Tag Archives: Mega Man

Mega Man X Legacy Collection — Issue 47

Posted on by

A good start to a long-last­ing legacy

I’m a huge Mega Man fan. It start­ed with the orig­i­nal series and evolved to include the X series. Fear­less GI leader Lyn­d­sey gift­ed me a trea­sure trove of Mega Man X games wor­thy of Cap­com’s next gen­er­a­tion blue titan, and Mega Man X Lega­cy Col­lec­tion has risen to the top of the pile.

The first disc of Lega­cy Col­lec­tion cov­ers the first four MMX games that were released for the SNES and PSOne. In these games, you con­trol our favorite hero in blue or his lat­er part­ner Zero in their quest to achieve peace in the future. Each game has a dif­fer­ent sto­ry that builds on the pre­vi­ous game, but over­all X and Zero are the stars of the show with var­i­ous ver­sions of long­time antag­o­nist Sig­ma attempt­ing to achieve world dom­i­na­tion. Each of the first four games has var­i­ous boss­es X or Zero faces with the suc­cess­ful result of gain­ing the boss’ weapon or skill that can be used for var­i­ous lev­els. X has a slight advan­tage in the game by using hid­den upgrade cham­bers designed by the late Dr. Light that increas­es fire­pow­er, speed and protection. 

The val­ue of the first disc is per­fect for fans or those begin­ning the X series and increas­es with the ani­me-inspired designs of heroes and vil­lains, which encour­ages replay of all the col­lec­tion’s games. This first disc also has a lot of inter­est­ing ele­ments that include pre­sent­ing 16-bit and ani­me-style inter­mis­sion screens that were includ­ed when the games were orig­i­nal­ly released. Cap­com also intro­duced a high-res­o­lu­tion fil­ter, giv­ing the game’s graph­ics a stream­lined yet col­or­ful approach and a unique box frame for each game. A music play­er con­tain­ing all the music from the orig­i­nal games also rounds out the pre­sen­ta­tion extras, which were nice. 

One of the oth­er cool addi­tions is the X Chal­lenge, which pits you against two leg­endary boss­es of the series while choos­ing three weapons to use. This requires some fore­thought and under­stand­ing of the series’ mechan­ics, which is a wel­come change of pace when you want some­thing dif­fer­ent from the sto­ry modes. I also thought that the art gallery and the ani­mat­ed movie focus­ing on Sig­ma was a nice touch. 

The only crit­i­cism I had of the col­lec­tion is with some of the oth­er extras. Cap­com decid­ed to show off nev­er-before-seen Mega Man X col­lectibles that were only avail­able in Japan. Cap­com nev­er did license these out­side of Japan, mak­ing fans like me curse them for their dense busi­ness prac­tices. Because, real­ly, why would you tease oth­er regions with this, know­ing Mega Man is glob­al? It just seems like anoth­er slap in the face where Mega Man is concerned. 

Mega Man X Lega­cy Col­lec­tion is a great trib­ute to the X series. Despite my hang-ups with Cap­com, this is a great love let­ter to Mega Man X fans and can be a tem­plate to con­tin­ue the sto­ry of X and company.

Mega Man 9 — Issue 41

Posted on by

Blue Bomber relives glo­ry days in No. 9

Ah, Mega Man and Dr. Wily. Capcom’s con­tri­bu­tion to video game rival­ries have bat­tled through numer­ous episodes in the 8‑bit, 16-bit and first PlaySta­tion era. These infa­mous icons have tak­en their bat­tle of good vs. evil to anoth­er bat­tle­field: next-gen­er­a­tion con­soles. Like many fans of the Blue Bomber, I won­dered how Cap­com would present Mega Man and com­pa­ny to a new audi­ence while keep­ing ded­i­cat­ed fans like myself invest­ed in new adven­tures. Mega Man 9 hit the spot.

Mega Man 9 is exact­ly like pre­vi­ous Mega Man games of the 8‑bit era: Easy to play. Using the PS3’s d‑pad made me feel that I was play­ing on the NES with sim­pli­fied con­trols. When Mega Man defeats a Robot Mas­ter, he acquires that boss’ weapon which — along with his Mega Buster — make up the meat of his con­trols. I have only two issues with this fea­ture: You can­not use a charged Mega Buster blast like in Mega Man 4; and, you must acquire weapon pow­er-ups to keep the spe­cial weapons run­ning prop­er­ly. Mega Man does have help in his lat­est adven­ture with his help­ful canine, Rush, and allies Eddie, Beat and Roll, who sup­ply spe­cial gad­gets in exchange for screws via their shop between stages. Sav­ing all col­lect­ed screws when pur­chas­ing cer­tain items is a smart move. 

The graph­ics in Mega Man 9 are 8‑bit qual­i­ty and nos­tal­gic, which I com­mend Cap­com for doing. It looks like Mega Man of yes­ter­year, which is always a good thing. The music was also a win since it stayed with each stage’s design. 

I felt that as an old­er gamer, Mega Man 9 was not only sim­ple, but also fun. I didn’t have to wor­ry about time lim­its or oth­er friv­o­lous things that would induce rage quit­ting. Every­thing was Mega Man ori­ent­ed, just as it should be.

Mega Man 9 is a game for not only Mega Man fans, but also for those who want to expe­ri­ence 8‑bit gam­ing on a next gen­er­a­tion con­sole. Who­ev­er said that gam­ing clas­sics can’t keep atten­tion like new­er triple‑A titles obvi­ous­ly have not played a clas­sic series like Mega Man and cer­tain­ly haven’t run into Mega Man 9. 
Car­ry on, Blue Bomber. Car­ry on.

Mega Man X Collection — 2Q2019 issue

Posted on by
Reply

A mega col­lec­tion of Blue Bomber greatness

I’m a huge Mega Man fan. If allowed to, I would dec­o­rate GI head­quar­ters in every room with gear resem­bling Capcom’s infa­mous Blue Bomber. After Mega Man’s last adven­ture on the NES, I found that dur­ing the tran­si­tion from 8‑bit to 16-bit gam­ing a new char­ac­ter known as Mega Man X would appear, giv­ing the Mega Man series a new chap­ter set years after the orig­i­nal. While I played a few MMX games when it was on SNES and PSOne, I real­ized that I liked the X series but won­dered if Cap­com would do a col­lec­tion for the PlaySta­tion 2. My wish was grant­ed in Mega Man X Collection.

MMX Col­lec­tion is sim­ply as adver­tised: A col­lec­tion of the first Mega Man X games released. It con­sists of MMX and MMX2 from their SNES debut; MMX3 — anoth­er SNES game that was port­ed to PSOne; and MMX 4, 5 and 6, which were released for PSOne. There is also an unlock­able game, “Mega Man Bat­tle and Chase,” an exclu­sive nev­er released out­side of Japan.

In each MMX game, you take con­trol of “X,” a new ver­sion of the Blue Bomber cre­at­ed by Dr. Light years after the orig­i­nal Mega Man. X is a more pow­er­ful ver­sion of our blue titan but with free will. 100 years lat­er, after Dr. Light’s death, X was found by Dr. Cain, a robot­ics expert who devel­oped robots based on X’s design known as “reploids.” How­ev­er, this began a rise of rebel­lious reploids, known as mav­er­icks, which led to the for­ma­tion of a group known as mav­er­ick hunters to stop them. Alas, the mav­er­ick hunter’s leader Sig­ma became a mav­er­ick (and the series’ main vil­lain), forc­ing X to team up with anoth­er mav­er­ick hunter named Zero to stop Sigma’s plan for glob­al domination.

Con­trol of X is sim­ple as any reg­u­lar side-scrolling game, espe­cial­ly with the option of switch­ing between the ana­log sticks or direc­tion­al but­tons. X’s main weapon, the X‑Buster, and oth­er weapons he acquires from a lev­el boss can be pow­ered up in addi­tion to find­ing upgrad­ed boots, hel­met and armor via secret areas in each lev­el. Using a sub screen, I appre­ci­at­ed that it was under­stand­able and sim­ple in orga­niz­ing items and weapons since, in oth­er side scrolling games, look­ing for need­ed items is time con­sum­ing and morale-drain­ing. Zero is also playable in MMX 4, 5 and 6 where con­trol­ling him is a guar­an­teed good time as he is not only equipped with his own Buster weapon, but also his sig­na­ture Z‑Saber cuts ene­mies down to size.

The graph­ics have been refreshed, ensur­ing that a thought­ful bal­ance of action-adven­ture and ani­me-styles ele­ments are intact. Capcom’s music depart­ment did an awe­some job remix­ing each game’s sound­tracks. With the amount of detail put into this game, the replay val­ue is high, espe­cial­ly if you’re want­i­ng to get deep­er into the Mega Man lore.

The Mega Man X Col­lec­tion is the per­fect answer for a devot­ed fan­base of the Blue Bomber. While the MMX series may be in ques­tion, I hope Cap­com hears Mega Man’s fans’ calls to con­tin­ue his leg­endary return to gam­ing as the MMX col­lec­tion is a great way to con­tin­ue Mega Man X’s hunt.

Mega Man X5 — 4Q2014 issue

Posted on by
Reply

Pho­tos cour­tesy of http://www.GamesPress.com

Duo team attack finish

MMX5 takes place sev­er­al months after the events in Mega Man X4, dur­ing which the giant space colony Eura­sia has been tak­en over by an unknown reploid known as Dynamo as it was under­go­ing exten­sive repairs. As a result, a com­put­er virus infect­ed Eurasi­a’s grav­i­ty con­trol sys­tems, send­ing it on a col­li­sion course with Earth. At the same time, Sig­ma and his new band of Mav­er­icks have tak­en con­trol of var­i­ous areas that have equip­ment capa­ble of pre­vent­ing Eurasi­a’s fall, and he has also launched his own virus across the globe. X and Zero, under orders from their new leader Sig­nas, must go to those areas to acquire the equip­ment need­ed to stop Eura­sia, and send Sig­ma back to the scrap heap once more where he belongs. 

MMX5’s game­play remains the same as any reg­u­lar action-adven­ture game. You can chose between using X and Zero, who each have unique abil­i­ties. I chose Zero because of the option to use his Z‑Saber and Z‑Buster as more effec­tive com­bat tools, and also because of his stronger jump­ing abil­i­ties. MMX5 allows both char­ac­ters to be swapped out dur­ing the stage select screen, pro­vid­ed you choose before time runs out. This adds fresh­ness to the game­play, keep­ing the game from being too mun­dane or too com­fort­able for a cho­sen character. 

I liked the fact that there are new armors in the game that X can start off with. The Gaia armor from MMX 4 is less pow­er­ful but still gets the job done. You can find oth­er armor sets that will give you an advan­tage, with good old Dr. Light pro­vid­ing insight about them. He has also made a spe­cial armor for Zero that you will find lat­er on. I also want to note that if play­ers pay close atten­tion, there will be some back­ground scenes in MMX pay­ing trib­ute to clas­sic Mega Man and Mega Man X games.

The plot of the game, while a good sto­ry­line point with stop­ping Eura­sia, may frus­trate you because you would have to defeat the first four Mav­er­icks and lat­er be told that two were devel­oped simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with­out pre­vi­ous knowl­edge of both plans. I also ques­tioned the devel­op­er’s method of stage plan­ning when they placed Dynamo in near­ly every mid bat­tle to delay either X or Zero with­out any strong chal­lenge, and I ques­tioned why, dur­ing Duff McWhalen’s stage, it takes a huge amount of game time to fight off a sub-boss that required run­ning and fir­ing just to keep it at bay.

Despite some frus­trat­ing issues, MMX5 is a great game to kill time with and shows how — with prop­er care and fresh ideas — a gam­ing fran­chise can still be rel­e­vant. Get the pic­ture, Capcom?

Mega music

Cap­com always had a cre­ative knack for nam­ing Mega Man adver­saries. Mav­er­icks in X5 are based off of the orig­i­nal band mem­bers of the rock group Guns N’ Roses.

Griz­zly Slash — Slash
Squid Adler — Steven Adler
Izzy Glow — Izzy Stradlin
Duff McWhalen — Duff McKagan
The Skiv­er — Michael Monroe
Axle the Red — Axl Rose
Dark Dizzy — Dizzy Reed
Mat­trex — Matt Sorum