I've just finished Mega man x 2 for the Snes (though I played it on the mega man x collection for my gamecube).
this was the first ever mega man game I played and the one that got me into the series. my skills were a litle rusty, and even with most of the hidden items in the game i stil! had trouble with several bosses, indeed I spent half an hour just! on the final battles against Sigma's various forms. One interesting thought occurred to me though. in the Mega man x series, a gameplay addition were sub tanks. These are refillable stores of energy you keep in your inventory. Rather than being medkits, they are literally like an extra fuel tank. When you collect energy refill items from monsters and your already at full energy, that energy goes into your subtank until it is ful, ---- indeed there are a maximum of four to collect, and once ful will refill your energy back up when you use them from your inventory screen. The kicker however is these subtanks (unlike the similar energy tanks in the Metroid series)are not used automatically. If your energy gets to zero you will die no matter how many ful subtanks you have left. Thus, throughout those boss fights you need to keep track of your energy carefully, and judge when is best to use them. This is a contributing factor to the difficulty of the game. Certainly if Capcom had wanted the subtanks to automatically kick in when your initial energy ran out, as is the case in metroid, they'd have made the game that way, however as anyone who has played any of the mega man games will know, keeping track of your resources and weaponry is as much part of the game as the platforming. What occurred to me however, was that if this was done in an audio game, the first comment we would get is "why aren't they used automatically?" and yet, people stil wish for complex and difficult games, with different weapons and amo to keep track of and the like. My point is, when thinking about mechanics in games, the easy or most convenient way may not always be the one that is most fun. this might be true of saving, auto item management and various other mechanics. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
