Mega Man X Collection
“Collection” means two great games and a bunch of other needless ones.
Tags: Mega Man X Collection Categories: Game Cube Reviews, Reviews
Posted by David Hinkle on Feb 16th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Mega Man X Collection (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Platformer | No | ||
Mega Man Anniversary Collection may not have lived up to expectations on the GameCube, but this collection of Mega Man X games certainly delivers. While all of the games here aren’t exactly great, for the most part the content is worth the purchase – especially with the inclusion of a kart-based racing game never relased in America (at least for the casual collector).
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Back in the days of the dying NES and emerging SNES, the jump for our little blue wonder caused a spinoff series entitles Mega Man X. This series took place even further in the future, where evil robots rebelled for control of the Earth, led by Sigma, the X serie’s Dr. Wily. In sticking with the tried-and-true formula of the previous Mega Man titles, you’d then select one of the eight stages to battle a boss robot, in the hopes of winning and robbing him or his unique abilities. In this new series, Mega Man gets a few new abilities of his own. His charge shot is a lot more powerful and fire a pretty nifty-looking buster shot, and he can easily jump up vertical walls now. Also, his slide is replaced with a usefull dash maneuver, allowing him to quickly dart to the left or the right.
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Mega Man X is without a doubt the best game in the series, regardless of what people tell you about X4. Mega Man X took all of the key aspects of the original Mega Man games and added in his new abilities, along with armor upgrades hidden in the various levels, to create a wonderful blend of the old and the new. This was the vital shock to the system that the franchise needed. Of course, we can’t have a Mega Man game without a mysterious stranger who shows up at the right time. This is where Zero comes in.
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Zero, the sword-slashing, buster-hating, long-haired and effeminate rival to Mega Man takes up the role of the “New Proto Man.” As the X franchise grew in sequels, he began to inch closer to the spotlight until he eventually became co-anchor on the Mega Man News Network (this is an attempt at providing a colorful analogy for Mega Man X4). In X4, you could choose to either go with Zero or Mega Man, and in doing so would get different upgrades and cutscenes between the two. This mainly provides the base of the arguement that X4 was superior to X.
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The rest of the games really aren’t anything special. X2 showcased the X Hunters, a trio of malevolents who sought to really mess X’s day up. X3 let you play as Zero for a bit, but it was pointless as none of the upgrades were applied to him and you could not battle any of the bosses as him. X5 put a time limit on the game, which is just mind-boggling, and X6 implemented a weird “nightmare” system that only seemed to clunk up the game as opposed to creating a new dynamic.
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As for the Mega Man Battle and Chase, a clear attempt at copying the Mario Kart formula, it’s just an unfinished game. The framerates slow down when more than 3 karts are onscreen at once and the gameplay is just broken. Not to mention that the AI seems as if they’re apathetic about the whole ordeal of being stuck in goofy-looking karts racing eachother. It’s odd that this game was included in the Mega Man X collection, however, as it stars characters from the original Mega Man titles.
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One technical inconsistency seemed to rear its ugly head when attempting to play the game on a 16X9 widescreen television. Here, the screen actually had about 1/6th of the bottom entirely cut off. Attempting to adjust the screen size from within in the television’s menus offered little relief from this problem. Switching to a normal 4:3 Tube television fixed the issue, however.
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All together, this is a good collection of games. All of them may not be fantastic games, but the collection is worth it for the exemplary X and good X4. For those with fond memories of battling Sigma long into the night, this is worth checking out.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Mega Man X - 'nuff said + Mega Man X4 is also good + Smooth framerates all around |
7.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- You can live without playing the other games - Screen cutoff on 16X9 television |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Only those obsessed with the little boy in blue need apply. | |
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Tags: Mega Man X Collection
Posted by David Hinkle on Feb 16th, 2006 and is filed under Game Cube Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
