Mega Man X8

"The Mega Man title that combined the best of the old, with the best of the new"

Now first of all, I really must say this game is simply fantastic. Shortly after playing it for the first time (a spree of about an hour and a half), it already got up there in my list of favorite Mega Man games (Which is pretty damn good since I've played all of the original series counting the GB games, and I've played X1-6 and of course 8, as well as MMZero). After playing another four or so hours, and finally beating all eight mavericks it became my favorite game in the X series (it's not possible to take overall, MM3 has far too much nostalgia factor). Now, I know some of you “hardcore old school” gamers are saying to yourselves: “But the SNES ones were better, they didn't care about fancy graphics”. Well buddy, neither did this. If you would, please read on.

Now as many of you may know, X8 went back to the 2d style of play, and although they did this, it still maintained the beautiful 3d graphics that all three of the next gen consoles are capable of displaying. The backgrounds are gorgeous, the player models are very well done, and overall I think it gives a very enjoyable experience. The one thing that did annoy me though was that X's armor could have looked much better than it did, but hey, minor thing really. It's fine when you're equipping all the parts of the same armor so that the color brightens up, but if you want to mix and match (which does give some very good results) it doesn't look all that good. My other main gripe is that X's ultimate armor takes on the same look as his new armor, the so called “Neutral Armor”, just with better coloration. Kind of disappointing that they didn't do the old style in these beautiful 3d graphics, but it's understandable because of the amount of work necessary to do that.

The next thing that really stood out to me about X8, is that it has very nice music and sound effects in general. The music for the stages is all very well done, and really enhances the whole experience of playing. Each has its own certain style, and fits each stage very nicely. I personally can't wait till the OST comes out (assuming it's not out, haven't really looked yet). Luckily, this should happen sometime around the time of release in Japan.

Now, some of you are probably asking yourselves by now “sure it looks and sounds good, but it's probably really easy and not fun at all”. Quite the contrary, the game is actually quite challenging...and that's just on normal mode. I found this rather refreshing, because Mega Man games get dull rather fast if it's easy. The nice thing about hard mode here, is that it adds a few more scenes, and makes the final stage much more interesting. Overall I think the gameplay in this is very good. It plays very smoothly and the controller responds quite nicely.

The level design on this game was also very well done, leaving very little repetition. Every level seemed to have a very different feel than the others all having you do different things (as well as two non platform levels having you ride on jet bikes). Each stage played well, and had a very well made background, and nice stage music. The mavericks at the end were also very nice, overall they seemed to be fairly balanced.

Now we are on to the three heroes of the game, X, Zero, and Axl. What was very nice about this is that each of them had something special to bring to the table, and all were fun to play as. With X you have your standard Mega Man style, although he is kind of weak until you get some armor. His armors are very well done (besides the look), each piece in it puts something different on the table, and in general there is no truly better part for each spot. The head being the possible exception since fast charge is very useful. With Zero you've got a variety of melee weapons, allowing him to hit hard, and fast. I especially enjoyed the knuckles for Zero as it finally gave us “Mega Man X: Kung Fu Style”. Now although I haven't played X7, I know what he was like from talking to a friend while he was playing it and complaining about Axl. Axl is simply great in this. Both his personality and his performance are very good. He plays similar to Bass in Mega Man and Bass in that he has a rapid fire gun that he can't move while shooting, has aiming, and an air dash. There are some very notable differences though, first of which is that Axl can hover much like X in his Fourth Armor, and he can copy an enemy's DNA. Also, whenever you get a new weapon for Axl, it doesn't take any energy to use, giving him a lot of variety, and making him extraordinarily fun to play as. His DNA copy however isn't all that useful, it's very situation and mostly just used to get rare metals and one piece of X's armor.

Overall I'm exceptionally happy with Mega Man X8, and it's definitely worth the $40, so go out to your local electronics store and pick it up. This definitely will get my vote for best action game of the year.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/26/05