Before 2010, I made a New Years Resolution that I would update my site more. I mean, let's face it. I only posted TWO reviews last year. Anyway, thanks to that promise you get to enjoy a review for not one, not two, but THREE games in one post. This is a review for the three Mega Man X games released exclusively for 32-bit systems. Oh, but I can't start a review without one of those silly intros that explain my history with the series, now, can I? Feel free to skip it. The actual review starts in the fifth paragraph of this post.
Anyway, my history with the Mega Man series starts with my getting into Icons. Of course, I had known about Mega Man before, but I didn't really get into the series until I had seen the episode of Icons about Mega Man. As soon as it was over, I KNEW I had to have Mega Man Anniversary Collection. I got it for my 10th birthday, and started with Mega Man 8. I loved it at the time, but got out of it once I found no conceivable way to get through the first stage of Wily's Tower. Pretty much the same thing happened with the original Mega Man. I didn't beat Mega Man 8 until three years later after getting back into the series, and though I've gotten to the Wily stages on Mega Man 1, 2, and 7, I've not been able to beat any of them. (I haven't even played the first Mega Man recently though)
Fast forward to April 2009, when Mega Man has pretty much moved to the back of my mind. I'm walking through the local GameStop when I spot Mega Man X7 for $10.00. Now, I knew about the X series as well, and I had actually intended to get Mega Man X Collection for my birthday alongside MMAC. Due to my experiences with the original series, though, and also that I had heard the X series' games had a high difficulty level in the very episode of Icons that drove me to get Anniversary Collection, I decided to pass it up rather than find myself screaming and breaking controllers left and right. Rather than passing MMX7 up, though, I decided to buy it.
I didn't play MMX7 until three months later. I wasn't exactly amazed. In fact, what Icons had said seemed to be very much true. It was hard. Horribly. Ridiculously. Unforgivably. Hard. I was screaming left and right, although thankfully no controller sustained any injuries (well, major ones, at least) during my first playthrough of MMX7. At the same time, though, after I had somehow miraculously beaten it, I was mildly impressed, and decided in spite of my horrible experiences to play through it again. I had a lot more fun on my second playthrough, having upgraded my characters on my first playthrough. Although I still wasn't exactly amazed, I began to feel as though I NEEDED the other games in the series. What I had seen looked more fun than X7, and eventually, on Christmas 2009, I had a moment of screaming with delight when I opened a present to find Mega Man X Collection. So, let's get started with this review, shall we?
(Note that this review is not going to cover all six games on the collection. Only X4-X6.)
Anyway, I started my Mega Man X adventure with MMX4. Call me an otaku, but I just LOVE anime cutscenes, even if the voice acting is ridiculous. I first played with X, and I liked it a lot, although on my second playthrough as X I had a lot more fun, probably because I actually knew the Life-up (or Heart, if you prefer) and armor piece locations. (I only found one Life-up and no armor pieces on my first playthrough of the Maverick levels, and had to go back later) Despite the absolutely terrible voice acting, the cutscenes were enjoyable to watch, but I can't help but feel that X himself didn't get enough screentime. His [girlish and ridiculous] voice was heard on the phone in one cutscene, but he wasn't seen until the ending of his story.
Zero, on the other hand gets plenty of screentime in his cutscenes...which makes one tragic scene that you probably know about unintentionally hilarious. I'm sure you know which one it is.
Anyway, I love Zero's gameplay, too. Zero is really just the definition of a POWERHOUSE once you start getting abilities for him. Rather than a gun, he uses the epic Z-Saber. Though more suited for close-range combat, Zero gains awesome moves with it, and even gets an improved version from one of the bosses.
Before closing this review, I'd like to mention the music. I have to say that I enjoy the music of this game. While it's not always memorable, it's fitting and does have one stand-out track. (The volcano's theme) I'd also like to mention the voice acting once again. It's mostly present in the cutscenes. Though it doesn't ruin them, the voice acting is pret-ty awful as stated before. X sounds like a little girl, and Zero's voice ranges from a somewhat high-pitched rebellious teenager to sounding like Emil in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Seriously, the only game that you could possibly hear worse voice acting in is Mega Man 8. It is THAT BAD and makes me wonder why no one at Capcom cared. I mean, didn't they want the English dub of a certain death scene in Zero's story to strike the same emotions as the Japanese version might?
So, anyway, I love Mega Man X4. It's awesome. It's not even horribly difficult. It provides adequate challenge, and that's it. MMX5 is the same way (MMX6 isn't, but more on that later). There is only one fatal flaw: the length. I mean, I know that, being a Mega Man game, it kind of needs to be short because of the whole "choose a stage, beat the boss and use that boss's power to beat another boss" thing, but I can't help but feel sorely disappointed that the game is over before you know it. It's a problem with all the other ones on MMXC, too. It was acceptable on SNES, but not on PS1. Well, can't be helped, can it? The plot's good, the gameplay's awesome, the anime cutscenes are fun to watch even though the voice acting is atrocious and the music wins. It's really one of the best 2-D side-scrolling experiences that I've ever had.
So What's Good About MMX4?
+ Anime cutscenes
+ Two different character stories, each featuring its own cutscenes and story
+ Fun stage design
+ Good plot
+ Good music
...But What's Bad About It?
- Voice acting is some of the worst you'll ever hear, next to Mega Man 8
- Far too short for my liking
So, yeah, MMX4 is great. But can I say the same thing for the other ones? In the words of Mr. Owl, "Let'sh find out."
Let's start with MMX5, since it was the second one I played. From the start, a definite minus is that it doesn't have anime cutscenes like X4! Not only that, but it has no voice acting! I mean sure, the voice acting of X4 is bad, but I still feel like that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any in MMX5. Let's press on, though.
MMX5 plays roughly the same as MMX4. There are some differences though. For one thing, there aren't two character stories. You are able to choose either X or Zero to play through a level.
There is also the thing that made the game seem highly interesting to me before I played it. You see, your goal in the game at first is to stop a space colony from crashing into the Earth. There are two means of doing this: the Enigma Cannon, which you gather parts for and try to use first, and the space shuttle, which you also have to gather parts for. Naturally, these parts all belong to Maverick bosses, so you'll have to deal with them. You CAN actually launch the Enigma Cannon and space shuttle before you collect all parts for them, but the probability that they will succeed will be much lower (it's actually completely random if they'll succeed or not; the cannon is most likely not to succeed whether you collect the parts of it or not, but as far as I know the space shuttle will most likely succeed as long as you collect all of the parts for it). If you don't succeed in preventing the colony from crashing, you don't have to start the game over. Rather, other events happen and you can get a different ending. But warning, Zero fans! Without spoiling why, Zero becomes unplayable if this happens.
Although you have those two means of preventing the space colony's crash, there are only 16 game hours before the crash happens. There's no timer while playing the stages, thankfully. Rather, each time you enter a stage or fight Dynamo, the game's new character, you lose one hour. Basically, this only means that if you want to keep the colony from crashing, you have to limit the number of times you revisit levels to get things you missed before until the crash has been prevented.
Another new feature that I have to say I think is kind of cool is that X has not one, but TWO unlockable sets of armor. We've got the Falcon Armor, which allows X to fly but decreases the width of his charged shot, and the Gaea Armor, which is slow, has a short-ranged shot and prevents X from using Mavericks' abilities but tries to make up for it by allowing X to stick to walls, making his shot more powerful, and allowing X to walk on spikes. Yes, TRIES. Though the Falcon Armor can be quite useful and is cool in general, the Gaea Armor is only required for two or three Life-ups and then you'll never want to use it again. If you don't like either of those armors, though, by starting the game as X, you can unlock either the Fourth Armor, the unlockable armor from MMX4, or, if you use a cheat code, the Ultimate Armor, which has all of the features of the fourth armor but allows you to use the Nova Dash move, which is practically required if you intend to beat the final boss as X.
In this game, if you defeat a high level boss, you will be allowed to select whether you want to get a health upgrade or an energy upgrade, another thing that is kind of cool because it makes it to where Life-Ups aren't the only way that you can get health. Also, through means that I don't actually know yet, parts can be completed that allow you to upgrade your characters. Finally, I have to mention is that X and Zero can duck in this game. I find that a good improvement. Though not as big of a deal in X4, it's a problem that I have with the old classic Mega Man games, because it makes it harder to kill enemies below you and to dodge attacks coming from below.
Anyway, like I said before, X5 plays pretty much the same as X4. Also like I said before, you can use either X or Zero to play a level. Their gameplay is the same as it was in X4, but it seems like I find myself having more fun playing as Zero than with X. The game is a lot of fun in general, though. I love it, but not as much as X4.
Again, unlike X4, X5 has no anime cutscenes or voice acting, which I personally believe stinks, even though X4's voice acting was atrocious. Though I'm not sure if that really has anything to do with it, there is something that is either a consistent translation error, typo, glitch, or problem porting it to MMXC that will occasionally cause letters in text to be a 0 or O or 8 or whatever the heck it is rather than the letter that belongs there. Besides that, I don't enjoy the stage design, plot or music as much as X4's. So, yes, MMX5 is great, but not as great as X4.
So What's Good About MMX5?
+ The whole thing about the colony crashing is interesting
+ Characters can now duck (FINALLY)
+ Fun gameplay
+ Two different playable characters
+ Two different armors to unlock
...But Then What's Bad About It?
- No cutscenes
- No voice acting
- Typos/glitches/whatever they are can make text hard to read sometimes
- Way too short
Though this post has run quite long already, I've still got one games left to review. Yeah, I know this is going to be a really long post, but hey, I didn't post many reviews last year!
Anyway, now we'll move on to X6, the last one released for the PlayStation. Like X5, there is no voice acting; only still frames and text (although I've heard that there was Japanese voice acting on the original version but was taken out of the MMXC version...). Though, it seems like they look less dated than the ones in X5 seemed, so I can let it slide. Anyway, so, yeah, the game plays pretty much the same as X4 and 5. Unlike those games, Zero isn't available from the start of the game, and has to be unlocked by defeating a Maverick called the Zero Nightmare (looks exactly like Zero except a different color scheme...yeah, I know, it's stupid) in one of the areas that can be accessed through the use of a teleporter.
X starts out with the Falcon Armor in this game, although it allows you to do an enemy-damaging air dash rather than fly. There are two other armors to assemble in this game: the Shadow Armor, which is pretty much the same in the area of advantages and disadvantages as the Gaea Armor from X5 except that it shoots ninja starts that are pretty powerful and the charged shot allows you to do a powerful Z-Saber swing, and the Blade Armor, which allows you to do an awesome Mach Dash and allows you to do pretty much the same thing with the charged shot if you hold up while doing it. I've also heard that you can get the Ultimate Armor in this game with a cheat, but I haven't tried it yet.
Yes, thanks to the events of X5, X ends up with the Z-Saber in this game, and is actually still able to use it once you unlock Zero. It's okay, but you'll generally want to stick to your guns (literally). Another change is that you can rescue Reploids for parts and health upgrades, rather than extra lives and health refills. (They still give you that, though) However, there is a disease called the Nightmare that will try to infect Reploids, so you have to be quick sometimes. Yet another new thing is the nightmare system. Each boss has a "nightmare," which will follow you into certain levels. These nightmares basically change the stages in some way. All of them are meant to damage you or hinder you in some way, and are a lot of times annoying, but one is, in fact, useful for getting a few upgrades in one stage.
Now, a lot of fans tend to dislike X6. Though I had a lot of fun with it, I do think it's more flawed than the other X games that I've played. This is mainly due to obvious poor level design. For instance, in the stage of one Maverick, Commander Yammarck, there is an area where you have to make a blind jump on to a MOVING robot that is on SPIKES, and if you've played a Mega Man game before, you know that spikes mean instant death. So, miss and you DIE. The only foolproof way to get to it is to take a hit from one of the nearby enemies and use the period of temporary invincibility to walk across the spikes and reach the robot. Similar bad level design (including poor placement of Reploids) makes the game highly frustrating in some places.
Another thing is that where the game was rushed out to the American market, the translation is HORRIBLE. Seriously, this is the sloppiest game translation in any game that I have ever played. The game might as well say "All your base are belong to us." It's that bad!
I also have a gripe with one of Zero's moves, which sends Zero crashing into the ground. The reason why is because you press up and B to do it, and I can't say how many times I ended up falling into a bottomless pit because of that move. The reason this happens is because in the game there are wires that you have to hold up while next to in order to move across them. I would jump up off of them to defeat an enemy, and when I would jump, I would hold the control stick up so that I could grab back onto it as I was coming down. Unfortunately, when I pressed be to attack the enemy above me, I ended up careening into a bottomless pit thanks to that accursed move!
But like I said before, the game is still a lot of fun. The Blade Armor is cool, and the Shadow Armor is FAR better than X5's horrible Gaea Armor. I'd still much rather use the Blade Armor, but I still think the Shadow Armor is okay. I also like rescuing Reploids to get parts and extra lives and whatnot, but I never understood the Hunter Rank system. Supposedly, if your rank is higher, you can equip more parts, but it seems like my characters' ranks never increased...
So What's Good About MMX6?
+ Fun gameplay
+ X gets to use the Z-Saber, which is kind of cool
+ Still uses still frames and no voice acting, but it looks better than X5
+ Once again, two unlockable armors for X
+ Rescuing Reploids is cool
+ Story would be good...
...But Then What's Bad About It?
- ...But the plot is somewhat obscured by Engrish
- Bad level design in some places
- One of Zero's moves is annoying
- Nightmare system is kind of a pain
- Like the others, too short
So, there you have it: what I think about MMX4-6. I can't play any of the others on my Wii because my disc is really scratched up. For whatever reason, though, X3 at least seems to work on my cousin's GameCube (I haven't tried it on mine because one of its fans is broken, which causes it to overheat after a while). I could have reviewed X3, too, but I think it's about time to wrap this review up. So, I'll be seeing ya! I might review New Super Mario Bros. Wii next.
I give MMX4, MMX5, and MMX6 a 4 out of 5 each.
Anyway, my history with the Mega Man series starts with my getting into Icons. Of course, I had known about Mega Man before, but I didn't really get into the series until I had seen the episode of Icons about Mega Man. As soon as it was over, I KNEW I had to have Mega Man Anniversary Collection. I got it for my 10th birthday, and started with Mega Man 8. I loved it at the time, but got out of it once I found no conceivable way to get through the first stage of Wily's Tower. Pretty much the same thing happened with the original Mega Man. I didn't beat Mega Man 8 until three years later after getting back into the series, and though I've gotten to the Wily stages on Mega Man 1, 2, and 7, I've not been able to beat any of them. (I haven't even played the first Mega Man recently though)
Fast forward to April 2009, when Mega Man has pretty much moved to the back of my mind. I'm walking through the local GameStop when I spot Mega Man X7 for $10.00. Now, I knew about the X series as well, and I had actually intended to get Mega Man X Collection for my birthday alongside MMAC. Due to my experiences with the original series, though, and also that I had heard the X series' games had a high difficulty level in the very episode of Icons that drove me to get Anniversary Collection, I decided to pass it up rather than find myself screaming and breaking controllers left and right. Rather than passing MMX7 up, though, I decided to buy it.
I didn't play MMX7 until three months later. I wasn't exactly amazed. In fact, what Icons had said seemed to be very much true. It was hard. Horribly. Ridiculously. Unforgivably. Hard. I was screaming left and right, although thankfully no controller sustained any injuries (well, major ones, at least) during my first playthrough of MMX7. At the same time, though, after I had somehow miraculously beaten it, I was mildly impressed, and decided in spite of my horrible experiences to play through it again. I had a lot more fun on my second playthrough, having upgraded my characters on my first playthrough. Although I still wasn't exactly amazed, I began to feel as though I NEEDED the other games in the series. What I had seen looked more fun than X7, and eventually, on Christmas 2009, I had a moment of screaming with delight when I opened a present to find Mega Man X Collection. So, let's get started with this review, shall we?
(Note that this review is not going to cover all six games on the collection. Only X4-X6.)
Anyway, I started my Mega Man X adventure with MMX4. Call me an otaku, but I just LOVE anime cutscenes, even if the voice acting is ridiculous. I first played with X, and I liked it a lot, although on my second playthrough as X I had a lot more fun, probably because I actually knew the Life-up (or Heart, if you prefer) and armor piece locations. (I only found one Life-up and no armor pieces on my first playthrough of the Maverick levels, and had to go back later) Despite the absolutely terrible voice acting, the cutscenes were enjoyable to watch, but I can't help but feel that X himself didn't get enough screentime. His [girlish and ridiculous] voice was heard on the phone in one cutscene, but he wasn't seen until the ending of his story.
Zero, on the other hand gets plenty of screentime in his cutscenes...which makes one tragic scene that you probably know about unintentionally hilarious. I'm sure you know which one it is.
Anyway, I love Zero's gameplay, too. Zero is really just the definition of a POWERHOUSE once you start getting abilities for him. Rather than a gun, he uses the epic Z-Saber. Though more suited for close-range combat, Zero gains awesome moves with it, and even gets an improved version from one of the bosses.
Before closing this review, I'd like to mention the music. I have to say that I enjoy the music of this game. While it's not always memorable, it's fitting and does have one stand-out track. (The volcano's theme) I'd also like to mention the voice acting once again. It's mostly present in the cutscenes. Though it doesn't ruin them, the voice acting is pret-ty awful as stated before. X sounds like a little girl, and Zero's voice ranges from a somewhat high-pitched rebellious teenager to sounding like Emil in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Seriously, the only game that you could possibly hear worse voice acting in is Mega Man 8. It is THAT BAD and makes me wonder why no one at Capcom cared. I mean, didn't they want the English dub of a certain death scene in Zero's story to strike the same emotions as the Japanese version might?
So, anyway, I love Mega Man X4. It's awesome. It's not even horribly difficult. It provides adequate challenge, and that's it. MMX5 is the same way (MMX6 isn't, but more on that later). There is only one fatal flaw: the length. I mean, I know that, being a Mega Man game, it kind of needs to be short because of the whole "choose a stage, beat the boss and use that boss's power to beat another boss" thing, but I can't help but feel sorely disappointed that the game is over before you know it. It's a problem with all the other ones on MMXC, too. It was acceptable on SNES, but not on PS1. Well, can't be helped, can it? The plot's good, the gameplay's awesome, the anime cutscenes are fun to watch even though the voice acting is atrocious and the music wins. It's really one of the best 2-D side-scrolling experiences that I've ever had.
So What's Good About MMX4?
+ Anime cutscenes
+ Two different character stories, each featuring its own cutscenes and story
+ Fun stage design
+ Good plot
+ Good music
...But What's Bad About It?
- Voice acting is some of the worst you'll ever hear, next to Mega Man 8
- Far too short for my liking
So, yeah, MMX4 is great. But can I say the same thing for the other ones? In the words of Mr. Owl, "Let'sh find out."
Let's start with MMX5, since it was the second one I played. From the start, a definite minus is that it doesn't have anime cutscenes like X4! Not only that, but it has no voice acting! I mean sure, the voice acting of X4 is bad, but I still feel like that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any in MMX5. Let's press on, though.
MMX5 plays roughly the same as MMX4. There are some differences though. For one thing, there aren't two character stories. You are able to choose either X or Zero to play through a level.
There is also the thing that made the game seem highly interesting to me before I played it. You see, your goal in the game at first is to stop a space colony from crashing into the Earth. There are two means of doing this: the Enigma Cannon, which you gather parts for and try to use first, and the space shuttle, which you also have to gather parts for. Naturally, these parts all belong to Maverick bosses, so you'll have to deal with them. You CAN actually launch the Enigma Cannon and space shuttle before you collect all parts for them, but the probability that they will succeed will be much lower (it's actually completely random if they'll succeed or not; the cannon is most likely not to succeed whether you collect the parts of it or not, but as far as I know the space shuttle will most likely succeed as long as you collect all of the parts for it). If you don't succeed in preventing the colony from crashing, you don't have to start the game over. Rather, other events happen and you can get a different ending. But warning, Zero fans! Without spoiling why, Zero becomes unplayable if this happens.
Although you have those two means of preventing the space colony's crash, there are only 16 game hours before the crash happens. There's no timer while playing the stages, thankfully. Rather, each time you enter a stage or fight Dynamo, the game's new character, you lose one hour. Basically, this only means that if you want to keep the colony from crashing, you have to limit the number of times you revisit levels to get things you missed before until the crash has been prevented.
Another new feature that I have to say I think is kind of cool is that X has not one, but TWO unlockable sets of armor. We've got the Falcon Armor, which allows X to fly but decreases the width of his charged shot, and the Gaea Armor, which is slow, has a short-ranged shot and prevents X from using Mavericks' abilities but tries to make up for it by allowing X to stick to walls, making his shot more powerful, and allowing X to walk on spikes. Yes, TRIES. Though the Falcon Armor can be quite useful and is cool in general, the Gaea Armor is only required for two or three Life-ups and then you'll never want to use it again. If you don't like either of those armors, though, by starting the game as X, you can unlock either the Fourth Armor, the unlockable armor from MMX4, or, if you use a cheat code, the Ultimate Armor, which has all of the features of the fourth armor but allows you to use the Nova Dash move, which is practically required if you intend to beat the final boss as X.
In this game, if you defeat a high level boss, you will be allowed to select whether you want to get a health upgrade or an energy upgrade, another thing that is kind of cool because it makes it to where Life-Ups aren't the only way that you can get health. Also, through means that I don't actually know yet, parts can be completed that allow you to upgrade your characters. Finally, I have to mention is that X and Zero can duck in this game. I find that a good improvement. Though not as big of a deal in X4, it's a problem that I have with the old classic Mega Man games, because it makes it harder to kill enemies below you and to dodge attacks coming from below.
Anyway, like I said before, X5 plays pretty much the same as X4. Also like I said before, you can use either X or Zero to play a level. Their gameplay is the same as it was in X4, but it seems like I find myself having more fun playing as Zero than with X. The game is a lot of fun in general, though. I love it, but not as much as X4.
Again, unlike X4, X5 has no anime cutscenes or voice acting, which I personally believe stinks, even though X4's voice acting was atrocious. Though I'm not sure if that really has anything to do with it, there is something that is either a consistent translation error, typo, glitch, or problem porting it to MMXC that will occasionally cause letters in text to be a 0 or O or 8 or whatever the heck it is rather than the letter that belongs there. Besides that, I don't enjoy the stage design, plot or music as much as X4's. So, yes, MMX5 is great, but not as great as X4.
So What's Good About MMX5?
+ The whole thing about the colony crashing is interesting
+ Characters can now duck (FINALLY)
+ Fun gameplay
+ Two different playable characters
+ Two different armors to unlock
...But Then What's Bad About It?
- No cutscenes
- No voice acting
- Typos/glitches/whatever they are can make text hard to read sometimes
- Way too short
Though this post has run quite long already, I've still got one games left to review. Yeah, I know this is going to be a really long post, but hey, I didn't post many reviews last year!
Anyway, now we'll move on to X6, the last one released for the PlayStation. Like X5, there is no voice acting; only still frames and text (although I've heard that there was Japanese voice acting on the original version but was taken out of the MMXC version...). Though, it seems like they look less dated than the ones in X5 seemed, so I can let it slide. Anyway, so, yeah, the game plays pretty much the same as X4 and 5. Unlike those games, Zero isn't available from the start of the game, and has to be unlocked by defeating a Maverick called the Zero Nightmare (looks exactly like Zero except a different color scheme...yeah, I know, it's stupid) in one of the areas that can be accessed through the use of a teleporter.
X starts out with the Falcon Armor in this game, although it allows you to do an enemy-damaging air dash rather than fly. There are two other armors to assemble in this game: the Shadow Armor, which is pretty much the same in the area of advantages and disadvantages as the Gaea Armor from X5 except that it shoots ninja starts that are pretty powerful and the charged shot allows you to do a powerful Z-Saber swing, and the Blade Armor, which allows you to do an awesome Mach Dash and allows you to do pretty much the same thing with the charged shot if you hold up while doing it. I've also heard that you can get the Ultimate Armor in this game with a cheat, but I haven't tried it yet.
Yes, thanks to the events of X5, X ends up with the Z-Saber in this game, and is actually still able to use it once you unlock Zero. It's okay, but you'll generally want to stick to your guns (literally). Another change is that you can rescue Reploids for parts and health upgrades, rather than extra lives and health refills. (They still give you that, though) However, there is a disease called the Nightmare that will try to infect Reploids, so you have to be quick sometimes. Yet another new thing is the nightmare system. Each boss has a "nightmare," which will follow you into certain levels. These nightmares basically change the stages in some way. All of them are meant to damage you or hinder you in some way, and are a lot of times annoying, but one is, in fact, useful for getting a few upgrades in one stage.
Now, a lot of fans tend to dislike X6. Though I had a lot of fun with it, I do think it's more flawed than the other X games that I've played. This is mainly due to obvious poor level design. For instance, in the stage of one Maverick, Commander Yammarck, there is an area where you have to make a blind jump on to a MOVING robot that is on SPIKES, and if you've played a Mega Man game before, you know that spikes mean instant death. So, miss and you DIE. The only foolproof way to get to it is to take a hit from one of the nearby enemies and use the period of temporary invincibility to walk across the spikes and reach the robot. Similar bad level design (including poor placement of Reploids) makes the game highly frustrating in some places.
Another thing is that where the game was rushed out to the American market, the translation is HORRIBLE. Seriously, this is the sloppiest game translation in any game that I have ever played. The game might as well say "All your base are belong to us." It's that bad!
I also have a gripe with one of Zero's moves, which sends Zero crashing into the ground. The reason why is because you press up and B to do it, and I can't say how many times I ended up falling into a bottomless pit because of that move. The reason this happens is because in the game there are wires that you have to hold up while next to in order to move across them. I would jump up off of them to defeat an enemy, and when I would jump, I would hold the control stick up so that I could grab back onto it as I was coming down. Unfortunately, when I pressed be to attack the enemy above me, I ended up careening into a bottomless pit thanks to that accursed move!
But like I said before, the game is still a lot of fun. The Blade Armor is cool, and the Shadow Armor is FAR better than X5's horrible Gaea Armor. I'd still much rather use the Blade Armor, but I still think the Shadow Armor is okay. I also like rescuing Reploids to get parts and extra lives and whatnot, but I never understood the Hunter Rank system. Supposedly, if your rank is higher, you can equip more parts, but it seems like my characters' ranks never increased...
So What's Good About MMX6?
+ Fun gameplay
+ X gets to use the Z-Saber, which is kind of cool
+ Still uses still frames and no voice acting, but it looks better than X5
+ Once again, two unlockable armors for X
+ Rescuing Reploids is cool
+ Story would be good...
...But Then What's Bad About It?
- ...But the plot is somewhat obscured by Engrish
- Bad level design in some places
- One of Zero's moves is annoying
- Nightmare system is kind of a pain
- Like the others, too short
So, there you have it: what I think about MMX4-6. I can't play any of the others on my Wii because my disc is really scratched up. For whatever reason, though, X3 at least seems to work on my cousin's GameCube (I haven't tried it on mine because one of its fans is broken, which causes it to overheat after a while). I could have reviewed X3, too, but I think it's about time to wrap this review up. So, I'll be seeing ya! I might review New Super Mario Bros. Wii next.
I give MMX4, MMX5, and MMX6 a 4 out of 5 each.