The game Megaman fans have been praying for!
User Rating: 8.7 | Mega Man X8 PS2
Were you disappointed by X5, X6 or horrified by X7? Then this game will be a sigh of relief for all Megaman fans out there! Yeah, I know what you're thinking....."Megaman games haven't been as good as they were back in the NES and SNES days...". But fear not! Megaman X8 goes back to its 2D roots and gives you some old-school goodness! In Megaman X8, your mission is to defeat Sigma (as always) and rescue a reploid by the name of Lumine, the director of the Jakob Project. As usual, you get to play as our hero,X, his partner and coolest megaman character yet, Zero, and the new kid, Axl. Also here to help you on your missions, three navigators. From previous Megaman X games, Alia will help guide you through a level. Layer will help you with boss strategies. Pallette will help you find hidden areas in a level. Like in Megaman X7, you can only pick two characters at a time. Not to worry, unlike in Megaman X7, all three characters are useful for different situations. X does what he does in every megaman game, a charge shot. Zero uses his Z-Saber and can double jump which can help you to get to those high places. Axl now has improved rapid fire hand guns which makes him shoots in 8 different directions (more like Bass from "Megaman and Bass" for the GBA). He can also hover to get you to those far off platforms. Also there is the Double Attack feature, where both characters can preform an attack together to cause a big deal of damage to your foe. That's not all to the game. Unlike in previous Megaman X games, you can improve your characters by buying items to increase your health, increase your weapon energy, , items to protect you from spikes, Sub Tanks, weapons for them (Zero), and buying skills with metals. Metals can be obtain in any level by defeating enemies and bosses. It's basically the money for the game. Also, not only are there the eight usual boss levels, but there are levels called Intermissions, which more like mini games. The purpose of the Intermission is to get high scores and an easier way to gain metals. Now lets talk about the quality of the game. The Gameplay is good for a megaman game. It's hard so ypu will be spending time getting use to the game. Like I said before, the game goes back to its 2D origins, which is a plus! The graphics are not as good as the graphics that were found in Megaman X: Command Mission (which was awesome) but they are still way better than those found in Megaman X7. They're a lot easier on the eyes. The sound quality is very good. The replay value is excellent for a megaman game. This is the first time that it is worth playing the game over since you can do a "New Game +" and continue and collect the dozens of secrets and items in this game. I recommend this game to all megaman fans out there and any person who likes old fashion 2D action! It's a great game and you'll have fun with it. It makes you wonder why Gamespot gave it an undeserving 6.3. 
