One of the SNES's greatest games and one of the toughest. Mega Man X took me longer than I thought it would to beat, and nearly made me quit, but finally I was able to beat it (with a little help).
This game is a masterclass in level and boss design. Each level feels like a unique place overflowing with charm, and I found myself wanting to discover more in each area's theme. The enemies were thoughtfully placed to make you strategize your approach while not taking away too much from the pacing of each level. and man, the music. It's so good! It really shows off what the SNES's sound chip can do!
Anyway, it's Mega Man. you can choose the order in which to tackle all the levels, which is a blessing and a curse. Nowadays it's easy to google the recommended starting points and boss weaknesses, but playing it blind is tricky. Just like my prior experience with this franchise (Mega Man 2 on NES) I ended up just googling it all after getting frustrated.
Mega Man X did something cool with this idea though. If you beat certain levels first, other levels may change shape or become easier to get through! This was mostly why I got stuck and searched online, but it's cool in hindsight.
Mega Man X has a password system that works sorta mostly kinda. Once you beat all the normal levels and storm Sigma's base, the passwords after each level stop working. I tried for a long time to beat all four Sigma stages in one go, but for many reasons, I ended up using save states in between each level. This was the ticket that helped me beat what felt like a broken feature. I hear Mega Man X1 to X4 has this password oddity, and it's a real shame since it almost made me abandon this.
Sigma wasn't too hard with practice and the biggest challenge IMO was playing all the levels in one sitting, since each one usually took me one to two hours.
Well, this review started becoming a rant pretty quickly. I didn't enjoy Mega Man X as much as Mega Man 2, and I don't think Mega Man games in general are my thing. I'm relieved that I can finally take this SNES classic off my backlog... it started feeling like a chore by the end. Sorry not sorry!
Maybe I'll write a proper review for Mega Man 2 sometime...
This game is a masterclass in level and boss design. Each level feels like a unique place overflowing with charm, and I found myself wanting to discover more in each area's theme. The enemies were thoughtfully placed to make you strategize your approach while not taking away too much from the pacing of each level. and man, the music. It's so good! It really shows off what the SNES's sound chip can do!
Anyway, it's Mega Man. you can choose the order in which to tackle all the levels, which is a blessing and a curse. Nowadays it's easy to google the recommended starting points and boss weaknesses, but playing it blind is tricky. Just like my prior experience with this franchise (Mega Man 2 on NES) I ended up just googling it all after getting frustrated.
Mega Man X did something cool with this idea though. If you beat certain levels first, other levels may change shape or become easier to get through! This was mostly why I got stuck and searched online, but it's cool in hindsight.
Mega Man X has a password system that works sorta mostly kinda. Once you beat all the normal levels and storm Sigma's base, the passwords after each level stop working. I tried for a long time to beat all four Sigma stages in one go, but for many reasons, I ended up using save states in between each level. This was the ticket that helped me beat what felt like a broken feature. I hear Mega Man X1 to X4 has this password oddity, and it's a real shame since it almost made me abandon this.
Sigma wasn't too hard with practice and the biggest challenge IMO was playing all the levels in one sitting, since each one usually took me one to two hours.
Well, this review started becoming a rant pretty quickly. I didn't enjoy Mega Man X as much as Mega Man 2, and I don't think Mega Man games in general are my thing. I'm relieved that I can finally take this SNES classic off my backlog... it started feeling like a chore by the end. Sorry not sorry!
Maybe I'll write a proper review for Mega Man 2 sometime...