<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '><i>What a crock of shit.</i>
AAAAAAAAAAARGH! What happened here????? This feels like a PSOne game circa 1997, like someone said "Shit, guys, we gotta jump on this 3D bandwagon and fast - but make sure it looks good while you're at it!"
Let me get that out of the way at the start - it looks great. The characters made the transition from 2D to 3D very nicely, the cel shading keeps the anime-style look going, and the animated sequences themselves look great. The only problem is the characters' faces never change at all, so it gets kind of disconcerting looking at this stiff head swiveling around with a blank unchanging face on the end of it. That's pretty much where the good ends for me.
Axl controls decently in the 2D sections, although his hover mechanism has me screwed up because it's completely backwards to what I'm used to for hovering in the X series (in previous games you hit the X button once to jump and then once again to start hovering, with Axl it's more of a Princess-in-Super-Mario-2 thing). The jury's still out on the whole lock-on thing. I mean, there's almost no chance of collateral damage like there could have been before (i.e. jumping to try to hit something and hitting something behind it instead) and it just seems wrong in a Megaman game to do nothing but stand on the ground and take potshots at stuff.
And then there's Zero.
My god man, what have they done to you???? Zero hasn't been nerfed, he's been castrated! Not only did they make him as slow as his X3 incarnation (and that was painful enough to use), his saber swinging is SO incredibly slow I hit the square button twice, went to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, came back, took a bite, and sat down just in time to see Zero get the second swing of the combo off. Seriously though, while playing through the introductory Zero level I stopped going for combos completely and just paced my timing of the square button so he'd only do the first attack <i>because that was actually faster.</i> Ye gods. Also, in previous games, Zero used to be a demon in the air - a <i>demon</i>, I tell you - and his air attack in X7 is the most fucking useless thing I've ever seen. I don't think there was a time when I was playing that I tried an air attack and DIDN'T take damage while I was doing it.
And then there's the 3D sections.
Allow me to channel Chandler Bing for a second here: jeez, could the camera BE in a worse spot? You can't see a damn thing, and while I didn't notice Eric's "respawning enemy that you can't hit" problem, it wouldn't have surprised me. Trying to attack with Zero in 3D is nearly pointless, and attacking a flying enemy with him is such a ludicrous proposition I must now laugh out loud. Ha ha ha ha ha! And what the hell is the point of having a lock-on mechanism in a 3D game if your lock-on disappears the moment you turn in any direction other than the one facing the enemy? What, did Dr. Cain forget to program "walking in any direction other than forward" when he designed the Reploids? Because of that, Axl's Copy Shot is a pain in the arse to fire, as you have to run around avoiding attacks while you charge it up and then make sure you're facing the guy you want to hit with it and it's locked on (basically denying snap shots) - and then do it again!
And then there's the levels.
Okay, so I really can't say much here, as I only played through the first part of one level, the Radio Tower. Problems I have with the Radio Tower level:
-It's a "run around a spiraling structure while spiked wheels drop from the sky" level. Well, it was fun and amusing in X4...
-The rescue reploids die WAY TOO FUCKING EASILY. I mean, I thought it was dumb that those Reploids could die at all - "hey, we've got these extra bonus items for you, but you've only got one shot at getting them and if you screw up in the slightest, that's too fucking bad" - but when one of the Reploids died by getting shot by the fireburst from the Mechaniloid in the middle of the radio tower when I hadn't had a chance to get any closer than half a screen away, that's just ridiculous. All in all, in that first part of that first level I saved one Reploid and the other 6 all died, most of which I had no chance whatsoever to save.
-Even though I set my language to Japanese on the options screen and all of the cutscenes were in Japanese, all of the in-game banter was in English. That's just annoying.
<hr>
So here I am, this pissed off, and I only spent an hour playing. That's a hell of a negative impression to leave on somebody, especially one who has religiously played every other game in this series. The controls aren't as responsive because of the extra frames of animation, they've taken everything I didn't like about the previous games and expanded on it, and my favorite video game character of all time now sucks large erect donkey cocks. Not to mention the 3D section plays like ass (of course, I just finished playing Wind Waker, so I'm incredibly spoiled in that respect).
As far as I'm concerned, the X series started off great (taking the classic Megaman formula and tweaking it a smidge by adding the dash/wall kick/armor capsules), kept adding features and new gimmicks until it reached its apex in X4 (Zero played like a dream, the structure pretty much guaranteed two almost-unique games in one, and the animation was awesome), and has steadily gone downhill since then (the adding of the annoying Reploid rescue system, nerfing of Zero, incomprehensible storylines). X7 is the nadir, and I can only hope that if there is an X8 Capcom puts a little more thought into making it play well (needless to say, if they do make it I'll rent before buying).
By the way, if anybody who has played it can convince me that it does have some sort of redeeming quality to it, I'm all ears - but I've got Viewtiful Joe, Eternal Darkness, and Knights of the Old Republic already in my house waiting to be played, and I can't see myself wasting any more time on this turd of a game.
<i>-57</i></div>
AAAAAAAAAAARGH! What happened here????? This feels like a PSOne game circa 1997, like someone said "Shit, guys, we gotta jump on this 3D bandwagon and fast - but make sure it looks good while you're at it!"
Let me get that out of the way at the start - it looks great. The characters made the transition from 2D to 3D very nicely, the cel shading keeps the anime-style look going, and the animated sequences themselves look great. The only problem is the characters' faces never change at all, so it gets kind of disconcerting looking at this stiff head swiveling around with a blank unchanging face on the end of it. That's pretty much where the good ends for me.
Axl controls decently in the 2D sections, although his hover mechanism has me screwed up because it's completely backwards to what I'm used to for hovering in the X series (in previous games you hit the X button once to jump and then once again to start hovering, with Axl it's more of a Princess-in-Super-Mario-2 thing). The jury's still out on the whole lock-on thing. I mean, there's almost no chance of collateral damage like there could have been before (i.e. jumping to try to hit something and hitting something behind it instead) and it just seems wrong in a Megaman game to do nothing but stand on the ground and take potshots at stuff.
And then there's Zero.
My god man, what have they done to you???? Zero hasn't been nerfed, he's been castrated! Not only did they make him as slow as his X3 incarnation (and that was painful enough to use), his saber swinging is SO incredibly slow I hit the square button twice, went to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, came back, took a bite, and sat down just in time to see Zero get the second swing of the combo off. Seriously though, while playing through the introductory Zero level I stopped going for combos completely and just paced my timing of the square button so he'd only do the first attack <i>because that was actually faster.</i> Ye gods. Also, in previous games, Zero used to be a demon in the air - a <i>demon</i>, I tell you - and his air attack in X7 is the most fucking useless thing I've ever seen. I don't think there was a time when I was playing that I tried an air attack and DIDN'T take damage while I was doing it.
And then there's the 3D sections.
Allow me to channel Chandler Bing for a second here: jeez, could the camera BE in a worse spot? You can't see a damn thing, and while I didn't notice Eric's "respawning enemy that you can't hit" problem, it wouldn't have surprised me. Trying to attack with Zero in 3D is nearly pointless, and attacking a flying enemy with him is such a ludicrous proposition I must now laugh out loud. Ha ha ha ha ha! And what the hell is the point of having a lock-on mechanism in a 3D game if your lock-on disappears the moment you turn in any direction other than the one facing the enemy? What, did Dr. Cain forget to program "walking in any direction other than forward" when he designed the Reploids? Because of that, Axl's Copy Shot is a pain in the arse to fire, as you have to run around avoiding attacks while you charge it up and then make sure you're facing the guy you want to hit with it and it's locked on (basically denying snap shots) - and then do it again!
And then there's the levels.
Okay, so I really can't say much here, as I only played through the first part of one level, the Radio Tower. Problems I have with the Radio Tower level:
-It's a "run around a spiraling structure while spiked wheels drop from the sky" level. Well, it was fun and amusing in X4...
-The rescue reploids die WAY TOO FUCKING EASILY. I mean, I thought it was dumb that those Reploids could die at all - "hey, we've got these extra bonus items for you, but you've only got one shot at getting them and if you screw up in the slightest, that's too fucking bad" - but when one of the Reploids died by getting shot by the fireburst from the Mechaniloid in the middle of the radio tower when I hadn't had a chance to get any closer than half a screen away, that's just ridiculous. All in all, in that first part of that first level I saved one Reploid and the other 6 all died, most of which I had no chance whatsoever to save.
-Even though I set my language to Japanese on the options screen and all of the cutscenes were in Japanese, all of the in-game banter was in English. That's just annoying.
<hr>
So here I am, this pissed off, and I only spent an hour playing. That's a hell of a negative impression to leave on somebody, especially one who has religiously played every other game in this series. The controls aren't as responsive because of the extra frames of animation, they've taken everything I didn't like about the previous games and expanded on it, and my favorite video game character of all time now sucks large erect donkey cocks. Not to mention the 3D section plays like ass (of course, I just finished playing Wind Waker, so I'm incredibly spoiled in that respect).
As far as I'm concerned, the X series started off great (taking the classic Megaman formula and tweaking it a smidge by adding the dash/wall kick/armor capsules), kept adding features and new gimmicks until it reached its apex in X4 (Zero played like a dream, the structure pretty much guaranteed two almost-unique games in one, and the animation was awesome), and has steadily gone downhill since then (the adding of the annoying Reploid rescue system, nerfing of Zero, incomprehensible storylines). X7 is the nadir, and I can only hope that if there is an X8 Capcom puts a little more thought into making it play well (needless to say, if they do make it I'll rent before buying).
By the way, if anybody who has played it can convince me that it does have some sort of redeeming quality to it, I'm all ears - but I've got Viewtiful Joe, Eternal Darkness, and Knights of the Old Republic already in my house waiting to be played, and I can't see myself wasting any more time on this turd of a game.
<i>-57</i></div>
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