Mega Man X2: Versus the X-Hunters

Mega Man X2, where to start. I don't enjoy this game, but I'm not in the majority. I like the stages, the music, but I think the boss fights in this game are some of the most tedious in the series. It also features some really annoying backtracking.

It could be that I played this game much later after it came out. It might have been that the last time I played it for this review, I had just finished a Zero run of X6, which will piss anyone off. Maybe it was that, over the course of the play through, I was interrupted so often, that it took much longer than any of the games reviewed so far, or I could just have some legitimate beefs with this game.

I don't play this game as often as any of the others in the series, although it's no where near as bad as some of the games coming up. Many people think this game is fantastic too, so even though this one isn't my cup of tea, I'm far from calling it a bad game.

New Features

• More detailed graphics and some special effects are added in with the cartridge special Cx4 chip. Most of the game looks the same though.
• Mid-Level Boss fights with characters that rotate amongst the levels. This would be used in X3 and X6 as well.
• This game can be what is considered X's first Giga Attack with the Body Part Upgrade.
• Multiple story progressions. Other games have multiple endings, but this one all ties back to one.
  

Story
Six months after the events of Mega Man X, X takes helm as the leader of the Maverick Hunters. The Maverick war is continuing, despite Sigma's death, and X is left to deal with the remaining rebellion. X and Dr. Cain are contacted by several of the Maverick Leaders, taunting them with the body parts of Zero that they have recovered. X has to deal with a new set of Mavericks, and collect the parts of Zero, so Dr. Cain can restore him.

Once X deals with the Maverick Leaders and the Mavericks, Sigma reveals himself to be pulling the strings all along. Here's where the story diverges.

If X collects all of Zero's parts, Sigma builds a fake Zero that is destroyed by the real Zero. Sigma tells Zero it is his destiny to follow him, but Zero tells him the equivalent to "stuff it." Sigma takes off down below, and Zero opens the way up for X. Then the jerk runs off deciding not to help in any way what so ever. Sure, just leave the X to fight the big bad boss all by himself you jerk! This is the canon story progression.

If X didn't collect all of Zero's parts, or only some of them, Sigma rebuilds the real Zero and X must face him in battle. After defeating Zero, he regains his senses and opens the way up to Sigma for X.

X defeats Sigma who is confused. He dies lamenting that Zero is "the last of the doctor's creations!" This bit of foreshadowing would continue in the other games. X and Zero watch Sigma's base explode in the sun set. X wonders if peace will ever happen between Reploids and Mavericks, and what he might have to sacrifice to achieve such a thing, or if he'll even be able to do it when the time comes (more foreshadowing).

X2 really sets up the coming games in the story sense. I don't think too much of any of these games stories, but at least the X series sets up some really cool situations, and it starts doing that with this game.

Aesthetics
some really cool ideas in them, such as Wheel Gator's stage, which is like riding a giant robotic monster through the city. Overdrive Ostrich's level is a desert nuclear testing site, complete with nuclear missile, and Flame Stag's level is made up of a Volcano. X2 provides some minor improvements in aesthetics over Mega Man X. The level's have One level that is pretty lame is Bubble Crabs though, as it's mostly just a boring under water cave with very little detail.

The stage enemies are pretty bland looking, but the bosses are alright. Although what the hell is up with Wire Sponge? He's a giant, green, fan-waving dildo. I'm not sure what they were thinking there. Zero has received a small upgrade in appearance himself, adding his shoulder pads and renowned boob-lights. He looks more like the Zero we know now.

The CX4 chip adds a few transparencies and 3D wire-frame effects as well, and while they probably looked cool at the time, I think they look a little tacky now. Overall a nice looking game, slightly better than it's predecessor, but not much.

Sound
Really good music over all, but I prefer Mega Man X myself. My favorite is Wheel Gator's theme. The score really sets the mood of each level well, and hits on the action theme setting of the game. One of the better sound tracks in the series for sure. The rest of the sounds are mostly recycled from X1.

I'll have so much more to say on sound when we get to games with voice acting, trust me.

Design
For the most part, I enjoy each individual stage of the game, but I hate most of the bosses. Some are fun fights, (Wire Sponge, Flame Stag, Morph Moth) but a great deal of them are just tedious. Wheel Gator spends most of his time hidden from the player, and Crystal Snail spends the majority of it completely invulnerable. Neither of these bosses are tough, but they just take forever because of stupid game lengthening gimmicks.

The bosses as a whole are tougher than the last game, including the mid-stage bosses. Serges has a lot of micro management for a boss fight, as you have to take care of the mines he lays out if you want to avoid taking most of the damage from him. This isn't a bad thing, as the challenges for the most part are not overtly cheap, only the bosses that are tedious annoy the piss out of me.

The other thing I hate about this game is the back tracking. It's horrible. If you want to 100% this game you are required bare minimum to revisit 3 stages twice. That doesn't seem so bad, but it works like this. (Note: See revised update at the bottom of the post regarding this.)

Go to Wheel Gator's stage to get his weapon, use his weapon in Overdrive Ostrich's stage to get the Leg Upgrade, then use the Leg Upgrade to go back to Wheel Gator's stage to get the Buster Upgrade, then if you have Flame Stag's weapon you can use the buster upgrade to get the heart tanks.

Bubble Crab's stage actually requires you to have his own weapon to get the sub tank there. This isn't a game breaker, but it drives me crazy when I have to think about where I need to go next. The other problem with this game is the weapons just SUCK! Wheel Gator's weapon is required to get half the stuff in the game, making him a necessity early on, but the other weapons are so situational to completely useless that you won't touch them until you use them on the bosses.

The helmet and body upgrades are pretty useless as well. The helmet takes up energy to find hidden areas, but it takes forever to finish it's animation. If anyone has used this to actually find something, I'd be surprised. The Body armor unleashes a Giga Attack that kills most small enemies, but is worthless against bosses, and most enemies aren't placed in such a way that this is necessary. Overall though this game is alright, but I don't play it as often as the other games. Many find this game to be just as good, or better, than the original X though, but I prefer the PSX series.

Playability
Dashing in mid air with the Leg Upgrade can get really finicky at times, but if it's working right, it makes many boss fights a lot funner, and more interesting. A charged Speed Burner is required to get a lot of items too, making some sections are a real pain in the ass, as these are usually around spikes. The majority of my deaths come from item collecting.

Extras

• Boss order: Start with Wire Sponge as the Subtank is really easy to find, then take on Wheel Gator if you want the item collecting to go easier. From here unfortunately you have to decide what your priority is on Zero and item collecting. If you want to save Zero, try to go to where bosses are in areas you can get items from. If not, go where the most convenient spots are. I really don't have a flexible stratagem for this one.
• If you collect all of the items and upgrades, you can unlock an easter egg Shroyuken attack from the Street Fighter games. It's in the second to last stage and requires a charged Speed Burner over spikes to get. It kills most enemies in one punch however, including Sigma form 1. Sigma form 2 takes 2 shots though.
• The main benefit of collecting Zero's parts is that you don't need to fight him, on the other hand you have to fight three more bosses to get his parts, so it's give and take. The Zero fight itself is fun enough to not want to miss out on.
• Speaking of that fight, you can really cheese Zero by standing at about medium range from him, and just lobbing some charged shots at him. He'll try to pelt you with shots that you can easily jump over, though occasionally you'll get unlucky, and he'll charge you with his Z-Saber, which hurts a fuck ton.
  

I don't hate this game, but I don't enjoy it much either. Most people like it though, and you might too. It's not better than Mega Man X though, not even close. Popular consensus puts this as a good game, but I find it tedious. From here on till about 2002 though, Mega Man games are going to go pretty far downhill, and every game gets real subjective on which games are good or not. Some people's favorite Mega Man games are here, and others hate these games all together. It can't be denied though that the overall decline in quality starts after X2.

Playthroughs
Speedrun by Freddy 'Frezy_man' Andersson
MegaMan X-x3 No Dash, Minimalist Run by HideofBeast

Update 12/19/09
Upon a further review of this game, I think I might have been a bit too harsh on it, partly because I'm a damn retard. First, let me state right off the bat, that back tracking is 100% not needed in this game, and if I had actually watched the fucking speed run I even linked with this post, I would have known that. Damn, I'm stupid there.

Here's how that works. Start with Wire Sponge, grab the heart tank in the corner and the Sub-Tank in the level, next head to Wheel Gator's stage, who happens to be weak to the Strike Chain. Use the strike chain to pull yourself up to the buster upgrade, and you've already cut out my retarded backtracking in half. For the heart tank in the stage, there is an enemy close by who you can use to take a hit, use the invincibility time to scale up the spikes and grab the heart tank. Beat Wheel Gator, and head to Bubble Crab's stage.

The heart-tank in this stage is easy enough to get, but the Sub-tank can be gotten with a little bug. When X walks (not dashes) down a hill, his speed slightly increases, and when you jump while walking down hill, you jump higher. Use this bug to reach the lower left edge of the wall under the sub tank, wall hike it up to the surface of the water, than skim across the water to reach the Sub-tank.

From here, head to Flame Stag's stage, who is weak to Bubble Splash. His items are no problem. From here you have a choice for 100% item completion. You can head to Morph Moth's stage since you have his weakness, Speed Burner, but doing this means you have to back track to this stage. If you continue to Crystal Snail's level instead, then you'll have the weapon you need to get the heart tank in Morph Moth's stage, but you'll have to fight Crystal Snail without his weakness. I'm going to note though that the Heart-Tank in Morph Moth's stage is right at the start of the level, so the backtracking is really minimal. After you defeat Crystal Snail and Morph Moth, head to Overdrive Ostrich, your last maverick stage.

Using this route, you have zero, to little back tracking. I originally had placed more importance on the dash upgrade than the game actually requires of it, and thus made a more convoluted route. I also had discounted the wall grabbing abilities of the Strike Chain. Hell, even if you don't take advantages of the games mechanics in Wheel Gator and Bubble Crab's stages, the using the Strike Chain to get the buster upgrade will save you at least 3 stages of back tracking from my old stupid route.

This new route I found made the game about ten times better, and I have started to appreciate the speed of most of the levels, which have been crafted for dashing in mind. It made the game a lot funner, and Crystal Snail is about 50 times less tedious with the buster upgrade. Wheel Gator is still a bore, even with the Strike Chain though. My position is a little reversed on this review now, and I consider this game to be a lot better now that I don't have my head up my ass about it. That said, I still retain my position that I personally prefer the PSX games over this game and X3.

To all of these games credits (even the shitty ones), you can always find a new way to play the game that could change your outlook on it completely, and I love that I can play any of these games about a million different ways. Mega Man is the only series I constantly replay, and I've never gotten tired of it.