Well, the big day has finally arrived, Mega Man's 25th anniversary. Kicking off the celebrations was the release of the free PC downloadable game, Street Fighter X Mega Man. Hours before the game was available I was at Capcom Unity's Mega Man page and buzz for the game was strong. Eager gamers were wondering where the download links were and were overall, impatient. It was nice to see such anticipation. When Street Fighter X Mega Man finally did become available, the site's servers were hit HARD. In zipped form, the game is only a little over 33 MB and yet download speed was incredibly slow due to the large number of downloads all at once. That means demand for this game was pretty high.
After finishing up an errand, I sat down and booted up the game. After pressing start, looked on in at at the Street Fighter cast's stage select photos in 8-bit glory. It took me some time to guess the theme that was playing for the stage select screen. I was sure I'd heard it before. I felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner but it's the character select theme from Street Fighter II. It just sounds very Mega Man-ish.
Since I heard Chun-Li was a good starter, I went to her stage first. A huge smile came across my face as I heard Chun-Li's theme in 8-bit Mega Man-like sound quality. I couldn't stop grinning as I ran, jump and slid under enemies. Yeah, Mega Man can slide and charge his Mega Buster in this game, which I think is great. I like Mega Man 9 and 10, but I don't think Mega Man's sliding and charged Mega Buster are "unnecessary" as Keiji Inafune claims. And charging the Mega Buster helps a lot in this game. A lot of enemies drop a lot quicker to charged shots. And I'd hate avoiding some of these guys without being able to slide. Those teleporting Joes in Chun's level quickly became the bane of my existence.
I came into Street Fighter X Mega Man very fresh faced liked I did when I first started playing Mega Man games over 20 years ago. I didn't look up the boss order or weaknesses. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to find these things out on my own.
Chun was indeed an easy first boss even though I died to her twice. The Street Fighters really do behave like the games they come from. In fact, Street Fighter knowledge will aid you well in this game. You know how Ryu can dodge fireballs sometimes when he does the Hurricane Kick? Well if you try shooting at him when he does that move, he'll be invulnerable to all of your shots. This means you have to attack him when he's on the ground. You can also hear him calling his attacks.
The level design feels isn't the best in the world but it isn't bad. It actually feels a lot like the original Mega Man, which is fine with me. Too many Mega Man games are trying to be Mega Man 2 these days and as great as that game is, I'm rather sick of so many trying to imitate it. I like the look of the levels too. Ryu's level feels like an extended version of his stage from Street Fighter II, complete with a full moon. Rolento's stage is based on a construction site and is full of bad guys that love explosives.
There are also some codes you can input. If you move the cursor over Ryu on the the stage select screen, hold the Fire button and press Right, Right, Right, Left, you can play as Mega Man without his helmet. Pause the game, hold the Jump button and press Up, Down, Down, Down and the music will be replaced with Guile's theme, because everything is better when it's playing. These codes can be reversed by inputting them again in the proper places. I wasn't expecting any codes, but they are more than welcome additions.
One thing that is sure to annoy people is the lack of a save feature. You have to beat the whole game in one sitting. Not even any passwords are supported for the game.
Lack of a save feature aside, I'm quite pleased with Street Fighter X Tekken. Kudos to Seow Zong Hui for making such a fun game and to A_Rival for Mega-fying the Street Fighter music. If you like Mega Man, if you like Street Fighter, give this game a download. It doesn't cost a thing and it's highly enjoyable. I'm hoping this game eventually gets released on the Virtual Console, PSN and XBLA. It certainly deserves it. If you'll excuse me, I got some more Street Fighters to merc.
Street Fighter X Mega Man
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