Mega Man X7

Written by John Scalzo  on December 01, 2003

Full Review: This year the Bronx Bombers blew the World Series and the Blue Bomber's new game blows. Coincidence? I think not.

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The Mega Man series has been a staple of the video game world for years, right up there with Mario, Sonic and any other mascot. The story of it's success is almost mythic in gaming circles: An innovative and great game is doomed by terrible box art. Undaunted by this failure, Capcom develops one of the best games ever made in Mega Man II and the public takes notice. The rest, as they say, is history (and a pretty big clichщ).

The X series was launched in the early days of the Super NES and aside from the first one I've never played much of it. But even in this far-flung future of the Mega Man universe the games still play very similar to all of the ones that came before it. First there's the introduction stage. It's about here where Capcom slips that slight bit of story that frames every Mega Man game. Next, you're thrown into the real game where you must choose the order in which to take on eight bosses. You defeat each boss, steal their weapons, and then use them against the other bosses. Finally, you make the trek through the final castle before taking on Sigma (or Dr. Wily for you fans of the original NES series).

As much as things stay the same, Capcom thought it was time to change a few things. And the biggest change of all is that Mega Man has grown tired of the constant fighting and has retired to a desk position at the Maverick Hunters. This has helped a group known as the Red Alert Syndicate to be able to pick up the slack and dispense their own brand of Vigilante Justice (Vigilante Justice is a copyright of Wayne Enterprises). Axl, a disgruntled member of Red Alert, goes to the Maverick Hunters and offers his services to the Hunters to help stop these vigilantes. So with Mega Man a glorified secretary, Zero and the new recruit Axl go to work.

To help Zero and Axl tackle this new quest, Capcom has implemented a tag team system that allows them to come in and out of the action at will. This tag team method does give the series a new feeling as there are many sections that are better suited for one reploid over the other, but the game is so weighted towards Axl that you'll be using him for at least three-fourths of the game. There's no balance to this game at all. Zero is needed for his double jump ability from time to time, but in boss fights he's useless. Axl's gun is also a much more effective weapon against standard enemies, so he's needed for the parts before the bosses as well.

The final new piece that Capcom added was the inclusion of hostages that needed to be rescued in each stage. After they're rescued hostages will give you Ability Chips that can be used to upgrade your team. More importantly, after you save 64 hostages Mega Man chucks his desk job and joins the fight. And in a cool twist, if a hostage was killed they couldn't be rescued again unless you restarted the level completely. It really shows the importance of the hostages when you only get one chance and if you fail it's back to the start of the level. Very old school.

Unfortunately the imbalance of the game strikes again as you are almost required to give all your Ability Chips to Axl if you want to survive some of the tougher battles. And Mega Man is unlocked so late in the game that he is much too weak to be of any real help. Playing with Mega Man just feels right in a Mega Man game. Why he wasn't playable from the start is something I'll never understand. I realize Capcom probably wanted to push Axl, but no one can top the Blue Bomber.

While the new sidekick role of Mega Man is a big change to the series, the biggest change is that Mega Man X7 is no longer just a side scroller. Depending on the level, the action will take place in three different views. There are 2D side scrolling sections that any Mega Man player is familiar with. There is also 2 1/2D sections that are similar to side scrolling but place the action in a 3D perspective. And then there's full 3D sections that feel a lot like Mega Man Legends.

With all these changes then it's a shame that the game is essentially broken in it's 3D form. The 3D sections, which are the majority of the game, sink it. There's often really nasty slowdown in the 3D sections that make the game hard to play. It's especially bad in the boss fight with Ride Boarski. The game literally crawls. Couple that with a mesh background and it's hard to tell exactly what's going on in that fight. Even without the slowdown, the game feels sluggish period, especially in the 3D sections. Your characters move like they have lead feet (spare me the "they're robots and they do have lead feet" argument). And Capcom's decision to include a lock on function to help with aiming is a nice idea but unless you're standing still you can bet that target will jump form enemy to enemy making you a sitting duck.

The camera angles don't help much with this either. At best they're a little awkward. At worst they're so brutal the game is nearly unplayable. They zoom in too tight so you can barely see around your character. They park at fixed angles that will either face your character and obscure the action or completely push enemies and platforms off screen that you need to be able to see. This is all a shame because the 2D and 2 1/2D sections play pretty well. Some of the 2D level design is a little uninspired, more of the same old same old, but at least it's playable. Unlike the non--sensical 3D maze design that is the Cyber Field.

Capcom had one last trick up their sleeve and even threw in a couple vehicle levels just for the hell of it. In the Tunnel Base you're able to command mechs with unlimited firepower and it's a lot of fun. Too much fun for such a short section. This is contrasted with the Central Circuit level which has you piloting a speederbike that is the slowest speederbike in existence. You could get out and run faster. And even if you could go faster you have to go slow to catch all of the bombs that are the point of the level.

The gameplay may be brutal, but if you're willing to put up with the game is very pretty to look at. The characters (and some of the environments) are cel shaded and combined with the polygon design of the rest of the game gives it a very 2D platform look in a 3D world. It definitely gives off the interactive cartoon vibe that most cel shaded games strive for. While it won't blow away the competition with a resounding wow, Mega Man fans should more than enjoy how one of their old favorites now looks in 3D.

While the graphics are pretty, the dialogue is brutal. The "story" is dragged out over way too much dialogue both between levels and before boss fights. Between levels, still panels and text of the inane variety move the game along. But the boss conversations feature full audio and it sounds even worse than it reads. At least with the Japanese language option you can't understand the inane dialogue, it even sounds a little better, not much though. The dialogue is terrible, it's that simple. This is a case where the old ways were better. In the first Mega Man X game there was a boss named Launch Octopus. Before the fight he pointed at you with one of his tentacles and made a motion as if to say "you're going down." There were no words, it was just bad ass. This is just bad.