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Good: Zero, boss battles, music, fantastic action-platforming gameplay

Bad: Not as many bonuses as Anniversary Collection, sometimes maddening difficulty

Best Boss names: Duff McWhalen, Overdrive Ostrich, Wire Sponge, Rainy Turtloid

Not counting the spin-offs of the series, there have been 16 true Mega Man games. Throughout all these years, the basic formula has only slightly changed since the original. The X series is a slight evolution from the original six games on the NES, but it's mostly in the form of a new character, upgradeable parts, and a few new moves. This series actually reminds me of Madden in a way. Each year, Madden touts a new "hit stick" or "QB Vision", in much the same way that a new Mega Man X title will feature hovering abilities, wall jumps, and new saber moves for Zero. Granted, it's still fantastic action/platforming gaming, but the old "beat eight robot bosses, gain new powers and then defeat the final boss" formula has shown its age.

The Mega Man series is well-known for some extremely fun and challenging boss battles. They're almost always in a square room against your opponent, and you steal their weapon ability if you succeed. Each boss is vulnerable to a specific weapon, so it's highly important to figure out which order to beat them in. After all these years, the nature of this formula has presented a problem. In the original, you had basic enemies like "Ice Man" and "Fire Man". Logic would dictate that you could beat Ice Man first and then you could use his weapon to deal some major damage to Fire Man. Now that the series has been around forever, it seems that they're running out of ideas for bosses. No longer do we have simple boss types, we now have enemies named "Metal Shark Player" and "Infinity Mijinion". It's hard to use the kind of "Ice will hurt Fire Man" logic with bosses like these. It's a bit of a minor issue, however, as a quick trip to the internet should inform you of the correct order.

Gameplay is excellent in the X series, although at varying degrees throughout. Some vehicle-based levels in the later games are highly annoying thanks to their "mess up once and die" trial-and-error gameplay. Other moments feature difficult and extended platforming segments over instant-death spikes and holes. For the most part, the standard levels are all very good. There are some annoyances, such as when an enemy respawns just because you took one step backwards. The wall jump and dash moves are the biggest improvement over the original Mega Man series, and allow for much more intense platforming segments, as well as a new way to dodge boss attacks.

Zero is a great character, and his "Z-Saber" allows you to approach a level or boss in a totally different way than you would with Mega Man. It's a blast to do a quick dash jump, slash a few enemies in the air, then bounce off a wall and attack some more. His saber slashes cover a good amount of space in front of him, as well as slightly up and down. Because of this, his initial lack of projectile attacks doesn't really put him at a disadvantage when you compare him to Mega Man.

Certain levels are near impossible-hard, but that's a trademark of the series. Tradition or not, it can still be infuriating when you get killed by Spark Mandrill for the 15th time. Tough minibosses become more frequent as you progress through the series, and even the most experienced gamers might find themselves having trouble (especially if you're used to playing the Mega Man series on emulators with QuickSave functions).

While the original Mega Man games were almost completely gameplay-oriented, the X series tries to introduce much more story. It's fairly basic, and usually involves the evil Sigma hatching some dastardly plan, but it's told through some nice anime-style cutscenes (starting with X3). The graphics in all of the games are vivid and well-designed, but you can notice a marked improvement starting with X4. Bosses get bigger, backgrounds get more detailed, and more enemies appear onscreen. There are interlacing problems at times, but they usually don't detract from the gameplay. Voice samples also get introduced in X4. In fact, there are almost too many voice samples at times, considering I don't necessarily want to hear "HA!" or "YEAH!" every time I press a button.

All six games in this Mega Man X Collection are very good action/platformers and certainly follow in the original Mega Man tradition. This collection may not feature all the bells-and-whistles of the Anniversary Collection (which featured remixed music and a couple never-released fighting games), but it does include Mega Man Battle & Chase as an unlockable bonus. While nostalgia tends to make me favor the Anniversary Collection, this is still a great assortment of six excellent games.

Graphics: C+

Sound: B

First Play: B

Last Play: B-

Gameplay: B-

Overall: 80% B-