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Capcom should be Ashamed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This is the absolute worst Meage Man X game there is. The bosses stink. The armors are pathetic. The timer makes the game more annoying than interesting. DON"T BUY THIS GAME! SAVE YOUR MONEY! Hopefully X6 will be much better.

DO NOT BUY THIS TERRIBLE GAME

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The first thing that comes to mind when a reviewer claims a game is terrible is probably "oh yeah mister smarty pants, you better be able to back up why you think Mega Man X5 is such a bad game". I will try my best. :)

First of all, the gameplay. Being a Mega Man fan since 1993, I grew up with the original Dr. Wily *and* the X series. I love both. People constantly pick which one they think is better, but in the end, I always found shooting robots incredibly fun and I still find it rewarding and addicting to play through a Mega Man game over and over searching for the very best way to blast through a stage and eliminate the enemies, along with finding the best way to defeat the boss at the end of the stage. Mega Man is mainly supposed to be a side-scroller shooter. THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING (sorry, big words make it easier to get my point across).

What does Mega Man X5 do? It mostly abandons the need to really use your X-blaster for anything important, except for the stage bosses. It makes me absolutely SICK TO MY STOMACH (sorry, the big words need to return) that Capcom chose to make at least half of the stages almost completely empty. I don't know the name of the stage, but the forest level has almost NOTHING TO SHOOT. You basically spend the entire time in this level just dash-jumping your way through, until you arrive to the end boss. Oh okay, there are a couple things to shoot. Lazily-designed and completely unmemorable bad guys are featured inside this forest stage (did I mention the backgrounds are bland-looking?) When you arrive to these enemies (I think one of them is some kind of robotic plant, but I may be wrong) you actually have to wait a few seconds for them to shoot something uncreative and boring at you (which incidentally does very little damage). Why am I WAITING for a slow-poke enemy to shoot something at me? And in a MEGA MAN game, where speed and avoiding attacks is supposed to be the key to completing the game? BORING! Anyone who tries defending the stage enemies in this game is going to have an extremely tough time.

I wish that forest stage was the only problem with Mega Man X5, but sadly it's just the beginning. I can't stand this game. I can't stand the fact that Capcom removed *every single thing* I love about the Mega Man series. It's like the company has something personal against me.

What to talk about next... okay, everybody hates the fact that the stage bosses are named after Guns 'N Roses band members. This doesn't really bother me (even though I passionately hate Guns 'N Roses and think they are nothing but a sorry Aerosmith imitator rock band with a whiny, overrated lead singer). I hate the fact that every stage boss can be defeated with *just* your X-buster. Remember how important it was in past games to find the right weapon to successfully destroy the end boss? Not now. Each stage boss has ugly and lazy animations, and they move across the screen so slowly that it's very easy to just continue shooting at them with the X-buster while avoiding their lazy, slow attacks. Believe it or not, all eight stage bosses can be defeated this way. So much for strategy. What a worthless game.

Whenever Capcom tries to make a Mega Man game tell a good story, the gameplay suffers as a result. This game is the biggest offender. The worst part is that they removed the cutscenes you were introduced to in Mega Man X4. Now you have to scroll through boring text as the characters have their boring conversations, building no suspense whatsoever during critical moments. Lengthy and frequent text-scrolling is what X5 is all about.

Oh, and let's not forget that Capcom just threw in a bunch of new friends to help guide Mega Man through the game. I highly doubt anyone cares about these characters because Capcom just PUT them in the game and expected us to care about them without any kind of interesting history or connections to other Mega Man games. Doesn't work that way. Even if they were returning characters from the Wily series it wouldn't have bothered me. The fact is, these new characters are a bunch of nobodys and even when you beat the game, they will remain nobodys.

Speaking of characters guiding you through the game, your female friend Alia INSULTS YOUR INTELLIGENCE numerous times throughout the game. While you dash and shoot your way through each of the eight unmemorable stages (that is, when you actually arrive to something worth shooting) she will CONSTANTLY appear on screen to bug you and tell you *exactly* what it is you have to do. This means more inconvenient text-scrolling. Sometimes she interferes with your progress so often that you just wish there was a way to shoot and kill her. It's incredibly annoying. After finding out how disappointing X5 turned out to be, the LAST thing you want to do is put up with someone like Alia basically calling you a moron.

Alia insults your intelligence by telling you to do VERY simple things that anyone with ANY past experience with a Mega Man game would be able to understand without needing any pointless instructions. She actually has the nerve to say things like "jump over that wall". I THINK we already knew that. Why? BECAUSE WE'VE HAD TO DO THE SAME THING *MANY TIMES* IN THE PREVIOUS FOUR X GAMES AND *MANY TIMES* IN THE WILY GAMES. WE'RE NOT DUMB!!!

The challenge in each stage ranges from very easy to incredibly difficult, which is quite surprising to me because the challenge in past X games was a lot more consistent. The already mentioned forest stage is worthlessly boring, but more specifically, a cakewalk. However, the flipside to that are really frustrating stages that require excellent, fast-moving timing in order to complete. So throughout the game you will go from incredibly simple stages where you don't even have to shoot at anything, to incredibly difficult stages where you are sure to die many times until you get it perfectly right. I LIKE FUN MEGA MAN GAMES. Not this inconsistent mess.

The game becomes almost excruciatingly difficult when you arrive to the very first stage in Sigma's castle. The stage is ripped off completely from the Flash Man stage in Mega Man 2. Remember jumping down and avoiding those laser beams? Same thing. In this game, trying to complete this task is MUCH harder.

At least three stage themes are pretty good. That's it. That's the only thing Mega Man X5 has going for it. Oh, and speaking of music, the theme in one stage is just an updated version of the water stage theme from Mega Man X2. I especially hate this stage because it's one of those stages where the screen pushes you to the right, and you have no control over it. You are forced to go with the flow while avoiding shots from a giant underwater robot. So much for fast-pace shooting/dashing action. I hate this underwater stage more than the previously mentioned forest stage. At least with the forest stage I can go "duh" and daydream my way through the empty thing. Stare at the ceiling while you play through the forest stage. I bet you can make it to the end boss!

Look, I love Capcom and think they're a wonderful company that does a fantastic job with action games, but they really screwed up with Mega Man X5. Please avoid. I can't be angry at a company that gave us so many good games, but when a game is rushed to the market and I believe no creativity or effort whatsoever was involved during the process of creating the game, it HAS to be mentioned. That's what I did just now. Told you why Mega Man X5 is so freakin' awful. A lazy and unremarkable experience. The game has no life.

Every company has their bad games, and this is clearly "the bad game" from Capcom. Just pick up Mega Man X4 to find out what a really good action game should be like. I can only imagine what X6 must be like.

What is this series coming to?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game flat out stinks. The timer is a stupid idea. The game is way too easy. X4 seems to get praised quite a bit even though it wasn't that great. X1 and X3 are the best in this series. Forget about X5.

Mega Disappoinment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've been a huge fan of megaman games since i was 8 years old and till this day i always go to the local toy store(Or order it on amazon.com) when ever a new megaman came out. After playng X4 witch was fantastic I could not wait to play X5 but when i finaly played it and after 5 minutes of game playing i was asking myself (...)Where's The the Cut scenes? Insted of (...) cut scenes like that were in X4 there was insted crapy stills with sub titles! This was a let down i did'nt feel like playing the game anymore but i did and as i played i relized (...)! This game is hard! Don't listen to the amazon review this is not an easy game, The game makers put a slow motion option in the game anyone who says it's easy most likly played it in slow motion, There are parts in the game that are so Hard you begin to ask yourself "Why did i buy This Crap?". Graphics and sound are great as in any megaman game Gameplay is also very good but with no cut Scenes a lame plot and a crap ending it just does not live up to X4 in fact it's the worst in the series. If your a die hard megaman fan it's worth a buy otherwise Rent it the game has little replay value.

Correction

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Amazon.com's review seems to have been by someone who barely ever played any Mega Man game, much less the one being reviewed. "Fourth" is not the name of a character in the game; rather, it is the name of a set of armor that X can wear to improve his abilities. All Mega Man games have infinite continues except for the very first one, the Legends series, and the GBA titles. And it was always possible to destroy most bosses with your default weapon, it was just tougher that way (and it's still like that). I also have yet to determine how X5, which came out right between X4 and X6, qualifies as "a long-overdue return" to anything other than the frustrating level design that plagued some early Mega Man games. In short, this is indeed a very poor excuse for a Mega Man game, but not for the reasons cited in the product description. It's better than the old DOS PC games, though.

This sucks!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: June 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I think X5 is a very boring game.It's just way to easy.Compared to X4,X5 really sucks.The bosses are pittifully weak,and these names really sucked.Axle the Red?What kind of name is that? The only improved thing is the music and the anime films in the game.So if you haven't bought this yet,I suggest that you just forget about it.

Be warned...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Nothing could have prepared me or any other true Mega Man X fan for how much they messed this game up. Apparently there was a staff shake-up before it came out, something that would not surprise me one bit. It seems that these new people wrote up a list entitled "Ways to make the players hate us." Here's why.

1) Why did they mess up the armor system? I was surprised and disillusioned to see you start off with the X4 armor. Wasn't a lot of the fun in the first 4 games starting off with nothing and finding stuff as you went along? It also does not help that they RUINED the plasma gun from X4 and no longer let you shoot through walls. Sure there are capsules in X5, but now it's eight instead of four for two sets of armor. That may sound cool, but acquiring them is more annoying than fun. You can't even use an upgrade when you get the capsule. You have to wait until you get all four pieces to the SAME armor before you can use ANY part you get. Of course it doesn't help either that both the armors suck. Neither of them looks appropriate for a general armor that would come to mind if you think "Mega Man X5." When you think about the first game, you can think of the completed armor he had in it. In X5, both the armors look too specialized, and that's exactly what they are. The Gaea Armor has kind of a cool gun that of course breaks certain blocks, but it is no fun to use because you can only move very slowly in it, and you can't even mid-air dash or use weapons in it. The Falcon Armor lets you fly for a period of roughly five to ten seconds, but when I first saw the powered-up gun for the Falcon Armor, I wasn't sure if I was kidding myself or not by what I saw. It is the worst gun X has ever had. Mega Man's Mega Buster from Mega Man 4 back on NES would blow it off the face of the planet, even the universe. How they could make a gun this pathetic is beyond me. Simply put, one armor's all gun and no movement, and the other's all movement and no gun. Where's the balance here? A good armor would have at least SOME balance.

2) For those who haven't played X5, you will be stopped frozen at least five times a stage forced to read annoying text messages transmitted to you from some stupid new ally named Alia who you'll just want to kill more than anything else. Think of Navi or the owl from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time except 100 times worse. No, there's no way to skip or shut off Alia unless you're revisiting the stage and already listened to it (with the same character). If the text messages were interesting and useful, it may have been pardonable, but no. Instead we're babysat with lectures like "Don't jump on the spikes. You'll die!" "Get off the train! It's exploding!" I don't ever recall playing a Mega Man or X game to be babysat. The new staff must have thought that all of us Mega Man veterans out there never progressed beyond 5 years of age. They obviously never did, so it's quite possible. Alia is shown with her with her mouth wide open wearing some sort of earphone device in the mission report screen in between stages (a part that has the some of the worst Mega Man or Mega Man X music ever created). I'd love so much to stick a piece of dynamite in her wide open mouth and never have to listen to her again. I'd love to do even worse to the morons who made this game. Where did Alia, Signas, Douglas, and all these other dorks come from anyway? Even at X8 it's a mystery.

3) There is absolutely NO creativity or set of new ideas in this game. This is quite obvious considering that they brought back the Rock Monster for the boss of the first Sigma stage, the eye boss from the first game for the second Sigma stage, a time stopper weapon, the Quick Man laser beams, the Mega Man X capsule music for capsules, Bubble Crab's music for Duff McWhalen's stage, and much more. Yes, you read correctly. There is a boss called Duff McWhalen. This brings the review to the bosses. It's hard to contemplate how much they must have thought about different ways to make the bosses suck. Just look at their names. Izzy Glow? The above mentioned Duff McWhalen? Dark Dizzy? The Skiver? Axle the Red? Are these supposed to be cool boss names? The bosses in battle are not exactly inspiring either. Most of them are just so ridiculously slow. How long does the fat bear boss float through the air with his arms shaped as if he wanted to give you a hug? I've lost count... How long does the bat boss just slowly fly around the room and shoot NOTHING at you? It can vary, but either way it's awfully long. And did they even know that the firefly boss IZZY GLOW looks like he's defecating when he does his laser attacks? Did they know that the fight with the horse boss of the sky stage is on an airplane much like Storm Eagle's from X1? Did they know this boss even does some of the EXACT SAME attacks as Storm Eagle? If I wanted to, I could find something bad to say about EVERY stage, boss, and weapon (of which X's none are cool or original) in the game, but I'll let players deduce that for themselves. The only good thing I can say about the bosses is that I wish the squid boss were in another game because he's the only one close to cool (but not the weapon he gives X).
I have never heard worse boss music before X5. You can disagree with me if you want, but I really thought the boss music in X4 was exceptional, at least for Mega Man X boss music. It was energetic and put you in a fighting mode. X5's goes to sounding like some AWFUL messed up version of some dumb pop song. I really wonder if they tested this game at all. They obviously didn't test their own intelligence or capability.

4) X5 is simply almost no fun to play. X is just horrible. His attacks and weapons suck, and he does practically NO DAMAGE to bosses, even with the right weapon. You'll be fighting bosses for ten minutes in the later stages with X unless you use the restrictive Gaea Armor or pick up the Ultimate Armor. Having X and Zero available the whole game instead of choosing to play the whole game as one or the other may seem like a good idea at first, but it ended up being more frustrating than beneficial. You have to figure out how to divide up the heart tanks, and Zero can't even get some of them. You also have to revisit nearly every stage if you want to get everything, taking away from the players any motivation to form their own strategy, order, or way of playing in general. There were absolutely NO new ideas or stage creativity or at ANY point in the game. Some of the stages could just be cruised through with the Falcon Armor in under a minute. Stage brevity has always, in my view, been a problem of these games, but X5 is the only instance in which I would not complain. Wonder why...
The whole time limit thing was also retarded. All it did was prompt more annoying speech from Alia such as "You don't need to be here" if you picked a stage that didn't have a part for whatever you needed at the time.

There are not a whole lot of good things about this game at all. Zero's crescent saber from the bear boss is cool, but that's about it. This game is a miserable excuse for an addition to the Mega Man X series. I wish I could have flown over to Japan and fired every single Capcom staff member who had anything to do with this game. X5 is not a good game on any terms. People who write reviews saying it's good or "Just another Mega Man game," do NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. My guess is that the makers probably thought about "innovation," a word I have grown to hate. "Innovation" in the modern sense of the word, does not have a place in the formula with the Mega Man X games. The "innovation" in these games should come in the stage design and background, boss ideas, and weapon ideas. It should NOT include messing up a whole foundation. They put all this garbage in X5 and expect players to be happy because of a new ability to duck?? Sorry, I'll take no ducking any day. As the result of this failed attempt at "innovation," X5 was the beginning of a period of disappointment that would last for the next few games. I'll admit that I own the game being a fan (though by now possibly a former fan...), but even now I still want some form of brutal vengeance against Capcom for this bitter disappointment.

Mega Man x5 review

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: February 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Mega Man x5 is finnaly here and unfortunatly does not deliever as much as usual. The game itself is very fun I love the ability to find the different suits as opposed to just one and I like the countdown feature. Also I am so glad they finnaly gave you the ability to duck. So what do I have agaisnt it you ask? It is too simple. Most who remember the old Mega Man games rememeber how fighting boss guys is almost in possible unless you have the weapon that there weak agaisnt. Well no more. i found that hte entire game could be completed just from switching from x to zero or vice versa in order to beat the enemys; with only using the standered weapons. Another thing that I don't like is the infinte amount of contiunes that you have. There is no longer the same frustration and challange that was in the past games. So overall in summary this is still a great game and I recomend people that haven't played as the blue bomber before to cheak it out. But for all the veterans out there you may be dissapointed in the difficulty of this game. Maybe it was because we're expecting do much from the big M, but with good reason; he usually delivers.

X5 is a big let down

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: July 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Its too easy. The game was designed with younger players in mind. Doesn't follow the X series format and goes for more of a regular mega man game look. Its fun and all but it puts mega man games to shame. I've been playing mega man for 11 years and this is the first time I have ever wanted to complain to capcom about a mega man game. Oh yeah and the plot is stupid and pointless. No cool cut scenes! In short big let down for hardcore mega man fans! DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!! But you probably wount listen to me anyway. Wait for X6 to come out soon it should be totally cool!!

An ok MMX game underneath all the training wheels

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Mega Man X5(2001). Part five of seven.
[Note: I appologize for writing such a long review, but I must address the features for both casual and hardcore MM fans.]

In a new millenia of gaming, it's very hard to come by any new old-school, side-scrolling action games. Few companies pay attention to the gaming roots and even fewer companies actually still make old-school games. But alas, Capcom has heeded our desperate calls in the form of a sequel to X4. First of all, look at the year: 2001. Yikes! It took FOUR LONG years for Capcom to release X5. I remember it seeming like eternity waiting for this anticipated sequel. Just after I gave up hope, this game came right out of nowhere. Does it live up to the previous X games? Let's see:

PROS:
-The ability to Switch between characters at the stage select screen. This is a great addition because the gameplay never gets monotonous from using one character too much.
-There are now 2 different armors to collect! Probably the best new feature on here because it gives you more secrets to find, and the two (Falcon and Gaea) armors vary in gameplay abilities. For instance, you can move easier and fly around with the Falcon armor, but you sacrifice firepower. And with the Gaea armor, you can walk on spikes, but your weapons and easy mobility are taken away from you.
-The secret heart tanks and armor capsule locations ARE WELL HIDDEN THIS TIME, not like X4 where they are all laying out in front of you. You actually have to look around and use a bit of strategy to obtain some items.
-The Action is still pretty intense in some places, especially when the difficulty is set on extreme. The one boss I actually found original was Duff McWhalen, where you had to go around his ice blocks to get to him. Cool idea.
-Of all the X games, I like the final stages of X5 the most. They're probably the best part of X5 because not only are the background graphics superb and the music good here, but the levels are tough and the gameplay is never interrupted at all*(see below).
-The ability to duck adds a little bit of defense strategy in dodging. Also, now you cannot shoot through walls.

CONS:
-*Okay, I must address this issue: THERE WAS NO NEED FOR ALIA TO CONSTANTLY STOP THE GAMEPLAY TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO!! She does this every ten feet or so that you walk. This feature comes across as EXTREMELY ANNOYING and alone nearly ruins the game. And the worst part? YOU CAN'T EVEN TURN THE FEATURE OFF. This is inexcusable! It really only caters to beginners who have never even played a video game before. If I come across a mini-puzzle or a tough section, I want to figure it out myself. Honestly Capcom, how many people don't know that spikes can kill you in one hit?
-NO ANIME CUTSCENES?! WHY? I know the voice acting would be horrible, but it's better than constantly scrolling through text. Shame on you, Capcom, for introducing that in X4 and then taking it away. Also, the music takes a downgrade. Now most of it is pop/techno instead of the incredible rock found in X4. Nothing really stands out except for a couple of stage tunes.
-The countdown feature pretty much eliminates the "take your time beating the stages" strategy. Getting the good ending requires you to play through stages IN AN EXACT ORDER so that a certain # of hours are left for the rocket to detonate the station.
-Although there are more armors here, you can't use any part of them until they are "complete".
-Compared to the bosses in earlier X games, THESE BOSSES ARE COMPLETE PUSHOVERS! You don't even need any of the other weapons to beat them! Some bosses like Grizzly Slash are just pitiful. Also, there was no need to give the bosses "Guns N' Roses nicknames. Stay with the series here, Capcom.
-The story here seems consistent at first, with the idea of "X and Zero battling" finally brought to life after being talked about for several X games, but then it falls apart toward the end. Zero is supposed to die and does (and then bringing him back in X6 really screwed things up), but the battle between X and Zero seemed a little. . . anticlimatic.
-The stage ideas themselves, although a less linear, were recycled from X4 (such as the moving cars, lava stage, space stage, etc.)
-Fighting the whale mini-boss repeateatly everytime you return to the stage gets annoying.
-Dynamo was really a waste of time here.
-Above all, THE GAME AS A WHOLE IS WAY TOO EASY!

Although X5 is perhaps the worst of the six X games, it ends up being a fair game that is overshadowed with many flaws. Don't skip this game, but don't let this be the first one you play either, as it could leave a bad first impression of the series. 4 stars for being a decent game, but 1 star is docked for inexcusable flaws. Not a terrible game, but a disappointment after waiting so long for it to come out. Will the next game improve over this one? Get equipped with bubble lead and go check it out.

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