Mega Man X6

Well, thank God that's over. This game was - and I'm making no exaggerations here - the worst in the series in every possible way. The story was horrible, basically undoing the emotional ending to X5 instantly. Remember Zero and how he died? It turns out, he didn't! Instead, X6 retcons the story such that Zero just went away for a while to hide and - get ready for this one - repair himself. He was an arm, a head, and an upper torso! Never mind that he was completely martyr-like and ready to accept his death as a necessary means for world peace as an end. Whatever. The story was the least of my concerns with this game. The stage design was absolutely abysmal. I've got no problem dying in platformers when it's due to human error or well-crafted puzzles. But this level design was just horrible. I won't even delve into it. Also horrible is the random nature of this game. Certain pathways in levels only open up at random. This means you might be playing through a level looking for enhancements only to learn that the game has decided that in this particular playthrough, you can't go down an alternate pathway. Whatever. Also, many enemies have ridiculous defensive qualities such as total invulnerability. I mean, there's a difference between pleasantly challenging and ridiculously tedious. Tedious, aside from frustrating, may be the best one-word description of Mega Man X6. There was horrible inconsistency with the difficulty, too. Some bosses were among the easiest in the series and others were among the hardest. There was just nothing redeeming about this game at all. Oh yeah, and there are translation errors running amok. And also they never bothered redubbing English voice overs, simply subtitling Japanese ones instead. Seriously, even the production value suffered here. Mega Man X5 was a decent game - how did things go so wrong in X6? But hey, I'm just glad that this compilation is over and done with. Since I've beaten eight classic Mega Man games, six Mega Man X games, and three spin-offs, in addition to dabbling with both Mega Man Legends and Mega Man Soccer, you might assume I've played through the majority of the franchise. Nope. Two more classic games, two more X games, a two-part GameBoy Color spinoff of X called Mega Man Xtreme, a five-part GameBoy spinoff of the classic series, a game between Mega Man 8 and 9 called Mega Man & Bass, two PC games, a four-part GBA series called Mega Man Zero, a two-part DS series called Mega Man ZX, and two more Mega Man Legends games all also exist. And I haven't even included the thirteen Battle Network games or the seven Star Force games, considered to be part of a separate universe than all the other Mega Man games. Holy shit. Thankfully, none of these exist on my backlog. The question now, then, is whether or not I ever want to play more Mega Man games or not. Since I'm simply not buying games anymore for a long time, the question is mostly irrelevant. Still, I suppose I can at least give an idea as to what games I should be on the look out for. I suppose, being a sucker for series completion, I wouldn't mind playing 9 or 10, and by the same token, X7 or X8. Also, the entire Mega Man Zero series of GBA games is coming out on a DS compilation quite similar to the two I've recently plowed through on GameCube. Just saying. I really didn't like Mega Man Legends, so that group of games is nothing I'd want to get into. I also see little to no point in the games for the PC, GB, or GBC. Mega Man ZX is only two games long, but I'd have to play (and enjoy) the Mega Man Zero series before jumping into that one. Oh, and I also wouldn't mind playing Mega Man & Bass, which is basically "Mega Man 8.5." But that's another 11 or so games right there. So, yeah. No rush. No rush at all. Adios, Mega Man X Collection. Next up: Super Metroid.