RETRO PLAYTHROUGH: MEGA MAN X (SNES/Nintendo Switch 1993- 2018)
Being a little idiot, I’d always written off the Mega Man X games as some kind of lame spin off from the main series, like Battle Network or Soccer or whatever. But turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong! I mean I could try, but I would not be successful. Mega Man X is a totally awesome extension of the franchise and as close to a perfectly balanced gaming experience as I can imagine. On one hand I certainly deserve to feel all of the shame for such a massive oversight during those years growing up, but on the other that’s one hell of a solid past me did for now me because what a game!
Let’s have a little playthrough, shall we?
And here we begin at the beginning with…well, the title screen of course. Now I’m playing this via the Legacy Collection on Nintendo Switch which fortunately includes an options menu that allows you to map your buttons wherever you’d like. This means that I’ve got my dash maneuver assigned to the R button with L handling weapon cycling. I’m also going for the maximum lo-fi time travel experience by playing with a NSO SNES controller. Y’know, the way God intended.
Press start and you’re up and running through a futuristic city that is apparently even more in the future than the regular Mega Man games. Oddly enough, cars still use tires even though pretty much every robot around here can hover and fly. Exploring this freeway area for a bit you’ll become acquainted with some of your basic moves. Standard practice like jumping, the ability to charge your mega buster (which is great) and wall jumping. I cannot stress enough how perfectly executed wall jumping is in this game. After years of enduring total shit shows in this area thanks to games like Strider for the NES and yes even the great Super Metroid, the level of ease with which this game provides that particular action is enough to make a grown man cry.
I’m just going to take a quick moment.
Right, so at the end of the stage in pops some Boba Fett cosplayer who proceeds to beat you within a couple lines of your health bar. There’s some story stuff that happens here involving a dude named Zero but I’m playing this game to jump around and shoot things by God, not read so let’s just skip the chatter.
Once that cut scene finally wraps up you find yourself at a good old fashioned robot mast-I mean “Mavericks” select screen. Of course like with all Mega Man games, tradition dictates that there’s a proper order with which to beat these chuckleheads. This system results in using the previously defeated bosses weapon that you snag upon victory against the next guy in line. I took this moment as an opportunity to google search the proper sequencing and hey guess what Chill Penguin, you’re up first!
But before sending that popsicle back to the cooler, Dr. Light shows up and hands over the first of several very cool upgrades. This one is that dash function I mentioned earlier which will get a lotta use throughout the entire game. Not only can you skirt through stages a bit quicker but it also comes in handy with wall and general jumps, effectively granting you the ability to rocket across the screen when timed right. God, I love being a turtle this game.
It’s at this point that I just began to muscle through all of the bosses or “mavericks” or whatever in the order I was given. Keep in mind, all of these screens are from my actual playthrough so are really more like punctuations than anything else. The above shot being particularly impressive to me because 16-bit games really do look beautiful in HD. Anyway, the boss list I was given went as follows:
– Chill Penguin
– Spark Mandrill
– Armored Armadillo
– Launch Octopus
– Boomer Kuwanger
– Sting Chameleon
– Storm Eagle
– Flame Mammoth
Which was the right way to do it and for the most part everything went by nice and easy. However I had no idea I could extend my life bar by collecting these heart shaped icons that popped up here and there so I went through all 8 of these dipshits the old fashioned way. With half of my potential strength.
Which was an oversight that turned out to create one serious pain in the pixels once I got to Sting Chameleon. I must have failed miserably at least a couple dozen times using the cutter I’d acquired from Boomer before finally managing to take him out. And when I finally did? Well, let’s just say my next door neighbors asked the police to stop by and congratulate me.
On to Sam, the Storm Eagle. Even with half a health bar, the guy was easy and his stage had a lot of cool opportunities to wall jump.I can’t believe this game manages to make that historically godawful mechanic not only easy but satisfying.
After defeating the main bosses I decided to go back and collect all of the powerups and health upgrades and everything else I’d been neglecting. There’s a head butt type helmet thing you can grab that’s needed to break through easily the hardest jump in the game. Which is crucial as it’s the only way to get to the SUPER charge and it took me a good chunk of time and every obscenity I’m familiar with to finally get it. This was absolutely worth all the effort in the end because once you’re at essentially 100%, there’s a very cool trick possible which will grant you easily the most awesome feature of the entire game. Maybe of any Mega Man for that matter.
Maybe of anything ever.
As it turns out, Dr. Light is a real nerd for Street Fighter II. It’s probably an easy guess where this secret is located but I’ll leave the “how” up to you to find out. Let’s just say the end result is X (as he’s known I guess) being capable of firing a Ha-Do-Ken (or however that’s spelled) that will take out your enemies with one hit. It leaves you vulnerable for a good second, but works like a charm if you time it right. I had a BALL with the rest of the game once I added this to my repertoire and frankly, I find it’s lack of inclusion in all other games insulting.
KA-BOOM.
KA-BLAM.
“Waitasec, final boss. I can’t hear you because I’m charging my little thingie up here.”
“Sorry, what was that?”
“OH.”
Fighting this final incarnation of whoever the last guy is was yet another scenario where I’d realized I’d been making life much harder for myself than it needed to be. I died a lot going after him with just fully charged shots from the mega buster and fancy walljumping. None of that was getting me anywhere so back to google searching it was! Turns out, the armadillo blast thing really does a nice chunk of damage but still wasn’t bringing his life bar down fast enough. Then it hit me:
I’d forgot all about the reserve tanks!
As you can see, this turned the tide of war in like a minute.
Which brings us to the end of our journey. Mega Man X is a game that I’m so unbelievably happy to return to now and then. The entire experience screams quality and the replayability factor is through the roof. Time to run through it again and have myself a look at the secondary functions on the maverick weapons that I didn’t know anything about until just now!
By Jack Handy.
