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Mega Man X Collection

Hot on the heels of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection comes a second Mega Man collection featuring Capcom’s slightly more futuristic Mega Man X Collection. MMAC featured three timeless games, two great ones, two so-so ones, one horrendously bad one and two decent never-released-on-a-console bonus arcade games. By comparison, MMXC has two timeless games, two great ones, two so-so ones and a bonus kart racing game never released in America. In addition, MMXC has none of the bonus content MMAC offered. So, by comparison, the Mega Man X Collection isn’t quite as big a bargain as the original Mega Man Anniversary Collection, but don’t let that dissuade you – it’s still well worth owning.

For those unfamiliar with the series, Mega Man was one of the legends of Nintendo’s 8-bit era. The series gameplay featured a plucky blue robot shoots his way through 8 stages in any order the player chooses, each with a boss that, when defeated, leaves Mega Man with a new weapon. Each robot boss would be weak against one of the others’ weapons, and when they were all defeated, you’d move on to a series of final stages and ultimately fight the series’ perpetual antagonist, Dr. Wily.

When Capcom wanted to make the jump to the Super Nintendo, they decided to do it by creating a new spinoff series, Mega Man X. Set even farther in the future than the first Mega Man Series, the new version of Mega Man, named Mega Man X (and either Mega Man or X for short – they can’t seem to decide) is recruited to fight against the separatist reploid army, bent on destroying humanity and claiming Earth for the machines, and led by the new perpetual antagonist, Sigma.

The basics of the gameplay were the same as before – 8 stages, in any order, with a new weapon every time you beat a boss. However, the Mega Man X series enjoyed some nice upgrades that went beyond the 16-bit graphics. Mega Man’s slide maneuver was replaced with a nice dash, and he could now scale walls at ease. Sometimes, defeating one stage would completely change another stage, like freezing over Flame Mammoth’s stage by clearing Chill Penguin’s first. In addition, throughout the game he could look for hidden bonuses throughout the game’s levels, upgrading his health and various parts of his armor.

Another new addition to the series would come in the form of X’s long-haired, lightsaber-wielding friend Zero, who started out as an non-playable character (very similar to Mega Man’s compatriot, Proto Man), but as Capcom noticed how popular the guy was, he soon rose to be a prominent player character right alongside X.

The Mega Man X series, like the Mega Man series before it, eventually grew old and stale, but at its height, it was every bit as fantastic. As the first game in the series, Mega Man X was arguably the best, still fresh and new, and featuring some of the best and most memorable level design and character design in the series. It’s reproduced faithfully here down to every last heart capsule, and even the nice little Dr. Light Hadouken capsule Easter egg remains intact.

Mega Man X2 added optional boss fights with a trio of enemies called “The X Hunters”, a nifty air dash and some other little extras, although the balance was thrown a little off (seriously, what friggin’ good was that spring sponge weapon, aside from the two bosses weak against it and the one heart tank you need it for?). Mega Man X3 added the option to briefly play as Zero, which wasn’t particularly helpful considering the guy got none of your upgrades and couldn’t even fight in boss battles. Still, the game was pretty decent, and even gave you a nice assortment of the series’ mechs to choose from, as well as the choice of one of a few “upgrade chips”, which would upgrade a piece of your armor a second time. It’s worth noting that the version of Mega Man X3 included here is the PSOne/Saturn version, which added crappy animations throughout the game, and is even rarer than the super-rare SNES version these days.

Mega Man X4 is another title that many claim to be the best in the series. While the regular Mega Man part of the game was solid, what really set this game apart is that it was the first title in the series to give top billing to Zero, essentially doubling the size of the game by letting you play through its entirety as X’s effeminate sword-swinging friend, who would earn new sword techniques from defeated bosses rather than new weapons. Making the game more interesting, both characters had separate storylines that progressed as you worked through the game. All in all, Mega Man X4 and X1 are the highlights of this package.

Mega Man X5 and X6, however, are just along for the ride. While not especially horrendous (as Mega Man X7 would later prove to be), both games added little to the Mega Man X formula, and in some ways they took things away. Mega Man X5 added a totally unnecessary time limit to the game, and Mega Man X6 had an odd “nightmare” system that only makes the game less enjoyable.

Finally, appearing for the first time in America is the unlockable bonus game Mega Man Battle and Chase. It’s not really a Mega Man X game (it stars the original series characters), but more to the point, you can easily see why it wasn’t brought out over here. This Mario Kart clone has first-gen PSOne graphics, a poor framerate, and gameplay that just feels broken. If Capcom had attempted to fix this game up for its rerelease with better framerates and cleaner polys, it might have been worthwhile, but as it stands it’s little more than a conversation piece.

As a small note, it should be mentioned that the menu screens look appropriate for the series, the load times are few and not too intrusive, and the emulation, in general, is fantastic. The one exception is the sound. For some reason, the folks who threw together this collection couldn’t get the songs to loop properly, and every now and then you’ll hear one reload. In addition, some sound effects, like X1’s high-pitched “Hadoken!”, don’t even play at all. It’s annoying, but otherwise the games emulated here are pixel-perfect.

So, all in all, four worthwhile games, two stinkers, and one oddity. Like I said, this isn’t quite the same bargain as the Mega Man Anniversary Collection offered. But for fans of the series, this is still a great deal, and a collection of some very awesome games.

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Tags: Mega Man X Collection

Posted by Jake McNeill on Feb 3rd, 2006 and is filed under PS2 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.

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