I'd love to give those games a shot. Capcom has been slowly giving each spin-off series its own collection, and with Battle Network getting one, hopefully it's just a matter of time for Starforce!
As a long time fan of the original Mega Man series, I feel the most comfortable playing X1 and X3 (specifically X3) as the stage design is much simplistic than X2's, where X2 has a few awful trial and error sections such as the volcano chasm in Flame Stag and the closing walls of X-Hunters stage 1. I see why people may give X3 a ton of flak for it's "uninteresting design" and generally strange collectables, but I'll have to disagree with them as they're extremely rewarding with high benefits if you can obtain the first "N" ride armor from Blast Horner and Tornado Fang, I also adore X3's ost as it is a large step up compared to X2 which chose flat and twingy samples for it's music.
I really don't think people give X2's special weapons the credit they deserve. I will agree that X1's are overall better, but I really think X2 has some good but underrated SWs [SWs = Special Weapons] here. Bubble Splash is a really good weapon in general and has a powerful charged version, Spin Wheel deals great damage to stationary targets, Speed Burner can also work in place of the buster and its charged version is extremely good for mobility. Likewise, Strike Chain and Crystal Hunter are good mobility/platforming options, and Charged Crystal Hunter slows time which allows the player to get their bearings in a pinch. It also helps a lot if you're trying to get Covert Ops on the LC. Silk Shot isn't really good though, but gets you an achievement in certain places as well as filling up your sub-tanks EXTREMELY QUICKLY. Magnet Mine can get enemies that are out of your reach (really helpful for the closing wall segments if you want to kill the enemy first). And Sonic Slicer (my favorite X2 SW) not only fires two slicers at once, but It's charged version is really powerful. Makes the second half of the Serges Tank Boss-fight trivial since he's weak to it (also has the same application as I said w/ magnet mine). Also, Crystal Hunter and Charged Speed Burner are REQUIRED to get X2's secret, the Shoryuken. Found in X-Hunter Stage 3, there will be a section with two ladders. Lure a bat from the previous area over there and use Crystal Hunter on it to access the wall to jump to the ladder. Up there, get past the section damage-less. At the end you need to air dash and use Charged Speed Burner to progress, which brings you to a fall. On the way down there's a fake wall (or hidden entrance, however you put it). Inside is the Shoryuken. IIRC it's the same input as in Street Fighter. I've been able to use a half-circle and the fire button to get it to work, and it shreds a boss's HP. Not a complete oneshot like the Hadouken was in X1, but very close to one. The Body Parts' Giga Crush also takes out Serges Tank's cannon in one go. In the end, I agree with X3's points, and not all of X2's. I'm probably going to get a whole lot of backlash for this, but I much prefer X2 over X1, and do call it the superior game even if it doesn't hold ALL that X1 did that made it great. Point is? I'm actually not a huge fan of X1 despite its pros. X3's still bad though. The enemies deleting your HP? Bit and Byte being unavoidable, among other problems? Yeah, I don't see myself revisiting X3 very much.
I don't think it's unreasonable to like X2 more than X1! Both have a lot of good things going for them, your preference will just come down to what levels/special weapons click with the player the most.
I can agree with some of the things you have said in regards to the X series thus far, but I fear that you are missing out since you haven't mentioned anything about the ROMhacks available for these games. For X1 I really like the ROMhack where you are given the Dash from the start, because it makes Central Highway go faster, and you also can do the boss order in any way you feel like, as you no longer have to make a mandatory visit to Chill Penguin's stage in order to get the leg parts, as that upgrade is basically essential in order to avoid most bosses attack, and be even able to survive Storm Eagle's pushing to the edge of the aircraft, and if you do get the Leg parts in Chill Penguin's stage you actually get the air dash instead as well as the ability to break rocks with your legs, which actually surprised me how some segments in the stages actually feel like they were made with the air dash in mind as it just feels that natural. In X2 while there are some very cool ROMhacks, such as the one that lets you use the X4 Ultimate Armor, or even replace X with Zero and his X3 double charge shot and saber attack, I feel that there is still something missing on the X2 experience, and I think it might be because X-Kai was supposed to be the final bad in X2, but because of the short development time that the game had, the developers decided to skip out on adding in X-Kai which would have been the perfect final boss for that game instead of Sigma, because just think about it, the final enemy being an X that has the same capability if not even better than X himself, and the guy would have even been able to use the Spiral Crush buster charged shot from X1, making it a tough fight similar to how Link fought Dark Link in Zelda II for the NES, and it would have made a closer connection to Wily with Serges, as Wily himself also tried copying classic Mega Man several times, in order to make an even stronger duplicate, and it would have also made the background screens in Magna Centipede's stage make even more sense, as the screens showed that somebody had been trying to analyze X, to try and understand what made X so strong by the end of Mega Man X1, but alas Capcom with its impossible crunch times made X2 come out as a rushed out game, and I guess I'm a little bit thankful that at least X Dive had added X-Kai to the roster of that game, since its a reminder of what could have been. With X3 as a lot of other people have mentioned in your comments section, the official release of X3 that Capcom produced is just a boring unfinished mess, and its only through the Zero Project ROMhack that the game is even worth playing, because that hack alone made X3 change from being the most disliked X game of my SNES collection, to my favorite game of the collection, because the changes are as follows: -They made Zero completely playable from start to finish, as you can even select him from the Title Screen, and all the enemies and stuff actually have different dialogues with Zero, but I still always start the game with X because I refuse to think that Zero would be so gullible as to get captured by Mac. -They changed the game to make it so that X and Zero can both get the collectibles, and as for things such as the heart tanks and stuff it makes it so that both X and Zero share the benefits of having their health increase by the heart containers. -You can now collect the Ride Armors in any order, as you no longer need to get the Chimera Armor in Blast Hornet's stage to use any of the other 3 armors. -Some power ups can be gotten even earlier, because for example one thing that always annoyed me for the longest time, was how in the original X3 when you went to Tunnel Rhino's stage there are some power ups that are locked behind some boulders that are tied up to the ceiling with ropes, but you couldn't just cut down the ropes with like the Spinning Blades which were a cutting attack or the Tornado Fang which was a freaking Drill that could destroy rocks, or even with Zero's saber itself which was a freaking light saber that could cut through pretty much anything, and you had to resort to using the Charged Triad Thunder, which just made X punch the ground hard and push some giant balls of energy across the walls and ceiling, but with the ROMhack you can just do any of the previously mentioned, which means that you can choose Tunnel Rhino as the first boss to fight, and with Zero's charged saber attack you can just collect all the power ups and not have to revisit the stage again. -You are given the option to either collect the special chips from the Dr. Light pink capsules, and combine all 4 in order to get the Golden Armor, or just do the secret of just waiting for the Sigma stage to do it the old way. -You no longer need to use a Password system, as there was a save/load menu created and once you beat the game you are actually allowed to create a new save with New Game+ where you keep all the previous upgrades, which means that you can have a fully upgraded X with Zero's saber as well as a Black Zero in the same save file. And because of the changes I mentioned above is why the Zero Project makes X3 the definite way to play that game, and at least for me it just fixes everything I thought had been wrong with that game, and it gives me a more enjoyable time than X1 and X2. To finish my thoughts, I just wish that there was a way to add in all the ROMhacks available to the X games, into the X Legacy collections available across all platforms, because after playing those versions especially the X5 Addendum and X6 fixes, they are the definite way to play those games, and its a little bit of a hassle to have to go out your way and setup emulators just to play the better versions of these games, when if you had patched the ROMS with the hacks, it would have made a lot of sense to me, that you would have been able to play it on the Legacy Collections, but I guess it doesn't work that way since the games in the collections were actually edited, to have that Rookie Hunter mode and a couple of things, where even though I do not think its an actual port like they did for the X Legacy collection for PS2/Gamecube, where you know they had actually ported the games since the SNES games didn't slow down or had the same bugs as they did on the SNES, they did something weird to the ROMS or emulators used for the latest Legacy collections.
Thank you, this is a fantastic write up! I didn't cover the ROMhacks for this video as I'm focused more on reviewing the game as they are/were. I appreciate you giving a thorough breakdown of the various hacks avaliable.
X1 is BASED & CORRECT. X2 is Lacking What Made X1 BASED & CORRECT. X3..... is Only a Good Game With The Zero Patch. Without it, X3 Just Plain Sucks & There's Just No Pulling Yourself Out of it, without the Zero Patch, of course.
Me: *has thousands of health potions and legendary items* Npc: help they're going to die we just need one health potion! Me: But,... what if I need it later. Npc: What?! Me: *dips*
I have a hard time deciding which has the better/worse soundtrack. X2 I find consistently decent, whereas X3 has more songs I think are just boring and more I think are great; it's pushed further toward both edges of the spectrum and is more of a roller coaster in quality, whereas X2 would be a flat line that goes through the middle.
I have to agree that both sequels are weaker than X1. While X2 did have a interesting idea with Dr. Wily returning under the alias of Serges to bring Sigma back and try to bring back Zero into evil is a fascinating idea, X5 IMO did it far better. Another problem with losing Zero in X3 is that it also locks you into the bad ending. (at least the animations from the Saturn version are cool) I don't really mind Sigma returning, at least when his mind is kept in tact since he is the main villain of the series and they do tend to use that fact to great effect in X4 (a tragedy you know the true culprit is but can't stop) and X5. (everything to do with Wily and Zero)
I didn't even know X3 had a bad ending! And yeah, I joke about Sigma coming back, but it's not a huge deal, it just sometimes feels like it takes away from some of the other villains the game sets up, like Gate in X6.
![[TAS] SNES Mega Man X2 by Akiteru in 30:59.02](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d2Hrb7xbcH4/mqdefault.jpg)
Ah yes, X3. The game that's being sold for 500 bucks on eBay.
Good lord it does not deserve to be that much. The X Legacy Collection is a far better deal.
@@tomeofsilver right, i have the OG series and X Series on my ps4. Now i hope Mega Man Star Force will have it's time to shine.
I'd love to give those games a shot. Capcom has been slowly giving each spin-off series its own collection, and with Battle Network getting one, hopefully it's just a matter of time for Starforce!
@@tomeofsilver yeah i hope they do. And i also have the Zero/ZX Legacy collection also. Plus i got my wife hooked on your channel too.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that!
As a long time fan of the original Mega Man series, I feel the most comfortable playing X1 and X3 (specifically X3) as the stage design is much simplistic than X2's, where X2 has a few awful trial and error sections such as the volcano chasm in Flame Stag and the closing walls of X-Hunters stage 1.
I see why people may give X3 a ton of flak for it's "uninteresting design" and generally strange collectables, but I'll have to disagree with them as they're extremely rewarding with high benefits if you can obtain the first "N" ride armor from Blast Horner and Tornado Fang, I also adore X3's ost as it is a large step up compared to X2 which chose flat and twingy samples for it's music.
I really don't think people give X2's special weapons the credit they deserve. I will agree that X1's are overall better, but I really think X2 has some good but underrated SWs [SWs = Special Weapons] here. Bubble Splash is a really good weapon in general and has a powerful charged version, Spin Wheel deals great damage to stationary targets, Speed Burner can also work in place of the buster and its charged version is extremely good for mobility. Likewise, Strike Chain and Crystal Hunter are good mobility/platforming options, and Charged Crystal Hunter slows time which allows the player to get their bearings in a pinch. It also helps a lot if you're trying to get Covert Ops on the LC. Silk Shot isn't really good though, but gets you an achievement in certain places as well as filling up your sub-tanks EXTREMELY QUICKLY. Magnet Mine can get enemies that are out of your reach (really helpful for the closing wall segments if you want to kill the enemy first). And Sonic Slicer (my favorite X2 SW) not only fires two slicers at once, but It's charged version is really powerful. Makes the second half of the Serges Tank Boss-fight trivial since he's weak to it (also has the same application as I said w/ magnet mine). Also, Crystal Hunter and Charged Speed Burner are REQUIRED to get X2's secret, the Shoryuken. Found in X-Hunter Stage 3, there will be a section with two ladders. Lure a bat from the previous area over there and use Crystal Hunter on it to access the wall to jump to the ladder. Up there, get past the section damage-less. At the end you need to air dash and use Charged Speed Burner to progress, which brings you to a fall. On the way down there's a fake wall (or hidden entrance, however you put it). Inside is the Shoryuken. IIRC it's the same input as in Street Fighter. I've been able to use a half-circle and the fire button to get it to work, and it shreds a boss's HP. Not a complete oneshot like the Hadouken was in X1, but very close to one. The Body Parts' Giga Crush also takes out Serges Tank's cannon in one go.
In the end, I agree with X3's points, and not all of X2's.
I'm probably going to get a whole lot of backlash for this, but I much prefer X2 over X1, and do call it the superior game even if it doesn't hold ALL that X1 did that made it great. Point is? I'm actually not a huge fan of X1 despite its pros.
X3's still bad though. The enemies deleting your HP? Bit and Byte being unavoidable, among other problems? Yeah, I don't see myself revisiting X3 very much.
I don't think it's unreasonable to like X2 more than X1! Both have a lot of good things going for them, your preference will just come down to what levels/special weapons click with the player the most.
I can agree with some of the things you have said in regards to the X series thus far, but I fear that you are missing out since you haven't mentioned anything about the ROMhacks available for these games.
For X1 I really like the ROMhack where you are given the Dash from the start, because it makes Central Highway go faster, and you also can do the boss order in any way you feel like, as you no longer have to make a mandatory visit to Chill Penguin's stage in order to get the leg parts, as that upgrade is basically essential in order to avoid most bosses attack, and be even able to survive Storm Eagle's pushing to the edge of the aircraft, and if you do get the Leg parts in Chill Penguin's stage you actually get the air dash instead as well as the ability to break rocks with your legs, which actually surprised me how some segments in the stages actually feel like they were made with the air dash in mind as it just feels that natural.
In X2 while there are some very cool ROMhacks, such as the one that lets you use the X4 Ultimate Armor, or even replace X with Zero and his X3 double charge shot and saber attack, I feel that there is still something missing on the X2 experience, and I think it might be because X-Kai was supposed to be the final bad in X2, but because of the short development time that the game had, the developers decided to skip out on adding in X-Kai which would have been the perfect final boss for that game instead of Sigma, because just think about it, the final enemy being an X that has the same capability if not even better than X himself, and the guy would have even been able to use the Spiral Crush buster charged shot from X1, making it a tough fight similar to how Link fought Dark Link in Zelda II for the NES, and it would have made a closer connection to Wily with Serges, as Wily himself also tried copying classic Mega Man several times, in order to make an even stronger duplicate, and it would have also made the background screens in Magna Centipede's stage make even more sense, as the screens showed that somebody had been trying to analyze X, to try and understand what made X so strong by the end of Mega Man X1, but alas Capcom with its impossible crunch times made X2 come out as a rushed out game, and I guess I'm a little bit thankful that at least X Dive had added X-Kai to the roster of that game, since its a reminder of what could have been.
With X3 as a lot of other people have mentioned in your comments section, the official release of X3 that Capcom produced is just a boring unfinished mess, and its only through the Zero Project ROMhack that the game is even worth playing, because that hack alone made X3 change from being the most disliked X game of my SNES collection, to my favorite game of the collection, because the changes are as follows:
-They made Zero completely playable from start to finish, as you can even select him from the Title Screen, and all the enemies and stuff actually have different dialogues with Zero, but I still always start the game with X because I refuse to think that Zero would be so gullible as to get captured by Mac.
-They changed the game to make it so that X and Zero can both get the collectibles, and as for things such as the heart tanks and stuff it makes it so that both X and Zero share the benefits of having their health increase by the heart containers.
-You can now collect the Ride Armors in any order, as you no longer need to get the Chimera Armor in Blast Hornet's stage to use any of the other 3 armors.
-Some power ups can be gotten even earlier, because for example one thing that always annoyed me for the longest time, was how in the original X3 when you went to Tunnel Rhino's stage there are some power ups that are locked behind some boulders that are tied up to the ceiling with ropes, but you couldn't just cut down the ropes with like the Spinning Blades which were a cutting attack or the Tornado Fang which was a freaking Drill that could destroy rocks, or even with Zero's saber itself which was a freaking light saber that could cut through pretty much anything, and you had to resort to using the Charged Triad Thunder, which just made X punch the ground hard and push some giant balls of energy across the walls and ceiling, but with the ROMhack you can just do any of the previously mentioned, which means that you can choose Tunnel Rhino as the first boss to fight, and with Zero's charged saber attack you can just collect all the power ups and not have to revisit the stage again.
-You are given the option to either collect the special chips from the Dr. Light pink capsules, and combine all 4 in order to get the Golden Armor, or just do the secret of just waiting for the Sigma stage to do it the old way.
-You no longer need to use a Password system, as there was a save/load menu created and once you beat the game you are actually allowed to create a new save with New Game+ where you keep all the previous upgrades, which means that you can have a fully upgraded X with Zero's saber as well as a Black Zero in the same save file.
And because of the changes I mentioned above is why the Zero Project makes X3 the definite way to play that game, and at least for me it just fixes everything I thought had been wrong with that game, and it gives me a more enjoyable time than X1 and X2.
To finish my thoughts, I just wish that there was a way to add in all the ROMhacks available to the X games, into the X Legacy collections available across all platforms, because after playing those versions especially the X5 Addendum and X6 fixes, they are the definite way to play those games, and its a little bit of a hassle to have to go out your way and setup emulators just to play the better versions of these games, when if you had patched the ROMS with the hacks, it would have made a lot of sense to me, that you would have been able to play it on the Legacy Collections, but I guess it doesn't work that way since the games in the collections were actually edited, to have that Rookie Hunter mode and a couple of things, where even though I do not think its an actual port like they did for the X Legacy collection for PS2/Gamecube, where you know they had actually ported the games since the SNES games didn't slow down or had the same bugs as they did on the SNES, they did something weird to the ROMS or emulators used for the latest Legacy collections.
Thank you, this is a fantastic write up! I didn't cover the ROMhacks for this video as I'm focused more on reviewing the game as they are/were. I appreciate you giving a thorough breakdown of the various hacks avaliable.
X1 is BASED & CORRECT.
X2 is Lacking What Made X1 BASED & CORRECT.
X3..... is Only a Good Game With The Zero Patch. Without it, X3 Just Plain Sucks & There's Just No Pulling Yourself Out of it, without the Zero Patch, of course.
Me: *has thousands of health potions and legendary items*
Npc: help they're going to die we just need one health potion!
Me: But,... what if I need it later.
Npc: What?!
Me: *dips*
"But what if I need a Zero later??"
I have a hard time deciding which has the better/worse soundtrack. X2 I find consistently decent, whereas X3 has more songs I think are just boring and more I think are great; it's pushed further toward both edges of the spectrum and is more of a roller coaster in quality, whereas X2 would be a flat line that goes through the middle.
You're Aware of The Zero Patch, right??? Makes X3 almost actually worth playing.
No, I've never heard of that patch before. Does it just let Zero be playable throughout the whole stage and get rid of that one life restriction?
@@tomeofsilver Yeah. All that and more, m8.
Sounds worth checking out. Thanks for letting me know!
I have to agree that both sequels are weaker than X1. While X2 did have a interesting idea with Dr. Wily returning under the alias of Serges to bring Sigma back and try to bring back Zero into evil is a fascinating idea, X5 IMO did it far better. Another problem with losing Zero in X3 is that it also locks you into the bad ending. (at least the animations from the Saturn version are cool) I don't really mind Sigma returning, at least when his mind is kept in tact since he is the main villain of the series and they do tend to use that fact to great effect in X4 (a tragedy you know the true culprit is but can't stop) and X5. (everything to do with Wily and Zero)
I didn't even know X3 had a bad ending! And yeah, I joke about Sigma coming back, but it's not a huge deal, it just sometimes feels like it takes away from some of the other villains the game sets up, like Gate in X6.
Cool
that last boss fight from x3 looks awful and incredibly frustrating 😢
I'm sure there are plenty of people that love it for the challenge but that small hit box drove me to insanity haha