This review contains spoilers
Mega Man X5/10
But seriously, I wished I liked this game more, as there are things to like about Mega Man X5. The bosses are mostly pretty good, the music is excellent as usual, the controls are tight, and the story is great, even if it is presented poorly.
That said, there are multiple issues that dragged this game down for me, the biggest one being the backtracking. Backtracking is something I don't like to do in Mega Man X games, and this game has a lot of it; you will have to go through every stage in this game at least twice due to how poorly scattered the collectibles are here. This is thanks to the addition of the Falcon and Gaea armors. I think on paper that these are nice additions to the game, but the problem is so much of the level design revolves around using these armors to get the collectibles in the stages.
And this wouldn't be that big of a deal if it weren't for two factors. The first is that the levels themselves aren't really anything special. They aren't bad (aside from Duff McWhalen's stage. Seriously who thought that level was a good idea?!), but they aren't really special either, and having to replay them multiple times just gets tedious after a while. The second factor is that you have to find the parts in the stages, which, again, wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to backtrack through the stages multiple times to get certain parts. Hell, in Duff McWhalen's stage, the head part for the falcon armor is trapped behind a wooden crate, and in order to get said part, you have to ... beat Duff McWhalen so you can obtain his weapon, and then go through the level again until you can get to where the part is located and then blow up a bomb that destroys the wooden crate.... WHAT?!
And the story, while very well written, is also presented very poorly. This is partially due to the bad English translation, but mostly due to the game's usage of still images to tell the story. I loved the quality looking anime cutscenes from X4, so to see how much of a downgrade X5 had in terms of cutscenes is pretty depressing to me.
Overall, X5 isn't a bad game and has some good ideas, but the horrendous amount of backtracking and the poor presentation kill my enjoyment; a massive step down from X1-4 for me. Anyways, next is Mega Man X6, so wish me luck.
Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention it but Alia sucks. She breaks the pace of the game even more by constantly stopping you to tell you stuff you can figure out on your own. Thankfully, from what I heard, this is the game where she is at her worst, so I’ll see how she improves in the later games.
But seriously, I wished I liked this game more, as there are things to like about Mega Man X5. The bosses are mostly pretty good, the music is excellent as usual, the controls are tight, and the story is great, even if it is presented poorly.
That said, there are multiple issues that dragged this game down for me, the biggest one being the backtracking. Backtracking is something I don't like to do in Mega Man X games, and this game has a lot of it; you will have to go through every stage in this game at least twice due to how poorly scattered the collectibles are here. This is thanks to the addition of the Falcon and Gaea armors. I think on paper that these are nice additions to the game, but the problem is so much of the level design revolves around using these armors to get the collectibles in the stages.
And this wouldn't be that big of a deal if it weren't for two factors. The first is that the levels themselves aren't really anything special. They aren't bad (aside from Duff McWhalen's stage. Seriously who thought that level was a good idea?!), but they aren't really special either, and having to replay them multiple times just gets tedious after a while. The second factor is that you have to find the parts in the stages, which, again, wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to backtrack through the stages multiple times to get certain parts. Hell, in Duff McWhalen's stage, the head part for the falcon armor is trapped behind a wooden crate, and in order to get said part, you have to ... beat Duff McWhalen so you can obtain his weapon, and then go through the level again until you can get to where the part is located and then blow up a bomb that destroys the wooden crate.... WHAT?!
And the story, while very well written, is also presented very poorly. This is partially due to the bad English translation, but mostly due to the game's usage of still images to tell the story. I loved the quality looking anime cutscenes from X4, so to see how much of a downgrade X5 had in terms of cutscenes is pretty depressing to me.
Overall, X5 isn't a bad game and has some good ideas, but the horrendous amount of backtracking and the poor presentation kill my enjoyment; a massive step down from X1-4 for me. Anyways, next is Mega Man X6, so wish me luck.
Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention it but Alia sucks. She breaks the pace of the game even more by constantly stopping you to tell you stuff you can figure out on your own. Thankfully, from what I heard, this is the game where she is at her worst, so I’ll see how she improves in the later games.