There’s nothing new to say about the story of these games except that x and zero are absolutely the flavor of cis gay white dudes that wanna be accepted by the mainstream so badly that they’ll slip a knife between the ribs of any and every other marginalized group at any moment to get even the obviously false façade of that.
Anyway Mega Man X2 rules. If X1 is an immediate, obvious, stone cold classic, where every level and character design and upgrade and hidden collectible placement is tightly designed and meticulously placed for maximum effectiveness, X2 is simultaneously scrappier and more ambitious, leaning harder on spectacle and gimmicks to decidedly more mixed success, and it’s a better game in my eyes for it.
Where X1 has a tutorial level so famous even I, a girl who thought until like a month ago that Mega Man and Mega Man X were the same guy, knew about it, X2 eschews the elegant intro for something that feels a lot more at home in the 90s – gritty and cool, our war hardened hero making a bombing run on a giant warbot factory, his adorable partner getting sniped off of his sick hover-motorcycle in an unintentionally hilarious opening cutscene. The difficulty is amped up here compared to the opening of the first game, the graphics noticeably more complex, with lots of background layers and big, fluidly animated sprites, and everything caps off with a boss that isn’t a test of skill so much as the kind of wowza look what we can do that is less about showing off what kind of GAMEPLAY is possible now and more about showing off what kind of COOL LOOKING SHIT is possible now. And it worked on me its rad.
This is an ethos that permeates the entire game. Levels aren’t as consistently fun and they’re certainly not as tight as X1 but they ARE consistently beautiful and I think the score is better to. It’s still goofy, fuzzy SNES soundchip buttrock but it’s more sonically varied, more likely to switch up the sound even outside of obvious level-theme-dependent musical cues.
The bosses here, too, are just a straight upgrade to X1. I appreciate that we’re taking advantage the SNES’ power to vary what the bosses are able to do, something that this team dabbled in a little bit last time with the likes of Storm Eagle’s open arena but you see a LOT more of here. You get arenas with unlimited vertical space, bosses who don’t populate the arena at all, bosses that don’t HAVE arenas. Overdrive Ostrich is a king and I will not hear otherwise. The endgame, too is a flat upgrade over the first game. Better levels and better bosses. I saw that final form of the final guy and my jaw hit the floor, utterly joyful.
Mega Man X is a series in an interesting place, at this point in its life. It doesn’t feel like it quite has its own identity. It seems like it wants to be distinct from Mega Man proper, what with the emphasis on movement tech and secret upgrades hidden in all the levels, expanded here with the addition of hidden boss fights to unlock an alternate ending. At the same time though, it’s clinging to convention in a way that I don’t think is helpful. Like, the X games have enough going on in them, with much more incentive to revisit levels and thoroughly explore levels, to lengthen the games enough that having me refight the first eight bosses at the end of the game feel like an exhaustive exercise in padding rather than an exciting road to the endgame. Even though I don’t think this game is as consistently excellent as X1, I appreciate the intensity of its ambition, and I think it hits higher highs, especially when it pushes against the boundaries of what Mega Man is allowed to look like. I hope the X series finds it in itself to keep exploring that space, and find a more unique identity in Mega Man’s legacy.
Anyway Mega Man X2 rules. If X1 is an immediate, obvious, stone cold classic, where every level and character design and upgrade and hidden collectible placement is tightly designed and meticulously placed for maximum effectiveness, X2 is simultaneously scrappier and more ambitious, leaning harder on spectacle and gimmicks to decidedly more mixed success, and it’s a better game in my eyes for it.
Where X1 has a tutorial level so famous even I, a girl who thought until like a month ago that Mega Man and Mega Man X were the same guy, knew about it, X2 eschews the elegant intro for something that feels a lot more at home in the 90s – gritty and cool, our war hardened hero making a bombing run on a giant warbot factory, his adorable partner getting sniped off of his sick hover-motorcycle in an unintentionally hilarious opening cutscene. The difficulty is amped up here compared to the opening of the first game, the graphics noticeably more complex, with lots of background layers and big, fluidly animated sprites, and everything caps off with a boss that isn’t a test of skill so much as the kind of wowza look what we can do that is less about showing off what kind of GAMEPLAY is possible now and more about showing off what kind of COOL LOOKING SHIT is possible now. And it worked on me its rad.
This is an ethos that permeates the entire game. Levels aren’t as consistently fun and they’re certainly not as tight as X1 but they ARE consistently beautiful and I think the score is better to. It’s still goofy, fuzzy SNES soundchip buttrock but it’s more sonically varied, more likely to switch up the sound even outside of obvious level-theme-dependent musical cues.
The bosses here, too, are just a straight upgrade to X1. I appreciate that we’re taking advantage the SNES’ power to vary what the bosses are able to do, something that this team dabbled in a little bit last time with the likes of Storm Eagle’s open arena but you see a LOT more of here. You get arenas with unlimited vertical space, bosses who don’t populate the arena at all, bosses that don’t HAVE arenas. Overdrive Ostrich is a king and I will not hear otherwise. The endgame, too is a flat upgrade over the first game. Better levels and better bosses. I saw that final form of the final guy and my jaw hit the floor, utterly joyful.
Mega Man X is a series in an interesting place, at this point in its life. It doesn’t feel like it quite has its own identity. It seems like it wants to be distinct from Mega Man proper, what with the emphasis on movement tech and secret upgrades hidden in all the levels, expanded here with the addition of hidden boss fights to unlock an alternate ending. At the same time though, it’s clinging to convention in a way that I don’t think is helpful. Like, the X games have enough going on in them, with much more incentive to revisit levels and thoroughly explore levels, to lengthen the games enough that having me refight the first eight bosses at the end of the game feel like an exhaustive exercise in padding rather than an exciting road to the endgame. Even though I don’t think this game is as consistently excellent as X1, I appreciate the intensity of its ambition, and I think it hits higher highs, especially when it pushes against the boundaries of what Mega Man is allowed to look like. I hope the X series finds it in itself to keep exploring that space, and find a more unique identity in Mega Man’s legacy.