Mega Man 11

[Sumez]

If you look at the NES games, they almost all look identical. And other than 2 and 3, which are considered classics, people act like the other ones are either "OK" or "suck".
Then you have the X series. Where X1 is...well, I think it's better than MM 2, minus the soundtrack....and X2 is pretty darn good, but a step down....then you just have mixed to bad reviews of about every other X game.

So, you have a series where they really knocked it out of the part like 3 or 4 times, and all the other games people fight about. That, and MANY of them look almost the same.
Mm...I forgot about 9 and 10, which people seem to like. I didn't like 9. Maybe I should revisit it. I was irritated by the insane amount of spikes.

You seem to be messing up people's preconceptions about the games with the actual quality of the games.
MM2 is great, but not in any way the best of the NES games. Pretty much all of them are really great games with only the first one ranking slightly lower in my opinion. People seem to think that the series fell behind around MM4 because the games, as you said it, look very much alike. But the developers were able to keep the game up, and usually learned from the previous games, resulting in some extremely well polished games in the latter half of the NES series. Mega Man 4 is, by all means, a genuine masterpiece.

All of the first four X games are also great. I can see why you'd say the first is the best, but X2 and X3 are honestly not that far behind. X4 is a quite different game, bust most people who actually played it like it. I often even hear people consider it the best of the X games, and I can't blame them. Just stay far away from anything after Mega Man X4.

[kitten]

Just stay far away from anything after Mega Man X4.

man. everything after x4 is really worth exploring just for the incredibly baffling kuso-factor. almost everything proceeding it is not just bad, but awe-inspiring and ground-breaking in how bad it is. i've talked shit on here about stuff like rockman & forte, rm7, and rm10 being awful (or even the rockman zero series), but they are completely unexceptional or even desirable compared to the hideously strange (but oddly compelling) universe of what happened to the x franchise after x4.

i think the most interesting thing about it is how much things change between x5, x6, and x7 and how completely inconceivable it is to understand what was going through the designers' heads or how the producers kept letting this shit happen. and then after x7, command mission (which is frankly a playable rpg) happened and was just so thematically absurd and unnecessary and weird. why is there a sexy nurse robot? why do the robots have kids? why does everyone treat x as like this goofy idiot cop when he's literally the canonical prototype design for their entire race of people and their most powerful, storied, and heroic savior - how is he not their god??

i was really into the x series as a kid and had a friend who would defend each of these new games as not just good, but some of the best that gaming had to offer at the time. i got on message boards and watched other seriously dedicated rockman fans do the same. people would have axl in their signatures and stuff and talk about how great a character he was. it just. man. if i hadn't been actually abused by frequent gaslighting from my parents all throughout my childhood i think it might have busted my brain a little bit. i remember not even questioning it much at the time and thinking i was just struggling to get into the games. heck, i think i made a few excuses for x6 at least being more interestingly weird than x5.

anyway, if you're a kuso excavator, if the truly weird and absurd and awful captivates you - by all means, seriously play the entire x series. god damn does it deliver on that front. so rarely is it you get to see a series mutate this significantly and over a length of time through multiple installments.

[BrianC]

While it's an excellent game, I was always baffled by how the robots bleed in X4 (and the Rockman Zero games).

[kitten]

it looks cool as hell, i'm down for nonsense explanations (oil? semi-organic? who knows?) as long as the style is super slick

[Strider77]

Assuming someone gives zero fucks about "the story" in Megaman... what makes X5 and X6 so shitty? I've never played X6 and I've had X5 lying around for years but haven't played it yet either, not enough to make any judgements (going to start it tonight actually).

I hear they are awful all the time but never in regards to the actual gameplay... just fandoms complaining that their mecha furry fanfic dreams were pooped on story wise etc.

[kitten]

i find the story mostly irrelevant to enjoying an action game (though i do find a general presentation to be deeply important) - but i frankly thought x6's story was actually a bit of fun, honestly.

the problem is that both x5 and x6 are just highly incompetent and poorly made action games, first & foremost. x6 in particular has these little robot buddies you have to rescue that are horribly obnoxious to deal with and semi-random hazards that can take place on certain stages that makes them drastically worse. x5 has unskippable text interruptions numerous times in a stage. it's just... they fail really utterly on so many basics and so many ideas that an in-depth criticism isn't worth the time. i consider many rockman games to be bad, but once you go past x4 shit goes completely beyond the pale and to understand you're just going to have to sit down with them, yourself. some people who really staunchly love x4 will defend x5 a bit (i think x4 is somewhat poor as an action game and that x5 is very awful), but you'll find very few people in this day and age defending x6 and only people who have completely lost their minds defending something like x7.

i have some pretty scathing criticism of the entire x series outside of its presentation, but traveling beyond x4 is seriously just... it really is so uniquely bad that i almost recommend it. i don't think any other series has gotten to become so much worse over that many installments and it's something to behold.

[Austin]

Assuming someone gives zero fucks about "the story" in Megaman... what makes X5 and X6 so shitty? I've never played X6 and I've had X5 lying around for years but haven't played it yet either, not enough to make any judgements (going to start it tonight actually).

I hear they are awful all the time but never in regards to the actual gameplay... just fandoms complaining that their mecha furry fanfic dreams were pooped on story wise etc.

I enjoy both X5 and X6. They both look, play and sound similar to X4, which is a plus. That said, they each have their fair share of issues, some that will bother certain players more than others.

With X5 specifically, a lot of the problems I have with it have to do with pacing. There wasn't a lot of careful thought put into some of the item placement, for instance. If you want to get all of the capsules, one of the stages has to be played three times and it happens to be a long, tedious auto-scroller level. The story text between stages is arduous and the game is also pretty extreme with the hand holding, with gameplay often being interrupted with forced chatter and unwanted tips (i.e., "Hey X, it looks like you can shoot that wall up ahead!" - no shit, Alia, there's a huge, obvious crack in it!). The boss rush at the end sees the bosses having much more health than before, making them a slog to get through a second time (the boss fights on their own are otherwise fine). Overall I think it's a good game that is bogged down by simplistic stage design and unnecessary bloat. Also, some of its production value is a step back from X4 and this will be a turnoff for some people (some of the backgrounds aren't as animated and lively, cutscenes have been replaced with static imagery and walls of text, etc).

X6 is sort of a different beast all together. On one hand it fixes some of the pacing issues (walls of text are more easily skippable, and in-game help interruptions are completely optional now), but it features a whole new host of things that will be problematic for new players. At first it feels like the difficulty is through the roof compared to previous games and it definitely requires more of a "Ninja Gaiden" kind of perseverance to get through. There are lots of instant-death scenarios if you don't know what's coming up and the nightmare effect system that's in place will only exacerbate that. Also, unlike X5 where playing as unarmored X is perfectly fine (and it's how I first played X5, despite having the option to start upgraded), it is imperative players do *not* do this on their first X6 playthrough, lest they want to make their life a living hell (the game really feels like it was designed with the starting Falcon armor in mind). Finding the hidden items and capsules is also a fairly cryptic ordeal, so much so to where I basically had to refer to a walkthrough for most of it (illusory walls.. great!). On that note, I actually do enjoy X6 more than a couple others in this series (namely X3 and X5), and I'm still more likely to come back to it over X4 because it has a greater level of challenge and there's more room for experimentation and sequence breaking. A first playthrough though will probably be rough for anyone until they learn the ins and outs of the game.

[BrianC]

What did you think of X8? I heard it's better than X5-X7, but still has some issues with level design.

[Austin]

I've heard good things about X8 but still haven't played it. I just snagged the X Legacy Collection so I hope to try it soon. Looking at videos the visual style and movement seems kind of janky, but if it's fun, then it's fun.

[Sumez]

Assuming someone gives zero fucks about "the story" in Megaman... what makes X5 and X6 so shitty? I've never played X6 and I've had X5 lying around for years but haven't played it yet either, not enough to make any judgements (going to start it tonight actually).

I hear they are awful all the time but never in regards to the actual gameplay... just fandoms complaining that their mecha furry fanfic dreams were pooped on story wise etc.

I can't imagine anyone caring about the story in the Mega Man X games. I mean there are some fun elements, but from the PS1 generation on it gets more and more into cringey weaboo stuff. So I guess that's one reason why they suck, but I never thought about it.

They suck because the level design is boring and uninspired at best. Stressfull and confusing at worst. It's not that they aren't expertly made, like the older titles, it's that playing them is effectively annoying.
Also, Mega Man can duck.

Mega Man. Can. Duck.

And no, of course they didn't design the game around adding that ability.

[Strider77]

I can't imagine anyone caring about the story in the Mega Man X games.

Spend more time in Facebook gaming groups.... I wouldn't advise it, but that's about the ONLY thing they discuss on the topic (well, that and amiibos). It's very reminiscent of the Sonic fandom.

I'm playing X5 now. The two things that struck me so far are the excessive text interrupts and the level design feels... amateurish. Although the ducking part doesn't really bother me. That bike part and getting all the orbs has been the toughest part so far. It's not great but it's playable. The visuals are kinda blah... especially with the excessive pre rendered stuff.

I really need to replay X 1, 2 and 3. 4X and 8 I did not to long ago. But I need to wrap X5 up before 11 shows up in the mail, otherwise it'll get shelves for another decade plus.

[Jonny2x4]

You know. I stopped following the X series (and Mega Man in general) after X4. I always thought it was kinda cheesy in X4 the scene where Zero mourns Iris's death. Not just because of the bad English voice acting (although I can't imagine the scene in Japanese being any better), but isn't she a robot? Can't they rebuilt her like Zero was in X2? Maybe they explained this plot point in some Japanese strategy guide, as Capcom has a habit of doing in all of their franchises, but I still think it's ridiculous.

I bought X5 a few years ago on the PS Store via sale, but for some reason I couldn't get into it. The presentation felt like a downgrade from X4.

[FinalBaton]

I don't care about the story in X games tbh
I do love the fuck out of the hand-drawn animu cutscenes in X4 tho. Back then it was the first time I ever saw animu video in game and it blew my mind. Let's face it, those are some beautiful character designs(I'd even argue that Zero's is a MONSTER character design) and it is animated and drawn well with good shots/angles. Nice old school animation. cool shit!

voice acting sucks tho. Lol. It is legendary

[Austin]

The presentation felt like a downgrade from X4.

It pretty much was.

[kitten]

Can't they rebuilt her like Zero was in X2?

zero is there on a tiny little capsule ship to blow up the entire station that they're on and probably wouldn't be able to take her for repairs, but this hardly seems like an excuse. it's kind of funny watching the general get his arm & leg blown off and how he can still function, but iris got a concussion so strong she died... i guess! robots just die whenever the narrative wants them to, try to forget the details - this is a narrative staple of stories like these since astro boy and happens in all sorts of modern stuff, too. i mean, really, this happens with any character in any narrative, but it's just exceptionally obvious with robot stories.

for a worse example, i completely don't understand people who put up with nier automata's narrative and how mind-blowingly cavalier it is about when it expects the player to believe death is or isn't a thing that can even conceivably happen without eventually being overridden. not only does that one kill whoever, whenever, but it becomes almost impossible to decipher when you're even meant to be upset or believe they're not coming back - at least when zero is screaming over iris' corpse i think it's pretty clear we're meant to assume it was very sad and she was very dead.

i mean, really, the entire x series is full of a lot of really questionable narrative decisions where they're clearly just doing whatever they want. irregular hunter x attempted to reboot the narrative in a way that would make more sense (including killing dr. cain right in x1 rather than just having him spontaneously disappear without explanation after x3) but we never saw a follow-up, so who knows what they were planning to do to reconcile how many fucking weird places the story went or how little sense it made between games. it functions well enough as a self-contained, though, as did many of the x games from 6 and prior as well as all the classic games.

i feel like x4's narrative is consistent enough despite little niggling complaints like the theatrics of iris' death not quite making total sense, honestly. it's fine. but man, if you want to get really confused try playing x7, 8, and command mission. or try playing the rockman zero series and see if you can figure out what happened in the radio drama between 3 and 4 lol (spoilers, more than half of the central cast present since the first game got retconned to die and it's never directly addressed in the games!).

i like the narrative of the dash/legends series, and classic 8 is pretty solid, OVA-esque fun, too.

The presentation felt like a downgrade from X4.

it is absolutely a tremendous downgrade. looks much, much worse. it's a bit hard to decide whether x5 or x6 are worse in that regard, honestly! they're both pretty ugly games, which is a shame because x4 was pretty laboriously constructed.

[Sumez]

Mega Man plots. Now there's a thing I really don't want to ever discuss

[Jonny2x4]

I always thought it was weird how Capcom created Mega Man X to be a new Mega Man series for a new console and then they made Mega Man 7 on the Super NES anyway when they no longer could keep the series going on the original NES. I always wondered if Mega Man 7 might have had more impact back in the day if the X series had never existed. Instead of being the blue bomber's actual debut on 16-bit consoles, it was just another Mega Man game.

In retrospect, it's kinda obvious how Zero is basically a Gary Stu designed by Inafune. He's X's best friend, but much cooler (since he saves his ass at the end of the tutorial level), wields a sword and happens to be a secret rival robot constructed by Dr. Wily before his death.

[Sumez]

Zero is the trope of tropes. But it doesn't matter, it's just an action game, which can always use a cool dood with a sword.
If Mega Man 7 had been the first Mega Man game on SNES, it would have been considered a disappointment. Instead it just faded into obscurity.

I actually remember an editorial from a magazine around the mid 90s about how Mega Man was getting played out and irrelevant. If only they knew.

[evil_ash_xero]

So...Mega Man 2 or X? Which is greater?

[Strider77]

Not MM2.

[Sumez]

MM2 is great, but overrated. Play them both, though. Best MM is still MM4.

[Austin]

Kind of hard for me to take either an X game or a classic Mega Man game. Depends on the mood I'm in, really. For classic (on the NES), 2 is my go-to. For X (on SNES, specifically), the original is my pick.

[Seyriuu]

MM 3 and 5 are my favorites ones, I owned 2 and 5 as a kid and always rented 3, so probably I like more those due to nostalgic factors idk.
From my artistic side opinion, 2 and 3 have the best bosses designs by far

[Obscura]

I'd give X a sliiiiiiight edge over 2, but both are solid.

Mighty Number 9 is better than either.

I really don't get Sumez's love for MM4, that game just seems really bland and "by the numbers", aside from bosses that pretty much mandate that you're coming in with the right weapon.

[Sumez]

I don't see what Mega Man 2 does so much better though?

Anyway, more on topic Mega Man 11 finally arrived today. Only played it for a short while, took down three robot masters. So far it's really good.

[BrianC]

Personally I feel MM1 NES, RW1 GB, and RW3 GB are underrated (or at least I'm under the impression 1 and 3 GB are treated like more mediocre entries, though they got positive ratings from critics when they first came out). MM2 is excellent overall, but has a few rough sports here and there, especially towards the end of the game. I have found RW 4 and 5 on GB are especially good.

[Austin]

I really don't get Sumez's love for MM4, that game just seems really bland and "by the numbers", aside from bosses that pretty much mandate that you're coming in with the right weapon.

To me, MM4 is absolutely excellent. At one point I simply thought this was an, "Oh, I like it because I played it as a kid" thing, but no. I've played it many times in the last decade and I absolutely love it. Fantastic game. Only complaint I have is that boss music, honestly. I really like the aggressive boss music tone in MM2 and MM3, and in MM4 it's just rinky-dink in comparison. Charged Mega Buster is balanced here too (surprisingly), whereas it's OP in 5 and 6. Much better balance in gameplay for Part IV, compared to V and VI, if you ask me.

[BrianC]

I need to play MM4 NES more, but I absolutely enjoyed what I have played of it. I wish the games would experiment with the MB more like the GB games did. The recoil in RW4 GB is interesting.

[Austin]

I need to play MM4 NES more, but I absolutely enjoyed what I have played of it.

It's totally worth the time, just like the Mega Man games before it.

[BrianC]

I need to play MM4 NES more, but I absolutely enjoyed what I have played of it.

It's totally worth the time, just like the Mega Man games before it.

Yeah, that's all that's keeping me from playing it. Trying to decide what to play. I just got addicted to Fight'N Rage, though I did start on MM11.