Mega Man X

"A new story for the Blue Bomber"

Yeah!! Capcom finally made a Mega Man game that isn’t inspired by Dr.Wily. This one actually has new characters and villains. This means no more ''…… Man''. Being for the SNES increased graphics and sound. Most of the controls are the same though.

Gameplay: This area is mostly the same as all of the others, only improved. You get to pick which boss’ stage you want to go to in the main screen. You use a menu to look at your weapons and lives. You walk from side to side with the directional buttons. They improved walking though by giving you the ability to do a rush. You get it by finding (actually receiving) a capsule in one of the stages. You accomplish this feat by tapping the left or right directional buttons twice or by pressing A. Another addition to your feet is the ability to climb walls. You do this by pressing the jump button when against the wall. This makes things much easier if you accidentally fall off a cliff. Firing and jumping is done by pressing simple buttons. When firing, you can charge up a shot to make it more powerful by holding down the attack button. You can also find a capsule to increase your weapon’s power. The last improvement made to the weapon is that if you need to switch to a different weapon quickly, you can just press the R and L buttons to switch through the weapons you own. I’m glad they made improvements on these areas. 10/10

Sound: Another great area. The sound effects are very clear. Some of them are annoying though. They range from X powering up his cannon to giant machines walking. The way X powers up is fine, but if you keep the fire button held down then it just keeps on whirring. That is something that can be annoying, but usually you can ignore it. The background music in this game is the best. Each stage has its own music. All of the tunes are catchy, especially the one from Armored Armadillo’s stage. 10/10

Graphics: This being for the SNES, the graphics have improved the most. The backgrounds are very colorful. Each of the stages goes with its boss very well. The way the robots look is perfect. They went into very deep detail, even with the small enemies. I especially like when you have found all of the capsules (He looks even cooler then). Nothing is missed when fighting, no slow down or break up in them. The attacks done by enemies and yourself are very well made. They sometimes change the surroundings, which shows a small bit of realism. The best graphics in a Mega Man game so far are right here. 10/10

Story: The story occurs after the time of Dr. Wily and starts out with a new doctor, Dr. Cain, searching for fossils in an archaeological dig. He moves to a new area and finds some strange readings, like something metal is buried underneath. He searches it and finds the famous Dr. Light’s lab. While exploring, he finds a capsule running a diagnostic program on X. He opens it and is surprised to see that X has the ability to make his own decisions and to think. He decides to build more robots. Soon after they are produced, a few of the Reploids go maverick and hurt people. They sign up some robots to hunt down the mavericks and appoint Sigma as the leader of them. Sigma and most of the hunters go maverick a few months later and cause chaos. The population flees and hides. X decides he should help defeat the mavericks and joins up with the new leader of the hunters, ZERO. So, they race off to save the human race from Sigma and his eight accomplices. Hopefully, they can accomplish this. 10/10

Difficulty/Fun Factor: The difficulty in this game ranges. Depending on the boss you pick, it could start out easy or very hard. I’ll admit it. The final boss is nearly impossible. It took me a long while to beat him and I nearly died on that turn. Most of the secrets are easy to find though. The fun factor is high. You have random ways to go through the game and plenty of weapons to play around with. Most of the fun is in the shooting though. Oh, what fun it is to go around destroying almost everything in sight!! 10/10

Replayability: There are plenty of reasons to replay this. One is that you could try to destroy one of the boss mavericks with different weapons, trying to find the one that hurts it the most. You could also play through and try to beat it without picking up anything essential. There are plenty of secrets to find. There are the different capsules to find, the many heart tanks to acquire, and the four Sub-tanks somewhere. Just playing to toy around with all of the weapons is something worth while. 9/10

I gave this game a 10 because it is a very good beginning to a new Mega Man series. I found nothing that could have made the gaming experience falter. I recommend that those who have been loyal to the MM series and those just starting to play it buy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/00, Updated 07/13/00