Mega Man X

"The conversion from Mega Man to Mega Man X is an extraordinary feat."

The conversion from Mega Man to Mega Man X is an extraordinary feat. The concept of this whole series has been to beat a number bosses, collect their powers, then use them to defeat the final boss. Bringing this concept to the X games makes it a whole lot sweeter.

You play X, of course, but this time you have a whole new look...well maybe just new look. In the wake of the Maverick Reploid revolt, you X find yourself stuck in the middle of the war against humans. You decide to fight for the humans and join the Maverick Hunters in stopping their threat against man-kind. You must defeat a number of Mavericks, take their powers and get stronger as you gain health and new weapon abilities. Eventually you find your way to the stronghold of Sigma, the leader of the Mavericks, and destroy him. After, X fears he may have made a mistake entering the war and doesn't know his path in life now, or something like that. The story is pretty good, not great. It needed more communication because you can't really grasp the plot without reading the instruction manual for a lot of the back story.

X is equipped with his trusty X-buster, you may know this as the Mega-buster if you played any of the Mega Man games. It is a cannon-like gun that is on X's right arm. It shoots balls of energy that can be powered up by holding the shoot button to launch even more powerful blasts. The X-buster can also launch many new unique weapons obtained from enemy bosses. Chill Penguin, one of the easier bosses in the game, grants you shotgun ice upon his demise. This allows X's to shoot a blast of ice out of his X-buster. When you get the upgrade for the X-buster, you can power the shotgun ice to launch a platform made completely out of ice. You can then jump on this platform and ride it forwards, but it breaks if it runs into anything though. Another cool gained weapon are the boomerangs. You can throw these and grab energy capsules or secret heart or sub tanks. Overall the variance among of weapons and the look of all them are really fantastic.

Some things that are of quite use and really add to the effect of the game are the wall jump and the dash. The wall jump lets you jump up any wall and also allows you to stay up on walls to avoid danger. The dash lets you zoom on the ground to get away from baddies or reach hidden areas.

You run around on a little area that has a number of places on it. These places are where the Mavericks that Sigma has taken control of are hiding. After a short introductory stage you are taken to a familiar stage select screen. Selecting the bosses is as easy as clicking on the avatars of their faces. All stages are different and present a unique look and feel, which makes the game feel unlike the original Mega Man series, but only slightly. You can choose to enter the giant ocean base of Launch Octopus and find yourself in the deep blue water. This place is filled with all the likes of the aquatic world like: seahorses that roll up into balls and shoot at you, water spiders that only want to seem to jump into you, big fish that swallow you whole and you have to blast your way out of them, and long eels that twist and twirl to destroy you. Meanwhile in the background is big glass-like containers that seem to have blood in them, eeew!

Another stage that is by far one of the most interactive stages I've seen in a video game, is the gallery stage. What sets this stage apart is the fact that you can jump on cart-like things that take you thundering down tracks at a very fast rate. While you're on the rides any enemy that is in the way will be destroyed by the impact, this is very entertaining! Again the mood is kept in this level with bats, little guys under hard hats, and guys that want to throw pick axes at you.

The enemies, like the bosses, resemble animals but in mechanical form. This is a very terrific idea! You can watch as the mechanical pistons pump the bats wings as they fly by, or see some smoke come off of the rabbits as they jump in the snow. Not only are the enemies mechanical, but the environments are mechanical, too! Some bark will be missing from some trees and you'll see a steel core. Ever so often some dirt will be missing from a patch in the ground and the metal underlying will be revealed. You wonder in amazement of the world you live in.

The bosses themselves are quite the show. The difficulty range for them is quite obvious because some are just a counter and attack bunch and the other is a strategise and all out blast-fest bunch. The easy few seem to be restricted to a pathetic assortment of attacks, like Chill penguin and his ice breath or slide, or the feeble flame mammoth, with his jumping and snot-like fuel. The real fun is to be had with the more difficult bosses. Sting Chameleon sticks his tongue in the ceiling and shakes the screen causing spines to fall from above and you must dodge them the best you can. Then he can also camouflage himself to appear invisible, but still visible to the naked eye. He will then lash out his tongue lightning fast or curl in the corner and launch chameleon stings from his tail. This is most fun because when a boss is challenging by doing ranged and varied attacks it forces you to strategise and find the perfect time to lay the dirt into him, so to speak. There are others like him, but You'll have to find out yourself

Mega Man X is just what you'd expect it to be. A slightly different game, with many aspects of the original Mega Man series. While the additions are nice, I would have loved to see some more original gameplay and style.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/24/05