S1E19 - Mega Man X7

Welcome back to another episode of Discreet Air, the podcast where every week we dive into the extensive and fascinating library of the greatest selling video game console of all time the PlayStation Two. I'm Derek Kicker.

I'm Ian Man.

God, I should have said something cool. You fucked me over. This week we are rocking and rolling with sequel month with Mega Man X Seven.

Discrete error, man. Mega Man X Seven.

Mega Man X Seven. Are you a big Mega Man fan?

No.

What was the first Mega Man game you played?

I believe it was the first Mega Man. But old nerd. Yeah, I know, but I did not follow up. That's my difference. It was a game I played, but I didn't fall in love. I'll say it.

Did you play any of the Omega Man X games on Super Nintendo?

I surely did not. I didn't have a Super Nintendo. I had a Sega Genesis.

What about any of the PlayStation ones?

I might have rented one and played a little bit of it, but I had Mortal Kombat to play. Mortal Kombat, too. I had ridge racer. You could take the disc out and you could put Shout at the Devil in there. You'd be driving while playing, listening.

Shout at the devil. Yeah.

Doom doom shout. Driving a little fucking Mini Cooper around a track that's going to win every time over Mega Man.

Well, I guess we have two very different histories with Mega Man then. So I obviously wasn't of video game playing age for the first few Mega Man games. I also didn't have a Nintendo until like, way later. I think I have one of the most unconventional histories with Mega Man in that the first Mega Man game that I ever played was Mega Man Legends, okay, which is so different than any other Mega Man game. It's not like I mean, it's like a 3D action RPG kind of thing, but I loved it. I still love it.

Okay.

I still love it. And then I played the spin off The Misadventures of Trombon, which is something missing from my collection, but it's so expensive, boy. But I loved Mega Man Legends so much that I rented and ended up buying the other Mega Man X Games that were on the PlayStation One. So X Four, Five and Six were all PlayStation games. And then later on in life, I would go back and find the delights that await the newcomers to the Nintendo Mega Man games, including Mega Man Two, which I think is one of the best games of all time. Mega Man X for the Super Nintendo, which is also, I think, one of the best games of all time. I'm not super familiar with X Two and X Three. They're super hard to find on Super Nintendo. But I will say that I think Mega Man might be one of the best franchises ever at making old games available to play. Yeah, because with the exception of the Mega Man Legends games and maybe Mega Man Soccer, which is a very funny game, I think you can play pretty much every Mega Man game on a modern console. I think that's true because for PS Five, four, Xbox One, Xbox Series X Switch, you can get the Legacy collections, which are all the original games, which are a different storyline than X. X is not the original Mega Man. And then you can get all the X games up through X Eight, which is the PS. It was the last X one with the ZX collection. You can play all the DS ones, and they just released the Battle Network collection, which is all the GBA. I think the only ones that are probably hard to play right now are maybe like, the Mega Man Zero games, those GBA games. But other than that, you can play pretty much every Mega Man game on a modern console, which, especially from someone who loves the idea of preserving video games for future generations, is incredible to me.

I have to make a clarification in my testimony or honor. I believe I said I kind of went away from Mega Man. I did have some experience with Mega Man in that I got what is it called? The Buster in Dead Rising.

Oh, sick.

Yeah, you can get that out of the toy store, and it's one of the better weapons.

Yeah, well so you're familiar.

Yeah, I'm very familiar.

Yeah. It's hard to do a Mount Rushmore of video game franchises because there's way too many great. But this is definitely a top four Capcom franchise, for sure.

I know you love Resident Evil, and even though I'm not all that familiar, I think this might be at the top.

Honestly, I love resident evil, but I think mega man might have a better legacy. Definitely older. Definitely has. And mega, man. Eleven came out in, what, 2019? I think so, yeah, they're still coming out. They're still clanging and banging. I would love to see a Mega Man Legends remake, or at least give us an HD port to modern consoles. For love of God, I'd love to.

See a mega man movie with Charlie Day.

Hell, yeah. I want to see a Mega Man movie with Haley Joel Osman. Okay, but today older. No. Yeah, fat Haley Joel.

Yeah, 100%.

I'd love to see that shit.

We get Charlie Day in there somewhere, though.

Yeah. James Franco as Axel.

A sex pest. Yes.

Yeah, sex pest. Axel. I would love to see that.

I'm sold already. I mean, it's like I'll write you a check. Like, let's get this going.

But history with Mega Man aside, mega Man X Seven was released in the United States in October of 2003, just three months after its Japanese release, but wouldn't come out in pal regions until March of 2004, along with a Windows release, which I love it.

I love it.

Fucking game on windows.

It's just shut ins, man.

Who's doing it?

Fucking Windows. Shut ins.

Yeah. Good God. It was developed by Capcom. And this is, I believe, the first Mega Man game for PS Two.

Yeah, I believe I saw that.

Because they would eventually release all of the X Games and rerelease of the original games on PS Two as a collection. But I believe this is the first go at it. And you can tell that this game has some growing pains and it has some interesting ideas. And it has some ideas that I'm glad they explored. And it has some ideas that they should have abandoned, should have been aborted.

Yes.

But it is a very different Mega Man X game from the previous entries.

Indeed it is. Yeah.

I will say so. Let's talk about the story.

This is it. Ready to rock?

I'm always ready.

What's that? You wait here.

I guess you've heard of Red alert. So this is continuing on with the Mega Man X story, which takes place, oh, my God. I think, 200 years after the original Mega Man games.

That sounds right.

What would you call the Wiley Wars, perhaps?

Sure. Yeah.

And I would say that this game feels story wise, and maybe I'm talking out of turn here. It feels kind of like Final Fantasy to me.

It absolutely fucking loose.

I get big Final Fantasy Seven vibes from this. Visually, some of it is looking very Final Fantasy 70. There's like some eco terrorism kind of stuff happening. But following the events of the previous games, reploids are rebuilding the Earth and are seriously sick of Mavericks, which are dickhead rabloids are really, seriously sick of their shit.

Yeah.

So there's this group, and here's the thing. Mega man is normally a very simple story.

Not this one.

This one's getting a little fucking wild with it. This game starts out with a truly bonkers cutscene.

Indeed it does.

It looks fan made, to be honest. And it's a little bad voice acting.

And some very the voice acting in this whole fucking game. Sorry. Oh, my God.

And the writing is so poor, so bad. But you start the game out. The cool thing about this game is you can play as three characters, right? You start out playing as Axel. The opening level has you playing as Axel, who's a new character. He's part of, like, a vigilante group of maverick hunters, basically. Yeah. Called red alert. And then he is joined by Zero, fan favorite Zero, because X had started to question the violence after, I guess, the events of Mega Man X Six. So he's retired as a maverick hunter, axel, the Red Alert, and Zero, who has taken over in X's absence, they're up against quite the foe in these Mavericks. And with this new character comes some new abilities, some new gameplay style. He can copy the DNA of other reploids, which you find out in that weird cutscene.

Yes.

And it's one of those cutscenes too, where, you know, when they were done making it, they were like, hell yeah.

We got it, guys. We fucking nailed this.

We fucking nailed it. Americans are going to love this shit.

They're going to eat those double cheeseburgers and they're going to take a Car 10ft and they're going to do it all, guys, we did it.

Hell yeah.

Take Monday off. We're out of here.

Oh, God. Now Axel eventually becomes disillusioned with his vigilante group and joins up with Zero to battle red alert. And then they find out that, hey, red alert. I mean, shocker shocker isn't the moral that they act like they are.

No, sir.

Pulled some shit. And of course, midway through the game, you can play as X. So X does come back. And depending on who you play as, this game does have three different endings. So if you finish the game as X, he refuses to train Axel to become a Maverick hunter because he thinks he's a little bitch. It's very much like Jedi Council Anakin shit where it's like, no, too immature.

He's too young.

And Cygnus tries to reason with him and says that the Mavericks aren't gone. And of course, since there's an X Eight, I think we all know how that ends up.

We all know about that.

If you play as Axel, he argues with X. And then all of a sudden there's a Maverick outbreak. And Axel is like, I got to fucking deal with this, you bitch. And then X is like, whatever.

Yeah, I don't care.

And if you play as Zero, which I think his hero was honestly the most fun to play as, he has a nightmare in which X goes on. Like, again, there's a lot of Star Wars illusions in here. Goes on a rampage like Anakin versus the Sand People to destroy all of the Mavericks, which I haven't played. I have played mega man zero. It's been so long since I played Mega Man Zero. But apparently the rise of copy X in Mega Man Zero, it foreshadows. So that is the story. It's honestly a little more complicated than it should be.

But yeah, I enjoy there's something that appeals to me about the cheese kind of I know I've said about other games that I don't like the kind of cheesy mellow drama, but there's something so inherently it's going to sound racist. I can't Japanese about this.

Very anime.

Yeah. And I fucking love it. I fucking love this shit.

And I would assume that in the original translation of this game, if I could understand Japanese, I bet in Japanese this lands way better.

I bet it just fucking tracks. Perfect. Tears are flowing.

Yeah. I mean, I would not say it is a bad story. Like I said, if you've played a lot of Final Fantasy Seven, this game will feel a little echoey to you.

It'll scratch that itch for you.

You'll kind of get that vibe from this game. But let's start talking about the gameplay. You are something else.

Who goes there? Show yourself.

Don't you find the Maverick Hunters to be a bit too much of a nuisance?

Maverick Hunters? Well, sure. I don't like them.

So Mega Man's gameplay is kind of like a constant in video games, right? Like, it's a side scrolling action platformer. It's shooting it's about most of the Mega Man games up until this point. And without not counting legends and stuff like that, you start out some of them. You can choose the level you start on and then you play through the level. You defeat the boss of that level and you gain a new ability.

His ability.

Yeah. Sometimes there's extra abilities for many bosses in those levels, but that's largely what it is. There's cut man and rockman guts man. It's schadenfreude, man. Yeah. And this game keeps that to that, in a way, sort of. Yeah. You can gain new abilities. There's stages. You don't really get to pick your stages so much, especially in the beginning. It has, like a tutorial kind of stage, and all the characters have different abilities. Zero is a melee character. Axel has a handgun. And X, of course, has his buster. Yeah, X. He'd be busting.

He'd be busting.

He'd do be busting. Axel also has an ability called copy shot, where if you destroy certain types of enemies, they'll leave, like, an item on the ground and you can pick it up and you'll get their weapon with all their speed and stuff. Zero has a sword which is sick.

Pretty sick.

The Z saber. I like zero. Zero is one of my favorites.

Yeah.

In all of Mega Man history. I really like zero.

Zero is dope.

Yeah. So this game has eight main bosses, and that's how you unlock once you defeat the eight main bosses, that's how you unlock X.

Yes.

And you have to rescue certain reploids. And thankfully, the gameplay for this game is not as convoluted as its story, but I would say for 80% of this game, it is pretty much what you love from a Mega Man game.

Did you say 80%? 80%, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I would say 80% of it is exactly what you've come to expect and love. I think the shift in graphics makes it feel a little less intuitive than maybe the older ones did. But then again, I think the PlayStation ones feel worse than the Super Nintendo ones, to be honest. I think there's something about platforming that there's something about the Super Nintendo, there's something about the Genesis, there's something about the NES that just platforming doesn't feel as good anywhere else than there.

I have to agree. I've said that even the more advanced consoles get the worse platforming feels.

Yeah, there's something about the precise platforming of older Mega Man games, particularly like Mega Man Two and Three. Even mega, man. Six. The platforming in those games and in Mega Man x. Oh, my God. Mega Man X for Super Nintendo. The first Mega Man X game. The platforming in those games is one of the most satisfying video game experiences you can have. It's the same with Mario, right? I can't think of a single Mario game I hate.

No.

I kind of love all of the Mario games, but maybe Sunshine. None of them feel I like Sunshine. None of them feel as good as, like, Super Mario Bros. Three.

No. Yeah.

Or Super Mario World or even the first Super Mario Bros. There's something about it. It's almost impossible to replicate. I don't understand how they did it or what the actual difference is. But there is a difference. And I think you can feel it, especially in this jump to the PlayStation Two.

I don't know. Maybe I don't know shit about game development but I feel like as games get bigger, bigger and the graphics get better and we go on to there's more. And it's the reliance on game engines which are built for a variety of purposes whereas the originals on carts are done for exactly that game. No one's porting the Mario game engine to castlevania. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And that's not to say that I think there are no good platformers on modern console. I thought Jack and Daxer was great. That's a platform.

Absolutely.

There's platforming stuff in God of War. I really like that. I think some of the newer platformers are incredible. I fucking love Shovel Knight. Shovel Knight, I think, is one of the best games come out in the past decade. It's so good.

I'd agree with that. I'd agree with that.

But with Mega Man, if you are well versed in Mega Man, this feels different. This feels different, but it doesn't look that different, which is reassuring and can kind of give you like an entry point into it. I will say the controls in this game sometimes feel a little wonky.

Yes.

I think the targeting is a little wonky. Shifting targets with R Two seems like fucking not the business.

It's not the business.

It is not the business.

That ain't it.

It is sometimes infuriating in the very first level, there's a section where you have to shoot orbs on a door when they're only when they're red, though, and you have to shoot that. If you shoot them when they're blue, it closes the door and you have to hit all four of them while they're red. But shifting to the target quick enough is like a cystophysian effort.

Yes, it is.

Because you get three of them and then you hit one that's fucking blue and you're like, you piece of shit. Or you don't go quick. It won't cycle through them quick enough to get to the one you need. And it's just like, oh, my God, stop. Please kill me now. But speaking of that, section we'll get to the thing about this game, which was the most controversial about this is.

The 20% that you and it's also.

I think, the worst, worst, worst fucking part of this game. The shift in 3D graphics, which, I mean, we saw in Mega Man X Six, five and four, but that was still a side scroller. Now, what they've tried to do with this game, and I would say good on them for giving it a go, but honestly, this is a fucking huge whiff for me. There are sections of each map where you'll all of a sudden go into a vertical, kind of almost overhead kind of camera angle where it's to make the environment seem more three dimensional. Right. Because you turn go someplace and then the camera shifts with you. So it's more behind, above and slightly behind your character. A, the character's placement on the screen is ass. It is complete shit. The character ends up near the top of the screen, so you really can't see what's in front of you, where you're going. Not by much. There's a couple of things early on where it's like there's an enemy right in front of you and you cannot see it until you're like on it.

On it, yes.

And that is infuriating jumping, it seems hard because you can't gauge where you're going and it just kind of like your sense of it throws your equilibrium off for the way the game controls.

And it's not intentional. It's not to throw you off, it's error.

Yeah. It's something that just wasn't very well thought out and does not work great. And I think that was probably the biggest here's. The thing is, I didn't remember it being an issue for me when I first played this game fucking almost 20 years ago right now. I do remember that. Again, I'd kind of waned in my love of Mega Man at this point in time in my life. Similar to Sonic, I wanted to play adult games. I want to play games for grown ups. And Mega Man is a kids game. But I did play it, and I don't remember it being a huge deal. But playing it now, it's brutal. It's brutal. It's by far the worst part of this game.

You want them to be over.

Yeah. In an otherwise game that I would say is aggressively mid, this part really kind of knocks it down.

Yeah.

This game has a satisfying gameplay loop. The gameplay loop is there to be satisfying. The boss fights can be fun. Being able to call in playing a Zero and being able to call in Axle or vice versa, I love that is super fun. The copy ability is fun. Zero controls really well. It's very satisfying. And I would say that this game I would say this game is like a seven and a half out of ten. If it got rid of these 3D sections, it's not implemented well. I like the idea. I think the idea is good. And obviously, this being the first one for PlayStation Two, I'm sure there was some this is not me. Shitting on the developers at all. No, this I think that there was probably a lot of pressure for this being the first Mega Man game on PS Two to do something different, to change it up somehow, but still retain most of what people love about Mega Man. And this was their swing at that. It like a grittier kind of story and this weird 3D thing. And I mean, hey, you got to innovate, you got to do stuff. But this one's just a miss for.

Me, it feels like, to me. And I don't want to get too far ahead of us with reviews and stuff. I took it as more of an inevitability of what they knew was going to be happening. So we have to do it sometimes. Let's do it here. We'll probably fuck it up. Guess what? They did. But it had to happen.

Yeah. And I think we may have skipped over. One of the thing that makes it particularly awful is you have no camera control.

Correct.

Now, if this game allowed you to control the camera in this perspective, it's a different thing. Yeah, whole different thing. Probably making it one of the best of the non of the 32 bit and beyond Mega Man X games. But the inability to move the camera while still being in this weird position is just hard to move past.

Yeah, it is.

It's really hard to move past.

Yeah. The misstep of 3D turns into a huge misstep when you can't control the camera.

Yeah, absolutely. But again, hey, sometimes we don't know. We're not Mega Man experts. So let's see what the review said.

Why?

So Mega Man X Seven on Metacritic has a 58 out of 100, which seems like perfect.

Okay. I say it's low, but go on.

Yeah. I feel like for me, that's kind of where it lies. It debuted as the third best selling video game in Japan by Copies, which.

Again, proves our theory. The Japanese love mega man.

They do. And then a budget rerelease of the game was included with the Mega Man collection, the PlayStation Two version of the original six Mega Man games.

Okay.

Yeah. So that's not though, hey, man. But largely it received mixed reviews. It attracted some positive remarks for character switching, which I agree. I think character switching was fucking awesome.

Character switching is next level for me.

The reploid rescue systems I also enjoyed. Here we go. The general consensus was that the game's mixture of gameplay was well intentioned but poorly executed.

Exactly right.

There we go. IGN found the characters unbalanced as the shooters. X and Axle felt far more useful than Melee Fighter Zero. Hard disagree.

Yeah.

Skill Issue. Skill Issue. Skill Issue. Skill Issue. Skill Issue.

That's a bad player right there.

Yeah. That's a skill issue. I played most of this game as Zero. I love zero. Zero is super fun to play as. If you are having trouble with Zero, play as Axel. But just know that it's not Zero's fault. You just need to get good.

Get good. Just get good facts. Yeah.

Criticism has been aimed at the actors, the English voice actors performance oh, my God.

Oh, yes.

To the point that it has been recommended to try listening to the original Japanese audio. The music has been described as generic, and while appealing, it does not stand out against what previous installments have offered. This is facts right here. Because anyone who's played the original six Mega Man games, those soundtracks are legendary. Those soundbars insane. If follow RX Bandits on Instagram and the guitar player singer of that band does Mega Man covers on guitar and it is the best.

Yeah.

Super sick. Yeah. And this one, it feels like a generic PS Two library music.

It's interesting, too, that we're around the same era as Marvel versus Capcom, too.

Yeah.

And their music.

At Capcom at this.

Time, that's what I'm asking. Was there a new guy and he was a jazz fiend or something and it was like, no, man, I'm going to introduce the world to fucking jazz through these games.

Yeah. Mega man. The crossover of jazz fans and Mega Man fans massive.

Oh, my God.

Oh, God. Game spy concluded. I can't fault Capcom or the Mega Man X Seven team for trying to reinvent a series that had obviously completely lost its way. But the flaccid 2D sections in this game aren't half as good as any of the levels in original Mega Man X. Obviously, the three DBITS are more compelling, but still substandard. I disagree. They're not compelling at all. They are substandard. They are not compelling. And IGN instead blamed the places to blame wholly on the 3D sections, which is in line with how I feel.

IGN is correct. Yeah.

We can't help but think Mega Manic Seven would have been better suited staying 2D. But until Capcom realizes the better action oriented 3D tiles allow you to manipulate the camera, wholeheartedly future installments of the series will likely run into the same problems that this one did. Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I don't think, obviously, this game isn't as good as Mega Man X. That's like saying, like, oh, fucking like that picture that your niece did that you put on your fridge isn't as good as the fucking Mona Lisa. No shit. It's not as good as one of the most legendary Mega Man games of all time. But I do think that the 2D sections of this game are pretty good.

They're pretty good.

They're pretty good. Everything you kind of want from a Mega Man game. There's some interesting enemies, there's some interesting platforming stuff going on. It's still a fun game. The idea that you have to compare this to a game like Mega Man X seems insane, especially because there's no way it's going to feel the same.

Right.

And I think maybe that was a lot of people's problems with the Mega Man X Games on the PlayStation One, which I feel more comfortable talking about the older ones since this is sequel month. A lot of people hate on the Mega Man X Games on PlayStation, I think they're pretty good. I think X Six is a little on the weaker end, but like X Four and X Five I think are actually pretty good. But yeah, if your constant frame of reference is this legendary game and you're expecting them not to take risks and evolve, you're going to have a bad time.

Yeah. Come on, now. Come on now.

Yeah. Okay, Ian, time to rate this bad boy. What are you giving us on the Dre scale?

The Dre scale. I feel like I'm going to be much higher than you because and I have to say, it was interesting you told a story earlier about getting into Mega Man late and then going back. This kind of rekindled my early childhood Nintendo love of mega, man. And I've kind of decided to go back to the beginning and just play through as many as I can, maybe even all of them.

Hell, yeah.

When I can. And I understand that doesn't really have a lot to do with this game in particular, but because it awoke that in me because of the bonker story and just the platforming and as you said, the satisfying game loop. So, all in all, I am going to give Meg Man X Seven six and a half buster shots out of ten.

Interesting because I don't hate this game at all.

No, it's hard to hate.

It's very hard to hate because it's so clearly in the vein of all other Mega Man games. And like I said, I would say without the 3D sections, this gives like a seven and a half or an eight without those 3D sections.

Right.

But taking that into account, and I understand there's a certain amount of bias because I am a Mega Man fanboy.

Yeah.

I'm going to give this game six and a half out of ten. Z sabers zabers. So I thought I was going to be lower than you, too, but yours was lower than I thought I was going to be. I'm at like a six and a half with this. This game is worth playing.

Yes, it is. Just the 3D really is that rough. Yeah, it just is. If not for the probably would have gone eight and a half even.

Yeah, I would have gone I would have said, yeah, I would think this is a solid eight if it weren't for the 3D sections. This game feels that good. And I think Mega Man X is a ten. I think Mega Man Two is a ten. I think Mega Man Three is a 9.5. So there is a little bit of bias there. But of course, I would never recommend this as someone's first Mega Man game. But if you're already a Mega Man fan and you haven't either a ditch your toes into the Mega Man X franchise, what are you doing? Play mega Man X right now. But if you just haven't gotten into the later Mega Man games, this is not a bad game.

Yeah, and that's exactly where I am.

This is not a bad game. There is fun to be had in this game. There's a lot more Mega Man experiences that are better than this. But this is still worth checking out.

Yeah, you should play it especially it.

Is how easily accessible it is. It's on Mega Man X legacy collection two, along with Mega Man X six and Mega Man X Eight, which I think you can get both Mega Man X legacy collections digitally on the PlayStation Store for $20, which Mega Man X One through eight for $20 is fucking insane. That is fucking hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of amazing fun, amazing music, and an amazingly satisfying gameplay loop with very few hiccups in it.

100%. Check that out.

Boom.

So that was Mega man X Seven.

Excel. Fior.

Excelsior. Thanks so much for listening to us and spending a little time with us.

You can find us on social media at Discrete AirPod on Instagram. You can find me at funeral. Casual games on Instagram.

I'm at Ian Golding Games.

And if you like what you heard, you can check out a new episode from us every single P s Tuesday, Tuesday. And for the rest of the month, we are gonna be doing sequels, sequel, sequels for sequels, month sequel. But you can also find us on whatnot at Funeral Casual, where we sometimes sling games. Sometimes we just get on and bitch. Sometimes we do tier lists of gaming franchise. But most importantly, every once in a while, we like to raise money for charity. And we have a charity auction coming up on June 4 where all the proceeds will be going to the Trevor Project. They provide mental health services and suicide prevention resources for LGBTQ teens across the country. So come hang out, bookmark it. Even if you don't aren't interested in buying any games. Just come out and say hi.

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Baraboom. Barabee.