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No fan game, I just posted a pitch in one of the topics about the story of the X series here, and he posted this topic maybe a couple days later.

The ending of X8 seemed to suggest that, if it came to the day when there would be no use for reploids, Zero would not go quietly.  I think there's a lot of potential to make a really deep, character-driven story here, where perhaps the world's government or whatever's left on Earth decides to take in all old-era reploids and decommission them, and X actually fights for the side of the humans.  X is tired of fighting, tired of war, and just wants his "duty" to be over, so he's accepted his fate and is willing to be decommissioned himself, but Zero starts a rebellion against the humans (with a group of reploids also deemed "Mavericks") and X is sent to take them down.  After all the build-up of how X is talking about how he'll have to kill Zero one day, I'd love for it to be because of a philosophical disagreement, and not because Zero gets "infected" or some stupid [parasitic bomb] like that.  There's actually a lot of thematic depth here about free will, right to life, a child's responsibility to his parents', etc. all of which make for a great classic science fiction story.  I think it'd be a great way for the series to go out, personally, though I'm not sure which ending I'd like most: one where X dies, or one where he lives.

I certainly got annoyed that he specifically said "Here are my ideas", and then proceeded to post an idea that wasn't his in the slightest, but I'd be more than happy if even Capcom made a game with this level of narrative depth.

I dunno about Gate's Lab, but there's a common block configuration in the Museum stage that is impossible to cross as regular X.  I've tested it to death on emulators.

X3 was a game I loved as a kid and I think many people did, cause when you're young you think "more = better".  It's only later that you realize that all the [parasitic bomb] they crammed into this game didn't work.  Forced encounters with Bit & Byte just mean that every stage has two transition rooms that are empty most of the time.  Multiple ride armors are cool, but you need to visit, like, five different stages before you can even unlock ONE of them.  Armor capsules in every stage is cool enough, except that most of the chips suck and once you learn about the Golden Armor they all become irrelevant.

Poorly paced game with poorly-thought out expansions and item progression.  I'd say at least it had a couple of good boss fights, but something like 3/4 of the boss fights just involved you climbing the wall and jumping over the boss as he charged right at you.

Not even Jet Stingray or Final Sigma?

They're familiar after I look them up, but ultimately not memorable enough to stick in there.

I can remember and sing the melodies for almost every song in X5.

And it's got one of the funkiest remixes to it, too:

http://youtu.be/cwrVYWMrf-Y

I really enjoyed the X5 soundtrack overall, and can't remember a single track from X4's off the top of my head.  X6's soundtrack had some hits too, but the music often didn't fit the stage at all, like Blaze Heatnix having one of the fastest and most energetic rock tracks for the slowest and most tedious stage in the series' history.

You're giving awful design far too much credit. 

If there's one thing I really liked about X5, it's how all of its stages were mission-based.  I do like the idea of going into a stage and having a goal to reach, like taking out the submarine or defusing all the bombs or whathaveyou.  They did more with this idea in X8 and it worked out much better.

I actually think the framework for the PSX-era games was fantastic.  Game feel was terrific, the control felt precise yet fluid, visual design was terrific and the ability to fully play as different characters was a plus.

The problem?  Level design was horrendous.  HORRENDOUS.  And with how little else changes, level design is pretty much what makes or breaks a Mega Man game.

X4's biggest problem was that most of its stages were straight lines with enemies strewn about, but the way that they broke up the stages into two parts hurt more as well.  For most of the stages, you can literally just run from one end to the other without even trying to dodge enemies and you'll make it to the second half of the stage without dying, whereupon you get your health refilled.  There's no incentive for a player to actually perform well throughout the stage, and there's little interesting in the stages to bother with anyway.  Everything felt too cramped, exploration was essentially non-existent (with even powerups just hiding in plain site), and the post-Maverick stages were basically just boss rooms one after the other.

X5 was a step in the right direction in terms of level design, making more open stages that branched off in different directions and actually had a design to them that extended beyond "straight line", but it ruined that by all its other framework problems like the poorly-implemented time limit, armor upgrades and Maverick leveling system.  Alia also got in the way causing more player deaths than the actual stage design, particularly in the Skiver's stage where a text bubble will actually stop you from being able to take out a bomb in time, or in Mattrex's stage where a text bubble will stop you mid-jump when you're heading towards a safe zone.  Stage ideas like fighting off the submarine miniboss in Duff's stage was neat, but was too cramped and definitely needed some fleshing out.

X6 is the worst game I've ever played from a major developer.  Stage design is garbage, boss design is garbage, the gameplay is garbage, and you can tell that nobody working on this game had any idea of what good game design is supposed to look like.  I wouldn't wish this game upon my worst enemies.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the Zero or ZX series, in terms of gameplay, but boy do I love their artwork and character design.

I forget but in any of the games did the bosses ever change their strategy and attacks at a certain amount of health or did they just do the same thing no matter what?

Gemini Man in MM3.
Bright Man in MM4 only uses his flash stopper at certain levels of health.
Dynamo Man in MM&B charges up when he's low on health.
Mavericks in the X series go into some sort of overdrive mode after losing half their health which usually has a new uber attack and sometimes invincibility for a short duration, specifically in X3, X6, X7 and X8.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.  There's also a ton of bosses that change their strategy based on proximity, your jumping/shooting frequency or getting damaged by certain weapons (like in MM7).

How about no?

You have your opinions on weapons, I have mine. Don't go trying to change mine.

Don't go trying to change Soultrigger's, then.

Laser Trident= Basically a stronger megabuster, okay this one is good.
Black Hole Bomb= Slow moving projectile that sucks things in, it can be useful but its more conditional.
Magma Cannon=Atomic Fire that shoots in three directions, wow totally original 10/10 capcom, I never found any use for it.
Concrete Shot= Conditional, forced usage for stupid lava lasers in Wily 1 and stupid lasers in Wily 4, runs out of ammo too quickly to be of much use.
Hornet Chaser= Good for getting items and killing Mr. Angry Rock but not much else.
Tornado Blow= Forced Usage in Wily 1, can damage fire dragon miniboss but its not that great.
Diamond Barrier/Shield/whatever= Its a stupid shield. Good for telly grinding but [tornado fang] barriers.
Plug Ball = Okay it hits enemies on the ground guess what its not good for much else.

Wow are you doing this wrong.  Here, let me help:

Laser Trident - more powerful version of the Mega Buster with a larger hit radius and barrier-piercing ability
Black Hole Bomb - area-of-effect, can destroy any non-miniboss enemy in one use
Magma Cannon - attacks diagonally, can be charged for extra damage, the three shots can overlap to do insane amount of damage in one attack
Concrete Shot - freezes enemies, has platforming purposes
Hornet Chaser - homing attack, can pick up items
Tornado Blow - screen clearing, platforming purposes
Jewel Satellite - incredibly powerful shield, breaks 90% of the rooms in the game, is one of the series' absolutely most useful weapons
Plug Ball - super fast, can travel to hard-to-reach places to reach hard-to-reach enemies

Maybe you absolutely suck with weapons, but that doesn't make them sucky.

That story pitch seems familiar somehow.

Critical thinking? How does "going back and forth about the same argument" and "how is my question about reusing music any different than reusing bosses?" qualify as critical thinking?

As opposed to "I like it cause I like it"?

Not as interested in changing minds as I am in encouraging critical thinking.  "I like it cause I like it" doesn't really say anything, whereas actually thinking about aspects of design brings out more interesting discussion.

But ew X6 ew.

Boss patterns are identical.  Room layouts are identical aside from Flash Man's refight.  Hitbox differences are negligible and don't actually affect strategy.  Altered weakness it is, I guess, but that doesn't really change how the fight plays out all that much.  Still seems like a copy-and-paste job, and what's changed is not what's being pasted, but what it's being pasted into.  That doesn't make it "new content" to me, it makes it "old content" in a "new game".

It's liked because it's liked.  That's enough.

Oh that's such a boring answer.

Oh?  How is my question different than asking about refighting the MM2 bosses?

Simple yes or no question.

Would you consider the menu music in MM9 new?  It's the first time they reused a song directly from MM2.

Anyone who gets hit with that fist had it coming.

Okay, I know this topic ain't been used in a while, but I was having some fun on the weekend and ended up putting some serious effort into coming up with a RM set.  I've never had anything I'd consider artistic talent (visual art, anyway), so be gentle, as I'm pretty happy they turned out even close to how I imagined them.


Almost called "Arctic Man", but for whatever reason I think Polar fits better.  He's an ice/water type, with a stage that takes place around a set of icebergs.  As you get deeper into the water, it gets darker and harder to see.


"Hover Man" because I thought "Blimp Man" was too silly and "Zeppelin Man" was too on-the-nose.  I've actually got a full attack pattern set up for this guy, as well as some solid stage ideas.


Physical type, walks on his hands as his arms extend outward.  The gears in his body allow the whole body to rotate, so as he walks across the room you have to time it correctly to slide underneath.  Stage is a clock tower.  I think I spent the most time just trying to figure out what color to make his eyes.

Out of curiosity, what direction would you point someone interested in making a MM fan game?  Are there established engines or sprite design software that are common to use?

Hey SHUT UP 

By the way, I've been in the middle of the Gamma fight during this whole topic.  Haven't been hit yet.

It actually takes some degree of involvement to fight the Wily 4 capsule.  You have to dodge his attacks, react quickly to his spawn location and attack before you miss your window.  With Gamma you can stand underneath him, go make yourself a sandwich, write a short novel, have grandkids, and when you come back you'll still be fine.  And then you can attack him from underneath with the Shadow Blades without any fear of getting hit, and then when he gets to his second form you can kill him in one hit.

Wily Capsule > Gamma

I didn't say MM3 didn't introduce new ideas, I said that the new content didn't make up for how much lazily-borrowed content there was.

If you're honestly convinced that refighting the MM2 bosses is in any way "new content", then there's no way we're ever going to agree on what "new content" is.

If you're satisfied by half of the game's bosses being reused--HALF--then I don't know what to tell you.  When I buy a new Mega Man game, I expect a fresh experience, not half of a game that feels like it was cobbled together from Frankenstein pieces of the last MM game I played.

When I look at MM3, I see a game that took little effort in comparison to the rest of the series.  Absense of story.  Reusing bosses.  Reusing stages.  Uninspired Protoman fights that you have to do four times.  Uninspired weapon set.  Horrible fortress stages.  The most laughably-bad final boss in the series.  Glitches abound.  Rush Jet so poorly tested that nobody realized how it completely broke the game.

The only things I can actually say I enjoy about MM3 these days are the soundtrack and the Gemini Man fight.  The other games just aren't as sloppy as this one.

8 old robot masters don't negate 8 new ones AND it's the first time robot masters were reused, itself new content.

Reusing old content is not new content.  It's reusing old content.

And the Doc stages aren't the "same", but they're not "new" either.  Same music, same visuals, same enemies (for the most part), and the only Doc stage that's significantly different in the shape of its map is Needle Man's (Doc Shadow is even the exact same shape as Shadow Man's stage).

But it was 3 that brought the dog into the series and he changed the way MM games were conceived of.   Because 3 brought in Rush other games brought in Tango, Beat, and Teble.  None of that would have happened without Rush.

By that logic, Rush would have never happened without the items in 2.  And the items in 2 would have never happened without the Magnet Beam.  I like Rush as much as anyone else, but when MM4-6 use him BETTER, then I don't think MM3 should be getting the credit just because they used him first.

The Triple clone is completely different than copy rock in MM1.  Don't see how they count as the same.

The clone and the Devil both point to the same problem with MM3--it's lazy.  Why make new bosses when we can just change some old ones a little bit?  Why design new stages when we can just alter some old stages?  Why design new bosses for those stages when we can just copy-and-paste bosses from the last game (for no explicable in-game reason, for that matter)?  This game reeks of designers not putting in effort, and you can make all the excuses you want about it being rushed or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that the final product is lacking.

Protoman's also all new to 3 and he's a BIG inclusion.  Rush and Proto were the first time Megaman's cast was expanded and they've had an undeniable impact on MM's world.

If you're giving the game credit from a gameplay standpoint, I've gotta disagree.  The Protoman fights were silly and easy and unnecessary, and the "Break Man" fight was a waste of time.  If you're giving the game credit from a story standpoint, then I've also gotta disagree, because the story makes zero sense unless you read the instruction booklet, and that's never a good sign.  An opening cutscene would have helped that, but whoops, I almost forgot how lazy and sloppy this game is.

Another thing 3 established was the "Wily didn't do it" shtick.  4's more known for it, but 3's story was the first time Wily pretended not to be behind attacks by robot masters.

4's more known for it because a) it did it better, and b) because I'm willing to bet that over half of the people who played the game had no idea that Wily pretended to not be behind the attacks, because the story in this game is found only in the manual.

But yeah, the slide is cool.  MM4-6 has it too.  If more people were really willing to give credit to whatever games started trends that were bettered in the sequels, Mega Man 1 would be at the top of everyone's favorite list, I think.