Review: Mega Man X Legacy Collections

Title: Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 and 2
Release Date: July 24, 2018
Original Platforms: Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC, Switch

Note: This review does not actually review the games contained within each Collection - those will be done separately. This is mainly a review of the features and bonuses contained within the Collections.

The Mega Man X Legacy Collection is split up into two volumes, and I have no idea why.

First, a history lesson. In 2015, Capcom released the Mega Man Legacy Collection, containing the first six Mega Man games. Development was farmed to game historian Frank Cifaldi and his team over at Digital Eclipse, which uses its special “Eclipse Engine” to try and recreate the 8-bit classics with perfect fidelity. As far as I can tell, this was intended to be a one-off release.

However, either due to strong sales or some other conviction, Capcom went ahead without Digital Eclipse and developed Volume 2 of the Legacy Collection in-house, releasing it two years later in 2017.

Everything about this makes sense. They made one, it did well, so they made another.

But when Capcom released the Mega Man X Legacy Collection in 2018, nothing about the process made sense. This new collection was also split into two volumes, despite them being announced on the same day, and released on the same day.

You can see what I’m getting at here. The first Legacy Collection was split up due to circumstance, but the X Collection was split up intentionally. I keep trying to figure out what benefit Capcom gained from doing this. It wasn’t a timing thing. I could understand if Volume 1 was finished first and they wanted to get it out the door, but they came out together.

I also don’t think it is a money-grubbing thing. Quite the opposite, in fact, when you consider the contents of each release. The overwhelming majority of fans agree that Volume 1 (which contains X1-X4) is the better deal compared to Volume 2 (which has X5-X8). X1 and X4 are generally considered the two best games in the subseries, while X2 and X3 are at the very least admired. Meanwhile, the fan perceptions of the games in Volume 2 range from “tolerable” to “kill it with fire”.

By splitting them up, Capcom made it easy for us to save some money and only buy Volume 1, something almost every critic (and even a lot of fans) suggested back in 2018. Meanwhile, if they had crammed them all together into one bundle, they would have forced us all to pay $40, which arguably would have made them even more money¹.

Whatever Capcom’s reasoning, I can tell you that both Volumes were very clearly made together. Here is the UI for Volume 1:

Now here is Volume 2:

It’s the same thing with a palette swap.

Bonus Content

The original Mega Man Legacy Collection had quite a lot of wonderful bonus material, including artwork, character profiles, and even photos of each game’s original packaging.

The Mega Man X Collections provide roughly the same kind of content, though it removes some specific types of content and replaces them with others. Also, some of bonus stuff is unique to each Collection, and some of it is shared between them. In terms of unique stuff, each one comes with per-game artwork and character profiles.

Each Collection also contains a music player with each game’s full soundtrack:

Unfortunately, you do not get photos of any of the game boxes. This was a big loss for me personally, as I love seeing such gaming ephemera.

In terms of duplicated bonus content, both Collections contain photos of old trading cards, figurines, and model kits:

As well as archival commercials and Japanese-only teaser trailers:

These extras are wonderful to see - the toys in particular are something I’ve not seen documented in any other retro compilation - but this is still a case of addition by subtraction. We gain something new and cool, but lose something else (in this case the box art) in the process. The video game industry on a whole still hasn’t figured out how to make retro re-releases that are truly exhaustive in their attempts to document and archive the past.

Both Collections also contain The Day of Σ, a 25-minute animated feature that was originally produced for Maverick Hunter X, the PSP remake of the original Mega Man X. It is a prequel story that shows series villain Sigma going Maverick and instigating the events of the first game. While its inclusion is nice, it is of arguable utility to anyone who cares about Mega Man X lore. Maverick Hunter X was supposed to be the first part of a much larger project to remake the subseries, and as such both The Day of Σ and the game itself introduce retcons that were intended to be followed through by the remakes of X2, X3, etc. Unfortunately, the project was scrapped, and so there are many elements of the video that contradict what we see in the original versions of the games. It is generally considered non-canonical, though I don’t think Capcom has said one way or another²:

Overall, I have a hard time sorting my feelings out about this material. I love all of it, and it is far from paltry, but I want more, and I feel like there could have been more.

Game-related Content

As is common with many retro compilations, the Collections provide a number of filters and aspect ratios to choose from. Here’s the how it looks with no filter:

Next, the “CRT” filter, which adds fake scanlines:

This is a pretty typical filter option in retro-compilations, and they’re usually terrible. They rarely resemble an actual CRT display, and sometimes they make it too hard to actually see anything. This particular implementation is actually pretty good. It’s a lighter touch than usual.

Lastly, we have the option, the “smoothing” filter:

This is another very common filter option, and people tend to hate it with a fierce passion. Personally, I don’t love this implementation, but I also don’t hate it. It gives all the characters a real cartoony look that fits these old 16-bit games. Would I default to it? No. Would I accidentally play through half of X2 without noticing it was on? Yes, yes I would. Because I did.

In terms of other display options, you also get themed borders for when you play in the 4:3 aspect ratio, but you only get one border for each game (meaning there is one X1-themed border, one X2 border, etc), as well as two unlockable, generic themes.

Taking all of the display options as a set, I believe it is one area where these Collections (and indeed most retro compilations) feels the most sparse. Retro enthusiasts, such as the hardware wizards over at Analogue, have devised an insane number of ways to tweak the output of retro games, so we know what can be done on this front. It remains to be seen whether any commercial game releases will follow suit.

Other Features

The Collections give you the option to play either the US or Japanese release of each game. This is something that Capcom’s been doing for all of these Legacy Collections, and I will give them props for it. It’s definitely not something they had to do, but it is something fans will appreciate.

You have the ability to save your game in the password-based Super Nintendo games, though in reality all it does is remember the currently generated password on save, and reinputs it on load. That means the save system can’t do anything that cannot normally be achieved using the password system.

There is an included Easy mode named “Rookie Hunter Mode”, which either halves or nullifies all damage, and prevents instant death from spikes. Anyone struggling with the games will find this extremely useful, and people like me can use it to burn through a level to get all the screenshots I need.

X-Challenge

X-Challenge is the game’s challenge mode, and it’s a fun little Mega Man X mashup. The mode puts you through one of several challenges, each made up of multiple fights. Each fight takes two bosses from any one of the first six games, throws you into a boss stage from any one of the six games, and makes you fight them at the same time. You get to pick three or four subweapons to take with you through the entire challenge, so you have to choose wisely based on who you think you can take out with the X-Buster, and who you need some help with.

While some enemy combinations work better than others, I do get a kick out of seeing all these different bosses - from different consoles even - thrown together into a fight. It gives a nice view into the ways the series did and didn’t change over the years:

X-Challenge mode also has an online leaderboard so you can compare your performance to the world. I have no personal interest in such a feature; the last thing I need after a hard-earned victory is to feel like garbage because everyone in the world did it better than me. Still, I can absolutely understand why it exists. For people who look at these games as if they’re walks in the park, the best way to make them happy is to give them a virtual dick measuring contest.

Conclusion

The game industry’s approach to retro game compilations reminds me a lot of the way the music business handles re-releasing classic rock albums. You have the first anniversary release that is made out of worn, dusty master tapes. It has a handful of really wild bonus features that someone added in while no one was looking, but beyond that contains little more than some tiny photos and liner notes written by an aging rock journalist.

Then you get these 30th anniversary releases. This time the fidelity of the source content is cleaned up and made better than ever using technology that did not exist a few decades ago. The bonus material is bountiful, with a mix of expected goodies and some genuine surprises. But in the back of your head you know there will probably be another 40th or 50th anniversary release that will go for broke. It will dump every take, every promotional photo, every lyrics sheet and interview and poster into a box. It will make everything before it feel obsolete.

However, I feel like there is a difference in intent. With the music publishers, it definitely feels like a deliberate strategy to get you to buy the same record more than once. With the games industry, the modern effort to re-release every retro game under the sun is also driven by a profit motive, but the improvements in content and quality every few decades feels like it is due more to a general increase in competence over time. People working for the publishers nowadays have the interest, the budget, and the support needed to actually treat these games with some degree of respect. Ten or twenty years from now, another generation of employees will probably release these games again, with every bit of promotional material, and every display option you could dream of. True, it would be nice to have all that now, but I am at least happy to see things getting better.

And that does not mean you should wait until 2030 or 2040 to buy some future Mega Man X collection. Both volumes of this Legacy Collection contain enough goodies and content to justify their $20 price tags (especially considering how often they go on sale for $10). Could there be more features and goodies? Certainly, especially considering how much of it is recycled between the two volumes. Yet there is still enough to be worth your while.

Other Thoughts

• Like with many multi-platform releases, the Switch version of these games contains “Hunter Medals”, which contain all the challenges that make up the game’s Xbox Achievements and Playstation Trophies. You don’t get anything for unlocking them, but I find them to be well made. They encourage you to search for each game’s secrets, and to explore the bonus content thoroughly. In other words, exactly what Achievements were intended to do.
• The staff credits for both compilations take inspiration from Smash Bros Ultimate, letting you run around and shoot down the names in the credits. It’s a fun way of getting you to pay attention to all the people who put their hard work into the product.