If you were to ask me about my favorite games of all time, there's guaranteed to be a
Mega Man X in there, somewhere.
While the level of quality across the eight main instalments varies wildly and stirs a
lotta hot debates, there's no denying the X lineup contains some of the best titles
of the entire Mega Man brand, and some of the most revered 2D action platformers, period.
It's a series worth checking out, but unless you were to sail the seven seas, it hasn't
exactly been the most accessible to get your hands on.
Thankfully, those dark times are now behind us with the Mega Man X Legacy Collection (XLC
for short) available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and Steam.
A re-release of Mega Man X1 through X8, all in a modern, HD package…
Well… two packages, kind of; X1 up to X4 comprise part 1 while X5 up to X8 form part
2, but if you like, you can get them combined for a slightly lower price.
It's a bit of a shame that the RPG X Command Mission, the remake Maverick Hunter X for
the PSP, and the two Game Boy Color titles Xtreme 1 and 2 aren't included -- it would
have made for a nice XLC 3 -- but having all the main entries in this format is still neat.
In short, this collection is the most convenient and affordable way to play the X series for
the majority of people -- I don't think you needed me to tell you that.
But if you'd like to know more details about all the new features and bonus content thrown
in, the conversion and visual quality for the games, and whether both parts of the collection
are actually worth getting as a non Mega Man X aficionado, do stick around.
I'm also on the PC version, which is relevant for down the line.
So, to begin with, when it comes to extra content, XLC has much to offer.
From the moment you first boot up, there is a ton of stuff to check out in the museum.
You've got a gallery full of images available for all the eight X titles, containing not
only the typical artwork you'd see floating around on Google Images only now in higher
quality, but also pictures used in some of the games now without compression, numerous
concept sketches and drawings, and even story summaries and moderately detailed character
bios for the Hunters themselves, villains and also the various Mavericks.
There's a product gallery, showing off X series action figures, capsule toys and other
forms of merchandise that have come out over the decades, and even a selection of trailers
for the games, some of which have more than one trailer.
All this gives a pretty good insight into the history of the Mega Man X brand, including
some of the obscure stuff that I've never seen or heard of before, and fans of the series
are sure to appreciate it.
You can listen to the soundtracks of all the games in a jukebox environment and even The
Day of Sigma has been included, a 24-minute prequel anime to the series that sheds light
on how and why Sigma turned evil.
This was originally in Maverick Hunter X, and has surprisingly high production values
with good animation and voice acting that for once feels intense and legitimate, instead
of like a comedy starring random strangers recruited off the streets.
As far I can tell, there isn't much in the way of additional extras to unlock by completing
the games or getting Hunter Medals (basically Achievements), but with the amount that's
already available off the bat, I wouldn't complain too much about that.
What took me by surprise the most, however -- way back when XLC was first announced in
the trailers already -- is the inclusion of the brand-new X Challenge.
In this mode, players must take on familiar Mavericks from any of the first six installments,
but with a twist, namely fighting two of 'em at the same time: think of Storm Eagle and
Storm Owl, Blaze Heatnix and Blast Hornet, Shield Sheldon and Squid Adler (yes, I'll
continue calling him that, dammit) and many other boss combinations.
Many people seemed fairly hyped for this feature, and I gotta admit, it's very commendable
that the developers created it; I imagine that mixing environments and sprites from
two different console generations required a decent amount of programming and testing
to get running so well.
It's presented in a slick format, too, with a brief scene explaining the plot, redrawn
icons for all the weapons, redone sound effects and even remixed boss music, and neat graphics
during the pre-battle screen.
It really doesn't wake the impression of being thrown in as an afterthought.
Unfortunately, if you suspected fighting two bosses at once wasn't gonna work, you are
correct: fighting two bosses at once doesn't work.
X Challenge is bluntly put a chaotic mess.
More often than not, there is too much going on simultaneously too quickly for most people
to process, and there are also plenty of instances where avoiding damage is straight-up impossible.
None of these Mavericks and their patterns were ever designed with this sort of situation
in mind, and though some pair-ups work better than others, like Chill Penguin and Frost
Walrus, there are also combinations that are just obnoxious and cheap.
I started out doing quite alright and was cautiously optimistic... until I reached The
Skiver + Neon Tiger together.
The Skiver is already aggressive and unpredictable in the original X5, demanding good reflexes
and attention to dodge consistently, but dealing with that in such a significantly smaller,
tight-ass room, while also trying to avoid contact with Neon Tiger flying across the
screen or shooting bullets around, is pure madness.
No matter how on-point your movement and reaction is, you'll be taking hits, as these bosses
follow their own AI scripts and do not account for what the other is doing.
It felt like a war of attrition, and one where your victory seems to depend on luck, too.
As I said, some of the Maverick duos they cooked up here do work decently well, however,
I already ran into bullshit as soon as stage 2.
There are nine stages in total, so I don't suspect it improves as you progress, and the
reason I say ''I suspect'' is because I quit at stage 3.
I can already hear the ''ha ha ha lol u suck git gud stop complaining if u cant
handle it crybaby'' comments, but trust me, I've heard it all a million times already,
so you're not very original.
The thing is, I like hard games that provide a genuine, well-designed challenge, but I
don't find X Challenge does that.
Not solely due to the fights themselves, either; some of the surrounding design choices are
equally questionable.
For example, each stage has three battles, and if you die at any one point, you have
to retry from battle one of said stage.
This equals repetition of doing earlier fights over and over, and not being able to practice
properly on the later fights of a stage.
You do get three lives, so one per battle on average, but your health doesn't regenerate
at all between battles.
As such, you're best off killing yourself before seriously tackling the next encounter
to save time, and also because special weapon energy doesn't refill all the way after
a death.
To be fair, that aspect is admittedly pretty cool -- how you can choose three special weapons
between a selection of nine, I mean -- as it tests your knowledge of the weaknesses
of the Mavericks you're going to be facing, and it forces you to pick the weapons you
ultimately value the most.
You aren't allowed to swap between fights, either, so there is an element of strategy
present that I do like, and you'll surely have an easier time if you're familiar with
the Mavericks and their behavior.
When it comes down to it, though, I didn't enjoy X Challenge much myself, because the
concept and how it's executed doesn't lead to a balanced sense of difficulty.
There is an Easy setting, but I quit that at stage 6 because it was so ridiculously
easy that I got bored out of my mind, so it's like pick your fucking poison.
Still, I can't rag on X Challenge too much, as the developers didn't have to put it
in, and if you're a masochist X fan who's really craving some solid flicks in the balls
and feels more masculine for it, you'll probably get a lot out of this.
Just don't go in expecting anything more thoughtful than that.
I think that about covers the extra content, so how about the main games themselves?
How do they play?
How do they look?
Well, from the get go I should mention that the PS1 version of X3 is not at all included
here; you're only getting the SNES release, and while I like that one the most myself,
I do know plenty of people who enjoy the PS1 music more.
I think at the very least the option to toggle between the audio of the two versions of X3
would have been swell, but it looks like we'll have to make due with the SNES audio.
This is probably due to the fact that X1 through X3 are all clearly emulated, instead of ported
to the new hardware natively like they seemed to be on the 2006 X Collection for PS2 and
GameCube.
For the most part, this shouldn't make much of a difference, and so X1 through X3 are
pretty faithful conversions in XLC in many ways, but not without some drawbacks and inconsistencies.
It's hard to prove this point with evidence, but I'm fairly confident, first of all,
that the SNES titles all have some degree of input lag, at least on PC.
Response time simply feels delayed to me when compared to original hardware and even emulators
with proper settings, so beware if you're sensitive to input lag.
Furthermore, what's disappointing is that X1 through X3 slow down just like they do
on real hardware.
Since the games can absolutely chug at certain intervals and in certain stages, I feel most
people would want these performance drops fixed.
Purists would argue it's more authentic that way, but any sort of slowdown that originally
stemmed from the special CX4 chip used in X2 and X3 -- think of Serges or Crystal Snail's
sprites spinning around -- is no longer in XLC.
As a result, Capcom met an in-between that won't satisfy those looking for a true,
accurate representation of the originals, neither will it satisfy those against the
slowdown.
I'm also not a fan of how saves are implemented.
You don't get save states or a rewind feature or any of that fancy schmuck in XLC; instead,
the numbers of the password system of X1, 2 and 3 are sort of manipulated into a save
file.
Sadly, this allows for only one save slot, and remapped controls also aren't stored
in these saves, so every time you restart the games, you'll have to rebind the buttons
again.
A compromise could have been to allow the creation of save states only during the stage
selection screen, which wouldn't mess with the spirit of the games, while simultaneously
having more save slots and carrying over control settings.
Not that the developers seemed to care too much about not messing with the spirit of
the games, because all of the installments come with a ''Rookie Hunter'' mode.
This is basically the noobie switch, but in my opinion they went way overboard with it,
as you barely receive any damage whatsoever, spikes no longer kill you, and when you fall
into a pit, you're immediately spawned to the closest solid ground -- well, in X4 through
X8, anyway; you still die from an abyss in X1, 2 and 3.
That's a weird inconsistency, I dunno what's up with that, but I suppose if you can't
get past a certain section or just wanna cheat, the Rookie Hunter mode is at your service.
X6 would certainly be more palatable with it.
And thankfully, when it comes to the conversion quality for X6, and thereby also X4 and X5,
I'd say it's actually pretty solid.
Save files were always in these games, which also store customized controls, and performance
issues were rarely, if at all a thing, even on the original hardware: smooth 60fps all
the time with no slowdown.
Great shit.
Load times, on the other hand, were a drawback of the PlayStation 1 using CDs for storage,
and though these load times were never long in the first place, they're near instantaneous
in XLC, so thumbs up for that, as well.
Even the input lag didn't seem as noticeable on the PS1 titles as they did on the SNES
titles.
Again, I don't have factual evidence to back me up, but the responsiveness did feel
a tad snappier to me.
Of course, not every aspect is perfect, and call me a nitpicker for this, but the audio
is noticeably off for X4, 5 and 6 here and there.
For one thing, the music is a little quiet in comparison to the sound effects, and certain
sound effects are significantly louder than others for whatever reason.
Listen to obtaining an extra life in X4 on original hardware compared to on XLC… as
well as menu navigation in X5…
I dunno what's up with that, but it's strange and a little sloppy.
These aren't details that'll bother most people at all, especially without a direct
comparison to the originals, but if there's something I noticed, I'll be damned to point
it out.
This leaves us with X7 and X8, which have probably transitioned the best.
Most importantly, X7 and X8's load times have been drastically reduced.
This is a massive improvement, because X7's loading in particular was horrendous on PS2.
So were its moments of slowdown, by the way, which have also been fixed here.
I've never finished X8, so I don't know if that had slowdown or frame drops originally,
but either way, I didn't notice any of that in XLC.
Both titles also majorly benefit from being rendered at a native HD resolution that appears
to be 1440x1080.
They aren't widescreen, which is a shame, but the visuals overall have a much cleaner
appearance regardless.
X8 in particular looks more appealing, I find, because the scaling of 2D assets in the original
PS2 version was bad: everything from the UI to the text to the art looked soft and uneven.
XLC improved this scaling, making for a sharper and more pleasant presentation.
If I had anything to point out, it would be that I noticed a graphical glitch on this
enemy once in X7, but beyond that, it and X8 have carried over wonderfully well visually.
The same can, unfortunately, not be said as much for X1 through X6 and their video output
options.
This is the aspect where XLC personally irked me the most.
Here's the deal: the SNES games are 224 pixels tall in graphics, while the PS1 games
are 240 pixels tall in graphics.
XLC typically runs in 1080p, so 1080 pixels tall.
224 and 240, however, don't evenly fit into 1080, so blow the games up and you get uneven
scaling.
This can be spotted most easily in the SNES titles, as the health bar will look jank as
hell, but you can also see that certain pixels are taller or wider than others, even in the
PS1 titles.
Look at X here in X6, for example: depending on his positioning on screen, the size of
his eye changes due to the uneven scaling.
Another side effect is that it creates a sort of flickering or "shimmering" as the screen
scrolls, because the pixels shrink and grow as they move.
This is all with the default setting, labeled Type 1 in the options, but there is also Type
2, which scales all pixels by the highest possible equal factor, and thus avoids uneven
scaling.
The trade-off, though, is a smaller game image, and there's nothing you can do about that.
At least not on consoles, where XLC is locked at 1080p, from what I've gathered, with
no support for 4K on PS4 Pro or Xbox One X.
On PC, by contrast, you can select between 720p, 900p, 1080p and 1440p.
No 4K here, either, but the available resolutions are sufficient, I suppose.
You see, for the PS1 titles, 720p and 1440p are perfect, since 240 fits into these two
resolutions evenly while filling the screen vertically.
Therefore, I highly recommend using the ''fullscreen'' setting -- don't pick ''windowed full'',
that won't work -- and choosing 720p for the PS1 games, or 1440p if you have a capable
monitor.
As for the SNES titles, 720p + Type 2 is a valid option, but I would not recommend this
for reasons I'll clarify in a moment.
Instead, I'd say you're best off picking 900p + Type 2, since it fills practically
the entire screen vertically.
Switching resolutions like that is an inconvenience, I understand, but I'm just putting info
out there for PC users.
Yo, just a bit of a post production note here.
While I was editing and recording remaining clips, I noticed a glitch where all the games,
so X1 up to X6, ran somewhat slower in full screen mode and then specifically 720p.
I dunno why 720p only and if this'll happen to you, but if it does, the way I fixed it
is as follows.
Go to your folder where Steam is installed, then ''steamapps'', ''common'',
and in both of the X Legacy Collection folders, edit the ''config'' file.
Look for the line that says ''Refreshrate'', and enter ''60'' as the value.
Save the changes, and all the games should run at full speed no matter the resolution
or settings.
It's a strange bug, for sure, but at least it seems easily fixed, and permanently, too;
I didn't need to go back again even after messing around with the in-game options.
And yeah, that's it, so back to the main video.
What sucks, though, is that the SNES games cannot be fixed entirely, as there is no aspect
ratio control besides Type 3…
Don't pick Type 3.
Anyway, for convoluted reasons I won't get into here, SNES and PS1 games typically displayed
differently on a CRT back in the day than how the consoles render them internally.
For X4, 5 and 6, you cannot choose the CRT aspect ratio in XLC, which may annoy some,
but at least it doesn't lead to scaling issues.
For X1, 2 and 3, on the other hand, you are stuck with the CRT aspect ratio, which is
shit.
For one, some people prefer the skinnier aspect ratio of the console's internal render,
and two, it creates unresolvable, horizontal scaling issues.
The image is essentially stretched by duplicating only certain pixels, so no matter what you
do, you'll get that shimmering effect during scrolling, and generally distorted graphics.
That said, if you have a 1440p or 4K monitor or TV and pick Type 2, you can eliminate this
horizontal scaling jank almost entirely.
This is because you get more pixels to work with: a 6x scale on 1440p, as opposed to the
4x scale you get on 900p or 1080p.
I really cannot stress this enough: use 1440p and Type 2 if you can, because it truly is
the best option for both the SNES and PS1 games.
This is also the reason why I don't recommend 720p for the SNES games, because that makes
for a 3x scale, and thereby noticeably worse, uneven horizontal scaling.
Now, once more, many people won't notice or care about all this stuff and that's
fine, but we shouldn't be having this problem in the first place.
This is a professionally made compilation and commercially sold; it was somebody's
job to get it right.
What Capcom should have implemented, is interpolation, which is a method of creating in-between pixels
to ensure an even image regardless of scale factor and aspect ratio.
Emulators can do it, video editing software can do it, Sonic Mania can do it -- why can't
XLC?
It would've led to an even image that always fills the screen vertically, at no cost of
user-friendliness.
Fuck, I got so caught up in that scaling nonsense that I forgot to mention…
You can also enable borders to fill the black space, and there is a smoothing filter, as
well as a CRT filter.
The borders are distracting, if you ask me, so I don't use them, the smoothing filter
is not my cup of tea and comes with weird artifacts, and the CRT filter has scanlines
so thin they're hardly visible.
It's not a very convincing CRT look, so might as well leave that off.
Maybe some of these options suit your taste, though.
The ultimate question is: what do I think of the X Legacy Collection?
Well, first of all, it's important to note that the PC version, though it has the advantage
of multiple resolutions, has been a bitch to some people.
I've heard complaints about X7 and X8 having performance issues, in particular, either
in the form of slower gameplay on its own or not running so hot when live streaming.
I can't speak for that, since I haven't bumped into any such oddities myself, but
it's likely to do with PC specs.
The recommended specifications on the Steam page are quite high, and I assume they are
in reference to playing X7 and X8.
I wouldn't worry too much about X1 through X6 lagging or whatever, but keep this caveat
in mind if you do decide to buy XLC on PC.
Now, how about the collections themselves?
Are they quality stuff?
I'm a bit mixed on this.
All the artwork and fun stuff is dope, and the X Challenge, while not the best designed
thing in the world, is still an appreciated bonus that I've seen many people get a lot
out of.
The conversion quality for X7 and X8 is also great, but it's X1 through X6 that I'm
personally disappointed with.
While the games are very playable and probably satisfactory for many players, they have a
handful of flaws and shortcomings in XLC that shows either a lack of competence or care
from the developers in properly bringing over classic pixel games to the modern age.
Besides the quick loading for X4, 5 and 6, and a half-assed save system for X1, 2 and
3, these games also aren't improved in any substantial way.
This bothers me, seeing how the PS2 X Collection from 2006 removed all slowdown in the SNES
games, and included more than one measly save slot.
The PS1 games also don't have small graphical glitches like XLC does here and there, and
have near instant loading, as well.
None of these titles have any scaling issues whatsoever, either.
With that, I'd say, technically speaking, this original, PS2 X Collection contains the
best versions of X1 through X6.
The only problem it has is that it supports 240p only, which is a resolution that leads
to many incompatibility issues with modern displays and capture cards.
However, if you have an upscaler like the Framemeister or OSSC or still have a CRT laying
around, you really can't go wrong with this older collection, and it isn't even expensive
at all.
Frankly, if you already have and can play this, or all the original releases on the
original consoles, XLC does not offer much of an improved experience, and in some ways
even offers an inferior experience.
The Switch version has value for its portability, but I gotta be honest: XLC is not how I am
going to be playing X1 through X6 in the future.
Of course, none of this takes away that the X Legacy Collections are by far the most accessible
and convenient for people to play the series nowadays.
Especially for newcomers to the series, I really couldn't tell you tell you to seek
out the other options with a straight face.
Get part 1 of XLC especially.
With the debatable exception of X3, X1 through X4 are all high quality stuff and worth playing
if you enjoy action-packed side-scrolling platformers: they're not perfect, but have
got tight as hell controls, rewarding exploration, high replay value and overall good level and
boss design.
I'd initially hold off on XLC part 2, though, as X5, 6, 7 and 8 make for a very mixed bag
of titles.
I mean, 6 and 7 are outright garbanzo -- all the complaints and rants you've heard about
them are valid -- and 5, while not necessarily bad, feels like the beginning of the end to
me.
Fans overall seem mixed on X8, also; some really like it, others do not, so whether
you'll like it is kind of a crapshoot.
By all means get part 2 if you're curious about how the Mega Man X saga lost its luster
or if you wanna laugh at some awful games, but otherwise, part 1 is all ya need, baby.
Hey there, thanks for watching the video!
Hope you enjoyed it and found it useful in some capacity.
I actually have full, in-depth reviews of X1 through X7, and though many of them are
long and filled with spoilers, you may enjoy them, so check 'em out if you want.
I don't have an X8 analysis yet, but y'know, perhaps now is the time to change that.
Peace out.
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