Reviews

Mega Man Xtreme

By Corey

No, it's not an entirely brand new Mega Man game if you've played X1 or 2, but it is new to the GBC. It is a Mega Man game, so you know its good, but is this port worth a purchase?

Graphics: 9

I was rather impressed with almost everything in the game. The backgrounds are amazing, a lot more detailed than I expected. They look much like the SNES games. Most of the enemies also look close to what they did too, minus some of the color. X and some of the bosses looked a little bit plain to me though. That changes for X a little bit once you get all of the capsules, but really its nothing to get down about.

Gameplay: 9

This game is no different than any other side scrolling Mega Man game. Run through the stage, kill the boss, use the bosses' power on a boss of a different stage. All of the stages and most of the bosses are directly taken from the SNES games, with some slight differences. Some, if not all, of the stages are a little shorter, but not by a lot. There are fewer enemies, but that is expected.

There are three modes to the game. You'll start in Normal mode. This gives you access to the first 4 stages, then the Shadow Hunter stages. After you beat that, you'll get Hard mode. This gives you access to the next 4 stages. Beat this and you'll get Xtreme mode, which combines both modes. I actually found Normal mode harder than the others. That may be because it took me a little time to get used to only 2 buttons for an X game. After I did get used to it, the game was a breeze. Still fun, but for the most part simple.

A couple of other things that I want to mention, but really don't hurt the game: The translation is bad. There are some of grammar errors I noticed, plus its just sounds cheesy. Next, why didn't they translate Vile's name? They kept his Japanese name, Vava, instead of changing it. My favorite character from all the games and they can't even give him his correct name. Ah well. One more thing. After beating the game on Xtreme mode, it asks for you to save the game. If you do so, it erases all your progress on that mode! This is a warning, just incase you don't feel like deleting one of your 3 files.

Sound: 8

I actually listened to the game. That automatically gives it a good score. The music is taken straight from the SNES games, so if you have played 'em, you'll know what to expect here too. The tunes sound pretty good too. The sound effects didn't really

Lasting Value: 6

This game is really short. To beat all three modes, it took me 4 hours and 10 minutes. Of course, if you buy a Mega Man game thinking it'll take 10+ hours to beat you're sadly mistaken. Still, going back and beating the game again after the 1st go through is something you will probably end up doing.

Bottom Line

This is a good game. However, though there are some differences, if you own the SNES games, there isn't much reason to buy this other than the portability. If you've never played those games, or maybe don't own one or both of the games anymore, this is definitely worthy of a purchase. Keep in mind it is short, so if you plan on only going through the whole game once its probably best just to rent it.

Final Score: 8 out of 10