Introduction

A while back, I reviewed my favorite game of all time, Mega Man X for the SNES and this time I will be tackling the sequel, Mega Man X2, released a year later.

Mega Man X is hailed by a lot of players of its era as one of the finest titles of all time, and I went into detail as to why I consider it to be my favorite game, as I said.

People appreciated the 16 bit graphical update to the Mega Man series, the new features, the rocking music, as well as the gameplay elements and innovation brought to the table by Mega Man X, but the two SNES sequels, X2 and X3 are largely forgotten about when discussing the X series.

I have an unhealthy fondness towards Mega Man X, and X2 holds a lot of the same qualities as its predecessor, but how does it compare to the first one?

"If it ain't broken, why fix it?"

X2 doesn't reinvent the wheel; the concept of the original worked well, so not too much is changed. Like the first one, X2 is a sidescrolling run and shoot game, where you beat 8 robot Mavericks in any order, gaining their weapons and using them against the other Mavericks that are weak to them, before moving on to the final, more difficult stages in order to take on the final boss.

Along the way, you get other upgrades along with the weapons, bringing an RPG element to the game. So, just like in X, in X2 the character grows as the player grows, and even though it's no longer as unique as it was in the original game, it's a fun factor to have involved.

The upgrades you get in X are gone at the start of the game, other than the dashing ability, which is now available right from the beginning, and this would be the casein every X game onward. But instead of the cool white badass, you do indeed start off as the naked blue bomber, and if you want be a badass again, the game does make you work for it.

The X games are designed around the dash, so it does make one feel that maybe the dashing ability should have been available at the start in X, too, but I'm glad this was fixed in X2, at least.

But for the most part, people who played the first X game just pick up where they left off.

So since the game is very, very similar to the first X game, which happens to be my favorite game of all time, why are my memories of X2 less near and dear to my heart?

Let's find out.

Story and Gameplay

First is the story and the gameplay, the latter being pretty much identical to that of the first game.

A noticeable upgrade to the first game is the fact that X2 has context to the story within the game itself; you could never be able to figure out the story of X without external sources, but X2 explains everything while playing, and there's no need to go through the manuals, or in more modern times, Wikipedia.

It's a sidescroller from 1994, so the story has little impact, but what's there is nice.

It's been six months since the first game, and while Sigma was taken down, the reploid rebellion is still continuing. A group of three powerful Mavericks, calling themselves the X Hunters, have managed to obtain the parts of Zero, who deceased in the previous games.

The X Hunters introduce a new element to the X series, which is the sidequest bosses.

After beating any two stages, the three X Hunters teleport into three randomly selected stages, and you can optionally challenge them to a battle.

If you win, every X Hunter will grant you one part of Zero's body.

Whether you challenge and beat them has an effect on the story, and while it's not grand, it's a nice touch.

The prize of successfully beating the X Hunters is a little underwhelming, and it's a big missed opportunity, in my opinion, to not incorporate something bigger as a result of completing the optional sidequest. It would add replay value, and while it still does, not as much as it potentially could.

The biggest change to the control of X is the ability to air dash. With dashing now being a standard feature, the leg upgrade in X2 gives the ability to dash while in the air, and while it may seem like a minor change, it drastically changes how the player moves X around. In a good way.

So much so that the air dash is an ability I often miss whenever I play the first game.

It gives X a whole new dimension in his movements, adds more strategy to completing the stages, and has a big impact on boss fights. With the player now being able to air dash, the bosses have more varying patterns, and you need to be better at dodging than you needed to be in the first game.

The game is designed around the air dash, and it does bring with it the same problem that the dash ability had in the first game: it's a optional upgrade, and theoretically totally missable, so an inexperienced player might be stuck with a less enjoyable experience should he miss the hidden upgrade. At least in X1, the dash upgrade was impossible to miss once you stumble upon the correct stage, but in X2 it's easy to do so.

Once you find it, though, it's a whole lot of fun.

It's not an unfair advantage by any means, so the game is designed really well in that respect, since it still takes timing and skill to master, but once you get the hang of dashing in the air, it makes you feel more of a badass hero, dodging enemies in mid-air.

Due to the added mobility, like I said, the boss fights now have more to them.

That's not to say they're all an improvement, unfortunately.

X2 plays around with the boss arenas some, and the Overdrive Ostrich battle, for instance, has three dimensional feel to it, as well as a long battle arena where you need to move around a lot to see the enemy, and you have no walls to climb and jump off of.

A fun idea in theory, but since the game teaches you to dash, wall climb and wall jump from the beginning, mastering those skills are what you would expect to do to beat the bosses, so it's strange that you're thrown right out of the loop, and are on uncharted territory.

I'm also not as fond of the boss designs for X2 as compared to the original, but I'll get to it in the graphics department. These things are a matter of taste, and nostalgia from the first game plays a part, but every design in the first game seemed well crafted and thought out, each was memorable and iconic. The boss designs in X2 less so.

But since this is the gameplay department, let's focus on the actual boss fights.

The boss fights have been improved from the first game in the sense that in X2 every boss fight is beatable as a first choice for a new player, without their weakness, or upgrades.

It's a vast improvement from the original Mega Man X where you could feasibly beat Chill Penguin, and maybe Storm Eagle, as a first pick as a new player.

Like I said in my X review, I've beaten all of the Mavericks without their weaknesses in a no upgrades run several times, but I'm an experienced Mega Man X player, and I'm talking from the perspective of a person new to the series.

So, X2 gets a thumbs up in the boss difficulty department.

A potential downside to some in all of this can be the fact that beating a boss without their weakness can now feel less epic since they are easier to take down with just the X Buster.

But it's a matter of taste.

Personally, as a kid, I was more satisfied with the boss fights of Mega Man X than those of Mega Man X2, but again, I'm a hardcore X player, so that needs to be taken into consideration.

Some of the bosses can be annoying, such as the aforementioned Overdrive Ostrich and Wheel Gator, but still totally manageable. For the most part the boss fights are fun, albeit less memorable than the ones in Mega Man X.

The controls of X2 are unchanged from the first game, and that's a good thing; there's absolutely nothing to fix, so I'm happy they remained the way they were.

Controlling Mega Man X is as smooth and perfect as it was, and it can be easy to fail to give credit to X2 for that, since the controls were created for the first game originally, it's worth a mention that X2 is still the very best platformer out there, just as its older brother was.

You are in complete control of X, both on land and in mid-air.

Every screw up is your own, and the game isn't unfair in the slightest when it comes to controlling the character. It's a blast to jump around and shoot stuff, still.

The level design has seen an improvement over the first game, in my opinion, though some may disagree, and that'd be completely fair.

The original title relied heavily on running and shooting, and the actual platforming, stage gimmicks and hazards, which were present in the NES series, were not so heavily present.

That wasn't necessarily a flaw, per se, but rather a design choice, but X2 does change things up a bit and introduce more platforming than its predecessor, making it more like the classic series, but not too much, since it's still very much an X game.

One underdeveloped gimmick introduced in X2 was that of the hover bike riding, which was only ever utilized in Overdrive Ostrich's stage. It's fine, but could have been more. The bike gimmick was later used in X4, and its a stage that everyone universally hates, so I guess the developers of the X series just never got the bike riding thing right.

The upgrades and other secrets follow the same pattern as the first Mega Man X game, but some of them require a bit more digging, and can be seen as being more relied on luck. In the first game, you were able to find something just by using videogame logic, whereas X2 requires you to think outside of the box. Again, a matter of taste, but I do prefer the approach of the first title.

X2 awards the player with a whole new set of weapons, of course, and while they have more balance this time around, and nothing overpowered like the Storm Tornado is present, I did find myself using less of the special weapons in X2. The use of the weapons is very situational, and there are fewer weapons around that are fun to use in the stages themselves, outside of the boss fights.

They can feel slightly uninspired.

The armor upgrades, on the other hand, are better than in the first one, in my opinion. The head upgrade ever did much in Mega Man X, but in X2 you get access to a radar that gives you hints on different secrets of each stage.

The leg upgrade gives the aforementioned air dash ability.

The armor upgrade allows you to suck in damage, and release it in a giga explosion.

And last but not least, the X buster upgrade allows you to charge up two X buster shots at the same time, and releasing a fully charged double shot, which adds an element of fast paced strategy to the gameplay.

They all serve a purpose, and nothing is pointless or unnecessary.

But what can not go unmentioned is my favorite part of the entire game, and one of my favorite parts of the entire X series, if not the absolute favorite.

Yes, while the first X game is the best overall experience, X2 offers something that was so truly epic to me as a kid:

If you fail to collect all of the Zero parts from the X Hunters, the last stage is altered, and you actually face an evil, revived Zero.

Whatever flaws X2 has, as a kid, the moment I first realized I was battling Zero was nothing short of amazing. The coolest character in Mega Man X who was mostly a mysterious side hero was now someone you needed to battle.

It was so cool to me since Zero was always so far ahead of X in the first game, someone you, the player, through X, looked up to and respected and envied.

You didn't get the chance to fight him in the first game, but now, in the second game, you're a more mature X player, you know all the tricks, and it feels like you're ready to finally take on Zero.

Zero brings with him his cool Z Sabre that he wrecked havoc with and disposed of Vile in the previous game, and it packs a punch. Zero moves just like the player, and the X and Z buster shots cancel each other out. It really feels like you're facing a version of yourself, sort of like an older brother that you need to outsmart.

The epic music kicks in, Zero's health meter fills up, and it's one of my childhood's greatest "Shit just got real!" moments in gaming.

It's the best part of the game, but the requirement is that you don't complete the X Hunter sidequest and collect all the parts, so of course it feels weird to miss out on the best part by not 100%'ing a game, but that's how it works.

Even though it's rather simple, the Zero fight in X2 was one of my favorite boss fights as a kid, and it still remains one to this day. Just because of the feeling it gives.

Graphics

X2 saw a graphical update, as the team became more familiar with the SNES platform and its capabilities.

It's not that different from its predecessor, but there are way more details put into the sprites and backgrounds, and the stages have tons more color to them. The original X game was dominated a lot by grey and dark colors, X2 really puts the SNES color palette to good use with its varying stages.

X2 also takes advantage of the wire frame capabilities of the SNES, which ere all the rage in 1994, even if they are less than spectacular in 2017.

To those unaware, wire frames were a way to create pseudo 3D like images on a 2D game back then, and some mini bosses, as well as the final boss, make use of this possibility.

It was a nice gimmick at the time, and hard to do, so it's to be appreciated, but it's nothing you'd think twice about nowadays so it can go unnoticed.

What will I rag about X2 graphically is the fact that since the boss designs were all designs made by fans, and chosen by the team, they weren't as iconic as the ones in X were.

It was a nice move by the developers to allow fans to send in their designs, and then use them, but the quality of the designs did suffer as a result. In my opinion, anyway.

Overall, Mega Man X2 is a slight step forward, and definitely pleasing to the eyes.

Sound

This is where X2 falls flat on its face, and unremittingly so, if that's a thing that can be said.

X introduced one of the greatest videogame soundtracks of all time with its heavy guitar riffs and epic rock tunes. X2 takes things to a completely different direction, and while there are good tunes in there, everything is softer and slower, and misses the heavy rock feel of the first game. The Zero theme is awesome, as well as the Bubble Crab and Wire Sponge stages, but all in all stuff sounds largely uninspired, and after such a great soundtrack the first time around, the music in X2 left me extremely disappointed.

Mega Man X's soundtrack is something I sometimes listen to when not even playing, but very few tunes from X2 would ever make it into my playlist.

It's a real shame, and takes so much out of the game, since the underwhelming music alone makes the game worse than the first one.

Instead of rock'n'roll, X2 tries to be like the original NES series, which is weird, since the music of Mega Man X was an integral part in giving the X series its own identity.

This would later be fixed in the upcoming entries, but X2 is the black sheep of the X family for sure.

Overall

Mega Man X2 is a good game. A good game.

As a standalone game, it's very good, no doubt about it. A lot of the things that made the first X game awesome make a comeback.

However, as a sequel is does fall slightly short.

The less memorable boss designs and the music take away from the experience.

Mind you that these are the things I mention since the core gameplay is as good as ever. If one enjoyed Mega Man X, he is sure to get tons of enjoyment out of Mega Man X2.

It just feels less epic and less grande and less of a labour of love. It was made since Mega Man X was such a financial success, and one can tell that the same amount of heart was simply not put into crafting the sequel.

I still highly recommend Mega Man X2 to any gamer out there, especially if you're a fan of sidescrolling run and shoot games. There are only few games that do it better than X2.

And hey, you get to battle Zero!

If you enjoyed this, follow @schattenjaeger since I will review Mega Man X3, as well.