The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

I'd say the brand started going downhill around the 3rd EXE series game

You mean after MMX2 and MM Soccer.

[Armando]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Armando, Mega Man is artifically difficult for a lot of the same reasons NG was.

Even for all its bullshit, Mega Man 1 never asked you to drop onto a 2-block-wide platform that's occupying a heat-seeking enemy that doesn't fall off edges and no you have no way of attacking downwards. It also didn't spawn mobs mid-jump whose sole purpose is to cut you off over a cliff. Mob respawn technically worked in the player's favor, since you could farm health, weapon ammo and 1-ups if you were running low (although the real reason for it was probably that it took more work and memory to keep track of what you've already killed.) And in addition to farming one-ups, many games let you hoard Energy Tanks too. So even if you can't beat a part of the game, spend enough time collecting 1-ups and Energy Tanks and you'll eventually succeed. And of course if you just look up which boss is weak to which weapon, you won't have a hard time in general.

Ninja Gaiden 1 is probably the first time I can ever recall saying to myself "No, stop. Stop. This game is designed to drive you insane. Quit while you're ahead."

You mean after MMX2 and MM Soccer.

X3 was more of the same, but X4 and X5 were good. X4 added the plot twist of Zero originally being a Maverick and turning Sigma bad, and X5 added a lot of throwbacks to the classic series and was supposed to be the last game. Mega Man Soccer was...yeah. Inafune is obviously a soccer fan, what with Mega Man's slide and 8's Rock Ball weapon.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

All I remember of X5 was incredibly short levels that were just a stone's throw away from the boss and terrible cutscenes that made my ears bleed.

Sorry, after X3, the series died and never recovered. Or do I have to point at the PS2 games for further proof of this? The fact that it took Command Mission and the Zero games to restore some credibility to the franchise says quite a lot about how far MMX fell.

Saying they're OK is like saying FFXIII-2 was OK. Sure, its better than XIII, but its still based on and associated with XIII, which doesn't help it.

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

I thought X2 and 3 were pretty good actually. the only ones in that series I hated were 5 and onward.

[cidbahamut]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Agreed, all the X games on the SNES were completely solid. Dunno why someone would peg any of them as the a point where things started going downhill.

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Inafune had meant for 5 to be the ending of the series, period. But Capcom didn't like that.

[Armando]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

All I remember of X5 was incredibly short levels that were just a stone's throw away from the boss and terrible cutscenes that made my ears bleed.

The voice acting was pretty bad, yeah. But that was also true of Mega Man 8 and X4. Still, X6 is where it really jumped the shark. X5 had two sets of armor to collect besides X4's, which you start the game with. It also had slightly different endings based on whether Zero turns Maverick or not.

X6 on the other hand had terrible stage design, a really bad translation, no anime cutscenes whatsoever, revived Zero without any explanation and the villain looked like Bass in a lab coat. X6's armors also made little sense thematically (samurai and ninja armors.) You could tell it was a total rush job. Capcom made it behind Inafune's back while he worked on Mega Man Zero if I remember right.

Nothing really interesting happened in X3 but it gets points for being the first game to let you control Zero, even if he's still a clone of X at that point.

[Malacite]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

I'd call hitting Sigma with an alleged anti-virus pretty interesting.

Yet even that magically failed to do him in.

[Raydeus]

Re: The best games you never played or the worst you forced yourself through...

Speaking of X, I decided to play Irregular Hunter X yet again.

Definitely my favorite Megaman game ever. And the day of Zigma was a great bonus.