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S2 Ep47: Mega Man X
70 Plays7 years ago
Join Dave (and Jake) as they jump into an old classic in this week's episode!
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Transcript
Introduction to Soapstone Podcast
00:00:29
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Jake! Jake! It's going good.
Spectacular Spider-Man Discussion
00:00:45
Speaker
That's good. We're gonna be talking about, if I have this right, Amazing Man. Very close. Yes. Spectacular Spider-Man.
00:01:01
Speaker
Make man make man Which one one of them? I don't know. I'm not too familiar with the series. This is the 10th game Probably no, it's not at all. I I should we should have looked up the actual order
00:01:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's all right People mean for those of you who can read it is magmatics. Yeah, but it's definitely not the 10th game the series they were Going canonically and there's like hey Next generation of Mega Man. Gotcha. Gotcha ramp up to X
00:01:35
Speaker
That's all right. I think that when we make mistakes our listeners just feed off of the ignorance I think that's that's what they're here for really I really hope that like there's one listener who just takes everything like a clean sponge you're like yes
Mega Man Halloween Anecdote
00:01:52
Speaker
So Mega Man from what so I know that in the past you have been Mega Man for an event of your own Halloween party. Yeah So based off of that, I know that He's large Very large actually almost almost obese really Is that is that roughly correct? No, no So
00:02:20
Speaker
How would you describe Mega Man?
Mega Man X Series Appreciation
00:02:22
Speaker
Go back a little bit. Mega Man's been around for fucking ever. I got into it at the X series, which Mega Man X is obviously the first entry. Right. And I've had like a fondness for it ever since. But mainly through Mega Man X. And I thought it'd be funny for one Halloween that I hosted.
00:02:41
Speaker
Cause they have these like, uh, blue suits or like just color skin suits you can get at a Halloween store for monies. Right. And I was going to get a skin one, be like, okay, I'll just be a mega man. Yeah. Like I already bought like the little Buster cannon and like a helmet to be like, be cute. Cause I'm a dumb fan boy.
00:03:00
Speaker
But then I saw one that inflated. I'm like, hold up. So instead of going as Mega Man, I went as Mega Man XXL because I look like a very fat Mega Man. So maybe not an accurate representation of what Mega Man should be. I must say I've deceived the audience a little bit. Dave and I actually played through Mega Man X together in advance for this. So I know that Mega Man is actually a boy. You heard it here first.
00:03:30
Speaker
It's not even really a man.
Mega Man's Size and Character Discussion
00:03:32
Speaker
I thought he was a robot. He's like a super fighting room three feet tall I Imagine he has to be like a normal height. Yeah, but to be fair like you don't really see Other people in the magma games you occasionally see reploids, right? You got you've got dr. Light like holograms I think are your reference in this particular game, but he's an older man You have to assume that he's like his bones have condensed
00:03:59
Speaker
Or withered away over time. Yeah, he's roughly a square but mega man himself is a Guy with a gun human mentioned the Buster cannon. So that's his yeah his arm arm kind of gun. So he's kind of like um Kind of like a female Samus. No a male Samus. There you go That would have been funny if I just went with that joke for a while, right? My eyes progressively progressively squint but yeah famous
00:04:27
Speaker
say I miss in mail form is is roughly kind of mega manage they both have a gun can charge up I mean they did our robots obviously
00:04:39
Speaker
Kind of like, I won't say grow up around the same time. Yeah. But they both were side scrolly platformers. Right. Where like you jump, you shoot, you have enemies, which kind of become
Mega Man X Gameplay Mechanics
00:04:52
Speaker
obstacles. And then it kind of just keeps ramping up from there. But Mega Man X obviously is not as rogue like or exploratory. Right. Yeah. I shouldn't have said a rogue like at all. That was right. Yeah.
00:05:05
Speaker
that's all right we're all about the mistakes here so still but uh yeah i mean so we we opened and there's like an introductory level that uh you so graciously graciously let me attempt to play through um and i guess it's worth noting that i'm not good at this game
00:05:25
Speaker
at all so i mean in your defense uh we played on playstation because they had a megaman x collection and i don't want to try and get a super nintendo acquired or working and then maintain it yeah so
00:05:41
Speaker
There's also your first time touching the game. Whereas I have had, I've touched it many times. Like I said, like I either grew up playing with my cousin or my friend, Chad. And we would just, you just sit together, you trade off the controller and you play through the whole thing. Yeah.
00:06:00
Speaker
Which is what I try to do with you. So you just look to me like they take the wheel Where the wheel is this controller from my hand? Yeah, no, it's uh, it's surprisingly I didn't I don't know Initially what I was gonna expect difficulty wise but it's it's punishing if you don't know the mechanics if you're not like familiar with like wall shooting or like dash jumping and
00:06:26
Speaker
so what did you think of the intro level because that was your literal first experience right i feel like i was probably like in the shoes of people who are bad at the game and the intro level of mega man like i struggled a lot with some of the the starter enemies and things shameful a shameful a shameful display
00:06:49
Speaker
But I have to say that it is also pretty intuitive. There is no part of that kind of intro that's just like, and here's tons of information that there's no way you could have figured out. So a couple more attempts. I felt like I would have been a lot more comfortable with the game.
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, you see me picking up fine. I did. Backseat play a little bit. I just kind of pointing out some nuances that I've just picked up over time. Like, um, if you shoot bullets closer to like an enemy or off screen, you can technically fire faster. Cause you can usually only have up to like three projectiles out at a time. Then it's like, well, let these go away and then you can have some more. Yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's like before you saw what I played I was like running up and I was like in their face like die Yeah, I was I was watching you play. It's just like alright. This guy's gonna have Like 30 frames of vulnerability that he's gonna launch a projectile. I'll jump that And now it was
00:07:54
Speaker
It definitely contributed to the fact that it only took like two and a half hours for us to get through that entirely Compared to how long it's supposed to take to like beat the game on average to you being the one playing But it was still it was still interesting to see And do you know roughly like when this came out probably a while ago, this is super Nintendo days So this would have been
00:08:22
Speaker
a while ago Out of my own bias. I will say 91 the euro is born. That's fair, but we're not gonna look it up in either you let's be honest 91 locked in stone But it had a like surprisingly Kind of I already mentioned the word intuitive but intro level where it's like hey We're not even gonna like let you touch the game
00:08:44
Speaker
until you figure out the basics. I did notice that after the intro level, you can pick the order you want to fight the bosses before the final boss, which is really cool, which I think differentiates it from other Metroid-like games, where they're like, here's the entire world, and you're going to find upgrades, and then you're going to backtrack. This one has a lot more teleporting.
00:09:14
Speaker
level choice or something like
00:09:17
Speaker
Actually, a lot of older games are kind of like, hey, here's this linear progression. Yeah. Here's a level one, stage one, level one, stage two, level one boss. And you have to go in a straight line pretty much. Whereas I kind of navigated what has been my default route for a while of you go to chill penguin to get the dash boots, right? You beat chill penguin because he's a little bitch and he's not chill penguin. Yeah.
00:09:46
Speaker
finger guns He should have been the mascot for icy instead of that fucking polar bear. Oh my gosh. Yeah, but Dash boots is just really helpful to accelerate the rest of the game because you can dash right, but also you can do dash jumps Which helps you go off of a wall and clear a much greater distance, right? Um, so this is you're gonna be accumulating these upgrades throughout the game it is in that sense It's kind of similar to like metroid
00:10:13
Speaker
And that you're you're getting your upgrades to unlock paths, but it's not linear. Yeah, you can revisit areas or do whatever. Mega Man is a game, though, where you don't have to get like the dash boots you're kind
Boss Strategies in Mega Man X
00:10:28
Speaker
of forced into for like that level. Yeah. Like you can't walk past it. So you have to take the upgrade. But for everything else, you don't need.
00:10:38
Speaker
The upgrades so like you could avoid the dash boots and like you can't avoid the dash boots, but You could go through the rest of the game not getting like the armor upgrade or the helmet or the arm And you could theoretically beat the game. It would just be very tough It would suck so much. Yeah so on top of those armor pieces we're talking about they're also Every time you beat a boss as is a mega man cannon Yeah, you get their power or upgrade you absorb their soul
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's like your your reward for like you beat the boss you get their power hmm You do some cool shit with it like so when I beat show penguin you get shotgun ice, right? Which as you shoot it's just a pellet. It's not really that exciting. Mm-hmm until it hits a wall and then it shrapnel is back Yeah, you're like dove
00:11:29
Speaker
Yeah, I saw anytime you're actually using this upgrade, you're just like, all right, time for the ice upgrade. And then you just turn away from the boss and fire into a wall. Yeah. So Jake's talking about the next one, which is a spark mandrel. Oh, no, there's a shotgun ice too, right? Like it splits when you hit the wall. That's what we're talking about now. All right. Yeah.
00:11:50
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about the same thing. We are. Yes. Squinty eyes. Oh, this is the boss where you use that technique in particular. Yeah. Yes. Okay. And now I'm on the same page. The next level, usually you want to go in levels or orders of weakness. So once you have the first boss's weapon, that is always going to be a weakness for another boss. And this is, again, throughout like all Mega Man games.
00:12:18
Speaker
So if you go to spark mandrels and you go through like a really cool Oh, I have to come back and talk about stages. Yeah, so I just gonna talk about shotgun ice for a sec. Yeah
00:12:29
Speaker
Spark manager has like some Cool moves where he'll jump around climb the ceiling punch the ground and shoot lightning out or like do like a charge punch at you But if you as Jake was saying turn against the wall Shoot your shotgun ice it will shrapnel back right and it can't miss him It splits in like five shots, but like the angles of them like you're gonna hit them. Yeah, I
00:12:52
Speaker
But if he gets hit by it, he's frozen, takes double damage, which is like two bars, and then like breaks out the house like, ah, what the fuck was that? And then you time it to do it again. Yeah. Immediately freezes again. Yeah. And so you can stunlock the boss. This is one of those times I know I mentioned when we were actually playing through it, where I was like, this is made for hint lines. Like this is made to like call up that Nintendo service where it's like a dollar a minute. And you're just like, I'm really struggling with the purple guy. And they're like,
00:13:22
Speaker
yeah we could describe the purple guy you know it's fine take your time and then uh like yeah yeah party i'm trying to kill barney trying to kill barney kill barney is like much less interesting i think than kill bill as a as a movie idea but
00:13:42
Speaker
I'm actually translating this into like some type of Irish film. Oh, yeah. Oh, you got to go kill Barney. Kill the Barney stone. That's where I was actually, I was going. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, like a lot of those bosses, you knew the strategy. So you just, you just walk up and like, oh man, this guy looks like he has a pretty dangerous move set. And Dave was just like, I'm going to stand in the spot and just shoot. And that guy dies. Yeah. Like you watched me do each fight. Was there any that you think?
00:14:13
Speaker
I struggled with the most because a lot of them, like if you hit them with their weakness, you can kind of stunlock them and you're also just pooping damage on them.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't think you necessarily struggled with the bosses. There was a couple, right? I'm great. There was a couple of spikes is what I was going to say. I struggled a little bit more with because these are like sudden death spikes. It's actually, Mega Man has no rings. So if he lands on spikes, he instantly dies. Yeah. Yeah. There's actually no rings in the game to pick up. So if there's no bottom to the level or if there's spikes, that's kind of your, yeah. Yeah.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah, I was stuck up on the sonic comparison there for a second. But no, I don't think you struggled with any of the bosses until you got to like some of the later bosses. And you didn't even struggle with those necessarily. I think you were just you had some latent anxiety about them from like, I feel like playing as a kid. You're just like, these guys are tough. Yeah. Because you actually remarked that you're like, I'm kicking these guys butts like significantly more than I was as a kid. I mean, to be fair, I was a child, Jacob.
00:15:19
Speaker
But I think I make a boy Make a lab, okay fighting Android Nine s Nines Call back to a previous episode
00:15:36
Speaker
But yeah, like growing up, um, there was kind of like this whole larger than life thing. And when you take turns playing it, you usually take the same order. So there are a lot of times where like, I wouldn't face certain bosses for like a while until like, maybe you change up the controller rotation. Right. And I don't know. It's just like going back. I had all of the information and I've been gaming for.
00:16:05
Speaker
way too long and like certain things become intuitive in nature. Yeah. You get the feel for it. I understand. I understand. But yeah, I don't I don't think you struggled much with them. I did like your attachment to the game, though, and the bosses like they don't. So we saw some clips from a previous Mega Man game and it looked like it showed like all the boss names at the menu select.
00:16:33
Speaker
This one didn't show the name till you pick the level. Yeah, I like their portraits. Yeah, I like it shows like the Snapshot of like the stage in the middle. Yeah. Yeah, so like I was just sitting here I'm like, I just see a bunch of faces and Dave's like, I don't know Maybe I'll go for like spark mandrel. You're like one of these other guys like I was just making up names They're all nicknames. None of these guys actually have names
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, and the really close-up portraits of just like the face. Yeah, you're gonna see it could be like anybody. Yeah No, it's it's pretty funny though But yeah, I liked that that had that depth that even like all these years later
00:17:14
Speaker
you can be evaluating like you there was a there was a period of evaluation where you're thinking like which one should I go for next I mean I could go for this guy I think at one point like we like had lost a life against one of the guys and you're like yeah maybe I'll switch it up I'll go for like a different boss or something like that yeah I think I doubled back which toys yeah
00:17:37
Speaker
So one of the cool things about the Mega Man X, which Jake got to experience actually commented on after I pointed it out. Oh, yes. Yes. Hey Jake, is that cool? That is cool. Yes. Thank you for pointing that. Um, so like you beat, what's his name? Chill, chill penguin.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, and you're like cool. I have his power. Let me go do some other stuff If you mix it up because you wouldn't notice on your first playthrough, right and you go to flame mammoth stage Initially flame mammoth stages like this
00:18:09
Speaker
I was going to say industrial factory, but like, what the fuck else factory would it be? But they're like these, uh, one way. Hey man, just trying to make wearable shoes for everybody. That's so good.
00:18:27
Speaker
Uh, there are these conveyor belts. There are these like, uh, half made machines and there's like molten something on the ground. Cause you know, it's not a safe place to be. Right. And you kind of have to like navigate on these conveyor belts, not get hit by things and not touch the floor. Right. The floor is long.
00:18:49
Speaker
The floor if there was a game called the floor or hot lava, right? I would definitely play and make an episode about it. That's probably true But like as you're going through you come to like this far wall and then underneath you see a heart tank, right? Which is everyone knows this is where you store the hearts of your enemies Yeah, yeah, which you kind of manifest in the form of two extra bars on your overall health, right?
00:19:17
Speaker
You're like, that's really cool. But lava's there. And lava, as we know, is a bitch. Yes. But if you had killed Chill Penguin before you went to Flame Manistage, everything's iced over. Right. You've taken the essence of his soul and dispersed it. Dispersed it throughout Flame Manistage. Yeah. And so you have these interactions which you didn't know about. They don't tell you about. Oh, yeah. You just find it out about it incidentally and you're like,
00:19:44
Speaker
Holy shit what yeah, that's really cool. So you're then able to go and get the heart tank increase your max life and then as you go through these things you start trying and experimenting with like these Weapons of the place like well, what if I go here? What if I do this one thing right? Yeah, and then you're rewarded for it like yeah, I had been playing magma next for I
00:20:08
Speaker
I'm going to subtract the number from my age. Three decades. 12 years. On and off. More off than on. But then when the sequelitis video came out, which I'm probably going to post a link with this episode for those who appreciate.
00:20:24
Speaker
Um, Aaron Hansen, who we know is Egoraptor, is like saying, Yeah, friend of the show. Yeah. Also sponsored, did you know? Uh, he's, he's just like hyping about a game in part of the episode. And he says, it wasn't really cool when you take Boomer Kuwanger's weapon, which is a boomerang. Yeah. And you hit flame mammoth with it and his trunk falls off.
00:20:45
Speaker
I didn't know that until I watched that video. Yeah, like that's how much like little nuance things it has in it where it just it's really really cool to explore and find that shit out. Yeah, I saw this happen and like when you use the boomerang against actually it like cut there I'm a snout snout off. I'm like hold up though. Why are you strategically just remembering this boar man?
00:21:13
Speaker
Robot I don't know. They're all robots. I guess but yeah, they're all robot masters. I think okay, huh or Mavericks in the future Masters Mavericks master of Mavericks But yeah, it's it's got a lot of those cool interactions I also saw that there was like a lot of secrets and
00:21:32
Speaker
Or there was an item that was seemingly out of range. And there was that tunneling robot, that digging robot you had to kill within a certain time frame. Yeah, an armored armadillo stage. There's two tunnel robots, which they kind of have this meat grinder. They move in front of them to clear out. And they're actually taking away part of the stage, making a smaller area until it gives a big tunnel.
00:22:01
Speaker
But if it goes through, it's an auger. I think, is it? I think that would be a word for you. Auger. Auger's a drill. This is not a drill on the front of it. No. Okay. Nevermind. I was thinking of a correct knit word for it and I interrupted just a bit. All good. Yeah. But if it goes through a certain area, it will kind of cut off access to something else and you can't shoot it from the front because it has those invincible.
00:22:28
Speaker
kind of shots blink off yeah um when you shoot from behind it does take damage yeah shoot in the butt always shoot in the butt this is how i do dark song where is the boss's bot he isn't vulnerable there is no bot
00:22:44
Speaker
But you saw, like, I murdered the one guy, so I could then go and get that item. That's one of those things, like, you would just go through the level normally, you'd be like, I can't kill this guy, let me wait. He eventually hit spikes, then you're like, oh, there's an item up there, how do I get it? And then it gets, like, your kid brain thinking, like, okay, what if I do this? Right. Yeah.
00:23:06
Speaker
And then there was, uh, there's another one where you had to throw one of the boomerangs, uh, at a certain angle and you're like, try and like jumping up and like jumping down, dashing at it and throwing a boomerang, like all these angles and things. I think you had to end up throwing the boomerang, like while falling down against the wall or something like that, or I don't know. Yeah. I'm not sure even to this day, what triggers an exact angle. I just, uh, match the shoot button until I get what I want. Yeah. Yeah. That's society though. We live, we live in a society.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, there was there was a lot of kind of cool look I'd say I'd say the bosses have a lot of style to like they're very stylized
00:23:53
Speaker
The Chameleon guy was pretty legit. He's not called that, but I'd have to actually scroll down. Stink Chameleon. You have the laptop in the way it's called. Stink Chameleon, yeah. It's got that cool aberration kind of effect.
Unique Boss Battles in Mega Man X
00:24:10
Speaker
You all know this from any sort of optical camouflage in any video game that's ever been released.
00:24:16
Speaker
but It's it's just really cool And he has a really cool a secondary effect So like every one of these bosses that you're beating gets you their weapon. We were mentioning like the boomerang And I didn't really see you use his primary that much primary function, but eventually you could unlock the secondary like the charged functions for all of
00:24:41
Speaker
If you get the arm upgrade, you can fully charge your mega buster or any of the special weapons to get their true potential.
00:24:51
Speaker
And his was legit because it's just like the star power up from Mario or like anything that gives you invincibility. Can you like fire while you're in that or you can't? I don't think you can. Usually you want to like use it and then try and like go through an area really quickly like I don't have time for this shit. Yeah.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah, but I was joking that usually chameleons aren't invincible. They are invisible But I don't know I mean it's to the players benefit so I guess run with it, right? Yeah Did you like any of the other upgrades? There's
00:25:32
Speaker
There was a couple kind of cool ones. I liked the ice skateboard for Chill Penguin. That was the one that kind of like blew my mind because I'm like, this isn't even really a weapon. Like this is just like area traversal. Right. And then I think you use that on a couple occasions to get an item or two. You're just like build this ice platform below you and then it just like launches off to the right like magic.
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah. I remember you were forced to watch me in Boomer Kuwanger at the top of the tower. You shoot an ice block off to the side, you ride it, and you try and time your jump to get up to the platform where there's another heart tank. Yeah. The easy way to do that is to use the Boomerang, but you need to have beaten Boomer Kuwanger to get it, but I was like, let's not come back here ever.
00:26:27
Speaker
No, that's fair. And I like when games have multiple solutions to a problem like that too. Even if it's not like the original intent, you're just like, we're gonna let the physics play out in such a way people could find unique solutions to these things.
00:26:43
Speaker
Which also makes speedrunning much more enjoyable to watch. Which, you know, I'm a fan of. It's not obvious from the number of times that I mention speedrunning. I wonder how people with their speedrunning make Man-X. Tal's friends are full. Whatever.
00:27:00
Speaker
I just use that excuse when I talk to my girlfriend like, I just really like speed. I swear this happens all the time. I'm super fast. You think that's why I should see this guy in line. He's fucking beat my personal best. Oh man. But I gotta say my favorite. Standard ability and stage and boss. I've always had like a huge hard on for a storm eagle furry. Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
But his state is really cool because it has so much verticality compared to everything else yeah, because you start off they're like these platforms and
00:27:45
Speaker
There's kind of on this sky conveyor belt and you just kind of go up. Yeah. And you're like, Oh, no. And like you have free range, um, in mega man X be like, I can go through anywhere on the stage. There's no loading screens compared to old mega man. Yeah. Where it's like, you've gone across these three blocks. Congrats. New screen will load. Right. And then like, as your body's kind of there waiting for the screen to load. Um, so that was really cool. The music for it is great. I look this very high pitched.
00:28:18
Speaker
I want to see. Not like that at all. Right. In the background, while it has the main music and there's just like a really cool track. And then when you get to Storm Eagle, it's one of the few bosses or maybe the only boss in the game. Cause usually like you walk into a room, the door locks, the boss shows up, his health bar goes up and then like the boss music starts. Yeah. It's the same boss music for pretty much everything. Um, but for him.
00:28:49
Speaker
you end up on like the ship the top of the ship explodes so it's all flat and storm eagle comes flying down like the health bar goes up and like it's open right like you have probably two or three normal boss rooms yes to work with and he starts like flapping his wings pushing you back shit there's mechanics
00:29:10
Speaker
And then he also shoots out a tornado, you have to like dash through otherwise it'll push you off the edge. And then he kind of like flies up and off the screen you're like, are we done? And then he starts like dive bombing you. And you have to like dash around the stage and it's just really cool how open it is.
00:29:28
Speaker
like it's cool it is cool I did like that he like he he dives beyond the screen boundaries and then comes from the other side so it's like he's like wrapping around the screen a little bit not like immediately it's plausible that he's you know pulling up turning back around and making another switch remember writing that type of stuff and like
00:29:49
Speaker
Not visual basic, but like early programming languages. You have the UI. It's like yeah, he like goes off the edge here It will come back like life or something like that or just grabs back around. Yeah Yeah, it's they're actually what I was thinking of And it's it's pretty cool like he's got a lot of Personality like um something I was thinking of recently when we were having our
00:30:16
Speaker
Um, uh, most recent dark souls episodes, dark souls too, as we were talking about how like different the bosses were and were not. And a lot of them just boiled down to fight a variable sized man in armor. Yeah. And like, that's not a problem that plagues mega man at all. Like they all have the constraint of like robot animal and they do a lot with it. Yeah. Like each boss kind of has like their own.
00:30:46
Speaker
kit of like three or four moves tops. And you can learn it fairly quickly if you wait and learn. I go crazy. If you're thrown into it like shit's just happening and you have to react. Yeah. And as like a kid you're not or even a.
00:31:04
Speaker
Young adult as you mm-hmm. I'm old David. Sorry, you don't have to as an old fuck It can be a lot to be like just thrown into mm-hmm, but they do have their kit, but like nobody really shares Move sets right you have to learn what their moves are yeah, which is I mean the traditional approach to any boss fight is like you show up if it's a reasonably difficult boss fight you normally won't succeed the first time and
00:31:33
Speaker
if it's like an easy boss fight you'll succeed the second time and if it's Sekiro you'll succeed the 40th time but these guys looking at like the way you were fighting them I would anticipate it would take me you know three you know maybe three or four times to really understand all their mood sets and get the coordination down for like
00:31:58
Speaker
This is you on the wall and shooting at the same time and jumping across and dodging and like The moves aren't that complicated either. It's like most of the depth is in your ability to switch weapons But like beyond like the dash boots like your movement options don't really change that I saw so it's all the depth of just
00:32:22
Speaker
being having to react to projectiles, incoming attacks, anticipating moves, things like that. The game's pretty responsive. I saw that when you played, you played very quickly. I did not play nearly as quickly. The thing that's really nice about Megan as a whole is just
00:32:45
Speaker
You can tap jump or you can hold jump. So you can control how high you go. And if you dash off to the right, you can stop all momentum if you just let go of the buttons. So it allows for like really tight navigation. So if someone's shooting like projectiles and you have to kind of navigate in between them as they come across the screen with like a little bit of space, it's entirely doable. It just comes down to your player skill.
00:33:11
Speaker
I know like in later Mega Man's, they have crazy shit like that where it's like, you fight this one guy and it's like a boss sized room, but there are no walls. Okay. So you have to get really good at just jumping and navigating within that space without using walls as a crutch, which I do all the time because you can be like, Hey fucker, I'm up here. What are you going to do?
00:33:35
Speaker
I mean to be fair for this game most of the boss fight rooms are two walls and a boss so like you're gonna use the walls yeah but uh no it it looked um very stylish and the boss design and the ways you could go about fighting them and there were some there were some interesting things in there too like um
00:33:55
Speaker
So one of the bosses that stood out to me as just, I didn't actually see his upgrade for a while because I don't think you used the weapon until a little bit later, but launch octopus, which also like you walk in the room and it's like, it's an octopus. And it's like a humanoid octopus looking thing. But like, Dave, should I like leave the room? I've seen some. I know it's technical time. I need you to excuse me.
00:34:20
Speaker
You can return in a few minutes, but, uh, minutes, a few, but, um, it was, it's just, it's really cool, unique design. And I mean, you obliterated a lot of the bosses. So I didn't see, I don't even think I saw all of their movesets for the ones that could be stacked. Yeah. That's the thing. Like once you learn that, like there's no point in going back. Yeah. So I can't imagine.
00:34:51
Speaker
as a kid or even now, just being like, buster, I'll learn the moveset, no. Like you have the grenade, why use a pencil? As the analogy goes. That is what William Shakespeare told other writers, you have grenades, why would you use a pencil? I had to deal with a pencil. Use the pencil to pull out the pen.
00:35:20
Speaker
And I know, like, we unlocked the Hadouken after we went through all the bosses. I'm like, Jake, one, I want to show you this cool thing. Two, I don't want to fight some of these bosses. That definitely assisted the time to beat, I think, being able to use the Hadouken. Yeah.
00:35:38
Speaker
You're just I remember it was one of the early fights I'm against like in the Sigma stages. Mm-hmm. Very just like oh, I was like, oh you're gonna use you're gonna use Hadouken to kill Sigma here like now I'm gonna use it to kill the dog. I was like, hold up what? You did though and you did yeah the Sigma
00:36:03
Speaker
I think it was also my first experience with a three-tiered or a three-phase boss. Yeah. Because you have to face Sigma's dog, who I don't remember if it's named, but you always gimp it immediately. It's actually a movie that's not super crazy. Right. It jumps and breathes fire, but the fire kind of goes like this sinusoidal pattern. Are you sure that his dog is not a dragon?
00:36:28
Speaker
I just remember like it does like the little cute house like how and then you could do get it and it's dead. That's how it's always been as far as I can remember. Right.
00:36:39
Speaker
But then you have Jedi Sigma. Right. He literally has a lightsaber. It's like it's not anything else. No, it's exactly that. You have to shoot him in the air because otherwise he'll deflect it because he's a Jedi. And his only move is really like dashing from wall to wall.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. It goes at an angle. It keeps going up until you Drop down and then he'll come back down. Yeah, that's it. And then Final sigma. We're talking about fun. I haven't talked about anything else about this game. That's all right I was gonna talk about like hadouken we don't circle back out there
00:37:21
Speaker
But, like, you kill Sigma, his head kind of floats up into the background, which has kind of been blacked out. You can tell, like, something's kind of there. Yeah, yeah. A bit of a silhouette. And he goes into this giant machine, which has, like, these shock paws. And beneath his face is, like, a bigger face, which either, like, shoots out projectiles or breathes fire. Yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
I think that's the mechanics. You have to jump up on the hands and shoot them in the face with either a fully charged with the arm upgrade buster shot or the rolling shield.
Final Boss Fight Against Sigma
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah, basically immediately as I saw the head like go into the big boss, I'm just like Uncle Andrew. I think a lot of things at that time were like you want to have like a nice cool larger than life, larger than life boss. Yeah. Because a lot of gaming at that time was just.
00:38:20
Speaker
Hey, we want to get people interested. We want to give them like the power struggle of like, they are the underdog. They are the, they need to achieve something great. You have to redeem yourself after you killed the dog. Essentially. Mega Man's just like.
00:38:37
Speaker
Ooh. I just killed a dog. Kicks puppy. You're right, I deserve this. Yeah. Carry the show for a second. Let me grab a coffee. Sure. So I was going to go back to the Hadouken for a second. Yeah. So there was like, there's an arc. I mean, I can only describe it as an arcane arrangement of circumstances you had to do to actually get the Hadouken.
00:39:03
Speaker
and it didn't make any sense to me up to when you completed it and after you completed it it was just it involved clearing a ledge several times and then dying which apparently is the optional part you can like go through the level or whatever yeah you should have to get to that point three times after you have
00:39:24
Speaker
full sub tanks, full health, and all the other upgrades. Yeah. It's just super arbitrary. It reminds me of like kind of those those old Game Boy games where you could do like buffer overflows and things like that. Or it's like, oh, it's Pokemon. And like you go to the beach. Yeah. And like setting bits and things like that. But it's actually designed.
00:39:46
Speaker
that way to actually get the hadouken and i think the hadouken kind of operates like like link's uh sword projectiles and like some of the early link games are like full health here's your cool attack you take any damage no cool attacks for you you're no longer in the cool gag club yeah throw somebody throw sand at you you're like okay i guess i'll leave the club like everybody else in the club laughs you out he's like he's got sand on
00:40:14
Speaker
It's good at incentivizing though. You're like, I really don't want to take hits. I want to keep using my super cool abilities. So I need to do it at the start of the screen. Otherwise I'm going to get a hit. And some of those bosses, like they, they open up with an attack and just a few frames like of the fight. So if you miss the Hadouken, like you would have to have the knowledge to dodge the boss. Maybe, uh, before you like go for the Hadouken or some of the bosses like starting here.
00:40:43
Speaker
and it seemed like you could only fire the hadouken while you're on the ground yeah so you'd have to have like really it's not that good yeah it's like if you if you land it you just win right it's like the instant kill yeah it's not like oh it's a lot of damage it's all the damage yes yeah it just it's it's the bfg fired from the gun there but or his hands like there's a really cool boss in
00:41:12
Speaker
I want to say it's the final boss of Sigma Stage 1. It's the spider, and it comes down on these vines. But in between the vines, there'll be these little connecting bars. The spider will start at the top of one of them, and the bars will appear. But in every bar it comes across, it has to cross.
00:41:32
Speaker
So you have to map out where it's gonna go, because while it's moving it's invincible. But then when it lands at the bottom, it opens up its eye, and that's when you can actually damage it. So I had to time the Hadoken, which wasn't hard, just to kill it. But when it's like an actual fight, it's really cool.
00:41:51
Speaker
That gets faster and faster and then like drops spider eggs, right? What's gonna come out of the spider eggs spider Yeah
00:42:08
Speaker
But it seems like you could you get that like pretty late in the game You said he had to get all the health upgrades. So it's not like you it's not like it's a Full-on cheat code. It would be something that they would tell you on the Nintendo hotline after like that You've hit the twenty twenty minute mark, you know, like a gold member and their system. They're like, all right, listen kid your bank growth But here's how you get it. Yeah, your parents will never let you call anyone again. Oh
00:42:31
Speaker
Your parents won't have the option. They'll be in jail for debt. Yes. But it's worth it because Hadoop came in. Oh, yeah. If anybody didn't already know, it is a Capcom game. Yes. Capcom likes to redistribute some of their assets and kind of do it like an homage. Right. Maybe over the top at times. Two other games. Right. So like in what is it? Not Dead Rising. Dead Rising? Dead Rising is one of their games. Yeah.
00:42:59
Speaker
Yeah. Like you can get a Mega Man Buster. Yes. And all that jazz. Yeah. So I like when they're, they kind of do the cross thing. So it was cute that they added something here for Street Fighter. Yeah. Yeah. They've got like, um, they did, uh, Castlevania is right as well. Right. Or was that Konami? That's Konami. Konami. Yeah. They both have, they're two companies that have like similar, we're going to always reference our games and all of our games. Um, and, uh,
00:43:27
Speaker
I don't know. I appreciate that. Capcom in particular kind of has this. A lot of games put those in as like Easter eggs or like background things. And in Mega Man, this is kind of like an exception. I almost feel like for them that actually did hide it, right? Like they hide the Hadouken. Oh, yeah. Like you're not going to accidentally get that. It's definitely not until you've like played 20 hours or some nonsense. But other things they don't hide at all. They are incredibly self-aware.
00:43:54
Speaker
as a company, which is pretty great. Marvel vs. Capcom. Some solid matchups in that. I suck at fighting games for the most part. I'd say I'm even not great at Soul Calibur, but I can kick some ass at Soul Calibur for other people who don't know how to play Soul Calibur. Any actual fighting game, I struggle with. I can only play Smash.
00:44:24
Speaker
And that I know how to launch smash I can work my way through the midgies other But So, what do you think about as a brief tangent as I've run out of content, right? Outside of just like gushing for 20 minutes right? Mm-hmm
00:44:43
Speaker
What do you think of Mega Man in Smash? Because obviously that's based off of like Mega Man 2, Mega Man. Right. So he's something, I don't know. Like I'm not a huge fan of his kit, but I also immediately concede that people that are good with kits that have projectiles, things like that, like projectile play is just like
00:45:10
Speaker
Beyond me right now. You're like, all right, you can make like a saw blade and you throw the saw blade or you set up this combo or something like that I'm just like well, that's cool It's always going to be take saw blade throw it for me. Like am I gonna set up anything interesting with it?
00:45:27
Speaker
But I mean, you know, that I, I do play some, some projectile spammy characters. So someday I may give him a little bit of a shot. Yeah. Um, but I don't know if, I don't know if lemons are like my ideal projectile personally. Um, we'll, we'll have to see. I haven't really given him a fair shake yet. Yeah.
00:45:50
Speaker
Gonna say it based off the lemons comment. There is just a lot of cathartic sounds hmm from Mega Man Historically, right but also mainly for me from Mega Man X here like the Yeah, like the charge shot or like taking damage or the jump or the dash like in the same way like Diablo 2 was for me. Mm-hmm where it's like he grew up on it so much like we're just the sounds like just gives you a little bit like a
00:46:17
Speaker
Ooh, that's a nice feeling. Yeah. And it has like, had a very, I would describe it as a retro feel in that- Is that because it's an old as fuck game? Well, yeah, but it's like, there's games that came out then that don't actually have like the, they don't hold up, right? Yeah. Like, you're just like, oh, actually the hit detection in this game is slightly off and I'm never going to get over it.
00:46:44
Speaker
or something like that something new to overlook as a kid but going back you're like this is glaring as fuck right i could see someone taking mega manax and being like this is the inspiration for like how we want our game to play yeah which is obviously what happened with dark souls because you get this boss souls and use and make weapons so obviously i do think it did inspire some other things for sure or like there's nods here and there
00:47:11
Speaker
Again, correct me if I'm wrong, people want to comment, which is nobody. Right. So my word is law. But I think it started doing boss rushes. Yeah. So it wasn't shown as much here in just Mega Man X.
00:47:25
Speaker
But like going back and redoing the bosses, like, Hey, here's your victory lap. But here's last check. It's like, you can still kick these guys as asses, right? Yeah. Yeah. So as you're going through the Sigma stages, they'd kind of pepper in like a boss or two here, like as an in-between room. Right. And you're like, get out of here. Fuck you. Yeah. I already know how to beat you. They're like mini bosses to you now. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah, I could totally see that. And as it came out in 1991, we'll have to, like, we should get our fans just, you know, update Wikipedia, obviously, if that's, if there's incorrect information about when it was updated. If you have time, please launch Safari.
00:48:06
Speaker
the only browser that will support us jeez but um no it uh i i i understand the hype now like it has really good music um and i mean you guys have already heard some of the music at this point so obviously you would agree with us
00:48:26
Speaker
It's got like cool art style cool style in general. I Understand why you appreciate this game out of all of the Mega Man games you played Mega Man X, you know kind of stands out, right? Yeah, I do think there are other good entries in the series for sure. Hmm X2 will always feel a little bit weird to me. Yeah, but they did They did experiment with a lot of cool things X3
00:48:56
Speaker
They kept building on, but they could let you play with the right armors a little bit more. And you could actually make, or there'd be like platforms for right armors. And depending on which like chips you unlocked, you could pick different ones. So you have one that's like better at underwater shit. I gotcha. Gotcha.
00:49:14
Speaker
What is is this right armor or right armor? Okay, so in megaman x I think first time you see it is in a chill penguin stage. Mm-hmm Oh in the armor and you run around you just like slide and punch stuff. Yes. Yeah, like this is cool. Uh-huh But they build on that more in later ones. Gotcha. This is the origin of the mech warrior series so yeah, yeah 100% true
00:49:41
Speaker
They took it from 2D. They're like, what if we added another dimension? Another D. I need more D. So I'm told.
Mega Man X Legacy and Impact
00:49:53
Speaker
But I really like Mega Man X as a game. Would you give it an X? It wasn't an X out of time.
00:50:04
Speaker
I'd give it three X's. Make a man. Triple X. That's either poisonous or pornographic. It could be bull.
00:50:16
Speaker
You can't see Dave's eyes just lit up with the possibilities. I'm like, how philosophical do I make this? But it's really held up for me. And I think for a lot of people after all this time, yeah, like a Megaman as a series has been.
00:50:33
Speaker
Good. I haven't played the older ones. I'll be honest. Right. But like the music. I grew up with and like, I hear Megan man to Dr. Wiley stage everywhere. If you've been to magfest, it's come up a million times. Also like most recent magfest they had.
00:50:51
Speaker
I remember the guy's name because I'm a shitty fan, but the guy who did the music for Mega Man 2 and his other games at Magfest, so a lot of things were inspired by those themes. Right. I know you've spoken on some occasions of the Proto Man. Yeah. Friends of the show, obviously. Everybody's a friend of the show, for reference.
00:51:12
Speaker
Even if you hate us, you're probably a friend of the show Yeah, you have to send in a written affidavit claiming that you're not a friend of the show Would you like to unsubscribe from catfang? But yeah protoman has some really good music as well if you're in the mega man scene But that's more so like the lore and stuff around Original mega man, right and we've explicitly not spoiled the lore in mega man X
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:43
Speaker
Yeah, I I really don't know what to add to it at this point. It's just it was really good to go back and play it again. Hmm. If only to split you for a vengeance. Revengeance is great. I don't know. No, it's super entertaining. I did enjoy watching it. And in the same way, I hope you enjoy watching. Yeah, it is an enjoyable is an enjoyable time. And I also think like sometimes games like this where they require all of or a lot of concentration.
00:52:14
Speaker
It helps to you can't be that person like quipping Like making jokes and stuff like that coming up with puns in real time While the boss is like smashing your face and or risking it and your yes more than actually smashing your face So it gave me an opportunity to kind of just sit back and make all the jokes and that's that's also fine for me I'm good with that
00:52:37
Speaker
To be fair, I also did delegate for the final boss that Jake watch my health bar and let me know when to use a sub tank. To be fair, the two times he told me I had like one bar of health and like, yeah, it was efficient. I'm pretty sure I can't take another hit here. I mean, this is presuming that you weren't watching your health bar. So you may not know that you have a bar of health. That's true. I also helped farm bats.
00:53:04
Speaker
begrudgingly. So in armor armadillo stage is pretty good for farming up your fill your sub tanks. Yeah, but it's not perfect. There is a spot in Mega Man two where you get like a
00:53:19
Speaker
Like a magnet shot which it's dumb and I hate it Yeah, but if you charge it and one specific spot in the game, it kind of like makes these health packs appear out of the wall Okay, like sucks it to you So actually refilling your sub tanks is a lot easier. Hmm. Interesting. So it's like a really weird efficiency thing that they did and
00:53:42
Speaker
We'll have to put that in the guide, upload it on our website. Pretty much. Mega Man X-Shafts. Most strategy guide. Brought to you by Soapstown. But yeah, I just want to, again, suck Mega Man X's dick a little bit. It's super great. I only have good things to say about it. If you don't want to pick it up for like an old copy or get the Mega Man X collection, it is on Steam now, I think. Okay, yeah.
00:54:08
Speaker
I'm not sure how well of a port they did. I think it had mixed reviews. I think the issue, if I remember correctly, the issue with it was there was control latency. Okay, that's... That's just bad in this kind of game. Fuck Steam. Don't touch that port.
00:54:23
Speaker
But if you go to any reputable ROM site and get an emulator like ZSNES, you can honestly just play it. Right. And it... Just make sure you own a legitimate copy of the game before you get that ROM. We're not equivocating the virus in any way. Don't copy that floppy. But yeah, if you own it, check it out. It definitely was very solid, so...
00:54:50
Speaker
Mega Man. X. Yeah. Oh, I can want to clarify and get Mega Man X. Mega Man X. Not the original Mega Man. Mega Man, Mega Man.
00:55:01
Speaker
Thank you guys for listening to this episode of the Soapstone. As always, you can contact us at our Gmail, at soapstonepodcast at gmail.com, or you can join the discussion on Facebook, facebook.com slash soapstonepodcast. Always happy to engage with our listeners there, but we appreciate the support, and as always, we will see you in the next one.
00:56:17
Speaker
you