I find that it's always best to start these things off with what they're all about. Like a thesis for a paper, except I'm not up at 5 AM in the bleeding morning, sitting in a study hall and drinking stale water while trying to force words about about goddamned poetry. This is much more fun and freeform, it's talk about old video games! A video game old enough to be a teenager now. This is Mega Man X5 for the Playstation. It's a game that Sony had the amazingly good sense to put on sale last week. Less than a dollar later, it was mine. Onto the super-future Vita it went, and that's where I played it. Now this is the part where I elaborate on what it is and how that went, but... man, it's kind of tricky. With all these other games, I'm able to go off on a tangent about some esoteric nonsense, usually related to alchemy or pretend video game goddesses. This? This has the sense of finality all over it, and yet it's anything but. It's like how Part IV of the Jason Voorhees films is called "The Final Chapter" and yet that shit went on for like 8 more movies. If this were Nintendo Project Resumed, I'd be bantering about Peko the Destructor, the reaper of video games, hovering over this thing with her blade. Except Mega Man X4 had Sigma as a Grim Reaper, so I don't know what in the fuck. Let's do that thing we all love to try and do, and make a proper attempt at defining what a Mega Man X5 is.It sure is a jump and shoot game! Or a jump and slash game if you play as Mega Man X's red pal Zero. You jump and shoot and dash through inventive stages with unique gimmicks, fight eight themed animal robots, take their offensive power for your own, and then go through four new stages of pain before you fight all eight themed animal robots again in a row. Then you fight a dude called Sigma who's part virus and laughs at you a lot, and you win. There's more nuance to it than that, of course, like finding hidden upgrades and doodads in every level, or the intricate level design that rewards reflexes and speed and mastery of the controls... but it's a Mega Man game made by Keiji Inafune and friends! You know this already! I make the not-at-all bold claim that if you're reading the opinion of a weirdo like me about Mega Man X, you know about Mega Man X. You don't need me to tell you the basic fundamentals of the thing, and if you do... look, Mega Man X is easy to get a hold of these days. Either on Wii U or cartridge or illicit means. Run out and play it, or watch a playthrough or something. Experience it, for goodness's sakes. Now, what's X5 do differently? That sense of finality. Right away it subverts things and a Sigma head is the first boss... but it was all a ploy to cause pandemonium with the Sigma Virus or something, and make 99% of the Reploids on Earth go Maverick and want to kill everything in sight. Not only that, but there's a giant space colony on a collision course with Earth. And you only have 16 hours to stop it, yay! Every time you enter a stage, the clock goes down by one hour. There's a bit of tension there, and--
Hey, wait a minute. A game based on a popular video game series, released in 2000, featuring a giant thing about to crash into the earth with a constant clock counting down to the destruction? Capcom, were you sneaking peeks at Nintendo's development team? Gosh. Anyway. There's a bit of tension there, but not nearly as much as that OTHER game because you actually have plenty of time to stop the space station from falling. 8 themed animal robots, with 16 hours. That isn't even counting the two hours wasted by a new recurring villain named Dynamo... and "wasted" is apt when talking about this guy. He shows up in cutscene form near the start of the game, and then you fight him twice in between certain stages. His entire stated goal is to waste your time so the space colony can crash, but after you stop it he never shows up again. Not even in the final levels of the game. What the hell kind of villain is this? Guys like Vile or the X-Hunters kept after you through the whole game until you blew them up, but Dynamo? He shows up twice in two fairly stress-free battles, and then just fucks off for the rest of the game. I mean, what is this? Maybe the 8 themed animal robots fare better. I've got lots to yell about with this game, but none of it involves them specifically. We're going to let the old rage pot simmer on the stove, and give some quick thoughts about each of the 8 bosses as well as their stages. Each boss is some sort of pun based on members of Guns n Roses. The localizer's boyfriend really liked them or something.
GRIZZLY SLASH
The stage: Whee, ridin' on trucks! And blowing up trucks! It's an alright level that has a mix of speed and taking on huge enemies. The bit near the end where you have to dash from exploding truck to exploding truck with a countdown for each is exciting, if nothing else!
The boss: Reminds me lots of Drill Man. He spends plenty of time shooting crescents at you, or drilling through the floor and breaking the background. Not the most intense fight, but you still need to be on your toes.
SQUID ADLER
The stage: The opening section is simmering on the pot right now, but the rest of the level is an interesting bit of managing gates and shooting their locks in rhythm or something. Very puzzley, and you have to be mindful of where you're jumping and whatnot. It's okay.
The boss: Fills the air and floor with electricity, making for one real tense fight. Also he's floating around everywhere and the room has more vertical space than horizontal. He's tricky unless you have his weakness.
IZZY GLOW
The stage: Kind of annoying. The first gimmick are spike chandeliers on chains that you have to either wait out, dash under, or ride on top of to proceed. It's a bit slow. The second half has these cannon things shooting orbs at you, and you can't blow up the cannons without a special weapon. Not the best.
The boss: Kind of easy, really. He's got some intimidating attacks, like a laser he shoots out his ass that fills up most of the screen. Otherwise, he's a pushover. Simple enough to buster duel.
DUFF MCWHALEN
The stage: OH BOY, AUTOSCROLLING! With a gigantic miniboss pursuing you for most of it. Underwater. While you listen to a snazzy remix of the Bubble Crab theme because it's 1995 all over again, why not? Ehh.
The boss: Ridiculous. Duff Beer here spits out ice blocks, and it's easy enough to play around with him. Then when he's almost dead he turns around and spits them the other way. Did I mention that side of the screen has instant death spikes? FAAAAAAAAACK YOU WHALEY.
THE SKIVER
The stage: Has a rather annoying time bomb gimmick, and the bombs are quite well guarded. All it does is do lots of damage to you anyway. The parts that aren't rushing like an idiot to shoot a time bomb while every enemy is hitting your hurried ass are okay.
The boss: Well, holy shit. This is one of my favorite fights in the game. The Skiver works kind of like a souped-up Storm Eagle, and it makes for a dynamic and fun battle on top of a future airplane or something. I can dig it.
AXLE THE RED
The stage: Kind of annoying. Lots of flower enemies you have to wait out, and a few surprise vines. Lots of use of the new rope-grabbing mechanics. I guess this was the stage to showcase them in.
The boss: Noriaki Kakyoin called, he wants his haircut back. Shades of Gemini Man abound in this fight, as Axle here splits into two and tries to grab you with thorn whips and stuff. It's a good fight, I suppose.
DARK DIZZY
The stage: Kind of falls flat, if we're being honest. The first section has bats and spikes that appear out of nowhere from SPACE. Then you ride a platform and avoid more spikes! Then you get a half-hearted gravity reversal gimmick that Cyber Peacock did way better, and then it's over.
The boss: Easy peasy. He summons bats but they ain't no problem, and he has a half-assed time stop attack. Totally nonthreatening.
MATTREX
The stage: I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I BRING YOU... FIRE! Aside from this stage being the poster child for one of the big gripes I have with the game, it's not the stage's fault. It's actually kind of fun and thrilling and fast. It's rad.
The boss: A giant T-Rex that is on fire. Holy goddamn. He's not even a fatty fat like Flame Mammoth or Frost Walrus, this son of a bitch can MOVE. Even when you hit him with his weakness, it doesn't trivialize him. One hell of a fight.
Okay, we all got that? Some good bosses, some dull bosses. Some good stages, some slogs of stages. It's a wibbly wobbly sine wave of quality, this game. Now I'm going to tear it to shreds in a grand exorcism of frustration. During my first runthrough, there were three major problems I had with it. Two of those combined with each other in a sort of hindsight to make the last one worse, but the first one turns out to have a workaround. Let's tackle that one first, huh? Thought experiment time, folks. I want you to imagine a Dual Shock 2, and then think about how you play a Mega Man X game on one. You've played an X game, you know how the face buttons work. A trio of commands with the lower three. Square shoots. X jumps. Circle dashes. All in vicinty of your thumb, and it's the way we've done it since X1 on the Super Nintendo. Still with me here? Now it gets tricky. In those games, if you switch to a special weapon, Square (or Y) will now fire that special weapon. X4 added a feature where you could still fire the regular buster with Triangle while having a weapon equipped. You know, if you didn't want to switch. That's fine, it doesn't mess with the basic lower thumb spread we have going. Then comes X5, and OOPS! Now they're separated! If you switch to a special weapon, now you need to press TRIANGLE to shoot it! This annoyed me to no end on my first playthrough, because it meant that doing fancy dashing and jumping to avoid boss attacks was harder than it should have been. I could rant more about how ass-backwards it all is, and how if I switch to a special weapon I want to fucking fire that special weapon... but then I found out that you can just fiddle with the controls in the options, and swap Square and Triangle. Then it works like the old games. Why they changed it is beyond me, but you can change it back so this issue has been mellowed.
The next gripe I have, on the other hand? Not so mellowed. Alia. Y'all who have played this game know what I'm talking about, but I'm gonna go through it anyway because that's what writing this thing is all about. Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson, in his big Sequelitis video comparing Classic series Mega Man with Mega Man X, had a running joke where Roll kept interrupting him to explain obvious stuff like "watch out, the spikes kill you" or whatnot. It was meant as a contrast to how Mega Man X the first taught you through gameplay instead of just stopping the game to yell into your ear via a text box. I'm guessing Arin Hanson never played Mega Man X5 because this is the exact goddamned game he was complaining about. Except in the X series instead of Classic. Hell, Classic only ever did it on the Anniversary Collection, and then you had to turn it on. Here? You cannot turn it off. You can only mash through the text boxes. Some of it builds the world, I guess... but most of it is just really obvious explanation of the stage gimmick you're about to encounter. This, of course, kills the momentum and forward flow of the game and also doesn't let the stage gimmicks teach you by being self-evident. Which they honestly kind of are. Oh, but we ain't done harping on this. It gets worse because there's no brevity with the explanations. The worst offender is in Mattrex's stage. The gimmick of that level is instant-death fire that fills the screen, and you have to hide behind terrain to avoid it. Simple enough, right? Not for Capcom. Alia, in her infinite wisdom, stops the forward movement of the game no less than four fucking times to explain this to you. That is not hyperbole. Stop. Text box to tell you that dangerous fire is up ahead. Kill one enemy and reach a pit. Stop. Text box to tell you to be very very careful because the dangerous fire is coming. Kill another enemy, wait out the fire and jump down the pit. Stop. Text box to tell you to be very very careful because the dangerous fire is coming. Again. Move forward and see dark shades behind the uneven terrain. Stop. Text box to tell you that you can hide behind these blocks and avoid dying to the fire. This is excessive, to say the least. You could have had one text box when you jumped down, telling you that dangerous fire is coming and to hide behind the blocks. Better yet, don't have ANY text box. Just trust the game design and let you figure it out.
The only problem with that last approach is that you run the risk of taking a cheap death because you don't know the gimmick of the level yet. It sure would be a shame if X5 resorted to that. OH, WAIT! WAIT JUST A DINGLEDARNED SECOND, IT DOES! The opening moments of Squid Adler's stage are... oh, let's not beat around the bush. They're bullshit. Let's go over the basics here. On paper, the opening segment of the stage takes... 25 seconds or so? In practice, it will take you much more than that. It is a memorization festival on a high-speed jet bike, where any move that isn't the exact correct one leads to instant death. This annoys me, despite having much experience with memorization festivals. I pinned down the reason why, too; it breaks all of the rules that X5 was playing by, just for that part. The rest of Squid Adler's stage is nothing like this, so it's a strange outlier there. In addition... it just kills you right away. What I mean by this is that with any other stage, you see the opening screen with the word READY, and then you warp in and start playing. With this stage, you are moving as READY is on the screen. Before the words dissipate from the screen, there is a death pit in your way. You die before the level even "begins", so to speak. That's one death! So you jump this time, and after two of those some barriers get in your way and you get screen crushed. Didn't shoot fast enough, that's two deaths! So then you jump and you shoot but THEN they put a lot of barriers at once and you were supposed to dash, three deaths! At least you have continues. The proper path involves you reacting to things that aren't even on screen yet. To make it past the final lot of barriers, you have to do an early dash. This video from an MMX super player says it best; could someone theoretically do this on their first try, with perfect reflexes? In this case, the answer is no. You have to know what's coming in order to be able to perform the actions needed to survive it. Hell, you want to know what upset me the most about this? It's the silliest goddamned reason, but right around game over number four trying to learn this beast, I realized; Alia doesn't say a peep during it. The one time when it would be kind of beneficial to stop the game before the instant death pit, to tell you that this is a high speed stage where you need to jump and shoot and dash on your bike to survive? The game lets you fucking die before READY is even off the screen. Once you finally survive all of that, THEN Alia chirps up with her explanation again. It's inconsistency that breaks the rules to kill you dead, and it drives me up the goddamned wall.
Yet somehow... I kind of grew fond of it? It's not the best Mega Man X game, thanks to those problems, but it did some things right. Hell, even the memorization festival aspect comes back in the first "virus" stage. It's a homage to the Quick Man instant death lasers. Sure, it hits you in the face with nostalgia, but it also works with the new mechanics of dashing to enhance the difficulty. Oh, and no Alia explaining it. Oh, and now that touching walls makes you cling to them, those vertical drops require MORE precision. It's a miracle that this didn't piss me off as much as the jet bike. At least Dark Dizzy's weapon is a time stop, so you have an "out" just like in Mega Man 2. Though it's not as brilliant because the boss isn't also weak to the time stop, and you get all your energy for it back if you lose a life anyway. The boss is rad, though. It's a Black Devil! With a remix of the Mega Man 1 fortress boss theme! And he has lots of new tricks! Holy crap, what a boss fight! The music in this game is actually pretty damned good, too! I think its boss theme might be my favorite in the series so far. Controversial claim, but I love it. In the end... this game was worth the less than a buck I paid for it. Playing it as Zero makes everything a bloody joke, because the Z-Saber just tears through bosses like it ain't no business. Also all of his weapons give you lots of utility, like an air spin slash or a down stab. Though it would be nice if they had a weapon get screen showing how these weapons worked, instead of Alia explaining how getting a special weapon works in a goddamned Mega Man game. I really don't know. It's fun now, but it has a pretty shitty first impression.Of course, this is also the calm before the storm for me. I wonder how this Mega Man X6 video game is...
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