A recent Maverick attack has been blamed on a Reploid army by the name of Repliforce. But Repliforce has not only denied these allegations, but take them as a grave insult. They have decided to revolt and establish their own settlement away from the humans who would so quickly label them as enemies. Which, of course, has labelled them as enemies of mankind. X and Zero have no choice but to regard Repliforce as Mavericks, and battle against the insurrection.
Welcome to Mega Man X4! We’re leaving the Super Nintendo behind for the Sony Playstation this generation, which means a bit of an overhaul for the X series. The jump may not be as big as the Classic series’ shift tov16-bit, but it’s not insignificant. And joining us for this new style is Zero, who’s feasibly playable without a hack this time around! In fact, X and Zero have distinct playstyles and slightly differing perspectives on the game’s storyline. Add that to some solid level design and bosses, and you have a good first impression for the PSX’s X games. Savor it while you can.
He destroyed the city and escaped to the sea? Well, we can’t let that stand, so we’re going after Jet Stingray first. Lo and behold, this is the gimmick stage, where you ride a hoverbike and crash a lot. Maybe this isn’t the best example of what X4 can do, but at least we don’t need anything fancy to grab the upgrades and we don’t have to worry about the gimmick stage in the future.
The Repliforce has no shortage of weapons at their disposal, and today X moves to take out one of them. Within the jungle lies one of the army’s cannons, protected by Web Spider. It’s up to X to brave the jungle and squash today’s Repliforce leader.
We’ve taken care of the secret weapon hidden in the jungle, but as it turns out, there’s also a secret weapon hidden in the arctic. Well, looks like Zero’s going to have to take care of that one. And this time around, he’ll be fighting a giant walrus man who just looooooves violence.
Well, it seems like it’s as good a time as any to stop Repliforce from having an air force, so let’s have X go up and deal with that! The leader in this case is Storm Owl, no familial relationship to Storm Eagle. But he’s also in charge of an airship, and he’s not too bad at aerial combat either, so this fight might seem a little familiar.
There’s an old lab that’s been occupied by Repliforce. What are they doing there? Who knows, but there is a very angry mushroom that’s attacking anyone who comes near it, and that’s a good enough reason for Zero to head and out take down another Maverick!
The internet is in danger! Cyber Peacock lives there, but he hates it, and now he wants to destroy it. X races off to stop him, even though Cyber Peacock probably has the most noble goal of all Repliforce.
Repliforce is moving supplies, and the Maverick Hunters can’t have that! Zero hops on board a military train guarded by Slash Beast to cause as much damage as possible before their confrontation.
We’ve taken care of just about all of the major Repliforce members. However, one remains: the very Maverick that started this incident by dropping Sky Lagoon, Magma Dragoon. Why did Dragoon defect? The only way X can find an answer is by charging into an active volcano and asking Dragoon directly.
We’ve foiled most of Repliforce’s operations, but they’re not giving up yet. General and his remaining forces are heading out to space, because they really want to be left alone. But they’re occupying a giant space laser called Final Weapon, and unfortunately for them we can’t trust like that, so it’s time we end the coup.
Repliforce has been de-fanged, but that was exactly what Sigma was hoping for. He’s preparing to fire the Final Weapon, and now X must hurry to stop him.
Not long after Repliforce’s attempted coup, a new space-based threat has emerged. Someone has attacked the space colony Eurasia, and now it’s on a crash course towards the Earth. Worse yet, Sigma is back already, and has wasted no time attacking civilization. X and Zero head out to stop him, unaware that they’re playing right into his hands.
We’ve made it to X5, the game with the opposite dev cycle problem that most of the Mega Man games have had up until now. It’s been about three years since X4 released, and now it feels like there’s strange new meat on the bones X4 introduced. That’s not to say X5 is all bad; there’s a lot of ideas going on with this one. Some of them work, and some of them do not. It certainly doesn’t reach the lows that we’re going to see after it, but it also feels a little bloated compared to X4. (Also, some of the level design’s really bad, imo.)
If you want to cut a little bit of the awkward design out of your playthough, there’s now a hack that actually makes several improvements to the game. This LP will be showcasing said hack, which means things’ll look a bit different if you’re used to vanilla X5. But I highly recommend it; it’s made playing X5 for the LP much more enjoyable.
Main gameplay loop? Main gameplay loop. Once again, we begin with the hoverbike section. Hopefully you didn’t hate the one in X4, because this one is even worse. And if that isn’t enough, there’s actually a regular level attached to this one, which is also bad. Squid Adler has some pretty impressive security; if the world wasn’t ending, I would have just given up and turned back after getting here.
The Enigma requires Hydrogen to fire, but just how are we going to generate enough to power this big laser? Well, clearly we must harness the entire ocean first. Unfortunately, Tidal Whale owns the whole thing, and there’s also a battleship in there somewhere, so X needs to take care of those things before we can start using that sweet, sweet sea power.
The Enigma’s going to need some Orichalcum, but the only source the Hunters know of is owned by a bear. So we’ll have to make our way through a truck convoy possessed by a computer virus if we want to get it.
There’s one final piece of the Enigma left to go, and fittingly enough it’s in the hands of the laser scientist. But Dr. Firefly was reclusive and distrustful of the Hunters before the Sigma Virus crisis, so what are the odds we’re getting through this without a fight? Nearly zero, if I had to guess.
The rocket’s going to need a new fuel tank to make the trip into space, and it would seem our best bet for one of those is a planetarium. But if we want this next part, we’ll first need to deal with a bat-themed vigilante. No, not that one.
So as it turns out, Mega Man X5 is also about the repercussions the Maverick Hunters face for taking action against Repliforce. Spiral Pegasus here was once besties with Storm Owl, but we killed that guy. Pegasus, however, survived the insurrection, and now seems pretty apathetic about life and living. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to let us take his shuttle part without a fight!
Not everyone who has a shuttle part is a part of Repliforce. Spike here is kinda just a Reploid that’s going around looting. The fact that he’s so aesthetically appropriate to the area we find him in is merely coincidence.
Time’s running out before Eurasia crashes into the planet, but there’s only one rocket part left to find. It is in an active volcano, but that’s nothing the Maverick Hunters haven’t seen before. So as long as they can take out a dinosaur, they can bring their plan to fruition. But even with all the parts in place, can we guarantee the space colony can be stopped?
