OH HELL YEAH
In 1993, Capcom forgot what number comes after 6 and had to reboot its ubiquitous Mega Man franchise with Mega Man X. It should not be confused with his royal highness, King Mega Man the Tenth:
This series is set sometime after the original Mega Man games, during which the following apparently happened – Dr. Light, the creator of the robot hero Mega Man, also created X, who was like Mega Man but better and somewhat taller. He was too dangerous and was never deployed, but Dr. Cain (who is like Dr. Light but different) made a whole army based on him, which inevitably turned evil. The things designed to stop that army ended up being even more evil, so now it’s a big mess that X and his cool new friend Zero (also possibly evil, but less so now, maybe) has to clean up. Video games!
Mega Man X plays similarly to the games in the original series – you have a group of levels, each with its own cool boss, that can be played in any order. You start with a simlpe blaster, but each boss gives you a new type of weapon, many of which are really strong against one of the other bosses. This means there’s usually an “optimal” order you can take that makes things a bit easier. For instance, the weapon you get from Spark Mandrill is really effective against Armored Armadillo, so you’ll likely want to do the former first:
That reminds me of another minor difference in the Mega Man X games – instead of names like “Guts Man” or “Metal Man,” the bosses in this series have weirder, descriptive names, like “Chill Penguin” and “Flame Mammoth” and “Self-Conscious Horse.” Once you stop them all, the game is rounded out with a handful of difficult “boss” levels and a big bad guy to finish off.
X has a few other important enhancements as well – he can wall jump, do a cool forward dash, acquire permanent health powerups, and more. He’s neat. He can even spend an immense amount of time shooting at this thing:
Right in the butt! That’ll show ‘em.
Most importantly, this has all of the tight, enjoyable action platforming that you expect from the Mega Man franchise, and does it without being overly difficult or frustrating. It looks and sounds great, even after all this time. This is one of the high marks of an already great franchise, and it’s still a delight, a full 26 (!) years after its release. If you’ve never played a game in this series for whatever reason, this is an awfully good place to start.
In addition to being part of the larger franchise, Mega Man X effectively spawned a series of its own, with the latest Mega Man X8 being released for the PS2 in 2004). It also spawned its own spinoffs, such as the Mega Man Zero series centered on its namesake character. The original X remains one of the best in the series, and thankfully it’s still available in a number of ways. The best option may be to play it on the SNES Classic, which is a great and easy way to play so many incredible 16-bit games.
Seriously, just look at this thing. It’s one of the best video game-related things there is.
Our next game game is another awesome 16-bit action platformer, though sadly it’s one that never really got the follow-up it deserved. Now go buy an SNES Classic and then come back next week.