How do you feel about video game bats? Those bite-sized bastards have been harassing players for years, and that’s the purpose they fill. What a mega mess! (Image source: ) A VERITABLE AVALANCHE The good points of those games are still here, it’s just this time around they’re all buried in crap. Gameplay itself is generally the same as the other X games, so you charge your buster, dash jump, and wall hump to climb. You also gain XP in the form of “DNA” which allows you to level up and equip more of the power-ups. While this process was somewhat mystifying in Mega Man X5, here it’s rather straightforward. Each level has a certain number of reploids you need to rescue, and helping them sometimes nets you a special power-up. The biggest new addition is the redesign of the power up system and the greater emphasis on rescuing reploids. Sometimes, it’s just that there are blocks that otherwise wouldn’t be there.
You’re given the standard list of eight mavericks, but sometimes their levels are highlighted red, which means that they’re currently under the influence of the nightmare and something has changed on them. The nightmares tie into the game in a pretty weird way. Then there’s this other scientist who says he wants to study the nightmare and recruits eight reploids to help him, but the reploids are, like, already dead? So they’re possibly already part of nightmare. So there’s this scientist who is trying to either study, control, or maybe he created the nightmares? I don’t know. Hey, speaking of which, do you think he’s really dead this time? Go on, guess!Īnyway, there’s this scientist dude who is trying… Woah, okay, this is a bit of a mess. It’s a lot more interesting than just Sigma again. I may make the plot sound really stupid, and it is, but the idea of an omnipresent nightmare floating around and causing strange phenomenon is pretty cool. It might be a virus, but then, isn’t that what was going on in the last game? Anyways, Zero’s dead, but he was rebuilt before, so what does death even mean in this series? Anyways, there’s this strange nightmare… thing going on that bends reality somehow. So, it’s been, like, three weeks since Sigma last wreaked havoc on the world a timeline I don’t quite buy for a number of story reasons, but whatever. Vvvvworp! (Image Source: ) BUILD UPON THE RUINS So, maybe with a new producer (but the same director), this one will fix the mistakes made in its predecessor. However, Capcom decided to keep on trucking, and we soon got an X6. It was also supposed to be the last game in the series, according to producer Keiji Inafune. I didn’t really enjoy it, but I’ve played worse.
I’d almost rather be playing the Army Men series again. Considering I count Mega Man X as one of my favourite games of forever, it’s sad to suddenly feel like I’m slogging through, just trying to reach the end. Each game is just slightly worse than the last, and with X5, that decline seems to have picked up speed. From my perspective, the Mega Man X series has been in constant decline since the launch of the first game.