Mega Man X7

• Genre: Action Platforming
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes.
• Time Played: 7-8 Hours (End game timer says around 4-ish, again, definitely not the actual time spent in game)
• Too Short/Long: It's fine for what it is, it definitely doesn't need to be any longer.
• Did I cry: I cried but only because of how bad it was.
• Soundtrack: It's not the best Mega Man X soundtrack.
• Why I played: Well, in the spirit of things, I felt like I should finally knock this one out.
• Jank: It's extremely janky. Not necessarily in the buggy way, but it's obnoxious to go through menus, the controls sometimes terrible. The hitboxes are not actually on model for like anything. The contact with the environment is pretty much always off.
• Difficulty: It's one of the easier games in the series, the only time it's difficult is when things are frustrating because of the jank. It does have one of the harder boss rushes due to the fact the bosses aren't as easily stun-locked from their weaknesses, which could be considered a good thing if they were more fun. Some are, some are not.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I was going in with the lowest of expectations, so I guess I can say I'm pleased... enough. I'm not actually pleased, I wish Mega Man X7 was straight up a better in game in almost every way.
• Recommend to others: I do not. I pretty much skipped this one back in the day and for good reason. It's not really a good game by any metric.
  

This is actually the first time I have finished Mega Man X7, despite several prior attempts to play this game. I think I was possibly the most turned off the first time. After years of building up how bad it was, it wasn't... QUITE as bad as I had it in my memory. That said, I'm glad I finally got through it, and to this day I just can't believe what they churned out to such a beloved franchise, but it's further testament that Mega Man was never "AAA". That said, X5 was rough, but X7 is pretty much just bad. The voice acting is barely a tier above X4, which is a great game all aside the voice acting. In the 3D movement section, they move like slugs despite still being animated like they're running, as if they're running on ice. The camera is at a weird angle most levels making it hard to judge what you're actually lined up with. In 3D movement sections the camera is constantly fighting against you to move to behind the character making it harder to dodge enemy attacks. The hit boxes of either the character or almost every attack is way bigger than it looks, you are just constantly taking no-contact damage. Oh and to top it off, the enemies are a bit of an HP sponge thanks to the fact the American version apparently lowered all attack values. Someone at Capcom must have really thought American gamers needed harder games, there are like 6 Gamecube/PS2 era games from Capcom just off the top of my head that were harder for the American version. (the others being Devil May Cry 3, Resident Evil 4, PN03, Chaos Legion).

That sponginess made their super cool new character "Axl" basically useless because you had to take dozens of shots on just regular enemies and trying to determine when you can use his copy shot which has to charge was a pain in the ass. It was easier to just not use it at all except where you absolutely have to for collectibles. Also, Axl sucks ass. Another trend of the time was to try to introduce a new main hero for the new generation or something, and that sucked and pretty much failed every time. You can't even play X until at minimum 1/3rd of the way through the game. If you play "poorly" enough, he only becomes available for the final missions, at which point, he's probably not worth using unless you very strategically avoided most of the upgrades in the game and are replaying all the levels for them.

Despite everything wrong with it, there are a few cool things for a Mega Man fan, there are cool ideas and level design and stage gimmicks that could have been really cool if it was a better game. It sounds silly to say, but this could have been a good game, if it were better. It's just all built on a poor foundation and then shoved in with little effort. It's a shame that Mega Man was kind of abandoned for so long post Inafune leaving Capcom. I would have loved to have seen what some new modern takes that actually took care could have done and X7 at the very least was making an attempt for that at the time. It was just too soon and they put too little effort in for what they wanted to achieve. It plays like/maybe worse than the many random licensed movie-tie of the time, and those were notoriously shovelware/slop at the time so much so it was a legitimate surprise when one wasn't bad. I say this about X7 because X8 I know goes back to playing it safe, and sure it might end up being a much better game for it, but it doesn't mean if done well, the things X7 was trying to do, couldn't have been good.