Simple concept. But if you give the game a chance, you'll enjoy it more than you could possibly realise.
The story begins with X and Zero, two renowned S Class Maverick Hunters investigating some ruins for signs of Mavericks. For those who are unfamiliar with the series, the world is populated by robots called Reploids. Mavericks are reploids or other robots that have become dangerous, berserk or uncontrollable etc).
Without giving too much of the story away, X and Zero are separated after discovering more activity than they bargained for.
The game itself looks very impressive, with cell-shaded graphics and colourful 3D environments. It has a good range of characters, both playable and non-playable. As you progress through the game, your party will increase and decrease in size quite regularly. There are a number of new characters to the Megaman world; these include a thief called Marino, Steel Massimo, Cinnamon and a bounty hunter called Spider. Fans of the series will be happy to hear Axl is also included in the line-up.
Command Mission is quite a simple game, which actually adds to the addictiveness of it. It has a fairly straightforward and easy to follow story line, which has been split up into chapters (a layout which is very similar to other Megaman games).
The battle system is turn based, and isn’t complicated in any way. Each turn will fill your weapon-energy bar (WE), shown just below your life-energy. Similar to MP in other RPG’s, this energy is used to power your sub-weapons, which can be used to attack, heal or power up, depending on your choice of equipment. If you save enough energy, you’ll be able to perform an Action Trigger (comparable to limit breaks found in the Final Fantasy series).
Another great aspect of the battle system is Hyper Mode. Each character has his/her own transformation that increases their abilities dramatically for a certain number of turns. The best thing about Hyper Mode is that it sets boss battles apart from the average battle, as this is the only time you will ever really need to use it.
The last aspect of the battle system is an attack called Final Strike. Each enemy has a damage bar separate from their life energy that appears whenever damage is caused. If enough damage is caused during one turn to reduce this bar to a certain point it will activate final strike. This will allow all your party members to attack it at once, destroying it outright.
Like other Megaman games, Command Mission includes Sub-Tanks, used to replenish your health at any time. Enemies often drop Tank Energy, replenishing a percentage of your total Sub-Tank.
Force Metal can be assigned to each character provided they have a spare slot to equip it to. Different characters have a different number of slots. For example, Steel Massimo has only two slots, whereas X has four. Force Metal can be used to raise abilities or attributes like your total life energy (LE), or increase the amount of experience you get from battles etc.
When Cinnamon joins your party you’ll be able to create new force metal using items, other force metal and force metal energy (FME). This energy is also obtained from battles and can be increased if you win a battle using a Final Strike.
The style of music is well suited for the game, and has a retro feel to it. One bit I particularly like is the boss music called ‘Final Battle’. Though the music is great, some of the sound effects in battle can be rather irritating. Some enemies make sounds that don’t stop until you have destroyed them, which interferes with the music. This had a nasty tendency to cause me to forget battle tactics and attack the one making the noise.
Though it is easy to play, Megaman X Command Mission has plenty of things going for it to make it worth playing, even for those who are new to the series. The graphics are top notch, especially the introduction and ending sequences. The music is incredibly catchy, and the gameplay is fun and addictive.
Extras. Where do I start? This game has an unbelievable amount of extras. To start with, you can find broken robots in some of the levels that require a key item to work them. When you find the item and take it to the robot, they become available on the deployment list, found in the Sky Room.
The Sky Room is where you can view all the extras you have collected, as well as view data about various aspects of the game. You can collect figure tokens throughout the game that you can use to buy figures from vending machines (once again, you can view these in the Sky Room). On top of all this, you can deploy robots that you’ve managed to salvage to areas that you have been to and cleared before to collect extra items, files, images & artwork etc.
You can also find music and movie files (provided you’ve already seen or heard it) throughout the game, and you can watch/listen to them before you even complete the game in the Sky Room.
Design concepts, character artwork and additional sketches can be found in the same way as movie/music files. It adds a nice touch to the game being able to view them whenever you like in the Sky Room.
Upon completing the game you gain access to a secret area, containing plenty of items and files, as well as some hidden bosses. Perfectionists will be pleased to hear that this game’s extras are more than capable of keep you going for a while. Overall, though it may seem a bit dull to start with, if you give it a chance you’ll soon become hooked on its gameplay.
Or more likely it’s extras.