After a successful run on the original Nintendo Entertainment
System, Capcom decided their wildly successful Blue Bomber needed a fresh redesign to usher
in the franchise's debut on the shiny, new, 16-bit Super Nintendo.
Thus was the Mega Man X series born, which kicked the series' timeline forward 100
years and introduced fans to a new hero in X, a taller, leaner, and mightier take on
Capcom's true-blue hero who lived in an edgier world than the one fans had grown accustomed
to on the NES.
With refreshed gameplay mechanics like wall-jumping and dashing along with bigger, more intricate
stages hiding away permanent upgrades like health-extending Heart Tanks and capsules
that upgraded X's armor with a new appearance and abilities over the course of the game,
the Mega Man X series quickly carved out its own special place in fans' hearts.
So it's no wonder that as Capcom recently set about compiling the original Mega Man's
adventures yet again for current-generation platforms in the form of two so-called Legacy
Collections, fans were left with one persistent question: what about X?
Capcom has at last answered that question with Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 and 2
which, unsurprisingly, are very similar in form and function to the original Mega Man
Legacy Collections that preceded it.
Compiling all eight of X's mainline adventures across two compilations alongside the usual
smattering of art and music galleries as well as modern conveniences like image filter and
screen size options, the X Legacy Collections attempt to take things a step further with
additional fan-focused inclusions like a product gallery collecting images of various Mega
Man X goods like action figures and trading cards, and even a brand-new gameplay mode.
But does it all work?
Well, yes and no.
In a general sense, the frontend presentation of the X Legacy Collections outside of the
games themselves and the lineup of extra content complementing them goes well beyond Capcom's
and Digital Eclipse's offerings in the original Legacy Collections, making for compilations
that really feel like they were designed with fans in mind despite a couple of puzzling
missteps.
But at the same time, the X Legacy Collections are ironically saddled with preserving the
legacy of a series whose quality from game to game has proven to be far less consistent
than that of the Classic Mega Man series that inspired it, ultimately resulting in two very
lopsided collections in terms of the quality of their included games.
Let's start with the first X Legacy Collection, which collects the first half of the series
in Mega Man X, X2, X3, and X4.
It's no exaggeration to say that the original Mega Man X is one of the greatest 2D platformers
of all time and is a game that should be played by anyone who considers themselves a fan of
the genre or of video games in general, and that's just as true here as it ever was.
With some of the most inspired level designs in the business, a simple but effective story,
special weapons that are as fun to use as they are useful, elegant sprite animation
that absolutely holds up in a modern context, and one of the greatest soundtracks ever,
period, the first Mega Man X game is truly the complete package.
LIkewise, Mega Man X2 and X3 are two very strong 16-bit sequels that take the mechanics
and concepts established in the first game and expand upon them while also pushing them
in new directions.
While X2 is the stronger of the two and X3 sometimes threatens to buckle under the weight
of its own ambitions, with a lengthy list of hidden upgrades and enhancements to find
that sometimes borders on excessive, both of X's Super NES sequels are great games
in their own right — even if neither of them quite lives up to the legendary original
game.
And then there's the series' 32-bit debut in Mega Man X4, which is praised and revered
among fans in much the same way as the original game.
For good reason, too: X4 remains a high point for the Mega Man X series and for 2D platformers
in general, with gorgeous visuals and a typically excellent soundtrack that took full advantage
of the series' jump to a CD-based format via the PS1 and SEGA Saturn.
X4 also sees the full-time playable debut of the fan-favorite Zero, X's saber-wielding
best buddy who, up to that point, had only been briefly playable in X3.
Both characters have unique stories fleshed out by old-school anime cutscenes whose quality
holds up to this day, but more importantly X and Zero also play completely differently
from one another, providing more than enough justification to run, jump, shoot, and slash
through X4's tightly designed levels as both heroes.
Simply put, if a Mega Man X fan tells you their favorite game in the series ISN'T
the original, it's probably X4.
It really is that good.
X Legacy Collection 2, then, brings up the rear half of the series with Mega Man X5,
X6, X7, and X8.
And unfortunately, it's here where the series begins to stumble before taking a long, hard,
but ultimately temporary fall from grace.
As the series' first 32-bit sequel, Mega Man X5 sought to change things up by introducing
a time-based element to gameplay that can alter the story and result in one of several
possible endings depending on how quickly you complete certain objectives.
It was a noble effort but ultimately a solution to a problem that didn't exist, changing
up the structural formula of the series for no discernible benefit.
On top of that X5 suffers from an across-the-board reduction in the quality of its level design,
graphics, and lineup of special weapons, as well as a poor English localization that dulls
the value of an otherwise impactful story that seeks to wrap up the series' dangling
plot threads and bring things to a definitive, poignant conclusion.
And if the series had been allowed to actually end there as was originally intended, X5 would
have served as a perfectly average ending to X's adventures — not terrible, and
not great, but good enough.
But that's not where things ended.
Capcom followed this effort up barely a year later with the altogether poor Mega Man X6,
whose nonsensical story was only made worse with one of the most laughably terrible localizations
of all time — a localization that has not been improved or fixed at all for its encore
appearance in X Legacy Collection 2.
Add to that a complete abandonment of sensible level design in favor of painfully repetitive
gimmick-focused stages whose idea of difficulty is to just fill the screen with enemies and
their bullets so that you have no choice but to take damage, and it becomes clear why X6
is a chapter of the series that is better left forgotten.
But hey, at least the soundtrack is great!
Sadly, the X series' reputation would be plunged further into the ground with Mega
Man X7, which debuted on the PlayStation 2 and attempted to drag the series, kicking
and screaming, into the third dimension.
To say this didn't work out very well would be a huge understatement; X7 was an absolute
mess of a game back at the time of its original launch, to say nothing of how poorly it has
aged by today's standards.
It's no exaggeration to say that X7 is borderline unplayable much of the time, with painfully
sluggish character movement, utterly charmless levels that are a chore to play through, and
graphics that instantly felt dated even back in 2003 despite some decent visual and performance
improvements here in X Legacy Collection 2.
And while X7 attempts to introduce an important new character in Axl, he makes an awful first
impression thanks to laughably bad voice acting, a trait that is sadly shared among the whole
cast.
If I'm bring brutally honest, the fact that X7 does eventually end is probably its only
redeeming quality.
Fortunately, the X series does end on a high note — for now, anyway — with Mega Man
X8, which mostly eschews the third dimension in favor of a 2.5D approach that favors the
tight, fast-paced 2D gameplay that popularized the series in the first place.
With this fresh approach to gameplay supported by a striking new art style and an interesting
story that once again features anime-like cutscenes and benefits from a high-quality
localization as well as strong voice acting across the board, X8 also introduces some
bold new changes to the way character strengthening and especially X's armor upgrades work.
It isn't perfect and X8 never quite reaches the lofty heights of the first half of the
series, but it's a great game all the same and helps strengthen X Legacy Collection 2's
otherwise lacking lineup of games.
Thankfully, both collections feature strong emulation across the board, ensuring that
all eight games across both compilations play, look, and sound mostly as they should.
There are some little oddities here and there, such as what seems to be occasional and minor
stuttering in the 16-bit games, but by and large these are strong representations of
the eight mainline Mega Man X games.
And in a nice surprise, X4 and beyond feature certain enhancements inherent to modern emulation
such as drastically improved loading times, while X7 and X8 in particular benefit from
superior performance and modestly improved graphics, though it must be noted that these
improvements don't make X7 any less of a displeasure to actually play.
Unfortunately, despite these benefits the X Legacy Collections also stumble somewhat
in their attempts to bring these games to current-generation platforms in a way that
is fully reflective of the advantages offered by modern emulation.
For one, Capcom seems to have a continuing problem with save states in their compilation
releases, as not only did the recent Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 only allow you to
reload each game from certain canned checkpoints, the X Legacy Collections both replicate and
worsen that approach by only allowing saving and reloading upon completion of a stage or
getting a Game Over.
That means save state support is out entirely, which is made all the more puzzling considering
Digital Eclipse had no problem including save states in the original Mega Man Legacy Collection.
And speaking of that collection, one of its most celebrated features — the ability to
rewind a portion of gameplay to undo mistakes in real-time — is also missing in the X
Legacy Collections, altogether leading to a persistent feeling that Capcom cut some
corners here that really shouldn't have been.
The lack of basic save state support is especially painful in the context of X6 and X7, as cheap
deaths come early and often in those games due to their exceedingly poor inherent design,
and save states would have been an obvious and relatively simple way of mitigating some
of that cheapness.
Perhaps in an attempt to make up for the lack of save states, both X Legacy Collections
feature a "Rookie Hunter" mode that lessens each game's difficulty in various ways and
makes the prospect of completing them all more manageable to newcomers.
While I appreciate that it's here, playing in Rookie Hunter mode naturally locks you
out of earning in-game achievements, so it really is strictly for newbies or less skilled
players only and comes off as feeling like kind of a half-measure.
Fortunately, the rest of the bells and whistles in both collections are mostly spot on.
Even though I typically play with the image filter turned off, the two included filters
— one emulating an old-school CRT monitor and the other making each game look like it's
been coated in a thick layer of oil — do their job admirably.
The X Legacy Collections also include the same screen size options included in other
recent Mega Man compilations, though in an apparent bug I've encountered across both
collections, the smallest size option randomly appears to become temporarily unselectable.
While the issue seems to resolve itself in short order, it has happened to me on multiple
occasions and can be frustrating when you prefer playing each game in its original aspect
ratio.
The included optional wallpapers for each game are a nice bonus and, much like the Nintendo
Switch versions of the original Mega Man Legacy Collections, look particularly great when
playing on the Switch's small screen in handheld mode.
Each game also lets you customize the controls to your liking, though in an odd oversight
the 16-bit games don't allow you to map any actions to the ZL or ZR buttons, which
is something I hope to see potentially corrected in a post-release patch.
Both X Legacy Collections include a Museum mode featuring a thoughtful, well curated
lineup of bonus content and supplementary material flanking the games themselves.
Some of this content is mirrored between both collections, such as the excellent Product
Gallery, which collects tons of obscure information about and images of the countless Mega Man
X action figures, trading cards, apparel, soundtracks, books, and capsule toys that
have been released over the years.
Other bonus content mirrored between both X Legacy Collections includes a gallery of
Japanese and Western trailers for various Mega Man X games as well as the fantastic
Day of Sigma anime short, which originally debuted in 2006's Maverick Hunter X and
showcases the events leading up to the first Mega Man X game.
Not all of the bonus content is the same in both X Legacy Collections, though.
The art gallery and music player are specific to the games featured in each collection,
so for example, the music player in the first X Legacy Collection only collects the soundtracks
for the first four games while the art gallery in X Legacy Collections 2 is limited to material
from X5 through X8.
This asymmetrical approach to the bonus material in the X Legacy Collections feels a little
strange at first, but it also ensures that each collection is packed with a significant
amount of bonus content while preserving some meaningful differences between them.
For their part, the art gallery and music player do their jobs admirably, and the art
gallery in particular features an impressive amount of behind-the-scenes and other production
material alongside thoughtfully written story synopses and character profiles.
While I wish the gallery allowed you to practice boss fights to your heart's content as in
the original Mega Man Legacy Collections, Capcom has compiled a great deal of meaningful
assets for each X Legacy Collection's art gallery and those efforts should be commended.
And then there's X Challenge, an all-new gameplay mode that sees X facing off against
pairs of Maverick bosses in ultra-difficult 2-on-1 duels.
Capcom has gone out of their way to message X Challenge as a really big deal prior to
release, and it is a neat experiment to be sure, but it never ends up feeling all that
necessary.
While it is very cool to see Mavericks from different games — and indeed, even different
console generations — fighting alongside one another, the appeal of that novelty quickly
wears off when you start actually playing X Challenge.
Not only are X Challenge's visuals kind of bland across the board, with X's sprite
for his exclusive new armor looking particularly slapdash, the difficulty balance is an absolute
mess, as bosses quickly fill the screen with shots and hazards that feel unreasonably difficult
to avoid or suss out a meaningful pattern in.
Most of X Challenge's figts quickly devolve into what feels like meaningless wars of attrition,
with X and the Mavericks just trading hits repeatedly until either you or they win.
That said, some of the boss combinations are very cool in a fanservice sense, and X Challenge's
modern rearrangement of the boss music from X1 through X6 are a real high point.
It's also worth noting that each X Legacy Collection's version of X Challenge is mostly
the same despite claims prior to release that their stage lineups would be different between
them.
While this is partially true, with the third fight in each stage being different depending
on which collection you're playing, the rest of the fights seem to be mirrored between
both collections.
I didn't find this to be a particular disappointment or anything, but it does add to the sense
that X Challenge as a concept could've benefited from a little more time in the oven and more
thoughtfulness in general.
Even though the lack of seemingly standard emulation features like save states across
both collections is a genuine disappointment and there are some minor issues I'd like
to see ironed out in post-release patches, the bonus and supplementary content are impressive
and it's impossible to argue against the sheer quality of the games collected in the
first Mega Man X Legacy Collection.
X1 and X4 represent two of the finest 2D platformers of all time while X2 and X3 are very strong
in their own right, and all of this comes together into a $20 package of exceptional
value that I love.
But because the quality of the Mega Man X series varies so widely from game to game
in a way the Classic Mega Man series does not, Capcom has taken a real risk in anchoring
the second collection around the troubled latter half of the series.
On one hand Mega Man X8 is great and has stood the test of time, and X5 is decent enough,
but X6 and X7 are so thoroughly poor that only hardcore fans or the morbidly curious
need apply.
With such a stark difference in value between the two collections, then, Mega Man X Legacy
Collection 2 is just kind of "Meh" and can be safely passed over unless you're
a true-blue Mega Man X fan.
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