alienjesus wrote:I hear they basically have a downwards progression in terms of quality though.
It's a little more nuanced than that. The series actually continues on an upward trajectory for the first 4 games, with a debatable minor dip for X3.
X5 was intended to be the end of the series as it finished the storyline foreshadowed heavily in X2 and set up perfectly the Megaman Zero series that was already being planned and all of the story elements in the backstory for Megaman Legends.
Capcom being capcom (even in the late 90s) demanded more and started cranking out more X games independent of Inafune which ruined any semblance of a coherent lore and did not enjoy the heavy QA process that most of the previous games had. Essentially, for Megaman X-X3, they were able to speed development by re-using assets but they still did heavy amounts of testing. Megaman X5-X6 reused X4's assets but were sped through QA to meet sales deadlines and fell apart, especially in the area of localization for other regions.
Megaman X7 and X8 are hard to even consider part of the same game series. They have some merit but they feel utterly bizarre and detached from the core of what made the series what it is. Then you have two gameboy color games that are as alright and a pretty boring RPG.
But X1-X4 is nearly mandatory and X5 can be enjoyable if you take the time to understand the games' weaknesses and play around them.
The PSTV is amazing.
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Nintendo ID: Mecha_Flake
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