Just looking at the title of Mega Man X7 may lead the uneducated to think that it represents just another neat-sounding Japanese game title, but the title is supposed to be taken literally. This is actually the 7th Mega Man X game so far; this knowledge pales in comparison to the fact that the Mega Man character (known as Rock Man in Japan) has starred in over thirty videogames.
Since Mega Man X7 is the first incarnation of the franchise to appear on the next-generation consoles, it's sad that Capcom screwed it up. Interestingly enough, the game's faults are nearly the same as those in Konami's Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, another famous 2D franchise that chokes in a next generation 3D setting. Giving Capcom and Konami the benefit of the doubt, these next generation failures didn’t come to be because of the developers’ inability to produce quality games for the PS2, rather, they are due to laziness and the hope that a poorly made game can sell on the title alone.
When it comes to Mega Man, the series has always been entertaining in that it employed wonderful 2D platform style action combined with tight controls. Gamers who complain about the natural progression of videogames into 3D are annoying, quite frankly. That's why they should never play Mega Man X7, because this will give them just more reason to whine.
Mega Man X7 enters the 3D realm with the traditional problem of a poor camera. All too often, it's simply impossible to look where to jump, to be fired upon by an enemy that the camera does not show, to jump in the air and have the camera do what looks to be a backflip. The camera can be rotated with the R1 and L1 buttons, however it's strange that this ability only shows up occasionally. Sometimes the camera can be altered and sometimes it can't, with no explanation as to the reasons behind this mystery.
The game's camera can also inexplicably change into a traditional 2D mode, or an odd 3/4th view, or even into a 1st person situation. It's too much of a relative issue to decide if this is nice or not: it's sufficient to say that if a game is going to enter the world of 3D, then the camera should be good and/or controlled by the gamer.
Sadly, the game's greatest sin isn't the camera. They even tampered with a very sacred standard of Mega Man: the controls. At times too specific, and at other times not tight enough, the controls work in tandem with the camera to unfairly increase the difficulty of a game that isn't really that hard. However, if Megaman, Zero, or the newcomer by the name of Axl(all three of them playable characters, though not at once) are hopping along airplanes in the sky, it's not good when a chance, uncontrollable dash will send them plummeting down to their death. In a fight against a boss where jumping across fiery pits of lava is the key to winning, pushing the “X” button should always lead to them being in the air, not falling and melting in liquid heat. Such control failures happen all too often in Mega Man X7.
As stated, the game wouldn't be all that difficult if the camera and controls were better. It's also a very short game, not requiring any more than 10 hours from start to finish. There is somewhat of a very non-intriguing storyline, told in pieces in between missions, with joyful moments of horrendous voice acting.(The very worst voice-acting in this game, by the way, must be with a certain boss who manipulates fire. It is unbelievably irritating. What's worse, he splits into three! That boss' voice alone will stop many people from finishing the game!) Mega Man himself seems to be more obnoxious then ever before, Zero is the overly cliched cool dude, and Axl is that typical little boy with that typical little boy voice that seems to be heard at least once in every Japanese game.
Despite the choice of three characters to use, the only one worth using is Axl, simply because he can lock on and attack from long range. Zero is for those who really want to make things more difficult for themselves, because he must get in close to enemies to attack. Mega Man is usable late in the game, and since he doesn't have any power ups like Axl does, it makes no sense to use his long-distance attacks over those of Axl's. Axl also has the interesting ability to mimic the abilities and appearance of his enemies. This ability is only “interesting” and not “useful” because, with the exception of a few clear circumstances, the enemies are dispatched simply by shooting them.
So, to make a long story short, the Mega Man X7's gameplay is so shallow that no true reason is ever given to use any character beside Axl. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but this is mainly the case. Even among his variety of gained weapons, there is little reason to change from using only a few of them.
Axl is also useful due to the fact that enemies can never be seen from far away; they quite often appear around the main character out of nowhere. Luckily, Axl locks on to anybody near him immediately and can shoot his enemies down. However, this is just another aspect of the game's strange design. More evidence regarding this topic has to do with the fact that there are places in the game where missing a jump will lead to death...unless it happens to be part of the storyline. Then, it's alright to leap into pits where the bottom cannot be seen.
To make matters worse, there are long loading times in the game. Mega Man X7 is one of those games where the player will be afraid to press the wrong button on the menu screens, because doing so will lead to much waiting and thumb-fiddling.
Generally, the trade off for long loading times is lack of slowdown in the main game; not so with this one. Sometimes, upon seeing spectacular explosions and many enemies on the screen at once (as in Zone of the Enders 2), slowdown is understandable. Not so with Mega Man X7; there is a certain boss fight in which the camera moves far away so that it looks like two tiny people are battling on the screen. And then the game has tremendous slowdown. For what? It certainly can't be because of the just above-average cel shaded graphics.
The overall score on this game means that it is below average; surely, the only reason why this game sells at all is because it's called “Megaman X7”. Fans of the franchise will certainly pick it up, and most certainly find reasons to like it. For others, there is simply no need to waste your time with this. At this stage of the next generation gaming industry, there are just so many other games to play. Don't waste your time buying this one. Wait until Capcom actually puts some effort into a PS2 game again. We'll let you know when that happens.
