Together Retro: Mega Man X

[alienjesus]

OK, I'm at the point when I can go take on Sigma now. I feel like I've missed quite a lot of upgrades. I'm definitely missing 2 energy tanks, the helmet and the buster upgrade, and I also only found 2 heart upgrades. No idea how many of those there are.

Do I carry on, or do I replay levels to find the stuff I missed?

[ZeroAX]

That said I kind of like X5 as it was originally intended to be the finale of the series and in my head-canon it still is.

I call it off past X4 as anything "official", considering Inafune wasn't involved with X5 or X6. He was the soul of the series IMO. (Although Inafune did return to produce the entire Zero series and the ZX series and you can tell.)

um...he WAS involved with X5.

[MrPopo]

Every level has a heart tank. At this point the helmet upgrade is pretty unnecessary for you. As for Sub Tanks, that's more about whether you feel like you have enough to get through a boss. Unlike the Classic Mega Man games you always have an opportunity after each Sigma stage to replay any of the Maverick stages to stock up on energy, so you don't need to have enough to do the full marathon.

[alienjesus]

Every level has a heart tank. At this point the helmet upgrade is pretty unnecessary for you. As for Sub Tanks, that's more about whether you feel like you have enough to get through a boss. Unlike the Classic Mega Man games you always have an opportunity after each Sigma stage to replay any of the Maverick stages to stock up on energy, so you don't need to have enough to do the full marathon.

The buster upgrade sounds like it'd be handy though?

Also, I'm so glad I played this on Wii U. Remapping dash to the ZR trigger makes the game so much more comfortable to play.

[MrPopo]

Buster upgrade you get for free in the Sigma stages if you don't have it already. It gives you an extra level of charge (which does a bit more damage and is HUGE) and lets you charge boss weapons (which is mostly useless but a few are quite nice).

[Gunstar Green]

That said I kind of like X5 as it was originally intended to be the finale of the series and in my head-canon it still is.

I call it off past X4 as anything "official", considering Inafune wasn't involved with X5 or X6. He was the soul of the series IMO. (Although Inafune did return to produce the entire Zero series and the ZX series and you can tell.)

He had little involvement which probably does account for some of the lack of polish but his input was still important. He's the one who instructed them to make it the final game of the X series. It's the last X game with his blessing, after that it was out of his hands entirely.

Mega Man Zero was conceptualized to follow X5 and some of that is still apparent in the final version though much had to be changed when X6 came out, and then Capcom kept releasing more X games, snarling the continuity even further.

Buster upgrade you get for free in the Sigma stages if you don't have it already. It gives you an extra level of charge (which does a bit more damage and is HUGE) and lets you charge boss weapons (which is mostly useless but a few are quite nice).

The Rolling Shield one is great, especially for filling up your Sub-Tanks before Sigma.

[MrPopo]

Buster upgrade you get for free in the Sigma stages if you don't have it already. It gives you an extra level of charge (which does a bit more damage and is HUGE) and lets you charge boss weapons (which is mostly useless but a few are quite nice).

The Rolling Shield one is great, especially for filling up your Sub-Tanks before Sigma.

Same with the Chameleon one; there's a few choice areas it makes a breeze. And the charged Shotgun Ice can be used for a trick or two in speedruns.

[Exhuminator]

um...he WAS involved with X5.

He was involved for all of about one sentence:

" As stated by producer Keiji Inafune, "I had very little to do with X5. I just told the team to 'finish off the series with this title,' and left it at that." (Mega Man X: Official Complete Works. Udon Entertainment. January 6, 2010. pp. 48–55. )

Inafune wasn't the designer (Toyozumi Sakai), he wasn't the director (Kōji Ōkohara), producer (Tatsuya Minami), or even executive producer (Yoshiki Okamoto). Just because Inafune said "make this the final game" doesn't amount to him having squat to do with X5's actual construction. Now if you have a source to cite otherwise, I'm all for reading it. Otherwise I consider your opinion badly informed and invalid.

[Flake]

He was involved for all of about one sentence:

" As stated by producer Keiji Inafune, "I had very little to do with X5. I just told the team to 'finish off the series with this title,' and left it at that." (Mega Man X: Official Complete Works. Udon Entertainment. January 6, 2010. pp. 48–55. )

Inafune wasn't the designer (Toyozumi Sakai), he wasn't the director (Kōji Ōkohara), producer (Tatsuya Minami), or even executive producer (Yoshiki Okamoto). Just because Inafune said "make this the final game" doesn't amount to him having squat to do with X5's actual construction. Now if you have a source to cite otherwise, I'm all for reading it. Otherwise I consider your opinion badly informed and invalid.

This. Just playing X5 for a couple of minutes and you can tell that he had next to nothing to do with it. There is so much frivolous nonsense like suits that you can't use until they are complete because the artists didn't want to have to create multiple sprite sets or the level system that punishes you unless you deliberately die about 12 times in order to artificially level up the bosses or the fact that the entire plot of the first half of the game has no bearing whatsoever on the success of the mission which is determined by random and can completely screw you if you invested your resources into the wrong character for the scenario it chooses for you.

Even the big climactic battle that they'd been building to since the end of X2 was a rushed affair that felt entirely unimportant.

[Gunstar Green]

He was involved for all of about one sentence:

" As stated by producer Keiji Inafune, "I had very little to do with X5. I just told the team to 'finish off the series with this title,' and left it at that." (Mega Man X: Official Complete Works. Udon Entertainment. January 6, 2010. pp. 48–55. )

Inafune wasn't the designer (Toyozumi Sakai), he wasn't the director (Kōji Ōkohara), producer (Tatsuya Minami), or even executive producer (Yoshiki Okamoto). Just because Inafune said "make this the final game" doesn't amount to him having squat to do with X5's actual construction. Now if you have a source to cite otherwise, I'm all for reading it. Otherwise I consider your opinion badly informed and invalid.

This. Just playing X5 for a couple of minutes and you can tell that he had next to nothing to do with it. There is so much frivolous nonsense like suits that you can't use until they are complete because the artists didn't want to have to create multiple sprite sets or the level system that punishes you unless you deliberately die about 12 times in order to artificially level up the bosses or the fact that the entire plot of the first half of the game has no bearing whatsoever on the success of the mission which is determined by random and can completely screw you if you invested your resources into the wrong character for the scenario it chooses for you.

Even the big climactic battle that they'd been building to since the end of X2 was a rushed affair that felt entirely unimportant.

And then X6. Oh god X6.

I was an apologetic for X5, I still sort of am but I recognize it's a flawed game. When X6 came out I remember thinking, "It can't be that bad."

It was so much worse than even my lowest expectations. It felt like an unfinished pirate knock-off of Mega Man X.

Amazing soundtrack though for what it's worth.