10 Worst Games I Own - #9 Megaman X5

Number nine on the list of the 10 worst games that I own is Megaman X5. It’s a game with good prequels, but it fails to live up to their legacy.

Megaman has had it rough over the years. His first few games were very well done, and were quite popular. Sensing a Huge Sack of  Money, Capcom made sequel after sequel, spinoff after spinoff, and eventually they strayed from the roots of what made Megaman good in the first place.

The Megaman X series is the first of the spinoff series. Megaman X revolutionized the Blue Bomber by giving him the ability to climb walls just by jumping on them, it gave Megaman a dash that allowed him to move quickly, and it introduced upgradeable armor that gave Megaman increased power.

X2 and X3 added incremental enhancements, with better dashing and mobility, and the ability to play as Zero, another Character who uses a beam sword. They also were well written and had a minimum of story sequences during levels, and set the action level to MAX.

X4 was the first one on the Playstation (not counting a mediocre Playstation port of X3). It offered the new ability to play as Zero through the entire game instead of just for a brief segment during a level. This was exciting, and made for a good game.

So where does X5 go wrong? First of all, it’s the terrible writing of  the script. Throughout the rest of the series, there has been almost no dialogue between characters, and this helped to make the games more action oriented, even if it did make the characters one dimensional. There was just enough writing to advance the story.

X5 has more dialogue, but it’s not necessarily a good thing. It falls into the area where there’s enough writing to know that the characters are supposed to be deep and dynamic, but there’s not  enough to make them that way. For example, when you get to the bosses they all will have a brief conversation with you, but it’s kind of lousy.

Next, there’s the armor situation. when you start the game you can choose X or Zero. This is misleading because you can switch between them before any level. However, if you choose X at the beginning you start with the super powerful Fourth Armor, which is the final armor available in X4. If you choose Zero, you don’t get this, but you get a little blaster instead.

In the levels you can find pieces of armor, making up two suits of armor for X (sorry Zero, nothing for you). One allows you to fly and become invincible, and the other makes you immune to spikes. In short, there’s just too much going on.

The story is retarded. There’s a space colony called Eurasia. Oh noes! Now it’s crashing into earth so you have to get parts to build the “Enigma” cannon to destroy it first! If you succeed, then it turns  out that the colony was full of the Sigma virus, a computer virus that makes robots go crazy, and it is now covering the earth so you need to go and kill the end boss to make it right.

 

There’s also a “time limit” system on the levels. You have 16 “hours” to stop the space colony from falling. Each level attempt takes 1 “hour”. If you fail, then… you don’t get a bonus item.

There’s also a ranking system where you don’t get certain items unless you fight certain bosses at certain times. I don’t understand it, but it makes the game harder.

All in all, this game is a poor addition to the X series, and it’s not a good game. I’m just glad I don’t own Megaman X6.