Note wrote: ↑Fri Jan 02, 2026 12:47 am
I'm planning to play both the Dungeons & Dragons Collection and Mega Man X. However, I plan to start with Dungeons & Dragons and am going to play the Saturn port, which I picked up more recently.
Just curious, what classes do you all prefer to play as in these D&D beat 'em ups? Thinking I'll go with either the Fighter or Dwarf for Tower of Doom this time around.
Oh, nice! I first played them both through the Saturn ports, and aside from the load times, it was a great time. I think I went Cleric in Tower of Doom (although I also like the elf), but Shadow Over Mystara I'm all about Thief. I was planning on starting on these after MMX, but this time I'll be playing the Chronicles of Mystara collection, which I toyed around with a little last year. It seems like a fairly different kind of experience compared to the regular arcade ports of the Saturn versions.
I kind of lost steam on playing more MMX after going through a few stages. I don't want to give the wrong impression; I do still quite like X, but I'm pretty sure I don't like it anywhere near as much as the original MM games, and there are a few stages (in particular Kuwanger, Eagleed, Octopuld) that I just really very much do not enjoy playing, and tend to feel like avoiding.
Anyway, I continued on to Chameleao's stage and picked up the body upgrade. Chameleao ain't shit, so I took it out with the buster. Very easy, just took a little bit of time. Went after Armor Armage after that, and picked up the energy reserve, but missed the heart tank. Armage also handed me my first death, but is still a little punk, so I was able to beat him with primarily the buster, but a little bit of weapon use as well. Still a very simple pattern, but I was just getting a little impatient with it.
After that, I thought I'd try out Mandriller, but that thing just does too much damage, and avoiding falling into it after doing the wall punch feels really tight on timing. Barely even see the wind-up most of the time. So after a few attempts at him, I just decided to course correct to Burnin' Noumander. Easy stage. Picked up the heart tank. Couldn't quite remember if I needed anything to get the energy reserve, but didn't feel like spending time on it. Noumander also ain't shit. Beat it with the buster. From there, I just decided to deal with Kuwanger. I hate the stage, but it's whatever. For some reason I remember Kuwanger being an immense PITA, but even that thing wasn't shit. I was low on health entering the boss room, and he got me on the first attempt when we were both on one bar because I missed my last shot, and he actually shot a boomerang into the top left corner on me when I was going into evasion mode. Anyway, I bustered Kuwanger into a fine dust on the next attempt.
I went back into Kuwanger's stage to grab the heart tank (which I remember in middle school actually spending probably 20 minutes just trying to get to with dash jump; I feel like I actually managed to get it that way, but can't recall for certain now). Last, I went into Octopuld's stage and picked up the heart tank. I was on 0 stock when I went into the boss room ('cause of spike pits--) and remembered that Kuwangering him removes his tentacles, but that just seemed to make things harder, and his missiles got me in the end. After that, I just felt a little tired of playing, so I'll finish it up tomorrow or the next day, probably.
I don't notice the music much when playing on the Steamdeck, but also, I don't think I ever really cared much about the MMX soundtrack to begin with. Otherwise, I do think a fair amount of the pixel art, particularly for something like the background over the ocean in Octopuld's stage, is very nice to look at. It was also a fairly unique idea to have stages' terrains affected by clearing other stages, and while maybe not all that useful, some of the unique effects of weapons on particular bosses (boomerangs on Octopuld and Noumander; ice shot on Mandriller) are kind of cool.
