that makes that actually fun. While enemy design is its own issue, even ignoring that it’s just one long boring slow padded slog through endless waves of troops…
12. Trash: …easily earning…
13. Trash: …triple negatives
14. Level: Indoor sections. Claustrophobic, samey textures, total lack of doodads or design
15. Walkthroughitis: Pretty bad with regards to the weapons
16. Visual Distinction: Visual noise, especially during flying segments
17. Save: Only one save slot (for some reason)
18. Grind: Grindiness of leveling weapons and the requirements thereof
19. Mid Mission Checkpoints: No mid-mission checkpoints on missions
20. Boss: The Inuart boss fights are disorienting, boring (wait and fire), and bullcrap (especially with the RNG and the timer requirement)
21. Boss: The Manah fight is boring, at best, and bullcrap in phase two (no real methods to dodge and hurts like an absolute truck)
22. Boss: The ground boss fights honestly suck, mostly due to the severe issues with lack of kit and ability
23. Sound: The sound design has issues with balancing and the specific sound FX used, as well as how they are used
24. Grind: General grindy tedium in progression
25. Level: The top-down sections could have been good… but you’re limited in camera angle, it’s too close, you can only use one weapon, and they feel like pure padding
26. Level: The mission against the flying babies is pure agony. It’s basically everything wrong with the rest of the game in one mission; One boring enemy type that hits hard and is hard to dodge with no mid mission checkpoints and lasts way too long
27. Outro: The Mother Beast ‘fight’ can go to hell. While I have other issues with it, the negative is deserved purely by two main points; No mid mission checkpoints and one-hit KO (also the final troll note)
28. Enemy AI: The Enemy AI design is braindead stupid
29. Camera: The Camera has absolutely no idea what it’s doing, and half the time you have effectively no camera control
30. Controls: A second negative for that awful, awful Control scheme both on ground and in the sky
31. Encounter: No thought whatsoever put into Encounter design
32. Enemy Variety: Enemy Variety is… not, as while there are other enemy types…
33. Enemy Variety: …most of them only show up in the late or endgame. The overwhelming amount of combat will be against the same three types of dudes
34. Intro: The Intro arguably does its job well… by making it clear how bad this game is.
35. Intro: A second negative for that awful, awful Intro
36. Outro: While we’re at it, the Outro is hard to gauge (given the multiple endings thing) but each ‘final mission’ sucks for their own reasons, and the final few bosses can go to hell
37. Song: On The Ground in general…
38. Song: …but especially Chapter 4

Story Positives:

1. Storytelling Mechanic: Malkavian path and how it changes up dialogue, adds foreshadowing, and adds backstory and characterization to many individuals
2. Intro: Intro does a whole lot very quickly and efficiently. We learn a lot about LaCroix, his dog, several major NPCs are introduced, we get the barebones of the concept and the initial plothook, and are given our initial investment into things
3. Dialogue: Exceptionally well written
4. Banter: Banter between random NPCs is awesome
5. MSQ: The atmosphere of the haunted hotel is quite enjoyable
6. Character: Therese / Jeanette. It’s easy to see why they’re so memorable; they’re fleshed out, have a good amount of screen time, and are a fascinating look at Malkavians while being one of the earliest major NPCs we interact with
7. Humor: Especially the radio station, oh my God
8. Character: Heather is interesting by herself and one of the more fascinating moral quandaries of the game, but also a great insight into Ghoulification and how messed up it is
9. Prime Opt: Bail quest chain
10. Prime Opt: Thin-blood chain
11. Brickwork: LA in general
12. Integration: Lots of gameplay/story integration
13. Voice Acting: Mostly good, with only a few issues here and there
14. Character: LaCroix is a wonderful villain, and well characterized throughout
15. Character: Grout is probably the second best designed Malkavian in the game, and following his descent through the audio logs is awesome
16. Character: Jack is just kind of awesome throughout, in addition to being well voice acted and well written he’s also consistently the nicest and most legit vampire we meet
17. Music: When it’s well used, is well used
18. Character: Beckett is consistently helpful, engaging, and amusing
19. Cutscene: The big scene with Caine (because it’s totally Caine) is probably the second most well constructed scene in the game narratively. Caine just provides a bouncing wall for all your ideas and paths, and makes clear the choices available (in lore as well as to the character)
20. Plot: The Sarcophagus is just a great plot point; it stirs everything, and was intended to
21. Outro: The LaCroix ending is awesome, hilarious, and perfectly encapsulates the entire game’s central focus; the Sarcophagus and the politics surrounding it
22. Outro: The Strauss and Independent endings are still rather enjoyable, especially in how we see LaCroix brought low
23. Character: Knox is great for his limited screen time, and Nines is a bit irritating but fits into his role of rebel and aggravation quite nicely
24. Character: Chunk is just precious and amazing and awesome and the best, and Samantha is surprisingly engaging for being in only one scene, and doing a really good job of making you take that Masquerade hit just to avoid killing or hurting her
25. Character: Good supporting cast, including Fat Larry and Velvet Velour is one of the nicer overall vampires, has an interesting past, and clearly wants to try and improve things as best she’s able given the limitations
26. Background Lore: Lots of good Background Lore
27. External Continuity: Good External Continuity… like, so much of it
28. Foreshadowing: A pretty good amount of Foreshadowing for everything going on
29. Story Sequencing: For the most part, the Story Sequencing makes perfect sense and is well constructed
30. Theme: The core Theme of being a pawn while a bone is thrown to the wolves works really well, and the overall work just feels like a vertical slice of VTM in general
31. World Building: Lovely World Building

Story Negatives:

1. Cutscene: The introduction of Nines cutscene is just irritating, for the usual GM railroading reasons
2. Pacing: Mid game pacing is pretty bad, but especially by the time you hit the Sewer (reasons the Sewer sucks listed under Gameplay)
3. Outro: The Ming Xiao ending is lackluster at best, a clear ‘bad ending’, but the thing that pushes it into negative territory is how Cutscene Incompetence it is that we just sort of let that happen
4. Visual Continuity: Several long sections of bleh or absent Visual Continuity

Gameplay Positives:

1. Tutorialization: Initial tutorialization is heavy, but necessary for the system and very efficiently gets across all it needs to
2. Starting Option: Malkavian path and its alteration in playstyle
3. Starting Option: Nosferatu path and how it changes literally how you play the game
4. All Roads Lead To Rome: Multiple paths to multiple quests (allowing varying playstyles)
5. Save: Quicksaves and ease of saving / loading
6. Intro: The Intro has some of the best designed quests in the game, and feels the most overall designed and polished, while allowing for plenty of style and variance
7. Integration: Gameplay/Story Integration all over the place
8. Hub: Santa Monica as hub is actually quite well designed, both in traversal, layout, and density
9. Boss: While many of the bosses in this game outright suck, there are enough that warrent a boss design positive (wereshark, werewolf, and Bach)
10. Visual Continuity: In several areas you can tell where you are and where you’re going thanks to decent Visual Continuity

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Crash: Literally unplayable without fan patches
2. Bug: Exceptionally buggy, bad launch, hampered by never really being patched up to functional status
3. Sound: Sound mixing issues, and only one volume slider
4. Controls: Combat controls are just… janky and weird and awkward and bad, made worse by…
5. Camera: …the absolute mess that is the third person camera for combat
6. Enemy AI: Completely braindead
7. Bug: NPC blocking (especially enemies at doors)
8. Builds: Very easy to build yourself into a corner, which is especially true because…
9. Builds: …the late game and endless combat funnels
10. Leveling: Some skills are just honestly useless (looking at you Intimidate)
11. QoL: Buff duration and irritation of casting
12. Walkthroughitis: Easily skippable quests and sections
13. Traversal: Getting around Downtown is just kind of a pain
14. Boss: Boss fights in general are actively badly designed (Ming Xiao, the Tzimice, the Tzimice again, the ninth circle dude, and the Sheriff)
15. Encounter: Encounter design in general is lacking. Often large numbers of enemies in big open areas with no cover or mechanics
16. Core Combat: Core Combat. You have attacks, guns, and a handful of abilities that cost too much and last too short… and that’s… it. It is exceptionally simple for how much of it you do
17. Core Combat: Mk. 2 (made worse by just how much of it there is from the Sewers onwards)
18. Core Mechanic: Stealth is exceptionally binary and is entirely too easy to bypass
19. Lighting: I get it, it’s night, but it’s legitimately hard to see all the time, which is made worse by…
20. Visual Distinction: …the textures, which just make things really hard to see all the damned time
21. Secondary: The You Only Die Once A Night quest is pretty badly designed. Two gates, widely spaced from each other, with no run indicator, with no mechanic to see which gate is being hit at the moment, fighting enemies that are ranged focus and have a lot of health
22. Level: The Sewers. Bad lighting, bad texturing, with samey corridors, with no minimap or map, with one enemy type, with virtually no itemization, entirely focused on combat, with the boss issue, layout lends itself towards getting lost, and a total lack of doodading, and the layout makes no sense in lore, and enforced slow movement, and long empty corridors, and the bullcrap swimming ‘mechanic’, plus the enemy type is specifically designed to get at least one aggravated hit in in an area with little to no healing other than standing around for literally minutes, and then there’s the timing pipe section (plus enemies designed to get the drop on you), the actual boss (which then replicates into trash mobs), and backtracking if you didn’t do it right
23. Level: Sewers mk. 2
24. Level: There is just so much wrong with the Sewers, as the above paragraph clearly shows
25. Outro: The Outro really is just awful. It’s not as bad as the Sewers, but that’s not saying much
26. Fast Travel: Total lack of Fast Travel, when it probably should have had some
27. Map: There is a ‘map’ but it’s actually inaccurate, and generally inaccessible, and only applies to the hub areas
28. Replayability: The game hurts its own Replayability by being generally awful from the Sewers section onwards
29. Visual Continuity: In multiple areas the lack of good Visual Continuity really hurts navigation
30. Visual Continuity: Second negative for Visual Continuity issues

Story Positives:

Story Negatives:

1. Foreshadowing: Total lack of build up or establishment for the ‘twists’ of Shannon and Mammon
2. Character: Only one actual recurring character, who… isn’t
3. Story Sequencing: A whole, whole lot of events just happen for no rhyme or reason other than the next thing happening
4. MSQ: Incredibly repetitive story structure for almost the entire game (enter area, beat boss, keep thing, move on)
5. Dialogue: The dialogue is disjointed, rushed, and often times approaches nonsensical or self contradictory
6. Moment: The total lack of anything approaching good writing or presentation of finally finding our dad is even worse than I remembered, with dialogue that’s inconsistent and actively badly written
7. Cutscene: Absence of presentation which is not just confusing, it actively ruins any scene that might have impact
8. Character: A second negative for the characterization problem. Too often a boss will literally show up without reference, give you one line that implies an actual story, fight you, die, and never be referenced again
9. Doodads: The game is generally absent doodad design, with maybe a chair or a tree and that’s it…
10. Doodads: …earning it…
11. Doodads: …three negatives
12. Visual Continuity: Further, the visual design is actively bad, at times making it hard to really tell where you are or in relation to what…
13. Visual Continuity: …earning two negatives
14. Architecture: This is endemic of many early PS1 and N64 titles but these, uh, ‘towns’ don’t feel like it at all. Giant open spaces, hardly any buildings which are too short and don’t block sightlines, no real density of materials, and hardly any interior spaces make everything feel exactly as threadbare and empty…
15. Architecture: …as they actually are
16. Outro: The Outro is just awful on every level. Sudden attempts to attempt to have meaning to the story which fail, scenes which don’t land and don’t connect, no follow through on our dad at all, literally nonsensical dialogue from Shannon, Mammon has zero presence and half his dialogue is just laughter, and the ending title card is both brief and inconsequential
17. Brickwork: So I’ve seen bad Brickwork before several times, especially on the N64, but this is particularly bad and honestly deserves a full…
18. Brickwork: …three…
19. Brickwork: …negatives

Gameplay Positives:

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Builds: Build Yourself Into A Corner: It is aggressively easy to level the wrong things in the wrong order with no real indication until you run into a boss, thanks to the abilities being wildly unbalanced
2. Builds: …for a full…
3. Builds; …three negatives
4. Difficulty Curve: The difficulty curve is non existent. Trash is just sort of there, either a waste or too easy, and the bosses are all much too hard…
5. Difficulty Curve: …for a full…
6. Difficulty Curve: …three negatives
7. Padding: There is entirely too much RNG on almost every aspect of the game
8. Power Progression Curve: Wildly unbalanced to the point where you are either overpowered, barely keeping up, and nothing in between
9. Save: Save points. There are not many of them, and they are quite spread out
10. Leveling: The implementation of the use-it-raise-it leveling system is not a particularly good one, relying on the usual issues but also agility is just… awful, and best leveled by running in a circle for hours…
11. Leveling: …making for one of the worst implementations I’ve seen of the system…
12. Leveling: …for triple negatives
13. Encounter Rate: Waaay too high…
14. Encounter Rate: …for a full…
15. Encounter Rate: …three negatives
16. Trash: Almost every encounter in this game is trash. It’s dull, boring, frustrating trash or, even better, sometimes it’s insanely hard and beats the snot out of you. It’s both ends of the bad trash design spectrum in one neat bundle…
17. Trash: …and earns an easy…
18. Trash: …triple negative
19. Info In Game: Lack of info in game, even at the most basic level of how spells work, how leveling works, etc…
20. Info In Game: …for two negatives
21. Visual Continuity: Visual Ease of being turned around, especially in caves
22. Visual Continuity: Samey textures and lack of doodads in dungeons makes them not only boring to navigate but actually disorienting
23. Level: Dungeon ‘design’ (long, linear corridors) is legitimately awful, with absolutely nothing to them in any shape or fashion, compounded by the constant copy-paste of segments of the dungeons
24. Camera: The camera is barely controllable and actively antagonistic towards knowing what you’re doing or where you’re going
25. Camera: Dodging enemy attacks, made all the worse by camera
26. Music: The music… is… pretty not good
27. Music: Short loops, restart common, very little variety, heavily repetitive
28. Enemy AI: The AI is very badly designed. Enemies either move towards you (or don’t), and cast their spells randomly at you. That’s it
29. Lighting: Lighting is actively bad, especially at night
30. Lighting: The lighting problem gets even worse in dungeons, to the point of it being actively difficult to navigate
31. Bug: Inconsistent and actively inaccurate hurtboxes on spells
32. Grind: Severity and slowness of grind. Grind itself is not good but you gain so very little for what you go through
33. Kit: Buff structure (buffs and debuffs can miss, are regularly dispelled, and last a random duration which can include only 1 round)…
34. Kit: …earning two negatives
35. Level: The Blue Cave is just… everything wrong with dungeon design in this game magnified. Enemies that are overpowered for this part of the game, long samey corridors which copy paste textures and geometry, it’s very long, very boring, and the only thing that prevents it from being three is the periodic arrows that help guide you, so it earns…
36. Level: …two negatives
37. Level: Baragoon Tunnel is just awful. It deliberately weaves back and forth to further confuse the player, has very narrow corridors the camera barely knows what to do with, and is STUPIDLY dark so you can barely see where you’re going, earning…
38. Level: …three…
39. Level: …negatives
40. Boss: Let’s get this out of the way. Every single boss in this game sucks. They all deserve two negatives for being boring, overtuned stat walls. So that’d be Solvaring…
41. Boss: …x2
42. Boss: Zelse…
43. Boss: ..x2
44. Boss: Nepty…
45. Boss: …x2
46. Boss: Shilf…
47. Boss: …x2
48. Boss: Fargo…
49. Boss: …x2
50. Boss: Guilty…
51. Boss: …x2
52. MTX: Memory card requirement, when it’s a unique and unnecessary situation, and requires buying a card just for this one game, and those cards have known battery issues
53. Encounter: Encounter design is just not there. Random enemies with one or two abilities they randomly use, and no thought put into them leaves the combat very shallow
54. Level: The Boil Hole suuucks. It’s the same issues with most of the other dungeons but it is so aggravatingly long and it’s just this one long long long narrow corridor, and as with every dungeon from the Blue Cave onwards the encounters are badly balanced and designed…
55. Level: …earning…
56. Level: …three negatives
57. QoL: No warning about hitting the point of no return
58. Level: Brannoch Castle is awful. The repeated corridor you walk through multiple copies of, excessively over-tuned enemies, a dull song, narrow corridors which screw with the camera
59. Boss: The King Beigis fight is probably the worst actual boss in the game. He sits in an irritating area with spells that hit entirely too hard and the camera has issues dealing with the terrain, and due to everything else in the game, the spell balance, and the boss’s health and damage output, winning or losing sits entirely on pure RNG, earning it…
60. Boss: …three…
61. Boss: …negatives
62. Outro: Mammon’s World is just the worst dungeon in the game. It has everything wrong with every other dungeon magnified, which is bad in its own right but worse for being a final dungeon, and it’s unique for being the only dungeon to not just copy paste sections of texture of geometry, but actually copy paste entire rooms with no variation…
63. Outro: …for the full…
64. Outro: …three negatives
65. Outro: Mammon is a stupidly easy fight pretty much across the board, with only a couple of attacks and many ways to crush him easily…
66. Outro: …for two negatives
67. Intro: The Intro fails to convey information about how certain mechanics work, doesn’t really give any guidance or indication of how to progress, and it’s fairly easy to build yourself into a corner early on and have issues and die and get into a bit of a death loop. It’s not the worst intro, but it’s not good, and an Intro should be good
68. Sound: Sound design is actively bad. Very few sound effects, no variation for footsteps or different types of damage or even spells
69. Respec: The lack of Respec actively hurts trying out builds and options (even if they were properly balanced) and further hinders the ‘build into a corner’ problem
70. Level: Special mention to the forest ‘dungeon’ and how ludicrously easy it is to get lost in that damned place. I’d say it’s one of the worst dungeons in the game…
71. Level: …earning two negatives
72. Enemy Variety: Enemy variety is… not
73. Viscerality: Did I mention the game has like… negative viscerality? The big rock, bigger rock thing, nevermind the water puddle

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: Pretty solid for what it is across the board. It’s… well. I’ll be honest, several of the NES games look better, and at least part of that is Zero’s reliance on boring warehouses and the screen being so crunched (a problem all four games will have). But at least there’s…
2. Visual Storytelling: Quite a bit. If you weren’t familiar with the history of the series you can get a pretty clear picture of the post apocalypse you’re living in
3. Spritework: Excellent, as per the standard for the GBA. Consider this a double…
4. Spritework: …for Zero himself
5. Spritework: Then a solid triple…
6. Spritework: …for the…
7. Spritework: …bosses
8. Animation: Excellent across the board, no notes
9. World Building: Surprisingly good world building. Andrew (the old reploid who made himself old to adapt to his human lover, the substantial energy crisis given how little of the world is habitable, and the fact that almost the entire biosphere has been replaced by robots… down to insects and plants)
10. External Continuity: The only Zero game to really connect to the rest of the franchise (though it only CLEANLY connects with X5… the moment you include X6-8 it falls apart a bit). X going full Justice Lord, the Elf Wars, and Zero being ripped out of his body and put into a cheaper duplicate
11. Intro: Does a lot right in a short period of time. It quickly introduces us to the resistance, the copy army, Ciel, and Zero and establishes stakes and style in a proper in media res

Story Negatives:

1. Dialogue: It’s… just not good in general and usually contains a lot of Empty Text

Gameplay Positives:

1. Difficulty Options: Casual Scenario Mode is a decent option for people to experience some of the gameplay, hampered by its limitations (no real specific options and no live toggle)
2. Viscerality: The friggin’ sword. It doesn’t do the damage it should but damn it feels good, especially when you pull off the special kill sprite
3. Controls: Controls are the Megaman standard of responsive and well designed (and rebindable) making for…
4. Controls: …some excellent controls
5. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
6. Kit: …for a double
7. MSQ: Mission variety, despite its issues, is still good and keeps things interesting
8. Boss: Boss variety is substantially better than the Megaman norm and helps keep things fun
9. Boss: Copy X 1 is probably the best fight in the game, with his varied elements based on who’s abilities he’s using and a nice arena to allow lots of options to bypass and attack
10. NG+: New Game + with added difficulty but keep upgrades and items

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Difficulty Curve: Wonky difficulty curve which starts hard and then bounces around weirdly, both for stages and bosses
2. QoL: Camera zoom in. The crunched camera is awful in general; it prevents you from seeing stuff well into when you should, in some cases it literally leads to you being unable to see what’s safe to drop down to, and it discourages rapid movement
3. Gotcha: There’s a lot of gotcha! stuff going on with the level design in random death traps you essentially can’t see coming (partially because of the above)
4. Terrain: Terrain design is actively hostile to the player, ALSO related to the above
5. Grind: Elf grind is really bad, to the point of almost making them not worth using
6. Level: The desert level’s irritating boss fight and, much worse, escort mission
7. Level: The bomb diffusal level can just go to hell, and is actively awful and only made bearable by addition of the collection’s checkpoints
8. Music: The hub and revisit stage music is incredibly short and repetitive, which is bad to begin with but even worse for something you’re encourage to do with regularity
9. Padding: Boss refights are, as usual, lazy padding
10. Unskippable Cutscenes: Weirdly, yeah. Some of these can take a bit too
11. Grind: Weapon grind. The very idea of having to grind this much on weapons is a bit much. Right at the beginning of the Run we spent several minutes just… grinding. In a megaman game. What in the world
12. Outro: Boss: Copy X 2 can go to hell. The boss only has three attacks, is very hard to reach with most weapons, is surrounded by a bottomless pit, and (worst of all) the platform you’re on is either deliberately or as a consequence of the above camera issue ‘squished’ so you can’t recover on it…
13. Outro: Boss: …screw this fight

Story Positives:

1. Animation: Animations actually really help add to the cutscenes this time around. Like, seriously, these are weirdly good
2. Brickwork: Same general issue and quality as in the first game
3. Story Sequencing: Military-style mission structure and added flavor of set up (first four) / consequence (middle two) / pay off (last four)
4. Character: Between Elpizo’s arc as the tragic nobody-turned-villain and the various Resistance members, there’s some decent characterization to this
5. Foreshadowing: Decent and regular foreshadowing for the rest of the series, since (as mentioned earlier) this is what really sets up the story of the rest of the series (arguably including ZX 1 and 2)
6. Intro: The Intro isn’t quite as good as the previous one but still very enjoyable, with Zero in his dilapidated state and we actively see why with the infinitely respawning pantheons attacking him as he struggles
7. Theme: Following through on the past, living up to expectations, being pathetic and striving to be more, all of which are personified in Elpizo and his arc
8. Spritework: Same quality as the first game (in fact I’ve seen the sheets, it’s almost IDENTICAL in terms of individual sprites) so I shall follow suite and copy paste. Excellent, as per the standard for the GBA. Consider this a double…
9. Spritework: …for Zero himself
10. Spritework: Then a solid triple…
11. Spritework: …for the…
12. Spritework: …bosses

Story Negatives:

1. Dialogue: Dialogue continues to be problematic, starting to think it might be a localization issue. It can’t possibly just be that the people making a Megaman game didn’t think writing was a priority or anything

Gameplay Positives:

1. Difficulty Option: Casual scenario mode is a good option for experiencing the gameplay, hampered by lack of specific options
2. Music: Music! Finally! Some really good songs, per Megaman standards
3. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
4. Kit: …for a double
5. Viscerality: I mean of course the saber is still awesome
6. Controls: Same controls as last time (and still rebindable)…
7. Controls: …so still a double
8. Difficulty Mutators: Mission variety / optional missions remain a good design choice, giving you bonus objectives for score which you can completely ignore if you choose too
9. Level: Factory mission (explodable enemies that destroy terrain, few irritations, nice non-linear design)
10. Kit: The variety and options of kit from the cyber elves is good stuff (unlike, say, the first game)
11. Boss: Burble Hekelot is actually a pretty fun fight, with a lot of moves and a ‘summon adds to empower self’ gimmick
12. Level: The crystal caves was a fun stage, with a nice take on the spikes gimmick and some actually well thought out jumps
13. Boss: Phoenix Magnion was irritating at first but honestly is a nicely designed fight, built entirely around countering you and what you do
14. Kit: Forms and added kit
15. Level: Consider this a general level design aggregate
16. Boss: And a general boss design aggregate
17. NG+: Decent New Game +, similar to the first game

Gameplay Negatives:

1. QoL: Screen crunch continues to be an issue as it often is for GBA games
2. Gotcha: It’s back, and it still sucks
3. Level: The hopping across airships stage is all kinds of awful. It’s blind jumps with moving platforms with shots that interrupt with crunched camera
4. Unskippable Cutscenes: They’re back, and I mean there’s even more cutscenes this time around
5. Info In Game: Lack of info in game (specifically the Forms and how to obtain them)
6. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden enemies (respawning based on camera, and entirely too close)
7. Terrain: Ice physics are the worst I’ve seen, with not only the usual, but the fact that your dash literally doesn’t work right…
8. Terrain: …right before spiked pits usually too
9. Padding: Boss refights. Y’know, these make so little sense in so many of these games, you ever think about that?

Story Positives:

1. Character: Andrew! He’s wholesome, awesome, and as usual good world building
2. Background Lore: The W.R. Factory stage is absolutely brilliantly horrifying in so many ways. I mean, they don’t even shut down the reploids before breaking them down into parts
3. Storytelling Mechanic: Copy Copy X is a fascinating example of Dr. Weil’s lack of talent as well as insight into exactly how the living situation for the Humans and Reploids are
4. Character: Dr. Weil isn’t as well written as he should be, but is still an engaging force in the plot and a near perfect example of a Type 4 Villain
5. Character: Ceil. Slowly breaking down from command and forced conflict, what I would call a properly done pacifist
6. External Continuity: The game clearly and obviously connects to the X’s, the previous Z’s, and the future Z’s
7. Visual Storytelling: Plenty (such as the aforementioned Factory)
8. Visual Continuity: Several connecting the stages to the city proper
9. Brickwork: For once I think the GBA game deserves…
10. Brickwork: …a double brickwork positive
11. Spritework: Same quality as the first game (in fact I’ve seen the sheets, it’s almost IDENTICAL in terms of individual sprites) so I shall follow suite and copy paste. Excellent, as per the standard for the GBA. Consider this a double…
12. Spritework: …for Zero himself
13. Spritework: Then a solid triple…
14. Spritework: …for the…
15. Spritework: …bosses
16. Spritework: I think I will also qualify the enemies, which we finally have some design to outside of the basics, for their own positive
17. Theme: The entire theme of the work is about identity. Zero’s is the big one, but we see this in Copy Copy X, the Guardians, Ceil, and Dr. Weil
18. Moment: Letting the player make the final blow on Omega

Story Negatives:

1. Dialogue: Someday the dialogue will not suck. (Also the exposition is pretty bad too)

Gameplay Positives:

1. Difficulty Option: Casual scenario mode is a good option for experiencing the gameplay, hampered by lack of specific options
2. Music: Music is good, per Megaman standard
3. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
4. Kit: …for a double
5. Viscerality: Still love slicing enemies in half
6. Controls: Still the same really good and rebindable…
7. Controls: …for the same double
8. Kit: Satellite cyber elves and related kit
9. Level: Old residential section stage (multiple paths, fire burning mechanic, lots of secrets)
10. Level: The W.R. Factory stage (nice gimmicks, great background storytelling, other fun stuff)
11. Level: The Oceanic Highway Ruins stage (the race, the long underwater designed physics with jumps patterned around it, the optional buttons)
12. Alternate Leveling: Elves and new leveling system (multiple levels, so you can pop them early or save for later, fewer crystals required for leveling, can change some to Satellites or back to just use)
13. Level: Snow stage with nice open areas, multiple hidden things, general fun
14. Level: Underwater library stage and boss variance depending on order you get the disks in, as well as the water level rising and lowering into electricity
15. Kit: Lots of interesting and fun body parts you can get in this one
16. Level: General stage quality for everything else
17. Boss: General boss quality across the board
18. Outro: Boss: The Omega fights, full stop
19. NG+: The same general New Game Plus is back

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Gotcha: This will always suck
2. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden enemies (respawning based on camera, and entirely too close)
3. QoL: Screen crunch continues to be an issue as it often is for GBA games
4. Core Mechanic: Ranking system is… not super well designed. While better than previous, locking such an important core mechanic behind the ranking system is not great
5. Padding: Boss refights

Story Positives:

1. Doodads: Doodads are kind of awesome, much better than the previous three
2. Visual Storytelling: Modular city storytelling, with the modular nature of it being the stage design
3. MSQ: Imprisonment story beat, with Craft taking his ‘love’ to the safest place he can think of; a high security reploid prison
4. External Continuity: I dunno, I really like everything about Area Zero. The fact that it’s where the Eurasia was smashed into the planet back in X5 is already interesting, the fact that its systems kept going brokenly in the background is interesting, but there’s a fascinating bit of narrative mirroring going on here
5. Writing: See, for those unaware, the Eurasia incident was an apocalyptic event. The entire world was devastated by this, leading to an even higher requirement than before of robots to replace lost elements of the environment. There’s a reason X6’s stages are almost entirely about recovering or restoring areas from the destruction. This directly lead to the Weil incident, and the Elf Wars, which lead to only one habitable spot left on the planet (Neo Arcadia). Thing is… the systems kept going on the Eurasia (as mentioned above), and that slowly helped Area Zero to restore itself bit by bit over the decades, making it a virtual paradise. And thus when Arcadia is oppressed by Weil (and destroyed by Idiotboy) it becomes the only place people can flee to, and as we know thanks to the ZX series these systems were allowed to propagate and help restore the entire planet eventually. And I’m sorry, I love the narrative irony here. The incident that destroyed the planet was also ultimately its salvation. (Also I have a fan theory that the heavy damage to Cyberspace in this area, as we saw in X5, is part of why there’s such abundant energy supplies here in Z4 and ZX)
6. Brickwork: Okay honestly they’re all generic positives, but the Brickwork in MMZ4 is actually quite legit…
7. Brickwork: …earning it…
8. Brickwork: …three positives
9. Spritework: Same quality as the first game (in fact I’ve seen the sheets, it’s almost IDENTICAL in terms of individual sprites) so I shall follow suite and copy paste. Excellent, as per the standard for the GBA. Consider this a double…
10. Spritework: …for Zero himself. But wait! There’s actually some new sprites…
11. Spritework: …so we finally give Zero a triple
12. Spritework: Then a solid triple…
13. Spritework: …for the…
14. Spritework: …bosses
15. Spritework: I think I will also qualify the enemies, which we finally have some design to outside of the basics, for their own positive
16. Atmosphere: The Ragnarok stage. The ambiance, the doodads, the background
17. Outro: The Outro is actually quite powerful stuff all told. The final battle, the speech by Zero about trusting his friend, Weil’s delusions, and the final sacrifice

Story Negatives:

1. Dialogue: Bad exposition is pretty common in the dialogue. Honestly this is the same issue all four games have had (spoilers, it’s not the last time we’ve seen it)
2. Cutscenes: Actively bad cutscenes, with legitimately bad storyboarding, and aggravating world destruction and irritating in the Intro
3. Character: Craft is, in general, awful, but his entire narrative focus about how war is forever and humans suck and blah blah blah is absolutely terribly done
4. MSQ: The entire sequence of Dr. Weil surviving a direct blast, firing the warning shot, and then stupiditying his way into his end game is just aggravating

Gameplay Positives:

1. Difficulty Options: Casual scenario mode is a good option for experiencing the gameplay, hampered by lack of specific options
2. Music: Solid music, as per the latter three games
3. Viscerality: STILL enjoyable slicing through fools
4. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
5. Kit: …for a double
6. Core Combat: Between EX skills and the weapon types and the movement tech, Core Combat remains quite fun
7. Controls: Same quality of controls and still rebindable…
8. Controls: …for a solid double
9. Kit: Kit in parts…
10. Kit: …and in the singular elf you upgrade
11. Visual Distinction: Probably the only Zero game I think deserves a specific positive for this
12. Intro: Good tutorialization, action setpieces, and decent layout and stage design
13. Level: Modular city level is great
14. Level: Gun level is awesome
15. Level: Magnetic stage was a ton of fun
16. Boss: Generally good boss design…
17. Boss: …for a solid double
18. MSQ: Intermission 1 (optional saving / fires)
19. Level: Sand stage was legit
20. Level: General stage plus for all the rest
21. Outro: Level: The Outro stages are fun, great setpieces with interesting fights and a legitimately fantastic last boss (hampered by the RNG)
22. NG+: Great New Game Plus

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Grind: Part drops are entirely too inconsistent (about 10%, which is honestly too low)
2. Walkthroughitis: Crafting is also extremely walkthroughitis, with very little in the way of guidance (and even the hints you get have issues)
3. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden respawns are back
4. Padding: Of course the boss refights are back. They all yammer about how you’re all doomed at least, that’s… something?

Story Positives:

1. Doodads: Holy crap, some pretty solid doodad design
2. Brickwork: The overgrown treeborg forest
3. Brickwork: The safe zone of the city
4. Brickwork: The amusement park, and related areas
5. Spritework: Let’s get this across, this is absolutely bonkers good spritework, probably the best in the entire franchise. So to parse this out. First we have your basic models for Aile and Vent…
6. Spritework: …which are great
7. Spritework: Then there’s Model FX
8. Spritework: Model HX
9. Spritework: Model LX
10. Spritework: Model OX
11. Spritework: Model PX
12. Spritework: Model X
13. Spritework: Model Z
14. Spritework: And Model ZX
15. Spritework: Then there’s the bosses which are all exceptionally well designed…
16. Spritework: …which are…
17. Spritework: …fantastic
18. Spritework: Then there’s the enemies…
19. Spritework: …which are great
20. Spritework: And finally the NPCs and side characters…
21. Spritework: …for a final double
22. World Building: Not a lot, but there’s still some in the background, as we learn about the world that grew out of Area Zero
23. Tone: Grounded, breather storytelling of ‘towns’ and NPCs
24. Visual Storytelling: Several tidbits throughout
25. Writing: The quiet horror of the people being converted into code to be tortured by Slither Inc in order to be ‘fed’ to Model W
26. External Continuity: Considering this is a direct sequel to Z4 it better

Story Negatives:

1. Intro: Heavy cliche storm and legitimately bad writing. The way you stumble into the Model X is ridiculous and this entire sequence…
2. Intro: …plays like a bad self insert story
3. Outro: Writing is problematic and tries too hard in several avenues. Like this is… weirdly saccharine…
4. Outro: …and I’m not a fan

Gameplay Positives:

1. Difficulty Option: Casual scenario mode is a good option for experiencing the gameplay, hampered by lack of specific options
2. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
3. Kit: …for a double
4. Difficulty Mutator: The ‘avoid enemy weakness’ system to have a higher level on the boss and therefore more weapon energy for them (or you can ignore it totally and just spend energy crystals)
5. Controls: Controls and rebinds as per the last game…
6. Controls: …for the usual double
7. Music: Music is good, per Megaman standard, except for once…
8. Music: …we get a double, my goodness
9. Sound: Some really well done sound design in general, with footsteps that vary based on form, splashes, attacks, and of course Star Trek and Star Wars references (seriously)
10. Enemy Variety: Pretty decent for what it is
11. Level: Energy plant stage
12. Level: Met Theme Park Stage
13. Boss: Harpuia boss
14. Boss: Purprill boss
15. Kit: Forms! The ability to swap at will (in mid air, even) and the different passive abilities and movesets for them…
16. Kit: …great kit
17. Level: Burning apartment building stage and the rescuing
18. Level: The signal stage
19. Level: The lava wave stage
20. Boss: General boss design
21. Boss: Flammole fight
22. Boss: Rhino dude fight
23. Visual Distinction: Great, as per this series’ standard
24. Boss: Omega optional boss

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Encounter Rate: Ninja gaiden respawn problem
2. QoL: Punishing exploration thanks to mission triggers
3. Walkthroughitis: The game has such a lack of direction at almost all times it’s ridiculous, from just navigating to knowing where quests are or where turn ins are
4. Traversal: Navigation is an interconnected issue. Between a bad map, bad traversal mechanics, lack of good fast travel design, lack of recall / escape feature…
5. Traversal: …what you have is a game that’s just irritating to navigate
6. Padding: Boss refights…
7. Level: …and for some stupid reason, for I believe the first time in the entire franchise, there’s no healing in between fights
8. Outro: Surprisingly lame for a Megaman game, with the final ‘stage’ being just corridors and elevators

Story Positives:

1. Doodads: Some really solid ones in this one…
2. Doodads: …for a good double
3. Brickwork: Absolutely lovely Brickwork for the Tower of Verdure…
4. Brickwork: …the Oil Field…
5. Brickwork: …the Legion HQ…
6. Brickwork: …and the Floating Ruins
7. Spritework: Not QUITE as good as the previous game but still some of the best spritework in the franchise. A solid triple for Ashe…
8. Spritework: …and…
9. Spritework: …Gray
10. Spritework: And the bosses (which also function as your forms)…
11. Spritework: …are another…
12. Spritework: …triple
13. Spritework: And then enemies
14. Spritework: And NPCs and characters
15. Intro: Surprisingly good foreshadowing and writing in the Grey Intro

Story Negatives:

1. Voice Acting: Terrible line reading and voice acting in general
2. Voice Acting: The voice acting just goes out of its way to be awful and saps legitimate drama from the story
3. Dialogue: Dialogue has some pretty bad issues in almost every scene (sort of a commonality in the entire Z series really)
4. Cutscene: There forced drama, bad writing, bad reading, and excessively long transformation sequence, only to end in a random ‘see ya!’ and ‘can’t spit it out’ with Model A…
5. Cutscene: …And a second negative for that whole sequence
6. Theme: Over-emphasis and bad usage of the ‘destiny’ theme in Grey’s story
7. Outro: The entirety of Grey’s Outro is just… bad
8. Intro: The Ashe Intro has all kinds of narrative issues. Writing, voice acting, pacing, lack of storyboarding, etc.
9. Plot: The overall plot with Albert wanting to take over the world he’s… already in charge of to force evolution in… the way he’s already done… is just lacking. Like I’m sorry let’s be clear about this. He’s already in charge of the world and he’s already been forcing evolution in the exact manner he wants to so… what is he trying to do exactly? Is he bored?
10. Cutscene Incompetence: While it’s a common element in Megaman games, the sheer quantity and consequence of the cutscene incompetence is through the roof here
11. Outro: The whole of Ashe’s Outro is no better than Gray’s

Gameplay Positives:

1. Difficulty Options: Casual scenario mode is a good option for experiencing the gameplay, hampered by lack of specific options
2. Difficulty Options: Proper hard mode difficulty, varying up patterns and enemy attacks
3. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
4. Kit: …for a double
5. Controls: As per usual great and rebindable controls…
6. Controls: …for the usual double
7. Enemy Variety: Really solid in this one
8. Visual Distinction: Pretty good for the Z standards
9. Music: A pretty solid…
10. Music: …double
11. Boss: Chronoforce boss fight
12. Sound: Sound design is pretty decent
13. Boss: Boss fights in general
14. Kit: Model a transformations are honestly some of the coolest things the franchise has come up with. I love being able to literally turn into bosses…
15. Kit: …and it’s an easy double. Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘shouldn’t this be more?’ And frankly the answer is yes… but most of the forms are extremely limited in their actual use and often only have one real attack (or don’t function out of water, cough cough Chronoforce)
16. Tutorialization: Each form comes with an area right after it to get you used to the form and how it operates
17. Level: Control center stage
18. Level: Underwater highway stage
19. Boss: Volturon boss fight
20. Outro: Grey’s Outro is very fun, with a very tense final level and a great final boss
21. Boss: Albert final fight is great. He has attacks from most of the previous models, including A, and is appropriately fun and difficult
22. MSQ: Varying levels and boss tactics on each mode (aka two campaigns)

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Core Mechanic: Ice physics are… REALLY bad in this one. You have to experience it to see how bad it is in action
2. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden respawn returns
3. Audio Spam: Worse than usual, reminds me of X4 or 8
4. Tutorialization: Forced tutorialization after each form
5. Padding: Boss refights

Story Positives:

1. Background Lore: Title crawl shares some interesting tidbits and lore, also kind of necessary for setting up the entire franchise
2. Background Lore: There’s some neat little tidbits in the museum about the various enemies, most notably the principle characters and bosses
3. Intro: Military attack on civilian target, leading you to fighting a few obvious bots, until you see a dude in a giant mech come stomping forward (the sound design adds to this). Once he beats you Zero blasts his arm off with a single shot and he’s forced to flee, and Zero comforts you afterwards. This is a weirdly solid Intro and does some good establishment and characterization
4. Spritework: Of course Ro–er, X has excellent sprites, especially considering they have to take into account his armors…
5. Spritework: …so that’s a solid…
6. Spritework: …triple
7. Spritework: Excellent bosses and boss designs naturally…
8. Spritework: …for an easy…
9. Spritework: …triple
10. Spritework: Fantastic enemy design throughout…
11. Spritework: …for another double
12. Architecture: Similar to some other Megaman games I can mention (7, 8, and 11), the X series does good stuff with its architecture. The forest, the power plant, the intro (and first portion of Sigma’s Palace) all do solid things making them feel like actual areas
13. Brickwork: Chill Penguin’s stage starts off with some nice tundra in the distance and a good layer of frost over everything (not ice physics for some reason, go figure), before we head inside some kind of facility which has large swaths of computer banks and machines coated in ice. It makes me think of places where the cooling requirements are so insane to keep everything running that they just put it in sub zero temperatures
14. Brickwork: Spark Mandrill’s stage, the power plant (one of TWO in this game actually, I guess there’s a reason Ceil needed a new energy source). The background includes all kinds of lovely fuses, breakers, transformers, batteries, and other fun stuff you’d expect to see here. I think what cinches it for me is the giant turbines which I suspect are the actual generators themselves
15. Brickwork: Armor Armadillo’s stage. So! Caves and mines, what do we have here. There’s a lot of greebling going on which helps a lot, but I think the thing that sells this for me is how periodically there’s hallways going directly out perpendicular to the player and they’re parallax scrolled so it looks like you’re passing ‘by’ the corridor as you go. This is on top of the usual goodness of the support struts, the railways that connect each shaft, and the wonderful waterfalls right at the end
16. Brickwork: Launch Octopus’ stage, the port. We start off in the shallows before diving pretty deep, underwater flora dotting the distance. We also see underwater fuel tanks (for the docking ships), pumps for birthed ships, and… as we get closer to the boss… a lot of these otherwise pristine devices start to get more and more damaged, indicating how much Launch himself is destroying
17. Brickwork: Boomer Kuwanger’s stage, the tower. We start off with a strange interior that looks like you’re inside the guts of the building, with pipes and valves and exposed circuitry everywhere. Even when you ascend to the elevator it’s still clearly an industrial elevator, meant for backdoor access. It’s only when we reach the outside that we see some of what the tower proper is supposed to look like, as well as see one of the machines it’s supporting in the middle. Supposedly this is a hydroelectric power plant, which would explain why it’s in the middle of a lake
18. Brickwork: Sting Chameleon’s stage, the forest base. We start right off with the elements that started this entire brickwork thing; Treeborgs, with a lush canopy in the distance and the base of the mountain (which serves as Armor Armadillo’s stage further in). We also see how, aside from the path we tread, this entire forst is incredibly overgrown, with parts where you can’t even see the sky OR ground. I love the mechanical trees alongside biological bushes and how the two intermix though. It’s like Woodman’s stage but better
19. Brickwork: Storm Eagle’s stage, the Newtype Airport. Sadly we spend a lot of it up in the clouds and so don’t really get to appreciate the visuals that much. We get a bit of the runway down at the bottom, several bits of scaffolding and the conn towers, but what really makes this work is when you head out to the Death Rogumer (why is their airship named after a tuna…) and the ship partially explodes to set the stage and, I love this touch, when you beat Storm Eagle the clouds slow, then stall, then start going the other way with increasing speed as the ship is crashing. And as mentioned later we’ll see the results of this in Spark Mandrill’s stage
20. Brickwork: Flame Mammoth’s stage, the weapons factory. So hey, we’ve seen a few stages that change a bit based on the order you do them in (Spark Mandrill’s, Sting Chameleon’s) but this one is the biggest change by far. The initial segment is either a massive roiling smelter pit with the conveyors and manufactories plugging away or… a frozen over factory barely functional from the cold. Also we see giant fuel pumps regulating the flow in the background, stampers processing old metal to be slagged, and coolant towers
21. Visual Continuity: I love the map. I do, don’t at me. It adds wonderful context to the city we’re retaking, and emphasizes that all of this is in one relatively contained region (by contrast look at, say, Megaman 6 or 8, where it’s clearly global, or 3, where you actually go off world). The mine, the power plant, the factory, the airport, the nearby forest, the snow-tipped mountains. I love it. Sigma’s Palace itself has a little bit too, most notably right at the beginning where you physically start out in the city and make your way onto the edifice via hovering platforms, and of course as you progress you make your way up and up until you reach the tallest peak (which is naturally where Sigma is)
22. Brickwork: Sigma’s Palace 1 is fine, but I think the second stage does a better job. Between the moving gizmos and the view of the surrounding mountains visible through the windows. After this is Sigma 3, where things are far more mechanical than the previous two stages, really giving across the impression you’re going through either a military warehouse or just someplace unfinished
23. Outro: For the issues I have with it I do like the ending. The music is great of course, the ‘credits’ being enemies and stage names, as well as the ‘cast’ of the main bosses. Fun fact, when I FIRST played this I thought the credits was actual nonsense because Megaman enemy names are… well, complete nonsense hah

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Tutorialization: The title demo showcases several bits of tech and serves as a decent tutorial
2. Itemization: Placements are solid throughout…
3. Itemization: …and drops, which are even better
4. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits
5. Controls: Absolutely phenomenal controls, good placement and utilization of the shoulder buttons, incredibly precise, and of course rebindable…
6. Controls: …gold standard…
7. Controls: …of how these games should control
8. QoL: L and R and Exit. As I mentioned back when it was added to the classic series, being able to swap weapons on the fly is a game changer, and the ability to just Exit a stage when done is so nice for grabbing pieces you missed, refilling, or just replaying stages
9. Power Progression Curve: Honestly a bit more so than usual, for reasons we’ll have to discuss down in the Kit section, but you really feel…
10. Power Progression Curve: …like you’re getting demonstrably stronger as you go through the game and collect upgrades and weapons
11. Music: One of the best soundtracks in gaming in no small part due to the insane quality of sound engineering going into it…
12. Music: …an effortless…
13. Music: …triple positive
14. Sound: Excellent sound design, so much so they basically copy pasted it across the next two games! But for real, there’s a ton of good audio feedback here…
15. Sound: …worthy of a double
16. Enemy Design: Absolutely excellent enemy design, with multiple enemies with weirdly good design to them and allows for lots of options depending on your weapon choice…
17. Enemy Design: …enjoy probably one of only two times…
18. Enemy Design: …I’m giving a Megaman game a triple to Enemy Design
19. Enemy Variety: And of course those enemies have great variety in how they operate, how you fight them, and how you avoid them…
20. Enemy Variety: …for a solid double
21. Visual Distinction: Excellent visual distinction as was per the usual for this era…
22. Visual Distinction: …for a solid double
23. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual Megaman standard of quality here, and usually pretty smartly placed too
24. Kit: So since this is the first time these came into existence let’s talk about what insanely good design sub tanks really are. Seriously I wish I could give more than one positive for the existence of these things and even as of typing this I’m debating doing so. So it’s an optional power up that just sits there in the background and as you fill up excess health (as in any health when you’re already at max health) instead of going into the aether it dumps into one of the tanks. Then you can use a tank to dump however much health it has stored into you. Note that you do not need to fill a tank to max to use it, you can use it whenever. This is an awesome recovery mechanic that rewards players with avoiding taking damage and makes a lot of health pick ups way more useful while also giving them a granular healing source and screw it…
25. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
26. Kit: So in addition to the wall climb and the dash, the X series introduced another staple; Armor parts. For most of the games each part can be equipped individually (or equips automatically), though in some games you have to complete the set to gain benefit. This is a cool concept especially considering they are MOSTLY optional (you are incapable of beating X 1 without the boots for example, and there’s another niggle). Thing is the armor here at its inception is… not great. The dash is of course straight mandatory and as mentioned in the negatives you really should have just started with it (as you do in all other games… and this game’s own remake, even!) The head lets you… break blocks above you, a feature with SO little functionality I’m not sure it’s used for anything useful outside of giving you access to the buster upgrade. The armor reduces all damage by half which… is insanely useful, but only because the damage values on the bosses in Sigma’s Palace is cranked way too high. And finally is the charge buster, the real star of the show. The buster lets you charge a third attack which is insane damage and hits behind you as well as hitting a huge area (it’s more a barrage than one shot). It also lets you charge special weapons and let me tell you, that is another feature of the X series that will see some heavily varied quality over the years. Regardless, here in X1 I can only give the armor a single positive
27. Kit: Weapons! We actually have a damned good weapon selection this time around. Let’s start with Shotgun Ice is a surprisingly hard hitting blast of ice which upon hitting ANYthing (unlike the later Electric Spark) will spread in the opposite direction. This means it’s a good direct shot for its damage and it’s a great spread shot for stuff that’s behind you, and ups the skill ceiling on its use. The charged shot CAN do damage but is primarily utility, as it creates a sled which then launches forward and you can then ride on. This is not technically mandatory for getting several power ups (the trick is called Iceless for a reason) but for most players it’s required to get a few things
28. Kit: Then we have Electric Spark is pretty similar to the Thunderbolt ability in the later Megaman 7 game. It fires a blast of electricity which then splits upon contacting a wall. Thing is Thunderbolt splits upon hitting ANYthing, the fact that this has to hit a wall first limits its usefulness. By contrast its charge attack is way more useful; It’s two large walls of electricity that travel straight left and right from where you release them, piercing everything to hit anything on the streen that’s in their path. Similarly we have Rolling Shield lets you fire a large projectile which will roll on the ground and bounce (once) before dissipating (or detonating). The charge puts a shield around you which will just eat smaller projectiles, though anything classified as a big hit will break it.
29. Kit: Homing Torpedo is exactly what it sounds like, a homing missile, straight out of Megaman 4. Its charge attack does a spread of 5 stronger and faster torpedoes which home more accurately
30. Kit: Boomerang Cutter is a fairly basic arced boomerang attack (similar to Cutman’s, actually) but with three caveats. First you have quite a bit of control in how the attack arcs based on positioning and movement. Second, it’ll grab items and drag them back to you. And third and most interestingly if you catch it on return it’ll actually restore energy. The charged attack release four very large swirling attacks which spiral out from you, hitting basically half the screen
31. Kit: Chameleon Sting. A triple shot in front of you, which is a decent enough spread fire (and if you fire it correctly all three can hit a single target, so some nice skill involved) but the real prize here is the charged attack which just makes you straight invincible for a while and you can just run through things. You can’t attack while invincible but I mean, who cares?
32. Kit: Storm Tornado is my personal favorite weapon and there’s a reason for that. You fire a horizontal tornado which takes a second to build before launching in front of you. This is a very long stream of damage, it does damage while it’s building in front of you, and it pierces everything (meaning it’ll keep going past shields or walls). This is insanely useful. Its charge form is the same basic idea but in this case it’s vertical instead of horizontal, basically being a ‘half’ screen clear
33. Kit: Fire Wave is much more useful than it looks at first, as it’s a constant stream of damage immediately in front of you. This does damage EXTREMELY quickly (I don’t know if it’s every frame or not but it’s damned fast) and will just delete minibosses or bigger enemies, and any smaller enemies caught in it won’t be for very long. The charged shot launches a cascading fire wall which will keep going as long as the ground keeps going, which is very situational but in places with a nice long straightaway can provide bonus cover fire and do a ton of damage
34. Viscerality: I love the Audio of these attacks
35. Viscerality: I adore the Visuals of these attacks
36. Viscerality: And of course the Impact is fantastic. Very few of these attacks don’t feel as strong as they are
37. Intro: Level: The Intro stage is a very basic but very good ‘here’s how to play the game’ kind of affair. It was designed for people knew to the series and wanting to figure out some basics, and so every challenge on this level is relatively easy to deal with, designed to be avoidable with the new tech (wall kick, more on that in a sec), and encouraging you to use charged shot frequently
38. Intro: Tutorialization: Right at the beginning there’s a bit where a Bee Blader attacks you and it’s very specifically designed so that the damage it takes directly corresponds to its X Axis (ha ha), meaning it gets closer to you as you damage it. And once it’s dead it’s in the middle of the screen. This basically ‘forces’ the player more left, meaning they are unlikely to be on the right side of the screen when the ground falls out from under them. Why is this so important? Because there is NO other way out of that pit except to jump up the wall. So even a player with no manual and no prior experience will likely jump around in frustration and stumble onto the wall kick, thus tutorializing how that functionality works. This is the best example of this but notice almost every other challenge in this stage is something you can surmount if you wall kick your way out of it (like the platform jumps later on). I strongly considered giving a plus to the nature of wall kick itself since it’s SUCH a game changer in how the X games play but ultimately decided not to because first that’d mean a ton of positives to dozens of games but more importantly I think the real value of it is in how it changes level design. So I think we’ll see it expressed in stages instead
39. Level: Stages effect other stages (Storm Eagle to Spark Mandrill, Chill Penguin to Flame Mammoth)
40. Guidance: There’s some weirdly good guidance in the level design itself inclining you towards exploring where hearts, sub tanks, and armor parts are
41. Level: Chill Penguin’s stage is, as mentioned down in the negatives, pretty much the perfect intro stage. The first few jumps are deceptively well designed to get you into the mindset of doing charged shots and wall jumps, and none of them are particularly worse without the dash. This is followed by a vertical section which actually mandates the wall jump (hammering that point in) and then the big issue mentioned in the negatives (the dash boots, which you CANNOT avoid). After this we see several sections slanted downward with very smart enemy placement so dash jumps will let you arc right over them, and this is right before a ‘have fun’ segment where they just give you a Rider and let you go ham. Overall I’ve seen better stages, but this is still very well designed and does a lot right to get the player into where they need to be to play the game…
42. Level: …so consider that a double
43. Boss: Chill Penguin himself begins a trend for several X bosses; multiple attack patterns with different avoidance policies. He can blow ice (making blocks, which he will then blow towards you), shoot shots of ice (easy to dodge), dash at you (use the wall or jump over), and then grab the hook to blow everything one way. He’s nothing super special, but he’s still a solid fight
44. Level: Spark Mandrill’s stage, the power plant. This stage changes a bit if you did Storm Eagle before this, as Death Rogumer crashed into the plant, disabling some of the early electrical hazards and nerfing the Thunder Slimer miniboss. We start off with some basic but interesting navigation, which then follows into another navigation section but this time with the lights flickering on and off, forming our dominant theme of the stage. Going up and down and handling corners while avoiding well placed enemies while dealing with the lights flickering (Spark, please stop eating all the electricity)
45. Boss: So you’re probably surprised to see this guy get a boss positive considering Spark Mandrill Syndrome is named for… well. Anyways, thing is if you ever fight him legit he is a completely different fight. First he’s actually really fast (in fact it’s what he’s known for). He can smash the ground launching bolts in both directions which will track on the floors and walls. Second he’ll lunge at you to punch you in the face (this does an insane SIX damage by the way), or just slug you if you’re close. Speaking of being close he’ll also leap up to the ceiling and seemingly slowly saunter over, but when he gets over you he’ll drop pretty rapidly (also a big hit), usually following this with the aforementioned punch. He’s pretty mean… unless you stunlock him to death
46. Song: “Electromagnetic Powerplant”. This is what composers should look at when thinking about ‘good song’
47. Level: Armor Armadillo’s stage, the mine. God I love this stage. First we have the minecart which actually has physics interactions and will absolutely fling you if you’re not ready. This flings you by a segment absolutely littered with enemies for farming (best 1 up spot in the game right here), and then we have a portion where if you wait a bit the enemy clears a path for you to a power up. After this is a very smart section where the terrain is tightly designed around navigating through it while the enemies have the advantage, a bit of a breather segment, ANOTHER mine cart section, and then the inverse of the earlier portion where if you wait for the enemy you’ll lose access to the power up. This is followed by the best minecart section of them all, with lots of hops and enemies and multiple methods to deal with the barrage…
48. Level: …a very solid stage
49. Song: “Energy Mine Ruins”. This is my favorite song in the game for a reason. It is an absolute bop, great for dancing, and really gets across the… ENERGY of the mine…
50. Song: …buwahaha
51. Level: Launch Octopus’s stage starts off with some great tutorialization and escalation; Here’s how water physics works, here’s your enemy types, and here’s some spikes. The early spikes are easy to dodge, the first fight with Anglerge is easy, the second one has harder to dodge spikes and is not. We then end up fighting a Cruiziler which is flinging depth charges but you can destroy it, opening the way to one of the Utuboros fights (and getting a heart power up). After this is the actual mandatory Utuboros fight, a couple of stall fish, and we’re at the boss
52. Boss: I rather like this fight. So he’s actually two fights. First if you don’t cut off his arms he’ll shoot homing missiles at you, periodically shoot the bigger and deadlier homing missiles, and then do this spinning suction attack which (if it grabs you) he’ll drain you with his arms. If you DO cut off his arms he’ll just stand there missile spamming you, which disables some of his attacks obviously but means now you have to deal with nonstop bombardment
53. Level: Boomer Kuwanger’s stage is all in on the verticality, but thanks to the wall climbing isn’t nearly as slow or arduous as that’d imply. We start off with some basic but smart enemy placement which you have to plan your jumps and attacks around, followed by a laser sequence you can avoid or endure, followed by a quick breather section with some Mega Tortoises before having to do an elevator segment with everyone’s favorite instant death spikes. This is followed by a fascinating external segment where the platforms that will be shooting at you provide the way forward (or upward, I guess), some interesting helicopter pads which behave differently once you defeat the enemies, and we’re done. Very dense and very tight and honestly one of the harder stages…
54. Level: …but in a good way
55. Boss: Kuwanger himself is another boss in the standard X vein. He’ll fling his boomerang at you (and it homes, and returns, so dodging it twice is a thing) and will dash at you attempting to grab you. If he DOES grab you he’ll fling you and it will hurt like HELL. He also likes to teleport around when low on health which will also lead to a grab. And for reference his weakness can hit him even when he’s in mid teleport. I would say this fight is a bit meaner than some…
56. Boss: …in a good way. He rewards staying on your toes
57. Song: “Fortress Tower”. This is my other favorite song. There’s such a determination and satisfaction in this…
58. Song: …of course it’s a double
59. Level: Sting Chameleon’s stage starts us off with some basic platforming to get us in the zone followed by TWO power ups (one up, one down). Down has a few ways to get it and all are tricky (unless you do Launch Octopus’ stage first, hah) and up leads to the RT-55J fight (which is totally Auto, change my mind) blocking arguably the most useful upgrade in the game (enjoy taking half damage). After this a few pay attention checks with falling enemies (and blocks if you didn’t do the miniboss), a brief climb, and a micro Hyperbeam Moment where you get a Rider and can go nuts across the marsh mashing a bunch of enemy Riders
60. Boss: Sting Chameleon is another victim of Spark Mandrill Syndrome. Which is a shame because if you DON’T use his weakness he’s pretty mean. He’ll grab the wall and fling spread shots at you, go invisible (which means intangible, you can’t hit him), and occasionally grab the ceiling and just shake, making damaging spikes fall everywhere. He’ll also land and hit you with his tongue periodically. Or you can, y’know, just hit him with the Cutter and obliterate him in seconds
61. Level: Storm Eagle’s stage, the airport. We start off simple, here’s some moving platforms with a few enemies over a pit. This turns into what looks like a breather section but some of that Guidance I mentioned earlier kicks in and makes us wonder what’s up (it’s a sub tank). After this we see what is probably the main theme of the stage; Dual block platforms with enemies on them over pits. Defeat (or endure) the enemy, jump to the next segment. There’s a break where we can get the helmet (pretty well indicated), fight a few enemies for recovery, and then one last leap section to reach the Death Rogumer
62. Boss: Storm Eagle is deceptively simple. His ‘main’ attack is wasting your time (speedrunner joke). Nah he’ll flap his wings to fling you off, shoot his main weapon which will ALSO shove you off, hover into the air to toss up bird drones which home on you, and fly off screen to do dashing attacks on you. He can do these as often as he likes and it’s pretty random. What I like about him over some of the other bosses is everything he does includes the option to still attack him, even with basic buster. It’ll hit him when he’s at max height, he can be hit while diving, and you can attack while pushing against his two ‘go away’ attacks. This means the fight tends to be pretty short and more intense than some of the others. He also doesn’t suffer from Spark Mandrill Syndrome, which is nice…
63. Boss: …so enjoy that double
64. Song: “Newtype Airport”. I believe this is most people’s favorites, and it’s an awesome song. The excellent low distorted guitar and the complimentary strings just nail it
65. Level: So the weapons factory, Flame Mammoth’s stage, is a weird one in that it plays substantially differently depending on if you did Chill Penguin first or not. If you did not most of the ‘lower’ areas are totally inaccessible due to being flowing magma rivers of instant death, which also means the majority of the level themes are about moving conveyor belts, dropped enemies and debris (and stampers), and enemies shooting at you interrupting arcs. This is especially true in the large warehouse area (the one with the sub tank) where the hammer bros style enemies harass you in all directions as you navigate the platforms, and of course the second conveyor section. If you do this while it’s iced it’s substantially easier considering you have so much safety in being able to fall without instant death (also makes getting the heart much easier)
66. Boss: Armor Armadillo is pretty vanilla. He’ll bounce around at angles but only for a random amount of time. He’ll shoot a very slow moving shot at you. And that’s… kind of it. Meanwhile Flame Mammoth is… fine. He flings a glob at you which can root you, shoots flame (which can ignite the glob), and jumps at you doing a stun. He’ll also reverse the direction of the conveyor belt periodically which does effectively nothing. He’s… kind of a nothing burger.
67. Level: Sigma 1 starts off with a breather section, which is good because right after that is the platforms from hell (which REALLY encourages you to use your Kit to deal with the respawning enemies, this is one of the worst screens in the game for the Ninja Gaiden Respawn problem), followed by a tight corridor flooded with enemies before we hit the Vile fight. Vile is functionally a miniboss (I swear the only reason he got popular is the helmet, same as Boba Fett now that I think about it) but he’s a decent fight. After this we have a short but intense escalation of the bouncing pad plus laser segments from previous stages followed by a vertical climb from hell (again, use those weapons) and finally a breather segment against basic enemies before the spider
68. Boss: I hemmed and hawed about this one for a bit. This is a properly difficult fight but it’s also incredibly mean. It gets faster the lower its health is, to the point where it takes only FRAMES to reach the bottom, so the player really needs to either endure properly (there IS an entire recovery corridor right before it) or be very quick at figuring out where it’s going to go
69. Level: Sigma 2 opens with a breather section and some moving platforms over a pit, and our second refight (y’know I DO like how they spread the refights out instead of making them all one room). This is followed by another Rider hyperbeam segment, which is a good break because right after that is an absolutely brutal vertical segment with enemies perfectly designed to destroy your ability to function, followed by a refight with Storm Eagle. This is followed by ANOTHER vertical segment (lot of those in X1) which isn’t quite as mean as the last one but it’s pretty bad, but that’s okay because now it’s boss time
70. Boss: Rangda Bangda is very typical of Sigma bosses; mean and unforgiving. In a stage all about verticality and using the wall climb you literally have to or you will die instantly. What keeps this from being a negative? First, nice big vuln phases. Second, he’s weak to multiple weapons (including just the plain old charge buster). Third, each piece actually has pretty low health, reducing aggravation
71. Boss: D-Rex is yet another in the line of brutally mean Sigma bosses. First of all almost everything he does hits like a truck. He can charge you, which you can dodge via going through or around. If you’re ever in between his two parts he’ll try to crush you (this does TEN damage). And he can shoot a giant electric sphere at you which requires prep to avoid. He also likes to move his two pieces independently, meaning the further into the fight you get the more offset he tends to get
72. Outro: Boss: Velguarder is an interesting example of a health tax fight. He’s basically there to lower your health before the final boss, since he has astonishingly little health himself (even without hadoken or his weak point you can kill him in seconds), but he has a dash, the same triangle jump Sigma will later have, and can shoot a low arc of flame or a high arc of lightning. Which just leaves Sigma. Sigma’s first form is honestly just Velguarder 2. He’ll slash at you (which does a bonkers 14 damage), do his triangle kick if you’re on the wall, or shoot easy to dodge projectiles from his head. His SECOND form, which is formally known as Wolf Sigma, is interesting in how slow paced it is for how much he friggin’ hurts. None of his attacks do less than 8 damage. His hands can hit you, his hands can also do a lightning bolt, he can also shoot the ground, and he can sweep a flamethrower, He’s also only vulnerable on his head which is the real problem as you basically need to use his hands to get up there. This fight rewards patience (or blitzing if you know what you’re doing). All three of these are decent enough to qualify for a decent last boss sequence
73. Replayability: Absolutely. There’s a reason I speedrun this game

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Encounter Rate: Sadly the Ninja Gaiden respawns ARE here and there’s a few specific spots where it’s especially irritating
2. Guidance: The game has a clear ‘intended’ order (Chill Penguin first) and the rest of the game is honestly awful without the dash, and the bosses are pretty mean without power ups (which require dash). Chill Penguin is so obviously supposed to be the first stage, in terms of level (lots of tutorialization) and boss (easily the boss most weak to buster) that it really should be more indicated that it should be first (or just mandated to be… or do what the later X games do and give you dash at the start)
3. Padding: I almost didn’t give this negative for how relatively clever they were about it.. until Sigma 3 which is just a bunch of boss refights. Plus they’re still, y’know, refights

Story Positives:

1. Background Lore: The museum, same as the last game. Some interesting tidbits here (like Bubble Crab being in this just for the money, or Ostrich being someone who flubbed out of the Hunters due to an accident)
2. Intro: Poor Green Biker Dude. Never forget. Okay in all seriousness I do like how all of this is framed. In the first game X was a rookie who just volunteered to help and was no where on the level of Vile or Zero. Now he’s leading the Maverik Hunters and doing what they assume are clean up operations on suspected Maverick bases. And while it’s a small point, there’s a noticeable bit of storytelling here. The boss of the intro stage in X1 was Vile in an Armor, and he was undefeatable. Here it’s this COLOSSAL mech which we effortlessly blow away. All of this conveys how far X personally has come
3. Spritework: X has excellent sprites, especially considering they have to take into account his armors…
4. Spritework: …so that’s a solid…
5. Spritework: …triple
6. Spritework: Excellent bosses and boss designs naturally…
7. Spritework: …for an easy…
8. Spritework: …triple
9. Spritework: Fantastic enemy design throughout, as per the usual for the series
10. Architecture: Honestly X2 is a bit better than X1 in this regard, but not quite enough for a double. Either way the desert base, weather control facility, and the STUPIDLY enormous dinosaur tank (seriously, what the hell?) all qualify
11. Brickwork: Wire Sponge’s stage is a fascinating facility. A weather control plant that’s almost entirely indoors and more machine than foliage, with pumps and tubes pushing water where it needs to go and tree sprouts reaching for an artificial sun, and the way they dovetail wires and vines together is lovely
12. Brickwork: Wheel Gator’s stage is a giant, alligator shaped tank moving through the city. I almost feel bad adding anything to that, but the interior is nicely military coded, with solid cobalt blue highlights, big thick bolts of doom, plenty of munitions and other similar indicators, plus the Ride Armors they have in store for the invasion of the city below
13. Brickwork: Bubble Crab’s stage starts us off with a gorgeous view of a sunset (which we immediately leave behind as we descend into the depths). Still great looking ocean floor in the background, and you really get the impression of how far DOWN this sucker goes compared to previous stations… at which point you see the underwater cities. Why are those cities there? Is this luxury, need for additional real estate? Do some people just want underwater homes? I love the background worldbuilding of these games
14. Brickwork: Flame Stag’s stage. I love how this doesn’t just look like ‘mountain’ but a particularly grizzly form of almost western mountain, complete with rolling hills in the background and pillars falling into the earth. This is doubly weird considering this place is an active volcano (complete with geothermal reactors!)
15. Brickwork: Morph Moth’s stage, the junk yard and processing facility. Giant piles of junk, magnets transporting trash, processing facilities, half broken containment tubes, it’s all solid stuff
16. Brickwork: Magna Centipede’s stage starts off with the computer the bad guys were using plus a nice shot of the city. Further in we see what looks like a security facility, with plenty of defenses and traps all over, plus banks of computers analyzing X
17. Brickwork: Crystal Snail’s stage is just gorgeous. Rough hewn crystal rocks surrounding sharply carved gemstones, with clear signs of railway and other transportation in the background, making it clear this place exports en masse
18. Brickwork: Overdrive Ostrich’s stage starts out on a highway in the desert, but the interiors where we start to see the rest of the base, plus the garages for all the Riders, and the clear military facilities further in. Considering this is a missile base that tracks… Speaking of, I love the brief ‘cutscene’ as the missile fires and we blast it as it’s taking off, leaving us to plummet into the boss fight
19. Visual Continuity: As with the first game, the presence of the Map showing each stage in relation to each other on the island is a great touch. (I always liked the idea that this particular game occurs in the UK due to the nature of it, no real reason why)
20. Brickwork: The X-Hunter Stage 1 is clearly in some polar frozen north (we saw as much in the intro… again, more shades of the other island being the UK) with glaciers visible in the distance, and lovely frost forming periodically on the interiors and near the vents

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Itemization: Placements are solid throughout…
2. Itemization: …and drops, which are even better
3. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits
4. Controls: Absolutely phenomenal controls, good placement and utilization of the shoulder buttons, incredibly precise, and of course rebindable…
5. Controls: …gold standard…
6. Controls: …of how these games should control
7. QoL: L and R and Exit. As I mentioned back when it was added to the classic series, being able to swap weapons on the fly is a game changer, and the ability to just Exit a stage when done is so nice for grabbing pieces you missed, refilling, or just replaying stages
8. Power Progression Curve: Pretty standard for the franchise
9. Music: Thanks to the absence of the same quality of sound design the music just doesn’t hit quite the same as the first game. It’s still good, don’t mistake me, but short loops and generic soundfont limit it
10. Sound: Sound design is excellent of course, lots of good freedback
11. Enemy Design: Not quite as good of design as last time, but still very solid designs here
12. Enemy Variety: And of course those enemies have great variety in how they operate, how you fight them, and how you avoid them…
13. Enemy Variety: …for a solid double
14. Visual Distinction: Excellent visual distinction as was per the usual for this era…
15. Visual Distinction: …for a solid double
16. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual Megaman standard of quality here, and usually pretty smartly placed too
17. Kit: So since this is the first time these came into existence let’s talk about what insanely good design sub tanks really are. Seriously I wish I could give more than one positive for the existence of these things and even as of typing this I’m debating doing so. So it’s an optional power up that just sits there in the background and as you fill up excess health (as in any health when you’re already at max health) instead of going into the aether it dumps into one of the tanks. Then you can use a tank to dump however much health it has stored into you. Note that you do not need to fill a tank to max to use it, you can use it whenever. This is an awesome recovery mechanic that rewards players with avoiding taking damage and makes a lot of health pick ups way more useful while also giving them a granular healing source and screw it…
18. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
19. Kit: So hey, armor. I think someone got the memo that the X1 armor pieces kind of sucked so they’re dialed up a little bit here. The helmet reduces weapon energy cost by half (worth the price of admission by itself) but also gives a little indicator to help find secrets. The armor gives you the ability to take damage (woo) and charge up a super shot, the Giga Crush, which is a screen sweeper that does a ton of damage. The weapon lets you charge your buster up even more, leading to a double big shot (which is great) but also the all important weapon charging. And finally the boots let you do a mid air dash which… is of limited utility I’ll admit, but there’s a few situations where it’s nice, and it combined nicely with a charged Speed Burner. Either way definitely better than last time…
20. Kit: …and worthy of a double
21. Kit: Strike Chain, our first real weapon, is crazy good. As a weapon it’s seemingly pretty bleh, all it does is grab enemies or items from a little bit away and that’s it. Thing is… this can be used on WALLS too. And all of the sudden the skill ceiling just exploded. There’s a more or less constant incline of how many more uses this weapon has the better at the game you are, from just playing it for fun to doing WR attempts. The charged version is SEEMINGLY weak (it’s just a longer chain) but… if you destroy an enemy with it it guarantees a weapon energy drop
22. Kit: Spin Wheel is one of the best grounded weapons we’ve seen for one simple reason. Most ground weapons terminate the moment they hit any interruption in terrain. The wheel will keep going as long as it’s just one tile up or down, meaning they get a lot more mileage than usual. The charged attack, meanwhile, is basically just a nice big spread fire AOE, but it’s nice. Bubble Splash is weird in that it feels like it should be a situational weapon but there’s kind of no real situations. It shoots bubbles (up to seven at a time) out which then float up (faster in water) and that’s kind of… it. By contrast the charged attack is WAY better, creating a bubble shield which drains energy constantly but does constant damage to everything around X (and increases your jump height underwater)
23. Kit: Speed Burner is a straight shot (which also leaves a trail if you’re on the ground at the time). This is basically a buster ‘upgrade’, though as usual the charge is the real star here. It lets you do a flame dash which is longer than a regular dash and can be used mid air (even if you’ve already done an air dash) giving you some serious aerial options. Silk Shot flings a chunk of scrap (nice touch, it varies based on your location) which explodes in a short range AOE. That’s it, it’s pretty basic. As is quickly becoming clear, the charge ability is where it’s at, as it serves as a vacuum for wherever you are, dragging a ton of junk into one big hit… OR… dragging in pickups, lives, and other bonuses. Honestly I’d say this weapon is barely worth using offensively but it’s critical for getting pickups (and each area where you can use it for bonuses is pretty well marked too)
24. Kit: Magnet Mine is weird. You can fire it and control whether it drifts up or down as it goes. It’ll stick to things and explode after a bit (or immediately on an enemy). As usual the charged attack is way better, launching a frickin’ black hole which drags things into it, growing larger the more things it absorbs. It can ALSO be guided up or down and passes through terrain. Sonic Slicer is like an upgraded Kuwanger shot . These will bounce off things and will do so several times before finally blipping out, and can lead to some good coverage if fired carefully. The charged version turns into a screen sweeper
25. Kit: Crystal Hunter is the inspiration for the later Concrete Shot in Megaman 9. It’ll encase smaller enemies in a crystal globe which you can then use as a platform, as well as destroy with a dash or wall kick. Also similar to the above charged Strike Chain these enemies will always drop weapon energy. The charged shot? A friggin’ time slow. Good lord
26. Viscerality: Honestly some lacking Viscerality this time around. Still good visuals though
27. Intro: Level: While not much, the Intro does its job. Here’s enemies, here’s platforms, here’s a few interactions, here’s a boss designed to be obliterated by charged shots
28. Prime Opt: Yes that’s right, there’s optional content in X2 (this will be a trend going forwards). You can go after the X Hunters in their respective stages for a fight. Doing so and winning results in getting one of the Zero parts which changes the ending and part of the final boss volley. It’s fully optional (and can get in the way) but it’s a nice side thing
29. Guidance: There’s some weirdly good guidance in the level design itself inclining you towards exploring where hearts, sub tanks, and armor parts are. And that’s before taking into account the Helm (which, if I’m being honest, is kind of required for some pieces)
30. Level: Wire Sponge. Let me start by saying hiding the Heart piece RIGHT there is a dick move (the helmet fixes this though). First section is an extended ‘explore and pick your path’ climbing section, followed almost immediately by spikes and increasingly narrow jumps over said spikes. And can I just say how nice it is that we START with dash in this game?
31. Boss: Wire Sponge is a weirdly good boss for being the nearly universal ‘first boss’ of X2. He moves around slowly but has big sweeping hurtboxes that’ll hit large areas, climbing up into the air, launching his seeds (which provide area denial), his vine attack of course, and his lightning strikes when he gets mad
32. Level: Wheel Gator is another short but sweet level (actually all the X2 levels are pretty short… not a bad thing). Anywho. We start off with some simple enemy placement (along with some guidance to the buster upgrade), followed almost immediately by switch platforms over spikes, enemies that attack at range, and a hyperbeam section with a Ride Armor. After this is Speedrunner’s Hell (waiting on an elevator), followed by a SECOND elevator segment where you have to deal with enemies at the same time, then a breather segment to refill right before the boss
33. Level: Bubble Crab’s stage starts off with some light enemy spam before diving (do you get it?!) into the main gimmick, the extended Sea Canthller fight which is supposed to stretch across portions of the level. It’ll scan, attack with a laser if it detects you, and otherwise just be a nuisance. This is basically the entire stage, not much else to add to it, though I do appreciate how if you kill it early (which you can totally do) you can just chill the rest of the stage
34. Boss: Bubble Crab can raise and lower the water level changing the jumping arcs of the arena. He’ll attack straight up, do arcing bubbles towards you, summon adds which will pop and then home in on the player, and then fling tons of crabs across the arena
35. Level: Flame Stag’s stage starts off with sharp jumps, immediately conveying the theme of the level. Sure enough our first major challenge is a timed vertical climb with lava chasing you, followed by more two platform jumps across a pit, (possibly a miniboss with one of the X-Hunters), and then a MUCH meaner (and funner) vertical climb segment where there’s this clever thing; Periodically there’s gas vents leaking out into the area, and there are flame enemies hopping around who can and will ignite those, making the climb much harder. But with speed (or damage) you can bypass this issue. I’d say this is our first…
36. Level: …double positive stage
37. Boss: Stag is one of those simple but solid fights. He’ll hop up and down between the walls, punch at you, fling flames, or lunge at you. This makes for a fast paced and very melee centric fight
38. Level: Morph Moth’s stage. The magnetic gimmick changing jump arcs, the enemies caught in the blast still fighting you as they’re actively being scrapped… I love the first miniboss (Paranoid S-38) which is actually just a little parasite that inhabits nearby junk bodies to fight you with (this is also shown in the stage with other Paranoid enemies that will inhabit YOU and screw with your controls). After this we have an extended magnet section, complete with death spikes, a huge magnetic segment with junk and Paranoids everywhere, ANOTHER miniboss fight (same one), and a recovery corridor before the boss
39. Boss: Morph Moth himself is such a weird fight. He’s more of a fight (and arguably harder) in his first form, when he swings around flinging scrap around, dashes around (invuln) while grabbing scrap, or absorbs scrap from the area while hitting you. When he moths up all he does is hit you with a laser, sprinkle dust, or try to hit you (and his contact damage is an insane 8 damage)
40. Level: Magna Centipede’s stage starts off with its gimmick; stealth sections. No hear me out they’re not bad. There’s lights that scan around and if you hit them you enter ‘alert’ state which activates more of the level to deal with. We follow this with a brief fight against the Super FX Chip, then another much funner stealth segment, then a race against falling blocks because the developers had just played Zelda 2. After this is ANOTHER miniboss, followed by a chase sequence where the alarm goes off one way or the other and you’re just mad dashing to the end
41. Boss: Magna Centipede has some weird attacks. He’ll stand there sending his tail pieces to orbit you and do damage to you (which you can actually disable with Silk Shot), arcing shurikens, and a unique mechanic. He’ll magnet you to his tail (again, he can’t do this if you Silk Shot his tail away) and inject you with a virus. Each injection disables another functionality; Charged shots, the rapid fire, dash distance, and jump height in that order. This stays until the end of the fight (or he’s Silk’d). Fun little fight
42. Level: Crystal Snail’s stage starts off with our primary gimmick; sliding terrain. It’s difficult to go back up these as it’s designed to force you downwards, and this applies to objects too as the next thing we see is a giant carved gemstone coming right our way. For this first interaction we’re given plenty of time to react, which is good because after the miniboss we have a harder segment where we’re being chased by one of the aforementioned segments. This then leads to something kind of clever; We have to proceed past another corridor like this but at the END is where the gemstone is, which is then activated and starts lunging at us, requiring us to then immediately and much more quickly backtrack
43. Boss: Crystal Snail once again has one of those things where you can actually neuter him (in this case use the Magna attack to remove his shell), but if you don’t… He has the same root / trapping attack he gives, he can lunge into you for decent damage, and he can slow time temporarily (only for you, of course)
44. Level: Overdrive Ostrich’s stage has a pretty major flaw I’ll mention later but aside from that it is fun to have what is essentially an entire level dedicated to the Rider (hope you like those in later games, hah!). Smart placement of enemies, ramps, and pits makes the whole thing reasonably fun with one noteworthye xception
45. Boss: A deceptively difficult boss, Overdrive Ostrich will lunge at you (which will also send you flying), skip towards you (also sends you flying), requiring you to either jump over or dash under depending. He’ll use a basic attack, a ‘from the sky’ quad attack, or leap from the background to the foreground
46. Level: X-Hunter 1. We start off with a giant descent into staggered enemy emplacements, followed by going right back up with those guys who smash the walls in on you (you can defeat them to bypass this of course). This is followed by ANOTHER vertical section (two, actually) where the enemies are perfectly designed to screw with you. A very tight, dense, and properly mean stage
47. Level: X-Hunter 2 now involves a lot more tight corridors, deadly spikes, having to hang onto vertical platforms while navigating said spikes, and insane enemy placement. This stage is so short but that’s absolutely a good thing because it is balls hard for while it’s here
48. Level: X-Hunter 3 once again opens us up with enemy spam (let’s be honest, this is a recover corridor) followed by this new gimmick where you’re supposed to use the switch platforms to slowly navigate your way through increasingly intense and difficult platforming which is SUPPOSED to be impossible to do without but, I mean… you know. Anyways this stage relies a bit much on instant death spikes but I’m still with it more than not. Better than a refight spammer like back in 1
49. Boss: Holee crap, an X-Hunter fight that doesn’t suck. Agile is pretty mean, he’s got instant death spikes everywhere, but you can dodge the ones coming from above (and they provide more space to navigate safely). He can also fire missiles at you and just straight up ram you
50. Outro: Boss: Neo Sigma is actually pretty legit of a fight. He’ll lunge, grab, fling, teleport, shoot, and do a big ol’ shot. Each of these requires different avoidance, and he doesn’t have too much health so you push through him relatively quickly. I know the Sigma Virus fight is after this but it’s kind of simple; He only attacks down (so get over him), summons some lowbie enemies, or does an unavoidable attack designed to give the fight a slow enrage
51. Replayability: Y’know, thanks to what is effectively coincidence (and a mother who hated video games) I skipped over X 2 as a teenager. That’s a damned shame because this is honestly a really solid game and (obviously) replayable

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden respawns, though not as bad as the last game
2. Boss: Wheel Gator should be a cool fight but similar to an issue we’ve had before back in Megaman 4 he is entirely too random and can spend WAY too much time submerged (which functions as an invulnerability phase). This is doubly frustrating since his bite attack (when he lunges out of the water) will absolutely murder you if he gets you with it
3. Boss: All the initial X-Hunter fights share the same sin; They have too much health, especially for how simple their patterns are. Violen just flings his ball around and does a basic spread shot, Serges jumps and does a spread shot, and Agile pretends he’s Sigma from the first game. These should be one and dones not health sponges
4. Level: There’s one big flaw of Overdrive Ostrich’s stage; You can get going sufficiently fast (and the game encourages you to) that you can’t reasonably react to what’s coming, and there’s tons of ways to instant death or just take damage everywhere. And the stage just isn’t as fun if you’re not zooming along
5. Boss: I have always hated the Serges Tank fight. He has several attacks which can hit quite a wide range of an area and you have to destroy his wall before you can even damage him but what really makes me hate this is the fact that you fight him over instant death spikes. Come on Bob
6. Padding: Boss refights woOOoo. I have to comment on how they dumped an entire… I guess SNOW field instead of desert field out here in this mostly underwater ice base just for Overdrive Ostrich to run around in

Story Positives:

1. Background Lore: The museum, same as the last two games. Honestly not as cool of background stuff, but there’s still some tidbits
2. Intro: Decent for what it is. Doppler invented an anti virus, spread it, and now there’s a Maverick outbreak (go figure). We defend against an attack on the Maverick Hunter HQ, get a nice showcasing of Zero and X’s new dynamic (more on that in gameplay), and then counterattack against Doppler himself. And if not for one niggle I’d say this is a solid plot arc
3. Spritework: X has excellent sprites, especially considering they have to take into account his armors…
4. Spritework: …so that’s a solid…
5. Spritework: …triple
6. Spritework: Zero is playable this time around, and has a pretty solid sprite sheet all to himself
7. Spritework: Excellent bosses and boss designs naturally…
8. Spritework: …for an easy…
9. Spritework: …triple
10. Spritework: Fantastic enemy design throughout, as per the usual for the series
11. Architecture: Really lovely stuff this time around. The airbase, the docks, the base, great stuff
12. Brickwork: The Maverick Hunter HQ is pretty solid visually speaking. We see the cityscape in the distance, the jets and hangers inside, a mission map, consoles, all kinds of neat stuff. Plus the added touch of half the terrain being damage due to the attack
13. Brickwork: Toxic Seahorse’s stage is so cool. We start off with the obvious sewers, even pumping green gloop, but not too far on we start to see the water processing facilities. And there’s little details, like catwalks and safety railings for people to maintain the structure. When we go underwater we see these strange almost alien facilities, which look like they’re drawing water down and in for distribution or cleansing, and of course the dam itself in the distance providing power
14. Brickwork: Tunnel Rhino’s stage continues the trend. Great detailing in the background; Underwater rivers and lakes, mining equipment and supports, glowing crystal modules, there’s some solid stuff here
15. Brickwork: Giant electric cases, tons of wires and cables, a cityscape in the distance, and then we get further in and we see the guts of the plant… and this is the best part. This place pulses slowly with powerful jolts of electricity, with giant batteries and broken cases
16. Brickwork: Crush Crawfish’s ship docks are great. At first it’s just cranes and sky but if you go through it a bit more you start to see berths, support struts, the rest of the dockyards in the distance terminating in the ocean, and of course the fleet of submarines (one of which you board, leading to a totally different interior with plenty of nautical looking reactors, pumps, and general aesthetics). And as a final neat touch once you sink the submarine you’re in you can see the ocean floor out the windows
17. Brickwork: Oh hey, it’s Vile’s stage! I wasn’t going to mention this but going back through it I actually think the visuals here do a great job of conveying what this is; A run-down, barely functioning factory which was probably abandoned years ago. Even the tech here looks lower tech than the X series standard, and there’s dangling chains and gobs of rust and mold stretching everywhere. Not to mention the partially broken walls and floors, and what was probably a reactor core at some point in its life
18. Brickwork: Neon Tiger’s stage is gorgeous. Underbrush in the foreground, treeborgs connected to vines and bushes in the background, and a canopy extending into the setting sun in the distance. This is on top of the foreground elements giving the ‘nature preserve’ vibes (I especially like the broken fences and netting) We also see entire underground power plants which are so overgrown they have roots digging through the cracks in the metal plates while the generator hums in the distance. Love it…
19. Brickwork: …double
20. Brickwork: Gravity Beetle’s stage… okay imagine Storm Eagle’s stage, but actually good looking instead of a bunch of clouds. We see sunset on (very detailed) airport, massive stockpiles of missiles and weaponry, conn towers extending in the distance, piles of crates of supplies and goods, and then we board some massive aircraft and take off, seeing the corridors and troops as we go. Love it
21. Brickwork: Blast Hornet is yet another ‘military warehouse’ but I dunno, something about the way they do this really gels with me. The helicopters in their bays, the hexagon fences, the brutalist architecture, the craggy desert surrounded by broken down garage bays, the gunmetal grey accents, the conveyor belts carrying cargo to and fro, the giant stacks of crates
22. Brickwork: Blizzard Buffalo’s stage is pretty cool. What I especially like (in addition to the obvious ‘frozen over’ aspects, like the street lights, the highway railings, the bridge in the distance) is it’s obvious this city wasn’t SUPPOSED to be frozen, like this is a recent event. We even see this in some of the collapsed structures throughout, as well as the buildings in the distance. And that’s before you hit the entire underground segment where you can clearly see the city’s power and sewage infrastructure, and after that a nice jaunt across the damaged highway you could see in the beginning, and of course it starts snowing…
23. Brickwork: …really good stuff
24. Visual Continuity: Make fun if you must but as usual I like the added context of the map. We see the dam providing power, the port right next to a warehouse and the airport, a jungle preserve, and the power plant by the (now frozen) city
25. Visual Storytelling: Normally I’d put this under Brickwork but I love the quiet story the gigantic piles of dismembered reploids tell in the background of Point D (the final stages). We know Doppler invited thousands of reploids to join him in Doppler Town, and we know he’s been using bits and pieces from lots of different bots to make Sigma’s new battle body, and then we see that gigantic corpse pile. (Doppler even later threatens us with ‘tearing us apart’) And good lord
26. Brickwork: The brickwork is good here too. We see testing facilities, test tubes, and conveyors in the background. In Doppler 2 we see some kind of roiling storm brewing in the distance through the windows. Finally we see several Sigma bodies in test tubes in the backgrounds of Doppler 4, and considering he has bodies for the next 4 games ready to go you get the strong impression that all of those were built here and now by Doppler
27. Plot: Speaking of which I know this is going to sound wild but I actually quite like the plot of X3. The idea is that after the events of X1 and X2 Sigma decided he needed better bodies to house his true self (which, as established back in X2, is a virus). So he finds a renowned Reploid scientist, Dr. Doppler, who is experimenting with a city made by reploids for reploids and takes him over, then has Doppler send out invitations worldwide for reploids to live in peace there. These reploids are then fed into the thresher and churned into parts, data, or raw materials for building Sigma’s new bodies. It’s REALLY horrible if you think about it, especially considering Sigma’s stated goal of a reploid utopia

Story Negatives:

1. Intro: Cutscene Incompetence: I know he was caught by surprise but the SHOCKING ease by which X is captured at the beginning is silly. If it’s this easy you’d think he’d be captured more often than Princess Peach
2. Characters: Bit, Byte, Mac, and Doppler are all basically cameo characters and that’s starting a trend; An increasingly large cast, WITH lines of dialogue, who are bad characters. Also you’ll notice Sigma has nose dived in quality pretty fast (that’s never getting better)
3. Outro: I have to comment on this. I already gave this a negative to gameplay but look at Kaiser Sigma. Please remember the ENTIRE main plot of this game is that Sigma has been using Doppler to churn THOUSANDS of reploids into making this thing. And it’s like… it’s this barely moving slug. And when I say barely moving I mean the thing isn’t even animated. At least in, say, X5 his super battle body is only half finished but what is this weirdness? It’s deflating
4. Outro: Fake drama (and never really paid off, yes I remember X5 I stand by my statement). Also, Dr. Light’s PLAN for him? His DESTINY? Gimme a break

Gameplay Positives:

1. Itemization: Placements of items and power ups are some of the only level design IN this game so take it for what it’s worth…
2. Itemization: …and drops are pretty well designed as usual too
3. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits
4. Controls: Absolutely phenomenal controls, good placement and utilization of the shoulder buttons, incredibly precise, and of course rebindable…
5. Controls: …gold standard…
6. Controls: …of how these games should control
7. QoL: L and R and Exit. As I mentioned back when it was added to the classic series, being able to swap weapons on the fly is a game changer, and the ability to just Exit a stage when done is so nice for grabbing pieces you missed, refilling, or just replaying stages
8. Power Progression Curve: Pretty standard for the franchise
9. Core Mechanic: So X3 has this interesting feature where you can swap to Zero once per stage. He functions as an additional health bar, has his own upgraded Buster, and can absolutely obliterate things with his saber. He can’t fight bosses (there’s an asterisk here) and will automatically bail if you summon him before a boss room, which means you can kinda waste it if you use it at a weird time. And as an aside if you do some Walkthroughy crap you can get Zero damaged sufficiently that he gives YOU his saber, meaning you now have a weapon that can one shot basically anything left in the game
10. Music: It’s such a different vibe to the rest of the series, what I’d consider this kind of deep guitar grunge sound. I really dig it though, much more so than the previous game…
11. Music: …so consider that a double
12. Sound: Yes there’s still pretty good feedback and audio design
13. Visual Distinction: For the other issues it has, the game is still the standard of visual quality you’d expect from SNES era Megaman…
14. Visual Distinction: …and is still a solid double
15. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual Megaman standard of quality here, and usually pretty smartly placed too
16. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
17. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
18. Kit: So there’s a niggle with armor this time around in the form of chips, which we’ll discuss in a bit. So the boots give you the ability to dash in the air (including directly up). The armor reduces damage by half and generates a force shield when hit, giving further reduction while it’s up. The buster lets you charge up four times, do tons of big doomy attacks, climb ladders faster, and of course charge weapons. The helmet gives you the item radar which gives you a map when you enter a stage which highlights where items are, adds indicators on the map screen, and reduces the cost of weapons. All of this is already legit
19. Kit: Then there’s chips. There are four chips throughout the stages which give you a permanent upgrade, but you can only select one. These are; Foot Chip, which lets you air dash twice. Body Chip, which gives even more damage reduction. Arm Chip, which gives you unlimited charge shots as long as you still have weapon energy. And Head Chip which regenerates health while you stand still (and yes this fills sub tanks). This is some nice customization, but there’s one last thing. See, if you pick NONE of these chips and do a side thing in Doppler 1 you can get the Hyper Chip which has all of these benefits combined (plus makes your health regen faster and Hyper Charge is cheaper). This is an interesting tradeoff because obviously this is just flat superior but it’s also only accessible in the final stages, so there’s no real ‘right’ answer here
20. Kit: Acid Burst is a very short range but damaging spread shot, doing a glob that splatters and can be aimed. The charged shot is more interesting, it fires two globs but the big thing is they actually keep bouncing and will home in on enemies. Tornado Fang is similar in some ways to the later Frost Shield in that you launch a missile and it hovers there a moment before launching forwards. You can launch up to three at a time and unlike the frost attack these will keep drilling into an enemy, doing damage each tick, before being destroyed (or destroying their target). These can also destroy certain bits of terrain. The charged attack here is weird; it just makes you have a drill you hold forwards, which can do damage rapidly but has SO much shorter range than (say) the flamethrower in X1 AND it requires a charge that it’s not very useful. Frost Shield is such a weird attack. You launch a little drone which hovers there for a little bit before turning into an icicle and launching forwards. Upon hitting something it’ll land on the floor and become a little ice mine. The whole thing’s bigger underwater (for how often that matters) too. If you do charge it makes a small shield spike… thing which you can then launch to become a ground seeker weapon, or use underwater to create a platform you can jump on
21. Kit: Triad Thunder is one of those Metal Blade style weapons. It summons three shots around you which arc in a pseudo shield formation, doing damage there, but then also fires off in three directions, hitting things at range. Further each time you fire it inverts them, letting you have a very effective AOE attack. The charged shot punches the ground (so, ground only) which sends out two large orbs of electricity in both directions, which are ground seekers. It’ll also shake loose pickups and a few specific stage things
22. Kit: Spinning Blade is one of the more vanilla weapons. It shoots two curved shots which then arc behind you. The arc is interesting and can give you good coverage but that’s it… until you charge it, whereupon it’ll make a giant buzzsaw shoot out of your buster which you can rotate around and will absolutely destroy whatever it touches. The blade lasts until it’s been a bit or you do a complete 360 rotation with it. Ray Splasher fires several smaller bullets in a spread fire wherever you’re facing. This is nice for basic spread fire, but the charge is actually kind of lackluster; All it does is release an orb above you which then periodically shoots in all directions. Gravity Well fires out a little gravity zone thing (isn’t this like the third of these weapons now?) As per usual small enemies are instantly crushed. If you do a charged shot it does a screen sweep of gravity, lifting most enemies up off the screen and also raising some platforms.
23. Kit: Parasitic Bomb fires a… uh, bomb… which will clasp to enemies. Large scale enemies it does damage and stuns them, smaller enemies it’ll grab them and fling them into another nearby enemy (doing damage to both). The charged attack is awesome. It puts you into targeting mode and you just sit there, with four targets which will latch onto any nearby enemies and (upon targeting) send homing hornets to damage them. It only consumes weapon energy when it fires a hornet so you can just sit and leave this mode on
24. Viscerality: Lovely audio design, even for the weaker feeling attacks
25. Viscerality: Great visuals too
26. Intro: Level: The Maverick Hunter HQ is probably one of the best stages in the game (make of that what you will). We start off with some basic tutorialy jumps and enemies, just designed to make you figure out how to play the game. After this X is captured (whatever), and we’re forced into playing as Zero, and this serves as an excellent tutorial for how he plays. He has more charge shots and his lightsaber can basically kill anything, including the fight with Mac. This is alongside several vertical segments (just to make sure you know how to wall climb) and a fairly simple boss fight, but not as dull as the one from X2
27. Guidance: Pretty solid, same as the last game. There’s plenty of secrets and decent Guidance to each of them (and that’s ignoring the Helmet)
28. Song: “Aerial Aircraft Carrier” is such a banger, but does some storytelling too. See Gravity Beetle was a brother unit of Boomer Kuwanger (who we killed back in X1), so he’s here to avenge said brother. He sees himself as heroic…
29. Song: …and the song fulfills that characterization, being in the key and style of a hero’s theme
30. Level: Toxic Seahorse’s stage has the very beginnings of what I’d consider stage design in its vertical segments, where you have to manage the pushback of the ‘water’, enemies attacking your jump angles, and wall climbing. It’s the kind of thing I’d barely mention in another stage but it’s something. Volt Catfish has a few sections I’d consider decent too, playing with the elevator and the instant death spikes. There’s also a segment later when deeper in the plant that has some clever maneuvering through electric wires, enemies, and using mechs to progress. Meanwhile Crush Crawfish’ stage has probably the only extended use of the mechs in the X series to date (which is sad cuz there’s actually several mechs in this game, let me play around with them dammit)
31. Boss: After careful thought I’ve decided to give every remaining boss (except Tunnel Rhino) one aggregate positive. They’re almost all really, really basic. Like, Megaman 1 levels of basic. But between all of them there’s enough for one I think
32. Prime Opt: This is a weird one but I do like how malleable the Doppler stages can go. You can fight Godkarmachine O Inary or, if you actually killed them in the previous stages (by using their weaknesses), a totally different boss. Ditto with Vile or the Volt Kurageil. This is also where you can get the Hyper Chip and Zero’s Saber mentioned above
33. Replayability: By coincidence I used to replay this a lot as a kid (I only had three Megaman games for several years there; This, X1, and 7) and lemme tell you… it was hell. But it’s still a pretty replayable game. The Kit helps I think

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden respawns, though not too terrible
2. Enemy Variety: There’s plenty of ways to make this point but I give you the following; While doing Tunnel Rhino’s stage I counted how many different enemies there were. Not like individuals I mean how many enemy types. IF we count the miniboss (which we shouldn’t) that brings us up to a whopping FIVE. I’ve mentioned a few times that this game was the B team and I don’t want to be unkind but it shows. This game isn’t really… bad like some other games (X6 and X7 say hello) but at the same time it’s very vacuous. You’ll notice if you looked up there a general absence of stage positives and this is why
3. Level: I generally don’t give negatives for absence of elements but there’s just too many stages which are just… there. No real platforming or enemy placement or terrain to speak of just… corridors and columns with enemies splattered here and there. Gravity Beetle’s stage is a perfect example of this. At one point there’s platforms which fall as you go across them. Thing is there’s NOTHING impeding you from going across them and the platforms fall very slowly. You could literally walk across and not have any issues. There’s a part of Blast Hornet’s stage where you have to blow up crates to progress. Nothing else just… fire at the crates in your way. This isn’t… design. It’s not anything
4. Boss: Speaking of which, Tunnel Rhino is insanely boring. He has three attacks, all of which involve jumping over him to dodge. That’s it. That’s the ENTIRE fight. I know Megaman games (especially the Classics) tend to have bosses with only one or two mechanics but usually there’s still some variety in what you can do and how you deal with them. Not here. He lunges, jump over him. He lunges while invincible, jump over him. He fires drills at you, jump over them. He launches drills in multiple directions most notably towards you… jump over them. This is going to be a trend by the way
5. Boss: Bit and Byte are the worst kinds of difficult. They have basic and boring patterns, have too much health, and hit like a truck. Bit has a whopping three attacks (one of which is a stun). Byte has TWO attacks, one of which is to deny you the ability to climb the wall and the other is a dash you can’t avoid without the air dash or… climbing the wall. Cute, game
6. Boss: Godkarmachine O Inary, which is actually this boss’s name believe it or not, is such a bullcrap boss. He can grab you and fling you for insane damage, do a gigantic attack that’s hard to dodge, or do a homing shot. Pick a lane game
7. Padding: Boss refights, and there’s no debatability this time it’s just a bit room with the teleporters in them again. Honestly I think we’ll be giving this negative until Megaman X8 16 Bit (good game, you should play it)
8. Boss: I honestly think Dr. Doppler could be a positive in a more polished game. He only has two real attacks (he’ll shoot electric orbs at you or he’ll charge you to do a ton of damage), but he also throws up a shield which will absorb your damage to heal him. Thing is the timing on it is just wrong and that means his vuln windows are… off. And entirely too short. With some additional moves and better animation indicators and timing this could be a cool gimmick, but as is it just makes him take too long because you’re either waiting for his heal to go down, or cussing because you accidentally healed him and lost progress
9. Outro: Boss: Sigma 1 is kind of pathetic. He’ll shoot the ground with split ground seekers, fire in front of him, or fling his shield. If not for the fact that these do crazy damage this would be a joke
10. Outro: Boss: Kaiser Sigma is completely underwhelming. Please keep in mind the ENTIRE main plot of this game has been Sigma trashing thousands of reploids (via Doppler) to build this body and it can barely move. It has exactly three attacks too; It’ll launch a slow moving mine, easily dodged missiles, or a big easy to dodge beam attack. And that’s… it. Again with some time and polish this could have been a really cool way to cap this off but oh well

Story Positives:

1. Background Lore: The museum, same as the last two games. I notice they didn’t mention that Iris and Colonel were based off of X but hey
2. Intro: Cutscene: …it’s borderline because we have so many issues with translation and voice acting but I do have to mention that the opening Zero cutscene is at least interesting. Confirmation of something we’ve suspected since X2 (Zero is Wily’s creation), some interesting bits of characterization (“Our rivalry is what gives me motivation in life!”) and the fact that Zero has been dreaming this for some time now and, presumably, not telling anyone
3. Spritework: Let’s make this clear; This is some of the best spritework the franchise will ever see. This is bonkers tier and it’s rare I’ll give this many Spritework positives to a game but here we are. We have TWO playable characters with tons of amazing sprites
4. Spritework: …so that’s a solid…
5. Spritework: …triple
6. Spritework: Except it’s twice, once for X and once for Zero…
7. Spritework: …so…
8. Spritework: …that’s baller
9. Spritework: The bosses are too good, so similar to 8 we’re going to bundle these a bit. So that’s two for Frost Walrus…
10. Spritework: …and Jet Stingray
11. Spritework: Two for Magma Dragoon…
12. Spritework: …and Web Spider
13. Spritework: Two for Split Mushroom, Storm Owl…
14. Spritework: …and Cyber Peacock
15. Spritework: And Slash Beast gets his own. (Seriously have you seen this dude’s spritesheet?)
16. Spritework: And of course the enemies are varied and amazing…
17. Spritework: …for an easy…
18. Spritework: …triple. Though why are all the Knot Berets so… rotund? And why is General the size of a building?
19. Intro: Brickwork: The Sky Lagoon itself is your usual nice cityscape elements, and the ruins of BOTH cities after is properly done. Sidebar… why was a floating city floating over another city? That’s just asking for trouble
20. Architecture: Honestly some of the same general tricks as in X3 here with a lot of military outposts and bases, like the frost area, the forest fort, the… airport, again (lotta airports in this series aren’t there?)
21. Brickwork: Frost Walrus’s stage (hey we have stage names I can use, this one’s… Snow Base! …I’m going to stop using those names now) has a decent ice aesthetic, though what I like more is the base under the ice. Plus the frozen forest in the background
22. Brickwork: Jet Stingray’s stage starts off in some kind of combination air recycling and sewer section which is, of course, exploding. Once you get outside you see the docks in the distance parallel to the ones you’re riding on as you escape the city. Brickwork: Slash Beast’s stage has fairly basic background, but I love the supply train itself. Up to and including how the Knot Berets will go out of their way to destroy their own train to try and stop you. The interior railway is a bit basic but a nice pattern of constructed tunnel and red emergency lights.
23. Brickwork: Web Spider’s stage is just a treat. The distant river marsh, the rainbow, the incredibly detailed river and waterfalls in the foreground, the moss and foliage covering everything, the little bits of electrical cables and circuits sticking out of the dirt here and there, the gorgeous underground waterways. I know I keep going on about the water but let me tell you, this is a jungle in the most humid sense of the word. The second half backs this up being an insanely dense canopy with rivers running through it, to the point where at parts you cannot see the ground (or the sky for that matter)…
24. Brickwork: …love it
25. Brickwork: Split Mushroom’s stage starts on a weird spiral staircase heading up before landing you in what is obviously some kind of crudely bolted together research facility deep in the woods that is absolutely glutted with vines and overgrowth. You can see towers in the distance like the one you just climbed, and a lot of the foliage is of the ‘borg’ variety which befits the nature of this place. The later segment even has chunks of the stage being destroyed piecemeal, and the final elevator climb we see just how rundown it is (HUGE chunks of the wall just missing, giant swaths of machinery broken to pieces or missing parts. Even the final boss area looks like one of those towers but with the entire roof blown off
26. Brickwork: Cyber Peacock’s stage is one of the first real tacit acknowledgments of Cyberspace existing within the setting, something that will be a recurring element the entire rest of the franchise (up to and including ZX Advent, functionally the furthest game in the timeline). See in this setting Cyberspace is a real sub dimension that under certain circumstances (cough cough X5) will bleed over into realspace. The visuals in here do a good job of conveying the fact that this is not a ‘real’ place but rather a fully digital construct that you have entered, with processors in the background, weird patterns and geometric shapes, odd patterns in hexagonal cylinders, and digital outlines around things
27. Brickwork: Storm Owl’s… stage? Fleet? Is amazing. I’ve always loved the cityscape, I love how you can literally see the ships that are filling the fleet out in the background because they form the stage in the foreground. I LOVE the hammerhead ships, and not just because I like sharks. We also see the fighter craft when they’re docked, and go inside one of the ships to see a very electric current styled vessel (and destroy its power core), which leads to portions of the ship looking damaged before we hit the boss
28. Brickwork: Magma Dragoon’s lavafest is an interesting insight into X4’s brickwork in general. It’s good but weirdly less detailed than the sprites up front, so when you really look at the two in contrast it looks a bit off. Doesn’t change the fact that the pulsing, glowing magma vents and boiling rivers still look legit
29. Brickwork: I do rather like the look of the Space Port, where we brutally murder the Repliforce en masse for daring to try and flee Earth. (In fairness they ARE going to live on the Final Weapon). Great runways, airships, and the usual airport excellence
30. Cutscene: Sigma and Zero’s backstory scene is actually pretty solid. Sigma starts off cocky to the point of arrogant (in fact he mostly plays with Zero at the start of the fight, and you can tell he only sent away his troops so he could have the glory of the fight for himself). A point is made too that while Sigma is more or less beating Zero, Zero just has endurance Sigma does not, and keeps coming back from each blow given. It gets to the point where Sigma is visibly struggling to keep up, until Zero manages to rip his arm off, and Sigma realizes he’s lost. The ENTIRE time Zero is just laughing, enjoying himself, and if not for the Wily virus flaring up to disable Zero, Zero would have won and that would have been the death of Sigma right then and there. He is also visibly humiliated by the loss. Good characterization and backstory for both

Story Negatives:

1. Intro: Cutscene: I don’t want to be harsh about the opening cinematic but unlike, say, the Megaman 8 one which was done at the same time (by the same studio I do believe) it doesn’t really… convey anything. It’s a bunch of out of context shots of characters we mostly have never heard of or seen before, with the sole exceptions of X and Zero. The only actual storytelling here is Double tripping over himself and the Repliforce being obviously military. That’s it. That’s in addition to the usual flashing lights and cheap animation problems
2. Intro: Cutscene: The X opening cutscene is so badly constructed (and voice acted, more on that in a bit) is terrible. I am amused that they just OPEN with Sigma here but otherwise it’s a masterclass in bad audio design and flies completely in the face of… the actual rest of the game. Yes I know what they were GOING for but the problem is they did not succeed at it. There are no shades of grey here, no political issues, it’s just Fake Drama (more on THAT in a minute) and dumb people
3. Voice Acting: Okay yeah it’s funny to watch Zero flub a line and everyone to say things with the wrong tone and the wrong tempo at the wrong time but this voice acting is REALLY BAD. My favorite little anecdote here is that the woman who was voicing X was also voicing Rock over in Megaman 8 at the same time… but she was handed the scripts for both for the same session and not told they were different characters. And let me tell you, it shows…
4. Voice Acting: …oh and everyone else sucks too
5. Fake Drama: The entire crux of the entire plot of the entire game hinges on literally one event. Not the sabotage of the Sky Lagoon or the destruction of two separate cities. No it’s the fact that Eregion dragged Iris to the city so Zero would rescue her and Colonel would show up worrying about her… and then when Zero and the Hunters want to figure out what the heck happened (there WAS a sabotage remember) they ask Colonel to disarm and come in so they can investigate. Colonel… absolutely refuses to disarm. This is something that is brought up THREE SEPARATE TIMES and Colonel insists he cannot disarm out of what is inferred to be pride (later works would state this was actually a programming error in Colonel’s brain but whatever). This right here, this is what kicks off the entire plot (and directly leads to X5 by the way). This one braindead stupid moment is one of the biggest Fake Drama points I’ve seen in recent memory…
6. Fake Drama: …and I hate how everything revolves around it
7. Character: X3 problem but worse. These people get lines and voice acting and don’t even get a single note of characterization. General, Colonel, Iris, Double. Who are these people? Who cares?
8. Plot: Dumb. The plot is DUMB. I’m sorry but the main plot here is that the Repliforce, an all reploid army (which has canonically been active for a while now it’s just we’re hearing about them now) which has been working with and helping the Hunters for some time. The above mentioned Fake Drama scene happens and BAM, the whole group are labeled Mavericks. A good game would do something with this plot point (honestly the Zero series later does some similar things to greater effect) but instead it means the Repliforce IMMEDIATELY becomes like… hilariously evil. Like, ‘destroy an entire inhabited city as a distraction tactic’ evil. What in the world
9. Cutscene: So hey, General makes a big announcement about separating to make their own nation of reploids away from the humans. He emphasizes that this is not a coup and that they will not be fighting against the humans. This is then immediately followed by Colonel saying they must fight valiantly and emphasizing that they are the most powerful army in history… bit of a tonal shift there. And of course Sigma is literally cackling to himself in a room. Remember, these people blow up a city on purpose later. They also build a weapon which, and I quote, can destroy the Earth. What?!
10. Cutscene: Oh my gawd the Zero v. Colonel scene sucks. Bad voice acting, bad storyboarding, but even if we ignore that the core scene sucks. Zero goes to tell Colonel to stop the coup (pronounced wrong, feel like pointing out) and then Colonel gravely says no, leading to a… well I hesitate to call it a fight… which is then called off because Iris asks him to, but it’s literally just kicking the can down the road because BOTH Zero and Colonel flat out state they’re going to fight again later. What was the point of this again?
11. Cutscene: Okay I know it’s memed on and I know it’s legendary but the Iris dies cutscene is trash. Iris demanding they run away to a world without humans (where is this coming from?), Zero (rightly) points out that’s nonsense, she immediately agrees and holds out a hand… then smiles and in a manner I can only refer to as comical dies. Zero then repeats her name SEVEN times in a row (I counted) and Zero has the legendarily bad line (by the way do yourself a favor and look up the modern Zero actor voicing this line cuz he makes it sound GOOD). And it’s like… okay. The only reason I’m not dinging this more is because some of the specific issues are unrelated to the scene itself. And a side note for the 3 people who ever actually read this; So Repliforce tried to build a copy of X but couldn’t thanks to personality conflict, so they split the bot into two; Colonel and Iris (hence siblings). Iris is Zero’s love interest. So… Zero is in love with the pacifist side of X… which actually makes more sense the more you think about it
12. Graphics: Double’s reveal isn’t a bad cutscene honestly aside from, y’know, the insane amount of flashing lights
13. Outro: X’s ending is… SO stupid. He’s flying back, and thinks about Double and Sigma for some reason, and then frets over going Maverick. This is his FOURTH game mind you. He then demands Zero kill him if he does go Maverick and that’s… the ending
14. Outro: Zero’s ending takes that excellent backstory cutscene and spits all over it. Zero whines for a bit about Iris, talks about how all reploids are mavericks, and then… that’s it! The end! What nonsense

Gameplay Positives:

1. Itemization: Good and solid drops throughout. Not so much with manual placement but it’s not terrible it’s just fine
2. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits
3. Controls: Absolutely phenomenal controls, good placement and utilization of the shoulder buttons, incredibly precise, and of course rebindable…
4. Controls: …gold standard…
5. Controls: …of how these games should control
6. QoL: L and R and Exit. As I mentioned back when it was added to the classic series, being able to swap weapons on the fly is a game changer, and the ability to just Exit a stage when done is so nice for grabbing pieces you missed, refilling, or just replaying stages
7. Power Progression Curve: Pretty standard for the franchise, but especially true while playing as Zero…
8. Power Progression Curve: …really contributes to the snowball feeling the game has
9. Music: Of course the soundtrack is an absolute banger. I would say that, personally, this is the second best soundtrack of the X games, only surpassed by X1, but even that I’m not 100% on…
10. Music: …but either way…
11. Music: …this is a strong triple
12. Sound: Still pretty good feedback and audio design
13. Enemy Design: After the dip that was X3 we’re back to some damned good enemy designs…
14. Enemy Design: …with lots of thought put into them, and of course…
15. Enemy Variety: Plenty of variety in how you can and should deal with them…
16. Enemy Variety: …up to and including just straight up ignoring them
17. Visual Distinction: Suffers a little this time around thanks to something I mentioned up in the Brickwork section. There’s some cases and situations where it’s not super distinct what you’re looking at and this can cause issues. It’s still a megaman game though
18. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual Megaman standard of quality here, and usually pretty smartly placed too
19. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
20. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
21. Kit: So only X gets armor (yes I know about the black armor) but let’s talk about this. First of all the Armor reduces damage by half, damage you take refills the Nova Strike bar, and Nova Strike lets you dash forward and frickin’ kill whatever’s in your way. (Sidenote; The Ultimate Armor gives you infinite Nova Strikes, I highly recommend doing at least one playthrough with it because it is cathartic and hilarious). The Buster lets you charge a bunch of shots as per usual and charge weapons. The boots give you the air dash and the ability to stay in the air briefly while hovering (which is way more useful than it sounds by the way). And finally and arguably most importantly the helmet which just straight up makes all non charged weapons FREE. You can just use them forever. HOLY God is this a game changer and by itself can completely change how you play this game. Think about how useful this is for, say, Lightning Web. Or Twin Slasher, or Aiming Laser…
22. Kit: …some really cool stuff here
23. Kit: Frost Tower is such a weird weapon. It creates a shield where you are but it doesn’t… follow you it just sits there, and it doesn’t block projectiles, but it will freeze or destroy enemies. If you summon it in the air it’ll drop too. Thing is the charged version of this move is absolutely insane which is summoning gigantic glaciers (first 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 for a total of TEN of these things) which just hit larger and larger swaths of the screen. Ground Hunter is a fairly standard ground seeker (you ever think about how many ground seeker weapons we have across the classics and Xs?). Some input can change the specific movement on the thing, and the charged version sends a straight shot like any other buster shot however pressing up or down while it goes it’ll fire additional shots up or down as it flies
24. Kit: Twin Slasher is a standard spread shot, firing diagonally up and down. The charged version fires a whopping EIGHT of these and these shots actually pierce terrain and can interact with parts of some stages. Rising Fire is weird. You fire directly up and only directly up. Even the charged form is an upwards uppercut with equally little horizontal movement
25. Kit: Lightning Web is fascinating. You can shoot it and it does damage and that’s neat and all (there are TWO enemies in the game this is worth using against) but its real power is you fire it and after a bit it creates a web in the air which now acts as a wall you can climb on. This is insanely useful. Its charged shot is ironically a bit LESS useful since it just fires a gigantic AOE which does piercing damage to a pretty big circular spot
26. Kit: Soul Body is weird. You fire out a duplicate of yourself, Ninja Gaiden 2 style, which will stick there until it takes enough damage. If you charge it the hologram becomes solid and can now be controlled, is invincible, and can do basic buster attacks. It’s… weird. It’s unique but it has such a specific niche case of usefulness. Double Cyclone is one of those deceptively useful weapons as it sends two shots to your left and right that also arc upwards, hitting a nice range. They’ll also stall when hitting an enemy but NOT dissipate. When charged it’s just a massive blast in both directions that destroys whatever it hits
27. Kit: Aiming Laser is pretty well named. There’s this cursor that will appear while it’s equipped that you can adjust up or down. If an enemy interacts with the cursor it’ll let you fire a laser that hits them, and you can lock onto up to three things at a time. Neat little thing and good for enemies above and below if you’re on it with the aiming. The charged shot just lets you fire out a beam of death which you can aim up or down which does damage exceptionally rapidly and while not super useful on any bosses thanks to i-frames it will absolutely delete normal enemies
28. Kit: Naturally you also can play as Zero. It feels weird to gauge this since his kit is unusual but let’s talk about this. He can move while swinging his saber, he can combo strike with it, and he can dash while swinging it. That all sounds boring I’m sure but the point is it means you are FULLY mobile at whatever pace you feel comfortable with WHILE attacking and destroying everything around you. The only thing this runs into is how absolutely miniscule the damage you do on bosses is (there’s a reason people invented saber canceling). This makes Zero high skill ceiling and generally fun to play as
29. Kit: So hey, Zero DOES get things from the enemies but it’s not the same as X. Let’s cover these in order. Hyouretsuzan (good luck with those pronunciations!) lets you do a downstrike like this is Zelda 2. It’s a fairly basic attack but it’s shockingly useful for that, especially considering it’ll do damage every frame as it’s descending, hits hard, and you can double jump out of the attack to do ANOTHER one
30. Kit: Hienkyaku lets you dash in mid air. That’s… that’s it. Shippuuga… so I’m typing these up ‘in order’ of how I did the bosses but honestly this move really follows through with the Tenkuuha later. While charging you can do an attack that gives you a nice big swing during said dash. This means once you have everything you can delete projectiles, attack into the air, attack down, attack from any position INCLUDING dashing, turning you into what me and my friend affectionately refer to as a chipper shredder
31. Kit: Raijingeki is such a strange attack. It’s a slow strike directly in front of you which hits a decent enough area, but what makes it useful is that it does damage constantly and the blast stays out for a while. This makes the attack an interesting risk reward thing as you cannot move for the duration but it can do some bonkers damage to anything not moving. Kuuenbu & Kuuenzan gives Zero a double jump (wee) and makes it so that if you attack while in mid air you spin attack instead, which in addition to massively increasing your attack range it can also be abused to do stupid damage in a short period of time
32. Kit: Rakuhouha is one of the few actual weapons Zero gets. It’s basically his version of Giga Attack and has him slam the ground and firing shots in a 180 degree fan above him. It’s… not actually great, I’m mostly mentioning it for completion sakes. Tenkuuha turns your saber purple (woo) but also makes it so your blade now erased projectiles when it hits them. This sounds minor but no, really think about this. Think about how fast Zero is, think about spinning in the air with Kuuenzan, and think about the fact that you can attack constantly while doing everything, and you start to realize that projectiles have become a solved problem. Ryuenjin is one of the few actual attacks Zero gets and I dunno about you but I use it friggin’ constantly. Zero lunges upward with a flaming saber and, unlike X’s equivalent, has some horizontal movement attached to it. In other words you have a diagonal attack which does a ton of damage, can burn terrain, and leaves you in the place where Zero is at his best; the air. This dovetails nicely with Hyouretsuzan since you can now attack up with this and down with that
33. Viscerality: This is some of the best Viscerality in the entire franchise. X and Zero’s attacks look great, with tons of attacks and brutal amazingly animated lightsaber death doom…
34. Viscerality: …for a strong…
35. Viscerality: …triple
36. Viscerality: The impact is… actually not that great. It’s still GOOD but it’s no where near as good as the aforementioned
37. Intro: The first half (the Sky Lagoon) is fine, mostly just a ‘here’s the controls’ segment. The second half is far more of a pay attention check and a noticeable increase in overall difficulty, and a good way to get the player into the mindset of what this game expects of them. Rushing will lead to death unless you know what you’re doing
38. Song: “Choices of War”, the stage select screen, is unironically one of my favorite songs of all time. The way it loops into itself seamlessly, the intensity of it, the seeming hopefulness…
39. Song: …brilliant
40. Guidance: Solid enough. In most cases the question was more ‘how do I reach that’ rather than ‘where is that’
41. Level: Frost Walrus’s stage is smart and mean immediately. Temporary platforms which you need to use which get worse the further you get, ice spikes on ceiling and floor, rising ice platforms you have to push DOWN through, a miniboss with Chill Peng–er, I mean Eyezard before moving on to the second section which actually reminds me of Grenademan’s in 8 (considering this was made at the same time, hmm…) where you have to break blocks to progress and they can contain items and enemies. This is followed by a weird enemy corridor where the terrain escalates as you go but ultimately serves as a bit of a breather and refill segment…
42. Level: …one of the better stages overall
43. Boss: Walrus boy’s biggest advantage is how big he is, thankfully the developers had a brain and made him fairly slow to give you time to deal with him. He’ll walk towards you like a slug, lunge towards you (he can also hit the wall, knocking you off said wall), shoot shots of ice into the air which then come down from the ceiling like missiles, and finally punch a giant chunk of ice which will do a massive spread attack
44. Boss: Jet Stingray is fairly basic and thanks to randomization can come across as dull since for most of the fight he only has two attacks he can do (launch drones or swoop at you). When he’s low on health he gains TWO new abilities but since these only show up when he’s already in desperation mode I think most players won’t see these. Slash Beast is another basic fight (which I should mention is AWFUL on Zero because all of his attacks punish you for being close and his weakness is the super slow lightning stab). He’ll jump and slam down on you, try to fling you into the wall, shoot two easily avoidable attacks, or lunge back and forth doing a fairly large chunk of damage. Split Mushroom is deceptively mean as he loves to bounce around, split himself Geminiman style, and of course toss tons of his own clones at you. For a security program Cyber Peacock sure is… anyways. He’ll do a big melee attack that hits all around him, teleport around (he does this constantly for me I swear), or home in on you and launch homing missiles
45. Level: Slash Beast’s stage is an excellent example of how a few mutators can make a simple stage work. There’s no serious platforming to speak of here but almost every ‘up’ angle in the terrain involves enemies that will shoot out where you’re jumping and almost every down involves either nothing (recovery) or big cannons (easy to dodge). They also blow up the chunks of train as you go, meaning you have to now book it to get off said train. We fight a quick miniboss in the form of another train before hitting a THIRD train (lotta trains here) where the enemy spam is now much worse, with mech riders and basic troops EVERYwhere. This section is a treat on Zero by the way as you can absolutely demolish your way through here, especially with full power ups
46. Level: Web Spider’s stage plays with enemies that have good attack angles that compliment the terrain, followed by an escalation of this with more distanced platforming, and finally several logs falling through the waterfall which you have to navigate, followed immediately by a vertical climb segment with enemies at each level ready to knock you down. The second segment introduces the area denial electric webs, enemy spawners, and treeborgs you can blast through to gain access (or gain bonus items). Either way a very fun stage…
47. Level: …for a solid double
48. Boss: Web Spider himself spends entirely too much time being up in the untargetable area but his entire second phase is down with you where he moves around rapidfire and flings his minions out to interrupt your ground area to dodge his movements. This makes a nice one two punch where you’re dodging something to help dodge something else, or destroying as is your preference
49. Level: Split Mushroom starts with a spiral staircase which is all about enemy design, as every enemy here is coming at you from an angle. The second segment is some surprisingly tight platforming over death pits followed by an extended vertical climb segment that escalates rapidly as death spikes and crushers start to appear more the further you go up. Then we have the miniboss (can we just skip this?), do a second spiral staircase segment with even MORE enemies coming at you from an angle, and a segment where portions of the level are being destroyed by crushers AS you go through it. What follows is my personal least favorite part; A slow elevator segment with indestructible steel vine flower… things that will pop out seemingly at random which not only hurt but can actually kill you with crushing damage if you’re not careful. Thankfully this isn’t a very long segment
50. Level: Cyber Peacock’s stage is one of the gimmickiest in the game so if this works for you or not probably depends on your preference. Each area you go through (there are three) requires you to book it, it’s purely timed nothing else. If you get B ranking on any you have to redo the stage. If you get A ranking you proceed. And if you get S ranking you get a power up (heart up, sub tank, and either a life or the Helmet part depending on whom you’re playing). The first two are actually relatively easy to S rank as they’re almost entirely platforming or enemy challenges, the third is much rougher with vertical segments, enemy blockers, and some difficult jumps that are easy to fall from (wasting precious time). This is already great stuff, but the second section gets creative too by giving you buttons that flip the stage vertically which you have to play with to advance. This is also brilliantly tutorialized as one of the first things you see is a button that’s mandatory to hit that flips you, sending the sphere into these weird purple crystals which then vanish, telling you how to solve the next few puzzles (get sphere to the crystals). Overall one of my favorite stages in X4…
51. Level: …for a solid double
52. Level: Storm Owl’s stage has a strong theme of platforms over death. At the beginning this is all temporary air shuttles and the surface of the ships you’re moving over, with some of those platforms shooting at you (and others being destroyed by their own attacks). Once you’re inside death pits are replaced with death spikes, but this isn’t overdone to the point of obnoxiousness like OTHER games would (looking at you, Z series). There’s also an interesting refill right before the boss which I think is there because the miniboss is RIGHT before him
53. Boss: Storm Owl is a weird fight thanks to his randomness. You might not even see some of his attacks depending. He’ll fling feathers out, which is functionally area denial. He’ll send cyclones which can home in one at a time, home in all at once, or rotate around covering the screen. Or he can summon a giant cyclone right under the player (with time to dodge). He also likes to grab you and slam you into the ground, which hurts like hell
54. Level: Magma Dragoon’s stage is another example of ‘yeah we’re not screwing around’. Magma plumes coming out of the ground in arcs, leaps across platforms interrupted by giant blasts of molten rock, further platforms which will actually be damaged by said rock, an instant death lava section (unless you’re in a Rider in which case you can actually go through it, and bring a mech to the boss fight, which is hysterical and trivializes it). Honestly for how late we did this fight it’s kind of a tutorial stage
55. Boss: Magma Dragoon has several attacks, all based on Ryu from Street Fighter (unlike Ryu from Breath of Fire… same developer too, hm) This means he’s pretty mobile and requires some good reflexes and speed to avoid damage, while dodging the instant death lava on the sides
56. Level: The Space Port is a bunch of nice platforming challenges with enemies that are designed to be mostly speedbumps, followed by a much meaner vertical platforming challenge while spiked balls fall on you.
57. Boss: Final Weapon 1 starts us off slow with an area absolutely glutted with enemies that take a hot minute to push through. I only even mention this because this can be a serious health tax for the upcoming boss since this is followed immediately by the Double and Iris fights (depending on who you’re playing as). Double is definitely the better of the two. He has several quick moving attacks, fling a ground shot at you, or fling a much higher shot at you. He hits this interesting spot of easy to dodge mechanically but the speed at which you have to do it provides challenge. Also if you hit him with his weakness he actually spawns new enemies which start flying around or shooting you.
58. Song: “The Final Weapon” is our first truly amazing Sigma Stage song (which I only mention because WILY Stage songs are usually bangers, going as far back as 2). This song screams ‘final dungeon’…
59. Song: …and gets its own double
60. Outro: Boss: I actually like Sigma 1 and 2 for what it’s worth. His first form he just hangs out in the air, attacking the ground (twice, even) and waiting for you to do some fire damage to him. His second form he’ll fling the scythe around at you, throw the scythe right at you (which will then start doing damage near it), fling out some damaging scythes from his shoulders, or blast you with laser eyes. He’s pretty weak to several things, very mobile, and doesn’t have too much health, so all of this works. Thing is this leads immediately into the next fight
61. Replayability: I almost didn’t give this one honestly. The X stages kind of suck and the Zero bosses kind of suck, and slogging all the way through the game is not something I enjoy doing. But it’s still a Megaman game and the first 8 stages still work so here we are

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Encounter Rate: I’m honestly running out of ways to comment on the Ninja Gaiden respawns
2. Audio Spam: Charging, firing, and jumping. Do they need to say something EVERY. SINGLE. JUMP. Oh my God if you know how mobile and active you are in this game…
3. Audio Spam: …you realize how bad this is
4. Boss: Zero bosses… all of them (the bosses are NOT designed around meleeing and punish you for being close, your attacks do far too little damage, and they have incredible i-frame defense). I know Zero is supposed to be hard mode but I’m sorry, this is difficult thanks to absence or mistake of design not anything well designed
5. Boss: Colonel 1 is boring at best and aggravating at worst. Nothing warns you this fight is coming either and he is a PAIN to fight without his weakness. He’ll teleport, dash, fling blasts at you which alternate in how to dodge them, and of course attack you with a GIGANTIC sword which has stupid reach. And he does too much damage and too much health
6. Level: I don’t… like Jet Stingray’s level. It’s a nice idea but it starts off too simple and ends WAY too punishing. It is astonishingly easy to slip or not have the reflexes to deal with something quickly enough and slam into a wall or fall into a pit (the stage basically mandates memorization). The second half is better but still has some of the same pitfalls (like random juts in the water who’s only purpose is to kill you). Please keep in mind the jet rider you’re on, if you’re dashing, is locked out of controls while doing said dashing… meaning if you dash at the wrong time you CANNOT course correct and are just dead
7. Boss: Colonel 2 is the same as last time but even worse somehow. He still has the basic attacks, likes to summon a very hard to dodge lightning strike that hits most of the screen, and sends out a gigantic ground seeker energy wave. It’s still aggravating and I still hate this fight
8. Boss: Iris is such a dumb fight. She’s a flying mech… thing which has exactly two, uh, ‘attacks’. One is when you hit her she’ll spawn drones which you have to defeat, and you have to hit her 8 times (spawning SIXTEEN enemies) to reveal her weak point so you can do actual damage. Nothing really indicates this either. In fact I distinctly recall not being sure how to damage her at first since the feedback you get (hitting her spawns enemies) inclines the player to NOT do that. She also has a big energy blast but that’s whatever, especially with double jump which you can’t avoid getting
9. Boss: General is such a slow, dull, awful fight. He flies around (he’ll try to crush you if you’re on the ground), fires orbs at you from his arm sockets while his hands are out being platforms, and then he’ll shoot a wave attack. That’s it. He also has entirely too much health and is just kind of dull as X…
10. Boss: …and TERRIBLE as Zero, who has few attacks that can reach him properly meaning spending a ton of time reaching him, hitting him like once or twice, rinsing and repeating. This fight can take several minutes and if that doesn’t sound like a long time I encourage you to try it
11. Padding: I hate these boss refights as Zero so much. Also how did they get LAVA into a SPACE STATION. And the foliage for Web Spider too!
12. Outro: Boss: The final Sigma (which is called, I kid you not, Gunner Sigma and Earth Sigma… and the Mini Bodies) can go directly to hell. His various parts have entirely too much health, narrow and frustrating vuln windows, and their attacks are insane. It can attack you with flames that track to you, shots that are ground seekers, or just a frostthrower attack. If he goes into Earth form he can try to bite you, or fling debris out which is near impossible to dodge. Oh and of course he has spikes on the wall which he’ll push you into (it’s worth noting these spikes do NOT instant kill, but the do an absolutely insane 24 damage… for perspective most ‘heavy’ attacks, like his bite, do 9). Finally his Gunner form will damage the entire floor, or blast an attack aimed at you. This fight turbo sucks, is the third fight in a ROW, and doesn’t have any really good refill or recharge sections like, say, Sigma did back in X1. Did I mention his two major forms have separate health bars?
13. Outro: By the way I have to comment on this because there ARE no final stages. Oh I know there’s like three screens worth of rooms across the ENTIRE Final Weapon but what is this nonsense? You traverse a single room then a boss. Then another room then a boss. It’s weird and deflating and it contributes to the boss rush nature of the entire finale

Story Positives:

1. Background Lore: The museum, same as the last three games. Don’t worry, at some point these will stop getting this positive (yes really)
2. Intro: I actually really like this opening, as it’s (similar to Megaman 8’s) covers the events of the games up until now before introducing the new characters (and actually giving us their names)
3. Spritework: Let’s make this clear; This is some of the best spritework the franchise will ever see. This is bonkers tier and it’s rare I’ll give this many Spritework positives to a game but here we are. We have TWO playable characters with tons of amazing sprites
4. Spritework: …so that’s a solid…
5. Spritework: …triple
6. Spritework: Except it’s twice, once for X and once for Zero…
7. Spritework: …so…
8. Spritework: …that’s baller
9. Spritework: The bosses are… no where near as good this time around. I mean they’re ‘fine’ and there’s some good design but most of them barely move and that hinders it (this problem will get worse in X6). This is still positive worthy
10. Spritework: This same issue hits the enemies. Still good stuff though
11. Brickwork: So X5 uses these lower detail ‘models’ which are then converted to pictures for a lot of its brickwork which just looks… worse than X4’s (this will get even worse in X6). It’s not terrible, but it’s a noticeable step down in quality. Nonetheless the Intro stage in northern Brazil (they never tell us the city it’s just ‘northern Brazil’) has a decent cityscape and roads and the usual callbacks to X1’s opening stage
12. Brickwork: Crescent Grizzly’s stage starts out with some craggy ruins (what’s funny is this makes more sense after and IF the Eurasia crashes but whatever) and some kind of artificial cave. Oh and let’s get this out of the way; I’m using their (shall we say) standardized names because I don’t feel like typing things like Dark Dizzy or Duff McWhalen. Shining Firefly might be the best brickwork of the stages so far. We start off outside and see that the reclusive scientist literally has a castle, but quickly find that the interior is totally replaced by mechanisms, smooth metal platforms, and laser facilities everywhere
13. Brickwork: Volt Kraken’s stage is a pretty decent, pretty standard ‘vaguely power plant looking base’. Burn Dinorex’s stage is a prefect example of what I mean. The Brickwork here isn’t BAD but it’s lacking (you spend literally half the stage under lava, barely able to even see anything). I still like the geothermal plant in the distance and the volcano entrance at the start. Spike Rosered’s starts with a shot of guns and roses. Wah wah. Also plenty of foliage and treeborg type stuff
14. Brickwork: Tidal Whale’s stage isn’t bad really. There’s some decent seafloor going on here. Dark Necrobat’s stage involves some basic space backgrounds and some cyberspace looking stuff, but the constellations and projector screens add some nice flavor to the second half
15. Visual Storytelling: Spiral Pegasus’s stage is reminiscent of Storm Eagle’s. Skies, military base, and some jets in the background. That being said I am going to give a solitary positive here for the visual storytelling; Almost all the enemies here are Repliforce (what’s left of them, which is the point), and you can see thanks to styling how this used to be a Repliforce base
16. Visual Storytelling: So the final stages are called Zerospace but what this really is is Cyberspace leaking out into the physical world. This is also the in lore explanation for why this place resembles multiple previously existing places from real space history
17. Story Sequencing: For what it’s worth I do like the mission structure and style of the story. We need specific parts to counteract a threat which has a ticking clock
18. External Continuity: X5 is weird in that it, similar to X2 before it, is one of the only X games to really acknowledge the other X games (and classic games for that matter). I don’t just mean in plot beats like Repliforce and Wily, but just the tone of it feels like it’s a game that exists in a world rather than how most X games feel (completely isolated)
19. Visual Storytelling: Okay I’ll give you this, the two pods for X and Zero in the Zerospace make sense. Remember this place doesn’t really exist in normal space, so of course a representation of the pods of these two show. Not only are the two of them at the forefront of all of this (the virus, Wily, and Sigma) but those two pods started the entire X series. X was found in the pod leading to the development of Reploids, and Zero was found in a pod leading to the Maverick Virus and basically everything from X1 to ZX2

Story Negatives:

1. Intro: Despite my fondness for the opening cutscene the actual introduction cutscene (between Dynamo and Sigma) is… weird. Dynamo sounds bizarre, Sigma giggles to himself, and they take entirely too long to say nothing (a common problem in this game)
2. Moment: This is followed by us beating Sigma which causes the Sigma Virus to then explode and cover THE ENTIRE PLANET in a very short period of time, which means they can’t deal with Eurasia (the space colony) which is on a collision course and threatens to wipe out all life on the planet. This is silly at best but going for the super high stakes scale in a story that’s supposed to be the personal story of X and Zero is already a bad idea. Oh they also only have one super weapon in the Hunter Base (maybe they should’ve stopped destroying all the Repliforce’s stuff last game, yeesh). Oh and I don’t think Dynamo is enough for his own negative (and I kind of like Signas and Alia, when she isn’t tutorializing) but WHY is Dynamo here exactly? Vile was a more interesting flavor of ‘side dude who just wants to fight the protagonists’. Yes I realize Vile has nothing to do with Dynamo but my point is at least he was interesting (enough that they brought him back twice… oh God they brought Dynamo back in X6 didn’t they? Gah!)
3. Plot: By the way despite their statements if you fail both attacks on the colony the world’s fine. I mean it’s totally blasted but it’s fine. Also by the way this is the CANONICAL result of this game so that’s a fun thought, since the Eurasia is still there in the Zero series
4. Localization: The localization in this game is… not good. Megaman games have had issues with this before but there’s a lot of dialogue this time around and it’s pretty rough. This is probably why the ‘Colony Virus’ and the ‘Sigma Virus’ (which are the same virus) combine to make the ‘Zero Virus’ (this is before they know it’s powering up Zero). All of this also completely ejects the original MAVERICK Virus that Wily made which some of these are probably referencing
5. Empty Text: And pretty empty. Like… really empty. There’s huge swaths of nothing being said (in mission, even!)
6. Fake Drama: In comic books there’s this concept called the Excuse Fight. It’s when you really want Person A and Person B to fight it out because fans want to see them duke it out and/or because they’re doing a promotional thing. Problem is there’s no good reason for A and B to fight. Enter the Excuse Fight. It’s ALWAYS something stupid and, more to the point, is almost always forgotten about seconds after the fight is over. Anywho so in X5 we reach several people who have absolutely no reason to fight us (their responses vary, it’s worth noting, depending on when you talk to them and whom you bring) and in some cases they actually want to help us. Then the excuse happens, then we kill them. Yay
7. Fake Drama: X and Zero, full stop. They’ve been teasing this fight since X2 or X3 (depending on how you count it) and the build up is terrible (and probably hampered by the localization). The idea here is that X is scared that Zero is getting stronger with interactions with the virus (the virus they named the ZERO VIRUS come on guys) and they want to bring him in out of said fear. Zero refuses because that’s stupid. But that’s kind of it. That’s the big justification for two best friends and allies of several years to try and murder each other. X even calls it his destiny. Give me a break. The funny thing is having Light and Wily’s greatest creations end up as permanent ALLIES would have been a far more fitting way for this story to go but that’s just my opinion at that point (remember that the ORIGINAL plan for Zero 1 was for it to be X as the fascist leader, not Copy X). Oh and per the Excuse Fight I mentioned up above? The MOMENT one of them wins, the cause for their conflict is instantly and immediately forgotten as they refocus on Sigma
8. Outro: The weird ending where X completely forgets Zero even existed and insists he will build his utopia (Megaman Legends reference) is just weird. Also how the HELL did Dr. Light just… manifest to repair him?

Gameplay Positives:

1. Tutorialization: There’s a whole tutorial in the menu. It’s not bad actually, though it’s VERY hand holdy it’s at least optional, unlike something else I could mention
2. Itemization: Placements aren’t bad… not QUITE enough for their own positive but they’re solid. And drops are similarly kind of middling, so we’re going to bundle these together for this one
3. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits
4. Controls: Absolutely phenomenal controls, good placement and utilization of the shoulder buttons, incredibly precise, and of course rebindable…
5. Controls: …gold standard…
6. Controls: …of how these games should control
7. QoL: L and R and Exit. As I mentioned back when it was added to the classic series, being able to swap weapons on the fly is a game changer, and the ability to just Exit a stage when done is so nice for grabbing pieces you missed, refilling, or just replaying stages. I’m also fond of how you can use two separate buttons for weapon and buster (the same innovation they added back in 8)
8. Power Progression Curve: Not as much as usual, but still there
9. Music: X5 has… a very distinct sound to it, which means a lot of its songs have piercing notes that can be literally unpleasant to listen to. It’s still got enough music to qualify for a positive though
10. Sound: Good sound design, as per usual
11. Enemy Design: Not bad, really. It’s a bit plain but the enemies that are there are well designed
12. Enemy Variety: There’s still some solid variety to it too, to my surprise. Lots of different types of enemies to deal with
13. Visual Distinction: Suffers a little this time around thanks to something I mentioned up in the Brickwork section. There’s some cases and situations where it’s not super distinct what you’re looking at and this can cause issues. It’s still a megaman game though
14. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual Megaman standard of quality here, and usually pretty smartly placed too
15. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
16. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
17. Kit: So X5 actually has two armors for X to grab. The… shall we say ‘default’ armor is the Falcon Armor. The Helmet halves weapon ammo cost, the Body halves damage taken and gives you the usual Giga Attack, the Buster gives you a narrow projectile that pierces but removes your ability to charge special weapons (which is… weird), and the Boots allow you to hover a bit similar to the last game (and also lets you avoid some enemies and terrain damage) but this also disables the ability to air dash. It’s a weird suit, decent overall but nothing fancy…
18. Kit: …so this is when we talk about Gaea Armor. First of all you gain total immunity to spikes, lets you smash V blocks, he can also just hang onto walls without sliding… and is also slower both walking and dashing, can’t air dash at all, and can’t use ANY special weapons (or Parts). So let’s talk about benefits. First the Armor gives you Giga Attack (of course, but this one’s basically a hadoken), and your basic shot becomes weird. Its damage is very high, the size of the shot is huge, but it also has really short range (it’s one step away from being a melee attack) and can also destroy projectiles. It’s very gimmicky and I’ll admit it’s not for me but it’s a nice design option
19. Kit: Crescent Shot is… weird. It’s not quite a spread shot because it instead shoots alternating between angled up, straight, and angled down. It also gives you a shield if charged. Goo Shaver is another ground seeker weapon and will scale up walls, making it a bit better than most ground seekers. The charged shot flings eight blocks of doom in either direction, being a form of an AOE. Tri-Thunder shoots a shot up and forward and then a third ball which is a ground seeker (another one, weird). The charged shot generates random bolts of lightning (six of them) across the screen, being some decent fire and forget firepower. Flash Laser fires a very slow remote controlled projectile which, I’m going to be nice, is completely useless. It’s a nice gimmick but this type of thing has almost no use in a Megaman game. The charged version is a big ol’ beam. Not super impressed so far let me tell you
20. Kit: Dark Hold is friggin’ strange. It’s the Flash Stopper (y’know, from Megaman TWO) except like… weird. You can’t shut it off without switching weapons and obviously it has no charge. By the way X and Zero both get this weapon (because of Sigma 1, actually). Wing Spiral fires a tornado up (or slightly forwards and up), and the charged shot is a slowly growing slow moving tornado in front of you. …y’know these weapons are just not interesting are they? I’m going to level with you, the three of you who actually read this (hi, you’re awesome, thank you for reading this, I put a lot of work into these). I barely ever played X when I replayed X5, and I replayed X5 a lot. And I think I’m starting to see why. Getting new attacks and (in the X games) seeing the charged versions is like half the fun, but these are… I don’t want to be unkind but this is almost Megaman 3 levels of weapons. What in the world. Anywho. Ground Fire shoots a little flame out which then fires small embers in all directions randomly which can pierce walls which is… incredibly situational. Its charged shot fires two big ol’ waves left and right. Spike Ball is a VERY short range boomerang shot, or charged sends out a ball that bounces on the screen (totally ignoring terrain) four times before going away. And that’s… it that’s all of X’s weapons. Wow
21. Kit: Let’s see what Zero gets. Surely this validates younger me. C-Sword gives you a double jump and makes your aerial attack the spinning attack from the last game
22. Kit: F-Splasher gives you an aerial dash which also has a damaging ice shield around you as you’re doing it (which can also tilt up or down a bit while doing it)
23. Kit: E-Blade is almost identical to the rising fire attack from X4 but lightning this time and the trail is longer (the trail does damage too). I gotta say so far this is all just ‘X4 Zero But Better’ and it seems like young me might’ve been right to focus on Zero
24. Kit: C-Flasher is a boring Giga attack you use on the ground to shoot nine shots above you in a semicircle. W-Shredder is the Shippuuga from X4 but even better because it’s a phantom of you doing the attack instead, leaving you safe. Quake Blazer is the downward strike from X4 (sensing a trend here) but this time flame instead of ice. The weird part? It does an explosion but near as I can tell that does absolutely nothing
25. Kit: Twin Dream lets you summon a twin which just does your moves for a bit in front of you before disappearing. Straight up the Ninja Gaiden 2 ability. And yeah that’s all of them and holy crap, the message here is ‘don’t play X’, good to know. Don’t worry this’ll be a lesson they take to heart in X7, hey-o
26. Viscerality: X’s attacks almost all suck so I’m just going to flat eject them from consideration. Zero is still a total badass and it’s still awesome zooming around obliterating everything, so let’s chalk this up to a double…
27. Viscerality: …for visuals
28. Viscerality: And a solid solitary for Impact
29. Guidance: For the various issues I have with this game, Guidance is not one of them. Finding power ups and armor parts is still more a matter of execution than observation, in a good way
30. Level: Crescent Grizzly’s stage actually has some neat concepts. You’re jumping between moving trucks (something Alia WILL NOT SHUT UP ABOUT, more on that in the negatives) and some of those trucks are building sized with their own platforming (complete with death spikes of course). After this is a timed section with increasingly difficult one platform jumps with some recovery space if you fall. Short but sweet
31. Boss: Crescent Grizzly is one step away from being suck, but thankfully all his ‘leave the screen’ attacks also include a vuln period built in so you can keep pouring damage into him. He has several smaller hits (easy to dodge), several bigger hits (much harder to dodge), a ground attack and a swipe attack (both as he pokes out of the ground)
32. Level: Weirdly, despite how AWFUL the first part is, I rather like the second part of Volt Kraken’s stage (it’s also the majority of the stage). It has a singular theme; Attack the lock several times to open the door. Thing is this escalates across the entire rest of the stage, from attacking a lot, to attacking a lot up top, to attacking two locks, two locks in weird locations, and so on until finally we’re dealing with a moving platform and a line you can hang from over spiked pits while hitting the two locks. Not too shabby
33. Boss: Volt Kraken is probably the hardest non Sigma Stage boss in the game. He’ll shoot out line bolts that form orbs which travel along the walls when they reach it, ORBS which do the same, he’ll electrify the floor meaning you’re stuck on the walls, shoot a bunch of horizontal bolts (which become orbs), or shoot a bunch of vertical bolts. This is one of those rare times where I’ll just straight up recommend using his weakness because whoof
34. Level: Shining Firefly’s stage opens with a strange theme; oddly directional attacks. What I mean by that is you’ll, for example, start off below a bunch of enemies so you need to attack up. Or you’ll be above enemies and need to attack below. There’s a lot of angling and slanting in the first segment that continues this theme, even as you deal with the metal spike crushers (Metalman reference? Hm…) The second part of the stage has the same spiral staircase thing Split Mushroom had but without the weird camera problem so that’s a solved issue, and a… okay a pretty boring miniboss I’ll give you that. After this we start seeing giant beam emitters with timers you have to push past to avoid (these shoot horizontally) while also dealing with the vertical ones barring the path, which escalates twice before concluding in a vertical climb. Overall probably the best stage so far…
35. Level: …for a solid double
36. Boss: Shining Firefly is… not terrible. He’ll hit you (he likes to teleport around), send his super slow missile after you (the trick here is the trail does damage too), blast half the screen with a giant laser, or fling out mines which he will then retract into himself (in other words doing damage both ways)
37. Level: Dark Necrobat’s stage starts off pretty simple, just a few enemies and platforms and weird visual effects… but we quickly see that the constellations flicker in and out and when they flicker back out they spawn enemies and instant death spikes, and we start to see how mean this stage can get. This escalates INCREDIBLY quickly, meaning you have introduction then escalation then final exam in just a few screens. The second phase of the stage is all about the flipping mechanic from Cyber Peacock in X4 (or Gravityman in 5) but they do some clever stuff with it
38. Boss: Dark Necrobat himself is almost copy paste Shademan from 7, with a couple of new tricks. Of course he’ll stay flying up high, he’ll do the sonic wave attacks, and he’ll grab you and drain life from you. He also can send swarms of enemies at you, or do his freeze time attack followed immediately by another attack (there’s ways around this)
39. Level: Spiral Pegasus’s stage is kind of neat, a precursor to some later Zero missions (in the Zero series I mean) where your primary goal for the first segment is to rescue people and disable bombs. The second segment is a slowly descending elevator which you technically want to out-pace to gain access to a power up and some drops. The third segment is where the stage falls apart a bit; You ride a very slow moving elevator, avoid some very easy to dodge instant death spikes, and a Sigma Virus head sloooowly follows you (it can’t catch you). The last section makes up for it though, returning to the ‘rescue people and stop bombs’ theme with some more enemies and elevator rides to make up for it
40. Boss: Spiral Pegasus is not bad actually. he has a dash which is whatever but also does a knockback (which is obviously an issue given the arena). He’ll fling an image of himself at you as a projectile. He’ll seng wind at you which will fling you back. And of course he’ll pull a Storm Eagle (this whole game is references if you haven’t picked up on that yet) and fly off screen before doing various directions of dashes across the screen towards you. Solid fight, one of the better ones really…
41. Boss: …I’ll call this a double
42. Level: Burn Dinorex’s stage starts with a vertical segment but going down instead of up, with timing and enemy placement puzzles, which establishes our theme (timing). This is followed by a corridor where instant death doom blazes by every now and again and you have to hang out in obvious safe spots. This escalates twice before we hit our second area, now just a straight up lava segment where you have to hop in the Rider which, despite having an open cockpit, somehow makes you immune to lava. We then have an entire lava section absolutely glutted with enemies and there’s a logic here; See, you’re still under lava, and these enemies do damage, and if your mech explodes you friggidy die. So this becomes a health management exercise which is kind of neat
43. Boss: Burn Dinorex is… fine. His two main attacks are both dodged the same way (leap over him) but his third requires some positioning and his ultimate is basically a soft enrage health tax. Spike Rosered is… fine. He has more going on than Dinorex but he has weird invuln periods, his clone just acts as an area denial, and his attacks are turbo easy to dodge
44. Level: Spike Rosered’s stage is our real all in on the vine / line mechanic… which can go pretty fast so that works. Then he likes to spawn invisible spikes to block your path while dealing with mostly invincible obstacles, followed by a much meaner line/vine section and a quick final exam of the spike pits and plant spikes
45. Song: “Zero Virus” is my villain song… er what I mean by that is it’s just this wonderfully combination of peaceful and dread music, invoking a very particular tone and probably one of the only beats in this entire game that nails what they were going for with the big epic X and Zero conflict…
46. Song: …and gets its own double
47. Boss: Honestly the X and Zero fight, for all my whining, is a very solid fight. In fact it’s TWO solid fights, which is part of why it works so well. Both fights use a lot of their kit from X4 and X5 meaning very varied fights, alongside properly frenetic movement and no real reliance on excessive health or damage. Properly challenging fights. By the way I lied it’s actually THREE fights because if the Eurasia crashes you fight Nightmare Zero here (and cannot play as Zero for… obvious reasons). So this…
48. Boss: …is one of the better bosses…
49. Boss: …in the series
50. Replayability: For honestly the first time in the franchise I’m giving this a double. X5 is uniquely designed around doing things differently each playthrough, in addition to the usual Megaman stuff…
51. Replayability: …which is part of why I used to replay this one so much more then arguably better games like X2 or X4

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Pacing: Alia and the text boxes. She will pop up to tell you about EVERY damned thing. There is a reason they made this an opt in thing in X6 (probably the one thing X6 did better than X5…)
2. QoL: Power ups don’t share across characters when you can swap between X and Zero at will. So… you kind of want to stick with one character for your whole playthrough
3. Encounter Rate: The respawns of the Ninja Gaiden variety return
4. Audio Spam: More or less the exact same issue that X4 had and for the same reason…
5. Audio Spam: …and it can get bad
6. Intro: The Intro stage is… not good. First, Alia will NOT stop tutorializing extremely basic concepts at you. Second, whoever you beat the stage with you lose a specific ability on that person, which NOTHING tells you about until you’ve done it
7. Level: So hey, Tidal Whale’s stage… sucks. It’s an autoscroller (rarely a good sign) while a submarine chases you and enemies specifically designed to waste your time or delay you are in your way. Also unlike what a GOOD autoscroller would do if you somehow (it’s relatively easy to do actually) destroy all the guns on U-555 but all that does is make this even MORE boring as you’re just veeery slooowly moving through the stage instead of really doing anything. You blow up the head (the whole sub looks like it’s blowing up actually) and nope, surprise! Now you have to deal with the tail! Well okay we blew up the sub again let’s move on. We have a quick instant death segment and… surprise!! Yes that’s right, a THIRD round of this incredibly slow nonsense. It’s actually worse because two of the three phases have instant death traps or spikes that can, y’know, kill you. Meaning redoing the entire veeery slooow section from scratch. This is awful…
8. Level: …I’m shocked…
9. Level: …this got past testing. (Sidebar; this stage was actually the most unfinished stage in the game, no joke… even the song was a re-use of a remix from X2 they had lying around)
10. Boss: Tidal Whale himself kinda sucks too. He has a slow, dull attack which is astonishingly easy to dodge and barely does damage, then he has an attack that’s legitimately hard to avoid and will instantly kill you. Hell of a whiplash there
11. Boss: Dynamo is such a boring fight. First of all he’s slow, and attacks slow, and does entirely too much damage, and has WAY too much health. He has an attack that slowly attacks in a line which you jump over, a big swing which you go over, and a shot which goes down and splits which you… jump over (are you sensing the trend here?) He does have one fight later where he hits half the screen then the other half but this is astonishingly simple to dodge despite how flashy it looks (just dash one way and then dash the other way). And yes in case that’s not clear you fight this loser twice
12. Level: I mean of course Volt Kraken’s stage sucks. He’s known for it. Let’s get the obvious out of the way first; For the very first and only time in the ENTIRE franchise you can die before the READY? dialogue goes away. This is so player hostile I don’t even know what to add to it. Then the stage itself has all the problems from Jet Stingray’s level except SO much worse. There’s no real way to reflex through this without luck because you have to either be dashing or NOT dashing at all times. I know that sounds like a duh but what I mean by that is dashing removes control of the craft, so sometimes you have to NOT be dashing to jump over things. But sometimes if you aren’t dashing you won’t be able to progress. It’s only a few screens long and it’s terrible (don’t even get me started on getting the bolts to open the door to the armor piece)
13. MSQ: So when you fire the shot (or launch the shuttle) it actually has a chance of success and there is no such thing as 100% success rate. This means even if you do everything ‘as intended’ you can still fail. This ALSO means you can succeed with a low chance (and there’s a fairly well known exploit to guarantee success on 0%) This is… misleading at best and honestly feels weird, especially since it takes one of the cooler elements of the game (building up to accomplish something as a choice) and throws it out the window because your choice barely matters. You can literally ignore all eight stages and go right to the end, or do all 8 in any order, and it just does not matter
14. Level: Sigma 1 can go directly to hell. It starts off with the Quickman reference but thanks to timing and movement speed is actually much worse… and then they do a horizontal segment which it is SHOCKINGLY easy to not be fast enough and end up trapped and forced to kill yourself (or just a bit too slow and die anyways)
15. Boss: Black Devil is a pretty typical Devil fight. A horrible combination of boring and overtuned. Dude has too much health and WAY too much damage
16. Level: Sigma 2 (this time a reference to an X1 stage, namely Sigma 1 from that game) starts us off with some pretty basic doom platforms over pits, then starts hitting us in the face with death spikes, and a vertical segment designed to screw with you twice. First it’s littered with ladders and that line thing, second it is absolutely swamped with enemies who do a lot of little shots designed to knock you off and cost you progress
17. Boss: Ranga Banga W kind of zags where the original fight zigged. The pieces have way more health and now there’s instant death spikes on the walls too, and those two changes alone make what used to be a challenging and intense fight into a frustration fest. I’ll admit I usually bring Gaea Armor to this to just avoid it and I want you to think about doing Sigma 2 with Gaea Armor
18. Padding: This is a good time to mention that almost every boss in this game just weirdly has too much health, a problem that gets much worse the further in you get
19. Level: Sigma 3 is what you get when you don’t do very precise polish and testing on your stages. I’m actually down with the CONCEPT of the stage; It’s all very narrow movement on either the zipper line or temporary platforms and there are death spikes everywhere. Thing is someone clearly didn’t think about the specifics of jump angles or landing zones and because of how they do the angled section there’s entire parts where you literally cannot see where you’re going and thus have to make blind jumps. So, as with the above Ranga Banga W, it goes from being tough to being frustrating
20. Padding: Of course there’s boss refights. Why wouldn’t there be boss refights. See there’s this thing called Artifact Design, and what it means is we do the same thing we used to do because we used to do it (or because others did it) NOT because it’s a good idea. And to be clear there’s nothing wrong with doing the same thing (after all this same series keeps doing the ‘beat boss, get weapon’ thing too right?) The problem is when you’re doing something JUST because you used to do it, not because it’s a good idea. I really hope someday whoever starts doing their own spiritual successor to Megaman (because lord knows Capcom isn’t doing jack with it) at least THINKS about this concept and then decides what to do based on that. Also real quick while I’m here, y’know how silly it was that they had like lava in the Final Weapon for Magma Dragoon and the like? They have underwater segments and literal clumps of dirt (JUST the clumps, not the rest of the dirt) for Tidal Whale and Crescent Grizzly, it’s hysterical
21. Outro: Boss: Sigma 2 is weirdly miserable, especially after Sigma 1 who is just here to be a health tax (seriously Sigma 1 only has three attacks and none of them do less then seven damage… his highest hitting attack does FIFTEEN). But no Sigma 2 is so much worse. He occasionally just… goes invincible because screw you. He’ll do a big easy to dodge attack from one hand, flings his hands at you, launches boomerang shots at you, does a lightning sweep, and summons… squares? for some reason?? to attack you. Ultimately he’s pretty easy and pretty boring, but he ALSO hits like a truck (his weakest attack is 6 damage) and it just drags the entire ending down. And it’s not like this game has a great Outro to begin with

Story Positives:

1. Spritework: So hey, X continues to have insane detail and design to his sprites. Probably because most of them are just X5 and X4’s agains BUT it’s still here..
2. Spritework: …and it…
3. Spritework: …still counts
4. Spritework: And of course ditto for Zero….
5. Spritework: …so it’s still…
6. Spritework: …a triple. Enjoy this because it’s some of the only good spritework in the game. Speaking of which!
7. Spritework: This is a single positive for… EVERYthing else. All bosses, all enemies, all NPCs. Just one. These are… really basic ass sprites and in some cases they literally look bad (like Infinity Mijinion and Rainy Turtloid). It doesn’t help that some look like they’re designed for completely different games (like Blaze Heatnix and Blizzard Wolfgang look like they’re not in the same game, it’s wild)
8. Brickwork: Rainy Turtloid is one of the few areas with something I’d almost call brickwork. We get a vague idea of the location via the architecture, and we can tell it’s in a mountainous region. Shield Sheldon’s stage has a few interesting tidbits, like the airport from X5 (I’m pretty sure it’s literally the same place actually) and some weird… things in the background. And Metal Shark Player’s stage… has giant piles of junk? Look there’s not a lot going on here. I do like the panels of different features in the museum stage of Ground Scaravich (though of course they’re copy pasted across the level so there’s only like five of them). And hey, Blizzard Wolfgang’s stage has some snow-covered machines
9. External Continuity: The game is a direct sequel to X5 and, as a consequence, directly connects to X4 as well. Go figure. Enjoy this, this is the end of External Continuity positives in the X series
10. Background Lore: Every mission we get a small bit of lore about the boss in question, which is nice for fleshing them out as well as the world around them. This is good because for the very first time the museum’s background lore isn’t there. It’s like the most barebones thing. Even X7 will get the Museum positive, but not X6
11. Plot: Gate and Alia’s story is kind of interesting for what it’s worth. Both were brilliant individuals but she has a friggin’ conscience and he always felt like he was so much smarter than everyone around him that it gave him an inferiority complex (I’m skipping over some details). She ended up becoming a top Navigator for the Hunters, he ended up disgraced by the Reploid community and would have died in obscurity if not for stumbling across some of Zero’s parts after the Eurasia disaster in X5
12. Outro: Enjoy this for it’s one of the only story beats I actually like in this game. At the end we see what’s left of Sigma after all the games, a broken down husk of a robot, barely capable of speech and blindly lashing out at X and Zero. Despite how X6 feels tacked on to the series this follows his arc smoothly. His original form was the one Cain built for him and when he became the Sigma Virus, which he directed the X Hunters to work on Zero while he was in his spare. But his spare was destroyed too and his code damaged, so he instigated the Doppler plot specifically to build lots of spare bodies (plus his ‘ultimate battle body’). One of those bodies he uses in order to push the Repliforce into war, and he uses SEVERAL others in X5 to spread the virus and crash the colony. But with so much devastation he has no one left to build him new bodies and he was pretty smashed after X5… So here we have Gate trying to rebuild him how he can but Gate just does not know how to (Gate is a bit incompetent after all). So he went from being on top of the world to obsessed with X and Zero to smashing the infrastructure he relied on in that obsession to a trash pile. No grand schemes and no reploid utopia, just vague memories of rage. This would in fact be the perfect final end for Sigma (as his story is now complete) but, spoilers, he’ll show up again in X7 and X8
13. Integration: Call me weird but I REALLY like the storytelling beat here with the final two fights. Unfinished Sigma and Hell Sigma are technically pretty easy fights, especially compared to some of his previous iterations, but the nature of how the fight functions is great. Unfinished Sigma can barely move and lurches forward inch by inch, but when he does an attack it’s a gigantic blast of energy or shield and it does a TON of damage. Also when you hit him you have a random chance to send him flying to the ground in a broken heap… but doing so also sends out a bunch of damage in the form of green and purple orbs, some of which home in on you. Even when a broken mess that can barely control himself he’s still immensely powerful and a clear threat. Then Hell Sigma primarily has three attacks which are colossal, half-screen sized shots that blast everything in front of him, everything in front of him, or everything above him… each shot is actually pretty easy to dodge, but the blasts themselves will wreck your face if you hit. Again, uncontrolled, raw power

Story Negatives:

1. Intro: So the Intro lets us know what we’re in for immediately. First, our intro cinematic is literally copy pasted scenes from X5… so we know this is a cheap thrown together game (similar to X3… yes that’s right we got TWO cheap, ‘shoved out the door’ titles in just this one series). We also do not have english voice acting which… to be clear, is whatever, but it’s indicative of how tight the budget was
2. Dialogue: The dialogue is worse than usual. It’s never been this bad (don’t worry, X7 will surpass this). This is…
3. Dialogue: …really terrible, and not helped at all because I know at least some of this…
4. Localization: …is due to some truly atrocious localization…
5. Localization: …which doesn’t help anything. To use one example, this is the game where they really start banging on about ‘robot DNA’. This is, we’re pretty sure, a mistranslation cuz… the concept of a reploid having DNA makes no sense on any level. This is admittedly not JUST localization because…
6. World Building: …well, this is when the big long descent into straight up magic started in the Megaman series. They would go full tilt with this in the Zero and ZX games, but even here the way they treat everything is it’s basically magic. It’s just magic
7. Plot: Okay so Isoc is Dr. Wily. No don’t look at me like that, he’s Dr. Wily, just like Serges was. This is all but confirmed thanks to behind the scenes info that’s come out since the series died. Why is this a negative? Because it means NOTHING. They do NOTHING with this. Serges at least was part of X2’s overall plot and was helping to manipulate Sigma towards Zero. Here Isoc is just… here, being Wily. For no reason
8. Storytelling Mechanic: Alia’s backstory is legitimately interesting. Thanks to the terrible dialogue this is terribly presented. I know people who don’t even really catch the underlying character beats and parallels between Alia and Gate
9. Writing: This is kind of a catch all because this is a dumb plot and dumb world building but Gate builds a super virus called Nightmare out of the Sigma Virus and Zero’s code. Don’t… ask me how that works. This is already a bit much but I would have let it slide if it ended there but no. Instead the Nightmare also completely alters reality in bizarre ways (to allow for the randomization of the stages, among other things). So chunks of ice or laser beams or purple magma or RAIN or WIND are all Nightmare effects. This series isn’t exactly known for its hard science but this is supremely ‘because plot’
10. Plot: Speaking of, Zero is back. No explanation, no nothing. And I quote, “I hid myself while I tried to repair myself.” Ignore the fact that he was absolutely obliterated by Slime Sigma (that’s his real name, look it up) back in X5. Ignore that X required the ghost of Dr. Light to fix him up. Zero’s fine, stop asking questions
11. Brickwork: So welcome to X6, where Brickwork goes to die. I don’t want to be unkind but so many areas have this melted plastic look and it completely clashes with everything and in addition to not really conveying anything brickwork is supposed to it looks out of place. Our first stage that really exemplifies this is Commander Yammark which just… I don’t even know how to put it into words. It looks like we’re looking at blurry pictures of things that are zoomed a different level than the enemies and player. It doesn’t even really convey where we are. There’s grass, bushes, and rocks, but also floating squares of rocks for some reason, and stone faces that are in… the ground?
12. Visual Continuity: So where the heck is any of this happening? We enter a pit near Area Zero and we’re in what looks like a combination of a laboratory, Cyberspace, and a Vegas casino. What’s weirder is as you progress there’s these two statues in the background, one angelic and one demonic, and as you go the angel gets more chained up and broken apart and the demon gets more organic looking and more finished. I gotta level with you. I have played this game through many times (what, don’t look at me like that) and to this day I have NO idea what this is or what it represents. And because every stage is visually identical there’s no sense of… anything. I should mention that Visual Continuity is something Megaman games mastered back in Megaman TWO (arguably even in 1). This is just sad
13. Outro: Dumb, dumb Outro. Gate’s lab like… fades? Or something? Everyone is out at the ruins (I guess this is Area Zero), they all talk like it’s the end of a kid’s cartoon, and Zero locks himself away for 102 years… please ignore X7 which does NOT occur over a hundred years from now. (This was their SECOND attempt to tie into the Zero series, which failed because X7 exists). Either way this is a dumb ending

Gameplay Positives:

1. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits
2. Controls: Absolutely phenomenal controls, good placement and utilization of the shoulder buttons, incredibly precise, and of course rebindable…
3. Controls: …gold standard…
4. Controls: …of how these games should control
5. QoL: L and R and Exit. As I mentioned back when it was added to the classic series, being able to swap weapons on the fly is a game changer, and the ability to just Exit a stage when done is so nice for grabbing pieces you missed, refilling, or just replaying stages. I’m also fond of how you can use two separate buttons for weapon and buster (the same innovation they added back in 8)
6. Music: I mean. Even X7 has a good soundtrack, of course X6 does. Some unique songs here but at least it’s not ear piercing like some of X5’s was…
7. Music: …I’d call it a double
8. Sound: It’s basically the same sound system borrowed from X5 and so consequently it’s still pretty legit
9. Visual Distinction: I’ve seen better (in this franchise and this series) but it’s still reasonably distinct. In fact arguably the characters and the backgrounds mismatch so much it’s easier to tell what’s going on than it should be
10. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual Megaman standard of quality here, and usually pretty smartly placed too
11. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
12. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
13. Kit: So again we have two armors for X (and screw you Zero players). First is the Blade Armor, aka Temu Zero. The Helmet decreases weapon energy consumed for regular and charged shots. The Chestpiece halves damage and charges the Giga Attack (which is a Z-Saber wave attack). The Buster parts change your shots to make them worse (you heard me) but then gives you the ability to hold up while doing a charged attack to swing your charged saber which is a bigger and more damaging saber. Finally the boots give you a chargeable air dash which has double the distance, grants some i-frames, and lets you aim in any cardinal direction. This is… not bad actually. The Shadow Armor, aka Ninja Armor, is straight up required (unless you’re insane) for the first Gate stage. Let me tell you finding that out was a thing, but I’ll cover that separately. So the Helmet lets you swing the Z-Saber faster. The Chestpiece reduces damage by half and lets you do a Giga Attack which does damage in a short range around you. The Buster makes your shots fire in random directions (so another nerf to the Buster) and your charged shot is replaced with a melee slash… also you can’t use special weapons with this armor. Yay. Finally the Boots let you, and here’s the mandatory part, walk safely on instant death spikes. You can also stick to walls and ceilings. It’s neat for what it is but ultimately I think this needed polish to be a truly good option, as is it’s the ‘get it to progress the game’ armor
14. Kit: Yammar Option (weird name) summons three dragonflies around you. Here’s the weird part; the act of summoning is what costs weapon energy, not shooting with them. Thing is they also function as a shield, intercepting damage and being destroyed after a bit, which requires resummoning. The charged version makes them invulnerable and regularly shoot out in all directions
15. Kit: Shouenzan is… well you remember that rising strike in X4 and X5? Imagine that but it’s slower, you stand still instead, and the range is worse. It’s not ALL bad because it does persistent damage but it’s still just a worse version of those two attacks (which also did persistent damage). Rekkoha is our latest Giga attack and it’s a screen sweeper, straight up. Rakukojin is our standard down strike, and finally one that’s just the same as the previous down strikes. It also summons a little anchor that does some additional damage
16. Kit: I debated this for a hot minute but I do think the Parts deserve a plus. There’s several issues with them but once you know what they do, where to get them, and grind to equip them, they do have some legitimately cool effects that can change your playstyle. With some polish this could be legit. It’s probably worth noting the Elves (which function as Parts) in the Zero series were probably inspired by the Parts here and in X5 (and Z1 came out only a year after X6)
17. Level: Rainy Turtloid’s level… well okay before we say that let’s get this out of the way. Thanks to the Nightmare Phenomenon there’s some variety and malleability in how stages go based on when you do them in relation to other stages (as mentioned down in the negatives it’s a needlessly unclear system). So I will be trying to gauge each stage based on all possible permutations thanks to my own playthrough, redoing stages off camera, and double checking 100% challenge Runs on Youtube. Anyways! Rainy Turtloid’s stage is… strange. It basically mandates using an armor to do it (get used to that by the way) unless you’re particularly skilled, and involves an absolute metric ton of enemy spam. Thing is there’s JUST enough design to the platforming and mobile pit sections to qualify for a positive I think because even here, in one of the better stages in the game, you can feel that ‘rushed and unpolished’ vibe. There’s large stretches of almost copy pasted level design, with the same jumps and enemy encounters just repeated to fill up space. Shield Sheldon’s stage is probably one of the more well designed stages, benefiting from its relative shortness. You have to aim lasers at targets in order to open doors, and that theme escalates as you progress, until you’re dealing with terrain and enemies both in the doing
18. Boss: I do rather like the Shield Sheldon fight. He has an insanely slow and easy to dodge shield throw, but he can also bounce all over the place, throw up his anti projectile shield while homing in at you, and twin himself while attacking across the room. It’s not much but it’s better than most of these bozos
19. Boss: Okay, call me weird, I like the Infinity Mijinion fight, despite his stupid name. He can shoot a slow moving laser which will zoom up or down to hit you, hit half the screen with lasers, and he can absorb non-charged shots to counter attack with them. The real thing that makes him interesting though is he will periodically summon adds (when hit with a Saber, his weakness, or every quarter health). He can have up to six clones and they all do his last attack, which summons a bunch of green bubbles that will home in on the player. These are fascinating because they’re pretty easy to destroy but there are a LOT of them and it can get overwhelming pretty fast between clones and bubbles
20. Boss: Blizzard Wolfang is decent for what he is. He’ll pounce, shoot a slow and incredibly easy to dodge attack, or leap up and shoot a bunch of shots. He can also dash on the ceiling to cause spikes to fall on you. For how much I hate his stage, Blaze Heatnix is… fine. He’ll summon magma to cover the top or bottom half of the area (and the top half can drop damaging droplets), he’ll shoot a big shot that explodes into several little shots, he’ll shoot a wave attack, or he’ll zoom across the screen. And Metal Shark Player is… well he’s dull (he either shoots a bouncing attack, swims, or jumps at you) but his interesting attack is he’ll summon either Magna Centipede, Sting Chameleon, or Blast Horner to do one of their attacks against you which can add some nice dynamic on top of what he’s doing
21. Song: “Darkness Beyond All Dying”, the final stages song. Wonderfully haunting with a great distorted guitar as accent
22. Song: “Madness Beyond Death”, the final Sigma fight. This is one of my favorite boss songs in the FRANCHISE, nevermind the X games. How the hell does this song go this hard?
23. Integration: Call me weird but I REALLY like the storytelling beat here with the final two fights. Unfinished Sigma and Hell Sigma are technically pretty easy fights, especially compared to some of his previous iterations, but the nature of how the fight functions is great. Unfinished Sigma can barely move and lurches forward inch by inch, but when he does an attack it’s a gigantic blast of energy or shield and it does a TON of damage. Also when you hit him you have a random chance to send him flying to the ground in a broken heap… but doing so also sends out a bunch of damage in the form of green and purple orbs, some of which home in on you. Even when a broken mess that can barely control himself he’s still immensely powerful and a clear threat. Then Hell Sigma primarily has three attacks which are colossal, half-screen sized shots that blast everything in front of him, everything in front of him, or everything above him… each shot is actually pretty easy to dodge, but the blasts themselves will wreck your face if you hit. Again, uncontrolled, raw power. And from a purely gameplay perspective; If you’ve gotten this far you’re in the victory lap. Gate was the final… GATE to your progress (eh? EH?)
24. Replayability: For what it’s worth, it still counts

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Info In Game: The Nightmare Phenomena is a major mechanic in the game and almost completely unexplained. This is despite the fact that it will completely change how a given stage can go and some stages shift from normal to irritating
2. Info In Game: Unlocking Zero, how to fight High Max, info on what Parts do… none of this is in game in any reasonable manner
3. Animation: The animations are generally absent but, more to the point, in multiple cases the enemies have no telegraph of which random attack they’re about to use, making it detrimental to figuring out what the heck is happening
4. Backtracking: Not only encouraged but barely designed, with very little different other than the Nightmare Phenomena and irritation
5. Prime Opt: The Rescue System. So there’s reploids here and there you can rescue for Parts (more on that in a minute), similar to X5. The main difference is there are now Nightmare enemies which try to grab them and if they DO they PERMANENTLY remove that person from being rescuable. Also Nightmare enemies almost always spawn within a few feet of the people that need rescuing. I don’t feel the need to really elaborate here. This is awful…
6. Prime Opt: …in fact more than a few times what I’d end up doing is realize I’m not going to make it in time, immediately turn around and zoom back to despawn both, and try again
7. Kit: So hey, Parts. These are fairly dull stat ups like health, weapon energy, movement speed, etc. The reason these are here and not in positives? You are severely limited in what you can equip unless you grind (more on that in a sec) and thanks to the above negative you’re likely to permanently lose several of these. Some of these are really good too it’s worth noting, like flat increasing all weapon damage by 1, or making it so X only shoots charged shots, or increase the range of your Z-Saber
8. Grind: Soul farming. This isn’t strictly necessary but this increases your rank which, in turn, increases the number of Parts you can equip. You need hundreds or thousands of these (depending… the highest rank requires 999 souls but the one below that is 5000 and the one below that is 1200). Bosses, if you kill them quickly, give 200 (otherwise 100). Most enemies give 8 or 4. This is just a needless grind
9. Mid Mission Checkpointing: There’s issues here periodically, with either bad checkpoints or in some cases NO checkpoints. The crusher stages are like this, as is Gate 2
10. Kit: Ground Dash is such a dull weapon. It shoots a pile of rocks in a very slow arc or, if you charge it, a larger rock. That’s, uh, it. Magma Blade does a slice with your Z Saber which also shoots a couple of fireballs. Or, if you charge it, you’ll shoot a few fireballs that very slowly, almost lazily, cross the screen. Ice Burst shoots out three small projectiles, one of which creates a platform you can use. A fully charged shot lets you dash, which makes icicles shoot out in your wake as you go. The dash is… something but the regular shot? This is barebones utility. Meteor Rain is so dumb. You shoot a shot up, and then it comes back down after bouncing once. If charged it’ll make a small number of small, slow projectiles hit the screen. Metal Anchor is… y’know this is the THIRD weapon that has a screen hit while charged. So its regular attack is a slow bouncing weapon (why are all these so slow?) The charged hit, as foreshadowed one sentence ago, lets you summon a bunch of junk Storm Eagles to hit the screen. Thing is this is terrible because you’re basically channeling the entire time and if you take any damage, at all, while doing so the attack is interrupted and it still costs the energy. Guard Shell lets you summon a shell that can take in SOME projectiles, wait a moment, then shoot them back. X can summon this wherever (any cardinal direction), Zero cannot (nor can he cancel the shield) because screw you. The charged shot summons a little turret in the four corners of the screen to shoot slow, ineffective shots at nothing. Ray Arrow is a slow buster replacement and its charged version hits a portion of the screen (I think that’s our FOURTH screen nuke?) All in all these abilities… kinda suck. For those unaware I jot down a little summary of each weapon as I go and then decide how many positives these bake into after all 8 are clarified. These are… junk, with literally only one exception. Which is why you, in the present, are reading about this down in the negatives category. This is pretty much Megaman 3’s level of weapon design, and that is not a compliment…
11. Kit: …sooo enjoy that negative
12. Kit: Sentsuizan is like the dash attack from X4 and X5 but bad. Imagine you dash but you can’t cancel out of the attack and once you land you do another attack (also unavoidable). Hyoroga is what I’d normally call a ‘niche case’ ability but in this case I’m not sure it has ANY use. You dash up to the ceiling (assuming one is there), stand there a bit, and can slice downwards to create ice blasts directly below you. Fun fact; This weapon is Rainy Turloid’s weakness. You CANNOT use it on him, it is flat impossible. That’s… that’s the type of game this is. Ensuizan is like the spinning attack of the previous two games but you’re stuck on the ground, which carries some weird buggy interactions with it (it cancels i-frames, for instance). And… yeah. Zero’s abilities suck too, with a couple of exceptions. Great.
13. Viscerality: Attacks look pathetic (the cheaper spritework does NOT help)
14. Viscerality: Attacks also FEEL anemic. You can barely tell unless it’s a weakness and even then not necessarily
15. Audio Spam: Same basic issue as in the previous game, though I swear the bosses talk more this time around. Maybe I just notice it more because it’s in japanese, I dunno, but like… listen to the Ground Scaravich fight sometime
16. Encounter Rate: So Ninja Gaiden respawns return, but it’s worse than usual because a huge amount of the game involves going back and forth in specific sections where enemies respawn. Further the Nightmares, aka 80% of the enemy encounters in the game, have this. This can get immensely frustrating…
17. Encounter Rate: …and make the game needlessly irritating
18. Interface: The interface is unhelpful and generally bad (the red stages… except it’s not accurate or actively bugged… the parts and what they do… weapon counter replacing life counter for no good reason… etc.)
19. Intro: The starting stage is trying to tutorialize the Z Saber but does so in the weirdest and dumbest way. Then the first boss is just a gigantic pile of boring health (get used to that by the way). It’s okay, then we fight a supposed to lose fight with High Max (we’ll talk about HIM in more detail later)
20. Level: Ground Scaravich. So first this stage isn’t that impressive to begin with but check it out, one of the main gimmicks is you get a random section of the stage as you progress. This is already a bit eyebrow raising (and most of them are somewhat dull (they REALLY like copy pasting platforms I’m noticing this playthrough) but what really makes it suck isn’t the platforms or even the enemy spam of one single enemy… no it’s the fact that one of the segments has a Helmet part in it (which you basically need to beat the game) and, in case you weren’t listening, it’s random. Meaning it’s pure luck how many times it takes you redoing this stage to get this stupid helmet
21. Boss: Ground Scaravich himself isn’t interesting either. He’ll roll a ball left or right (of varying sizes and speeds… and at higher levels he can summon stones that require charged hits to kill) and occasionally he’ll shoot at you. Once. Oh but wait his ultimate attack? He’ll THROW the stone at you. Woah ho ho
22. Boss: Rainy Turtloid is not a great fight. He’ll either barrage you with destructible missiles, move, or summon water globules. That is it that is his entire attack pattern. Even the fact that he’s a quarter the size of the screen doesn’t make the spinning attack that bad. And on a personal note, I hate how little he moves. I know this is the cheap game and they couldn’t afford much animation or spritework but he is SO BORING to look at while you fight him. Seriously look up his sprite sheet sometime
23. Level: Blaze Heatnix’s stage is God damned awful. So you start off right at the start, bang, fighting one of the donuts (they’re supposed to be ouroborus snake things). The first one is pretty basic; Open area and terrain with a few pits, but hitting the top green weak points (you have to destroy all four individually) can already be irritating. The SECOND donut now rotates around an otherwise empty room, which can make hitting it a chore. But these are an absolute joke compared to the third one, which now ‘leaps’ around while moving on slanteed terrain and requiring you to use the vine things to avoid it. All of this is bad…
24. Level: Encounter: …then there’s the second to last one. This one is the worst goddamned thing in this entire game and that is not a joke. So it’s a long vertical corridor which you have to slowly navigate while lava is chasing you. The lava, of course, is instant death. And the stupid thing spends a HUGE amount of its overall screen time with the lower two green weak points below the lava and basically out of reach. It is immeasurably easy to just die on this long sloggy section trying to just HIT the damned thing…
25. Level: Encounter: …and so this one encounter deserves double negative for complete bullcrap
26. Level: By the way there’s ANOTHER one after this it’s just not as bad. This one pops up periodically in a room filled with lava and you have to hit it as it ascends. It still sucks it’s just after that previous one everything feels better
27. Level: Metal Shark Player’s stage kinda sucks. The first part is dull and barely a challenge (it’s the presser from Dustman’s stage but slower and duller), the checkpoints on this level are TERRIBLE, there’s several bullcrap jumps, and the aforementioned presser will instantly kill you if even your toe is stuck out under it when they come down. During one of the routes you can fight a press miniboss thing which is just an exercise in patience as it does nothing for most of the fight
28. Level: Infinity Mijinion’s stage is boring at best. It’s one long slope down fighting the same two enemies over and over. And remember what I said earlier about copy pasted terrain? It actually gets worse here. Worse, because of the fact that you’re going DOWN a slope you have to make blind or semi blind jumps at multiple portions of the stage. The only reason this is only one negative is because of how short the stage is
29. Level: Commander Yammark’s stage is dull at best. They try to mix it up by allowing for some sections having limited visibility but it barely changes anything. And the ‘floating platform’ section is some of the laziest stage design I’ve seen in a long time, the entire room just consisting of several more or less evenly spaced floating squares and that’s… it that’s the section. What in the world
30. Boss: It’s okay his boss fight sucks too. He’ll either slowly move after you while firing in front of him, slowly move at you while his allies make a weird wall of damage, or chase you while bombing. That is it, three attacks, two of which are dealt with by basic movement
31. Level: Blizzard Wolfgang’s stage has some issues. First most of the level is built on this slanted ice slope which is exactly as irritating as it sounds. Parts of it can manifest icy chunks (how the heck is Nightmare manifesting this? Y’know what nevermind) and then you have two pits where blocks of ice come down to give you the way out and you use them to escape and I KNOW that sounds cool and please trust me when I say it is not. The patterns they come down on are frustratingly easy to get stuck in and it takes an eternity for them to actually fall so you can make one tiny mistake pretty late into the pattern and die instantly. That’s before we even consider the extended vertical climb through the same falling blocks
32. Itemization: Drops and placements are actively bad for once. Like, I don’t think we’ve ever seen it like this in an X game before. You are resource starved for entirely too large of a swath of the game
33. Guidance: Not only is it not particularly good, in some cases there is NOTHING indicating that things are even there
34. Core Mechanic: Terrible RNG in level selection and boss layout. So yeah I’ve mentioned the Nightmare Phenomenon several times and the meat of it is there’s a degree of randomness to which versions of which stages you will get. As mentioned elsewhere it’s not a great mechanic but the randomness itself kind of makes it suck. It’s probably to increase replayability by changing up the stages but the problem is not all stages are created equal, and your experience in a given stage can vary wildly based on which armor pieces, weapons, and Parts you currently have and which random effect a given stage is having. It is not an uncommon strategy to just bail on a stage and try something else to switch the Nightmare effect
35. QoL: Power ups don’t share across characters when you can swap between X and Zero at will. So… you kind of want to stick with one character for your whole playthrough
36. Boss: Dynamo is exactly as much of a loser here as he was back in X5. His attacks are (slightly) different but it’s the same boring patterns that are easy to dodge. At least you can farm him for souls now (see, you can fight Dynamo multiple times depending… he’ll basically spawn infinitely as a stage boss)
37. Boss: High Max 1 can go directly to hell. First he’s straight up invincible unless you hit him with a specific pattern of attack (I won’t share all of them but it really is some specific combos, and it varies if you’re X or Zero). So that already adds a layer of frustration. Then there’s his attacks. First he’ll shoot incredibly easy to dodge orbs at you. Then he’ll lunge at you, which is easy to dodge in multiple ways. Then he’ll lunge at you to do even more damage (also easy to dodge). Finally he’ll launch a ground tracking ball that will climb the wall which is easy to dodge. His ONLY attack that’s anything is when he goes to the middle of the room and launches slow moving orbs that are aimed at you. That’s it that’s the fight. Dodge constantly and move constantly because he moves FAST. It makes the fight a slog due to how little time you have to spare to hit him with the stupid combo to do any damage
38. Enemy Variety: I need to be clear here. There are FIFTEEN enemy types in this game. If that sounds like a lot remember that six of those are basically projectiles for OTHER enemies, some are just terrain things like the totem or the wheel, one’s a friggin’ Metool, and that just levaes the enemy you’ll be seeing a billion times which is the stupid Nightmare Virus
39. Level: Gate 1 sucks. Let’s start with the literally mandatory usage of armor to avoid the death spikes right out of the gate (fun little anecdote; the very first time I played this game I hit that first death spike column and I hadn’t gotten the ninja armor so… I couldn’t progress. Yes I know that with good timing you can dash through this, gimme a break). Then immediately after this nonsense we have a sloped ice segment absolutely glutted with enemies, then an autoscroller with instant death lava, and I didn’t even mention the section where approximately seven thousand lasers all fire at you at once. This stage is slow, overly punishing, and not engaging
40. Boss: Mother Nightmare is the worst Megaman boss outside of X7. This fight is complete garbage. So let’s get this out of the way. The hurtboxes of the two squares cover an enormous part of the screen, meaning very few safe areas. Where they move is random. They have a very tiny hitbox and enormous invuln periods. Thanks to literally no animation there’s NO indicators or telegraphs of what it’s about to do. Every hit it does plenty of damage. It can also SHOOT at you if I didn’t mention that. Oh and it can do ‘fake out’ attacks which can completely throw your dodge timing. And one last problem; When it gets low on health it starts going twice the speed, which reduces the vuln window and massively reduces the window of avoidance. This fight is pure pain for all the wrong reasons…
41. Boss: …and I condemn it…
42. Boss: …to oblivion
43. Level: Gate 2. Sigh. So you have to fight these Totem enemies which have entirely too much health and too narrow of hitboxes and they can’t be hit unless you’re hanging from a moving platform while avoiding fire while also dealing with respawning Nightmares and instant death spikes and because the stage is SO short there’s no checkpoint in the middle…
44. Level: …this stage is somehow even worse than the last one
45. Boss: High Max 2 is even worse if you can believe it. So first he’s huge, meaning his hurtbox is huge, by the way he also has giant shields around him so his hurtbox is basically tripled. He has a VERY narrow vuln window (or you can destroy his shields five times which puts him in permanent berzerk state). He hits like a frickin’ truck (9 damage on most attacks on easiest difficulty). His attacks are still boring (they’re actually really similar to his first fight, and mostly involve just jumping over him constantly). And of course there’s the final ‘screw you’; He has insanely long i-frames. So in addition to being irritating to hit him you can only hit him so often. And one last personal touch; Similar to Rainy Turtloid he has no real animation and he’s just boring to look at…
46. Boss: …this boss…
47. Boss: …is one of the worst bosses in the franchise
48. Level: Gate 3 is yet another example of a stage designed to require Armors to progress. Unlike the previous incident though you don’t see this until you’re a decent way through. Yes I know there’s other ways around it (I’ve done them myself) but the stage is clearly designed around the Armors
49. Boss: Gate. Christ this is three atrocious bosses in a ROW. So he’s flat out invincible (just… invincible) unless you hit one of his own ball attacks back at him. These detonate when they hit and don’t travel far meaning you have a hell of a time not getting hit while you’re doing the only thing that can damage him. By the way the platforms are random, he homes in on you and does way too much damage to you (he also has a melee hit which just deletes your health), he has a bajillion health, and his actions are pure RNG. I know speedrunners who hate this fight because he can single handedly kill a run. Screw this fight…
50. Boss: …and everything…
51. Boss: …about it
52. Level: General irritation. There’s a lot of little, weird things that just make the game unnecessarily irritating to play, like putting a pit before Gate’s door, or making you jump all over the place for the refights, or having no thought or reason to floating platform placement so they interrupt jump flow
53. Padding: Boss refights. Of course

Story Positives:

1. Story Sequencing: Enjoy this. This one, solitary positive, hovering here amidst the ruins of what’s left of its screaming compatriots. See, there’s this cool idea where as you do stages you get cutscenes semi regularly which all advance what counts for a plot in this game. Spreading this out like this actually works better than the usual Megaman approach (which is everything at the beginning and end, usually with an interruption in the middle)

Story Negatives:

1. Storyboarding: We see immediately that no one who made this game had ever even heard of storyboarding. Movements are stiff, people aren’t in the correct relations or positions to each other, ‘fight’ scenes are laughable, it’s pretty bad. What’s funny is the more static cutscenes are way better. I mean they’re not… GOOD but they’re not bad
2. Spritework: This is a good time to mention that the spritework sucks. Like, it really sucks. I feel like I’m looking at a mid PS1 game. Y’know, when they stopped designing around the PS1’s limitations but hadn’t gotten good enough to make it look good yet. They even tried the cell shading thing and it just… does not work. Bosses are ‘okay’ but enemies are AWFUL…
3. Spritework: …bad stuff all around
4. Animation: Those wonderful, glorious sprites are so beautifully complimented by how atrociously bad all the animation is too. I won’t punch down too hard on this because most of it will be under cutscenes but whoof
5. Intro: So the Intro cutscene is a few copy pasted scenes from the game, some gameplay footage, a couple of stills, and that’s… uh, it. I’ve seen worse but this is pretty anemic
6. Intro: Good lord this Intro really does set the scene. Did you notice how the criminal reploid isn’t shown standing up because they couldn’t bother to animate it, so instead they do a fade cut to him already leaving? Also why does Axl wait to reveal himself to criminal bot, and THEN wait to shoot him, and THEN the shot doesn’t seem to really do anything. This whole sequence is to establish that Axl can morph into other bots. By the way, get used to that lovely voice acting
7. Cutscene: Terrible audio balancing which means on multiple cutscenes you cannot friggin’ hear the people underneath the music
8. Dialogue: This game has some of the most atrocious dialogue I’ve ever seen. It’s not even badly localized it’s just badly written. And this is Megaman, a series not known for its stellar dialogue…
9. Dialogue: …but this…
10. Dialogue: …is something else
11. Theme: We’re the rad, cool, hip new cats on the block now daddio. No seriously the theme of the work is how the younger, more ‘with it’ reploids are replacing the old guard and it could not be done worse…
12. Theme: …for a solid double
13. Voice Acting: Which is a shame cuz this is BAD. This is BAAAAD. I want to be clear about this. Y’know how sometimes voice acting is bad but enjoyably so, like you can make fun of it? Like in X4, or 8, or Castlevania Symphony of the Night? This is not that. This is someone rubbing a balloon on a chalkboard and I hate listening to it. I am not being hyperbolic when I say I wanted to just mute the game repeatedly to avoid having to listen to this. It is in fact SO bad we’re going to give individual acting jobs negatives. So lessee… let’s call this one for Zero, who is probably one of the better actors in that he merely sounds bored the entire time
14. Voice Acting: Then we’ve got Axl who’s at least trying but everything about how he talks is wrong and sounds grating…
15. Voice Acting: …so that’s a double for Axl
16. Voice Acting: Then there’s X. Dear God, X. This is the worst voice acting in the game pound for pound. While some later bosses or side characters are arguably worse, the weirdly high pitched-but-not-really whiny tone X uses every time he opens his gob makes me want to slug him. And in addition to that constant drone he has this awful cadence I can’t describe but is wrong in every single line he says. I hate this…
17. Voice Acting: …and I hate him…
18. Voice Acting: …and I hate everything
19. Voice Acting: Red sounds clipped, rushed, and way too inconsistent
20. Voice Acting: Signas sounds like he’s mumbling every single line he says
21. Voice Direction: Badly directed too. There’s a LOT of lines where the emphasis is wrong or they say things in the wrong ways or they literally skip punctuation and you just feel how the people had no one in the booth with them directing them…
22. Voice Direction: …so we’re going to call this…
23. Voice Direction: …a triple
24. External Continuity: So hey, the world is FINE after the WORLD ENDING devastation of X5 and the fact that in X6 it was taking entire teams of reploids to try and even make certain areas habitable, but it’s totally cool now. The world’s doing fine. But because of that crime is now at an all time high. In response to THAT X has decided to literally frickin’ retire (great timing X) and now there’s this new vigilante group called Red Alert, lead by Red, and naturally all of this acts like a reboot of the series and barely even acknowledges the previous games. This is a recurring trend by the way
25. Intro: Anyways, back to the Intro. Axl is on the run (why did he leave by the way? NEVER explained) Naturally Zero acts like this is just a mild irritation (I mean, fair) and Axl is fleeing a giant repliroid, and naturally when cornered he says he has to defeat said repliroid (didn’t you just…) and then, immediately after, flees again and leaves it to Zero. What?! Words fail to explain how bad all of this is, even with context
26. Cutscene: Axl has apparently been brought in for ‘doing something wrong’… What crime did he commit exactly? Not answered. Instead this is just here to convey that Axl totally wants to work with the team. “We used to only attack the bad guys… but not anymore.” is a brilliantly terrible line but what I’m really irritated by is the opening cinematic literally talked about how Red Alert were tolerated by the Hunters and were stepping up to handle a massive crime wave, and now we’re being told surprise they’re actually evil. Like… at least establish these people a little before they inevitably get Sigma’d. Also GOD this cutscene is long. X whines the ENTIRE time by the way, but my favorite part is how he insists we CANNOT fight the Red Alert people. He also offers no alternative solution, just ‘stop fighting’, because as I will mention later he is a terrible character. He also constantly insists Axl ‘pay for his crimes’ which still haven’t been established (insert bad cop joke here)…
27. Cutscene: …these cutscenes are so bad I’m having difficulty properly quantifying them. But it’s okay because right after this…
28. Cutscene: …is another cutscene! So Red shows up and can’t decide if he’s friendly or villainous (seriously his dialogue makes no sense unless they’re going for ‘actually insane’) and he offers a game of fighting mavericks, the winner gets Axl. At least X points out how stupid it is to be involved in this since they actively do not care about Axl. Oh and I’ve been wondering. Considering X hates fighting why is he… still here in the Hunters, who’s entire job is fighting? Anyways can I stop summarizing how awful this is? Axl insists on being a Hunter, he has to prove himself, it’s bad, moving on…
29. Dialogue: …and I know I’ve talked this, uh, later but I HAVE to point out how stupid all of this dialogue is. Oh and I’m not giving this a negative but I wanted to complain about something briefly. Several Megaman games (especially X4 and X5) have some context for the stage you’re doing and why that given boss is there, it’s a neat little bit of additional fabric to the story. They TRY that in X7 but it’s so threadbare it basically doesn’t exist. “The Special Defense base has been taken! Use the Ride Armor and retake it!” doesn’t… convey anything. Or how about “Take back the central radio tower!” Like… what?
30. Plot: Oh I should mention here how the ‘duel’ between Red Alert and the Hunters over possession of Axl is a REALLY stupid plot. And I know X games aren’t known for their plots but I’ll take ‘Sigma is trying to destroy the world to awaken Zero’ or ‘Repliforce is rebelling’ or even ‘Doppler Town is a nightmarish hellscape’ over this nonsense
31. Character: Axl is a whiny, annoying, 12 year old prat and has a big mysterious past which they never do anything with (arguably ever, since he’s only barely relevant in X8)
32. Character: X is atrocious here. Absolutely atrocious. He is what someone who hates pacifists thinks pacifists are like. And he is INCREDIBLY whiny. No joke, to this day me and a few others will use Whiny X as the poster child for how to completely destroy a character in the most annoying way possible…
33. Character: …yes I’m going to…
34. Character: …triple down on this. Even if you ignore every other game and look at this in a vacuum he is a Get Off My Screen character
35. Character: Zero is also a complete piece of cardboard. I’m not sure he has… ANY characterization, and the voice acting suits that
36. Brickwork: Man we start off bad don’t we. Imagine a bunch of blue hexagons in a giant purple sphere with text in the background. That’s it that’s the visuals of Snipe Anteator’s stage. What’s funny is while there’s a few other bad ones I think this might be THE worst of all of them…
37. Brickwork: …deserving its own double negative
38. Brickwork: Wind Crowang’s stage. Gee, a bunch of boring planes in a boring skybox, or an empty corridor? Be still my heart
39. Brickwork: Vanishing Gungaroo’s stage is weird cuz it doesn’t look TOO bad until you really look at it. The samey textures, the awful poison toxic whatever pit, the big empty rooms which look vaguely ‘metal’… I had a random thought going through this specific stage. System Shock 1 didn’t exactly have stellar Brickwork, but it was better than this. And that’s pathetic
40. Brickwork: Tornado Tonion’s stage is… just a skybox with a boring circular staircase. Like I feel bad because at least it’s, y’know, VISIBLE, but this is REALLY boring visual design
41. Brickwork: Y’know I was debating giving Flame Hyenard’s stage a pass but no. Boring metal hexagons over a boring lava graphic with bad texture repeating does not a good brickwork make
42. Brickwork: Ride Boarski’s stage is uniquely bad in that it has this really, really bad, low detail JPG of a city in the background while you go across this weirdly black, empty void
43. Empty Text: Alia. Everything she says is vacuous. I’m not sure a single line of dialogue from her in the ENTIRE game is worthwhile information. I’m not a huge Alia fan but she wasn’t this bad in X5 or X6… or X8!
44. Moment: I debated (for a while, actually) if the terrible pre boss cutscenes warrented individual negatives or not. I think we’ll play this by ear because our first boss (Soldier Stonekong) is… pretty bad. He insists Zero is a perfect battle reploid, Zero insists there’s more to life than fighting, Stonekong insists their fight will be the bestest ever, and away we go
45. Cutscene: Oh hey Axl gives the big super amazing reason why he ran away… it’s because he can copy reploid abilities and appearances! …that’s… that’s not a reason to flee, Axl. This is also when we find out Axl has a big mysterious past. Now I’m going to spoil something here. We later find out that Axl is the prototype of the new gen reploids which will be a plot point in X8. I’m also going to spoil that that’s it. That’s the full totality of Axl’s relevance, ever. So… enjoy that. He of course conveys this in the most eloquent way possible when Zero asks about his past. “Dunno… I don’t remember. Red found me, and I’ve been defeating enemies ever since.” Thanks Axl. Appreciate ya
46. Cutscene: So Red Alert are all REALLY SKILLED reploids (sure, thanks for telling me that game). This is as good a time as any to mention there’s some actual translation issues here, like Axl talking about how the ‘maverick hunters stopped following Red’s orders’. Axl… the Hunters aren’t part of Red Alert. Either way you can see the, uh, ‘twist’ coming from a mile away here so I’ll take this opportunity to mention that THEY never mention Sigma by name in dialogue. His name appears over HIS dialogue immediately before the final boss fight but that’s it. No seriously it’s weird, he’s just The Professor
47. Cutscene: So hey, Axl’s DNA data he kept getting from mavericks was ‘being used’ (not explained how) by Red Alert to become super powerful (not explained how). So this, at last, is why Axl left! It’s because… the guys he was working with to fight crime were empowering themselves?! No I kid it’s because he felt like he was being used. Which… he was. From word go. Openly. I know Axl’s a child but really? He even mentions how the ‘scale of their thievery escalated’ which is a weird thing to fixate on considering he’s talking about himself there
48. Cutscene: So Sigma shows up to Red (flashback) and is obviously Sigma and looks and sounds like Sigma and tries to convince Red to go against the Hunters. I think my favorite part is where Red is like ‘yeah of COURSE I hate the Hunters, I mean they run around fighting mavericks, unlike us, who run around fighting mavericks’. Okay he doesn’t say that but come on
49. Cutscene: But then… after rescuing 64 reploids OR beating the first 8 bosses… X stands up, dramatically, and decides, after an entire panel of ellipses, that he… will fight too!! Dramatically. Zero of course doesn’t give a crap. I won’t ding this cutscene too badly it’s just the usual bad dialogue and bad voice acting and the only reason I’m even mentioning it is how stupid this plot beat is. X finally deciding to fight has all the impact of a wet noodle
50. Cutscene: Sigh. So Sigma and Red have a terrible cutscene while they chat with each other. Sigma talks about how he super powered up Red Alert, Red is super happy about it, and Sigma says he can make him even stronger! Red is super happy about that naturally… so then Sigma says ‘wait we need Axl’ and Red IMMEDIATELY says they ‘set him free’ (ignore how much this contradicts everything) and lunges from being super happy and excited to have all this power to kicking Sigma out. This is… jarring to say the least and I get what they’re doing (they want to make Red a good guy) but good lord
51. Moment: This is such a small thing nitpick but it really sucks when you go fighting Vanishing Gungaroo who is voiced by the same person who voices Axl, and who uses the exact same voice he uses for Axl. So if you bring Axl to this fight…
52. Moment: Flame Hyenard’s intro has always been strange to me. He’s introduced by just… walking by us as we casually enter his boss arena. What?! He’s also apparently malfunctioning which is in its ‘late stages’ and… what?
53. Moment: Ride Boarski literally fights us because he’s so insulted by being asked if he’s part of a gang. Or another gang. That’s… wow
54. Cutscene: I love how X is like ‘alright let’s just get this over with’ and Zero’s reaction is ‘now that’s the X I used to know!’ Naturally X immediately disagrees. I feel stupid for reiterating all the ways these cutscenes suck at this point so let’s just move on
55. Writing: Idiot Balling on the part of Red (c’mon, why would you follow Sigma) Axl (idiot) and all of Red Alert… like, ALL of Red Alert. I know reploids having dumb reasons to fight is pretty normal but wow
56. Brickwork: So I WAS going to give the Palace Road a pass since I THINK it’s copy pasted from Ride Boarski’s but no. The stupid brown fog and the stupid one occasional bit of building every few hundred feet kind of make it worse
57. Brickwork: Why uh… why is the battle with Red, inside the Crimson Palace, a giant black hole pit with floating rocks in it? No seriously. Ignoring the absence of design or visuals here what IS Brickwork exactly? It’s the set dressing that helps sell the scene. It informs the player of where they are and contributes to the context of what’s happening, which is what a narrative is; Context. So… WHERE are we and WHY are we here? It’s worse since…
58. Moment: …even the scene with Red is stupid. He’s like ‘aight time to kill you’. Keep in mind he is actively on our side and wants to help us defeat the Professor but no, he’s all in on the kill train because we needed one of the worst bosses in the entire game
59. Cutscene: So Red set his fortress to self destruct (…why? Actually before I move on, I wanted to comment on this. Some of the art book and soundtrack bonus material mentions stuff that didn’t make it into the game which I find kind of curious, though considering how badly the Megaman series was doing at this point and how they’d lost their executive backing it makes sense. Anyways one of the things mentioned is how Red was ex Repliforce. I know that’s a seemingly minor point but it lines up SO WELL I’m shocked they didn’t keep it. It would explain his casual attitude, since he was a low ranking grunt, his ‘nothing matters’ attitude and his desire to die, because he’s already lost everything multiple times, and why he was thinking in terms of unit cohesion AND built his own unit. But all of this is on the cutting room floor so here we are. Anyways! Back to the terrible scene) because he’s an idiot. So now we have to flee and there’s just ‘no time’ to save Red even though there totally is and Axl, who just basically killed his friend, is like nooooo and it’s all so bad
60. Cutscene: I love how Sigma is LITERALLY not animated when he talks to you. No seriously, I thought he was a PNG at first but the camera angle changes a bit and you can see the other three actually moving in the same cutscene. Also in the SAME cutscene everyone else is doing idle animations and Sigma is just frozen in place like he’s petrified. Also…
61. External Continuity: Did I mention Sigma is back for absolutely no reason, and it’s never explained how or honestly even why? I hate to bring this up again but his arc from X1 to X6 was pretty smooth and he died a pretty final death in X5, and only came back in X6 due to Gate’s meddling. And he’s just… here in X7. For some reason. Perfectly fine by the way, no damage or falling apart body or any form of consequence or even acknowledgment that the previous games existed. I’ve actually had a theory for years that X7 was intended to be a reboot of the series (similar to what 11 would eventually do) cuz seriously, do they even mention ANYthing from the previous games here? I need to double check that. Okay, hi it’s me from the future. Nope, they never reference a damn thing. The only, ONLY reason I’m not dinging this more is I don’t ding soft reboots for this kind of thing and it is POSSIBLE they were deliberately going for that. Still stupid though
62. Writing: I hate to ask something seemingly irrelevant but… there’s a TOTAL lack of transition here from Sigma 1 to Sigma 2 and ZERO explanation for why he has this building sized body. No, seriously, ignore the rest of the series for a second and look at this on its face. You beat the boss and then he’s this giant dude suddenly with NO cutscene, dialogue, or justification. Usually the Resident Evil boss at least goes all blorpy and we see them mutate in front of us. And hell, this very series usually has some kind of explanation for it (him merging with the partially built maverick in X1, the entire plot of X3, him crudely merging with the mechanisms of the Final Weapon in X4, etc.) But no, here he’s just this big oni looking thing. Boring arena too
63. Outro: So okay Sigma’s still here for some dumb reason, not even going to question that nonsense, and he sends Axl flying… only so Axl could do the dumbest possible ‘bait and switch’ on Sigma and shoot him directly in the face. I love how little this actually does by the way. Axl shoots him POINT BLANK, right under his chin, right up through his brain. Just knocks Sigma back. Sigh
64. Outro: So we hear about how Axl’s working his ass off to fight Mavericks… by the way, 14 cases in ‘a few days’, their words not mine. This is insane. What is WRONG with this planet? Meanwhile X refuses to let Axl become a Hunter because ‘such methods should not rewarded’ and ‘you could never train somebody to be a hunter like me, it isn’t possible’ (ego much). So no one grows, nothing changes, and X whine-shames everyone. The fact that this all ends on an ‘and the adventure continues’ doesn’t help anything (though it continues to give me that soft reboot vibe… What’s interesting is this is a good 2 years before Maverick Hunter X, the ACTUAL reboot). By the way did you catch that post credits scene which tried VERY hard to tie into Megaman Zero? Yeah…

Gameplay Positives:

1. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits
2. QoL: The ability to set auto charge and auto repeat is actually rather nice, kudos
3. Core Mechanic: Swapping on the fly is actually a pretty neat idea. The game barely does anything with it BUT it is a logical evolution of the system from X3
4. Music: I said it earlier and I meant it, even X7 has a good soundtrack. It is the one and only true saving grace. I wonder if Megaman and Sonic are brothers or something? (For those unaware Sonic games basically always have good soundtracks too). I mean they are both blue so that counts? Anyways there’s nothing singularly that jumps out at me here…
5. Music: …but it’s still some solid stuff…
6. Music: …and a solid triple
7. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
8. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
9. Kit: Sigh. I can’t believe I’m giving a positive to this piece of garbage but fair is fair. X’s armor is… fine. He gets a helmet which lets him absorb drops from further way (woo hoo), his buster lets him do homing shots after his charged shots and can charge special weapons, his boots give him the dumbest glide in the universe, but the armor is the big part. It halves damage taken, removes knockdown, and lets you use Giga Crash which not only hits the screen but does damage to bosses while they’re offscreen or in an invuln phase. That’s not too shabby, take it for what it’s worth
10. Song: “Conflict”, the opening stage first song. I don’t even care, it’s an absolute banger that this game does not deserve. Also it doesn’t get its own positive but bonus points to “Infiltration” which is the final stage theme

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Controls: I’ve played worse controlling games, but not by much. Everything is a combination of sluggish and floaty, the exact opposite of the crisp and precise controls you’d expect from a Megaman game (or hell, just a platformer in general) and that’s before we get to the other big issue I’ll mention in a sec…
2. Controls: …so that’s a pretty bad double negative
3. Camera: The camera is one of those ‘you have no control over it’ cameras that auto adjusts. And whoever programmed it was drunk. The amount of platforming and combat that is made worse purely because of the camera is monumental and constant…
4. Camera: …and so I judge it…
5. Camera: …poorly
6. Core Combat: Auto lock-on completely defeats the point of what type of game this is. Let me elaborate a bit. So the core functionality of a Megaman game is you jump and you shoot. Jumping changes your ‘aiming’ and shooting becomes a timing issue. So to hit a given enemy or weak spot you jump until you’re lined up and hit the shoot button. I know this sounds basic but I want to make it clear that this is as fundamental as it gets to what a Megaman game is. Now changing up the formula to do something different is fine… encouraged, actually. If I can use an example of how to do that properly, Metroid Prime took the jump and shoot formula and changed it into something completely new, where the majority of the game is actually circular (I won’t go fully into detail on the brilliance of the Metroid Prime design philosophy here, don’t worry). Point is they changed it BY adapting it into something new. With X7 it’s still a jump and shoot platformer but they screwed with it. There’s the 3D stuff of course (we’re still building up to that) but what I mean is X and Axl just… lock on to enemies. The ‘jump’ part of the equation is gone. Aiming in GENERAL is gone because you have very little control over what they lock onto. If they had adjusted the game to something new or different this might have worked, but instead they fiddled with a core mechanic without changing the fundamental to match. Thus…
7. Core Combat: …just FIGHTING stuff, in general, sucks. Because you’re either Zero with awful attacks (more on that later) or Axl and X where you’re barely playing the game. As an aside I am 100% convinced this mechanic was added to solve the issues with the 3D sections
8. Audio Spam: The aforementioned auto lock on also gives a little beedleep every time you switch targets. Please think about how often you do that…
9. Audio Spam: …it is a constant…
10. Audio Spam: …nonstop high pitch noise
11. Core Mechanic: Okay I’ve circled this point long enough. Let’s talk about the 3D sections. So part of the game is just 2D (sometimes referred to as 2.5D (or a few other terms, depending on who you ask) but the rest is in 3D. Like actual 3D. And it SUCKS. Your movement speed lowers when you’re in 3D, the camera angles make perspectives weird and cause issues with platforming, and as mentioned earlier it’s either boring, frustrating, or both to fight things while in a 3D segment. I’ve sort of covered why this is an issue already so we’ll just move on
12. Visual Distinction: Really, really bad. I think I was originally thinking a single here. I quickly upped it to a double. After my fifth or so death to literally not seeing something…
13. Visual Distinction: …it has become…
14. Visual Distinction: …a triple
15. Bug: Inconsistent hurtboxes, especially on Zero
16. Tutorial: Alia within levels. She’s optional so this is only getting a single but it is NOT good
17. Difficulty Options: Hey hey, difficulty options! All they do is raise the health of enemies. Screw you
18. Unskippable Cutscenes: What you thought you could skip cutscenes? Screw you. Yes I know some of them ARE skippable
19. Bug: Incorrect geometry on terrain causing issues in multiple stages
20. Graphics: The radius of rendering is way too short and gets in the way of several stages. Also some weird glitching periodically. And keep in mind we’re playing the Legacy Collection which actually runs BETTER than the original
21. QoL: Power ups continue to not share across members which is ESPECIALLY bad because…
22. Kit: …X doesn’t join until almost halfway into the game. And because of how this works all the power ups and chips you already got to reach this point are already allocated, meaning X will always be less than he should be. Also I’m sorry you don’t get to start the game playing as frickin’ X? Who thought this was a good idea?
23. Kit: Zero sucks to play as. His attack is inconsistent (see above), has VERY short range in 3D space, and does not do the damage it needs to offset this
24. Kit: X and Axl’s ‘lock on’ is frustrating to use and is basically mandatory
25. Kit: Axl’s copy ability is awful. It requires a charge, bugs out, does pathetic damage, you still have to kill the enemy to get it, and all the enemies you can turn into suck and are slow and have dumb attacks. It’s a gimmick which could’ve been awesome (again, the ZX series does more with this) but instead it just feels bleh
26. Kit: I legitimately think we’ve never had boss weapons this bad. Two of them are just basic attacks but reskinned (Circle Blaze and Explosion… yes the attack is just called Explosion, great name). The vortex is mostly there to generate weapon energy, the water spray is pathetic, the stone shield is useless, the boomerang is crap thanks to the 3D stages, the homing missiles don’t always work right, and giving us a ground moving attack in a 3D game is a joke. This is…
27. Kit: …really bad. I’m not going to triple it (or worse) because at least it’s SOMEthing and some of the charged attacks aren’t total garbage but wow
28. Interface: Weirdly bad UI. Dialogue defaults to ‘no’ which is frustrating, several screens (the save, stage select, and team construction) are actively confusing, fun stuff
29. Bug: I know we’ve already given two of these but it should be mentioned this is a pretty buggy game in general and listing all of them would get tedious so here, have another negative
30. Seconds In Minutes: What is this, Sonic 06? Why does EVERYthing take longer than it should? Menus, animations, load screens… it just slogs it down
31. Sound: So here’s a fun one. A Megaman game with bad sound design. There’s only a few sound effects, most of the ‘pay attention to this’ sounds are indistinct or DON’T EXIST AT ALL. I’m shocked honestly…
32. Sound: …this is legitimately some of the worst sound design I’ve seen in gaming. Did I mention basic things like footsteps have a sound effect which you hear CONSTANTLY? Nevermind how anemic everything sounds…
33. Sound: …it’s atrocious
34. Prime Opt: So hey, remember how you could permanently lose out on rescuing reploids back in X6? Some brain genius decided to bring that back here. By the way it’s worse because rescuees will go away permanently if they take ANY damage from ANYthing and they like to spawn in front of enemies’ lines of fire. Why…
35. Prime Opt: …why are you like this X7. Who hurt you
36. Traversal: Movement is slow and sluggish. Just watch 1 minute of footage of this game and it’ll be really obvious, but hang on…
37. Traversal: …it’s WORSE for the 3D sections, where I swear you move slower and completely screws with platforming
38. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Pretty bad checkpoint placement. Just like X6. Is this… is this just X6 but in 3D? Is that what’s happening here?
39. Audio Spam: Alia, full stop. “Can you hear me, INSERTNAMEHERE?” Get used to that because it will trigger EVERY time it can, even if you’ve already heard the bit already. What’s funny is this could be worse if it was like X5’s situation where she’d actively interrupt you with an unskippable cutscene, but instead it’s like X6’s where you can just ignore it… except she TALKS every single time. If this sounds like I’m exaggerating please realize that if anything I am understating how frequently she will say the exact same line over and over…
40. Audio Spam: …and over…
41. Audio Spam: …and over
42. Animation: So hey, while you take damage you have a knockdown animation. It only happens for certain attacks but it is WAY too long, cancels your momentum instantly (meaning if it happens in mid air you plummet, probably to your death) and it lasts SO long that it eats up the i-frames you got from getting hit
43. Animation: So to continue the X6 parallels a lot of enemies have little or NO animations to telegraph what’s happening or what attack they’re about to use. This is exactly as frustrating as it sounds
44. Backtracking: Yeah so… again, like in X6, you’re encouraged to backtrack often to get parts and rescuees and it is exactly as fun as it sounds
45. Itemization: You remember how X6 had a general absence of proper itemization in placements and drops? Yeah… X7 remembers
46. Saves: So for whatever reason the X Collections don’t have the save states of the classic collections (or the rewinds of the first collection) and so you’re stuck with regular saving for the most part. Sometimes it’ll give you an honest to goodness ‘save’ which is just a way to load the password screen but you get it. Here it’s just as it was on the PS2 and it is… not great. Saving is laborious and can only be done at certain intervals
47. Intro: I love how the intro stage immediately conveys how bad this game will be. You start as Axl of course and have to shoot enemies to stop them from hitting you, and this is how you realize all the negatives I gave further up about the lock on and the 3D space. Then you have to shoot these orbs when they light up to open a gate and, remember, you have no control over what you lock on TO so… this also tutorializes how awful the controls are!
48. Intro: Then we have the second segment which is trying way too hard to be like X1’s intro stage (seriously, was this supposed to be a soft reboot?) First you have to kill waves of enemies (boring), then do some frustrating platforming (and now we see how bad the 3D platforming is)
49. Boss: Mega Scorpio is particularly bad even for an opening X boss (remember these have never been historically that good, except maybe in X4). The shame of it is I think this could have worked in a better game. It has destructible parts (claws and tail specifically) which change what attacks the thing uses, but the extremely floating controls, bad hitbox and hurtbox detection, and that awful animation make this just bad. Call this a solitary negative for trying. Enjoy this, bosses get worse from here on out
50. Level: Snipe Anteator’s stage is… wow. It’s the worst combination of boring and disorienting. The main gimmick of the stage is you flip upside down and right side up but for whatever insane reason the upside down segments don’t have the same camera angle so it looks weird and wrong Similarly the camera spins around every single time you flip, making it even more disorienting. And finally the visual distinction on this one stage is legitimately terrible, with barriers blocking your progress (FORCING you to do the flips) which aren’t… necessarily clear, especially at certain angles. There’s also no clear sense of what ‘forward’ is. For me personally a later stage (the next one actually) is worse, but this is still VERY bad…
51. Level: …and still deserves…
52. Level: …a triple
53. Boss: Snipe Anteator (no, that’s not misspelled… at least not by me) is the worst of the 8 bosses for me personally. I’m not sure if it reviews the worst but this boss is such a great encapsulation of everything wrong with this game. You have this pseudo 3D space to navigate but you can’t actually go everywhere, and he just shoots you from anywhere without having to move much, and can be slightly offset from you (making hitting him irritating) or completely on the underside (sucks to be you). He has a lot of ranged attacks, most of them home in on you or just sit there, and thanks to the transparent floor and awful visuals with a zoomed in camera there’s a lot of noise in the fight. Screw this fight…
54. Boss: …and everything about it
55. Level: This is probably the worst stage in the game. You’re leaping across planes with the 3D terrible controls, some of the planes move or buck, there’s this awful visual effect over everything, it’s REALLY easy to fall off, the camera is awful and makes depth perception worse than usual, and there’s enemies all over who can shoot at you. The combination of awful controls and awful visuals make this completely miserable. And this is just the first segment!
56. Level: Because next we have another 3D segment (sigh) on top of another large airplane (read: Empty blank area) followed by an empty blank corridor filled with enemies (I also love how almost every enemy spawns right in front of you in this really cheap animation). So we go from absolute frustration to absolute boredom in a single stage. It’s honestly kind of impressive…
57. Level: …and so earns a triple
58. Boss: So hey, Wind Crowrang. He has a fairly lengthy period where he just hangs out in the background and shoots at you. This fight is super fun as Zero let me tell you. He’s also astonishingly boring, even for an X7 boss. He’ll fling his missiles and his blades at you from the background, occasionally come forward so you can hit him normally, then does a wave attack and/or melees. And just like Stonekong he has WAY too much health. I think this fight is a little worse than Stonekong but we’re not at triple territory…
59. Boss: …not yet
60. Level: So we start off with an awkward corridor with enemies that are… honestly barely in the way. I’m not even sure why they’re even here because you can literally just walk around them casually. This is such an example of why the 3D space sections suck. It’s okay this is immediately followed by a Ride section in another 3D space because they’re in love with this concept. At least the Rider is fine. Is this a good time to mention how weird it is that there’s these really strange micro stages in each of these? They couldn’t load too big of a stage at a time so you just kind of zoop through tiny segments rapid fire and each one comes with READY and it’s just weird. Anyways this next room is just a bunch of big enemies that like to spam you and of course it’s in a 3D space. This is also a good time to mention that X7 likes to use the Red Room concept a lot for… some reason. Overall a very boring, vacuous stage…
61. Level: …nothing special
62. Boss: Vanishing Gungaroo is… weird. Like I get what they wanted, the whole stage is a Rider stage and so the boss is too, but the arena is literally an empty square and the boss just jumps around and punches. Now yes I know there’s a second phase (where he won’t shut up about ‘wide angles’… okay yes I hear you, yes I know he’s saying ‘triangles’, tell me it doesn’t sound like ‘wide angles’), but anyways despite having a fairly large list of attacks it all boils down to a bunch of audio spam while he runs around a lot which either makes him irritating (if you’re Zero) or boring (if you’re Axl or X). I was thinking about giving this a single…
63. Boss: …but the spam plus the health padding pushes it up a bit
64. Level: Soldier Stonekong’s stage might be the closest thing to a real stage in the entire game. This isn’t as much of a compliment as it sounds but it’s still true. I also notice the stage is mostly 2D, which is honestly probably related. It STILL sucks. Having moving platforms over death spikes and enemies swarming you is old hat for a Megaman game but what makes it suck is the usual problems with camera, controls, and even being able to tell where the death is. No joke at one point I didn’t even see the death spikes on the ceiling because they were buried in foliage and the camera angle
65. Boss: Soldier Stonekong’s fight is indicative of… basically every boss in the game. Even when you’re schooling him he takes an eternity to die because he has an insane amount of health. You can destroy his sword (neat, I guess) but otherwise he just throws very easy to dodge rocks, jumps at you, and that’s… kind of it. He’s also the first of several bosses that’s actually a 2D boss instead of 3D. Either way…
66. Boss: …pretty friggin’ bad. I should also mention he’s the worst type of boring, where it’s distressingly easy to die thanks to his collision being weird and his damage being high
67. Level: So, uh, you remember those awful circular staircase segments in X4 and X5? The ENTIRE first part of the stage is this, with an enemy in the middle rotating after you and it’s astonishingly easy to dodge his attacks and that’s… that’s it that’s the whole friggin’ segment. It’s okay after that you have a boring midboss followed by ANOTHER circular staircase, but this time at a worse angle so it’s more frustrating to navigate! Seriously who programmed this friggin’ camera? Anyways this, y’know, sucks…
68. Level: …so that’s fun
69. Boss: Tornado Tonion (what’s a tonion?) is pretty audio spammy but trust me, you have seen nothing yet. So his primary attack is a nice big PBAOE while he stands there while shouting ‘around and around’ a bunch, but he can at least also send a wall of shields at you. And that really is kind of it. Oh and he’ll do a big whirlwind when he’s low on health… or a spinning wall instead of a circular or flat one. That’s it that’s the whole fight. Probably the easiest boss, but not in a good way
70. Level: So our first section looks 2D but nope! It’s 3D… and you can just walk by everything again. This… this isn’t level design. This isn’t anything. This is a kid randomly splaying out their action figures on the couch. Also the absolutely bizarre ‘fighter plane on a disk’ miniboss is weird. After this is another boring 3D section (I’m running out of ways to call something ‘undesigned’). After that is ANOTHER undesigned section. But y’know what, let’s have a boring miniboss followed by a TERRIBLE platforming segment where it’s disgustingly easy to fall and die instantly…
71. Level: …this is just a miserable stage…
72. Level: …easy triple territory
73. Boss: Splash Warfly. Hokay, this… this is bad. This is a fully 3D fight instead of how several of them are 2D fights and lemme tell you, it SUCKS. All the other 3D problems are present but the camera has absolutely no idea how to deal with you moving and it’s easy to leap off into the water (instant death, of course) just because the camera was swiveling while you jumped. Then there’s the boss himself, who spends literally half the fight underwater in an invuln state. And as usual, way too much health. Hell after he gets low on health he just stands there and does the same melee attack over and over again…
74. Boss: …so enjoy…
75. Boss: …that triple
76. Level: Another not-terrible stage, and it’s also 2D… I’m sensing a trend. It’s still not great (death lava everywhere, WAY too much enemy spam, some of the enemy attacks are hard to see with the visual issues, etc.) but it’s not atrocity levels. Then we get to a 3D segmenta where you jump between platforms which is already problematic but what makes it kind of worse is enemies spawn AS you aproach a platform (sometimes not even visible until you’re already on it) meaning you can’t actually plan, only react… while hovering right next to a death pit. The worst part? This probably sounds difficult and it kind of… isn’t, it’s just frustrating to deal with…
77. Level: …so yeah, still a double
78. Audio Spam: Flame Hyenard is an audio spam boss in an audio spam game. Nothing I tell you will properly convey how absolutely insane this is. He will spam his lines SO frequently he will interrupt HIMSELF, and this is while Alia is trying to spam you too…
79. Audio Spam: …this one fight…
80. Audio Spam: …deserves a triple
81. Boss: So, Flame Hyenard himself is a terrible fight. The audio spam make sit worse but even ignoring that… you’re in another 3D section (because of course), he has this walking mech which is shooting missiles at you, and he sends clones of himself to go spam attack you. Once you attack the mech enough times you can climb on board and go attack him, but he’ll knock you off, rinse and repeat. Again, no words I type will really explain how miserable this is to actually do. Jumping onto the mech is irritating, the relative vuln window is miniscule, and he and his clones are CONSTANTLY attacking you and there’s no real avoiding said attacks. This is a ‘do this fight later so you can do it with power ups’ fight…
82. Boss: …and by the way…
83. Boss: …this isn’t even the worst fight in this game
84. Level: So it’s close if this or Crowrang’s is a worse stage but screw this stage so hard. Let’s be clear; You run around on a bike in a circle right? The catch here is the actual goal of the level is to hit these bombs as you go to disarm them. So that’s your objective. The bike controls TERRIBLY and you’re on a time limit. This basically guarantees that you’re going to have to do this slowly. And it’s somehow WORSE slow because then it goes from wild uncontrollable frustration to insanely boring slogger…
85. Level: …there’s no winning…
86. Level: …with this nonsense
87. Boss: Ride Boarski is another of our fully 3D bosses and all that implies. But it’s even better than usual because he has dudes on the sides causing issues while he zooms around and tosses out attacks and then stands there for long seconds doing nothing. And he won’t shut UP oh my gawd. He’s not the worst about this (as we’ve already seen) but his audio spam is pretty bad. What this fight boils down to is a lot of attacks coming from all directions and a metal grate backdrop which makes it legitimately difficult to see what’s going on while the camera wobbles in and out and you just kind of muscle through…
88. Boss: …great way to finish off the initial eight
89. Level: Y’know considering what a good song is I’m shocked at how bad this stage is. It’s one of those pseudo 3D segments where the boss is slowly chasing you and you have to deal with a few enemies in the way. And that’s really it. That’s the whole friggin’ stage…
90. Level: …what in the world
91. Boss: Mole Bore has exactly three attacks and very slowly moves between them in a 3D space. Do I need to add anything to that?
92. Level: Then there’s Sigma 2… er sorry RED 2. This stage is hilariously terrible. There’s these giant rocks that will, of course, destroy you. They move VERY slowly. There’s very obvious places to duck to get out of their way. Can you put two and two together? What really makes this shine is how DULL this is to actually do. Like the ball is so slow and there’s NO gameplay involved to speak of so it’s just… waiting. This is actually a really short stage but you wouldn’t know it playing through it
93. Boss: Red. This might legitimately challenge the ‘worst boss in Megaman history’ throne, which I believe is currently contested by Mother Nightmare and Gate (both from X6, huh). God where do I begin. He’ll periodically summon tornados on every other platform, meaning leaping around to avoid. He’ll summon clones who are invincible and do MOSTLY the same damage as Red himself which severely limits maneuverability and adds to frustration. But my favorite part is threefold. First, if you hit him with a ranged hit he immediately counters with his own ranged hit. If you’re on the platform he’s on (to do a melee strike) he does a big, essentially unavoidable hit. And the entire battle arena is small platforms over an instant death pit. Did I mention he just teleports around periodically? It’s hard to put into words how irritating and janky this fight is. Oh I’m sorry I forgot to mention how this is a 3D section boss, which means the camera awkwardly trying to follow you, meaning having issues with platforming and even just SEEING where he is at any given moment. This fight can go directly to hell. But since I JUST beat X6 I’ve been thinking about this, and I think Red actively is worse than the two fights I just mentioned. But why? Honestly it’s mostly just all the other issues X7 has all made worse by how they collide with each other here So…
94. Boss: Camera: …let’s ding that awful camera…
95. Boss: Controls: …how bad the controls are, especially with how slow they are…
96. Boss: Difficulty: …how stupid high his health (the SPEEDRUN takes almost 2 minutes to kill this asshole) and how much damage he does…
97. Boss: Penalty For Failure: …and let us not forget that instant death pit. Screw this fight
98. Level: Sigma 3 is… well. I normally don’t even comment on the refight stages because there’s usually nothing really to them other than, y’know, the refights. But here we have segments where we stand in place killing the same enemies as they respawn over and over to progress (probably the most boring possible form of a Red Room), then a really dumb platforming segment that involves death spike statues over death spikes you have to dodge through, and it’s weirdly vacuous for what is functionally the last stage
99. Padding: Boss refights. Of course there’s boss refights. There’s NOTHING different about their arenas or anything either. Like, you’re still fighting (for example) Splash Warfly on the ruins of his ship out in the ocean. This is silly even by Megaman standards. At least X5 and X6 had you doing this in friggin’ Cyberspace (Yes I realize they probably meant for that here too but they don’t earn that)
100. Outro: Boss: Sigma 1 is unimpressive at best. He’ll shoot a few bouncing shots, do a double shot from the background, do a laser shot, and then defend himself. That sounds fine and all until you realize that literally all of his attacks can be avoided by crouching behind one of the blocks. Seriously you can just crouch there and school him. It’s kinda boring even if you don’t, though, as his attack patterns clearly didn’t have a lot of thought put into them and are all very easy to bypass
101. Outro: Boss: Sigma 2 is terrible. So first it’s boring, not a great start. Second of all it is needlessly terrible if you’re playing as Zero due to barely being able to hit him (the General problem from X4 if you remember that). Third he has a million billion health (of course he does). Fourth his attacks are either brainless to dodge or have to be predicted to avoid. This…
102. Outro: Boss: …already sucks pretty badly, especially for a final boss. But what really, REALLY makes this fight suck is…
103. Outro: Boss: Camera: …yes, the camera again. Sigh. The camera insists on staying focused on Sigma at all times. This means it’s shockingly easy to not be able to see where you’re jumping, and remember, this entire fight is over an instant death pit

Story Positives:

1. Intro: So our opening cinematic establishes quite a bit pretty quickly. The world is so trashed (leading to the Zero series) that humanity is formally evacuating to the moon via an orbital elevator still getting set up. X is out on patrol (and much better voiced) and sees… a bunch of Sigmas pop out of the car that just exploded… except of course they aren’t Sigma. And so we see that reploids can morph, similar to Axl (and, y’know, the ZX series)… also they’re ‘totally immune to viruses’ which… sure kid. I don’t want to over praise but this is still at least a decent setup. By the way I want to mention something weird really quick. Y’know how there’s those little lore tidbits in the Museum of the Legacy Collection? The lore in X8’s… suck. Like it’s so threadbare I’m not giving it a positive. Discouraging. Anyways
2. Voice Acting: Ho-ly crap, is this the first Megaman game to have good voice acting? In english, I mean. Just double checked; Yep this was the first. The voice acting in the X series sucked from X4 onwards, Megaman 8 had… memorable voice acting, and Maverick Hunter X wouldn’t be for a couple years. This is the first. Wow
3. Spritework: The models are vastly improved this time around. There’s still some issues and it’s not even in the same weight class as… honestly any of the sprite games. BUT it’s still good, so let’s give that positive for the three principles (I should mention the armor for X looks… REALLY dumb this time around)
4. Spritework: The bosses are actually pretty solid too, so we’ll call that…
5. Spritework: …a double
6. Brickwork: The Intro stage’s Brickwork is not too shabby. Nice treeborg forested area, with some decent cliffside waterfalls and otherwise being pretty solid, even for a PS2 game
7. Brickwork: Earthrock Trilobyte’s stage has… something. And so does Gigabolt Man-O-War’s. I hate to be so brief but there’s just so little to go off of, but it’s not like they don’t convey the locations (desert mine and cityscape respectively). Burn Rooster’s similar (it’s a big array of metal pipes and crates… cool). And finally Avalanche Yeti’s stage, y’know, looks like a frozen wasteland
8. Brickwork: Bamboo Pandamonium’s another one of those ‘pretty solid for what it is’ places. Nice mixture of technology and foliage, and I like how they do the electronic veins on the treeborgs here
9. External Continuity: X’s descent into templar’ism, Axl’s nature as the prototype for the copybots, Zero’s guilt over the Maverick Wars, Sigma’s plans to just start a new society entirely, the very concept of robots that morph into other robots. All of these points are either from previous games or, uh, ‘future’ games (aka games past this in the timeline that have already come out by now). X8 had the difficult job of having to fit in between three separate series which already have inconsistent storytelling within them and slots in pretty nicely
10. Visual Storytelling: So hey, the ascent up the elevator is nice. Leaving atmosphere until you’re basically up in space. Then there’s Gateway which is exactly what it sounds like, the gateway to the moon. I also like how there are clearly several other structures in the distance of the moon with similar architecture to Sigma’s Palace, indicating this was supposed to be a whole settlement. And one final nice detail; Alia can barely contact us on the moon, which makes sense… and is part of why Sigma will stay dead this time (spoilers) because there’s nowhere for him to go once his body is destroyed
11. Visual Storytelling: The boss refights… actually have a narrative point for the FIRST TIME since… ever, really. Each one is actually one of the New Gen Copybots duplicating the bosses to delay you from reaching the final boss
12. Outro: There are a few things I actually like from the outro. Sigma being in a broken junk pile of a body and finally dying. What’s interesting is I’ve seen a few ideas over the years for why this is the end for Sigma. Some say his code is just degraded to the point where he can’t duplicate properly anymore (something that would have worked better in X6). Some say it’s because he’s so far out in space that he has no where to go (I mentioned this a bit ago). I admit there’s another idea I rather like; That all the bodies that were built for him all the way back in X3 have finally run out. Also these aren’t mutually exclusive. He could have been walking around in a pile of junk because he was out of bodies, his code had degraded over the years and defeats, and he was too far away from any technology to transmit himself. Either way enjoy this because I’m not a big fan of this Outro

Story Negatives:

1. Spritework: I’m sorry, the sexualization in this game is ridiculous. Seriously look at any image of Alia from X5 to X7, then look at her here. But even that I would walk past if not for Layer. What in the world were they thinking with Underboob Lady. The reason this is only a single is it’s not that bad, you want to see this MUCH worse, go look up Megaman DiVE sometime. Yeck
2. Dialogue: Zero might as well not even be here. Plus dialogue in this game is… I mean, it’s a Megaman game. The only Megaman game with good dialogue wouldn’t come out until 2018
3. Plot: So Sigma and the New Gen Reploids want to wipe out all life on Earth so they can start their own new world somewhere else. I guess this isn’t necessarily a terrible plot in its own right if not for the fact that we’ve seen it before… in this series… more than once. Also this has a related problem because a big theme in the work is…
4. Theme: …Identity and free will. Thing is the big thing they bang on about is how the New Gens ‘can go maverick at will’ which… all reploids have always been able to do. If you’re not familiar let me explain. The WHOLE point is that a reploid is different from a robot or a more advanced androbot because a reploid has full sentience and sapience. They have free will. They can… choose. So ALL reploids have ALWAYS had the ability to go maverick at will. In fact the term ‘maverick’ has famously been applied to numerous different situations across the series as a plot point (Repliforce in X4 were political dissidents, then you have criminals like Vile, but then there’s reploids who are literally broken…) and all of that is before we ever cover the actual Maverick Virus which is yet another way to ‘go Maverick’. It’s like the big theme of the eighth film in a Star Wars series being the fact that the Force exists
5. Character: Lumine is a dumb character. He should be awesome, honestly. I even like the idea of a reploid that gets it into their head to try and just straight up bail on Earth and start over elsewhere… although of course Lumine wants to wipe out all previous life at the same time. By the way if this sounds familiar it’s the same plot of the villain from the ZX games
6. Writing: Repetition, no presence to characters, bad connecting threads, the nonsense Lumine spews… nothing great here
7. Outro: Everything about the ending.. (the New Type Reploids have free will! Y”know, like EVERY REPLOID EVER HAS argh) But also the ending just had to have the post credits stinger with Lumine doing something to Axl (with a tentacle monster for some reason?). This is never followed through on. In fact as of 2026 (hi from the future) this has never been mentioned since, not even in the games that came after where Axl has a presence (like ZX and ZX2). And naturally Zero gives a really dumb speech that’s supposed to be inspiring and it all just sucks so badly

Gameplay Positives:

1. Optional: A nice museum with some cool concept art and related tidbits?
2. Difficulty Options: So there’s quite a bit to these actually. Your starting and max health, your starting and max weapon ammo, how many Retry Chips you get (more on that later), what’s unlocked in the R&D, what’s PURCHASED in the R&D, whether or not bosses use Overdrive attacks and when, availability of Secret Chips, on Easy you literally can’t fight the final boss (this is kinda bullcrap actually), enemies do more damage, enemy attacks change and in some cases they gain new attacks, aaand some stages gain new challenges. Aside from the bullcrap on Easy this is actually pretty legit design…
3. Difficulty Options: …take a solid double
4. Controls: Not as good as the best, but immediately and noticeably better than X7’s. The animations are more clipped and there’s less drag time, and the whole thing is way more responsive
5. Animations: Pretty solid animations indicating attacks and how to dodge, mostly on bosses
6. Minigame: So there’s these optional Intermissions. These SHOULD be more positives but they kinda suck to access and they’re mostly for Metal grinding… anyways there’s several, depending on the stage you select when you unlock an Intermission. Depending on how many bosses you’ve defeated and how many mission failures you get in a row you unlock an Intermission. NOTHING tells you this. In fact I didn’t even know this feature EXISTED before this review. And they’re simple minigames where you can farm Metals
7. QoL: Some of the usual stuff. L and R for weapons, quick swap, exiting stages, the usual
8. Guidance: I’m also fond of the fact that when you clear a stage it shows you your kills, combo, if you took damage, if you beat the mission, and which items you got (and more importantly which items you didn’t), plus a percentage of completion of the stage
9. Power Progression Curve: This is a weird one because the thing that really makes you feel the curve as you progress is getting the armors and the chips. It’s still there, just not at what I’d call an ideal level
10. Music: This is probably the single thing I think X8 does worse than X7. X8’s music is… generically decent. It’s not terrible it’s just fine
11. Viscerality: Decent for what it is. Let’s call this an aggregate across all three categories
12. Core Mechanic: Swapping on the fly (or automatically if you die) continues to be a good idea, considering it was copy pasted from X7 and it worked even in that trash fire of a game…
13. Core Mechanic: …and it’s even better here
14. Kit: Sub tanks and the addition to gameplay (an optional power up that just sits there, forever, and allows you to slowly fill it with excess health which not only rewards you to not get hit, but gives you a recovery mechanic that only ‘costs’ as much as you need, making for granular healing)…
15. Kit: …we’re doubling it, and you can’t stop me
16. Core Mechanic: You can choose which Navigator you bring to a level, which is actually a great concept I cannot BELIEVE we didn’t get until the LAST game in the series. The way this works is each one specializes in giving you specific details, forming a sort of Info In Game. One will tell you about secret areas and power ups, one tells you about the level itself, one tells you about enemies and bosses… or you can bring NO navigator cuz you don’t want to. This is a fantastic system that’s opt-in and also serves…
17. Info In Game: …as one of our very first Info In Game positives for the franchise
18. Guidance: Helps with Guidance too
19. Info In Game: But we’re not even done! For I believe the first time we get actual info on what the armor and chips do in the friggin’ game, holy crap
20. Build: So X8 has this interesting system where there’s multiple Armors (that’s not new) but the armors are mix and match. So each piece has its own benefits and, well, speaking personally I actually prefer a mix of several pieces. There is also a bonus for equipping four of the same set of course. So this right here is a positive JUST for that system, the mix and match and the bonus
21. Kit: Now we talk about the suits themselves. First is Icarus. The Helmet makes a field surrounding you while jumping, meaning you can damage enemies above you by jumping into them. The chest halves damage taken and removes all recoil, but there’s another cool feature where when taking damage your lost damage becomes a red part of your health bar. If you swap out while that’s still there he will slowly regen in the background. However once you swap back whatever health he’s at is it, the red bar goes away even if it’s not full. Great piece. The buster lets you charge one less ‘level’ than usual, meaning much faster charged shots, plus the max shot becomes a laser of doom… that actually kind of sucks because it’ll stop your momentum when you use it, meaning if you do it in mid air you can die horribly. And finally the boots just straight double your jump height. The set bonus for Icarus gives you Giga Crash which is, as usual, a screen wipe but the difference is it recharges slowly rather than from damage taken. All in all Icarus is…
22. Kit: …pretty legit
23. Kit: So then we have Hermes Armor. The helmet doubles your charge speed… not just of the buster, but of special weapons (faster again with X Drive). The armor makes you flat immune to 1 or 2 damage attacks, and when you take damage you gain Metals (and doubled invincibility duration under X Drive). The buster makes you fire a triple spread shot instead of the normal charge shot (and lets you shoot 5 semi charged shots at full charge). And the boots double your run and dash speed and makes you immune to a lot of projectiles while you’re dashing (and your speed is quadrupled under X Drive). So you can see how some of these I’d like and some I’d prefer the other armor. The set bonus is the aforementioned X-Drive which I’ve already mentioned what it does
24. Kit: Okay so I don’t want to over-praise but it’s nice having some decent weapons again. Anything would be better than X7… or, uh, X6… anyways. We have Shining Ray which is a spread shot and charges into an even bigger spread shot. Squeeze Bomb which is a black hole and… I’m sorry are these the same weapons we’ve seen already? I guess that’s inevitable at a certain point. Shadow Runner is a homing boomerang which charges for multiple shots and I’m going to be a bit less verbose here cuz these are literal repeat weapons. We have a fire ground attack, a spread attack, a shield generator, a big explosive attack. The one that caught my eye is Thunder Dancer which is a really short range lightning attack but it can chain across enemies, basically infinitely, so if you get a cluster of enemies… the charged version is three of these shots so that’s even funner. Either way this is solid for what it is, plus to gameplay
25. Kit: Axl actually got weapons back in X7 but they were so… vacuous I didn’t even mention them. (Seriously they were all just variants on ‘gun’.) Also Axl had that wonderful ability to copy people but it totally sucked in X7. In X8 you can copy far fewer enemies (only 4) but each one is stage specific and is designed to help you navigate that stage, pushing that up into positive territory. But what about actual weapons? For the sake of brevity let’s just mention noteworthy weapons. We have Blast Launcher which flings timed grenades, Black Arrow which is a homing shot, Bound Blaster which is a bounce shot that reflects off walls, Plasma Gun which is a friggin’ shotgun, and then a bunch of either piercing or rapid fire shots. I’ve seen better, but I do think this is at least positive worthy
26. Kit: Zero gets some weird weapons this time around. Tenshouha blasts the vertical line you’re standing on (and costs weapon energy). Juuhazan does a big sweeping attack over you which does guard break. Rasetusen is your swirling air attack like in previous games. Raikousen gives you a dash attack that can be used in mid air. Enkoujin is your down attack. Hyouryuushou is the upwards attack. Does this all sound familiar yet? Rekkyoudan gives you the projectile deleter for your saber. And Youdantotsu gives you the stab attack. All of these are pretty much copy pasted from X4… and that’s good, because they were good there. They’re not QUITE as good here thanks to some quirks with the engine but it’s still solid kit and still fun to play as Zero
27. Kit: One last plus for Kit (lotta Kit in this game) for the Chips. There’s a lot of them and they do some really cool stuff. Why not more positives, you ask? Because they’re a pain to get and grindy to earn. (If you’re wondering, the whole system is literally designed around repeated playthroughs… you’re not SUPPOSED to earn stuff on your first playthrough)
28. Intro: The entire Intro is designed around tutorializing the difference in playstyle between the three principles. X fights the boss (charge attacks knock it back, which is the real goal), Axl has his hover and gun, Zero has double jump and shreds in melee. We then immediately fight the boss again and show off Double Attacks (more on that up above) and have a few more red rooms followed by actually fighting the boss (and showing off Double Attack again)
29. Boss: Earthrock Trilobyte starts us off with a solid if simple fight. He throws crystals which are easy to dodge, summons a pillar that falls on your face, and then has an ultimate where he spams walls just like the room before him. Then there’s Dark Mantis which is a bit simple (most of the fight is just staying at range.. which sucks as Zero let me tell you). And Avalanche Yeti is… fine. His attacks are a bit too irritating to really be good (leaving spikes behind a spread fire attack is just mean) but he’s fine. Also Optic Sunflower who I mention because he does have some cool attacks just… not enough to really leap out at me
30. Boss: Burn Rooster is another of those ‘fighter style’ bosses like Torchman or Magma Dragoon. Lots of moves (forgive me for not listing them all) and a dynamic fighting arena, plus he has a gimmick where he powers up from taking damage, and can be powered back DOWN by breaking his guard…
31. Boss: …a shockingly good boss in a game like this
32. Level: Bamboo Pandamonium’s stage is pretty decent. Several alternate routes, at least partially due to how you ‘escort’ the Ride Armor throughout the stage, and… y’know you get a friggin’ Ride Armor to smash everything to bits
33. Boss: Bamboo Pandamonium is one of the meaner bosses, though mostly in a good way. Giant missiles which land on you, shoots you can use to dodge his charge, a massively damaging melee attack, and of course an artillery cannon. Oh and if he gets you in melee he just does damage to you until you escape
34. Level: Optic Sunflower’s stage is not the best. It has some slowdown problems and padding issues and it isn’t SUPER clear what’s happening with the multi route thing.. but there are a lot of decent micro challenges and the multi route thing, once you understand it, is pretty cool
35. Level: Dark Mantis’s stage is interesting. A stealth stage which isn’t just stealth in the ‘avoid lights’ sense but also in the ‘disguise yourself as the enemy to get by enemy troops’ sense. Lots of trips and searchlights too.
36. Boss: Gravity Antonion is decent. His block doesn’t instant kill you (which helps), he has a good variety of attacks (mostly involving either dropping blocks on you or flinging them at you), and even as he’s attacking he’s still vulnerable
37. Replayability: Yes, of course. I was debating a second one but after some thought decided against it since most of what really gives it more replayability is covered by…
38. NG+: …new game plus. Solid for what it is

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Mid Mission Checkpoints: Pretty bad checkpointing, especially in the more frustrating segments. Some of these stages can just be misery pits…
2. Mid Mission Checkpoints: …especially the actually hard stages, like the last ones
3. Boss: Every single boss in the game has HP Barriers. When these are and how long they last varies on a few things (including I THINK difficulty, don’t quote me on that though) but either way it slows down already too-much-health bosses even more
4. Audio Spam: No where near as bad as we’ve seen since, gosh I guess X4 at this point, but it’s still bad as players and bosses still feel the need to say something every single attack
5. Gotcha: Several. It’s not particularly egregious but there’s still a few instances of gotcha in level design here and there
6. Grind: So you can grind Metals in this game to earn up the ability to buy chips. Chips are expensive as hell, costing thousands or tens of thousands of metals… Most of them also require unlocking by getting a specific item out in the stages. These are cool and awesome and neat and grindy. There IS a way to make the grind MORE tolerable but grind it still is and considering how much cool stuff is locked away behind this…
7. Grind: …this is not great
8. Terrain: WAY too much emphasis on instant death spikes and traps in almost every stage of the game, up to and including the final one…
9. Terrain: …this is at MMZ levels of insanity
10. Level: Avalanche Yeti’s stage sucks. It’s not the worst (we’ll cover that in a bit) but there’s entirely too much memorization in how you push through this stage, and the controls and physics are clearly not meant to be this type of game and it suffers jank as a result. Also the miniboss just has too much health
11. Level: Burn Rooster’s stage STARTS with a Contra stile autoscroller (down instead of up) and of course falling is death, why wouldn’t it be. Ignore that your goal is to go down. They pull this trick TWICE by the way. The sheer quantity of instant death combined with the usual checkpoint problem alongside how SLOW it is to progress through this stage and…
12. Level: …you have a recipe for boredom and frustration and one of the worst stages in the game
13. Level: By the way the last climb up from the lava that’s chasing you is also not great. If it wasn’t so long AND slow it wouldn’t be so bad but here we are
14. Level: Gigabolt Man-O-War’s stage sucks. This is one of our gimmicky vehicle style sections but there’s a general lack of feedback or information in general as you move around, where your attacks hit versus where you’re aiming is not clear, it takes WAY too long to knock Gigabolt down, and once you do enough damage THEN you have to catch him. Also there’s no logic to the route itself, as you just bounce around the ‘stage’ turning seemingly at random…
15. Level: …weird, janky, awful stage
16. Boss: Gigabolt himself is very close to an interesting boss but two things really screw with it. First the add spawns which are honestly just spammy and there to irritate you, and second the TINY battle area and instant death on both sides. Plus thanks to the PS2 visuals it’s not always super clear what he’s attacking or where
17. Level: Gravity Antonion’s stage actually has a pretty neat gimmick (similar to Gravityman’s back in 5). Problem is that stage was made by the classic Megaman team at their peak and this is… not that. It’s not the worst stage ever, certainly nothing on the level of X7, but the over-reliance on gotcha traps and instant death spikes littering everything, plus a lot of the gravity puzzles end up just being ‘wait to proceed’
18. Level: Encounter: I have to give special mention to the spike room. There’s these blocks that move up and down, generating a large spike on each block as they do. Those spikes are instant death (of course they are). Dodge everything while not touching the spikes! As mentioned on camera this room would be fine if these were damaging spikes instead of death spikes (which do exist) but instead this is just needlessly finicky and lasts WAY too long considering any mis-step is death
19. Level: Jakob’s Elevator is… boring. There’s so, so much worse in gaming in general and Megaman in specific (hell there’s worse in THIS GAME) but this is just one very long extended elevator fight. There’s a reason elevator fights are usually just one segment and not an entire stage
20. Boss: Not a fan of the Vile fight here either. None of the Vile fights are great but this is just him doing slow, boring attacks that are easy to dodge and take way too long. The fact that he’s invulnerable while doing his REALLY SLOW rotating attack doesn’t help
21. Padding: Boss Refights are still a negative even if there’s a narrative reason for them (for once)
22. Boss: Copy Sigma is not a great fight. He has some decent attacks that have decent avoidance, the problem is they hit INSANELY hard. Like his reflecting shots ‘only’ do 2 damage each but there’s dozens of them everywhere. His burning floor ‘only’ does 4 damage. But then everything else does 8 or TEN. Yuck
23. Outro: Level: The Lunar stage should be awesome. It is not. There’s an insane amount of instant death spikes and pits everywhere and no checkpoints, which is already terrible…
24. Outro: Mid Mission Checkpoint: …but check this out. If you die to the final bosses you don’t go back to the final boss fights. You go back to the beginning of the stage. What is this, Ninja Gaiden?
25. Outro: Boss: High damage, no checkpoints, no recovery, giant invuln phase, THREE bosses in a row, and HP barriers…
26. Outro: Boss: …this isn’t as bad as X7’s final boss cavalcade but this is not great. These three fights…
27. Outro: Boss: …deserve three negatives

Story Positives:

1. Spritework: Consider this a general for everything. I’d say the one thing that really earns this is Rock himself and his various animations, basic though they may be

Story Negatives:

1. Outro: Yeah I don’t expect NES games to have stellar endings but what is this crap

Gameplay Positives:

1. Controls: I’ve seen better, but the beginnings of the tight platforming are here
2. Music: General, but decent. A few good songs like Wily 1, Gutsman, Fireman
3. Tutorialization: Despite a niggle, Cutman’s stage is a surprisingly good tutorial of platforming in general and Megaman in specific
4. Bestiary: Threadbare, but it’s there
5. Optional: Museum! Some neat things here, details, behind the scenes, palette info, some cool stuff
6. Guidance: So, you can take the stages in any order, which is great, but Cutman’s level is so clearly intended to be first. It’s a solid tutorial that introduces what Megaman is and how platforming works, with good escalation, and it’s entirely possible to do it last instead. Further, Cutman’s weapon helps against multiple enemy bosses. Having said that, you’re probably wondering why this is a positive instead of a negative, and it’s because everything about the game guides you to Cutman first (cursor starts on him, default upper left positioning) without mandating it
7. Save: Thanks to the Collection, save states (albiet only the one)
8. Save: And again thanks to the Collection, the Rewind feature exists, which deserves its own points for being such an awesome feature that so few games have…
9. Save: …earning it two positives
10. Power Progression Curve: Beating bosses to gain their abilities is, at its core, an interesting mechanic
11. Replayability: By sheer virtue of the alternate routing inherent to a Megaman game
12. Level: Fireman’s stage is, weirdly enough, pretty fair despite its brutality. Good escalation and tutorialization, and also a larger than normal amount of pickups to offset
13. Level: Elecman’s stage has surprisingly good level design. Gradient difficulty, multiple paths, good tutorialization and escalation
14. Kit: Some decent weapons; Elecman’s is powerful and gives coverage, Cutman’s gives a good arc and bypasses most armor, and the Magnet beam is cool utility which allows you to place your own temporary platforms
15. Mid Mission Checkpointing: Decent and existant

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Gotcha: Ninja Gaiden style enemy spawning and respawning
2. Enemy Design: Big Eye. I get what they were going for but the way he’s positioned and his inordinate amount of health combined with how ridiculously hard he hits makes him kiiiind of awful
3. Boss: Really a negative for all six bosses, but they’re basic to the point of disinteresting. Almost every single one of them has two actions they can take and that’s it. In some cases it’s one action. Worse, collision damage exists and is often much worse than the actual attacks the bosses use
4. Boss: Special mention to Fireman. For all his simplicity, his attacks are frustrating to dodge and he absolutely spams the hell out of them
5. Enemy Design: While we’re at it, all the ‘swoop’ type enemies (of which there are several reskins). They are specifically programmed to be able to swoop at you in a manner that makes it irritating to hit them and, consequently, not get hit
6. Level: Iceman’s stage screws up twice. First is those damned block puzzles. The concept itself is fine, really (and later Megaman games will use them to better effect) but the layout, timing, and bugs drag these down
7. Level: Then there’s the pit of hell. Randomly moving platforms that have glitchy collision and shoot on both sides, and sufficient knockback to basically guarantee you plummet to your death…
8. Level: …gaining its own double negative
9. Level: Bombman. Repeating geometry with gotcha enemies and that’s… like, it. That’s the level
10. Level: Gutsman… you know the spot. Those damned platforms. They’re a bit memed on, but regardless they are imprecise, unclear about when they actually go away, and activate turbo gravity the moment you fall, and all of that turbo sucks
11. Kit: Some of the weapons are actively bad. Bombman’s is slow, badly arced, and does bad damage, and Gutsman’s is completely useless unless there’s actually blocks already present
12. Level: Wily 1. My goodness does this feel unplaytested. You can tell they were going for what a Skull Castle stage would eventually be (the final exam level, now that they know you’ve done all the other ones) but instead are just janky and easy to screw up thanks to jank
13. Level: Wily 1 deserves special additional mention for the Magnet Beam mandatory section. This wouldn’t be so bad if not for how extremely narrow the corridor is, and how penalizing it is if you run out of energy. The only thing preventing this from being even worse is the respawning weapon energy one screen away
14. Boss: Yellow Devil, mk. 1. They’re hardly good boss design across the whole franchise (enjoy memorization!) but in 1 specifically the arena is SO small that it’s made even worse than usual. This is on top of having far too much health (even when hitting him with his weakness, assuming you kept it to the fight) requiring far too many loops of his very simple mechanic. And he hits like an absolute truck, meaning have fun doing that awful Wily 1 stage all over again if you die…
15. Boss: …earning it a full…
16. Boss: …three negatives
17. Boss: Copy Rock. Painful to see, tons of collision damage, irritating weapon usage
18. Itemization: Power up drops are bad in general but probably made worse by the inclusion of the ‘point’ drops
19. Itemization: Also the placement of items is pretty bad too
20. Difficulty: So… collision damage is a long standing thing in platformers, and that’s ‘fine’, but it’s ridiculous here. Most enemies and especially bosses literally do more damage with walking into you than their actual weapons, and that can make sense under the right circumstances… but it super does not here
21. Difficulty Curve: Yeah, an absolutely bonkers difficulty curve. The game is almost always too easy or too hard
22. Boss: CWU-01P is an awful fight. Takes way, way, way too little damage from anything but its weakness, gets absolutely stupid to dodge, and its actual weakness is the very limited ammo in the room. The only thing that keeps this from being worse is the extremely short stage to get back to him to retry, and yet there’s one thing that makes him even worse…
23. Boss: …and that’s the blocks which he’s weak to DO NOT RESPAWN until gameover, which is absolutely ridiculous
24. Padding: Boss refights, as per usual for the franchise
25. Outro: Boss refights, no real level to speak of, and a final boss which has ONE attack per phase who’s only gimmick is it hits like a truck. I’ve seen worse, but unimpressed
26. Bug: General jank. There’s quite a bit

Innovator:

Story Positives:

1. Intro: Simple but solid, does a lot with what it has
2. Brickwork: It’s pretty threadbare, but it’s there. Treeborgs, the ascent up Crashman’s stage, the water plant of Bubbleman’s stage, little stuff like that
3. Spritework: Again, threadbare, but I’m with it, it adds to the scenes
4. Spritework: And of course, Rock is still worth his own point
5. Visual Continuity: Several examples, mostly in Dr. Wily’s stages and ‘map’ screen
6. Outro: The final stage is weirdly atmospheric for what it is. The lack of music, the echoing droplets, the crude rock hallway in contrast to the more mechanized rest of the game… and of course the, ah, ‘twist’
7. Outro: Weirdly solid for how simple and short it is. Rock walking along as the seasons change, finally being able to rest and put down the helmet, it’s good stuff

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Controls: The tight platforming begins to really come into its own, with less of the issues with midair problems like the first game…
2. Controls: …for two positives
3. Bestiary: Somewhat basic, but it does include art, info, and lore
4. Optional: Museum stuff continues to be some cool optional tidbits
5. Save: Thanks to the Collection, once again a save state
6. Save: And once again thanks to the Collection, the Rewind feature exists, which deserves its own points for being such an awesome feature…
7. Save: …for two positives
8. Power Progression Curve: Beating bosses to gain their abilities is, at its fundamentals, a great idea
9. Kit: Some pretty solid weapon design in general. Metal blades for width and angle, Leaf shield for static defense and quad angles, Flash for utility, Crash bombs for big hits, Heat blast for charged attacks that pierce, and Air blasts for vertical attacks. Only two weapons are bleh in this one (Bubble and Quick) and thus…
10. Kit: …earns two positives
11. Kit: Also bonus points for the Items and the extra mobility and utility they add
12. Viscerality: Surprisingly solid impact for such an early game in the series, a feat we won’t see again for a couple of games
13. Enemy Design: Generally good enemy design
14. Enemy Variety: While several enemies share design, there’s enough variety in the archetypes to require different approaches to each of them
15. Mid Mission Checkpointing: Continuing the trend of existing and being decent
16. Level: Metalman’s stage. We start off on a conveyor to quickly convey the primary gimmick of the level, leading into a quick patience test, followed by a refill section to recover. A short platforming section followed by an escalation platforming section, another breather, and then some reflex checks before the end. Short and simple but very sweet. If something indicated Metalman’s supposed to be first, this would get bonus points for being a solid tutorial level
17. Level: Woodman’s stage is a fairly simple introduction escalation combo, but it’s solid. We start off with a small enemy swarm to get used to how the enemies attack, then the dogs with increasingly smaller areas to maneuver in, a quick breather recovery room followed by another enemy swarm, then a rabbit escalation by once again using the terrain, and then one last health tax before the end
18. Level: For the issues discussed in the negatives, Quickman’s stage does have good design to it. Quick tutorialization of the gimmick, the whole stage is very short with a good checkpoint placement meaning quick replay turnaround
19. Level: Flashman’s stage makes for a good tutorial (which, again, it’d get points for if it was). The two gimmicks are once again showcased very early; the ice physics (which isn’t that bad as in some games thanks to how the jumping works) and more importantly, multiple routes. The initial section branches out several times before concluding in a door you can’t destroy unless you have Crash Bombs, but if you do it’s rewarding… elsewise you continue, choosing left or right, and then up or down in how to progress. Each has different types of challenges and isn’t just easy or hard mode. And finally there’s one last pseudo challenging platforming section which, if you manage it, rewards you with an E Tank
20. Itemization: Much improved itemization over the first game, both in drops and in manual placement
21. Level: Airman’s stage is mean but fun platforming. We start off with timing platforming with a bit of pressure, followed by enemy platforming, then our first recovery section with the birds to refill and recoup, then another meaner section where enemies will be obfuscated by clouds and they introduce the enemies that pushback, making the platforming harder
22. Boss: General. There’s some basic bosses (like Flashman) but most of the others are pretty solid despite their simplicity. Quickman, Metalman, and Crashman’s reaction mechanics and Heatman’s retaliation mechanic all come to mind immediately
23. Level: Bubbleman’s stage has some cool features. Obviously the underwater physics, and proper escalation of enemies and the ever present instant death spikes
24. Song: Skull Castle. This is one of the most remixed songs in Megaman history for a reason, and I often think of it as the reward for finishing the first 8 stages…
25. Song: …for two positives
26. Song: Flashman’s stage, A Frozen Moment
27. Song: Heatman’s stage, Geothermal. Special mention goes to this song for literally being the song that introduced me to the very concept of enjoying music
28. Music: While most of the great music is covered under Songs, there’s still some generally great and memorable music in this one
29. Level: Aside from one major asterisk, Heatman’s stage is the best of the initial 8 overall. The first corridor is nonstop escalation; first an enemy, then an easily avoidable pit, then a less easily avoidable pit, then more enemies and jumps over lava. These initial jumps are deceptively easy, but then they get harder, and finally the jumps change it up entirely for the last segment before a breather and a checkpoint. Then the same process; Easy wall to climb with enemies, harder wall to climb with enemies, much harder wall to climb with enemies
30. Level: Wily 1. Starts out simple, some enemies and refill possibilities, but very quickly it becomes clear they want you to use Items to progress, clueing you in to how the whole level is navigated. What follows is the typical escalation model, with several refill spots to make sure you have Item energy
31. Boss: Mecha Dragon (recovery platforms, the approach, and the blasts) Picopicokun (slowly escalating speed and maneuvering) Guts Tank (simple and easy, but fun), and the Wily Machine mk. 2 (mean but not boring)
32. Replayability: As per usual for the Megaman franchise

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Padding: The boss refights, as per usual for the franchise
2. Seconds In Minutes: Getting a weapon, seeing your password, and related text and animations is just a weird stuttering of padding that drags the game down
3. Level: Quickman’s stage commits several sins. First and most obviously is the memorization of the Quick beams themselves, and secondly the enemy placement is almost always done incorrectly. Special mention to putting giant health gates after the last beam section
4. Level: Quickman’s stage gains a bonus negative for the tightness of the timing on the beams. Having to memorize them or die instantly is bad of itself, but the incredibly small window of leeway is bonkers. Speaking as someone who regularly speedruns this game, even I screw this up from time to time because of the sub second windows it gives
5. Guidance: So… there’s no real indications on the order the stages should be done in (no, Quickman’s hat does not count). This is a shame because there is definitely an intended order here
6. Level: Crashman’s stage is a weird one. Like several other stages, it’s clearly designed to be done later and actively punishes you if you don’t already have power ups and/or items already. This is on top of several aggravation sections like long ladder climbs or waiting on the platform
7. Level: Bubbleman’s stage is, similar to Quickman’s, entirely too tight in several respects. The initial jumps into enemies with advantage on you are fine, but the dropping platforms are far too tight of timing. The spikes are fine, really, but then they throw enemies at you that home in on you during the spikes. And finally the crabs are a full on gotcha moment
8. Difficulty Options: Lazy difficulty, damage and health
9. Level: So, Heatman’s stage. There’s a section where the yoko blocks carry you across instant death lava and then a bottomless pit. The length of this section is already problematic and the yoko blocks are their usual selves, but neither of those are why this is a negative in and of themselves; It’s the timing. The timing of how the blocks spawn, and thus despawn and respawn, is dependant upon when the screen scrolled into them. This means that if you don’t have an even screen scrolling rate, the timing is off by a bit. You can compensate, but that continues across the entire pit, and any screw up means death. This is… not good
10. Level: Wily 4 is not a great stage. First it leans heavily on a gimmick; invisible blocks. Now it showcases them well, but nothing indicates that Bubble Lead will actually help you navigate them. Then there’s the second half of the stage, which is a lot of waiting around instant death segments. None of this is helped by the introduction of…
11. Boss: …Boobeams. These are awful. Their shots are very hard to avoid, they can only be damaged by one weapon of which you only have enough ammo to perfectly kill them in one run, not that anything indicates that. Then there’s the fact that the Crash bombs also take a moment to go away, preventing either switching weapons, firing again, or using the pause trick (which, also, nothing indicates). Now the blocks don’t respawn after you die and come back but, again, nothing indicates that, and refilling Crash bombs from the mid mission checkpoint to the boss is actually a chore. All of this makes this the worst kind of hard, requires extensive retries or a walkthrough, and is weirdly boring on top of everything else…
12. Boss: …for two negatives
13. Outro: The final boss being weak to the worst weapon in the game doesn’t really bother me (in fact it would become a tradition to add challenge and reward skill)… no, the boss being immune to everything else, that bothers me

Story Positives:

1. Brickwork: The lunar colony of Geminiman, the solar farm of Topman, the cityscape of Needleman, the chemical plant of Shadowman. Each of these stages does really solid stuff in and of themselves, giving a clear indicator of location and variety to the biomes being attacked, and between them they easily deserve…
2. Brickwork: …two positives
3. Spritework: Bosses in general. Their designs are starting to improve from the ‘megaman standard’, aka basic and barely functional, and so we’re starting to see better color usage and variety in their design…
4. Spritework: …for two positives
5. Spritework: Enemies. Again, there’s some great variety here, but what really sells it is how many different enemies were designed just to match the theme of their given stage or stages…
6. Spritework: …for another two positives
7. Spritework: Rock himself, who is coming into his ‘final form’ where he’ll have even more sprites and animations to accomodate the new interactions and moves…
8. Spritework: …for a double
9. Visual Continuity: Doc Robot stages. The damage, the noticeable variance between the originals and the new ones while still retaining the same design, it’s great
10. Visual Continuity: The trek through Skull Castle mk. 3. Into the entrance, descending through the sewers, climbing up through the core, the ‘unfinished’ segment where unfinished robots defend, and the final Gamma holding area
11. Outro: The final, tiny tidbits of world building for the original bots, Light and Wily’s cooperation, and the introduction of Blues

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Music: Some of the best the franchise has ever had, in general and across the board. A unique soundfont and excellent usage of instruments and tone…
2. Music: …for a solid…
3. Music: …triple positive
4. Song: The title screen, “Start of War”. This song is so good that non Megaman fans who’ve heard it tend to get into it, a great prelude for what is to come…
5. Song: …for two positives
6. Controls: Probably the worst controls in the series thanks to the slide and facing ‘glitch’ (part of the bugs issues), but still good enough to be a positive
7. Bestiary: The usual Collection bestiary
8. Save: As usual, save states in the Collection
9. Save: And, again, the Rewind feature which will continue to be…
10. Save: …a double positive
11. Optional: The museum is, as usual, full of some cool artwork and concept stuff
12. Sound: They start to really use sound design well in this one. Clear indicators of hits, acquisitions, vulnerabilities, etc.
13. Power Progression Curve: Defeat bosses, gain their abilities, still good stuff
14. Enemy Design: Some really solid stuff here. Enemies have very little health, but tend to have a very small vuln window, encouraging and rewarding the player for precision. This is all over the place and is generally awesome…
15. Enemy Design: …for two positives
16. Enemy Variety: Really solid enemy variety throughout, lots of different types of attacks and vectors and strategies
17. Mid Mission Checkpointing: As is the series standard, good mid mission checkpointing
18. Itemization: Manual placement and drop rate both. Some good thought put into what is where and how it keeps you going
19. Replayability: Megaman standard
20. Kit: Okay so, hear me out. The Rush Coil is actually a pretty good bit of kit by itself because of how much additional verticality it offers to navigation and avoidance
21. Kit: Rush Jet. This is the best Rush Jet in the franchise, with total control over the flight completely opening up the entire arena
22. Song: Hardman’s stage, “Agamemnon”. To this day I love starting off in this stage just to hear the song
23. Level: Topman’s stage does some good stuff right off the bat. Very smart enemy and terrain placement, good escalation which then has ‘breather’ sections to recover before going back into escalation (like with the minibosses), and still having some fun and cool things throughout
24. Level: Shadowman’s stage is probably one of the meaner of the initial 8, mostly in a good way. The creativity on display is fantastic; Enemies designed to either reward reflexes or sliding, lots of terrain design centered around fighting ‘up’, the enemies that blank out terrain (but not enemies), and all of that is awesome and fun. However… there’s a section that can only be described as bullcrap. You either have a vertical attacking ability, take the hit, or just sit and wait to progress. This whole sequence sucks, but it’s also right over some bottomless pits which just makes the whole thing irritating. What would otherwise be a double positive stage is hurt by this
25. Level: Sparkman’s stage (mostly) follows a great philosophy; You see it before you encounter it. The walker above you, the ladder leading to the first lightning zapper, the terrain interrupting your movement so you’re guaranteed to see enemy attacks and positions before they’re on you. It’s the opposite of a gotcha and it’s brilliant… which is why it’s a damned shame that right at the end there’s a pit that is nothing but gotcha, once again hurting an otherwise excellent stage
26. Level: As is slowly becoming the standard, Hardman’s stage serves as a tutorial stage (which it doesn’t get credit for) but still does a good job of introducing concepts, escalating encounters, and keeping things interesting
27. Boss: Magnetman, believe it or not. While only having three attacks, the way they interplay and work with your kit (and are built around the slide!) work really well
28. Level: Needleman’s stage is almost all enemy spam, but it positions them smartly and rewards the player for very careful positioning and combat. It also practices the all important good escalation
29. Boss: General. Multiple bosses (Topman, Sparkman, Hardman) encourage the increased maneuverability the slide offers and are aggregately fun
30. Level: Snakeman’s stage is seemingly simple but does a lot with vertical escalation to encourage the player to be maneuvering constantly, and some of the better enemy design throughout (reminds me of Needleman’s stage)
31. Song: Snakeman’s stage, “Burrow Deep”. Do I need to explain this one? It’s a fan favorite for a reason
32. Level: Geminiman stage is mostly a standardly good stage, but the introduction of the water section and the ‘cells’ you can break to progress adds a great fun to an already good stage…
33. Level: …for two positives
34. Level: Doc Shadowman’s stage is just… legit. Brutal but fair, introducing and then escalating all new concepts (falling platforms, but they come back after use… spikes, but avoidable…) I love it…
35. Level: …for two positives
36. Boss: Doc Robots in general are really mean. A bit too mean, but still properly fun
37. Level: Doc Sparkman’s stage is a great escalation of the same concepts of the original. The rotating platforms add to a lot of the pitfall sequences, and the spikes add some nice pressure mechanics
38. Level: Doc Geminiman’s stage is a nice remix of the original. Even more cell based puzzles, new enemy types taking advantage of the terrain, and the underwater sequence
39. Level: Wily 1. Basic, but solid, and some creative maneuvering, optional routes, and rewarding the player for outthinking encounters
40. Song: Wily 1, “Storming The Castle”. Such a great understated Wily song
41. Song: Wily 2, “Heart of the Storm”. This is to this day one of my favorite Wily songs of all time, with the perfect combination of morose and accomplishment…
42. Song: …for two positives
43. Level: Wily 3. It’s short, but it’s very sweet. The cleverness of the positioning for the ‘black out’ enemies, and the best part; the moving platforms through the spike chamber

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Bugs: Quite an unfinished and buggy game. Some are just graphical, some are just weird, some are just bad
2. Kit: Megaman 3’s Kit is… not good. Easily the worst so far (granted we’re only 3 games in). Sparkman’s attack is too easy to interrupt and the stun lasts too short. Magnet Missiles should be cool but thanks to the game not smartly homing, instead you blow shots on things you don’t want to hit (and you have very little Magnet ammo). Hardman’s slow missile only works if it hits much, much harder than it does (uh, no pun intended).
3. Kit: Topman’s attack deserves its own negative. It makes you spin, doing damage… while contacting the enemy. And on the off chance you’re not aware of how Megaman games work, you take damage from contact. Sssoooo
4. Level: Magnetman’s stage. It’s most inoffensive and does some decent escalation, but the reliance on the yoko blocks hurts it. Yoko blocks CAN be good of course, but here they’re not only irritating in terms of specific placement, but actually get worse with each iteration, all of which is in a single screen… meaning any mistake involves either starting over or, worse, dying and going back to the checkpoint
5. Padding: Boss refights, as per usual for the franchise
6. Boss: Geminiman and Snakeman are just… super super boring. Run back and forth, fire periodically. That’s it
7. Level: Doc Needleman’s stage is ‘fine’… until you reach the mandatory flying section which is already frustrating, but gives you power ups which don’t respawn to keep you going. Meaning screw ups are penalized by having to restart the entire stage
8. Bugs: Inconsistent hurtbox issues
9. Difficulty Curve: The Doc Robot stages are just unpleasantly mean after the initial 8, and the diff then plummets from them to the Wily stages
10. Mid Mission Checkpoints: The specific placement of several are honestly pretty awful
11. Boss: Yellow Devil mk. 2. It’s improved from its predecessor in Megaman 1 but good lord, this is still a pretty dull boss fight. Rare, short windows of vulnerability followed by dodging the same two attacks over and over in a confined space
12. Outro: Level: Wily 6 is… a screen with power ups prior to a boss fight. And that’s it
13. Outro: Boss: Gamma is pathetic. Easy to circumvent, nothing fancy, just… boring
14. Graphics: Sparkman’s stage is legitimately headache inducing to people with visual sensitivity

Story Positives:

1. Intro: So for the first time we get an actual intro and background lore for the Megaman games actually IN the game. This also canonizes the names Rock and Roll, even in the english version. Cool stuff regardless, and a nice quick lore for new players in addition to the setup for this particular game (Dr. Cossack, love the name by the way)
2. Brickwork: Toadman’s Stage does a great job of the storm and the sewers handling the load, and Brightman’s stage’s motif of the lights glowing on and off inside some kind of reactor or power plant works really well
3. Brickwork: Pharaohman’s desert dunes and stone temple (with occasional robotic accouterments) is good flavor, and the slow ascent up to the stars is wonderful for Ringman’s stage
4. Brickwork: Dustman’s stage has a wonderful motif of the burning, slagged trash being processed. And Skullman has the mountain peaks, blue skies, and archeology (and robotic) bones
5. Brickwork: Diveman’s underwater segments with the pipework and processing plant, and of course the mining and rock processing facility of Drillman’s stage works great too
6. Spritework: Rock is, as usual, well sprite’d and animated. This is going to be the standard up until at least 6…
7. Spritework: …so enjoy that double
8. Spritework: Bosses, again. Solid as usual, with good variety, design, and animation…
9. Spritework: …for a double
10. Spritework: Enemies and minibosses. I’m especially fond of the minibosses this time around, some super creative stuff here…
11. Spritework: …for another double
12. Visual Continuity: As usual, the climb up Cossack’s fortress and into its depths is some good visual continuity. I particularly like going from the snowy forest to the icy ramparts to the upper levels where it’s actually snowing, and into the much cosier inside (where you can still see the snowstorm outside through the windows), and then even further up into the peaks of the castle amongst the clouds, and finally as night descends the final approach to the tower
13. Brickwork: Cossack’s stages in general. The snow, the mountains, the interiors, the windows, the icy exteriors, it’s all good stuff
14. Brickwork: Almost all of Wily’s stages aren’t as super cool as Cossack’s (so missing that wonderful visual continuity) but it’s still some solid interior / technological bent to it and each stage looks distinct

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Save: So yeah as usual the Collection offers save states which, as usual, are awesome…
2. Save: …and deserve a double
3. Save: Rewind is also still a feature. Don’t worry I think they axe this amazing quality of life stuff in future Collections for some bone-headed reason
4. Bestiary: Yep, Bestiary is still there. Still contains enemy stats and weaknesses
5. Optional: Museum is still there too. As usual some cool artwork and other fun stuff
6. Controls: So they’ve fixed the weird glitches from Megaman 3 and the game just controls smoothly and precisely…
7. Controls: …which is good because lord knows the increased difficulty necessitates it
8. Music: Name me a Megaman game of this era without a banger soundtrack and I will name you a liar. While the soundfont is kind of strange (a bit ‘softer’ for what the NES usually puts out), they still use it exceptionally well. There’s a few standouts for me but honestly those will go under Song positives so for now…
9. Music: …enjoy…
10. Music: …the triple
11. Song: Northern Darkness. Absolutely love the darkness of Cossack 2
12. Song: A Tiny Stretch, Wily 2. Another solid Wily stage
13. Sound: Generally decent sound design. Basically the same general quality Megaman games have for feedback. Items, hits, vulnerabilities, taking damage, etc.
14. Power Progression Curve: The usual Megaman standard. Defeat enemies, get powers, win
15. Enemy Design: I’m rather impressed with the enemy design in this one. They’re not super impressive in a vacuum, but each enemy is very well designed to match other enemies and the terrain built around them…
16. Encounter: …making for some solid encounter design too
17. Enemy Variety: Nothing super awesome, but still good spread and stretch of types of enemies. You have your peek-a-boos, your homers, your fliers, and then there’s the slow drifters who get in the way
18. Itemization: The distribution of drops, both static and random, are pretty solid. I want to give a second positive but the game really likes to punish you for going for static drops so… not as great
19. Kit: I chewed on this for a bit. 4’s Kit isn’t exactly bad, but most of it is pretty situational. Being able to move with the shield up, for example, is a near straight upgrade over Woodman’s shield back in 2. Brightman’s attack is similarly a near linear upgrade over Flashman’s. We get a full on screen nuke in Toadman’s weapon (which works much better in the player’s hands than an enemy’s), Drill is a good linear explosive shot, Pharaoh’s gives some great damage and vertical attack thanks to the charge, Dust is a big shotgun blast, and Ring has some malleability thanks to its boomerang properties. Finally Dive’s homing missiles are a bit weaker than they probably should be but home very well. All in all this is at least the equivalent of 2’s in quality I think…
20. Kit: …for a solid…
21. Kit: …triple
22. Viscerality: Again, surprisingly decent impact, especially for a NES game. We won’t see this level of quality again until 7
23. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual quality checkpoints the Megaman series has been doing well this entire time
24. Level: Toadman’s stage. We start off with enemies (which spam you a bit admittedly) custom tailored to be dealt with by sliding and charged shots, and a recurring theme of ‘pushing’. First we start with the rain shoving you along, but all the jumps are pretty simple to let you get used to it. Then we see the sewer water shoving you along. Then we see a miniboss, then we start combining. Top it off with a nice water, spikes, enemy (which can provide invuln frames if needed) situation…
25. Level: …and we have a solid stage. Good start
26. Level: Brightman’s stage continues to impress. We start off with two quick sections of tutorializing; First about the light and dark mechanic, then about the grasshopper spikes combo. We then immediately start escalating these, with much meaner combos of bottomless pits and moving platforms alongside much longer grasshopper sections. There’s even a side section containing a 1-up and an E Tank (which basically mandates using Rush to get back from). Cap all this off with the final light/dark segment which would’ve pissed me off except the platforms remain visible regardless…
27. Level: …and we have a good stage
28. Boss: Brightman himself is a good example of a typical Megaman boss, and zigs where Toadman zagged. He has a fairly large range jump, a spread shot that’s patterned for avoidance, and of course the freeze itself. Meaning you have to stay mobile, but there’s always windows
29. Level: While not as good as the previous two, Pharaohman’s stage is still good. Nice tutorial segment and a unique gimmick with the sinking sand, followed by enemies-as-platforms which are very precisely placed to be just enough in the way but still have windows of platforming to deal with them. And of course the damage they do, similar to Brightman’s stage, can be a safety net against the instant death spikes
30. Boss: In a similar vein to something I’ll talk about later, Pharaohman is Quickman 2.0. Very horizontal and fast jumps which are hectic to dodge while he’s flinging projectiles at you, but then with ‘break’ periods where he charges a big shot which is much easier to dodge and opens him up to damage
31. Level: Man we’re really getting into the good stuff now aren’t we? I always slept on Megaman 4 for some reason but damn. So, Ringman’s stage is legit. We start with you being dropped on the rainbow platform, which has an enemy nearby (in threat) and safety below (enemy can’t hit you down there). This is a great and immediate tutorialization for the way the rainbow platforms work (temporary platforms). Then we head further up. Falling means losing progress, and the difficulty of the platforming slowly escalates, as well as the placement of enemies and types of enemies (we go from static turrets which shoot slowly to slowly moving but homing fliers). All of this is already excellent, but then we start to do rainbow platforms over spikes and pits all while escalating the enemies. But what really impressed me was after we pushed past several mean but fun minibosses we run into REVERSE rainbow platforms. Each platform so far has shrunk from where we start to where we end, passively ‘pushing’ us forward. The reverse platforms start from where we’re going to where we are. This means it’s a race to get across (or do a precise jump). And all of this is with smart and mean enemy placement designed to be a very precise obstacle to prevent you from just walking through…
32. Level: …love this stage…
33. Level: …easy triple
34. Boss: Ringman might actually be the hardest of the initial 8. He’s fast, he has a boomerang attack which is also fast, and he hits hard. Thing is he has very large vulnerability windows to offset this, and his attacks are very patterned to reward you for paying attention
35. Level: Dustman’s stage has some issues, but I really like the early development. Bottomless pits and spikes (a lot of those in 4 so far) but lots of ways to avoid them, as well as good escalation (I’m particularly fond of the relatively easy to avoid but slowly increasing in number ladybug jackasses who float around at you from odd angles)
36. Boss: Dustman continues the trend of simple but solid bosses. His basic attack is slow but also hits diagonals so it rewards thinking about positioning and when you avoid it. And his ‘suck in’ also means constantly thinking about your placement relative to him
37. Level: Skullman’s isn’t super fancy but there’s some decent stuff here. The continued layering theme (where you have multiple heights and avenues, usually being able to see where you’ll be in a bit) is nice, and it really rewards either being super careful or having quick reflexes with the slide
38. Level: Back to some good stuff with Diveman’s stage. Lots of usage of the water gimmick obviously but they do this fun thing where you can try to avoid the water which is difficult platforming or avoid the enemies in the water, and this serves as a bit of a theme throughout. They, as per usual for 4, experiment with moving water levels which you have to adjust for, all while dodging the enemies which are homing in on you but only on the vertical axis…
39. Level: …great stuff
40. Boss: Diveman’s another simple but solid fight (bit of a theme really). He’s got his charge (with a windup so you have some warning), the obvious homing missiles (which are destroyable and dodgable), and nice vuln windows
41. Level: Drillman’s stage is another simple one. Switches to make terrain appear, so they place them where logical jump arcs are, and some simple but solid enemy and terrain placement
42. Level: Cossack 1 has a few issues we’ll talk about later but the first few screens are a solid usage of tutorialization as well as usage of their main gimmicks (the dampened snow and the icy exterior) as well as, similar to Wily 1 from Megaman 2, having to use utility weapons to progress
43. Level: Cossack 2 continues the trend of fun and creative stuff. We start with some basic verticality and mandatory Rush section followed by alternating spike platforms
44. Level: Cossack 3 is a rare example of when I actually like an autoscroller because of how they use it as part of level design. Lots of peeking, several places where you’re given plenty of time to decide on a route or strategy to progress, and interspersed with breather segments. It’s also relatively short which actually works in its favor here
45. Boss: The Cossack bosses, as an aggregate, are a good example of how the game is still trying to push the limits of what the NES can do. The first boss permanently destroys terrain, the second is the entire room moving around you and requires you to get inside of it to attack it, the third dude climbs all the walls and ceilings, and Cossack’s crane game thing
46. Level: Wily 1 is one of those weird good-and-bad scenarios. The good is that it has some fun themes (Metools, underwater spikes, and more Metools… plus a Met boss) but there’s a downside too
47. Level: Wily 2 has an interesting theme; Choose your path. At multiple points you can go left or right or up or down or whatever, and each path has its own difficulties. It means each path is only about half of what you’d normally see in level design but it does give some fun variety
48. Replayability: Of course a Megaman game is replayable, don’t be silly

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Audio Spam: So hey, the charge sound effect. This is… bad. This is the kind of thing you just need to mentally tune out because the game wants you to charge constantly and so you just get to live with it…
2. Audio Spam: …constantly
3. Difficulty Curve: Bosses just hit way too hard in general. Knocking out a huge chunk of your health from a single hit is entirely too punishing for what this is going for
4. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden respawns
5. Boss: In total contrast to his excellent stage, Toadman himself is awful. I know a lot of Megaman bosses only really have two or so patterns to them but they’re still usually designed enough to be interesting. Toadman will either jump at you (collision damage, incredibly easy to avoid) or do his ‘I hit the entire screen’ nuke (utterly impossible to avoid). Perhaps realizing this the devs gave us the ability to interrupt his screen nuke. Thing is once it’s interrupted he has to keep trying to cast it, which gives us two choices; Let him screen nuke us, or interrupt him. Again. And again. I should mention this isn’t like Spark Mandrill Syndrome where his weakness makes him a joke, you can do this with the buster. This is just plain embarrassing
6. Level: Megaman 4 is pretty experimental with its stage design. We see this in little ways in almost every stage (the sinking sand in Pharaohman’s stage, the moving wind and waters of Toadman’s, etc.) So the crush press of Dustman’s is right alongside that. The problem is when you’re experimenting you sometimes swing and miss, and this stage has a segment that can suck a lemon. It’s right towards the end (meaning having to redo a big chunk of the level when it kills you… and it will), and because of the placement of the Metools are more or less guaranteed to get in the way and hit you while you’re going back and forth clearing spaces to slide through. And if you screw up, at all, it’s just death… no recovery. And it’s got more than its share of jank depending
7. Mid Mission Checkpoints: No boss checkpoints for the Cossack levels which is just… very weird?
8. Gotcha: There’s this one type of enemy that leaps out of pits. There’s NO indicator that a given pit is an enemy pit or not, you just have to make the jump or not. The thing that makes this so bullcrap is they’re specifically designed such that if you do a full jump over one of their pits, they will come out at the right time and speed to guaranteed slam into you and, in 90% of the cases, toss you into the pit to your death. This is classic gotcha
9. Padding: Boss refights return
10. Level: Wily 1 has an entire frustrating yoko block section. It’s completely bypassable if you got the optional items but as their name implies… yeah
11. Outro: Boss: The Wily Machine Mk. 4 can go straight to hell. There ARE ways to avoid its attacks but given the pseudo randomness of his horizontal movement, the specifics of his weaknesses, and how absolutely nonstop he blasts at you (and he does aim his attacks at you) it’s next to impossible to both attack and not get hit. Meaning it’s a health tax (or an E-Tank tax, really) to defeat him. Also he has two phases so double the usual health bar, all while draining your health reserves…
12. Outro: Boss: …awful final boss. But yes I know he’s not the FINAL final boss but this is still part of the Outro so it still counts
13. Outro: Boss: So then we have the very first Wily Capsule ever and it’s… not nearly as bad as the previous fight, but it’s still honestly a bit dull. The idea is he charges up the shot, which you can see and therefore know where to dodge, but HE is always somewhere else. And it’s just guesswork. What this boils down to is the actual final boss is just kind of boring as you’re roaming around hoping to get a lucky hit in while dodging his only attack

Story Positives:

1. Intro: Intro is fantastic. Great song, great build up, great hook, and designed for recurring players. An excellent cold open
2. Brickwork: Stoneman’s Stage. Mountains in the distance, rock and crystal processing, shafts and industry. You really get a feel for the ‘mine’ side of things
3. Brickwork: Of course Chargeman’s Stage gets one. The initial shot of the train, the sky zooming by, the interiors showcasing it’s a cargo train, love it
4. Brickwork: Waveman’s stage is another easy plus. The pumps and tubing and water processing facility, alongside the port and mountains in the distance
5. Brickwork: Gravityman’s stage, with the power plant and the bolts and arrows and everything. I don’t know what type of high tech facility this is but I’m down
6. Brickwork: Crystalman’s stage feels like the partner to Stoneman’s. Here we see the crystal mines, interlaced with machinery and infrastructure
7. Brickwork: Napalmman’s stage is another personal favorite. Lush jungle pockmarked with tanks, munitions, and warehouses
8. Brickwork: For what it’s worth I do like Proto 1’s visuals. It’s kind of weird, basically an honest to goodness medieval castle, but it works. You get the impression Wily… er, I mean Protoman bought an actual castle to overhaul. This continues in Proto 3 as we see the castle at night
9. Brickwork: Proto 2 actually looks even better than Proto 1. It’s fully interior now, and we can see the more mechanical guts of the castle as we make our way through what looks like an infrastructure seam
10. Visual Continuity: As is honestly usual for the series, we see the progression as we make our way around and through Proto Castle
11. Brickwork: None of the Wily stages look bad per say, but they all say the same thing; Generic robotic laboratory. There’s not much to distinguish them here, so consider this an aggregate for all four stages
12. Spritework: Rock is, as usual, incredibly well sprited and animated…
13. Spritework: …for his own double
14. Spritework: Bosses are still very well done, with such an improved range of sprites and animations…
15. Spritework: …to deserve an easy double
16. Spritework: Enemies, similarly, are great and varied looking…
17. Spritework: …for another solid double

Story Negatives:

1. Outro: The ending is disappointing at best, pathetic at worst. It’s a simple, two screen ‘to be continued’. It’s vaguely sad that Megaman 2 had a better ending than this

Gameplay Positives:

1. Save: So yeah as usual the Collection offers save states which, as usual, are awesome…
2. Save: …and deserve a double
3. Save: Rewind is also still a feature. Don’t worry I think they axe this amazing quality of life stuff in future Collections for some bone-headed reason
4. Bestiary: Yep, Bestiary is still there. Still contains enemy stats and weaknesses
5. Optional: Museum is still there too. As usual some cool artwork and other fun stuff
6. Controls: Alongside games like Curse of the Moon, A Hat In Time, Mario Wonder, or the best Metroids I feel like Megaman 5 is when the controls really peaked. Later on they’d add one additional quality of life feature (which will get its own positive) but in terms of core controls, this is it. Precision, responsiveness, and the ability to swap between charging and regular, sliding and jumping, climbing and falling, all completely seamlessly…
7. Controls: …so that’s our first…
8. Controls: …triple
9. Power Progression Curve: As usual we get the powers of our enemies and as usual it’s solid
10. Music: I mean yeah of course the music rocks. Pun intended. While not the absolute juggernaut of, say, 3…
11. Music: …but it’s still…
12. Music: …Megaman gold
13. Song: Crystalman, Crystallized. Another kind of non intense yet very well done song
14. Song: Wily Castle, Heat In The Skull. Probably one of my favorite Wily songs ever, behind Heart of the Storm from 3 or Skull Castle from 2…
15. Song: …a very solid double
16. Sound: Generally decent sound design. Basically the same general quality Megaman games have for feedback. Items, hits, vulnerabilities, taking damage, etc.
17. Enemy Design: Some fantastic enemy designs here, very themed to the level in question, and each one having its own intended methods to deal with it…
18. Enemy Design: …solid double
19. Enemy Variety: Excellent variety too, again with multiple enemies attacking along multiple vectors, and tons of weaknesses to the various weapons…
20. Enemy Variety: …for another solid double
21. Encounter: Excellent general encounter design. Lots of good mix and matching
22. Itemization: Excellent rewarding of side paths with lives, E tanks, and drops. Plus some solid drops off enemies…
23. Itemization: …for a solid double
24. Visual Distinction: Megaman games usually have good distinction but some smart color choices make 5’s pop even more than usual
25. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual quality checkpoints the Megaman series has been doing well this entire time
26. Kit: Rush is back, with one of the better forms of the coil (it jumps up as a platform, meaning you can then jump off it at any point, drastically increasing its usefulness), the usual nerfed Jet, and the new Arrow which is like a modern development of the Magnet Beam from all the way back in 1. The Coil and the Arrow alone deserve their own positives for how much they add to traversal
27. Kit: Charge shot. I know this is strange but hear me out. The charge shot does 3 damage per hit (which is more than it sounds like), takes relatively little time to charge, and massive increases the vertical height of the shot. This makes this thing nigh invaluable, which is arguably a bad thing (see negatives) but still deserves a positive for usefulness
28. Kit: So, boss weapons. I was torn on this for a bit. We have some experimental weapons here which are pretty situational (Chargeman’s and Waveman’s are both ‘stuck’ to the ground, meaning completely useless to anything in the air) but still useful for situations where they can be used (both Charge and Wave’s attacks are great sweepers for anything ground bound). Crystal’s weapon seems like a basic ‘big hit’ until it hits the wall and bounces, leading to some spreadfire. Gravity’s is a screen sweeper, similar to Toadman’s back in 4. Gyro’s is controllable, giving you good access at odd angles. Starman’s shield is… basically the same as Skull’s but that’s still a solid shield weapon. And Stone’s circular attack is another ‘good at odd angles’ attack. Honestly the only weapon which is whatever is Napalm’s, which just has too little bounce and too short a reach to be useful. But that still makes for 7 good weapons…
29. Kit: …so we’ll consider that…
30. Kit: …another triple
31. Level: Stoneman’s stage. This one weirded me out at first until I realized it’s a tutorial stage. There’s no real gimmick here, just very smart and careful enemy placement to tutorialize how combat works, with some very smart terrain usage to start off with things slanted towards you, then more neutral, then finally having to deal with terrain that favors the enemy…
32. Level: …overall a very solid stage
33. Song: Stoneman, Rock And Stone. Such a low key banger
34. Level: Chargeman’s stage. Another fairly simple affair, still well designed. Good placement of enemies, good combinations of enemies, and good usage of terrain to favor us or the enemy
35. Boss: Chargeman himself is another of those simple yet solid fights. He does plenty of contact damage and is constantly trying to reach you or lunge into you, and pauses periodically to shoot an AOE shot into the air you have to dodge (also almost always followed by a charge)
36. Level: Waveman’s stage. I love this stage, full stop. Good enemy usage, good terrain usage, clever bubble segment with good tutorialization, fun ‘ship’ section where you ride around and fight other dudes on the water…
37. Level: …it’s fantastic…
38. Level: …easy triple
39. Boss: Waveman himself is yet another simple yet solid. Ranged attack that hits you from the ground, a horizontal attack, and of course the leap, all leaving him with nice big vuln periods
40. Level: I didn’t think I’d be impressed with Starman’s level at first, but damned if this isn’t a solid one. So the overall gimmick is the low gravity, which it plays with a lot. It also is very smart about enemy placement and terrain usage to escalate encounters. It also has several nice elements like enemies which can give you i-frames to help with spikes, moving platforms which encourage avoidance, and of course several reflex checks…
41. Level: …overall a very fun stage…
42. Level: …for another triple
43. Level: Gravityman’s stage has always been a personal favorite of mine. The gimmick is great of course, but they also use it to good effect. Controls are properly flipped while upside down, enemy attacks move differently, you can ‘play’ with the gravity fields to change where enemies are, and all of this is very well tutorialized across several screens before they really start throwing stuff at you…
44. Level: …a solid…
45. Level: …triple
46. Terrain: Consider this a bonus positive for Gravityman’s stage. The excellent usage of terrain alongside the flipping mechanic seals it
47. Boss: Gravityman is seemingly simple but the pacing of the fight plus the swapping rewards the player for thinking around how and when to strike. Essentially he’s always in a vuln phase, it’s just up to you when you take advantage of that
48. Level: Gyroman’s stage is another of those simple but solid stages. Mostly banking on enemy placement as well as a few neat jumps and spike slides
49. Boss: Gyroman himself is actually pretty mean. His standing attack can be jumped over or slid under, but when he’s in the clouds it’s more of a toss up. He hurts too
50. Level: Crystalman’s stage is probably the most traditionally difficult stage of the initial 8. Plenty of instant death spikes and pits, and having to navigate the crystal debris as it falls (Starman’s shield helps with that last part though). Also has some smart enemy placement…
51. Level: …for a solid double
52. Boss: Crystalman’s such a weird boss. He has two attacks, one of which aims and the other is a bouncing diagonal attack which continues to provide area denial after he’s fired it. He doesn’t hit TOO hard but he’s also not super weak to anything, even his own weakness
53. Level: Napalmman’s stage is another difficult stage, probably the second hardest overall. Lots of spikes, mean enemy placement, great escalation. It feels like Stoneman’s stage version 2, if that makes sense. It gets dinged a little thanks to the gotcha rockets but other than that…
54. Level: …it’s still a solid double
55. Boss: Napalmman himself is another fun one. He will do one of his attacks then leap at you. Both attacks can be slid under but with different timing, and you have to dodge the explosions left over as well
56. Level: Proto 1 is a hell of a wake up call. Noticeably harder than the previous 8 stages, with plenty of well positioned enemies, fun death pit jumps, great usage of terrain, a mandatory ‘hope you got the Arrow figured out’ segment (hey we haven’t had one of those since Megaman 2!), a few Yoko Block rooms, a nice recovery room after…
57. Level: …very solid stuff
58. Level: Proto 2 is one of my favorite stages in the game, no joke. The great escalation and tutorialization (we interact with so much before we really see how mean it can get), the clever usage of terrain to ‘block’ the usual routes around enemies forcing the player to adjust on the fly, the rotating platform room of doom which is exactly as hard as it should be…
59. Level: …a very solid…
60. Level: …triple stage
61. Level: Proto 3 is yet another fantastic example of tutorialization and escalation. Two moving platforms with some spikes on the walls becomes several platforms and lots of spikes. One turret enemy becomes two with a pit. Et cetera. Then we add something a few of these levels have already done, honest to goodness recovery segments where the player can recoup and catch their breath. And all of this is finished by having the moving platform segment…
62. Level: …and you have…
63. Level: …a banger level
64. Level: Proto 4 is pure gimmick but I really like it for what it is. Giving the player control over how fast the tower falls on us and forcing us to plan ahead is just neat, and fun for what it is
65. Boss: Darkman 4 is the first Darkman I’d call a real boss fight (I actually remember him giving me a lot of trouble as a kid). His barrier means timing your shots, his attacks hurt like hell so keep on your toes, and he has multiple weaknesses to exploit
66. Level: Wily 1. I take it back, this is my favorite stage. Clever usage of the one tile rollers, excellent enemy placement, more Arrow segments, recovery rooms, a fantastic roller spike death pit room, the crusher segment from Dustman’s stage in 4 but actually good, and very tightly designed platforming…
67. Level: …so that’s an easy…
68. Level: …triple
69. Terrain: And a bonus for the terrain usage…
70. Terrain: …which is itself a double
71. Boss: I honestly rather like Big Pets (aside from his name). Three spiked tiles which pop out when shot (making the platforms in player control), no invuln phases to speak of, multiple ways to hit him, and super weak to several attacks (only 7 hits with Crystal, for example)
72. Level: Wily 2 continues the rotating platform fun, now combined with underwater and spikes, Mets, and some legitimately mean enemy spam…
73. Level: …another solid stage
74. Boss: Circring Q9 (who comes up with these boss names?) is another solid fight. Moving platforms, moving boss with multiple patterns, weakness flaps open randomly but he has very low health
75. Replayability: Try to be shocked, a Megaman game is replayable

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Audio Spam: Charging. It’s arguably worse than back in 4 because the charge shot is just so good in 5 (even as a kid I’d do ‘charge shot only’ Runs for fun) that you’re going to CONSTANTLY be charging it…
2. Audio Spam: …so that’s a nonstop irritation
3. Padding: Boss refights, especially funny since it’s literally just the boss rooms from their stages again
4. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden respawns, as per usual for the franchise really
5. Boss: I’m usually pretty lenient on the simple boss design of Megaman games but the Darkmen kind of suck. The first one moves towards you and shoots. And that’s it. The second one has a barrier and walks towards you. And that’s it. The worst part is they cranked up the damage of both bosses so they’re the worst kind of difficult

Story Positives:

1. Intro: I like it, I don’t even care. It sets up the stakes, does a tiny bit of world building, and gives a nice bit of international flavor to events (similar to how 3 was interplanetary)
2. Brickwork: Flameman’s stage is a delight. Shifting sands surrounded by mechanized infrastructure, a city in the distance, the oil (and flame) fields, and the pits where the crude is pumped
3. Brickwork: I was torn on Blizzardman’s stage… I mean it’s decent, good mountains, nice frozen hardware, but what really sold me was the friggin’ submarine in the cave
4. Brickwork: Love the jungle of Plantman’s stage. Feels like an upgrade from Woodman’s all the way back in 2. Great foliage, great peeking through the canopy, usual mechanical tint, nice grass, good treeborg interiors
5. Brickwork: Tomahawkman’s stage is already great. Mechanized Utah is already a neat vibe, add in the sunset section and we’re cooking
6. Brickwork: And we’re back to great stuff with Knightman. The castle aesthetic, the mechanical detailing, the torches, it’s solid
7. Brickwork: I was torn on Centaurman’s stage, but the pillars, pipes, flowing water, purifiers, and greco column look all sell it
8. Brickwork: Windman’s stage is a bit simple but conveys the tower in the skies well
9. Brickwork: X 1 does a good job with the cityscape, the more commercial styled building of Mr. X’s castle, and night time in general
10. Brickwork: The next three X stages are the usual spread of good high technology looking Megaman bricks. I’m especially fond of the visible night sky in stage 2
11. Spritework: Rock is, as usual, incredibly well sprited and animated…
12. Spritework: …for his own…
13. Spritework: …triple!! That’s right, the addition of the two new armors pushes him into triple territory
14. Spritework: Bosses are still very well done, with such an improved range of sprites and animations…
15. Spritework: …to deserve an easy double
16. Spritework: Enemies, similarly, are great and varied looking…
17. Spritework: …for another solid double

Story Negatives:

Gameplay Positives:

1. Save: So yeah as usual the Collection offers save states which, as usual, are awesome…
2. Save: …and deserve a double
3. Save: Rewind is also still a feature. Don’t worry I think they axe this amazing quality of life stuff in future Collections for some bone-headed reason. In fact I do believe this is the last one with it? We’ll see
4. Bestiary: Yep, Bestiary is still there. Still contains enemy stats and weaknesses
5. Optional: Museum is still there too. As usual some cool artwork and other fun stuff
6. Controls: To my great dismay the controls are… very slightly worse in 6 compared to 5, but it’s kind of a big thing. See, Megaman 6 thanks to some coding issues has dropped inputs periodically. This isn’t as bad as 3 (which was just straight bugged) but it does mean that if you try to do precise inputs… well, it tends to drop inputs. It’s rare enough that I’m only dinging this a little (the game still controls super smoothly otherwise) but it does bring it down from the triple…
7. Controls: …back down to a double
8. Power Progression Curve: As usual we get the powers of our enemies and as usual it’s solid
9. Music: Y’know I wasn’t sure about this one. There’s less songs than usual, and very few ‘holy crap that song rocks’ moments, but this is still a solid Megaman game…
10. Music: …with solid music
11. Sound: Generally decent sound design. Basically the same general quality Megaman games have for feedback. Items, hits, vulnerabilities, taking damage, etc. I actually think the sound design is a bit better in 6 than previous games, indicating all kinds of level related things (wind, platforms, types of attacks)…
12. Sound: …so we’re scootching this up to a double
13. Enemy Design: Some great enemy designs, similar to 4 and 5…
14. Enemy Design: …lots of attack types, vuln points, et cetera
15. Enemy Variety: Excellent variety again, similar to the previous game…
16. Enemy Variety: …for another double
17. Encounter: Smart encounter design, especially in the X and Wily stages
18. Itemization: Excellent rewarding of side paths with lives, E tanks, and drops. Plus some solid drops off enemies…
19. Itemization: …for a solid double
20. Visual Distinction: Some excellent visual distinction, as per the late NES era in general
21. Mid Mission Checkpoint: Usual quality checkpoints the Megaman series has been doing well this entire time
22. Kit: So 6 got rid of Rush entirely and replaced him with two armored suits (something the X series was, historically, already playing with). One gives you a small bit of vertical thrust which can be used to slow a descent or elongate a jump. The other is a big bulky punch with very short range but hits hard and can break things you normally can’t. The real star here is the Jet, but both actually do quite a bit to change up how the player interacts with the world. And in a game where you’re actually intended to replay stages to get all the side items, they can vary things up too
23. QoL: It’s a really small thing but it really is a game changer once you get the Energy Balancer upgrade. It reduces weapon energy cost and spreads out weapon pick ups to whatever needs them even if you don’t have it equipped. This is a Godsend in a game like this where the Kit is legit. Speaking of…
24. Kit: 6’s Kit is not super great, not going to lie. So we have Flameman’s which is a low arcing shot which creates a pillar (so in other words, a short range shot). Blizzardman’s is pretty good, it’s four shots forward two of which are an arc, making for a nice spread fire. Plantman’s shield is pretty much the bog standard we’ve had since 4. Tomahawkman’s axes are… weird. The arc means they’re super situational making them, like Flameman’s, just a worse projectile. Yamatoman’s is another basic projectile, and so is Knightman’s. Windman’s is a ground crawler (like Waveman’s back in 5) and Centaurman’s is a screen nuke. So there’s a couple of cool things here (Blizzard, Plant, Wind, Centaur) but the other four are all just ‘basic shot but worse’ and only worth using for weaknesses. And this is in a game where they give you the Power Armor, so you have TWO basic attacks that are more useful. So we’ll call this a single; Better than 3’s, not as good as 2, 4, or 5’s
25. Level: Flameman’s stage starts off with something 6 in general does well; tutorializing concepts in a safe manner before throwing you off the deep end. So most of the stage has these pits of oil which interfere with your jump, but there’s also several flame attacks which enemies can do which (of course) ignites said pits, turning them into death pits. It is possible to avoid almost all of these with skill and timing, but then there’s the final gauntlet which is essentially designed around forcing the player to have to deal with a fire pit (it’s possible with speedrunner timing to avoid this but obviously that doesn’t count). There’s also jumping moving platform enemies to help you navigate, some good recovery segments, and of course a brutal final exam right at the end…
26. Level: …a very solid stage
27. Level: Blizzardman’s stage is another of those simple yet solid stages. Mostly about smart terrain usage, especially the timed bombs, and the enemy placement designed to take advantage of the layout. The submarine section is neat, and everything escalates and tutorializes very well…
28. Level: …another solid stage
29. Boss: Call this an aggregate for Flameman and Blizzardman. Flameman has two patterns (plus a jump); He’ll shoot easily avoidable shots but then he’ll make flame columns shoot up which have a much tighter dodge window. Blizzardman is much meaner, but about as simple. He has an invuln roll-into-a-ball phase where he charges you, and he summons a scattering of projectiles which sort of loosely home in on you, both requiring some careful maneuvering to avoid
30. Level: Plantman’s Stage is mostly a solid tutorial stage until we hit the second woods area, where all the sudden we’re introduced to the jump pads and the shoot-to-reveal platforms. Both of these are well introduced before we have to really start working with them and make that final stretch fantastic…
31. Level: …another solid double
32. Level: Tomahawkman’s stage is one of our first branching stages (a new concept in 6) where the route you go can change a few things. This is actually the dominant theme throughout the stage, as there are several points at which you can alter your path and change which obstacles you deal with. These side paths are the far more interesting routes, with flipping spike platforms, rocket floating platforms, and some upgrades…
33. Level: …for a solid double
34. Level: Yamatoman’s stage might be the most vanilla stage I’ve seen in a while, even with two branches. There’s just not much going on here. Basic platforming, reasonable enemy placement, and that’s… kind of it
35. Level: Knightman’s stage gets back to some good basics. Introduction of concepts in a safe environment before escalating, varying up pure platforming vs. platforming and enemy challenges, lots of themes about controlling your movement…
36. Level: …another solid level
37. Level: Centaurman starts strong with underwater death spike fun, starts experimenting with inverted water and enemies designed to benefit from the added height, and otherwise some solid design decisions
38. Level: Windman’s stage is super legit. Good tutorialization of concepts, especially its two gimmicks (the jets which lift you at a steady rate and the temporary flipping platforms), and fantastic escalation of both (safe area to tutorialize, harder area to escalate, spiked death area to finalize)…
39. Level: …great level…
40. Level: …easy triple
41. Boss: Windman himself is deceptively mean. Basic shot which has two ways to dodge (in or out of the pattern) and his yank attack, plus he’ll lunge at you quite fast (more or less mandating a slide to avoid)
42. Level: X 1 is a strange one. It’s mostly simple with some solid execution of themes (mostly the platforms and area denial enemy placement) but then if you do the optional hard jump you gain access to an entire section designed to be one long recovery room, complete with 1 ups
43. Boss: Rounder 2 is a weird one. It has multiple weaknesses, but only fairly narrow actual weak points. Both move pretty fast and change direction every 6 seconds while bombing you, but also they’re highly predictable and you can navigate the room fairly well
44. Level: X 2 is seemingly simple if you just glance at it on a map but actually sitting down and playing it you can feel the design here. It’s a corridor filled with enemies but the exact placements of enemies and how the terrain is constantly designed around them is great stuff
45. Boss: For what it’s worth I like Power Piston. It’s yet another example of seemingly simple fight that works because of precise design. The shots mean having to track your angles, the rocks mean not standing in one place, and the boss is super weak to Tomahawk… but even if you don’t have weapon energy charged shots can still get him and do good damage
46. Level: X 3 is the meanest level yet but in a great way. First the power fist can open up alternate paths to let you choose a bit of your challenge, but the star of the level is the balancing blocks, the careful enemy placement, and some smart usage of either death pits or death spikes…
47. Level: …a solid double stage
48. Level: X 4 is properly mean. Platforms that spawn enemies and area denial enemies covering most of your jump vectors make for a fun combo. Honestly if the stage was a bit longer it’d probably suck a lot more
49. Level: Wily 1 isn’t much but it does have some nice (mean) spike drop sections and, my personal favorite, multiple side areas you can get to
50. Replayability: I mean, yeah. 6 is still legit on replay

Gameplay Negatives:

1. Audio Spam: Charging. It’s not as bad as 5 (which was really bad) but it’s still an issue here
2. Padding: Boss refights
3. Encounter Rate: Ninja Gaiden respawns, as per usual for the franchise really
4. Boss: So, Megaman 6 bosses have this problem where they rely entirely too much on contact damage as part of their pattern. Tomahawkman is an excellent example of this; His basic attack is easy to dodge by doing literally nothing, his feathers are slow and easy to jump OR slide under. Meanwhile someone like Plantman has exactly one thing he does; Jump at you, with or without a shield. These are still rough, but not in a good way. By the way Yamatoman is the same problem; He throws his spear and then… walks over to it. In other words he tries to hit you with contact damage
5. Boss: Knightman and Centaurman continue the trend of ‘just walk into the player’. In Knightman’s case it’s even worse because he’s slow and barely does anything else. In Centaurman’s it’s aggravating because he is TALL and getting around him is more of a pain than it should be
6. Outro: Boss: I won’t be too mean towards the final few stages, though they are honestly pretty pathetic, but the real problem is those last three fights. The first one is an interesting idea but the very nature of it means you’re basically guaranteed to stumble into his weakpoint (which is also the second AND third form’s weakpoints). The second form is just dull. And the third form doesn’t do anything special. Mostly just disappointing