Mega Man X8

Written by John Scalzo  on October 07, 2004

Hands-On Preview: When X8 ships it will be the eighth Mega Man game released this year. Think about that.

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Mega Man X8 was announced at E3 this year and in the five months since that announcement, Capcom has kept pretty quiet about the game. When you think about it, this is a pretty understandable move after they crowed long and loud about X7 and that game was a disaster. But you can't stay silent forever and as the game's late November release gets nearer, Capcom decided to package a demo level of X8 with the recently released Mega Man X: Command Mission.

The demo is accessible by finding the "X8 Trial Key" early in chapter two of Mega Man X: Command Mission. It's actually on the level's main path, so it's impossible to miss it. After you find the key the X8 demo is selectable from the title screen every time you start the game.

The demo is a single level and starts off with a little dialogue between X and Axl, all in Japanese. From there you fight through some standard Mega Man enemies in a jungle setting and work your way to a giant crab boss. You fight the crab boss and then X leaves to bring a sample of it back to base. From there Axl continues through more jungle until he's locked in a room that continuously swarms with robotic bats. After wiping out enough of them the door opens and Zero joins the team, which then jumps right into round two with the crab robot, this time in front of a waterfall.

After dispatching the crab robot, Axl leaves to take another sample of it back to base and Zero enters a building. Once again a door locks behind him as he must fight back a continuous swarm of robotic bees until the door opens. After the bees, X returns, and the two of them fight through the rest of the building. This includes wall jumping up a wall as it closes in on your character from both sides and a final fight against the crab boss. Once the crab boss is scrap the demo ends and it's back to the title screen.

All of this sounds like a very straightforward Mega Man level of old, with the tag team option of X7 mixed in. The best part is that it is exactly like a straightforward Mega Man level of old because the entire demo level was 2D. The pseudo-3D levels from X7 are a thing of the past, which is perfect because the side scrolling in X8 feels like the Mega Man we know and love. But it may not be all side-scrolling. Word out of the Tokyo Game Show points to X8 featuring several vehicle levels, but obviously those weren't playable in this demo.

Also out is the auto-aim feature that was first employed in X7. Once again players will be expected to line up their shots by jumping or in the case of Axl, aiming the gun themselves as Axl still can't move and shoot at the same time. This caused a few hairy moments in the demo as the control still feels a little jerky at times, especially with Axl. His hover powers and moving X as he's charging his X-Buster don't feel as smooth as the rest of the control, which is spot on for a side-scroller.

Other changes abound as now the tag team option includes a Tag Attack that makes both characters move super fast in a bubble of green code (What is The Matrix?) as they blast everything on screen. From the demo it's actually a little hard to tell when this Tag Attack will actually work and when the gauge just looks full but really isn't. And after you press that Tag Attack button, forget it, the gauge drains whether it's full or not.

One of the major problems of demos that are usually fixed by the time the real game comes out is slowdown and X8 does have a little. During the second fight with the crab the game will slow down if too much is happening on screen, but otherwise it was silky smooth so I'm confident Capcom will fix it. Hit detection was also a little off as it seemed both sides had trouble connecting with their targets. Some enemy blasts would go right through your character and when Axl would shoot while hovering, the bullets look like they connect but they don't. That's probably more a graphical glitch than a hit detection problem, but it felt off regardless.

One final little quirk of the demo was that you are only given one life through the whole thing. If you die it's back to the beginning. Most likely this is just a "feature" of the demo, like having the Start button only pause the game instead of bringing up the weapon menu like the final game obviously will. But if the final game uses this then there will be a lot of angry Mega Man fans because it will make the game ridiculously hard. But there will also be people who won't get enough of this new challenge because X8 is hard. Pattern platforming like it used to be and truthfully I'd be happy with it either way.

While the rest of X8 has returned to it's 2D roots, the graphics of the demo prove this is a 21st century game. The cel-shaded look of X7 returns for the main characters and they still look fantastic. Their size has also been shrunk down a little so you can get a sense of scale of just how large and fearsome that crab boss is. The backgrounds have a lot of detail and blend well with the rest of the Mega Man series. It might sound stupid, but the graphics "pop" and the brightness of the world makes them feel like they're going to jump out of your TV. If the rest of the worlds can match up then this will be a beautiful job by Capcom.

But what can you really say about the music? X8 features in-game music that is very Mega Man sounding and I liked the new rock-styled theme very much. But the voices are still Japanese and will obviously be switched out for the U.S. release. So we really won't know anything about that until the game ships.