Yes, the rumors are true: Capcom is now selling their extremely successful Mega Man X as a PC CD-ROM. This doesn't happen to a SNES game every day, and there's a good reason why. Obviously, if you put this game (or any SNES game, for that matter) up against the hottest PC adventure titles, it will suffer by comparison in visuals, sound and gameplay depth. The technologies just can't compete. This doesn't mean Mega Man X isn't fun, it's just ... outclassed.
If you've never heard of Mega Man before, you probably don't own an NES or Super Nintendo, and you don't watch cartoons on TV. For you poor unfortunates, the Mega Man saga is the hottest thing going for Capcom. He's an armor-clad robot with a very human-looking face and a big gun. He takes on a series of small but fast enemies on the way to a big boss robot with a major superpower, like wind control or fireballs or stopping time. If Mega Man is triumphant, he gains his opponent's superpower and moves on to the next battlefield.
This basic premise has been only slightly varied through six Roman-numeralled NES chapters, and X for the Super Nintendo. Defying all logic, "X" is not the Roman numeral for 10, but the actual letter X, as in eXperimental. This new, improved Mega Man is supposedly able to think, feel and make his own decisions. (Since he's being controlled by the player, the difference between this and the previous six games is anybody's guess.) A lot more plot line has been added to this latest chapter, and the story evolves as you play. You would think that the designers would take some advantage of the extra storage space on a CD-ROM to flesh some of these elements out further, but the dialog still takes place in the form of character pictures and word balloons. On a SNES, it's great, but on a PC, why?
While Mega Man X is a lot of fun, it seems like an odd decision to just port the SNES version and make no attempt to improve on it for a CD-ROM. Anyone who picks up this product without knowing the history of the game is going to be really disappointed. It looks like a piece of low-grade shareware. They didn't even improve on the save feature, so if you save your game right before the main bad guy on a level, and then lose, loading brings you to the beginning of the level instead of your actual save point.
But let's talk about the popular cartridges. Why would people keep buying games that are just minor variants on the ones they already own? That's easy. The monsters! The Mega Man series has one of the most creative and bizarre rogues galleries ever created. Big mutant octopi! Penguins that throw slippery snowballs! Mammoths that... well, you get the point. All of these beasts are displayed in the half-cute/half-evil cartoon style one usually associates with the Sonic or Super Mario series. Mega Man also invariably boasts great tunes, so you can rock out in style while you blow the bad guys away.
When you buy the PC Mega Man X, you get a six-button gamepad free in the box. ("A $14.95 value!" brags the box. Oooooo, quality.) Strangely, the game itself only requires four buttons, and trying to play with this pad is awkward at best. When you're trying to deliver a death-dealing blast of fire at the peak of a jump, it's very easy to whack the wrong button in the process, halting your hero in mid-leap and taking you to the energy screen. A minor annoyance? Perhaps. But after the 27th time? It's a much better idea to just ignore the freebie pad and play on the keyboard. You can modify the controls to your heart's desire.
This is not to say that I didn't like Mega Man X. Quite the contrary, in fact. I've been a fan of these games for years, and I was delighted to see the improvements added on for this chapter (wall climbing, variable power gun, etc.). If you don't have a SNES, this is a fine way to play this game. But you gain absolutely nothing playing it on your PC except the option to modify your keyboard. One day, hopefully, Capcom will create a chapter in this best-selling series that is really designed for the PC. But for now, this is as close as you'll get.
