I have never really played Mega Man X8, because I gave up on the X series after the disgrace that was X6. As far as I’m concerned, Mega Man X5 segued directly into Mega Man Zero and those other X games never happened. I don’t care that X8 is supposedly pretty good! Life is too short to waste on crummy games just to get a little more detail about some overwrought storyline I don’t actually even care about, you know?
Fortunately, Mrs. Oxford is around to cover my slack. She’s willing to suffer through awful Mega Man games in the name of fairness, justice, and self-flagellation. God bless you, Nadia. You’re a braver man than I. And you’re not even a man! I don’t even know what I’m even saying.
She gave this game a lot more margin for error than I did. I hated Mega Man X8, just absolutely despised it. Every stage was either nicked from superior games or was an amazingly stupid idea that had no place in a side-scrolling platformer. Stealth action, in Mega Man? REALLY? Ugh.
Well, to play the game, you just have to forget it’s supposed to have a storyline and plot twists, but it’s all silly and contrived. Just play the game as you played on the NES: you knew what would happen, and you just went stage after stage blowing S**T up.
My only complaint is that X is a useless slob. He becomes remotely useful only when you pick up his armor, but then you’ll probably have a damage dealing zero and axel w/ infinite sunlight beam
A point of correction, Mega man X8 came out in 2004, not 2007.
This is an excellent synopsis of the game. The platforming bits were greatly improved from X7, but that shooter stage? Absolutely awful.
I disagree with a lot of this, but not in a way that I can argue against effectively. Like, I can’t say that the flying level isn’t bullshit. But once you get the hang of it, you can get through it really fast, under 30 seconds even. That still isn’t much help unless you like the game enough to play that level multiple times, though.
Mostly there’s just a ton of little things about the game that are really cool. I mean, Zero gets a Hurricane Kick! And the teleporter stage at the end where you fight all the bosses again kind of makes sense for once. And they made Axl play differently from X, and in doing so kinda made him play like Bass.
etc. etc.
X8 went a long way toward making up for X5, in my opinion. X5 had great Maverick designs and a wonderful soundtrack, but I HATED absolutely everything else they added to the game. X8 by contrast was full of genuinely good ideas, and one lousy vehicle stage (I liked Yeti’s) is a negligible offense in comparison.
So yeah, I’ll take a continuation to X8 anyday, and go on pretending X5-7 don’t exist.
“Stealth action, in Mega Man? REALLY? Ugh.”
At the very least, I found it more enjoyable than stealth action in Metroid: Zero Mission or The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, where it felt forced and changed the entire dynamic of the game for that period.
At least in X8, if you’re caught, you don’t get mercilessly reamed or sent back to the start; you fight your way out like any badass Maverick Hunter would.
And that’s quite fine by me.
Yeah, I never finished the goddamn flying stage. It’s the only numbered X game I haven’t finished — I guess 6 and 7 had just worn down all my patience by then.
I agree with the female Maverick hunters, but only if Capcom doesn’t try to give the female robots boobs, and also only if they promise to kill Axle.