Mega Man X Collection (Game Cube, 2006)

When Mega Man X Collection was announced, fans everywhere rejoiced. Those who searched learned more and more information from Mega Man sites, such as how Capcom would be developing the collection, how X1 and X2 would receive remixed music, and how bad voice acting would be replaced because it has had it's bad voice acting (not horrible but not good). But something happened. Keiji Inafune, Mega Man's creator, decided in the end to not do this. Capcom was ready to please it's ever-patient fans but Keiji Inafune didn't want the old X games redone in any way. In fact, he wanted them as original as possible. So Capcom had to remove all things that weren't in the original games. Did you want the new cool X voice from X8 and Command Mission to be on all the old games? Too bad. Did you want enhanced cut scenes which might better move the flow and understanding of the games? Too bad. Aside from removing these much awaited improvements, it slowed the release date to about two months later. Personally, that makes very little sense to me. Apparently the reason why Inafune did this, was to rewrite the Mega Man stories in the form of Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X on the PSP.

By now you are probably asking why you should bother getting it then. Well, that depends. If you don't own any of the old X through X6 games, this is a bargain! That was exactly the case with me. I loved the old X games but I could never buy any of them. Call it bad luck or bad stores it dosen't really matter now. If you already own all the originals, there is not much to gain aside from Mega Man Battle & Chase which is essentially Mario Kart with Mega Man characters. The games all run beautifully but there are many noticeable glitches, errors, and in some cases bad audio encoding and compression. There are too many for me to have the energy to list but these don't really bug me though and you could easily get used to them. They are all really small and shouldn't get in the way of your fun.

Everything in these games are like the originals including the old passwords. Unfortunately, this means both the good and the bad. If you wrote down and kept your old X through X3 passwords, you can continue from your password. But X still sounds like a girl in X4 and the voice acting is still bad. X6 still has the Japanese voices during fights. It was removed from the dialogue in the cut scenes. Personally, I prefer good Japanese voice acting to bad English voice acting anyway. Gamecube players also get a nice treat. Aside from slightly faster loading times, they can also get a nice Mega Man X customized controller. It makes Mega Man playing on the Gamecube even better. The buttons are better positioned, at more prefered sizes, and has two Z buttons. Plus, it has the cool picture of X from X8 on the side. Mega Man Battle & Chase works very similar to Mario Kart except with Mega Man characters. You have to beat the first three X games to unlock it though.

The only REAL complaint I have with this game is that the version of X3 they have is from the Playstation. It remixed the music and added animated cut scenes. I prefered the music from the Super Nintendo version, but I can always buy it on Ebay :). The collection also does have some extra gifts. It has original artwork and some remixed music which must be unlocked through playing the games. I have nothing against Mr.Inafune but I think he should think more on his decisions in the future.