Title: Mega Man X 2
Release Date: December 1994 (Japan), January 1995 (US)
Original Platform: Super Famicom/Super Nintendo
Mega Man X 2 was released in December 1994, almost exactly a year after its predecessor. I can’t help but feel that this may have influenced the final product.
What I mean is that I don’t think there was any way for the dev. team to know what people ultimately liked or didn’t like about X1. The Internet was in its infancy in 1994. Feedback had to spread through word of mouth. On top of that, they likely got started on X2 as soon as the first game was on shelves.
My theory is that since it was impossible to tell what people did or didn’t like, the development team went out of their way to ensure that X2 was not a rehash of X1, as a way to hedge their bets. This is understandable if true, but also risky. Change without vision or direction can have unpredictable consequences. They can make the experience better, worse, different, not different, more cohesive, or less.
Weirdly enough, in the case of X2, the changes make the game extremely forgettable. Also less enjoyable, less focused, and less difficult, but you may very well forget even these negative qualities a few months after playing.