Review #283: Megaman X 7

 At least it's not Megaman X 6.

 Took long enough, but Megaman X, a series that worked wonders as 2D action games, finally took the plunge and went 3D. Kinda. It actually mixes 2D and 3D areas for... interesting results. I'm gonna cut straight to the point here, Megaman X 7 isn't very good, but at least it ain't X 6.

 The story... well, you should know by now, a villain who is totally not being manipulated by Sigma, must be stopped, there's 8 robot masters to defeat, yadda yadda yadda. New to the series is Axl, a hero who can copy normal enemies's forms for a little while. He isn't too bad, but his voice actor is terrible and doesn't fit him very well... something that stands true for the rest of the cast. Something that irked many a player was the fact that X must be unlocked, either by saving 64 reploids or defeating the 8 Mavericks, but I don't mind. Series evolve, you don't need to play as the same characters all the time. That said, between the plot being centered around Axl, who is a very stereotypical rash teenager, is a bit annoying. Not that you should play these games for their stories anyhow...

 As with previous games, there's 8 Mavericks to defeat, which you can tackle in any order, and they leave a weapon that is extra effective against another Maverick... kinda. Just as with Megaman X 5, even the 'effective' weapons don't deal that much damage, as soon as you unlock X, you'll find out that his charged Mega Buster is the most effective weapon in the entire game. Speaking of characters, now you can bring along any two characters between Axl, X and Zero, which a lot of people like, but strikes me as odd. It's only three characters, so I found it a bit dumb to only let you take two characters. Either let me bring all three of'em, or only one. Zero is a hard hitting, close-range fighter that can double jump... but sans boss-fights, he is gonna have a hard time connecting with his sword. Axl can shoot from afar and glide and X is Axl but with the added benefit of a Charge Shot. Oh, and Axl can turn into enemies defeat by the copy shot... which you'll never use, since transformations are useless(Except for rescuing a few reploids) and dealing the killing shot with the copy shot is pure guesswork against enemies that can receive a ton of punishment.

 Strewn throughout each level are 16 Reploids which you can rescue... or if you fail to get to them before an enemy hits them, they die. Forever. These reploids reward you with upgrades, life and weapon energy upgrades or... nothing, but you never know who has what. This offers a bit of a predicament when it comes to X, y'see, in order to access to him early you need to rescue 64 reploids, which if you are particularly good, can achieve in 4 levels, but it took me 5. This means that a ton of upgrades are gonna be going Axl and Zero's way, since you have to use them the moment you get them. Sure, you could also try to finish all 8 Mavericks without rescuing these Reploids, but remember, they can die, and it can cost you an upgrade. That said, after I finished the 5th level and unlocked X, I used him the remainder of the game, and once I managed to catch him up with the other two, became the best character in the game.

 Controls are also a bit of an issue, but I think it has to do with the game mechanics rather than the controls themselves. It's hard to explain, but wall jumping can be pretty finicky, since it seems that characters have troubles clinging to certain walls or objects. It was also fairly stupid to make Axl's hover work by holding the jump button, since in this game, depending on how hard you press said button it alters the height of your jump, so if you want to get maximum air out of your jump, you might accidentally trigger the hovering and screw yourself out of the air-dash, plummeting to your death. And hilariously enough, X's hovering works by tapping jump again, so if you are using both characters(Like I was!) prepare to have your muscle memory trick you.  The game also has auto-targeting, which loses its target very easily if you move around, and you toggle targets by tapping R2, although the reticule has a mind of its own when it comes to multiple moving targets, so it might make you waste that charged shot when the boss unleashes projectiles. Goddamn. This also means that when targeting, the camera doesn't follow the target, so bosses like the Kangaroo are a pain in the neck, as you hold Square, to charge your shot, tap circle to avoid its lounge attack while holding R1 to spin the camera and see where the hell the boss is, you'll be a hand gymnast in no time.

 That said, level design is.... OKish. Something tells me that the same team behind the terrible MMX6 was behind this one as well, since leaps of faith abound. The game physics are a bit wonky as well, standing over moving objects will jerk your character around sometimes(The Hyena boss battle, one of the moving planes in the planes stage.) and just try jumping over an object that moves vertically, it will mess with your jump. As for the 3D sections of the levels, they are not as terrible as people make them out to be, but for some reason, the game will only let you spin the camera on CERTAIN sections of this kind. Which is hilarious, because the sections with fixed camera angles are all kinds of terrible, like in the Flying ships stage, even parts throughout which you are supposed to go through will have walls obstructing your view. Genius. I could handpick a few other terrible pieces of the other levels, but I think that's enough to prove my point: Levels can be pretty bad. But, if its worth anything, it doesn't get as bad as X6.

 Megaman X 7 can be a tiny bit fun at times, when its working properly For as poorly designed as they are, the ideas behind some levels are pretty cool, and not something that they could've done in 2D, so they tried to take advantage of this new, third dimension. Not that they succeeded, but they tried. But the mediocre levels, the wonky controls and bad design choices all conspire against it. Megaman X 7 is amongst the worst Megaman X games, but sadly, the series has seen worse.
 4.5 out of 10