Posted by Devin de Gruyl on Nov 29th, 2007
(Sorry, no screenshots today; my current copy is the PlayStation2 port in the Mega Man X Collection, from which I currently cannot grab frames.)
Mega Man is simultaneously one of the best and worst of the classic game franchises from the NES era. Obviously, it’s one of the best-remembered from that period; to this day Generation X collectively remembers Mega Man as an essential part of NES lore, arguably the #3 series behind the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda juggernauts (with some even placing the Blue Bomber higher than Link!). With its innovative gameplay (tackle the stages in any order you wish, gaining the powers of the bosses you defeat along the way), rock-solid platforming action, really good 8-bit music (popular for remixes even today), and one of the most eclectic Rogues’ Galleries this side of Batman or Dick Tracy, Mega Man was a mega-smash for many years during the NES era. A somewhat bastardized version of Mega Man was even a main character in the infamous Captain N cartoon of 1989!
Unfortunately, it also proved the Law of Diminishing Returns perhaps better than anything else in the industry. After around the third NES game, the series began a process of creative atrophy; while the gameplay remained as solid as ever, the Mega Man millieu soon became a blueprint for formulaic, repetitive storylines that held about as much surprise as a gift-wrapped car; no matter how well you wrap it, it’s still hard to disguise the fact it’s a car. The only things that changed from game to game were the attributes of the boss robots (and, thus, the weapons they give up when beaten); aside from that, the last three NES games in the series are virtually indistinguishable from one another. No matter what the opening cinematics demonstrated, no matter who they said was causing all the chaos, you always knew it would end up being Dr. Wily in the end, and you always knew the last image of gameplay before the credits rolled would be the evil Einstein lookalike (hmm… given Mega Man’s Japanese origins and considering what Einstein’s knowledge was used to build, perhaps the similarity isn’t quite a coincidence…) groveling for forgiveness and insincerely swearing “I’ll never do it again!†They were still good games, mind… but after about four or five installments of essentially the same stuff over and over it got really old.
Perhaps Capcom realized how creaky the whole series had gotten by 1993, as they actually held off on bringing their signature franchise (non-Street Fighter division) to the next-gen Super NES console. Instead, they decided to create a new “spinoff†series, one that would preserve the good elements of Mega Man’s gameplay while also serving as a near-total “reboot†of the mythos. And thus was born…
Mega Man X (SNES, 1993): If Mega Man is All in the Family, then Mega Man X may be considered The Jeffersons – the spinoff that went on to become a classic series strictly on its own merits. And while it, too, would eventually suffer from SOSOS (Same-Old-Same-Old Syndrome), the setting (a somewhat darker take on a traditional Mega Man future) and deeper storylines the X games feature (they’re far more plot-driven than the parent series ever was) help mask this deficiency somewhat. This, the first game in the series, established a blueprint for the sequels that followed and proved, if nothing else, that the Mega Man franchise was still viable… it just needed a refresh. And that’s just what we got here.
In the year 21XX (or for those keeping score at home, about a century after 200X, when the NES Mega Man games famously occurred), archaeologists discover a capsule containing the last android created by legendary robotocist Dr. Thomas Light, labelled simply “X.†X, a robot so intricately designed that he was almost human, is used as a blueprint to create a new series of androids, dubbed Reploids (shades of Blade Runner?), with the ability to think for themselves and make their own decisions. You can guess what happens… give even highly-evolved robots free will, and eventually some will choose a criminal life. After a while, one of the most powerful Reploids, dubbed Sigma, decides he’s not going to be some menial beast of burden for humanity, not when he’s more powerful and better-built than any mere human, so he goes “Maverick,†defecting to the other side, and starts a standard take-over-the-world plot. The last two Maverick Hunters that are capable of fighting Sigma, X and Zero, are dispatched to shut down this uprising before any more innocent humans and Reploids are hurt.
On the surface, Mega Man X is pretty much the same old-school Mega Man gameplay that made the NES games legendary; you run and jump through various futuristic levels, with an emphasis on tricky jumps and timing puzzles, shooting anything that gets in your way en route to a showdown with that level’s Maverick boss. Beat him and you can add his weapon to your arsenal. Get through all eight levels (in any order you choose) to earn a final, multi-stage showdown with Sigma himself. There is nothing at all wrong with this format, formulaic though it may be, and the new setting frees it from the accumulated cruft of being yet another Wily plot.
However, going beneath the surface reveals there’s quite a bit more to Mega Man X than just being old wine in a new bottle. There are a few new wrinkles to the standard gameplay that, while not groundbreaking in and of themselves, do help distinguish X from its predecessors in significant ways. In particular, each level includes at least one “secret†item, be it a health upgrade, extra energy tank, or a new ability for X. (Sometimes all three!) To get most of them requires you to be willing to explore each level fully, or even return later in the game with a different weapon or item (the X games allow you to revisit stages you’ve previously defeated, unlike the parent series) that holds the key to opening up new areas. The order in which you beat the Mavericks is also significant in more than just the usual “use X weapon on Y boss†fashion, as sometimes levels will be slightly different after certain Mavericks fall (for example, victory in the standard “snow field†stage means that the lava flows in the equally-standard “fire field†stage will be frozen and harmless, thus granting access to otherwise-untouchable powerups). To get the most out of your Mega Man X-perience (sorry), you need to be willing to check out anything you encounter that looks the slightest bit suspicious, and to take the occasional leap of faith into a bottomless pit that only looks bottomless, but may be just a portal to an essential upgrade.
X himself (who may or may not be the actual original Mega Man; the game is purposely vague on this point) has a few new abilities, too. Most significant is being able to grab onto vertical walls and scale them, a very handy trick to avoid certain Maverick attacks. It’s also handy for seeing if the sheer drop in front of you leads to something useful or is in fact a shortcut to the hereafter; you can jump onto the side wall and start to slide down, and if the screen doesn’t scroll downward with you, you know to get out of there quick. Another crucial new ability is the dash; just tap the D-pad twice in the direction you want, and X will speed ahead in that direction for a short distance. This lets you build up a good head of steam, useful for long and/or tricky jumps that you probably wouldn’t be able to make otherwise, and as you might expect is an essential tool for dodging a lot of otherwise unavoidable attacks.
The game’s graphics, notably less “cartoony†than those generally featured in the Mega Man series to date, might still be perhaps a bit too brightly-colored by today’s standards. There are also few instances of the game taking advantage of the SNES hardware; there are no Mode 7 effects that I could see (apart from a pretty neat effect on the title screen) and the graphics themselves, while obviously featuring more colors and higher resolution than the NES, nonetheless have an almost “8-bit†flavor to them. Musically, there are some references to past Mega Man games (in particular, the “Boss intro†cue is a remix from the first two NES games), and the soundtrack is heavy with power-techno and digital percussion… the perfect soundtrack by which to storm the lair of any renegade Reploid.
There are a few ways to play Mega Man X today. Naturally, you can hunt up the original SNES cartridge (and an SNES itself if need be, either the real deal or one of the newer “FC Twin†legal Famiclones) if you’re fortunate enough to have a well-stocked indy game store in your town; if not, just hope your eBay-fu is strong, young grasshopper. Fortunately, a much easier way to get in on the fun is to find the Mega Man X Collection for various modern platforms (versions exist for the PS2, Gamecube, and original Xbox, and will also play on their respective replacements), which collects the first six X games in one anthology disc. It wouldn’t surprise me to see it offered on the Wii Virtual Console someday, as well. Finally, there’s an old DOS-based PC conversion of the game from around 1995 that’s probably still floating around flea markets and thrift stores from coast to coast; just keep your eyes open.
Really, if there’s a negative to be had with this game, it is in everything that it spawned. The success of Mega Man X led not only to its own lengthy series of games, but also opened the door to several “re-imaginings†of the Mega Man mythos over the years… some of which were good (the Legends/Dash series), but others of which are just plain cringeworthy (Battle Network). Then again, Capcom has never been known for not trying to squeeze every last drop of blood from whatever stones are in the road… Fortunately, X never deviates too far from its origins, while at the same time doing everything possible to make one of the creakiest of formats seem fresh. It is a testament to the strength of the gameplay that it very nearly succeeds in doing just that!
Bottom line, if you’re in the mood for some good old-fashioned platforming action, with just a hint of that Metroid-esque “exploration†aspect, you could do far, far worse than Mega Man X.
(And no, I won’t be doing a complete rundown of every game in the series… unless, of course, that’s what you, the distinguishing public, want.)
Posted in games
| email this article
If you liked that, try...
- Retro-Active: Bionic Commando (NES)
- Retro-Active: Cheetahmen II
- Retro-Active: Caltron 6-in-1
- Retro-Active: Alundra
- Retro-Active: Top 10 Retro Puzzle Games NOT Called “Tetris”
Podcast RSS
I loved Megaman X. Next to Earthbound, Mario World, and A Link to The Past, it was by far my favorite SNES game.
I did play the second one and thought it was pretty enjoyable (I remember getting excited when I saw the word “damn” because, hey, it’s Nintendo. They wouldn’t even allow blood in Mortal Kombat). I never tried the third game just for lack of time. A couple of years ago when I stumbled onto the collection and saw they made four more I couldn’t help but cringe (the way I see it, if they made that many sequels and I hadn’t even heard of any of them being promoted, they had to be bad).
I hope Capcom gives us a new game for the Wii, but if hopefully it will be as great as the older games (X and before), not the newest stuff nobody cares about.
I’ve actually played some of the newer games (both in the collection and the PS2 standalone sequels). They’re actually not as bad as you might think, with one exception (X7, which tried to move the series into true 3D, is a major letdown, but at least they returned to the full 2D format in X8); they all retain more or less the classic gameplay of the series and the exploration aspect, and there’s an honest effort to keep the whole concept fresh despite the sameness of the format from game to game. (For instance, in X5 you’re on a timer for most of the game, with a “good” or “bad” ending path determined by how quickly you go through the game, and starting in X6 you can rescue captive Reploids in each stage for bonuses and stat upgrades.)
Naturally, none of them can ever recapture the “magic” of the first game, but they’re not bad games. They just suffer from typical Capcom “sequelitis” more than anything. I’d go ahead and pick up the collection at least (it’s cheap - I found my copy for $11 new in a Sears bargain bin) and give ‘em a spin.