Banshaku wrote:
I don't know why I didn't play any X ones. I may have tried the first one (it came out on PC if my memory is good) but just tried it a little bit. I guess I started to play less games after 6 and except recently (9-10), I didn't play any mega man game. Will give it a try then. What is the level of difficulty compared to 1~6?
Overall, I think the first three X games are a little harder than any of the NES games (which aren't really as difficult as some people will make you think).
They are balanced a little differently though, with more focus on using upgrades to alleviate some of the difficulty, adding the ability to upgrade your hit points and armor, etc. This also makes the game more of a treasure hunt than the classic straightforward action games, and replaying stages is often encouraged. Also, a majority of the boss fights can be completely trivialised by using their weakness, as they will often simplify their pattern, stun them, or break an attack, compared to the classic Mega Man games which would just deal more damage.
Mega Man X in general is a great game though, and especially at the time when it came out it felt like a natural and sensible progression of the Mega Man series. That said, I'd still say at least Mega Man 3 and 4 are definitely better games.
rainwarrior wrote:
Mega Man X is a really good one. The later X series on PS1 etc. got a bit weird to me, though.
X4 is different, but still a really good game. X5 and X6 are both completely terrible.
rainwarrior wrote:
(Interesting to me that you think MM9 and 10 missed the point... I thought they were both excellent. I'd actually say that 9 was my favourite of the classic Mega Man series.)
I realise that a lot of people liked what 9 and 10 did, but it's just a completely different style of game than the classic Mega Man games, so it's very viable that your mileage may vary even if you are a fan of the old games.
Overall I just felt the challenges didn't have the same organic flow as the classic games. They often felt much more strict in how you approach them, more punishing, and often somewhat unfair. The games require a lot of memorizing of stages in order to have a chance of getting all the way through them. That is further complicated by the absurdly long stages.
I think it's made especially obvious by the way the game approaches the disappearing blocks. A "classic" Mega Man element that was always one of the weakest points of each game. The classic games handled them nicely though, usually only outright killing you from missing a block at the final "puzzle" of the single stage that had them, and always including one or more ways of bypassing them. And by Mega Man 5 they were pretty much purged from the game entirely. Meanwhile Mega Man 9 brings them back in full force, in multiple stages, makes them last much longer, and increases the punishment for failing.
To me that makes the game feel more like heavy pressure than fast paced fun. But I get why opinions might differ.
I think MM9 and MM10 are games designed more around the "modern" approach of splitting games into bite-sized challenges, focusing on beating on stage at a time, rather than mastering the entire game. Similarly to approaching a Dark Souls game from one bonfire to the next, and it doesn't matter how many times you die inbetween each.