A good RPG that any Mega Man X fan will enjoy.
The game starts with X, Zero and Shadow being sent on a mission to Giga City in search of Mavericks. They get attacked and so they split up. You play as X trying to get use to the controls and you make it to the top. After a fight with a flying hippo, you run into the boss of the Rebellion army. After he kicks Zero off the map and Shadow betrays you, you blast off and get knocked out. After that you rescue the leader of a group called the Resistance and then you work about taking down the Rebellion Army. It's a great story, but as I said before, you can predict a lot of the "plot twists" in it.
I find that the game does a great job with the RPG element put into it. It can seem simple at first glance, but there are many different things you must consider before fighting. Some bosses will be weaker to one type of attack over another. For example, a boss might attack with Thunder like attacks so you'd want to have Fire based attacks to knock him or her our faster. There are also Final Strikes and Action Triggers. When you have 50% or more WE then you can do an Action Trigger attack. Each character has their own attack and the more WE you have the stronger it is. Final Strikes are a way to kill your enemy using the powers of three of your party members. If all three of your party members are still alive on the field and you knock out 75% or more of the enemy's LE (HP) in one turn you can pull off a Final Strike. Once again it's different depending on which characters you are using.
Weapons get stronger as time goes on so you always want to check the shop before heading out on a mission to make sure you have the right weapons for your characters. There are other items you can pick up that heal your status, attack an enemy, or change a stat of yours. Sub Tank is the way to heal your party and it upgrades over time. And as you level up you not only become stronger, but you also can upgrade your Action Trigger for some characters. Another part of the game, that you will abuse to death when you can, is Hyper Modes. There puppies will super charge your character with a stronger attack, speed, and LE for a short time. For most of the boss battles you will use these to unleash your strongest attacks to no end, that is if you bring along a few Gain Hypers.
The last big part of fighting, and the story itself, is Force Metals. These guys will upgrade your characters like how they do it in the Dragon Ball Z Budokai games. You can change your stats and how this type of attack effects you. Some of the Force Metals will heal you when your foe attacks you with, lets say for an example, Thunder attack. To get these you must buy, find, or make your own. That's right, you can make your own using items from the game. All you need is to have Cinnamon
to join your party (Chapter 4) and you can start your own Force Metal factory.
Now we can finally talk about how to fight. You can have three people on the battle field at one time. You get two sub weapons and a main weapon for each character. Sub weapons take WE to be used, how much depends on the weapon. Your main weapon does it. You wait your turn to attack, defend, or use a item/heal your party. There is a window that shows the next eight turns of the fight and how much life each person has if they're not a boss. For bosses you just attack till they give. I find that hard about the game.
When your not fighting, you're running around till the game decides to throw something at you, hunting for items, shopping, or talking to Reploids. There are other things to do as well, like checking in at the Deployment Center. Here you send out different "enemies" you find lying around in different areas on missions. You can send out three of them to a place that you've been to (and beaten) and they can find you goodies that help you out and get you money to blow on weapons. They will level up the more you use them and they come back "alive." There is also much to collected in the game. There are figure sets, sketches, scarfs, posters, music, and video clips. You can look at everything you've unlocked in the Sky Room. So there is still much to get even after you've beaten the story.
Graphics are fairly good in the game. I find that some of the areas fell like they are the same, but have a new color if you will. The cuts scenes are either animated to where their lips only move as the person who is talking is on screen as well as someone else or everyone is moving around. It's weird to see someone get attacked but the two of them are just standing there and no one is moving. The music is also fairly good as well. Though there really isn't anything special to it, its still fairly good. The voice acting is another story. It may just be me, but some of the people have crappy voices. They just don't seem to fit with the character at all. And on top of that some of the writing seems off. Axl I think they already know you guys are S Class Maverick hunters. You don't have to say that just because you have every time you run into someone.
Overall, anyone who is a fan of RPGs or Mega Man X will have a great time with this one. It may seem simple, but there's a lot more to it then you'd think at first glance.
Pros:
+Zero.
+Hyper forms.
+Can be challenging at times.
Cons:
-Some of the Voice Acting.
-Graphics can be bland at times.
Gameplay: 8.0
Graphics: 7.0
Sounds: 7.0
Story: 8.0
Replay Value: 7.0
Fun Level: 9.0
Overall Score: 7.9