izigame.me

A little backstory before the review. A few years back when SAGE rolled around, I found this game called Mega Man X - Training Missions. It was a super simplistic albeit really fun tech demo for a 3d Mega Man X game. Fast forward a few years and I just finished beating X7. After craving a 3d MMX game that's actually good, that tech demo suddenly popped into my mind, and after a quick playthrough I went back to the Gamejolt page to see if the guy who made it had a social media. A few clicks later and I find out that game I thought got abandoned was being turned into its own IP and was releasing in two months. I honestly couldn't believe my eyes when I found out about this game, I was psyched to finally be able to play a fully realized version of that game. The main question however, how well does it hold up?
Before I start with the rest of the review, I feel the need to mention a few gripes I have with the game. First of which, and something mentioned in pretty much every negative review, is the complete lack of a settings menu. Hell even the original Mega Man X had a settings menu. I've heard of people wanting to be able to turn the graphics options down so the game runs better, for me personally however its because of the way the game controls. The button mapping feels a bit obtuse, especially for any long time Mega Man X fan. (Using an Xbox controller for reference) Shoot is on RT, the Saber is on B, and the dash is on both LT and X. Then there's the camera sensitivity. A word of advice for anybody who plans on playing this game with a mouse and keyboard. GET YOURSELF A MOUSE WITH A SENSITIVITY ADJUSTMENT BUTTON. Seriously, the default camera sensitivity is absurdly fast and honestly kinda unwieldy.
Now, onto the main game itself. Aside from the aforementioned issues from earlier, the game controls absolutely wonderful. Your default walking speed feels just fast enough, jumping and turning is tight and responsive, there's a little circle below you when you jump so you can properly gauge where you're going to land, dashing and dash jumping feels great, the game in general just feels great to play. The game's keyboard mapping also makes perfect sense and is honestly my preferred control scheme. What can I say? It just controls damn good.
Now what's a game with good controls without levels that feel equally fun to play? Not this game, I'll tell you that. At no point did this game ever make me say to myself "That's bullshit!". Every level feels fair, and when I screw up, it feels like it's on me and not some outside factor I couldn't control. The levels make good use of the dash. There are so many moments where you can easily make it across if you play carefully, but can cross it quicker with a series of well timed dash jumps. It makes for this risk reward gameplay system where it feels good to fly through a section that would normally take longer with the safer option. The levels also look pretty good too, the game just looks good in general. The soundtrack is also top tier and complements each level well. If you're into the more metal sounding tracks of the X series, then this score is sure to please you. You all know I'm gonna be downloading the OST if it ever releases.
As for the combat, you have two main means of attacking enemies. The first being your buster. Like how it does in the X games, you can either pelt enemies with small energy blasts or charge it to deal more damage. Unlike the X games however, your charge shots take energy. I'd say it's justifiable however considering that a full charge shot will one shot pretty much any normal enemy and will destroy other enemies within a certain radius. One thing that does slightly disappoint me however was the lack of a manual aiming mode. Back when MMXTM came out it had this nifty alternate aiming mode where you could manually aim your shots instead of using the lock on. I'd say the shooting feels fine without it however so it's not too much of a loss. How do you get this buster energy though? With your Saber. The saber does two things, recharge energy and massive damage. The saber has some pretty respectable range on it too, it feels like just the right length. Of course you have your three hit combo along with some aerial attacks as well. Your saber swings are quick and hit hard, and it's really satisfying to slash away at enemies.
When it comes to actually applying all this to actual combat scenarios, the game handles it very well. Unlike X7, this game incentivizes combat in two ways. For one, enemies actively pursue you. No more slow, easily avoidable, easy to damage boost through enemies. Fight like your life depends on it, because it does. They also drop currency upon defeat which you're able to spend in the shop for upgrades. Though I must say, the amount of upgrades pretty underwhelming. You have three permanent stat boosts and three consumables. I racked up thousands of these coins by the end of the game and didn't have anything to spend them on. I really wish there were more upgrades you could buy in the shop. One place where the combat falls short however is with the boss weapons. They're all a bit underwhelming to actually use, I don't think I used any of them much outside of the triple lock-on attack.
Speaking of upgrades, a big fun factor of Mega Man X was the feeling of getting stronger by incentivizing exploration to find upgrades. I'm glad to say this game translates that concept great. There's so many ways to get stronger in this game. There are pink portals in every level that send you to a platforming challenge that will grant you a health or energy up upon completion, there are special areas that lead to this game's light capsule equivalents that will grant you a new ability like air dashing or a stronger charge shot, there's alternate routes where you can learn new saber techniques which are really fun to use. Overall just great stuff all around. There are also these purple cores around each level, some of them are in plain sight while some of them require you to move the camera around to find them. They don't make you stronger, but they do unlock special outfits based on Mega Man X characters.
Now for the story (spoiler warning, skip this section if you haven't played). I think this game's story was a bit weak. The characters/character designs are all fine themselves and I can appreciate the cultural diversity represented here, the voice acting also isn't bad either, but I feel the story, especially the ending, fell a bit flat. At the beginning it feels like there's gonna be some sort of climactic build up where Delta has to fight Ann after she got stronger, but it just never happens. It doesn't help how the final boss itself was easily cheesed with energy tank spam, afterwards when Ann was about to kill V, Delta stops her and V gets away. And then afterwards the droid that we were just introduced to was turned good and we're suddenly expected to care about them after the entire game with no sort of build up.
Speaking of the late game, I do have a few more nitpicks. The game doesn't have any additional save files, so if you wanted to start a new run then you'd have to delete all your save data. There's also no way to replay the intro stage either, which is a bit of a bummer. One last gripe I have has to do with the tribute armors. Back on the game's kickstarter it was promised there would be tribute armors offering some different ways to play the game giving certain stat boosts and such. As far as I'm aware, there's no such thing that exists in the game. Some alternate playstyles would absolutely increase the game's replay value, and it sucks that its seemingly absent from the game.
In conclusion, while this game does have a few flaws, it also has a disproportionate amount of upsides. If you're a Mega Man fan, I'd highly recommend checking this game out. And even if you're not a Mega Man fan, I'd say this game is still worth your time. 8/10