Mega Man X3

I suppose this game was just as good, in terms of fundamental gameplay, as X and X2, if not even better. But I think the series is losing charm for me rather quickly. Again, this isn't a bad game; it's just not the game I fell in love with fifteen years ago. I hate to say, "keep it simple, stupid," because obviously critics have always ripped into sequels that don't add enough to the gameplay. But while I loved collecting hearts, energy subtanks, and enhancements in the first two games, it began to feel chore-like in this one. My guess is because this time around they doubled the number of enhancements and also introduced ride armor power-ups. Ride armor has been featured in both X games so far, but only in one or two levels each time; it's never been an important part of the series before, and I was disappointed to see that more time was devoted to coming up with inventive animals to use as ride armor than was spent coming up with cool robot masters. Crush Crawfish? Volt Catfish? Toxic Seahorse? Come on. On the plus side, this game allows you to finally play as Zero, X's mentor figure, at times. Zero is pretty much a total badass, so the option to play as him was something I welcomed with open arms. Still, this isn't the Mega Man Zero series; it's Mega Man X. I dunno. Something just felt a bit "off" with this game. It could have easily just been my mood while playing it. But for whatever reason, I didn't love this one. Three X games remain, all of them PlayStation games rather than SNES games. Perhaps the system upgrade will lead to a more inspired game. Here's hoping.