My expectations between the classic Mega Mans and the X series differ significantly. You could pump out 20 more classic-type games that all play exactly the same, and I'd eat them up like the tasty junk food that they are. X is not like that for me. There's a higher amount of complexity going on in X1, thanks to its introduction of optional upgrades, backtracking, and more durable bosses. These aren't the sort of games I can marathon one after another, as even playing just one is enough to call it a break from the franchise for at least a couple months.
So, when a sequel to X1 comes along, there's this sort of hope within you that seeing as they took the strides to raise the complexity of gameplay, the future of Mega Man looks to be one with more creative liberties attached to it. Alas. I'm already a Mega Man fan, and the folks at Capcom have like, 8 months to make a game, so I know where it's all going. X2 is... wait for it... more of X1!
And my god, is it all a blur. I could tell you what's going on in each of the 6 NES Mega Mans, but X2 (and X3, while we're at it) feel like a blip in the timeline, a dot in space, as if X4 was really supposed to be the 2nd game to come out, while these SNES sequels serve as the beach episodes that you're not even sure they exist. The freshness of the X series has been evaporated. Now, all you got is a Saturday morning cartoon, where every episode ends with X staring out at a sunset, pondering such deep questions as "why must Reploids fight", or "same question, but big emphasis on the WHY"
But even if we stripped away the part where anybody gives a shit about Mega Man being the same thing as ever, and we just enjoyed X2 because it does the good things that X1 does, I think that only applies to about 70% of X2, while the other 30% involves you having to contend with the game's final set of bosses. At least before that, the main 8 stages pull their weight, give you a good variety of things to see and do, and design-wise, they hold up. Nowadays, I'd honestly turn the game off after clearing those stages, as the finale that ensues goes into full tedium mode, with fights that go on for too long, and are packed with some pretty dreadful attack patterns. Maybe that's just me, but I don't remember my fingers hurting in X1 like they did here.
Then there's X2's main concept of collecting the parts of your robot friend in order to re-assemble him and obtain the good ending. The optional bosses that carry these parts are randomly chosen to appear in any of the 8 stages, and eventually, stop appearing. The idea is that you're pressured into going out of your usual boss order in order to pursue these parts, which WOULD be something interesting, if it weren't for the good ending somehow being worse than the bad one. For one, you miss out on an extra cool boss. For two, your friend gets re-assembled at the very end no matter what ending you get, so what was the point?
So that's X2's main thing just waved away, almost as if it wasn't completed on time. And the rest is... just an X game. For me, more complexity in a Mega Man game means a lesser desire to replay it. And with X2 being so similar to X1, I really feel like I'm just replaying X1 again. Doing all the same things that I enjoyed, but also some of the things I could've done away with, like backtracking and the larger enemy health bars. Overall, I'm feeling more iffy than jiffy about this one.
So, when a sequel to X1 comes along, there's this sort of hope within you that seeing as they took the strides to raise the complexity of gameplay, the future of Mega Man looks to be one with more creative liberties attached to it. Alas. I'm already a Mega Man fan, and the folks at Capcom have like, 8 months to make a game, so I know where it's all going. X2 is... wait for it... more of X1!
And my god, is it all a blur. I could tell you what's going on in each of the 6 NES Mega Mans, but X2 (and X3, while we're at it) feel like a blip in the timeline, a dot in space, as if X4 was really supposed to be the 2nd game to come out, while these SNES sequels serve as the beach episodes that you're not even sure they exist. The freshness of the X series has been evaporated. Now, all you got is a Saturday morning cartoon, where every episode ends with X staring out at a sunset, pondering such deep questions as "why must Reploids fight", or "same question, but big emphasis on the WHY"
But even if we stripped away the part where anybody gives a shit about Mega Man being the same thing as ever, and we just enjoyed X2 because it does the good things that X1 does, I think that only applies to about 70% of X2, while the other 30% involves you having to contend with the game's final set of bosses. At least before that, the main 8 stages pull their weight, give you a good variety of things to see and do, and design-wise, they hold up. Nowadays, I'd honestly turn the game off after clearing those stages, as the finale that ensues goes into full tedium mode, with fights that go on for too long, and are packed with some pretty dreadful attack patterns. Maybe that's just me, but I don't remember my fingers hurting in X1 like they did here.
Then there's X2's main concept of collecting the parts of your robot friend in order to re-assemble him and obtain the good ending. The optional bosses that carry these parts are randomly chosen to appear in any of the 8 stages, and eventually, stop appearing. The idea is that you're pressured into going out of your usual boss order in order to pursue these parts, which WOULD be something interesting, if it weren't for the good ending somehow being worse than the bad one. For one, you miss out on an extra cool boss. For two, your friend gets re-assembled at the very end no matter what ending you get, so what was the point?
So that's X2's main thing just waved away, almost as if it wasn't completed on time. And the rest is... just an X game. For me, more complexity in a Mega Man game means a lesser desire to replay it. And with X2 being so similar to X1, I really feel like I'm just replaying X1 again. Doing all the same things that I enjoyed, but also some of the things I could've done away with, like backtracking and the larger enemy health bars. Overall, I'm feeling more iffy than jiffy about this one.