Capcom USA is going to be watching this game closely, and Capcom USA Senior VP Christian Svensson promises there will be more to come this year. What that entails exactly is anyone's guess, but for now the only official Capcom game we have to tide us over is this one. This morning, I played through the entire game and I'd thought I'd post a quick review since today is a pretty special day for one of my favorite games.
Street Fighter x Mega Man was a interesting little fan game floating around as a demo in its early stages in 2010. I believe at the time it only had Chun Li's stage available, and in a very early form. It showed potential, but many fan games remain in limbo for such a long time you wonder if the project will ever come to fruition. However, Seow Zong Hui, the game's creator, managed to get Capcom's backing, giving this title the extra push most fan games would only dream to have. With the game getting published as a free release on Capcom's own website, Seow Zong Hui now is not only living that dream, he gets to be a part of legacy.
The game goes right into the roots of the classic 8-bit series with your jumping and shooting controls feeling right as home as if they were straight from the first six games themselves. I played on an X-box 360 game pad, and while some configuration was needed, and there was a lack of D-Pad support, the game controlled well, as if a direct continuation of the original six games. Sliding and charge shots also return, two things notably absent from Mega Man's arsenal since Mega Man 9, and you'll need them, since SFxMM's boss fights are some of the most action charged of the franchise.
Easily the best part of this game is getting to a boss and having a duel with your Mega Buster. The boss movements are quick, and most of their attacks flow without any significantly noticeable pattern. Combat against them feels great, and you'll be surprised how flexible the system is against them. Dodging is all reflex based, and since the bosses don't seem to have significantly noticeable patterns, and you'll find that sliding is your most powerful tool in this game. You get a lot more freedom with the slide than a typical Mega Man game, and it works a lot of the time it feels like it wouldn't in previous entries, such as sliding under Chun Li's spin kick. You'll be required to learn their attacks, and be ready to switch up your defense on the fly as most of the bosses pull out just about any move from any other move. Bosses will also build up special attack meters based on the damage you dish out to them, and when it fills up, they'll unleash a more devastating attack that you'll have to be on the ready for. Special weapons all require a bit of finesse to use against the bosses as well, as they usually require some thinking to make the most out of, such as a weapon you'll have to use to reflect Ryu's hadoken's back at him.
Each boss resembles a Mega Man version of themselves from their respective games, and range from silly looking to awful. Most of them just look like a modified Mega Man sprite, but a couple in particular, Urien and Rolento, are pretty rough around the edges. They animate well though, and it's pretty funny that Mega Man uses Dan as his weapons training test dummy.
The stages themselves need a bit more polish. There's a lot of branching paths in this game, but also weird dead ends that don't seem to go anywhere, and outside of a few levels having a special gimmick or two, aren't particularly memorable. The enemies are well thought out in placement though, and a lot of this game you'll have to stop and think about how you'll want to approach the enemies in the room, as each one of them will have different types of attacks you can't deal with by charging directly head on. That said, a few of them feel like they have a bit more health than necessary, which means sometimes the better option is just to take a hit and run through it.
The music is a blend of classic Mega Man themes and Street Fighter remixes. You'll hear the inspiration in each stage, and the original score gets the job done for the most part. There's nothing in here on the levels of Mega Man 2, X, ZX or Mega Man 9, but it works well enough.
The weapons are all pretty good as well, each having their own little utility. Some of them are a bit harder to figure out the proper use for, such as the weapon you obtain from Blanka, which is reminiscent of the Mega Ball from Mega Man 8. Each weapon has clearly designed utilities, and its easy to recognize when certain weapons will be effective in certain situations, which is something even most official Mega Man games have trouble with.
Overall the game is worth playing just to experience the boss fights, but lacks the total package polish of an official game. All of the game's story is packaged in less than a paragraph of text stashed away in the game's readme file, and the game lacks a proper intro or ending. And it ends abruptly too, with a final encounter with M. Bison in a field that feels pretty anti-climatic. It makes you wonder if anything was cut to make it out for the anniversary in time.
Capcom is throwing us a bone for now, and SFxMM satiates more than completely satisfies, but its well worth the price of admission. While the fight for everlasting peace, or at least the push for new games continues, we have to look back at the character's roots to understand his success. In its day, Mega Man 2 was an underdog that Capcom didn't believe in and almost never made it. It became one of Capcom's best selling games of all time. Mega Man X came at a time when the series stagnated on the NES. Mega Man 9 arrived during lackluster sales of Mega Man Star Force to become one of the highest downloaded digital distributed games of all time. And Legends 3, despite its cancellation, continues to garner support from the fans.
Mega Man has always been an underdog that his company never believed in, and here we are, 25 years later in the same shoes he was in after his first game. Uncertain of what the future holds, we'll just have to keep rooting for him to pull out one of those amazing successes he seems to have a habit of doing when he needs to.
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