Mega Man X Legacy Collection

Genre: Compilation / Action-Platformer

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

(Note: This collection is included in the physical collection Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 + 2, along with Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2.)

Mega Man X Legacy Collection is a collection of the first four Mega Man X games, originally released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sony PlayStation. A spin-off/successor series to the original Mega Man series, these games are all Action-Platformers with the same basic premise as the original Mega Man games – you are a peacekeeping robot (called a “reploid”) out to take on eight various enemy robots, each with their own elemental theme and thematically-appropriate stage to traverse before you can reach them. Upon defeating one of them, you’ll get a version of their weapon that you can swap to, with a large part of the strategy of these games being learning which order to play the game’s stages, since each robot is weak to one of the others’ weapons. Upon defeating them, you’ll challenge a final gauntlet of difficult stages and bosses before taking on the mastermind behind the threat (usually the treacherous reploid Sigma).

The Mega Man X series departs from the original Mega Man games in a few distinct ways. Firstly, players have a lot more mobility in these games, with a wall-jump and a dash move that make traversal much easier and more fluid. To take advantage of this, the game’s stages are somewhat less linear than those in the Mega Man games, with secrets hidden throughout them, including vital enhancements and upgrades for your character. As such, fully exploring the game’s levels is a huge part of these games, and any time you gain an ability that gives you new mobility options, you’ll be encouraged to ask yourself where you can use it to reach new areas. While these games don’t have the large interconnected world of a Metroidvania, there’s certainly a hint of those elements present here.

It’s generally agreed that the first four games in the Mega Man X series are by far the best, with some of the best level design and most memorable and iconic moments from the series, and before the games in the series devolved into plot-heavy melodrama. Here is how each of these games fares now:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Grade
Mega Man X	Action-Platformer	1	A+
tl;dr The first game in the Mega Man X series is one I still believe is the best in the franchise, with phenomenal level design, a truly great soundtrack, and an excellent challenge level. An absolute must-play for fans of Action-Platformers.
Mega Man X2	Action-Platformer	1	A
tl;dr While not quite as excellent as the first game, Mega Man X2 is still a fantastic game with good action and a solid soundtrack. This game was a worthy follow-up effort that even added in a few interesting elements like limited use of vector graphics and multiple endings.
Mega Man X3	Action-Platformer	1	B+
tl;dr While still overall a good game, X3 starts to suffer from the feeling of “samey-ness” that plagued much of the original Mega Man series. On top of that, the challenge level here feels a bit too high, and the music isn’t as good or memorable as earlier games. This game added a limited ability to play as X’s sidekick Zero, but it was so limited that it makes one wonder why they even bothered. This game is still good, but not nearly as good as the first two.
Mega Man X4	Action-Platformer	1	A
tl;dr For the first time in the series, players can choose to play the entire game as X or Zero, and Zero plays differently enough that it’s almost like getting two games in one. On top of that, the level design in this game is excellent, and the game has pretty decent music too. Be aware that this game has a laughably bad English dub, although depending on who you ask, that only adds to its charm.

All told, these are four superb games – out of all four currently-released Mega Man collections on the Switch, this collection houses the most consistently high level of quality out of all of them, and while the $20 price tag is a bit steeper than Mega Man Legacy Collection’s $15 price, $5 per game for four excellent games is still a pretty damn good deal, in and of itself. And that’s before you consider all the extra content in this package.

Thankfully, there’s far, far more to this collection than just the games themselves. Firstly, players have multiple display settings, as well as the ability to play the Japanese versions of every game. There’s no rewind feature or save states like in the original Mega Man Legacy Collection, and although there are game saves in between levels, I can’t seem to find any way to actually load these saves. There’s also a “Rookie Hunter Mode” for an easier game difficulty.

Beyond this, the game offers a wealth of support content in the game’s menus, including a X-Challenge mode that has players taking on two bosses from the series at once, competing for the best times on leaderboards, a full music select menu, and a huge museum of production art and concept art (but no box art or manual art), and original trailers for the games. However, the most surprising inclusion here has to be The Day of Σ, a full half hour anime that acts as a prequel to the series, detailing events that led up to the first game.

I should also mention that if you’re looking to buy the physical version of Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1+2, be warned that playing Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 requires a digital download, so bear that in mind when deciding which version of the game to get.

As far as game collections go, it’s hard to top Mega Man X Legacy Collection – it’s a reasonably-priced collection of four excellent games with a wealth of bonus material. Fans of Action-Platformers should absolutely consider this a must-have.

tl;dr – Mega Man X Legacy Collection is a collection of the first four games in this series of Action-Platformers. Every one of the included games is excellent, with the first in particular being a must-play game that still stands tall as one of the finest in the genre. What’s more, this package includes a huge wealth of bonus content. Fans of Action-Platformers should absolutely have this game in their collection.

Grade: A+

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