This game is just high quality all around.
With renewed visuals and grasping 2.5D gameplay, MMX8 is the finest entry of the franchise, brought alongside it's elements of combos, character swapping and the most mature plot ever, this PS2-era gem is usually underlooked, but it gives an almost perfect experience from beginning to end.
Gameplay-wise, it plays like any other MMX game, but there are now segments where the game wants you to stack combos and damage enemies as fast as possible, alongside it's much better working character switch feature that, in the case that your character gets grabbed, you can swap them out quickly to get back on the fight. Bosses also function a lot better here, suffering much less from being stuck on the same spot for an infinite amount of time (aka Spark Mandrill Syndrome), now with an invincible enrage state where they do a mechanic that the player is forced to dodge around. Not only that, but when you do get damaged your HP bar still maintains a bit of the damage you took as Red, so if you swap your character out you can regenerate a bit of health (much like MVC, for instance!),I also really like that the chip mechanic swaps out finding heart tanks in the stages, specially considering the micromanagement of 3 different characters would become hell.
Now, I praised most of MMX's stories before, but they were always a bit undercooked. X5 and X6 had a bit more to themselves, sure, but it suffered from bad translations, etc. X8 just.... feels so mature. It talks about this new generation of reploids replacing the old one, the cast being treated as somewhat obsolete by those Reploids, and what does it mean to become a Maverick. Is it a virus or do Reploids just have that free will to know what's best for them? These are themings that I'd expect from a Yoko Taro game, not a MMX one.
The soundtrack is so pristine, it shocks me how diverse it feels. I'd say "oh go listen to Jakob Elevator or to the boss theme, but... Gateway truly feels like the right pick. It's almost angelical vocals mixed with a calm guitar.... gosh, what a beauty of a track.
As for the main antagonist... I do wish he was a bit more fleshed out before the "reveal", but... oh well, this is Mega Man we are talking about here. They hardly take the effort to make a villain that charismatic in such short notice. However, the little presence he has, I really like him.
And as for the post-credits text (which is hilariously followed by bad grammar).... yeah, the cycle repeats. Quite a shame we never got a X9 to see what would be of Axl, and maybe what X and Zero would do now that this new generation is bound to replace them.
In many ways, it's almost meta how Mega Man X was left behind, never getting a proper new game (besides X Dive), being replaced by this new generation of games that seem to tackle it's subjects a bit better (Nier Automata being the first that comes to mind).
I really, really hope a sequel comes someday, but... I'll probably be long gone and that won't have happened. However, what I can say is that MMX8, albeit not perfect, it's a fantastic experience from beginning to the end. A found paradise, at last.
With renewed visuals and grasping 2.5D gameplay, MMX8 is the finest entry of the franchise, brought alongside it's elements of combos, character swapping and the most mature plot ever, this PS2-era gem is usually underlooked, but it gives an almost perfect experience from beginning to end.
Gameplay-wise, it plays like any other MMX game, but there are now segments where the game wants you to stack combos and damage enemies as fast as possible, alongside it's much better working character switch feature that, in the case that your character gets grabbed, you can swap them out quickly to get back on the fight. Bosses also function a lot better here, suffering much less from being stuck on the same spot for an infinite amount of time (aka Spark Mandrill Syndrome), now with an invincible enrage state where they do a mechanic that the player is forced to dodge around. Not only that, but when you do get damaged your HP bar still maintains a bit of the damage you took as Red, so if you swap your character out you can regenerate a bit of health (much like MVC, for instance!),I also really like that the chip mechanic swaps out finding heart tanks in the stages, specially considering the micromanagement of 3 different characters would become hell.
Now, I praised most of MMX's stories before, but they were always a bit undercooked. X5 and X6 had a bit more to themselves, sure, but it suffered from bad translations, etc. X8 just.... feels so mature. It talks about this new generation of reploids replacing the old one, the cast being treated as somewhat obsolete by those Reploids, and what does it mean to become a Maverick. Is it a virus or do Reploids just have that free will to know what's best for them? These are themings that I'd expect from a Yoko Taro game, not a MMX one.
The soundtrack is so pristine, it shocks me how diverse it feels. I'd say "oh go listen to Jakob Elevator or to the boss theme, but... Gateway truly feels like the right pick. It's almost angelical vocals mixed with a calm guitar.... gosh, what a beauty of a track.
As for the main antagonist... I do wish he was a bit more fleshed out before the "reveal", but... oh well, this is Mega Man we are talking about here. They hardly take the effort to make a villain that charismatic in such short notice. However, the little presence he has, I really like him.
And as for the post-credits text (which is hilariously followed by bad grammar).... yeah, the cycle repeats. Quite a shame we never got a X9 to see what would be of Axl, and maybe what X and Zero would do now that this new generation is bound to replace them.
In many ways, it's almost meta how Mega Man X was left behind, never getting a proper new game (besides X Dive), being replaced by this new generation of games that seem to tackle it's subjects a bit better (Nier Automata being the first that comes to mind).
I really, really hope a sequel comes someday, but... I'll probably be long gone and that won't have happened. However, what I can say is that MMX8, albeit not perfect, it's a fantastic experience from beginning to the end. A found paradise, at last.