Hrmmmm...
The initial reviewers thoughts look promising and then at the end they offer anothers persons take on it:
Another Take
Wisdom tells me that 8-bit games played like 8-bit games because technology had not yet advanced to the point where they could play like anything else. This is why Predator on the NES was not Half-Life 2. This is why 8-bit games existed over a decade ago. Want to travel back in time to when things were all 8-bit and stuff?
While X8 is an improvement over X7 (in that it offers more stuff), it still boasts the same "retro is cool" design that appeals to pretentious hipsters who spend their nights cuddling Moon Patrol. This is a problem because the retro is cool design describes a repackaged 8-bit game, limitations and all. And I thought we were 15 years past that? Now that we've advanced beyond the confines of cartridges and use controllers with more than two buttons, it'd be reasonable to assume our beloved franchises would also advance. Now why won't someone tell Mega Man to get with the times?
X8 plods along trying to be retro -- trying to remind me of why I liked the series and my youth. It's trying not to change so that I don't casually disregard it as different and forget my A button, B button heritage. Unfortunately, the end result doesn't stir up some golden remembrance of why gaming was once so good, but instead reminds me plainly of why I never play my stupid NES anymore.
I don't care how many polygons are tossed onto the screen, the underlying gameplay of X8 is beyond old, it's dead. Mega Man should advance. Since it has not, I find myself wondering what makes this iteration any better than the 40 or 50 that have been released since the series' conception so long ago. The answer is absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing makes this game better than 40 or 50 other Mega Man titles, so why bother?
-- Ivan Sulic
Well, I guess my question to Mr Sulic would be "
HOW exactly do you want Mega Man to advance?"
The only thing worse than a complainer, is someone who doesn't offer a better alternative or solution. Sounds like to me he just doesn't want to play anything close to the Megaman style play mechanics because he offers no suggestions on how to advance the series.
So
fuck him.
I haven't played any of the recent Megamans or the 3d ones, so I can't offer much in that direction, but I have some thoughts on what I would like to see with these older 2d franchises that seem to have a hard time transfering to the 3d world.
1st off, go back to 2d. Yes, I know this hard to except, but not every game has to have 100 million polygons on the screen.
2nd. Hows about using higher res 2d artwork. If the Guilty Gear games can do high res 2d with a smooth frame rate, you can too. Imagine Contra, MegaMan, Castlevania (my, oh my) all running in 640x480 with Guily Gear style detail. These fuckers can do this via streaming off the disc, but for some reason refuse to. 3d games can be streamed and I am sure as hell positive that 2d can be as well.
3rd. Although not limited to Megaman, but how about not publishing your games on every fucking platform on the planet. This is something I have been against since the SNES/Genesis days. What ever happened to having platform specific titles? These whore publishers and developers need to drop this nonsense and optimize their stuff to run on one piece of hardware and design the controls around that game. It seems that with games that are published on all 3 current generation controls, the Gamecubes controls are typically the worse due to its design and button placement.
4th. Instead of trying to make an "epic adventure", you should just concentrate on making something thats fun to play. A lot of these games today just fucking suck to play. Over engineered play mechanics, symphony music that is easily forgotten due to complexity and just plain boring design.
5th. If it ain't working out, then don't do it. Its not like you have to do these older game series in 3d. Its dead, Jim. Let go. People can also pick up a SNES, Genesis, Nintendo or whatever and enjoy these old school games.
Games can be simple in design, execution and controls and still be fun to play. I love certain game genres in 3d (woooo racing games), but others just need to keep their ass squarely in the 2nd dimension.
Fuck. That was nearly a Merc X99 style rant.
