Megaman is like Capcom’s mascot. His series has stood the test of time and repeatedly has sequels, one after another, rivaling every game in that department even beating out Final Fantasy. From megaman 1 to 8 then the whole X series, this little blue man has always made a come back whether you liked it or not. (Oh let’s not forgot the Game Boy Advance Megaman games) Now this time Capcom decided on a new direction, Megaman in the form of an RPG, Megaman X Command Mission.
Our tale begins with Megaman, Zero, and Shadow breaking in to a laboratory trying to get some info on their enemies the rebellion army who (yes you’ve guessed it) plan on ruling all of Giga City Island. In an unfortunate turn of events, Shadow reveals which side he REALLY is on and all hell breaks lose!

Megaman Stands Proud

Gameplay wise Megaman X Command Mission manages to keep the Megaman trademarks alive and dish out traditional RPG elements at the same time. You can see this was certainly an experimental move that worked out well for the company. Even though Command Mission won’t oo, and ah you with innovative roleplaying mechanics, this games very basic RPG setup still manages to keep you entertained and gives you something fun to play with. The battle system is extremely identical to Final Fantasy games where as random battles take place. The party setup is even familiar. You get three people to battle with but you get up to seven people in your party that you can switch on at any given time. Instead of a menu bar however for attacks, each button represents different moves and based on the amount of “WE” (namely weapon energy) you have you can press a corresponding button to perform combos on the enemy. All your characters also have hyper mode armor that gives them special moves that do large amounts of damage. To execute a hyper mode maneuver you simply press R2 when your WE gauge is at a correct amount and then follow the instructions you see next. Every character has their own unique way of doing it from Megaman’s charge up attack to Zero’s combo attacks where you have to input commands, and Spider’s card game that does different amounts of damage based on what card set you get.

Some in game action!

The graphics are average in this game. Cel-shaded design goes well with megaman. Nothing jaw-dropping but it still stands out well and has some good detail. The look and feel of the game screams Megaman in every aspect from enemy reploids that are similar to previous Megaman games and game environments that are mechanical looking in every way.

The music in this game has gentle tunes that don’t distract from gameplay but gives it a gentle background presence that just complements the games atmosphere. Meanwhile the voice acting is very fluent but not hard to understand. The dialogue is very very simple. That is understandable however since a lot of new Megaman fans are of a younger ages group. Capcom was smart at this because they didn’t want to confuse its fans with too much complex talking.
So isn’t there anything wrong with this game? Surprisingly not much. Its simplistic approach works for it. It’s probably because Megaman is not meant to have a complex engine so Capcom can get away with it.

Megaman X Command Mission is a game for its fans. If you absolutely love the Megaman series don’t let this game pass you by. If you haven’t played a Megaman game in your life but are looking for a simple and fun RPG game try it out as well. It’s certainly worth a rental at least.