It's new to me: Mega Man X5

Some great, new ideas that don't quite land.

This column is “It’s new to me,” in which I’ll play a game I’ve never played before — of which there are still many despite my habits — and then write up my thoughts on the title, hopefully while doing existing fans justice. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

The first four Mega Man X games are fascinating. The original three were made for the SNES, with the last of those eventually ported to 32-bit systems and home computers with the original 16-bit visuals. Mega Man X is an all-time classic, and to me still the standout entry of the series that’s as great today as it was in 1994. Its first sequel, X2, is even better in some ways, while lacking enough in others to make it a debate about which is superior. X3 managed to iterate on the ideas of both X2 and X, while fixing the pacing issues of X2 and cranking up the difficulty. It has its detractors, but its fans, as well. And X4… well, I wasn’t its biggest fan by any means, as it felt like the beginning of the diminishing returns of going back to this well again and again so often, but you’ll find people who think its the highpoint of the series, too.  

Mega Man X5 is where opinions aren’t nearly so varied. It’s basically accepted that it’s a decent game, but that’s all: you won’t find legions of supporters saying it’s underrated or actually the best Mega Man X game like with the four previous titles. And I’m not here to change that narrative, either: X5 isn’t a bad game, but even its various changes, as intriguing as they are, aren’t enough to make it a must-play entry unless you’re a completionist or attempting to cover every Mega Man X title from the collections you’ve already paid for. Five games in is a bad time for everything to be better in the idea stage than in execution, especially given what came before. But hey, at least it’s not X6 or X7, he says, knowing what awaits him in his future.

First, let’s start with some good news: they changed X’s voice actor, so we no longer have a hardened counter-terrorist who has saved the world multiple times sounding like a young boy. Just because it works for Goku in Dragon Ball doesn’t mean this is a universally good idea (and Goku also is a young boy in that series, so there’s that). The role of voice acting in X5 has actually been significantly reduced from X4, too, which is a bit of a shame, since that did add something to the proceedings before. But at least the character yells all sound appropriate to the characters doing the yelling now.

Image credit: LaunchBox Games Database

According to Keiji Inafune in the Mega Man X edition of the Complete Works series, X5 was intended to be the final Mega Man X title. While he was a producer on the game, the story idea — with X and Zero eventually having to face off against each other against the will of either to resolve a storyline that had been percolating for some time — was also his. The game was designed, directed, and even drawn by others at Capcom, though, with development helmed by Capcom Production Studio 3. Obviously, this didn’t end up happening, given there are two more sequels, but also considering how those were reviewed and reviled, maybe Capcom should have listened to Inafune there and stopped at the logical endpoint of X5 that, for the faults it does have, did manage to wrap things up in the canon ending.

You can play as X or Zero in this game, and not like where Zero was sometimes a character you could play as. This time, the two are equals: you pick one from the start of the game to be your primary choice, which will net them a bonus set of equipment to choose from: in X’s case, a version of his full-powered armor from X4, and for Zero, his Z-Buster to go along with the Z-Saber he always has. Given that Z-Saber, he’s more the close-in melee guy, while X is the superior ranged fighter. It really comes down to preference then, but you aren’t locked out from using the other during the game. If you choose X from the start but then want to use Zero for a level or two, you just won’t have the Z-Buster at your disposal, but otherwise, he’s there.

Here’s the central concept of X5: an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, and you need to destroy it or divert it before it gets there. Sigma himself is nowhere to be found, though, he’s certainly present, as the Sigma Virus is infecting every reploid in sight. Big, small, X, Zero, you name it, they’re all coming into contact with the virus and having it take them over. Or, in the case of X, weaken him over time, and Zero, strengthen him. Huh, I wonder what that’s about, that a robot made by Dr. Wily who has fought for good might get stronger when infected with evil in code form.

To stop the asteroid, you need to power up the Enigma weapon, which various robot masters have the parts for. You can go to any stage at any time like usual in a Mega Man game, but you have a bit of a time limit in place here, as that asteroid keeps on traveling through space and closing its gap with Earth. So, failing a stage will eat up some time. Going back through a completed stage to find items you couldn’t reach before will eat up time. Battles with Dynamo, the random baddie of the day who shows up at various intervals for the sole purpose of delaying you, will… you get it. If you manage to clear some of the stages on your first try, you’ll have plenty of time leftover for the others. You can also fire the Enigma at any time, completed or not: your chances of it being a success are just higher the more parts you find. 

Here’s where things can get annoying: even if you do successfully collect all four parts, the laser might not do the trick. It might just slightly divert it and buy you some more time to complete a second attempt at destroying it, which is a space shuttle that one of X or Zero will pilot to ram right into it. Which means, if this occurs, you did all of that time-based planning for what? To do it all over again without earning the extra time you needed to pick up upgrades and items that you had left waiting since you were under the gun? Annoying. At first I thought this was just part of the story, that your first attempt didn’t work and never would, but no! It can work. Such a strange decision to structure things this way, since it serves to make what should have been meaningful, calculated decisions about taking on robot masters you maybe didn’t have the appropriate weapon to combat because the clock was ticking and turning it all into a coin flip you can’t avoid.

It doesn’t help that some of the setup for this, narratively speaking, is weak. It’s pretty goofy that the game keeps interrupting you to have lengthy conversations before boss fights that only serve to point out how much of the game simply doesn’t need to happen, narratively speaking. Usually when someone says, “okay but if they just talked it over this would be resolved” as a critique of a piece of media, it can be annoying and/or a complete misunderstanding of how said media works, because people are imperfect and failure to communicate is itself something fascinating to watch as a viewer.  In the case of X5, it’s… it sure seems like a lot of these robot masters are also on the side of X and Zero and haven’t succumbed to the Sigma Virus yet, have something the pair needs, and are just unwilling to give it up without putting themselves in danger of dying against one of two guys who has an enormous trail of bodies behind them. That X responds to a lot of this with aggression or straight-up opens the dialogue with aggression certainly does not help matters: X, you’re the good guy here, why are you being such a dick? All of the robot masters probably should have already just been infected with the Sigma Virus so that it was still considered unfortunate that a battle had to happen at all, but for a reason other than X’s lack of interpersonal skills.

All of this being said, the idea of the varied boss order and having goals that go beyond “defeat all the robot masters in order of their weaknesses that you’ve acquired” is a good one, where the only real weakness from it should have been that they’re maybe a little easier to compensate for the many times you might not have the ability they’re weak to at your disposal. Instead, the narrative is also weaker, the gameplay flow is messed with, and none of it might even matter for you in the end. 

It doesn’t help that the stages have managed to differentiate themselves from each other quite a bit, with plenty of set pieces and some different feeling designs each time out to keep it all from feeling like you’re treading the same old ground again and again, but haven’t managed to actually become super memorable in the process. The vibes are memorable, sure, due to the distinct look and feel to them all, but with a couple of exceptions, it’s lacking the set pieces that you’ll carry with you, and the level design is not of the same quality as in the games that preceded this one. That you can complete the game without bothering to find anywhere near all of the upgrades doesn’t help matters, either: between this and having to hurry for maybe two different “we’re doomed!” deadlines, you might not feel compelled to actually seek out what X5 does have on offer. 

As said, there are a lot of good ideas here. The Sigma Virus is a cool concept: you can permanently weaken X by having too many of these floating viruses catch you during gameplay, while Zero gets stronger but also more evil the more of them he comes into contact with. The basic idea behind the boss order being charged with complicated choices is also inspired, and the intention to change things up in this regard even further than before was a positive. Being able to choose what kind of upgrades, for maxing out extra life or more special weapon ammo, is a nifty addition that lets you customize your experience a bit. Being able to play as X and Zero at any time, and having your own character choices end up influencing the inevitable direction of the game’s narrative and ending, is a point in the game’s favor. Too many of these ideas weren’t properly executed, however, and the end result is a game that’s both a little too much like its predecessors while not being enough like them at all in the ways that truly matter. 

X5 isn’t bad, but it’s a bit of a mess, and the first time the series produced a game where it wasn’t starting any arguments over which of them was best. The improved graphics that took more advantage of the Playstation end up being the best part of the entire experience: this is a fine-looking action-platformer that thrived with sprites in a way that the polygon-heavy Playstation-developed games didn’t always manage to. The soundtrack, of course, has plenty of merit: the rest of the package, though, is lacking in one way or another. Which is a real shame, but these streaks do come to an end eventually. They can’t all be Mega Man Legends, you know. 

Given that X5 is the consensus best game of the second Mega Man X Legacy Collection that’s out on pretty much every platform now, well. You might not need to go out and search for this one yourself unless you absolutely must know for yourself, like I did. But hey, there’s always the first volume, with four bangers in a bangers-only set, so splurge on that if you haven’t yet.

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