The year is 1993 and Capcom is in crisis; the company's beloved Mega Man series is ailing and Capcom fears it is because the kids of the day, with their backwards caps, their baggy pants, and their rap music can't relate to a hero who wears blue tights and looks like he is pushing out a particularly vexatious fart in much of the promotional artwork. The company needs a new hero, one who children would really want to emulate as they run around in sugar-induced frenzies [thank you, Coca-Cola! - ed.]. But these aren't the carefree days of 1992 anymore, when all anyone needed to worry about was whether to burn or bury all of their excess money. No, this is 1993, and times are tough. So Capcom decided its new hero must be tough as well. Some goodie-two-shoes wasn't going to cut it. Their new hero needed to be someone who hit the bad guys hard and made sure they stayed down. They needed someone who didn't take crap from anyone, who wasn't afraid to put his dirty boots up on the coffee table, not use a coaster, and watch hard-core pornography in the same room as his grandmother. Unfortunately all the initial concepts designed along these lines were deemed inappropriate and the designers were summarily fired. The next group to approach the task decided to keep the original team's name for their idea but little of the, uh, more colorful aspects. Thus was Mega Man X born.

   For those of you who don't remember this, well, you're probably not old enough to be reading the rest of the stuff on this site, so go play with your Pokemon cards, or whatever else it is you little whipper-snappers do [mother IS right, we ARE too politically correct! - ed.]. The rest of you should all universally acknowledge that this was a truly great day in video games. With Mega Man X, gamers got all the solid jumping, shooting, and enemy-weapon-stealing goodness that Mega Man was known for, all with a sleek new coat of dark, gritty paint. Over one hundred years have passed since the original Mega Man defeated Dr. Wily for good, and the names of all those involved in that epic struggle have been relegated to the history books and rolls of Mega Man special edition toilet paper. The most well known scientist of the day, Dr. Cain, is out on a dig in the hopes of unearthing ancient buried technology when he stumbles upon the lab of Dr. Light. Inside he finds a capsule containing X, a robot designed with the ability to make his own decisions. Believing he's found a Holy Grail of sorts, Cain creates a whole line of robots based off of X's design only to be horror-struck when many of the new robots go berserk. [I tell you, all these scientists have some serious case of ADD. Either that or they skip school alltogether, because I clearly remember this being covered in my 1st, 4th, AND 6th grade COMMON SENSE classes - ed.] When Sigma, the most powerful robot of the day, goes Maverick and unites his brother devices against the humans, it's up to Mega Man X to stop them.

Have X-buster, will battle.

   The Mega Man X Collection contains the first six installments in the Mega Man X saga and (bizarrely) the never-before-released-in-the-U.S. Mega Man racing game, Mega Man Battle & Chase (which must be unlocked). While all six of the X games maintain the same basic Mega Man formula of eight stages of jumping, shooting, and dashing gameplay ending with a thumb-blistering boss battle that yields a special weapon useable against another boss, the games fluctuate in quality enough to warrant talking about them individually. Plus, I really want to talk about them individually, so tough noogies. [I say Capcom should send us some free games. They've never had a more dedicated reviewer! Do you hear me, Capcom?!! - ed.]

   So, what better place to start than the original Mega Man X? Well, perhaps that time in my childhood when I spent seven agonizing hours chained to a fire hydrant in Boston being periodically heckled by passersby and urinated on by stray dogs. On second thought, that's probably a story best left for later. As for Mega Man X, it is probably (along with X4) the strongest game on the disc. Originally released for the Super Nintendo, it has excellent 16-bit graphics and a soundtrack that you'll find yourself humming until your boss catches you, asks you if you're humming Mega Man music, and then challenges you to a dance battle when you answer in the affirmative. If I had a nickel for every time that happened... Anyway, like I said above, the game is eight levels (also an intro) that you can do in any order you like (except for the intro, which is always first, silly!). If you manage to kill a boss (any working man's dream), all of whom are modeled after some kind of animal (as in any working man's dream), you'll get his special weapon that you can use on other bosses. Every boss is weak against one other boss's special weapon (also name calling), so conceivably, after the first boss you could defeat every other fairly easily using the trophy weapons... if you knew the correct order. In each level you can also find heart tanks to increase X's health bar, energy tanks to refill his life when it gets low (they're even reusable in this game, provided you find dropped energy to fill them back up), and pieces of armor Dr. Light left in capsules to dramatically increase X's stats and give him swanky head crests [which in all likelyhood cause serious Mega Migraines - but hey! - the ladies love 'em! - ed.] Once all eight bosses are dead the path to Sigma's fortress opens and there are several more levels (and bosses) which come in a specific order as you progress towards Sigma's lair. The game does a great job of making things challenging but not frustrating, and you'll be surprised how quickly practice will turn you from a pansy who gets his ass handed to him by Chill Penguin (who is, admittedly, the mightiest of mechanical penguins) to a robot demi-god capable of brutalizing Sigma's right-hand man, Vile, while picking your nose.

Sequels on parade!

X-plosive diarrhea!

   X3, on the other hand, takes a decided step in the wrong direction. The last of the X games released on the Super Nintendo, it essentially reuses the same graphics as those in X and X2, although I should point out that the version on this disc is, I believe, the version which was ported to the Sega Saturn fairly early in its run, and thus was given an upgraded, anime intro and a short anime scene before each level. This is, admittedly, a nice touch. The sound has also been upgraded slightly, making the effects crisper and the music a bit more complex. However, the problem does not lie with these elements, but rather the level design. Again we are essentially getting the same handful of levels; the jungle, the frozen cave, the factory, the airship, etc. You'd figure the bosses would stop hiding in those places, as they're apparently the first places X looks. They should start making their lairs in the automotive aisle of K-Mart or in a football stadium. X never looks there. Even worse, though, is that there are really only about half-a-dozen enemies in the game that are simply recycled in each level. I am fairly certain I had to kill enough of those little guys with the cannons and those floating, missile-launching heads to qualify as some kind of genocide in a gaming court of law. This compounds the already tedious level design to the point where the game feels uninspired. Even the fact that you can play as fan-favorite Zero (he's so dreamy!) periodically doesn't save this one from the half-hearted shrug it so rightfully deserves.

X-plosive resurgence!

   While the X series may have been petering out on the 16-bit consoles, 32-bit hardware was apparently exactly what it needed to recharge its batteries. With X4 we get the first game specifically designed with a 32-bit system in mind, and boy does it make a difference! The graphics are absolutely gorgeous 2-D stuff, and even though most of the levels are essentially the same ones we've seen a million times before, they just look so good and have so many level-appropriate, well animated enemies, it's like they're all new again. This is also the first game where you can play through the whole thing as Zero, and even though the levels are the same ones X has, the gameplay is radically different for each character. With a catchy soundtrack and awesome anime cut-scenes, this one is definitely one of the best in the collection.

   Lest success spoil us for too long, Mega Man X5 is the other black sheep of the series. With sloppy level design that looks like it was done by some dork with an X4 level-editor, enemies that have mainly been recycled from X4 and unattractively recolored, a time limit for how long you can take to finish, and a bizarre story involving the Sigma virus overrunning the world (depicted as purple, floating Sigma heads that pop up in most levels), this game just doesn't feel right, especially after the awesome X4. However, I must say that after playing around with this one for a while, it reached such a fever pitch of ridiculousness that I actually started to enjoy it. There's just something about a game with bosses named Duff McWhalen and Grizzly Slash (all the bosses are named after members of Guns 'n Roses. Seriously. That's not a joke!) that just doesn't allow you to hate it, even though you know you really should.

   With X6 we thankfully get a return to decency, albeit perhaps not greatness. With a couple of new levels (a trippy museum, some kind of mirrored area, and a Japanese temple! Oooooo!) and the need to rescue endangered humans and reploids during most levels, there is a sense of innovation without sacrificing what made the X series good. There's still a little bit of awkward level layout (jumps that you just can't make with certain characters? Yeah, that's %$#*@# fair!) that makes me think the original level designer was likely eaten by bears [or the members of Guns 'n Roses - ed.], but it's nowhere near the wonkiness of X5.

It just wouldn't be Mega Man without go-karts.

   And finally, Mega Man Battle & Chase. All your favorite Mega Man characters (and Spring Man) return to find out who can drive tiny cars the fastest! Finally, finally! you can live out your fan-fiction where Quick Man and Napalm Man raced each other in go-karts through a toy factory. (The part where they had naughty sex afterward is still left up to your imagination). The Mega Man "essence" is maintained in the game by the fact that you can take parts from the cars of defeated rivals to augment your own. If playing a stripped-down version of Mario Kart but with the Mega Man cast and PSone-era 3-D graphics is your thing, you'll probably think this game is a hoot. If not, you'll likely view it as a bit of Mega Man kitsch and little more.

   Other than Battle & Chase, there aren't a whole lot of extras. A few production sketch galleries, a handful of arranged versions of music from the games, and a couple of game tips. While this is a tad disappointing, as it would have been neat to have gotten some interviews with the creators or character bios or stuff of that nature, most of the games have held up well enough over time that they don't feel like they particularly need an added garnish.

   So, if you've been a Mega Man fan since the '80s, or if you're a young tyke who's just starting to realize the grandeur that is Mega Man, you really can't go wrong picking this one up, especially considering that it's budget-priced. And, with what look to be some really sweet Mega Man games on the horizon for the PSP, this is a great way to reawaken that old Mega-mania. It'll certainly beat the pants off that Crash Bandicoot-dementia you had last week.

       ... Mike Zeller