Mega Man X7

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Mega Man X7 “BURN TO THE GROUND! BURN!” How about setting all evidence of the game itself existing on fire while you’re at it, Flame Hyenard? Protagonist(s): X Zero Axl Genre(s): Platform Action-adventure Platform(s): PlayStation 2 Microsoft Windows Release: PlayStation 2 JP: July 17, 2003 NA: October 14, 2003 KOR: December 3, 2003 EU: March 5, 2004 Microsoft Windows KOR: April 29, 2004 Developer(s): Capcom Production Studio 3 Publisher(s): Capcom Country: Japan Series: Mega Man Predecessor: Mega Man X6 Successor: Mega Man X8 (chronologically) Mega Man X: Command Mission (by release date)

"What a piece of shit, the progression of the Mega Man series was like shitting on an escalator. Once it reaches the top, it gets a whole lot shittier and then it comes back around for more."

— The Angry Video Game Nerd

"Mega Man X7 truly is one of the worst games I've ever played in my entire life. No matter what angle I look at this game from, all I see is disasterous failure. You start with the faulty premise of just taking the existing Mega Man X formula and popping it into 3D, something that would never work, and, well, it didn't. From there, it just gets worse and worse with stunningly low production values for a 2003 PS2 game, a boatload of mechanics that don't work, terribly designed bosses and levels, and characters that aren't fun to play."

— J's Reviews

Mega Man X7, known in Japan as Rockman X7, is a 2003 platform game developed and published by Capcom for the PlayStation 2. It serves as the sequel to Mega Man X6 and is the seventh main game in the Mega Man X series. It was later ported to Microsoft Windows only in Korea. It is the first and only entry in the Mega Man X series to feature 3D gameplay.

In 2018, Mega Man X7 was re-released as part of Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Steam.

Why It Should Be BURNED To The Ground

1. The main criticism of the game is that it is completely unfaithful and insulting to the first five entries, even more so than Mega Man X6 and ruined a lot of charm and charisma of not only the Mega Man franchise, but also the Mega Man X franchise in general.
2. Heavily flawed and unnecessary 3D gameplay that was only added in order to capitalize on the 3D craze back then, despite the fact that Mega Man Legends did 3D gameplay right.
3. The lock-on system removes most of the challenge of a Mega Man game. It can also be really annoying, sometimes it doesn't target the right enemy.
4. Zero was nerfed to hell and back: his saber swings while on the ground are slow as molasses, imprecise and just not fun to use and his aerial swings are simply horrendous.
5. The camera is awful, and feels very sloppy and is barely controllable, resulting in many nuisances through the game, kinda like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus (although that game was not to that extend).
   • Furthermore, the camera in the 3D sections can only be controlled with L1 and R1, whereas switching to special weapons is done with the right analog stick. That should've been the other way around, especially since the previous Mega Man games used shoulder buttons for switching weapons, and the fact that controlling the camera with the right analog stick was a standard by 2003.
6. Slow and dragged out gameplay in both 3D and 2D sections.
7. The controls are much more worse than the previous Mega Man games due to being horribly clunky and slippery, especially when trying to jump as the characters feel heavy when they jumping and lack proper momentum unlike the other X games where jumping was very fast and slick as it can be done in an instant, where as in this game it feels slow and loose at times due to the slow pacing of this title, which can make certain parts of the game where you have to jump very frustrating due to the bad jumping controls. It should be noted that the actual movement controls themselves aren't much better due to input lag from the PS2 controller that doesn't respond to the playable character whenever he is moving, which can cause some issues when trying to the three playable characters around the environment and the 3D levels that are new to this game.
8. Despite what the cover is showing, X, who is the title character and the main protagonist of the series, is not playable until you either defeat all eight bosses or rescue 64 out of 128 reploids, which is extremely tedious and time-consuming.
   • Speaking of that, the front of the cover is somewhat misleading since the game mainly focuses on Zero and the new character, Axl.
   • It should be mentioned that in the Japanese cover, X is in the background.
   • The European cover is probably the worst, because it only has a picture of X without Zero and/or Axl, making it even more misleading.
9. The graphics look average, even some early PS2 games had better graphics. This game was claimed to have cel-shaded graphics, although these can only be seen on the character models, games like Super Monkey Ball 2, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2, Pac-Man World 2 and Bomberman Generation look better than this and they we're released beetwen 2002 and 2003.
10. Terrible collision detection that is very loose because sometime it's look like you doesn't had a contact with an ennemy but it still hit you anyways, or even the attacks have horrendous hit-detection, especially when playing as Zero.
11. Wall jumping is entirely unreliable on the 3D sections, this is especially notable in Wing Crowang's stage.
12. Axl's Copy Ability can only work if you defeat Mavericks using a special shot. However, he can only copy enemies that are the same size as him, and said special shot does very little damage, with most enemies being able to take quite a few hits before dying.
    • Even then, this ability is barely explored and is only useful in a small handful of areas.
13. X is far too overpowered compared to the other playable characters.
14. Most of the weapons suck, as they have very limited ammo, are extremely weak, and are not fit for 3D.
    • What's worse is that weapon damage in the international version was nerfed from the Japanese version, making the already lengthy boss fights even more tedious.
15. The Glide Armor, which is the only Armor available in the game, also sucks tremendously.
    • The Head Part found in the Snipe Anteator stage is just a health and ammo magnet.
    • The Body Part found in the Wind Crowrang stage not only reduces the damage X takes and removes falling over when taking damage, but it also has access to the giga crash which allows X to clear a screen filled with enemies.
    • The Arm Part found in the Flame Hyenard stage adds homing bullets to X's buster but since this game has a lock on system, these are useless. However there is a second use that allows X to charge special weapons.
    • The Leg Part found in the Soldier Stonekong stage allows X to glide, what it does is make X fall slowly and if X tries to attack when gliding, his glide will get cancelled which could cause some deaths.
16. A weak and uninspired premise, complete with an extremely obvious and predictable plot twist involving Sigma, who lives again.
    • On this subject, the plot was also, as explained above, turned into a "contest" to see who keeps Axl. When, where, and how did the plot go from saving the world from the brink of destruction to a measly gang war?
17. The parts system of the previous games was severely dumbed down and now only consists of a generic upgrade system that barely changes the character's attributes.
    • Also unlike in X5 to X6, after getting a game over or beating that Maverick stage, this game will force you to use that part upgrade and there is no way to skip it, you cannot keep that part.
18. On that note, the Reploids who need to be rescued make a return. But much like in Mega Man X6, they are poorly placed and are permanently wiped out of your save if they get damaged unless you reload that save file. In fact, it is more of a problem here since they can be killed by everything in the game, in contrast with X6 where only type one enemy could kill them.
    • Also, if you get a game over after rescuing them, you are put through a montage of the Reploids that you rescue, and to add insult to injury, it is unskippable.
19. If you lose all of your lives in the intro level, instead of getting a game over and getting kicked back at the beginning on the level, the game without any warning or reason will boot you back to the title screen, forcing you to redo all this progress of starting that save file up.
20. Upgrades like Heart Tanks and Sub Tanks are also located in awful places. They are either in plain sight or in frustrating locations.
    • Plus, there are only eight Heart Tanks to be collected in the game, and they have to shared between three characters.
    • On that topic, and to add insult to injury, no sound effect of any kind plays when picking up a Heart Tank, nor does the game stop in place when you set a Heart Tank, unlike ANY of the previous games. Even Maverick Hunter X had a muffled version of the SNES sound effect.
21. The game is filled to the brim with lazy and half-baked level design with very little thought put into it, being either underwhelmingly bland to unbearably difficult.
    • Some of the levels are really bad, like Wind Crowrang's stage for example, not only has awkward platforming with moving planes, Snipe Anteator having a segment that turns the screen upside down and inverts controls, or that Tornado Tonion's is essentialy a stage where you walk to the right with occasional enemies but a bare minimum challenge.
22. Even though you have two playable characters, if that playable character loses all of his health, the player is booted back at the nearest check point.
23. The boss fights are bland: They're far too long for their own right, tedious and irritating:
    • Mega Scorpio is an okay intro boss. Nothing special, though.
    • Soldier Stonekong is a pretty cool boss due to his appearances and his attacks are easy enough to avoid (making him the first Maverick that players should fight first), but it is ridiculously easy due to the lock-on aim allowing you to shoot him from almost anywhere.
    • Splash Warfly, is an alright boss and his attacks are not too hard, but not too easy at the same time. While not the best overall Maverick, he has the best fight in the entire game.
      • Vanishing Gungaroo has a cool design as well, but his battle goes from tolerable to annoying as he has two phases:
        • The first phase (the Kangaroo Ride Armor) isn't too bad, but its attacks hit hard.
          • The second phase (Gungaroo himself) is incredibly annoying, he is always moving and his attacks are hard to avoid.
    • Ride Boarski has a cool appearance, being a Boar-themed Maverick that can transform into a motorcycle, but his fight can get annoying as he never stands still, and constantly yells "YOU PUNK!" every second while in motorcycle mode, also the fight is filled with framerate issues.
    • Tornado Tonion is incredibly stupid, laughable, easy to defeat in which he spins around the arena and you can effortlessly stand and shoot him.
    • Wind Crowrang, while having one of the best character designs in the game, is very annoying as his battle takes place on a small airship, meaning his attacks can knock you off easily.
    • Snipe Anteator, despite being badass looking, is a rather tedious boss as he constantly hides under the arena making it difficult to shoot him, and he constantly summons laser turrets that will attack you.
    • Flame Hyenard is the worst and most infamous boss in the entire game, and possibly the entire Mega Man X series. His attacks are annoying to avoid. The worst part? He always shouts his catchphrase "BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND!" every time he attacks, and he never shuts up. His catchphrase became so infamous that it has become a meme. Some people consider Flame Hyenard to be the Silver the Hedgehog of the Mega Man series and his catchphrase to be the Mega Man series' answer to "It's No Use!".
    • Mole Bore is an OK boss and is a nice callback to the original Mole Bore enemies from the first Mega Man X game.
    • The boss battle with Red is extremely frustrating since you fight him in a stage with really small platforms (similar to Gate's boss battle from the previous installment), making it easy for him to throw you off, killing you instantly. This is made worse thanks to the atrocious camera since it can prevent you from seeing Red's attacks, many in fact mock this saying that the true boss is the camera.
    • The final boss fight against Sigma is alright, but both of his phases have problems:
      • The first phase against Sigma is a complete joke as his attacks can be avoided easily and he can be stun locked by his weakness (the weapons of Wing Crowang).
        • The second phase against Sigma is pretty cool as he is gigantic, and has a wide variety of moves, but his battle can be a pain in a butt as his boss fight takes place above space, and his punch attack can send you off the arena were you be instantly defeated.
24. In addition to the bosses being bland, they also have way too much HP, this was made due to the fact that the player has two playable characters with their own health bar that can be swapped between.
25. Terrible, annoying and hilariously bad voice acting in the English dub, much worse than the Mega Man X4 or Mega Man 8, but at least it's more enjoyable to hear, including the previously mentioned issue with Flame Hyenard.
    • Both Axl and Vanishing Gungaroo were voiced by Lenne Hardt, and before Axl and Gungaroo, you can hardly hear om what Axl and Gungaroo are even saying. When Gungaroo says "I'm not the kid you used to know!", he says it like "Uhm nut da kid u used to no!", and when Axl says "But you're acting like a kid right now!", he says it like "But you're ahcting like a kid wroit nee-ow!!!". Also Axl is way too cocky at the start of the game.
    • Zero seems like they are trying too hard to make him sound like a badass.
    • X in this game is very unlikable, being extremely whiny and always talking about wanting no violence. In the dub, he also has no personality. Fortunately, the sequel fixed X's character.
26. Tries way too hard to give players a sense of nostalgia of previous games in the series by reusing several levels, enemies and other aspects from them, such as some enemies and the intro stage from the original Mega Man X.
27. The PC version is a straight and effortless port from the PS2 version with no PC-friendly settings at all. To elaborate, the screen resolution is fixed (and thus the game looks ugly when played on higher resolutions), the control scheme is modeled after PS2 controller buttons, and finally unlike the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth games, there is no quit menu, so you'll have to close the game using the Alt+F4 key combination or the Task Manager.
28. The game treats the player like an idiot and gives unskippable tutorials on how to use even basic self-explanatory things like the stage select menu.
29. Cutscenes seem to be way too long due to the incredibly slow dialogue boxes that can't be fast-forwarded or skipped and that there is too many of them placed in unnecessary times. For example: in Wind Crowrang, you have to watch a cutscene of the character entering the stage from a plane which happens every time you die in the first segment of the stage.
30. On that topic, the cutscenes themselves are beyond lazy. They involve still images of the character models, often reusing the same images. At other times they consist of nothing more than a still 2D image, which is quite disappointing despite the game's overall bigger story.
    • While there are fully animated FMV cutscenes, they are only seen at the beginning and the end of the game.
    • To add insult to injury, this was made the same year as Jak and Daxter 2, in which it has fully animated cutscenes, so there was no excuse for why this was released with poor animation poured into this.
      • Even Mega Man X4 as a PS1 title had more FMVs thaan this, and it was released in 1997.
31. When facing Mavericks, using a weapon they are weak against barely does any damage to them. It also stuns them and gives them invincibility frames, making it impossible to kill them quickly.
32. Axl is almost the same as X in this game due to sharing the same special weapons. The only difference is that Axl has the previously mentioned Copy Ability and has no Charge Shot. Fortunately in the sequel he plays more like an upgrade of Bass from the classic series, being able to shoot in multiple directions as well as having his own special weapons.
33. Invincibility frames don't save you from lava unlike previous games. This is especially annoying in the 3D section of Flame Hyenard's stage. While Mega Man 1 did the same thing, it's worse here.
34. The story is a mess and is filled with plot holes and things that happen by no reason at all or things that directly contradict others, for example Red challenges the Maverick Hunters to a competition for Axl, yet in another cutscene he tells to Sigma that he doesn't while he dislikes the hunters but they have nothing to do with him, this cutscene seems out of place since the game doesn't indicate if that conversation with Sigma happened before or during the game's story,
    • Another case is that the members of Red Alert seem to be all being manipulated or controlled (the previously mentioned cutscene shows it in fact) yet when the hunters fight the members of Red Alert, all of them seem to willingly fight against the hunters and in some case like Soldier StoneKong he clearly knows that he is being manipulated, the only part when is mentioned that they are being manipulated is when X confronts Tornado Tonion, one in fact might think that Sigma is taking credit for things he didn't do.
    • Also Red said that he would use the Mavericks captured by him to duel, yet everyone seems to be a member of his own Red Alert, even helping the bosses of the game.
35. The Maverick roster is arguably the worst in the series in terms of designs. As mentioned above, one of them is based on an onion.
36. There are no codes for X's Ultimate Armor or Black Zero, both of which had been around since X4.
37. Laughably bad dialogue, some examples include: "To finish things... I've got to do it, to finish this once and for all!" and "No, Red, you're coming with us!"
38. Some of the sound effects are bad.
39. The loading times are much worse than those of Sonic 06 (a game that's known for it's ridiculous loading times, among many other criticisms).
    • The worst example: near the end of the game you are confronted by one of the worst boss rushes in the series. Rather than have all the bosses in one go like in previous games, there are two loading screens for each, one for entering the boss and one after beating the boss. Considering that there are eight Mavericks you have to fight, you have to go through a total of 16 loading screens. After that there is the fight with Sigma, which also has two loading screens. This means that you have to go though a whopping 18 loading screens, and if you are defeated, instead of restarting the boss fight, you are sent back the selection room meaning that you have to go though two more loading screens.
      • Another bad part is, if you're destined to turn off the game, and destined to replay it, not only do you have to restart the entire first section of the final level from the beginning, you have to start then entire boss rush all over again, even if you are at the final phase against Sigma, you start at the beginning at the stage.
40. This game is an example of why translating a 2D video game franchise isn't always a good idea, since the Mega Man X (as well as the classic series to a bigger extent) were never meant to be in 3D since they work much better in 2D as it allows the developers to make the game more fun and enjoyable, and since 3D games are a lot more harder to make and usually have longer development cycles than 2D games, it results in the game feeling more sluggish and less polished than it's previous 2D outings, and since Capcom Production Studio 3 had zero experience developing a 3D platformer and didn't know how to translate the 2D gameplay of the X series to 3D, it creates a clear picture as to why this game was hated by so many fans alike, and why there never has been a 3D classic Mega Man at all since it wouldn't work as well in 3D as it would in 2D and would likely suffer from the same flaws and gameplay mistransition as this one since the 2D classic Mega Man gameplay doesn't work that well in 3D and would make the game feel outdated and a chore to play in general (even if it can be done well and Capcom could find a way to avoid the trouble of doing so).
    • In fact, Mega Man 9 was originally going to be a 3D platformer as well before Inti Creates (the developers behind Mega Man 9) realized that it wouldn't work very well, and 2D was the preferred medium for the series, and that trying to translate Mega Man into 3D was way too difficult and would result into a lot of problems for the team since there's usually a lot of trial and error involved with the level design of the series, and making the game 3D would make the level design even worse. It was probably for the best since 9 was so well-received by fans that it kickstarted the retro-style video game revival of the 21st Century and is often considered by many fans as the best game in the series to date.
    • It should also be noted that this is the only 3D instalment in the entire X series since X8 reverted back to 2D with 3D visuals, and barely any other game in the Classic or Zero series have made the transition into 3D, most likely due to the negative reception of this game and the trouble Capcom would go through if they did so, since this game was the only time they did it and considering how bad it turned out, it's easy to see why they'd never want to do it ever again.
      • As a matter of fact, the reason why the Legends duology worked was that was an original sub-series and was primarily an RPG, not a platformer, and since the X series was created with 2D gameplay in mind, it shows that Capcom is usually better at creating original 3D games rather than ones that are based on 2D games since Maximo and the aforementioned Legends duology are proof of that.
    • Even more worse is that this game ruined the reputation of the X series even further and hurt the sales of X8 because of it, and the reason why Capcom refuses to make another X game (despite numerous requests to do so) is because of this game and how much damage it caused to the series in general.

Redeeming Qualities

1. To its credit, the swappable character mechanic is pretty cool, a feature introduced in the Game Boy Color title Mega Man Xtreme 2.
2. While bland and badly executed, the idea for both its plot and its backgrounds are interesting.
3. Unlike X5 & X6 (who for some reason used still images and texts), the FMV Cutscenes are back (in the same mode as the 32-bit editions of Mega Man X3 (PS1/Saturn/PC) and X4)
4. The Air-Dash is included from the start to X without Capsules.
5. The game's soundtrack, despite not being as good as previous installments, does feature some enjoyable tunes, and the Japanese opening theme is a masterpiece.
6. Unlike X5 and X6, the player is no longer forced to required all of the armor pieces just to use one armor, X7 has desisted to go back to the X1 to X4 style of getting an armor on X has he finds the Armor Capsules.
7. While obvious, at least Sigma does appear half way in the game, unlike in X6 in which he literally appears out of nowhere after the boss battle with Gate.
8. While not the best, Red is a decent villain even if fighting him and his death were completely unnecessary.
9. The Japanese voice acting is at least good and there's an option to switch the voice acting.
   • Unfortunately this does not affect voices during gameplay, so Flame Hyenard will still yell "BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND!" even if you set the voices to Japanese. This does not happen in MMXLC2.
10. Axl gets a lot of character development and is actually a pretty likable character.
11. There are some decent boss boss fights here-and-there.
12. Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 makes this at least easier to play, and prevents deaths by falling to magma or bottomless pits while adding the Rookie Hunter mode for first-timers. It also cuts down the loading times.
13. The international translated versions of this game weren't actually rushed like X6, and don't any grammar mistakes or missing features, both of which X6 had when it was brought over to international regions in a very rushed state.

Reception

"What were they thinking?" The Shit Scale Games that are debatably bad High level of shit contamination The very high category The severe zone Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Major code red 👆 This game/console belongs to the "High Level of Shit Contamination" category of the AVGN's Shit Scale.

Mega Man X7 received mixed reviews from critics, but mixed-to-negative reviews from fans. It is considered to be one of, if not THE worst game in the entire Mega Man franchise and is often used as an example of how transition from 2D to 3D can be done wrong. This reception actually shoke up Capcom, who immediately dismiss Studio 3 after this and chose Studio 1 to develop Mega Man X8 instead, fixing a ton of errors, including its transition.

Trivia

• Flame Hyenard's line "BURN! BURN TO THE GROUND!" has become an internet meme of sorts.
• Some of the voice actors from X7 went on to do voicework in another Mega Man game, Mega Man ZX Advent, like Peter Van Gomm (who voiced X and Flame Hyenard) as one of the two protagonists, Grey.
• Keiji Inafune has little to no involvement in the game's production, as the only contribution he made was giving advice to the illustrators while they create the new character, Axl.
• Tatsuya Minami, the game's producer, mentioned that a multiplayer was planned to be be featured into the game for up to two players, which didn't happened in the final release.

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